Eternity's Edge

  “I put it down,” Francesca said. “I needed both hands to haul you up.”

  Kelly jerked on Nathan's sleeve. “I hear something. A scream. And it's getting louder.”

  “I hear it, too.”

  A high-pitched wail grew in volume, coming from somewhere above. Kelly's eyebeams aimed toward the sky. A large, rectangular object fell through the shafts of light and landed with a rattling, squeaking thump a mere five feet away.

  Kelly shifted her beams to the point of impact. A van labeled “Stoneman Enterprises” sat in front of them, still shaking and shifting on its shock absorbers.

  A light flashed on at the driver's window. A girl leaned out into the glow, her face veiled by shadows. “Wow! What a trip!”

  Nathan squinted at her. “Daryl?”

  “In the flesh … At least, I think so … Actually, now that I mention it, I'm not really sure.”

  “Did the floor collapse?” he asked.

  “No. I figured, do I want to be stuck in a cosmic web for all eternity chatting with your mom? I mean, she's really nice and all, but I came here for adventure. So, I said, ‘What the heck? Might as well go out in style.’ So instead of just jumping after you, I drove the van into the hole.”

  Kelly's eyebeams shifted back and forth as she shook her head. “Crazy as ever.”

  “Did you pick up my violin?” Nathan asked. “We need some light.”

  “Yep.” Daryl extended the violin and bow through the window. “I'm all for fiddling away the darkness.”

  Nathan set the violin under his chin and raised the bow. Just as he was about to play, Kelly grabbed his wrist.

  “No!” she whispered. “Wait!”

  Nathan lowered his voice to match hers. “What's up?”

  “I hear singing. It's getting closer.”

  Nathan ducked behind the stone slab and pulled Kelly down. Daryl jumped out of the driver's door, and she and Francesca joined the huddle.

  “Is the van in plain sight?” Nathan asked. “I can't see it.”

  Daryl aimed the flashlight at the letters on the side panel. “As plain as a zit on the Mona Lisa.”

  He pushed the light toward the ground. “Douse it!”

  Daryl flicked it off. “As if that's going to help.”

  “The singing's getting closer,” Kelly said. “It's a male voice.”

  “I hear it now.” Nathan passed his hand in front of Kelly's eyes. “What about your eyebeams? Won't he see them?”

  “If it's daylight to him like it is to me, he probably won't.” Kelly aimed her eyes at a winding path. With the beams steady now, the residual glow washed over the surrounding slabs, clarifying them.

  “Tombstones,” Nathan whispered.

  “Shh! I see him now.”

  A youthful male shuffled into the light, his head down and shoulders sloped. As he drew slowly closer, Kelly's beams followed, painting twin circles on his torso, but he didn't seem to notice.

  Appearing to be about fifteen and dressed in a dark, formfitting shirt and loose, equally dark trousers, he sang a mournful tune, using the vowel sounds they had heard from the stalkers.

  Kelly translated in soft whispers.

  To wander home,

  To rest, to roam,

  'Tis peace entombed

  And mortal gloom.

  Awaiting dark,

  Forlorn and stark,

  I weep for days gone by.

  The young man lifted his head and gazed above, tears streaming as he lamented.

  To see my Scarlet's rosy face,

  To hear my Amber's golden song,

  To feel again our hued embrace,

  Apart we're weak, together strong.

  He stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead. Passing by their hiding place, he strode to the van and touched the side panel with his fingertips. He pivoted on his heels. Kelly's beams struck his eyes, raising a splash of blue.

  The boy sang a short burst of notes.

  “I see you.” Kelly translated. “Stand and show yourselves.”

  She stood and stepped toward the boy, but Nathan rose quickly and moved in front of her. “I'm Nathan Shepherd,” he said, extending his hand. “Who are you?”

  The boy stared at Nathan's hand. “I am Cerulean.”

  Nathan stepped back. “You speak English. I thought you would answer in song.”

  “If you thought this, then why did you address me in English? I merely responded in kind.”

  “I … I'm not sure. Habit, I guess.”

  A sympathetic smile bent Cerulean's lips. “I am familiar with your facial expression, Nathan of the Red World. You are flustered and confused.”

  Nathan pointed at himself. “How do you know me?”

  “I have seen Nathan of the Blue World many times through his mirror. I learned to love him dearly, though I am no longer his supplicant. He has gone to be with the Everlasting One.”

  As Kelly's beams moved across Cerulean from his torso to the top of his head, Nathan studied his boyish features— smooth skin, bright sapphire eyes, and dark blue spiked hair. With his top shirt button unfastened, the upper portion of his chest was exposed, revealing darkness just under his neckline, a stark contrast to his pale skin.

  “How did you get out of your prison?” Nathan asked.

  “I am still in my dome, if that is your meaning. This is the realm of dreams, and I am doing what I can to prevent a stalker from frightening someone you know quite well. Daryl of the Blue World is dozing under a dimensional mirror, making her vulnerable to a dream attack. Since she is terrified of great heights and graveyards, a stalker has manipulated her night vision and created this cemetery. I entered her dream to cancel the stalker's efforts and bring her peace.”

  “That wasn't a song of peace you were singing a few minutes ago,” Nathan said.

  “That was my own lament, for I have not been able to be near my sisters in a very long time.” Cerulean gave him a weak smile. “Daryl would not be able to understand it, anyway. In fact, she likely did not hear it at all.” He nodded in the direction he entered the graveyard. “She is just now phasing into her dream world, believing herself to be in the eighth grade and reliving a night when she was lost in the woods and came out in a church cemetery.”

  “I remember that night,” Daryl said as she rose to her feet. “I'll talk to her.”

  Cerulean pulled her back. “You will only add to her confusion. Watch quietly, and you will learn a great deal.”

  In the distance, a glow appeared, revealing Daryl wearing a blue nightgown. With her hair tied into pigtails and tears streaming down her cheeks, she seemed much younger. As she drew closer, the glow spread, illuminating the graveyard. A bat fluttered up from behind a tombstone and dove at Daryl's face. With a pitiful cry, she flailed her arms wildly. When the bat angled away, she hunched down and walked on, still sobbing, but instead of tears, a black mist emanated from her eyes and rose into the air.

  “What's that black smoke?” Daryl Red asked.

  Cerulean touched his face near his eye. “Dark energy, a product of her fear. The stalker who created this vision will collect it for the interfinity engine.”

  “Interfinity?” Nathan repeated. “That's what my father called the merging of dimensions.”

  “Because your father learned it from us. Mictar's engine is also called Lucifer, but the reason would take too long to explain.”

  “That means my father must have gone to the misty —”

  “Shhh!” Cerulean set a finger over Nathan's lips. “It is time to supplicate for this dear child. I feel the stalker is ready to cultivate this garden of terror.”

  A ghostly apparition arose from one of the graves, a semitransparent man in a torn pilot's uniform. Pus oozed from open facial sores and dripped to the ground, raising a sizzling splash. A putrid stench permeated the graveyard as he limped toward Daryl Blue. He reached out with long, gnarled fingers and moaned through his words, stretching out the syllables in a lamenting tone. “Soon you will
join me. You will fall from the heavens and perish.”

  “My uncle,” Daryl Red whispered. “He was a pilot, like my father, but he died in a plane crash before I was born.”

  Daryl Blue turned to run, but the ground behind her collapsed, creating a deep chasm. Flailing her arms again, she stood on tiptoes to keep from falling. A rush of black mist flowed, nearly veiling her head.

  The man continued his slow approach, repeating his ghostly mantra as he came closer and closer, his trembling hands still reaching. “Soon you will join me. You will fall from the heavens and perish.”

  Cerulean leaped into the open and sang with a powerful, vibrant voice.

  Begone you ghost of fear and gloom

  And hearken now to Daryl's choir.

  They cast aside your phantom hands

  And rescue her with freedom's fire.

  Suddenly a thousand voices joined together to sing. The tune seemed familiar, something Nathan was sure he had heard a hundred times, but the lyrics sounded foreign, like an old, forgotten language.

  Rop tú mo baile,

  a Choimdiu cride:

  ní ní nech aile

  acht Rí secht nime.

  Kelly quickly translated from the beginning. “You be my vision, lord of my heart. None other is anything but the king of —”

  “I know the song,” Nathan interrupted. “The modern version goes like this.” He sang the melody, though he lagged far behind the voices.

  Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

  Naught be all else to me, save that thou art.

  Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

  Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

  As the voices continued, a stream of sparkling light flowed through the air, pulsating with the rise and fall of the tune. The stream wrapped around Daryl's torso and pulled her away from the precipice. Now more perplexed than frightened, she stared at the apparition. As the stream released her, the black mist around her head thinned out, and the sparkling light flowed into the air, seemingly taking the angelic voices with it.

  Cerulean continued his song.

  Go back to shadows all ye ghosts;

  Restore the ground from whence it came.

  Begone ye graves and stones of death;

  Restore the light to Daryl's flame.

  The ghostly man faded away. With a loud rumble, the floor of the chasm behind young Daryl rose back to the surface, snapping in place as if it had never collapsed. The weak glow around her body brightened, and as it flowed across the graveyard, the tombstones sank into the ground and lush grass sprouted over the patches of bare earth that had marked the resting places of the departed.

  Soon, the cemetery looked like a lovely meadow. Orange and blue wildflowers sprouted at Daryl's feet. She plucked one after another, twisted the stems together, and pushed the bouquet into her hair. Now smiling brightly, she skipped away in the direction she had come. As she did, the brightness faded, leaving the onlookers in a slowly dimming world.

  “She will awaken soon,” Cerulean said. “You will have to find an escape.”

  A new sound emanated from somewhere above, a cacophonous mixture of notes, sung in an array of vowel sounds.

  Nathan covered his ears. The music, if the horrible noise could be called that, sounded familiar. “The stalkers?” he asked.

  Cerulean aimed his blue eyes toward the dimness above. “They are standing around my dome and capturing the energy of supplication. They use their foul song to transform my prayers and Daryl's deliverance into dark energy.” He dipped his head and sighed. “Even my rescues are being used for evil purposes.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” Kelly asked.

  “Nothing. You must go. When her dream ends, this dreamscape will collapse and you will fall into another reality, or perhaps a nonreality. I cannot predict where you will go. Because of Scarlet's sacrifice, it is impossible to tell how long the opening will remain.”

  Nathan gave him a nod. “Better to use the mirror.”

  Cerulean caressed the glass with a gentle finger. “Scarlet will guide you to safety.”

  As the light continued to dim, Nathan and the others hurried to the van. While Nathan settled into the driver's seat with the violin, Kelly mounted the mirror on the dashboard. Daryl and Francesca watched from the back, leaning forward between the headrests.

  Nathan began playing “Foundation's Key” again, hurrying through the notes. The mirror darkened. A faint image of a face appeared in the midst of the black reflection, a feminine face with shining red eyes. A voice, soft and gentle, emanated from the glass — Scarlet's voice. “I heard you calling for me earlier, my beloved, but I could not find you.”

  “I was in a place of blackness, where my mother is.”

  Her auburn eyebrows dipped. “It seems that my vision cannot penetrate there, but since you are in the realm of dreams now, I can speak to you.”

  Nathan lowered the violin. “Where should we go?”

  “Although I long for your presence with me, the mirror you have can only return you to one of the earthly realms. Yet, I can send you to someone who can give you help.”

  “My father?”

  Scarlet's eyes dimmed. “I have been unable to locate him. Even his dreams are out of my reach.”

  “Then, who?”

  “Illuminate the path, and you will see.” The face in the mirror clarified. Scarlet, her lips trembling, spoke in a near lament. “Don't forget to come for me, Nathan. I cannot escape, and the stalkers will never let me go. You are my only hope.”

  “But how? How can I get back to you?”

  Her voice faded. “Look for me in the mirror that sings my song. I know not the title, but it strums the sorrows of my heart and eases my pain.” Seconds later, she disappeared. A construction site replaced her image, a building with no roof and a man on a ladder adding bricks to the top of a wall.

  As the light in the dreamscape dimmed to blackness, a loud crack sounded from underneath the van. The left rear wheel sank. The frame of the van thumped against the ground, angling their bodies toward the depression.

  Nathan grabbed the steering wheel. “Daryl Blue's waking up!”

  More cracks erupted. The van sank again. The entire world around them faded to black.

  Daryl aimed the flashlight. “Say the word, Captain!”

  “Hit it!”

  The beam shot out and bounced off the mirror. Instantly, the surrounding blackness began to fizzle. By the thousands, dark pinpoints sparkled with colorful light until the image in the mirror materialized all around them.

  With the entire landscape now in view, Nathan scanned the area to get his bearings. The van sat on a bare foundation, facing a tri-fold mirror that had been bolted into the concrete floor. A curved, plaster wall stood behind the mirror, making a semicircle and leaving the area behind them open to the trees. Only a few stacked cinder blocks marked where the rest of the observatory's domed wall would be built.

  Nathan leaned his head out the window. “They're building Interfinity Labs here.”

  “You mean StarCast,” a man with a British accent said. “It is not Interfinity yet.”

  Nathan looked at the outside rearview mirror. A man walked toward him on the driver's side, a short, bald man with owl-like glasses. “Dr. Simon? Simon Blue?”

  Dr. Simon opened the van door and motioned for Nathan to get out. “We have much to do and little time to do it.”

  Nathan hopped down to the foundation and hugged himself to fight the cold breeze. “Interfinity's almost here. We have to figure out how to get back to the misty world and play the violin.”

  “Yes, yes,” Dr. Simon said, waving his hand. “I know all about that. But first we have another disaster to try to avert.”

  “No! We'll just create more holes in the dimensional fabric.”

  Dr. Simon pointed at the sky. “There are many holes, and the wounds we inflict on the dimensional fabric are miniscule compared to the greater danger the s
talkers are creating.”

  “Exactly! We have to stop them. That's why we can't afford to get distracted. I have to find the violin as soon as possible.”

  “Nathan Shepherd,” Dr. Simon said, giving him a fatherly glare, “are you a true son of Solomon? If you are, then where is your compassion? If you knew someone was about to die, would you try to save his life? Or would you skip away to do what you perceived to be your duty, saying ‘Have a nice day,’ while he dies in flames and his widow and children are doomed to suffer for years to come?”

  Nathan stepped back. Dr. Simon's words shot through his heart like a heated poker. What would his father do? Would he risk the lives of billions, hoping he had time to rescue them later, in order to save one soul he was certain would die? He took a deep breath and looked Dr. Simon in the eye. “What do you have in mind?”

  Dr. Simon pulled a small three-ring notebook from his pocket and leafed through the pages, stopping somewhere near the middle. “The space shuttle Challenger will launch tomorrow, and it will explode moments later because of a flaw in the O-ring seal in one of its solid rocket boosters. Apparently, extreme cold exposed the flaw and created a disastrous chain reaction.”

  “So now you want me to be an astronaut?” Shaking his head, Nathan stepped back again. “You're out of your mind! They would never let me on board to —”

  “Don't take me for a fool,” Dr. Simon snapped. “I know you can't buy a ticket and stroll aboard a space shuttle. But you can use the Quattro mirror to send the seven astronauts elsewhere before they ever set foot in the craft. That should give us time to convince them to inspect the O-rings. At the very least, we could delay the launch and hope for warmer weather.”

  “But won't the astronauts dream about the explosion? And the launch workers? At least some of them have to be next-day dreamers, right?”

  “If only it were that simple. It seems that many major disasters are hidden from dreamers. Just a few months ago, a Midwest Airlines flight crashed after taking off from Milwaukee. In order to test a theory I have, I went to the gate shortly before takeoff and interviewed some of the passengers about their most recent dreams, and they all reported that they slept without dreaming the previous night.”