Suddenly, I am in darkness. There are no walls, ground, or sky—only black—like I am kneeling in space. Fear engulfs me—Willow’s instinct. I need something solid, something tangible, something that will provide me safety from nothingness. I think of Geo’s words. There must be a rhythm that I am missing, a slight sound that I can’t hear because my emotions are controlling everything. If I can just be calm and listen—hear the quiet and reach for peace that will allow me to use the skills he taught me. I will count and concentrate on that.

Before I can try, voices fill my head. Then, as if rewinding, images begin to pass. I can’t tell whether it is just in my head or whether I can reach out and touch these images. It is tempting to watch every second that passes. It may remind me of a life I have yet to remember. Then I realize the history that I am being shown isn’t anything I want to know. One passing memory stops just before my eyes. I am in San Francisco, walking along the sidewalk. I have seen this nightmare too many times to forget. The man breaks the bottle on the brick wall, then moments later lunges at me. I can’t watch.

“Stop!” I yell, but the abyss swallows my voice. The images keep flashing, further and further back in years.

Memories pass by slowly. One feels so familiar that I can feel the pain from the handcuffs on my wrists and the chaotic suffocation of a large crowd in a court room. Then it becomes so real that I am no longer watching Remy in handcuffs but living it myself. People with angry eyes and hateful slurs yell loudly through the crowd, while a host of others stand with devastation in their eyes. I walk to a chair, made especially for criminals during their execution. The guards surround me, making it impossible to say anything to Briston and Elizabeth as I pass. My father’s tears streak his cheeks. Leigh is within arm’s length. He bids the executioner to come to my side and I feel the warm tears fall off the end of my nose as the executioner dons gloves and pulls out the syringe to take my life. A loud yell fills the air. Arek rushes in, his face already bruised and swollen. Several guards run to him, but he easily fights them away. It isn’t until the other Protectors come to aid against one of their own that he is unable to do anything. They finally wrestle him down. Leigh nods as Arek cries out. The executioner covers my eyes with a cloth. My chest rises and falls rapidly in panic. Then all goes black.

I don’t want to see any more. “Stop!” I beg.

The further they go, the less control I have. Geo’s face comes to my mind. If I can think of Geo, then it’s not completely hopeless. Quickly it becomes a fight to not immediately turn back to the darkness. I try to think of specific memories, yet they are disintegrating. If this is what it is to age, God save us all.

“Arek, Sassi, Kilon, Geo, Peter, Beckah, my father . . .” I chant and try to picture them. If their images are in my head, then I won’t have to use my voice and Navin’s beat will be clearer. For a moment this works—gentle images pass and the pain in my body begins to subside—then my body jolts, like lightning has struck. Within me burns, every organ and tissue writhes with fire. Breathing deep feels impossible and I lie in the darkness convulsing for air. The strength against me has just doubled. Japha. I know instantly he has joined in the effort to strip me of everything.

There’s nothing to do, but fight. Find a rhythm. Just do it, Willow. An image flashes of people running, screaming, dying . . . and the pain of it claws at me in the black abyss. Anger tears at my soul and shakes my body. Geo’s voice returns, “Picture the pain and chaos rolling off my shoulders like raindrops.” I close my eyes and listen. It takes a while but eventually, I hear a low hum masked by ambient noise. It is a fast rhythm and I try to match it. After a few moments, I do.

Then I adjust my own vibrato, trying to break up the monotony of theirs. I’ve never concentrated so hard on anything in my life. My fingertips are tense from the strain. I must figure out how to separate Navin and Japha, but I am losing. There is no way that I can win this—not by myself. The only other option is to give up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Time doesn’t exist in a black hole. Just like any dream, the passage of time is infinite—either minutes or days or longer. Navin and Japha have me right where they want me. Fighting only seems to make things worse.

“You’re going to want to give up, Willow,” Geo had told me.

When my mother went through continuous recurrences of cancer, one day she whispered softly in my ear while protected by a large quilt, “I’m done. I’m tired.” This angered me. Enraged me. “No, you’re not!” I assured her. But in the end, she was too tired.

Yet, here I am so weak. How little I’ve fought compared to her. She was the warrior. She was the woman of strength. Perhaps if I just lie still, I will find more peace?

Flashes of memory—good and bad, Willow’s and Remy’s—keep coming through the dark abyss with the shining stars fading in and out.

Just as quickly as the darkness came, it recedes and I am back in the room with Navin and Japha, still trapped.

Navin cocks his head to the side. “You really aren’t Remy?”

“No,” I whisper.

“You have no fight.” This seems to bother him. Instantly this makes me wonder. Does he need me to fight to do what he wants to do? Navin thinks for a moment. He and Japha speak quietly to each other until Japha leaves.

Then he angrily grabs my chin. “Where’s that emotion, Willow?”

That’s when I know: to find what he needs, it seems my emotion creates his path. “Oh, I see,” I grin.

Navin slaps me across the cheek just as the door opens and several guards enter. They carry a man with a brown burlap sack over his head. The prisoner is no longer trying to walk, and his clothes are marbled with blood, so his legs drag on the floor. They drop him to the ground. Ian’s body is undeniable.

“What are you doing?” I ask Navin. Instantly, I answer my own question when I feel my emotions climb again.

Navin remains quiet as he heads to Ian. When Navin lifts his head and pulls the covering from Ian’s face, I’m not sure whether he is alive or dead. There is no fight coming from the man I know to be a fighter. Navin pulls a small knife from his pocket, flipping it open with his thumb. Slowly he digs the blade into Ian’s cheek, immediately sending blood down his face. A small groan escapes from Ian’s lips, but not to the level of what it should be.

“Stop, Navin!” I call out.

Yet his blade continues up the side of Ian’s cheek, ripping through to his teeth.

“Navin!” I yell.

He releases Ian without care and rushes back to me, instantly staring me down. He digs deep, using my emotion as the host. He is like a bug in my mind, crawling, scratching, and penetrating areas that are best left behind. The memories are stolen aggressively, passing faster so that I have no recollection of them.

This time I sink deeper into the nothingness, consumed with what I can only describe as an absence of joy. The loneliness penetrates my bones and soul, branching out wide and removing all remnants of familiarity. I don’t know whether this is because of Navin and Japha, or the nature of Tracing itself, but I feel nothing but a sense of complete loss.

When my grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer’s, she would wander through the house rubbing her hands together, letting out an empty cry as she desperately searched for familiarity. Now I understand. To have no one and to have no place defies all humanity.

There is no hope. And no hope, means no peace.

My thoughts are not my own. I am losing the battle to save who I am in this life and the one before.

Through the darkness one of the stars begins to flicker, then grow. Still the memories pass faster and faster. I will lose them all if I do nothing, yet fighting them is fighting Goliath.

I lie here, weightless, watching the flash of light. There is nothing holding me, but there is also nothing moving me. My eyes open and close like a baby before sleep. A voice caresses the void, tantalizing the tiny remnants of hope that once lived here. This voice, even at the lowest decibel, covers a deep grating hum that has continued for quite some time.

The light ahead grows so large that I look away.

“Remy.” The rich voice is calm. A tear falls from my eye. “Remy. Listen. Come out of it. Tell yourself to come out of it.” In the darkness, I try to extend a hand—to what, I’m not sure. The only thing that seems viable is that the voice comes from the light.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

Even though there is nothing but light, my extended fingertips brush against something solid, back and forth, hoping to grab on to anything that can steal me back.

I hear Geo’s words, “When you realize how much fear enslaves you . . . if you break free of it, you’ll be able to do anything.”

Warmth rushes my skin as the hum plays. The hum is quieter than a new rhythm that I can hear. This new rhythm is louder and less obstructed. For a moment I look around the star-filled chasm and recognize the severe beat of my heart.

I stand to my feet on seemingly nothing. This darkness and stars don’t exist. Navin is creating the emptiness. The warm voice echoes once again, as if bouncing off the stars.

From out of the Void comes a woman. Her long hair near white and her skin smooth; her fingers extended and slender. She calls me to her in a swift motion. As the light swirls around me, my heart pounds. Even until she is within inches of me, she is unrecognizable because of the blinding light. Then, the crease of her cheek at just the right moment, and the ice blue from her eyes, tucked away behind flowing hair that is strangely familiar—more so than any other living soul that I have known.

She is me. Yet in many ways not me.

She is a mirror image of myself so when my hand lifts, hers does as well. When my head falls to the side in question, hers follows. Yet despite the same movements, one thing stands out as her own. Her chest rises and falls differently than mine. I envy her control and ease.

“Help,” I whisper.

She speaks, her voice no different than mine. “You’re not Willow. You may think it, you may feel it . . . but there’s every bit of Remy in there. You, Willow, have the ability. All it takes is the understanding to change the outcome. Geo taught you . . . it’s there.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“Listen to Remy. Do as she says.” She nods. “You need to wake.” She places her hand on my heart, and instantly the memories disappearing into the mist began to slow along with my heartbeat.

Then a jolt rocks my body and I wake—back in the dark room with Navin only inches from me.