“I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, frozen. I know you don’t believe me Edmund, but I was so scared I just stood there watching him, frightened that if I looked away for even a moment he would disappear and I wouldn’t know where he went. I felt safer because at least I knew where he was and knew he was far away from me. Then, a horse ran in front of the window. I didn’t know why the horses would be out of the barn, but in the time it took for the horse to run past the window, the man was gone.
“I was so terrified I ran room to room, checking to make sure he hadn’t somehow gotten into the house. I hesitated in your room. I could still see one of the symbols you had drawn on the floor through the paint, glowing in the moonlight. It dawned on me that this symbol would have been right underneath your bed. I curled up in the middle of the symbol, and felt such peace and warmth that I completely forgot about the man in the woods and fell asleep.”
Every muscle in my body tensed as I listened to Jane’s story. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost forgot Jane was sitting at the table. I jumped when she touched my hand.
“Edmund?”
“I believe you, Jane.” I said quietly. “But I need to ask you some questions.”
She nodded.
“Did you have these dreams the nights Mom and Dad died?”
She shook her head. “They started after.”
“When was the last time you saw this man?”
“Last night.”
“And where did you stay last night?”
Jane blinked in disbelief. “Here.”
My stomach lurched like I had been kicked. “Jane, when I got here there were no cars in the driveway.”
“Of course there were. I sold Mom and Dad’s last week, but mine has been there.” She pointed out the living room window, where her black Chevy Cavalier was plainly visible.
I shook my head. “And this man, Dad had him caring for the horses?”
She didn’t have to answer. As soon as I asked the question a bolt of lightning struck my brain. I could literally feel the synapses shooting electric currents, connecting Jane’s story to the death of my parents. This stranger had been looking for me, had asked for me by name. He was put to work with the horses, to which I had told my most intimate secrets. If this person could communicate with animals as I could, he would now know more about me than any person on the planet. If he were an energumen, a full-fledged, in-possession-of-an-actual-body, energumen, his power could be…
Terror struck next. If this man had gained the trust of Sister Mary Elizabeth, he could feasibly learn the names of all the children who had survived the incident at the orphanage. And if the horses had been angry with me, but trusted him, they could—“Jane!” I exclaimed, bolting out of my chair, “Are you sure this man said he had learned this address from Sister Mary Elizabeth?”
My sudden reaction caused Jane to get out of her chair too. “Yes. Why?”
“You can’t stay here.” I grabbed her hand and led her toward the front door.
“Edmund, what’s going on?”
I turned toward Jane and locked onto her fear-filled hazel eyes. “The story I told you about the orphanage is true, just as your story is true. He is one of them.”
I didn’t think it would have been possible for Jane to go any whiter, but she did. Her reaction told me she understood and remembered the part of my story with the demons with yellow eyes.
I pulled her through the front door and out to where my truck was parked at the curb. I heaved the door open as the first flakes of snow started to fall.
“Edmund?”
“Do you know anyone?” My question came out incoherent as I rummaged through a toolbox underneath my back seat.
“What?”
“Do you know anyone new? Do you have any friends who have never…” I paused; this was going to sound stupid, “… met the horses?”
“What?” Jane echoed, but then answered, “Yes, I’ve got a few friends I’ve met online.”
“Far from here?” I was still searching.
“Yes, in…”
“Don’t say it!”
Finally, I found what I was looking for. I handed her a piece of iron suspended from a thin strip of leather. “I know it’s a bit manly,” I joked as the wind picked up again.
She took the necklace from me, and peered at the word occulo carved deeply into the metal. “What is this?”
“It’s Latin.” I answered, “It means ‘hidden.’ It will keep you safe.”
“Safe?”
I rolled my eyes at her and pulled her to her car. She opened the door and got in. “You can’t come back here until I say it’s okay. Is your phone number still the same?”
She nodded.
“I’ll text you my number. Call me when you get where you are going. I’ll call you when—if—you can come back here.”
I took my key out of my pocket and dropped to my knees. Jane eyed me warily as I carved the same Latin word into the paint along the side of her door jam.
As if on cue, the wind shifted, and an immense feeling of cold blew over us.
“He’s coming,” I said before thinking it over clearly. “Go!”
Jane’s breathing was frantic and her eyes pleaded with me.
“I’ll be fine. Hurry!” I closed her door and watched as she backed out of the driveway. I saw her glance in the rearview mirror at me for a moment before her foot floored the gas and her car lurched away.
I didn’t have much time. The energumen would be here any moment. The feeling of having one so close was sickening and all too familiar. I could hear the whispers of the trees on the wind, realizing why they had been so silent. They weren’t saying good things, but they were talking about me. He had tasked them with alerting him should I return.
I was angry, especially at the horses for betraying my confidence. I was angry at the trees, which had always been my friends, for heeding the call of a demon. My hands tingled at the thought of a fight with a demon (for so they were called in this world), but I knew nothing of him, and I knew that he knew too much about me. As angry as I was, I knew I wasn’t in the best tactical position for a fight.
I made a quick decision and jumped into my truck. I turned the key and the engine roared to life as a dark cloud descended on the pasture.
Twelve
Three hours into the drive back to San Diego, I received a text message from Jane letting me know she had arrived at her destination. A cold shudder rippled down my spine and I hoped three hours would be enough distance to keep the demon from finding her. I knew that as long as she wore the necklace I gave her she would be relatively safe. I responded with a text containing further instructions: salt drawn in a circle around the house she was staying at, and sage or red cedar at the doors and windows of her room.
I spent the majority of the drive listening to the soothing roar of the engine and contemplating the sequence of events that occurred at the house. Perhaps the most startling realization was that the trees had betrayed my family and me to a demon. I found myself wishing I had a greater understanding of the natural, interconnected consciousness of the planet. I, no doubt, had friends among the trees—there were plenty on campus, and the small line of trees at Saint Vincent’s orphanage had certainly sided with me—but what I didn’t know was whether or not it were possible for a tree to keep a secret, at least from the other trees. Which begged the question: if I was betrayed by the trees surrounding the pasture behind my foster parent’s home, why didn’t the other trees on campus warn me?
I had to have permission to tap into the collective consciousness of a tree. One of them had to share that connection with me. Was it the same for them? When I skipped across the roots in my childhood, when Mother Tree allowed me to see the courtyard of Orenda, did every plant along the way have to agree to allow me to see?
With how much I knew about them and their forms of communication, I still knew so little.
I reached over and turned on the windshield wip
ers as a light rain started leaving smatterings on my windshield. The desert road was far from dark, illuminated by moonlight that reflected off large stretches of sand, but the road was mostly deserted. I pressed on the accelerator as the only other pair of lights I could see disappeared in my rearview mirror.
The solitary feeling of being the lone car traveling on a highway through a large stretch of desert at night while it was raining was enough to make anyone feel isolated, and perhaps a bit frightened. I enjoyed the silence. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
My phone buzzed with a text message from Nicholas: Where r u?
I responded: Driving.
Quon’s cousin is visiting; we want to set you up. She’s hot.
I rolled my eyes. What? You don’t you want to take her out?
Lol. U know she’s not my type. Got a date anyway.
Tomorrow.
She’s very much YOUR type.
“My type?” I wondered aloud, before echoing my sentiments into the response. Too bad I couldn’t somehow emote the way I had said it.
Earthy. Pagan. Loves spirituality. She’s a girl. You’ll have lots in common.
Nicholas’ double entendres were always lost on him. Now I know why you don’t want to date her.
Lol.
I was considering my response when a sudden flurry of colorful lights exploded across the desert sand. The unexpected flashing excited my already frayed nerves and I swerved instinctively.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I exclaimed after regaining control and glancing in my rearview mirror to discover the source of the lights. I glanced down at my speedometer; even after the swerve I was doing ninety-eight. This was going to be one expensive ticket.
I applied even pressure to the brakes, hoping somehow the officer would see that I was perfectly capable of driving safely, and pulled over onto the soft shoulder. In the swerve, my phone skidded under the passenger seat. I didn’t want the officer to think I was reaching for a gun and shoot me, so I made a quick decision to forgo retrieving it until after I spoke to the officer.
I sat staring at the circling red and blue lights for what seemed like an eternity. It must have been somewhere close to 11 p.m., which would put me just under three hours from home. As I sat there watching the lights, the mesmerizing effect made me feel more tired and a little disoriented. I was pulled over; what was taking the officer so long?
The rain picked up slightly, but the culminating clouds blocking the moonlight drew extreme attention to the black sky. Any light reflecting off the sand now was alternating blue and red on a backdrop of inky blackness.
After my nerves settled, I gathered my license and registration and yawned. A dark figure finally emerged from the police cruiser.
I saw the beam of his flashlight as he casually walked up to my driver’s side window. He rapped rudely on the glass with the tail of the flashlight before turning the bright beam on my face. My vision was flooded with white light.
I inched the window down. “Officer, do you mind not shining that thing in my eyes?”
“I need you to step out of the truck, please.”
I balked. “What? No. Look, I haven’t been drinking or anything. The swerve was just because you startled me. I know I was speeding, but I’m trying to get back to San Diego at a reasonable time. I’ve got classes in the morning and—”
“Step out of the truck, please.”
The tone in his voice caused me to close my mouth immediately. It was harsher than I expected. Oddly familiar. Sinister.
My body flushed ice cold.
“Officer,” I chose my next words carefully. “Would you mind calling for backup or following me to a more populated area or something? I’m not really comfortable—”
Without warning, my window shattered, spraying my face with glass. My reaction was immediate—I jumped over into the passenger’s seat, and cursed under my breath.
The flashlight reappeared inches from my face, but there was another colder metallic object for me to see as well. My body tensed as I realized I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun.
“Get out!” the voice commanded. “Get out or I’ll shoot you.”
My hand scrambled for the door handle, as I tried to say, “Okay,” but that wasn’t what came out. “No you won’t,” I said instead. “That isn’t your style.”
Why did I say that?
I closed my eyes and braced for the sound of an internal explosion, followed by the pressure of thousands of tiny metal balls burrowing through my flesh. I had no doubt that a shot at this distance would not only kill me, but that parts of my head would be found scattered around the desert for miles. At least death would be fast.
But no explosion came. When I dared open my eyes again, I found the scene exactly as I had left it. I was still partially blinded by the bright light held on my face, and could still see the menacing glimmer of the barrel of the gun. Certainly the time to shoot had passed, hadn’t it?
The cop’s answer was a low, throaty laugh followed by the retreat of the barrel.
“Edmund, my dear dear Edmund, you’re right.”
The flashlight dropped, and a pair of yellow eyes confronted me.
I would have preferred to have been shot. A ripple of fear caused the smell of bile to flood upward into my sinuses. I kicked my feet frantically, bracing myself against the passenger door, as far as I could retreat from the yellow gaze.
“How did you find me?” I said breathlessly.
The demon’s smile pulled back over two rows of perfectly white teeth. The body he possessed was strong and muscled, every inch well kept.
He inhaled deeply. “I followed your smell from the house,” he finished with a moan. “You are so deliciously… human.”
To say I was disgusted would be an understatement.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Ever since you exorcized me all those years ago.”
My mind flipped through the demons I had crossed paths with in the orphanage. None of them had this voice. None of them were quite as evil.
“Oh no no,” he whispered. “Not this life.”
In my memory I was in a confrontation with Joshua. Surrounding him were so many energumen. I remembered being sure I would die, but defying Joshua anyway. A voice, a voice in the group of energumen stood out as they clamored for Joshua’s victory. That was the voice I was hearing now.
“How did you come to be here?” I asked in amazement. Though fear had taken complete control of my body, I could not let this opportunity pass. This demon was the first assured connection I had to Orenda since my father’s ring. Nothing else—nothing even hinted to the supposed existence of Orenda. This demon knew who I was, and where I had come from.
“I crawled my way back from Hell, thanks to you. And you?”
“I don’t know.”
The creature laughed. “I’m sure Joshua would find that answer interesting. I’ll have to tell him I found you.”
Then came the pain. Strangely, it wasn’t excruciating, just paralyzing. My limbs fell limp and I found myself unable to speak.
“I know your thoughts, Edmund. No. I will not let you exorcize me again. You will be in Hell before I am. You have built yourself quite a safe place inside of this truck of yours. Your symbols and protections indeed will keep me from physically entering, but Edmund—there is so much you don’t understand! This truck exists in so many different worlds, and you cannot protect it in all of them unless you know where they are. So, bravo. My power can still get to you—I just have to use one of the worlds you know nothing about.”
Levels, I thought. He’s talking about levels.
The demon grinned. “Whatever you want to call them.”
My body would have frozen in shock had my brain been able to communicate anything to my limbs.
“Oh yes, Edmund. I can read your thoughts. That is how I am going to get the information I need from you. I am going to ask you questions, and you are going to think about the answer. Perhaps, t
ogether, we can figure out the one thing our dear friend Joshua has not been able to figure out. How did you get here, Edmund? How did your physical presence cross from Orenda into this world?”
How did you get here? I asked myself, wondering why the answer wasn’t one in the same.
“Oh, we energumen have a great gift. We can cross into whatever world we choose. We are spirits, but it is only in physical form that we can express our greatest powers. We can possess the weak and the willing, but Joshua is a physical being already—as are you. How did your physical presence cross from there to here?”
The end of his question sounded angry or exasperated. I couldn’t tell which. Luckily, I had no idea how I got here, so his question would remain unanswered.
But there was a hint of something in the back of my mind, something that the demon caught onto.
He smirked. “What did you bring with you?”
My mind instantly settled on my father’s ring.
“Interesting,” the creature paused. “That ring also exists in another world, but not as it does here. It is unattainable there, yet physical here, much like a spirit to a body.”
I could see his eyes coveting the ring as they fell upon my finger.
“Pity I cannot come inside and snatch it away from you.”
I snorted. It was the only physical response I could give him.
“What is the purpose of the ring?”
I did not know.
“Does it have power?”
As far as I knew.