“Forgetting you is not freedom.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you don’t remember me yet and it won’t be forever.” He finally succumbs to a smile even though it is weighted with truth.

\/\/\/

We chase the sunset down the winding hills of Japan. Somehow the car becomes a suffocating tomb, my anxiety wrapping around me like a dense gauze, so I quickly roll the window down and let the air blow on my face. When it becomes too dark to see the jungle, the rainforest comes to life in sound. Beneath the croak of a family of frogs, the encompassing chirp of birds winding down, and somewhere off in the distance the holler of monkeys is the tranquil sound of water running. I breathe in a large wavy breath hoping that it will open the passageways through my clamped chest.

We roll to a stop, but I look around before jumping out of the car just as everyone else does. Kilon opens my door quickly, revealing a mossy, flat rock path at our feet that will take us deep within the jungle. Like an organized procession, everyone surrounds me as we trek up the mountainside and it is hard to ignore their concern or the fact that most of them keep their hands securely positioned over their concealed weapons. Within a few minutes it sounds like I have run a marathon, yet no one else is winded. The elliptical sitting in my San Francisco apartment during the last few years seems to have been a waste of time, when really all I need is to figure out their secrets.

A mile in the dark trudging over slippery rock and moist ground takes us beyond a path. How does anyone know where we are going or how to find our way back? I panic when a sticky web larger than a blanket my mother crocheted for me attaches to my face and arm. Arek shines a light and quickly knocks the spider off my shoulder. I don’t see its size, but the sound of it landing on the ground reminds me of my cat jumping from the roof. Arek grins when he sees my wide eyes.

“It’s gone,” he assures me.

The excessive moisture in the air mixes with our layers of sweat turning our shirts damp and our extremities wet. The crew keeps their lights focused ahead when finally, a small structure appears between two old scraggly trees with lazy branches that lean all the way to the ground. Half of the place is made within a cave, but the other half is made of stone and bamboo extending out beyond the cave’s opening. A flickering orange glow comes from a small square but tilted window.

The mood is somber as everyone casts their eyes upon it, while my heart races faster than my thoughts.

Geo turns to Arek. “I’ll see how they wishes to see her.” In a few minutes he returns, calling for Kenichi and Mak.

Beckah comes to stand by my side. “Geo’s been a student of Gyre’s for quite some time. When he was just a child, Gyre was looking for an apprentice. They went through thousands of men, women, and children . . . until they found Geo. Geo will one day be to the world what Gyre is.”

“What can they do?”

“They’re able to connect to systems of the brain, the body, the world, the spiritual realm—how all things bridge together. You know . . . all the stuff I can’t do.” She rolls her eyes and shrugs. “You had great discernment.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. You all were annoying.” She winks at me. “Gyre saw it in you. You once loved and trusted them with your life. I still do.”

A weathered woman, her skin puckered and creased from age and sun, her hair wildly white, peeks her head out of the stone and bamboo. “Briston,” her old voice croaks.

Briston touches my arm as he passes, then disappears.

Sassi and Kilon stand silently on two sides of the jungle, carefully keeping guard.

“What did I do?” I quietly ask Beckah. “Please just tell me . . . maybe I’ll remember something to help us find out what happened.”

“I can’t,” she whispers.

“What if my memory can help us? If I do this, we’re taking away any chance. I may never become what Remy was.”

“Willow,” Arek overhears us and comes to my side. “They’ve given us till tomorrow. The Cellar will eat you alive, do you understand me? All of this is to keep you from taking one step in a place that you will not be able to survive. We must buy time and the elders believe this is the only way.”

“Do you believe that?” I look closely, but he says nothing.

From the doorway the old woman peeks out, “Let’s go.”

Arek pushes me forward, but my feet are planted against the gray earth. “Wait!” I say. “I had a dream about my mother.” This stops him cold and I continue. “I was a child, walking through town with Briston. My mother is there with her hood over her, afraid to be recognized. I call out to her, but she doesn’t turn to me until she is in a carriage . . . there is a man sitting next to her.” I look up at Arek to see if what I am saying to him makes any sense. He is listening with raw intensity. “It is Japha.”

Even Sassi and Kilon overhear from where they stand, and everyone shares concerned glances. “Japha was sitting next to your mother?” Arek asks.

“Yes. And my mother is afraid when she sees me. Briston was there . . . he saw what I saw.”

The old lady calls out again, this time with irritation, “You don’t make them wait.”

Arek squeezes my hand, “It’s time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The door we enter is rusted off its hinges. The first room is dirty from ceiling to floor with dust and cobwebs. How has anyone lived here? A small lightbulb is screwed into the ceiling, yet the wires that hang around it force Kilon, Sassi, and Arek to duck. The light is so dim, my foot kicks several piles of things that to any normal man or woman is junk. Not an ounce of care has been given to this place.

A few things are on the walls—plenty of mirrors and black outlined drawings with no color. We follow a dirty hallway, the walls lined vertically with knotted wood that I use to guide my path when the light disappears as we head farther into the cave. Arek places his hand on my trembling arm.

A small room no bigger than a walk-in closet, where piles of oddments line the walls, is where we stop. One corner of the room sits in shadows so dark that my eyes can’t see anything within it. Beside me are a rusted broken boat anchor, dream catchers, dolls, weapons, and so much more. Hand-size crosses hang along the ceiling. The smell is a mixture of rust, mold, and incense.

“Why does it look like this?”

“I don’t claim to understand a person with such power,” Arek whispers in my ear. “They treasure what others don’t. They could be the richest person in our world, but they’ve chosen to live like a hermit. And they abhor technology . . . says it clouds the mind.”

My body jumps when someone strikes a match, then a flicker of light illuminates the shadows. For the first time I see them. An androgynous being, looking neither man nor woman, sits in the corner covered in blankets, its skin melting due to gravity, its head as smooth as rock, and its eyes gray from cataracts. Part of me wants to stare, but also look away.

Arek’s large hand wraps around mine while Briston and Kenichi speak to Gyre for a moment. A quiet but terrifying voice drifts in and out, but soon they turn to leave. As Briston passes, I watch him.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“We can’t be here.” As any father, his face shows concern.

I press myself against Arek, hoping that I might just disappear.

Gyre speaks louder. “De at me venutan, hal caru mine ventiche.”

Instantly, everyone nods. The old woman shuffles to me and roughly takes my hand. “Lay.” She points to a cot in the corner of the windowless room. Flickers of candlelight make shadows along the dark walls. My father touches my shoulder, then hesitantly leaves, so there is hope when Arek doesn’t let go of my hand.

Yet when I look up, the answer is written on his face. “We’ll be outside.”

“Why?”

“They will use your memories and thoughts. Ours will get in the way.”

Gyre’s call emerges like a banshee floating blindly in the dark. My skin rises in fear until I close my eyes, wanting desperately not to hear Gyre speak anymore. Arek drops his head until his temple touches mine and he whispers, “It’ll be okay.”

“Please,” I beg.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispers again, this time running his hand along my neck. Yet after a moment, I sense he decides to say no more, and then he is gone.

However, Geo stands near the old Velieri as Gyre points its long bony finger to a stack of planks built up just two feet above the ground. Hundreds of tiny figurines sit on these planks like an army of miniature idols making me desperately uncomfortable.

Geo leans over to whisper in the old being’s ear, as the saggy skinned woman grabs my hand and ushers me quickly forward. “Lay!” she demands with a broken voice that can’t inhale deeply. The boards creak and moan as I carefully lie on them. “Gyre knew you would come,” the old lady says as she wraps my wrists with fractured leather. “When you came to them. They knew death couldn’t stop your quest to bring life back to this world.” My heart rakes across my ribs as she tightly grips my wrists, pulling the straps about them with surprisingly strong, veiny hands. She continues, “Gyre says this is what needed to happen for your life to take the correct shape.”