Usually, Erim doesn’t mind Somboon’s kind of guidance. Though impossibly intangible, it’s always trustworthy. But everything seems to move so slowly today. The restlessness is accumulating under Erim’s skin uncomfortably.
“All I remember from religion class was how good I was at avoiding it. I once climbed out the third-floor window of the Instructure tower, fell off the roof, and broke my leg. I was in agony for two days, and still, it wasn’t nearly as painful as listening to Caretaker Pavin babble on about the merits of Scientology.” Erim pauses, delighting in the memory of Pavin’s ever-displeased features. “So worth it.”
Somboon’s face bursts, and he laughs, a contradictory sound; the pitch of a child rings out, weighted by the leisurely tempo of an old man. “I digress, Erim, forgive me. All I mean to say is that nothing is truly normal. All we can conclude now is that she is new. Just new.”
“Well, this ‘new’ wild card showed up in my terrarum, Somboon, which makes her my responsibility.” Erim huffs.
“When did you become averse to wild cards?” Somboon asks, an edge of amusement in his voice. The light pink in the sky intensifies as the sun slips totally below the horizon. “It was not too long ago that a certain wild card was chosen Soul Keeper in an astonishing turn of fate that surprised even the oldest among us.”
“And he’s still a pain in everyone’s ass to this day,” Erim points out. Somboon doesn’t acknowledge that, crouched and scratching Nim behind her ears. “He certainly doesn’t go to enough of your zen groups to be nonchalant about this.”
“You’ve never come to a single meditation gathering,” Somboon specifies. He stands and turns back towards the caves, collecting his hands neatly behind his back.
“Exactly.” Erim follows him.
“After her adjustment period, if she wishes, I will train her just like any other,” Somboon says, his unfaltering pace reflecting his resolve.
Unease has never been an emotion Erim allowed to the surface. Just the thought of it is like sandpaper being pulled under his skin. But he just can’t shake off the irregularity of it all. He plants his feet. “I don’t like not knowing what I’m dealing with.”
Somboon turns back and studies Erim with his dark brown eyes, unblinking as if measuring the sincerity of his concern. “Then get to know what you are dealing with.” He speaks slowly and clearly, like instructing a child. He strides towards the tunnel, turning back just before he enters. “I did not know you could feel uncomfortable, Erim.” Somboon wears a ghost of a smile. “It is rather refreshing.”
“Well, I’d hate to be predictable,” Erim mutters.
OCTO
Sloane wakes with a start and smacks her head against the upper bunk. She curses through gritted teeth, grasping her throbbing head. She peeks around her hand, seeing the stone bunk around her and Charlotte sitting on the couch. Charlotte brightens to see Sloane awake but approaches her cautiously. “How are you feeling?” she asks with a tentative smile.
“I’m fine,” Sloane replies. “How long have I been out?”
“All day. It’s just past dinnertime,” Dmitri says softly. His smile is encouraging, the one people wear in hospitals to reassure the person on the gurney.
“It was you,” Sloane realizes aloud. “You carried me in.” Dmitri gives a slight nod.
Charlotte slides a hand over his shoulder. “After you left with Ches, he felt he had to go check on you both. He swam out into the egress and brought you back.”
“Thank you.” Sloane forces him to look at her, and he smiles.
They sit in silence for a while. Sloane has nothing to say; her head is hollow, vacant. Eventually, she tells Dmitri and Charlotte that she’s tired, and they leave her to sleep. At first, Sloane’s worried that she won’t be able to, but before she even realizes, she drifts off into a deep and undisturbed rest, more peaceful than she thought possible.
The next day, Charlotte and Dmitri visit again, but Sloane tells them she doesn’t have the energy to leave. Charlotte refuses to abandon her, so they just keep Sloane company in her room. At first, Sloane’s worried that they’ll expect proper conversation, but it becomes clear that it’s not her responsibility with Charlotte around. She’ll talk for as long as she’s allowed, and the stories always end up in the same place: her family farm. Sloane finds unexpected comfort in Charlotte’s childhood. It’s peaceful to imagine the rows of golden corn, the same color as little Charlotte’s hair, where she played hide-and-seek with her four brothers. She liked to jump out and scare them during their chores on the farm, and they would always chase her, snatch her up, and swing her around until she squealed. Their mother would call them into dinner from a window with pastel pink shutters, and they could hear her all the way from the woods next to their home, where the boys built a lean-to fort.
Sloane can paint the images in her mind as Charlotte describes them; the grazing horses enclosed in white fences, the vast, unending blue skies, the intricate lacing of dough on her grandmother’s apple pie. Any time Sloane catches her mind drifting to darker thoughts, she’ll ask a clarifying detail: if the family’s tractor was green or red, what the hayloft smelled like, the names of the different chickens. She is quickly spun back into Charlotte’s beautiful world and out of her own bleak mind.
Sloane uses Charlotte’s stories to carry her through the next few days, which blur together. The nights are bittersweet after Charlotte and Dmitri leave. The void left by Charlotte’s voice leaves room for dread to speak up, but Sloane finds relief in sleep, where there are no thoughts she needs to redirect. The emptiness always welcomes her.
In the days that follow, Charlotte shows Sloane how to manipulate her physical energy, or morph, into different clothes. Sloane suspects it’s Charlotte’s gentle hint she’s looking frightful. It’s all about how a soul wants to look; they can choose clothes from when they were alive or create something new. The “design your own death closet” is an amenity that Charlotte adores, and Sofia would abuse mercilessly, but Sloane couldn’t be more indifferent.
She sleeps as much as her body will allow, and Charlotte keeps her eating three meals a day, though Sloane doesn’t see the point of it. She wonders what would happen if she stopped eating altogether, and her reckless curiosity would allow her to try if it weren’t for her babysitters. Charlotte stops asking Sloane to go outside after she declines enough. Sloane prefers the dimness of her dorm to help numb the senses.
Once, just once, she catches a glimpse of the aqua waves outside her window. But suddenly, she’s back in the water, feeling the jerk of Ches’s body as she holds him under the water. The window is a no-go. Sloane decides not to do it again.
When Charlotte steps out to do her volunteering with the children, Dmitri takes shifts watching Sloane. She appreciates that time, too; his silence brings its own kind of peace. He doesn’t ask her to eat or move, doesn’t sneak the same side glances of concern that Charlotte does. She doesn’t feel the need to fake a smile or even sit up. His steadiness radiates outward; it settles Sloane. One of these times, as the two sit together, a question keeps pulling at her.
“Dmitri, how did you know... that day?” Her voice sounds louder, cutting through the muteness of the room.
Dmitri’s brow draws together as if he’s unsure how to answer. Sloane thinks he may not respond at all, but finally, he does. “I know the look of a man on a suicide mission,” he says softly. Sloane can practically see the ghosts dance across his vision, clouding his eyes slightly.
The silence lurks again. “How did you know what to do?” he asks a little later.
The question perplexes Sloane. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. “I didn’t.” Sloane fiddles with a strand of hair. “I can’t explain it, really. My body just seemed to take over. It felt kind of like a sneeze.” A breath of a laugh escapes with the odd comment. “Like a quick, scary build-up of energy that you can’t control, and then it’s gone so fast.” Sloane shifts under the soft sheets to face him. “I still don’t
understand it, but Ches is alive, and that’s all that matters.”
“Yes.” Dmitri agrees. “That is all that has ever mattered, isn’t it? That the sacrifice meant something?” He clasps his hands in front of him, running a thumb running over his knuckles.
“You too?” Sloane asks. He’s quiet again.
“The village my unit was assigned to clear was supposed to be abandoned. I was used to having my friend Evan beside me, but he was injured by a roadside bomb two days before. He didn’t have legs to walk on anymore.” He runs relaxed fingers across his chin, trying to pinpoint the details. “I was on point that day as we went through, looking for anything useful. We weren’t expecting any resistance. The Germans knew our forces were pushing forward. They evacuated the villagers the day before we arrived.” He pauses to clarify. “Everything wasn’t as heroic as Charlotte makes it seem. I didn’t leap in front of a bullet to save a friend. I didn’t jump on a grenade or fight off an army so civilians could escape. I just didn’t see the boy; it’s as simple as that. Well—I saw him for just a moment, after he fired, after it was too late. He couldn’t have been older than ten, but his country convinced him to go down like a soldier.”
Sloane watches him silently, her hands stilled with intrigue. She wonders if he’s always been so calm about it. “I died fighting for my country, yes. But it wasn’t my sacrifice that won us the war. It didn’t inspire a turning point or embolden any hearts. So did my sacrifice really mean anything?” He tilts his head to the side, concentrating on a far-off point on the nonexistent horizon. “I don’t know. I never will. But, if I had seen that boy in time, maybe I would’ve shot him first.” He shakes his head. “It’s not a thought I’m proud of, but those are the senseless depths you find in yourself when you’ve seen that much human devastation.” His voice wavers for a moment. “And if I’d shot first, made it out of the war and back to my family, I wouldn’t have Charlotte now.” The tension in his face relaxes, even allowing a faint warm smile. “So maybe, my sacrifice was really for Charlotte. I gave my life so we could find each other, and she gave hers.” Sloane is in awe of how he turned such an unnecessary waste of his life into the grandest act of love.
“My sacrifice didn’t just mean something; it meant everything. I drifted around here for years before she arrived, but the moment I saw her, she woke me up.” His smile is childlike despite the crinkling at the edges of his eyes. “She’s been my heart and soul for twelve years, and we have been aequali for eleven.” His gaze is tender.
“You two have a powerful bond.” Sloane smiles.
“It’s the closest that two souls can be, without being one entirely,” Dmitri says, finally focusing back on Sloane. “Aequalis means ‘equal.’ The two souls are intertwined to their very core. You’re not just yourself anymore; you’re a little bit of them too. It’s difficult to truly understand if you’ve not experienced it. It’s unlike anything in the last world, and perhaps the next.”
NOVEM
Sloane never thought that looking in the mirror could be such a mistake. She would rather be blissfully unaware of the gremlin blinking back at her. Her hair is ratty and tangled, her face ghastly pale from the strains of varying emotions. She can feel the irritation of sand under her nails. Her eyes are rimmed with red and bug out of her head, irritated for no reason.
She runs her hands through her hair, and the creature in the mirror does the same. Both their fingers catch on a knot, forcing the unavoidable conclusion that a bath is past due. She morphs out of her clothes and dips her toes into the small pool, sending a warm tingle shooting up her leg. The warmth seeps into her, crawling up her body all the way to her chin. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and dips down below the water. The world goes silent, and she relishes in the mental hush. She tilts her chin up and pushes her face out onto the surface of the water, careful to keep her ears in their euphoric silence, tickled by her hair. She takes steady breaths, allowing the space between water and air to ease her.
Once out of the bath, she morphs into a pair of jeans that aren’t ripped, a gray shirt, and a navy blazer, one that she had to buy for a school presentation. She figures she should show a little wardrobe decorum at her own funeral. Her hair settles over her shoulders, restored to its shiny waves. Her skin is soft and clean, the film of grime washed away. She looks like herself again. Her eyes glow in the dimness, refracting the blue and green light like marbles. “Kitty Cat,” that’s what the kids called her in elementary school when they teased her about her eyes. She supposes they do tone her face angularly, like a cat.
She hates cats.
A knock at her door makes Sloane roll her eyes. She sent her caretakers away an hour ago, insisting that mom and dad take a babysitting break. Clearly, Charlotte did not take the demand seriously. “Charlotte, I told you, I’ll be fine!” Sloane calls, swinging open the door.
“Well, I’m convinced,” Erim says, putting up his hands in mock surrender. Nim invites herself in, trotting right by Sloane to sniff at everything suspiciously.
“What are you doing here?” Sloane asks.
“Ah, if I had a penny for every time someone greeted me with that level of enthusiasm, well—I’d be rich.”
“Too bad that’s meaningless here.” Sloane looks down at his formal wear; charcoal suit, red tie, and his toes peeking out from under his pant cuffs. “Not a fan of shoes, I see.”
“Are people still wearing those?” Erim shakes his head. “Call me a renegade.” Sloane blinks at him, still waiting for an answer. He appears to drop some of the humor and try again. “I’m here to escort you to your service.”
Sloane shakes her head, hoping that she heard him wrong. Earlier that morning, when Charlotte told her about the funeral, Sloane jumped to evasion so fast, she didn’t even have time to wonder how Charlotte knew. Now she realizes the source stands before her, shoeless. “How do you know about it?” Sloane stares at him, demanding a satisfactory response.
“Just one of those weird things.” Erim shrugs.
Sloane snorts. “Well, that clears it up. Thanks for the info, but this isn’t prom. I don’t need an escort.”
“It’s good I left the corsage then.” He grins. Nim returns to him. She didn’t change for the occasion, still wearing her ever-accusatory stare. Her soft tail flicks back and forth on the floor impatiently. “How else will you find your way there?” Erim asks.
Sloane hadn’t even thought about it. Not her fault; she didn’t have any time. “I’ll figure it out,” she retorts, with no theory how. “I think I’ve proven that I can get by just fine on my own.”
“Certainly,” Erim agrees. “Your demonstration of that with Ches is precisely what earned you this specialized, highly coveted supervision.”
“Looks like pretty average supervision to me,” Sloane says sweetly.
As she steps outside for the first time in days, the brightness from the skylights overwhelms her eyes. Erim shows her out of the dorm hall and to the left. They take a path that hugs the cave wall, between rock and forest. Up ahead, they turn left again, into a different tunnel dug into the rock. This tunnel is shorter than the larger one out to the beach. A few uniform sconces line the walls, illuminating the curved ceiling.
Sloane hopes desperately that Erim won’t try any trite small talk. She doesn’t have a chance of being civil today. The bitterness that’s been slowly simmering in her since Ches left might just boil over with today’s event. She can feel it.
She shortens her strides to fall a little behind him, but he adjusts his speed to match hers. Hostility burns in her chest as her attempt at avoidance is quashed. She stops so abruptly he almost collides with her. “Look, if we’re going to do this, could you not ask me how I’m doing or what I’m... feeling?”
His lips purse with amusement. “Wasn’t going to.” He shrugs, disarming her irritability by half. “That’s what Charlotte’s for.” Sloane swallows her surprise. He watches her expectantly like she might have more demands. None come to mind
. She’s still surprised by his lack of resistance.
She takes a couple more steps before a realization makes her laugh. “Wait, but isn’t that kind of part of your job?”
His grin pockets a dimple into his left cheek. “Probably.”
Sloane decides he doesn’t deserve her hostility... yet. She should let him earn her salty remarks on his own merit. She’s sure he will.
They pass a rounded black door along the watery path. The splashes of Sloane’s feet echo dully off the rock, but Erim’s don’t. His steps don’t disturb the water, like it’s working with his momentum to receive each soundlessly.
Silence has been Sloane’s solace for the past few days, but between her and Erim, it’s unsettling. There are different kinds of silence, and this one makes her anxious. They pass a small split in the hallway just before they reach the exit. An intricately carved archway sits on either side, each leading to its own black door. Erim doesn’t pause, leaving the stone of the corridor behind.
The beach materializes from blinding white; the stream runs freely from the tunnel to the shore. This part of the tide differs slightly from the part Ches and Sloane came through. There is a narrow isthmus just wide enough for three people, leading out to an island on the water. Where the waves begin, the grainy sand transitions to the coral rock of the bridge. Water slaps up against it, spraying Sloane’s ankles as they walk past where the waves break, where it’s calm.
The island isn’t huge but is bursting with vegetation. Palm trees pop up like frozen explosions, and bushes with colorful flowers peek through the lower foliage. In the center, the trees clear to reveal a circular area of grass that opens to the blue sky. Erim sits cross-legged, beckoning for Sloane to do the same. She sits facing him, adopting his position. Nim lies behind Erim, resting her black head on her gray paws.
“This is a good place to have some quiet. We’re going to try traveling to Earth, a transfer of energy called conducting.” He rests his hands on his knees.
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