Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel)

by Rubart, James L.

  “Oh boy.” The remaining color drained from Brandon’s face. “We should have figured it out. We should have stuck with it right then, pressed into it till we got the answer.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “The hockey team you saw was the Colorado Avalanche.”

  “So?”

  Brandon didn’t answer except to turn and look up the slope to her left.

  “No,” Dana whispered. “You don’t really think—”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  She turned to Reece. “We need to get that bridge now and get Marcus over here so we can leave!”

  Marcus stepped to the edge of the crevasse, his toes sticking over the edge. “Forget the bridge. Let’s just go. Try to get out.”

  “Impossible,” Dana said. “You know the answer, Professor. We must go together. All four of us have to be physically connected.”

  “But that one time . . .”

  “Are you willing to take that chance this time? I’m not.”

  Reece cupped his hands over his mouth. “There would be no way for you to control where you end up when you go back through the gate. And no way for us to know where you’ve gone.”

  “Haven’t you ever run into this type of situation before?” Marcus said. “Where someone is separated from the group but you have to get out?” The crevasse rumbled and widened by another two feet. “You have to have encountered this scenario previously.”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “And what happened?”

  Reece pressed his lips together till they turned white, started to answer, then stopped. “We have to get you across to us or us across to you. And you and Dana are right, we need that bridge now.”

  As Reece finished speaking, a dull roar at the top of the mountain filled Dana’s ears. She slowly turned her head toward the sound knowing exactly what she would see and wanting to pretend it wasn’t happening.

  Avalanche. A half mile above them. At least three hundred yards wide and picking up speed. A churning giant wall of snow and ice and granite shot out tendrils of smaller chunks that it consumed seconds later as it fed upon itself and grew larger. How long did they have? Forty-five seconds? A minute at most? Maybe. Maybe less. Unless they could build an instant way across, they would either die together or be separated and Marcus would end up in a place probably not even Reece could predict. What had they been thinking?

  Stick together. Pretend you’re a scuba diver. Make sure you’re within one breath of your partner at all times. Reece had taught them that as rule number three or four—it didn’t matter because they’d broken whichever rule it was and right now, unless the miraculous leaped up in front of them, they were going to lose the professor.

  Reece had his head down, hands clenched in front of him. A moment later he threw his arms wide and a bundle of wood and rope appeared in his arms. “Yes!” he shouted and stepped up to the edge of the crevasse, half his boot over the side, teetering over the expanse.

  “Here!” Reece called to Marcus across the chasm as he shook the rope and wood slats in his hands. The big man somehow had conjured a rope bridge, and he spun twice like a discus thrower, then flung it toward the professor. It streaked out from Reece’s hands like a rifle shot and lay against the bright blue sky. It seemed to float in slow motion toward the professor while the river of snow thundering down on them to their left moved faster.

  “Come on!” Brandon shouted.

  But the bridge wasn’t enough. Not even close to close. The edge of the ropes only reached halfway across the chasm where they fluttered down and bounced against the side of the crevasse they stood on.

  “Longer, we have to make it longer.” Reece staggered up to the edge of the crevasse, his boots sending tiny bunches of snow over the edge, and dragged the bridge up from the depths. “Concentrate with me. Believe! We have to believe.”

  What was Reece thinking? Even if a bridge appeared long enough to reach the other side it would take anyone but a world-class tightrope walker at least thirty seconds to cross a chasm that wide.

  “If any of us are going to survive, we have to go now, Reece!” She grabbed Brandon’s hand and stretched out her other for Reece. “Now!”

  Reece’s head heaved up and down like a buoy in an ocean storm and his breaths came in gasps. “We can’t leave him! If we go, he goes too, but we’ll have no way of knowing where.”

  “We have no choice!” She grabbed Brandon’s hand and reached out for Reece’s. “Grab my hand, Reece!”

  “What about Marcus?”

  The pain in Reece’s eyes said he didn’t know and never would. He turned to Marcus and shouted, but how could the professor hear over the thunder of the avalanche from that far away? “Stay in prayer, trust no one, we will find you!”

  The professor shouted a response that sounded like a question, but Dana couldn’t make it out. Reece whipped his head toward her with a questioning look in his eyes. He hadn’t heard it either. She shook her head violently and pointed at the wall of snow and ice and granite pounding toward them like a giant white wave. They had seconds.

  “Marcus will go at the same time we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What! I thought—”

  An instant before the moving wall of jagged snow slammed into them, the rush of soul travel buried Dana, and the avalanche and the roar in her ears vanished. Brilliant light and myriad colors and the rush of warm wind and a sensation of spinning filled her senses. They’d made it out. In seconds they’d be back at the fire pit in Reece’s backyard.

  But the seconds stretched out like a blade and Dana felt a tearing in her soul and in her spirit. Why was it taking longer to get out? Because Marcus wasn’t with them? Because the Spirit was joining the professor to them even though he hadn’t been physically connected when they left? Please, Lord, let it be so.

  Her spirit slid back into her body with a jerk, as if all of her bones had been given a sharp yank in opposite directions. “Ow!” Her eyes fluttered open and she glanced at Reece and Brandon. “Where’d that electric jolt come from?”

  Reece sighed but didn’t answer. Brandon pointed at Marcus’s prone body lying on the couch. “I’m guessing since one of us didn’t get out, it made our reentry a little bumpier than normal. Reece?”

  Again the big man didn’t answer but gave a slight nod of his head.

  Dana gave a tiny shake of hers. “So Marcus’s body is here, but his spirit is somewhere else? And we don’t know where that somewhere else is?”

  “That’s right.” Another deep breath from the Temple and again, silence.

  Brandon stood and paced, his gaze flitting back and forth between her and Reece. He shrugged and his eyes opened wider as if asking why Reece had gone comatose and what they should do about it.

  “Are you sure he didn’t get out?” She turned to Marcus, rubbed his shoulder, and bent down to his ear. “Professor, we’re back.” She turned to Reece. “Is there a chance he’s here?”

  Reece shook his head and his voice was soft. “Only his body.”

  “How can you be so calm? I told you we needed to get out. Why didn’t you listen to me!”

  Reece stared at her with his dark, unmoving scarred eyes.

  “Didn’t you learn anything twenty-five years ago?” The moment the words escaped she regretted them. His delay wasn’t about arrogance. It was about being able to see again. Being able to soak in the desire that had been the driving passion for most of his life. The desire that had been ripped from him by the demons and the gift God had not stopped from being stolen. And she had not walked in those shoes.

  “I’m so wrong for saying that, Reece. I’m so sorry.”

  “We’ll find Marcus. I promise you we will.”

  Brandon folded his arms. “You said this happened before. And the outcome wasn’t good. I could see it in your eyes when we were inside just now. Tell us.”

  “A long time ago I went into a soul with a number of others. We were separated and we didn�
�t know about staying physically connected. We came out, but two of our party did not. We weren’t able to find their spirits and bring them back out.”

  Reece slipped his fingers around the sunglasses hanging around his neck and slid them over his eyes. “But this time we won’t fail. I promise, we will find the professor. We have to.”

  “More than just because he’s one of the Warriors?”

  “Yes.” Reece took a long breath. “The Spirit told me Marcus is critical to our success in the coming battle with the Wolf. Without him, we are lost.”

  FORTY-THREE

  JUST BEFORE THE AVALANCHE SLAMMED INTO THE others, they vanished, or had Marcus vanished from them? The air swirled and the sound of crashing waves surrounded him as often transpired when they went in or out of spiritual worlds. For a moment he thought the similarity meant he would return to his body with the others. But when silence came and his eyes fluttered open, he wasn’t back at Reece’s home.

  He stood on the ledge of a cliff, maybe twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. A breeze pushed through his hair and brought the smell of giant sequoia trees. The screech of a red-tailed hawk ripped through the air to his right.

  Far below him—a rough estimate said five hundred feet down—three tree-soaked valleys wound away from him for miles till they ended at the base of a mountain range at least five thousand feet high. Strange. Not a hint of snow covered their tops. The feeling of an early fall afternoon was on the wind.

  He should be at least apprehensive, but with each breath he seemed to be inhaling peace. He studied the cliff wall above him, then turned and stared over the edge. Getting off would be a challenge. Marcus looked at the sun. He had two, maybe three hours before the sun disappeared behind the peaks to the west and then? It could get cold. A night up on this ledge would not be pleasant.

  A voice from above floated down on him. “Ho there!”

  Marcus whipped his head up to find a man dressed in red-and-black climbing gear hanging from a rope at least two hundred feet above him. The man waved and smiled. For the next few minutes Marcus watched the man rappel down the mountain till he stood on the ledge and stepped out of his climbing gear.

  “I hope I didn’t startle you from above.”

  The man was short, not much over five four, and his brown eyes were intense but kind. Brown hair was parted on the side and a three-day-old beard was thick on his face. Not handsome, but not unattractive either.

  “Not at all.” Marcus glanced around the ledge. “Although I can’t say I was expecting you.”

  “You probably had no idea what to expect.” The man stepped to the edge of the cliff, sat, and took long, slow breaths.

  “True.” Marcus joined him.

  “And”—he smiled at Marcus—“I imagine you’re wondering where you are.”

  “I would say earth, based on the geology and plant life, but there’s too much peace here.”

  “Aye, rightly you’ve called that one.” The man grinned and wrapped his arms around his legs and gazed out over the valleys. “There’s few places I’d rather be than right here.”

  “Am I inside someone’s soul?”

  “No, you know that feeling by now, and I think you realize you’re in a place entirely different. Where were you before you came here?”

  “I was inside a spiritual realm with three friends of mine. We were on the slope of a mountain together, but a crevasse opened up between us and prevented me from leaving with them.”

  “Why didn’t you find a way across?”

  “An avalanche was bearing down on all of us. We couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “I see.”

  Marcus studied the man’s face. He’d been answering every question without hesitation and with complete openness. It’s not that he trusted the man—he didn’t know him—but something about his eyes drew answers out of Marcus like water.

  “You must not worry, Professor. I am well versed in soul travel as well as the journeys to other parts of the spiritual realm. And I’m here to help you. Whether you accept that help or not is, of course, up to you.”

  Marcus nodded but didn’t speak. It might be wise to talk less and listen more.

  “What are your friends’ names?” The man drew the name Marcus in the dirt between them.

  “Reece, Dana, and Brandon.”

  He added the names underneath Marcus’s.

  “And what were you doing together on the side of the mountain?”

  “We were finding refreshment from the battle we’ve been in for a long time now. We’ve all grown weary, and the enemy has been relentless lately with his attacks as we try to figure out what the Wolf is and how to destroy it.”

  So much for his resolve to say less. Maybe he was free with his answers because the man seemed so familiar. “Do we know each other?”

  “Yes, of course we do.” The man’s smile went wide. “We just met.”

  “No, I mean before now, did we know each other?”

  “I don’t think so, unless you’ve been here before or to one of the other realms I frequently travel in. But I would have remembered you if you had, I’m sure of that. And I think you would have remembered me.”

  “It’s just that—” Marcus stopped. Just that what? That part of him wanted to tell this man every secret? That whatever this being was, Marcus was ready to open his soul to the man and take whatever help he could offer without reservation?

  “Just what?”

  “Even though I just met you, I feel you’re one I can trust.”

  “Ah, thank you, Marcus. I hope so. I would indeed like to help you.”

  Marcus leaned back on his hands and surveyed the valleys below. A low ridge separated each one. The middle was the widest; the other two were the same width. A town sat in the middle of each valley and the layout looked identical. Something about each of them drew Marcus as if he were destined to visit each of them and had no way to prevent that from happening.

  “If this isn’t earth and we’re not inside someone’s soul, we must be in one of the other spiritual realms you spoke of. So where are we?”

  The man stood, closed his eyes, and drew in a breath as if he were drinking the air. “This is the place where dreams are seen—all dreams, the good and the bad—and where dreams can come true.” He turned to Marcus and his smile seemed to make his face glow. “And where some things best forgotten can be. Forever.”

  “Are you a man?”

  “No, but you already suspected that, didn’t you?”

  “What are you?”

  “One who can help you shed your darkest regrets and restore your greatest dreams.”

  “And you know what those are?”

  “Most certainly. I’ve watched you for a long time, Marcus.”

  “I thought you said we’d never met.”

  “Yes, I did, and we haven’t. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been your friend for ages.”

  “Then you know about my son?”

  “Yes, of course.” His eyes grew somber. “That’s what I meant when I said, ‘Some things best forgotten can be.’ The thing buried so deep and so far the others saw no hint of it when they went inside your soul. The one you’d almost convinced yourself didn’t happen. The one God has brought to the surface so it can be dealt with once and for all.”

  The full memory of that day snaked out of the depths, and this time Marcus couldn’t stop it.

  Marcus slumped forward and dug his fingers into his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks. “You brought that up out of me just now. Made me face it. So I can get rid of the guilt, the remorse, the condemnation, the regret.”

  “I assisted, yes. But you wanted to face it. So give yourself a bit of credit.”

  Marcus spotted three hikers climbing a steep trail half a mile below them, one with an oversized backpack that seemed to slow his progress to a crawl. Just like what he’d seen in that church a year ago. Just like he had in his own backpack: a stone he’d placed there that day long ago. And now it was ti
me to get rid of it.

  He stared at the man. “I have to tell Kat, don’t I? It’s time to come clean and beg for forgiveness.”

  The man smiled and spoke in a voice so soft, Marcus strained to hear it. “No, that’s what I was trying to tell you. You don’t. That’s the beauty of this place.” The man gazed at the sky and the valleys below them.

  “But even so, I must warn you, it won’t be easy. After we talk and your eyes are opened, you’ll have to make a choice of great difficulty. I will help you with the choice and freely give you all the wisdom I have, but I cannot make the choice for you.”

  “When do we start?”

  “We can start now if you like.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  THE VALLEY IN THE MIDDLE SEEMED TO GROW IN SIZE, OR Marcus’s eyes changed so he saw and heard things moving in it. As his focus zeroed in, Kat and he came into view. It was the early days of their marriage when they lived in a one-bedroom apartment with an ugly, swirling, pea green and dark green carpet, and a man downstairs who loved to play Frank Sinatra records at three in the morning with all the strength his speakers could provide.

  Kat had no lines in her face and no sadness in her eyes. It was the time before Abbie and Jayla—days when even Layne was only a someday dream and the horror of losing him hadn’t woven its fibers into every place in their hearts.

  Marcus lounged on their ugly tan couch and tossed a pillow at Kat. “Have you considered the various options for us this weekend?”

  “What are you talking about? The weekend is already fully booked. We’re going to a movie tonight with Marty and Cindy, Sunday we’re going over to my parents, and tomorrow we’re watching Kelly and Cecil get engaged at the top of Mount Si.”

  Marcus leaned his head back and moaned. “I wish we were just watching. Carrying a table and chairs and champagne to the top of Mount Si and then hiding a ring under a rock so Cecil can ‘discover’ it and ask Kelly to marry him is not watching. It’s working. Hard.”

  “My heart is breaking for you.”