ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  I stare at him for a moment longer, but he doesn’t elaborate. I want to know what he means, but there’s something else I want to know about even more. “Is Limbo the ‘black’?” I ask, recalling the deep darkness that envelopes me before my visions.

  “Yes, the black is part of it. But there is so much more to it than that.” He tilts his head to the side. “Have you figured out how to access Limbo on your own yet?”

  I frown down at my cold cappuccino. “No. I just get yanked into the black randomly, whether I want to or not.”

  “So you haven’t figured out what triggers the pull?”

  I look up at him. Was there a trigger? “I used to think it was déjà vu, but I disproved that theory a long time ago.”

  Porter cracks the smallest grin at the corner of his mouth. He reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls something out, and sets it on the table between us. It’s a pure white stone the size of a quarter, smooth and round, shaped like an M&M. “Do you know what this is?”

  “It’s a game piece,” I blurt out without thinking. Then, once I realize what I said, I cover my mouth with my hands. It wasn’t a guess. I know it’s a game piece, but I’ve never seen one like it in my life. Not even in my visions.

  Porter says, “Do you remember what the game is called?”

  “Polygon,” I whisper through my fingers.

  Porter’s grin widens, and he nods. “Exactly right.”

  How do I know the name of a game I’ve never played?

  He slides the game piece closer to me, and I reach out to touch it. Someone carved thin letters on both sides of its smooth surface. LVI on one side, IV on the other. As I rub my fingers across the engraved letters, trying to figure out what they mean – are they Roman numerals? – my mind is suddenly flooded with memories. The sights and sounds of the restaurant fade away as thousands of images shuffle before me. Hundreds of faces I’ve never seen before, places I’ve never been, sounds I’ve never heard; they all flurry around me, each image as brief as a camera flash, gone before I can fully examine it.

  Then one single image, clearer than the others, comes into focus: I’m a little girl with long blonde braids, sitting at a little white table in a little white room. I’m playing Polygon with a little blond boy with dark brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. I place a white stone on the game board, then he places a black stone next to mine. He bursts out laughing because it’s the first time he’s ever beaten me at this game. He pumps a fist into the air and shouts in a language I’ve never heard before, “Til sidst, vinder jeg!” But I understand his words perfectly. Finally, I win.

  I can’t explain how I know this little boy, why my memory of him is so strong, how I can understand his language, or why I have that niggling feeling like I’ve known Porter my entire life. All I know is that I’ve never felt such strong déjà vu before. The letters carved on the game piece, the way the light winks off the little boy’s wire-rimmed glasses, the way Porter rubs his pinky knuckle with this thumb – it all combines and swells and swirls until the black swallows me like a tidal wave, and I am plunged into the dark.

  LIMBO

  This time, the light doesn’t rush in and flood my senses. I remain in the black. As silent as death.

  No breath, no sound, no taste, no touch.

  Just black.

  Lonely, lonely black.

  It feels like hours, days, even weeks pass, staring into that yawning black, feeling nothing but nothing itself, before I finally see something in the far distance. A blue-white flicker of light, like the guttering flame from a match. Hauntingly faint. So faint I can’t tell if I’m really seeing it at all. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking.

  Then, a voice.

  “I’ll just let you settle in, shall I?”

  Porter stands next to me in the dark. I can make out his polo, jeans, and ball cap, but only just, as though he’s illuminated by the faintest glow of a crescent moon. Has he been there the whole time?

  “It’s a bit disorienting at first,” he says. “But you’ll get used to it.”

  I look down and realize I have a body too, faintly lit. I’m still wearing my nerd glasses, my army-green parka, jeans, and Gran’s old flowery scarf from the Seventies, but my body doesn’t work quite right. I feel sluggish and willowy, and, at the same time, like I’m not there at all. “Why are you still wearing your cap?” I say, gesturing to it. “Have our bodies left the restaurant?”

  “No, only our souls have left.” He taps his cap with his finger. “My cap isn’t really here. You’re seeing my soul through a perception filter. My body. Your body. You see what you think our souls should look like. You hear my voice as you recall it in the restaurant.”

  I gape back at him in awe. The thought is too profound to grasp. “What’s happening to our bodies right now? Are we slumped over at the table?”

  “No,” he says with a chuckle. “Time does not pass in Base Life while our souls are in Limbo. Our time spent here will be but a fraction of a second there.”

  “So I’ll return to the same time I left? Just like every other time I have a vision?”

  He nods, and I turn my gaze back to the faint flicker of light in the distance. “And the light? Is that just my perception too?”

  “No, the light is real. That’s where we’re headed. That region of Limbo is called Polestar. That’s where every soul passes through on its way to Afterlife.”

  I expect to get a chill when he says that, an overpowering sensation of wonder, but my body remains somewhat unresponsive. I look down at my hands, turning them front to back, back to front, slowly. They look translucent. I lift a foot, then I lift the other. It feels like I’m pulling my shoes from mud. I expect to hear the slurp of suction, but there’s no sound.

  “Like I said, you’ll get used to it,” he says. “It takes a lot of practice, but soon you’ll be bounding around this place like a young colt. Just like you used to.”

  I frown because he keeps saying confusing things like that. “What do you mean, ‘just like I used to’?”

  He opens his mouth to reply, but hesitates. He rubs his pinky knuckle. “I’ll... get to that part soon enough. For now, you need to know where we are.” He stretches his arms out wide. “This region of Limbo is called Eremus. It means wasteland or wilderness. It surrounds Polestar on all sides. It’s very easy to get lost out here, so be careful. When in doubt, just look for Polestar and head in that direction.”

  “How did I get here? I mean, how did I stop here, in Limbo?”

  “You stepped through.”

  “Stepped through what?”

  He stands up straighter, like Mr Draper when he’s about to lecture. “We are every one of us connected to Limbo at all times. Just as we are connected to Life, we are connected to Death. That connection is Limbo. Most souls have such faint connections to Limbo that they don’t even recognize it’s there. When their bodies die, they hardly see Limbo as their souls pass through. It is but a blink on their journey to Afterlife. But there are a rare few who have powerful, intense connections to Limbo. When they pass through, they see it in its entirety. The full spectrum, from one end to the other. You and I, we are in the latter group. Our connections to Limbo are so powerful, so constant, we can simply step into it and walk around, as easy as stepping through a door.”

  “But how do you find the door?”

  “The door is déjà vu, just as you suspected. Everyone experiences it, but it’s stronger for people like you and I. It’s that otherworldly pull toward Limbo, tugging at your edges. When you experience déjà vu, you let go of Earth, of gravity, of all worldly things. You let the current pull you, like you’re caught in a net. That’s how you step through.”

  I know exactly what he means. It’s the pull into the black, that involuntary tug I’ve felt during my visions. When I saw the Polygon game piece and all those memories came swirling in around me, I felt it full force. I’ve tried fighting it before, especially the time I was
in Sunday School with Jensen, but it was no use. The pull was too strong. Too enticing, even.

  “So that’s why you gave me the game piece,” I say. “To trigger my déjà vu.”

  He nods. “The game piece is yours. I gave it to you a long time ago, when I taught you how to play Polygon. You’ve used it as a sort of talisman ever since, a sort of key to access Limbo.”

  “But why would I want to access Limbo at all?”

  “Because this is only the beginning. You are merely standing on the porch steps. From here, you can go anywhere.”

  Anywhere.

  I held the word in my hands like treasure. Anywhere meant Chicago. It meant finding a way back to Blue.

  Porter takes my hand, which feels like light pressure at first, nothing more. Then the pressure builds, steadier and steadier, weighing heavy on my chest. It feels like a wide elastic band has wrapped around me, tightening until I can’t move. I can’t breathe.

  It feels like my soul is having an asthma attack.

  I gulp and gasp but nothing fills my lungs. I try to squeeze Porter’s hand, to let him know I’m drowning where I stand, when I hear his voice in my ear again.

  “You don’t have to breathe, Alex. Stop fighting. Let go.”

  But I can’t. I don’t know how. The elastic band pulls tighter and tighter. My ribs collapse inward. My lungs can’t expand.

  “You don’t have lungs,” Porter says. “You don’t need air.”

  The band stretches and pulls and presses, so tight it finally snaps.

  A flood of sensation rushes over me like I’m caught in a wind tunnel. My skin, or what I perceive as my skin, feels like it’s being suctioned from my body. Pulled in every direction. My hair whips out of my ponytail and tangles around my face. My scarf tugs at my neck, threatening to strangle me.

  Then, suddenly, everything stops.

  THE FOREST OF LIGHTS

  I’m standing beside Porter in the black as though nothing happened, but we’ve moved. We’re no longer in the empty stretches of Eremus. He lifts a hand to the view stretched out before us and says, “Welcome to Polestar.”

  For the first time in Limbo, I can see the shapes and shadows of an organic landscape. It reminds me of standing in one of Pops’ farm fields in the middle of the night with only a full moon to light the way. There are jagged mountain peaks in the distance. Directly ahead, the faint silhouette of a ruined castle rests on a hill, surrounded by rolling plains.

  Then, all around us, is the forest of lights.

  Trees tower over us, the tallest I’ve ever seen, stretching on into the distance. And in between them, everywhere I look, there are shafts of faint, blue-white light, stretching from ground to sky, filling the valleys and plains. Some are as thin as wisps of smoke, others are as thick as the tree trunks. They move and sway as though rustled by a breeze. As though alive. They fade in and out, the light stronger one moment, then softer the next, rippling and winking amid the black and the trees. They are the color of white-hot fire. Of lightning. Above us, the sky is dotted with flickering blue-white stars. At our feet, tiny wisps of light curl around each blade of grass.

  “What are they?” I hear myself say.

  I find it impossible to look away from the forest of lights. It’s the most beautiful, ethereal, and compelling sight I have ever beheld. Tears well in my eyes, but I dare not even move to blink or wipe them away.

  “They’re called soulmarks,” Porter says. “They are the marks left by souls as they pass through Limbo. Every soul who ever was has left a single mark here, its journey forever etched into the black.”

  He takes my hand again, and we walk forward down a sloping path through the trees. I hear the sound of water before I see it. The trees open up at the bottom of the hill, and we come out beneath the silent, haunting silhouette of the ruined castle. It looms overhead, its walls crumbling from age. A river winds around the foot of the hill like a moat, cutting us off from the castle. When we reach the river, we step onto a bridge, crystal clear as though made of glass. I can see the water coursing beneath my feet, like I’m hovering over it. The river is lit from within – thousands of soulmarks swirl and swim gracefully through the current.

  I kneel on the bridge and reach down to let the water flow between my fingers. It doesn’t feel like water. It feels ancient. Magical. Like the memory of water.

  The soulmarks glide up to my skin and sweep past it, glittering as they pass by. Their reflections dance upon my face.

  “There are soulmarks everywhere in Limbo,” Porter says. “Cleave a mountain rock in two and there will be soulmarks inside, twinkling like diamonds. Take a spade to the soil and you’ll find soulmarks reaching far into the depths like roots. They even inhabit the sky like stars. They are the lifeblood of Limbo. Without them, there would be only black.”

  “Do I have a soulmark?”

  Porter nods. “I was hoping you would ask me that.”

  He takes my hand again and the pressure builds once more. This time I let myself give in to it, just like how I fell into the refuge of the black when I was seasick on the ship. The forest of lights, the river, the castle, the mountains – they all disappear. I feel the suction pulling at my skin, my hair, my scarf, but the sensations pass sooner than last time.

  When it’s all over, we’re standing in a new region of Limbo. There are no stars; the sky is black. No valleys or grass or rolling hills. Just an endless expanse of night like Eremus. The only difference is the cluster of dazzling white soulmarks standing upright before us. They are spaced evenly apart, like rows of perfectly manicured fruit trees in a garden.

  “Where are we now?” I ask. I step forward and move between the rows, letting myself get lost in the garden of lights. They surround me on all sides. The lights bewitch my senses.

  “We’ve stepped below to a different level,” Porter says, following me. “There are millions of levels in Limbo. Billions, trillions. An infinite number, perhaps. And you can step between them if you know how.”

  “Which level is this?”

  I look over my shoulder at him and see a flicker of pride pass over his face. “This is your level. I made it just for you.”

  “My level?” The soulmarks sway gently, silently, glinting white like a stand of silver birches in sunlight. “Why would I need my own level?”

  The pride on Porter’s face fades, and for the first time he looks somber and a bit too serious. It makes me nervous.

  “Because your soulmarks are in danger. I had to move them here to keep them safe.”

  A chill sweeps up my spine like a cold, wet feather. Not because of the danger, but because he said soulmarks.

  Plural.

  I look around at the lights again, as though I should recognize them. “You said every soul who ever was has left a mark in Limbo. A mark. A single mark.”

  Porter lets his gaze drop to his feet. He rubs circles around his pinky knuckle with his thumb again. When he finally speaks, his words come gradually. A slow drip. “Every soul passes through Limbo to Afterlife once, leaving one mark. That is the natural order of things. When I die, I will leave one mark. But you… You’ve already passed through. More than once.”

  “More than once?” I say, the words catching on my throat. “There must be at least a hundred here.”

  Porter swallows, looking sheepish. “There are fifty-six, to be exact.”

  I look out at the soulmarks, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of my stomach. “You mean I’ve been to Limbo fifty-six times?”

  “No, you’ve been to Limbo hundreds of times. You’ve passed through fifty-six times.”

  “What do you mean ‘passed through’? I’ve passed through Limbo to Afterlife?”

  Wouldn’t I have remembered that?

  He really digs his thumb into his pinky knuckle now. “No, not exactly. ‘Passing through’ can refer to passing through to Afterlife, but it can also mean passing through to Newlife.”

  The perception of my pulse starts to race. My
translucent palms are slicked with sweat. I force myself to ask, “What’s Newlife?” even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.

  “Newlife is the answer to all your questions,” Porter says, stepping toward me. “Newlife is why you and I are standing here. It is the reason you have memories you can’t place. It is the reason you descend into the past involuntarily. It is the reason you exist. It’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you all along. If you have fifty-six soulmarks in Limbo, it means you’ve lived fifty-six past lives.”

  I stare at Porter like he just slapped me in the face. I feel stunned and sick and like I need to wake up from this very long, very surreal dream. All those visions – the ship, the Ferris wheel, the cat, Jamestown, Chicago – were glimpses of my past lives? I had traveled back in time to my own pasts?

  “You’re the only one of your kind,” Porter says, making it sound like an honor. “The only reincarnated Descender. A Transcender. When your very first life ended, Flemming intercepted your soulmark as it was being written in Polestar. He sent your soul back to Earth, and when your second life was over, he sent you back for a third. Like a needle and thread, he worked your soulmarks in and out of the black. He wove your lives throughout history.”

  When I don’t say or do anything but gape back at him, Porter continues, the words spilling out of him like he can’t say them fast enough. “You have Level Five clearance, just like Flemming and Gesh. Lower level Descenders aren’t allowed to descend without permission, and it takes years and meticulous research to find a soulmark that matches the exact time period they need for their missions. Once a Descender uses a soulmark to descend, that soulmark burns up. It can never be used again. But you’re free to access Limbo and descend as much as you wish. Your soulmarks never burn up. And you have every time period laid out for you here. Each one organized, right at your fingertips.” He glances around at my soulmarks. That same flicker of pride is back in his eyes. The blue-white light shimmers against his age-spotted skin. “You can travel all the way back to the fifth millennium BC.”