Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel)

by Rubart, James L.

  He hadn’t even thought of asking the Spirit what their next move was. He was thinking of sleep. But in the next moment the answer came. Now. He turned to Marcus. “We gotta go in, bro.”

  “That might be the state of affairs for the three of you, but it isn’t for me. I’m sorry.”

  Reece stood to his full six-foot-five height and raised his voice a notch above normal. “Marcus Amber, put down your own desires, your self, the thing you feel you should do, and take hold of the thing you know you must do!”

  Marcus stared at Reece, his eyes more intense than Brandon had ever seen them, his countenance like granite. As he opened his mouth to speak, a thundering knock came from the front door.

  “Well now, it looks like we have a party crasher who wants to join this friendly discussion.” Brandon turned to Reece. “Were you expecting guests?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer and loped toward the front of the house. He glanced back at the others, then opened the door. Tristan Barrow stood on the wood porch, his arms folded and legs spread shoulder-width apart. Behind him and to either side stood Jotham and Orson.

  “Hello, Song.” Tristan grinned and gazed at the rest of the Warriors. “We’re not interrupting anything, are we?”

  Brandon stepped back and ushered them in. The three angels clomped down the two steps into Reece’s sunken living room and stood in front of the fireplace, Tristan in the middle, Jotham and Orson to his sides.

  “Welcome.” Reece stood and gestured to the others. “No interruption at all. Your timing is impeccable. We’re just about to go in to confront the Wolf.”

  “Yes, it is time for that.” Tristan glanced around the room. “All of you are going in?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Tristan looked at the floor for a moment, then raised his head and stared at Reece. “So you don’t believe Marcus when he says he knows he’s to take a different path?”

  “I know what the prophecy says, that the four must face the Wolf.”

  “Let it go, Reece. Allow Marcus to hear from the Spirit as clearly as you do.”

  “He’s not to go with us?”

  Marcus stared at Tristan. Even though he knew he wasn’t to go with the other Warriors, he had little doubt no quarter of rest was being offered to him either.

  Tristan turned to Marcus, arm outstretched, eyes full of joy. “Will you go with me?”

  Marcus didn’t respond. The laughter in Tristan’s eyes drew him, but whatever journey the angel wanted to take him on would not be all joy. Far from it. Facing what he’d done to Layne and choosing to tell Kat about it were sure to be part of wherever Tristan wanted to take him, and Marcus wasn’t ready. He was worn out, exhausted from his ordeal on the ledge with Zennon, and Marcus didn’t know if he could face any more potential realities without his brain splitting open.

  Because there was no answer this time, no solution he could analyze and formulate that would save him. No principle of quantum mechanics that could be applied to create a happily ever after. Each one of the paths ended in wrenching pain for him, for Kat . . . but where else could he go?

  “Will you join me, Marcus Amber?”

  He stared into Tristan’s eyes, then into Brandon’s and Dana’s. He held her gaze. Strange. For just an instant it felt like he wasn’t seeing Dana’s eyes, but Kat’s. And in that moment he saw the tiniest flicker of hope.

  “Yes, I will join you.”

  Tristan grinned and his head tilted back as if he were about to laugh. “I am glad for you. This is the path of truth.” He turned back to Reece. “Go. Battle the Wolf. Fulfill the prophecy. He is for you.” Tristan reached his hand out. “Marcus?”

  Marcus walked over and laid his palm in Tristan’s. Tristan nodded at the remaining Warriors and an instant later Reece’s living room vanished.

  No one spoke. What could any of them say? Dana considered the options. There was only one. Go in without Marcus, but she believed Reece was right. The four of them were to confront the Wolf, not three. And if Reece was right about Marcus being the key to their overcoming the Wolf, should they wait to go in till the professor did whatever he had to do?

  Brandon was the first to break the silence. “That kind of puts a kibosh on our plans.”

  Dana sighed. “Leave it to you to try to be funny at a time like this.”

  “It wasn’t funny? I saw the distinct hint of a smile on Reece’s face. Really. You didn’t notice?”

  “You heard what Tristan said.” Reece reached out his hands. “We still go in.”

  “Are you sure?” Dana moved toward Reece, as did Brandon on his other side.

  “Without question.”

  Brandon asked, “Are we going in from here?”

  Reece shook his head. “But we need to get to where we’re going in from.” He smiled.

  “Well Spring?” Dana said. “Really?”

  “Yes. Where else?”

  “Here we come, Scotty,” Brandon said.

  Dana moved her fingers toward Reece’s hand like she was reaching out to touch a scared fawn. The instant their hands met, their surroundings vanished and the three of them stood on the white-stone porch down the path from the main cabin at Well Spring Ranch.

  FORTY-NINE

  MARCUS GASPED. THE RUSH THIS TIME WAS NOTHING LIKE traveling through a soul’s gate. This was faster and more exhilarating than any other time he had voyaged into a spiritual realm. He wasn’t in the eye of the hurricane. He was on the fringe, moving a million miles an hour, and he didn’t want it to stop.

  But within seconds, the earth—or something like the earth—grew solid under his feet and he spun to take in his surroundings. Laughter burst out of his mouth. “Elation beyond anything I’ve experienced.”

  “Yes,” Tristan said. “Few taste this while still wrapped in the confines of their mortal coil.”

  To their right and below them a huge golden-hued meadow—of wheat? grass?—spread to a blue horizon. In front of them a massive waterfall thundered hundreds of feet into a pool so clear and so deep, it made Marcus blink to make sure it was real. To their left ran a forest, and in the middle of the fir trees lay a lake so still the water seemed not to be water but trees planted upside down.

  “This place . . . the . . . everything . . . the colors are so . . . vivid.”

  Marcus laughed at himself. Describing the colors as vivid was as vast an understatement as he’d ever made. It was like saying the universe was somewhat large. The most brilliant blue on earth was dull compared to the azure and cobalt hues that were splashed across the sky and lake. The greens of the trees and gold in the meadow made the richest emerald colors of the Pacific Ocean in midsummer and the deepest golden sun of Hawaii seem pale by comparison. And one breath of the air here rendered all the most-treasured fragrances of earth odorless.

  Marcus did a slow spin. “Where are we?”

  Tristan laughed. “A place every man and woman longs for even though it does not exist in their wildest imaginings.”

  “What place?”

  “A land where lies cannot live even for a moment. It’s a country where the truth is seen by all those who face it.”

  “Face it?” Marcus said.

  Tristan’s face grew sober. “Face what would have been if they had chosen differently.”

  Marcus closed his eyes and pressed hard on one side of his nose. Unbelievable. The answer shouldn’t have surprised him—he knew this was coming—but still, the answer did.

  “And if I choose to face this truth, what will be the outcome? Will the sorrow of what I would face be too much?”

  “I cannot know what will happen to you if you choose to face the memories and then see what might have been. I’ve never had to face one of my regrets because I’ve not made a choice that would force that emotion upon me.”

  Marcus frowned. “How can you insinuate this is a place men and women long for when your description indicates the greatest pain I can imagine lies before me?”

  “I invited you
to come. It is your choice to face what might have been.” Tristan grabbed Marcus’s shoulders and peered into his eyes. “But though the truth may slay you, it will also set you free.”

  The truth would set him free. Did he believe that? Marcus stared at Tristan. “I will go with you.”

  The angel grinned at Marcus and his eyes seemed to throw off showers of light making the charge of anticipation and fear that pulsed through Marcus all the stronger.

  Tristan held out his palm. “Grab my hand.”

  Marcus waited for another rush but this time it didn’t come. There was no sensation of movement, no swirling around his mind and heart and body. The journey was instant. One moment he stood with the angel on the hill; the next he was in a grassland seemingly as vast as the one that held the field of doors—the souls of all people on earth.

  Tristan pointed at a speck on the horizon. “Do you see the object rising out of the ground in the center of the field? Where the sky meets the grass?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is our destination.”

  Tristan turned and strode off at a pace Marcus had to half walk, half jog to keep up with. After a few minutes a song rang out, and although it seemed to come from all directions at once, Marcus knew Tristan was the one singing. The words were in a language Marcus didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. His mind filled with images of warriors in great wars and vast fleets of ships battling through thirty-foot waves.

  They covered ground quickly. Marcus still couldn’t make out precisely what the object was, but it was rectangular in shape. A few minutes later he knew it was a door. When they were ten yards from it, Tristan stopped and folded his arms.

  The door rested on a four-tiered concrete foundation. Each tier was smaller than the one underneath it—steps leading up to the door. The sides and frame of the door looked to be concrete as well, and the top was slightly wider than the frame on both sides. A smattering of daises grew out of the thick jade grass that surrounded the foundation.

  Behind the door, ethereal trees moved in an unfelt breeze against a sea-green sky. An arched wooden lattice stood behind the door. The door itself opened in the middle and was made up of four-paneled wood. Enthralling. But what captured Marcus’s imagination was the light that seemed to pour from the sides and back of the door in waves. Brilliant light that he was sure would kill him if he touched it.

  The air smelled of an early morning day in the beginning of autumn, and he drank it in. The door seemed to beckon him, and yet he couldn’t ignore the sense of dread that surrounded the structure.

  “What door is this?”

  “It’s time to choose, Marcus.”

  “Choose what?” he said even though the answer was obvious.

  “Whether you will go through the door . . .” Tristan stared at the structure. “Or turn and walk away. This time will be your only chance.”

  “What is inside?”

  Tristan bent to one knee, his gaze fixed on the door. “You would like to know the answer before you step through?”

  Did he want to know? Was it even permissible to ask? “I asked the question with little expectation of you giving me the answer.”

  “I will answer the question if you want me to.”

  “Tell me.”

  Tristan continued to stare at the door as he answered. “It is the door of your memories.”

  His memories? “I don’t understand.”

  Tristan rose and turned to Marcus. “Inside you will find all of your memories. The ones of joy, the ones of devastation. Ones you have treasured and ones you have forgotten. Played out as real as when the moments happened.”

  Marcus staggered back a step.

  “You will face the memories of what you have imagined the future to be, of what the past might have been, of what the future might have been had you chosen differently. All are contained inside your door.”

  The memories of what Zennon showed him in the valleys flooded his mind—Kat trying to figure out if she could stay with him, and her divorcing him, and ten years from now with his life in shambles. He took another step backward on the thick grass.

  “Will I see what my life and Kat’s life truly would have been like if I hadn’t done what I did to Layne and he hadn’t died? A memory still to come?”

  “Yes.” Tristan’s face was like stone. “This you shall see.”

  Marcus’s arms and legs grew cold. “I can’t face that.”

  “I see.” Tristan shifted his weight and went silent again, his thick arms still folded across his wide chest.

  Marcus stepped toward the angel. “Guide me, lend me your counsel.”

  “The choice to step through the door is yours. None can make it for you, and none can give counsel for this decision but the One.”

  Marcus asked the Spirit but no answer came. Jesus, please, tell me. Again, nothing.

  “Are you permitted to tell me what else lies beyond the door?”

  “A choice.”

  “What choice?”

  “Open the door and discover it for yourself.”

  Marcus walked to the door’s foundation, closed his eyes, and prayed for strength. A strange mix of peace and dread settled on him. How could he be feeling both at the same time?

  Must I, Lord?

  This time the Spirit answered. As my angel has said, it is your choice.

  Will I survive?

  No answer.

  What will happen to me if I don’t go through?

  I have already spoken of that to you.

  Marcus shook his head. When? How could the Spirit have told him anything about the door, since until a few minutes ago Marcus didn’t know it existed? The image of a coin flashed into Marcus’s mind. Of course! How could he be so obtuse? He twisted to look at Tristan.

  “Simon. That’s the answer, isn’t it?” Marcus turned back and stared at the door as the magician’s words floated back to him once again.

  “Chose the wrong door, you see. No, that’s not right. That’s wrong. Reverse that. Strike that. Didn’t choose the door. Should have gone through it but didn’t. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. Want to go back and walk through it, because I think it would be good, but I can’t now. What’s done is done. Over. Finished. I went the other way. Had my chance.

  “You’re just like Charlie. Willy Wonka is going to hand you a ticket, but you’ll have to choose to go through the factory door.”

  Marcus took a last look at Tristan and smiled. The angel didn’t look a bit like Willy Wonka.

  Marcus placed his foot on the first step and his legs shuddered. Or was it the concrete step he stood on that moved? A second step. A third, and then he eased his foot onto the last step. The light that emanated from the sides of the door swirled around him and seemed to pull him closer. He took a deep breath, held it, and pushed the door open. The pulsing light on the sides of the door burst out like a flood and immersed him. It felt like liquid, as if he could swim in its currents.

  After a minute his eyes somehow adjusted to the brilliance of the light and he stepped forward. He was in a hallway made of stone walls and ceiling—it reminded him of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Arched windows were spaced every few feet and gave views of a green, rocky coastline on either side. The crash of waves and the briny smell of sea air filled his nostrils.

  A seagull riding the currents to his left seemed to cry in rhythm with his footsteps on the dark stones at his feet as he eased forward. Ten yards ahead was another door. This one had a handle made of gold and it turned without a whisper. Marcus stepped through and stared at the splendor around him.

  He was in a lush garden of flowering trees and tiny waterfalls. Was he still inside the structure he’d entered? Or outside? Marcus laughed at himself. Inside what structure? The door of his memories hadn’t led to anywhere, but in another sense he knew it led to everywhere.

  A path made of leaves wove through the center of the garden and he stepped onto it. The pad of his feet on the leaves was the only sound. The path
went on for fifteen yards before it turned hard to the right, then hard to the left for ten yards, then a gentle curve for forty paces before it turned straight.

  A canopy of trees was now overhead. As he walked on, the canopy grew closer till he felt like he was walking down a hallway made for a Hobbit. After a few more steps, he had to stoop almost double to keep from brushing his head on the soft branches above him. He craned his neck and saw the end of the tunnel and through it a clearing.

  Enter in.

  He fell to his knees and crawled through. He was in the middle of a wide swath of Japanese maples. There was no underbrush here, just a carpet of emerald green moss that ran up to the base of the trees. In the center of the clearing, not more than twenty feet across, was a pool. A ring of thick jade grass surrounded it.

  Look into the pool. You must see what it contains.

  Marcus removed his socks and shoes, giving in to a sudden desire to feel the soft touch of the moss on his feet. There was no movement on the surface of the pool, no breeze in the air, no sound of his feet on the moss carpet.

  When he reached the line where the moss and the grass met, he slid his toes onto the grass, the rest of his foot remaining on the moss. A tingling sensation seeped through his toes, into his feet, up his legs, slowly at first, then faster as it surged into his torso, his arms, and then his face and head. He wouldn’t have been surprised if whatever it was had rocketed out of his fingertips, but it remained inside and filled him with thundering joy.

  Marcus rocked back and forth from his toes to his heels as the feeling intensified as if ocean waves were crashing inside him—each wave made up of his wildest desires answered. The longer he stood soaking in the glory of the Spirit’s presence, the more difficult it was to imagine having to gaze into the pool and see what his life could have been, would have been if he hadn’t let Layne die. To see what his life with Kat would be in the coming days and years.

  But he had to see. It was the only way to deal with the regret once and for all, to slay the beast for all time. With the strength of the Spirit he could more than face it. He could destroy it just as so many of his regrets been vanquished last year when the three other Warriors had gone into some of the deepest parts of his soul and obliterated them.