I hoped the demon was distracted enough. I could feel Xia’s warm hand in my own, and with that thought turned my vision inward. I searched frantically for that silver strand of light that saved me, and almost killed me, the last time. When I found it, I tightened my hand and pulled Xia and Nicholas with me into the cold.
Seventeen
The rolling hills where the wayward pines sheltered the damp earth that played host to hundreds of wild mushrooms were unmistakable, and the miles of sprawling sweet alfalfa fields were just a short journey to the west. When the wind blew just right, I could almost taste the morning dew.
“Where are we?” I heard Nicholas whisper to my right. He was standing, staring intently at me, his question more an accusation than a question.
“I’m not really sure. Somewhere between reality and a memory I think,” I answered almost reverently, the last word punctuated with a quick inhale as the ring on my finger pulsed with icy frigidity.
“Come on,” I didn’t delay. “We need to get to the ruins about an hour north of here. They’re this way.”
“You’ve been here before?” Xia asked.
I felt sick. “Welcome to Orenda,” I replied dryly. “Sort of. I think. At least my memory of it. I’m not really sure, actually. The fields are familiar, the mountains too, but at the same time everything is…” I had to wrestle for the right word, “…ghostlike.”
I reached out to hit a tree branch as I walked to prove my point; it passed through my hand without moving.
“I’m pretty sure wherever we are just uses my memory as a representation. The last time I was here I spent three days trying to get back to my childhood home. I made it as far as the gates before the dogs…”
Xia wasn’t about to let me get away with leaving my sentence unfinished, but instead of prodding me, she let her silence speak for her.
“… Let’s just keep an eye out for the dogs,” I finished, lightly touching the barely healed gashes on my chest.
“You didn’t tell us any of this,” Nicholas chided, stepping over a large rock in the path. I hadn’t immediately noticed he was still naked, but that fact didn’t seem to bother him much.
With nothing more than a thought and whisper, he was fully clothed again, but instead of a look of thanks or surprise, he simply stopped and glowered.
“Really? Stripes? Couldn’t you have conjured up something Armani? Naked is better than Walmart stripes.”
“Designer apparel wasn’t my first concern. If this is all my imagination I’d rather you not run around it naked anymore.”
My whole hand pulsed like I had plunged it into a bowl of ice water. Xia and Nicholas must have noticed me flinch.
“You’ll start to feel cold soon,” I explained, though I wasn’t sure I was doing a good job of it. “The cold isn’t so bad the first day here, but by the second you’ll start to think you’ll never feel warm again.”
Nicholas continued to mutter under his breath about my choice of clothing for him while Xia’s eyes exploded with understanding.
“You were here for three days last time. You thought you were actually at your childhood home, the place you remember but no one seems to know about, and you tried to get to the city?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It took me a whole day to get to the town, but before I could get inside the gate the dogs attacked me. I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to get around them, but they just kept coming. Eventually the cold started to be too much, and I started looking for a way back to Earth.”
“Back to Earth?” Xia practically exclaimed, slipping a little on the dirt path. She looked annoyed as she attempted to regain her balance. “We’re not on Earth?”
I laughed, and wrapped my arm around her as a shiver exploded through her shoulders. “I don’t know where we are. How else was I supposed to phrase it?”
“How did you find your way?” Nicholas asked.
I pointed upward, “The glow of silver.”
When I had arrived to this ghostlike world the last time, I hadn’t noticed that in addition to everything else that seemed wrong about this place, color was another one. It wasn’t that things appeared in black or white, everything just looked at like an old faded photograph, followed by a layer of blue hue. The warping made the silver aura high above us almost fade out of existence, but it was visible against the raven black sky if you knew what you were looking for.
“It leads into the ancestral mountains,” I said hoisting myself to a higher point on the trail and turning around to offer a hand to Xia and Nicholas. “There are some ruins and some caves that were sacred to the Orendan people. We can get back from there.”
“Does the sun ever come up?” Nicholas grumbled. “I can barely see where I’m stepping.”
“It is up,” Xia said matter-of-factly.
“How did you know?” I was honestly surprised.
“Because this day just keeps getting better and better,” she replied with a grin. “And I’d bet that when it sets, we won’t be able to see anything.”
I shot her a glance that confirmed her theory and heard her mutter under her breath.
“Why is it that the trees pass right through us, but we have to hike up the mountain?” Nicholas barked as he struggled up a steep incline.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Well, it is your imagination. Can’t you just make it flat?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not?”
“How am I supposed to know?” I repeated, more firmly.
He huffed, but noticed my irritation so didn’t say anything else.
We walked further along a path that twisted steeply along jagged rock. While the walk really wasn’t that far, it didn’t take long before my legs started to complain that they didn’t particularly enjoy the constant straining they had to exert to keep up with the boulders, inclines, and loose gravel. It didn’t help that I was pushing them faster than the last time I had been here; I didn’t want to get caught on these trails again when the sun set because, even though it made the small silver strand that marked our path more visible, it made everything, including the obstacles, blend in among the black backdrop. Nicholas grunted on occasion but otherwise kept pace. I didn’t doubt that his daily hours in the gym were of some benefit to him now, so his first couple of grunts really frayed my nerves, but what could I say to a big lug who probably had more muscle now than he neither needed, nor could haul around? Once I decided not to let him annoy me his huffs became background noise—a small signal to let me know he was still there a few steps behind us in the darkness.
And by us, I meant Xia and me. When she had slipped her hand into mine, I stiffened both in surprise and excitement. She was so quick and quiet I had hardly noticed her by my side. When I stole a glance at her, my surprise no doubt evident on my face, she gave a sly grin and a knowing, penetrating stare.
“My hand is cold,” was all she had said, but when she looked away I saw a look in her eye that I cannot explain. Hope, perhaps. Maybe a little bit of fear. I had to contemplate how her look made me feel, but finally settled on a hope of my own—that her fear was fear of rejection… my rejection, not because of what she had seen or been through tonight, not because of what our future held, but because of the possibility that her future might not be intertwined with mine. And if that was her fear, I was happy. It was a fear we shared.
I realized it was presumptuous of me to read into a passing glance, especially while everything around us was fading to black and the night was casting shadows so that we were only able to see a few feet in front of us, but I know what I saw in Xia’s eyes, and there was something unique about her, even here. It was almost as if the shadows dared not touch her face, and her eyes, though dark as cocoa, simply beamed.
I’m sure I’ve already discussed how beautiful Xia was, but I’m sure I’ll do it again. Let’s just say that even here, even after everything, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to scenarios that would b
e impolite to discuss in mixed company, and I felt major regret for the missed opportunity of that nap. Damned demons.
“Looks like we’re getting close.”
Nicholas’s voice was jarring but composed—he was less tired than he wanted us to believe, his heavy steps and harsh breathing obviously dramatic flair, but he was right. The silver stream had grown wider and culminated in a ball of light between two cliffs that were so close together that you had to look hard to distinguish them or you would have thought the light was just a beam of moonlight rising above the horizon.
“That’s it,” I confirmed, turning to meet his eye, but as I did, I lost my footing and collapsed, hitting my shin on something hard, cold, and sharp.
I’m sure the sound that came out of my mouth as I reached for my leg sounded more like a hiss than the profane word I was thinking, but my mind immediately noticed that the blood dripping from the wound wasn’t warm like it should have been. We had already been here long enough for our body temperatures to drop, which explained my dreamlike flow of thoughts. I still didn’t curse my imaginings of Xia naked though…
But instead of logic telling me to get up and get to the caves quickly, another stream of thought occurred… one I had tried not to think about… another time when my blood felt this cold and had dripped, thick as syrup, to the ground. The most recent time I was here was when I had escaped the demon in my truck by somehow pushing my mind and body into this place, but there was another time when this place was real and alive and vibrant with color, when the dark sky didn’t bring total darkness, when my friends and I frolicked under the moonlight and fell asleep amongst the pines… until the day I was murdered, and my blood ran as cold as the heart of the man who killed me.
As the blood from my leg struck the ground I could almost hear the same pounding of the earth… my blood drops like a heavy stick striking a drum. I hadn’t heard the earth speak like that to me in a long time… never in my current life. The sound was foreign and familiar to me at the same time, but the sense of the power in its whisper was intoxicating.
“Come on, Edmund. It doesn’t look that bad. Can you walk?”
Xia’s voice sounded as ridiculous as a soft bell trying to ring as loud as the drums in a symphony. Everything around me was alive and speaking. I could hear the trees in the valley miles away… they spoke of conquerors and slaves, of souls and demons, and of death.
The mountains shook with warnings and secrets. If they were a book, I could almost read what was printed, but the light was too dim and the text too small; all I understood were pieces.
The grassy meadows sang instead of spoke. Their voices were melodic and unified while everything together was carried on the wind.
And the wind was too overwhelming. I couldn’t single one voice out or make sense of anything. I knew Xia and Nicholas were screaming at me. They obviously misunderstood the reason why I was grasping my ears, trying to drown out what was becoming white noise. It wasn’t my ears that were hearing. I didn’t know what it was, but Xia and Nicholas’s frantic motions, red faces, and blasted screams only added to the ocean of noise that I didn’t have the power to stop any more than I could stop the flow of the waves. Only one word kept being repeated, spoken—no cried—from the mountains, the meadows, the earth, the trees, and the rivers: Death. Death. Death.
And then I hear them… closer than I imagined… the cries of the dogs—the beasts that almost killed me the last time I was here. Their howling rang above all, and I knew, I just knew, that the noise created by the mountains, the meadows, the earth, the trees, and the rivers alerted them to our presence. They were coming for us. They, too, could hear.
My last thoughts were to focus on Xia, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking in the direction of the howl, her fear evident.
“Run!” I cried, hardly able to move. Somehow I would protect them as they raced for the caves that would bring them to safety. “Wait! You’ll need the ring!” I couldn’t say more, but I managed to tug it off and place it in Xia’s hand… her almost frozen hand. I closed her fingers around the ring and turned down the path toward the sound of the dogs. I could hear the vibrations their huge paws made as they galloped towards us. I was unable to stand but I was able to crawl, and I would meet them with the power of the thumping earth if I had to. I felt Xia’s hand on my shoulder, trying to pull me back, trying to make me go with them, but we didn’t have time… the dogs would kill us all.
I made a choice. I knew the earth’s drumming was a source of power, so I asked it to bring my friends to the caves… and to do it quickly.
The white noise turned to a rumble and I felt Xia’s hand rip away from my shoulder. The earth would grant my request, not because I forced it to, but because it owed me, and it was almost like it was on my side, willing me to win.
But I could only ask for one favor. There was a balance that could not be broken that I understood with the beating of the drum in my head. So it was no surprise when I looked up to see a mouthful of fangs drooling over me. They came for me at the same time the rebound from my spell did, crushing me.
Eighteen
Waking this time was an odd experience. I can’t even say that I woke for certain, only that I became aware again. I was standing, wearing white, covered in blood, with a cleaver in my hand and half a slab of bright red meat lying in front of me.
The scene would curl the stomach of any normal person. To my right were sharp sticky knives and to my left was a large hook that looked like something out of a horror movie. Toward the edge of the table were perfectly cut and stacked steaks. I had even already wrapped and prepared a few T-bones and stamped them with a bright orange price sticker.
The whole scene was comforting to me. I was at work at the local grocery store. Cutting and restocking the meat was familiar.
When my boss walked into the fridge, he was cordial and didn’t seem too upset over the fact that I had not been at work lately. He didn’t even look at me as he scraped the good scraps of meat onto a Styrofoam plate and labeled it ‘stew.’
“I think that’s enough, Edmund,” he said. “I really appreciate you making it in today. Luckily it hasn’t been too busy while you’ve been gone.”
That was his non-confrontational way of reprimanding me, but even with the softness in tone, the words were meant to be sharp.
That was Henric’s personality, though. He wasn’t a domineering man, but that isn’t to say that he was one you wanted to make angry. He was smarter than he let on. Even owning the supermarket was a tribute to his intellect. He bought it for less than half of what it was worth, partnering with a bank that he knew was in financial trouble… the bank just hadn’t known it yet.
And he was smart enough to know that he could run the store without me, which made me all the more grateful for the job. Because of my school schedule, Henric often managed the market alone for days at a time, but he always welcomed me back whenever I could put in a few hours. I made up for my sporadic appearances by taking him out for drinks and telling him stories that I’m sure his rational mind thought were made up. Still, we had formed a strong bond and mutual understanding, though I dared not say we were friends. We were both too smart and got what we wanted, but we were different enough from each other to make our similarities entertaining.
There was also something secretive about Henric. I knew, for example, that Henric wasn’t his real name. In fact, he wasn’t even from Norway or wherever someone one might expect that sort of name to come from… he was from India. I knew nothing about his family, although I suspected he didn’t have any… at least not in California, or the States, for all I knew.
“Are my friends still around?” I asked nonchalantly, trying to read a reaction.
Henric looked tired but his expression otherwise remained the same. “They’re taking a nap in the back room I think. When you arrived they looked pretty haggard. I saw on the news there was some trouble over at the college. Nothing you were involved with I hope???
?
His tone wasn’t accusatory, just curious.
I could feel my mind start to race with the question. Henric asking meant it was a big deal. I should have felt anxious. Instead, I felt numb. I collected the knives and dropped them into a sink filled with hot soapy water.
“Nope. Xia and I were at lunch and hadn’t been back all day, and I’m pretty sure Nicholas was hooking up with some guy in the steam room at the gym again.” Honestly, I added the last part not only because it was true, but also because I always suspected that Henric might be gay. I tried to get him to react to such statements all the time but he never flinched. Just in case, I wanted to remind him that I had a gay best friend so that he would feel comfortable telling me more about his personal life if he were gay. There wasn’t even a flicker in his eye or a slight pause in his smooth motion as he wiped down the cutting tables with disinfectant.
“I think the police wanted to talk to everyone who lived in the building,” was Henric’s only response.
“Well, then we should probably go talk to them.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was trying to get rid of us. I hung up my apron and washed my hands a final time before adding, “Do you need me to check inventory or stock the shelves?”
“Already did it yesterday. Maybe tomorrow?”
At least he wanted me back. “Okay.”
“Oh, and Edmund? When you are gone for a few days, I tend to get a little worried. You’ve always done so well in the past, but at least try to call in every so often. Especially with all that has happened at the school recently, I wasn’t sure where you were. I just want to know that you’re okay.”
He said it without any emotion, so matter-of-factly that I wasn’t sure what to make of the statement but decided I was probably reading into everything too much.
“Sure. Hey, drinks Friday?”
“Of course. If you missed that, I’d have to file a missing person’s report,” he grinned.