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.
Navin and Japha’s eyes fly open. Japha stands straight, his head cocked to the side while his crooked fingers squeeze open and closed. Navin grabs my hair, “I’m going to get in there.”
They speak in a language I don’t know—not Velierian, but they are clearly confused. I know this due to the vein in the middle of Navin’s forehead.
“Again,” Japha tells him. “I’ll get her.” Japha leaves the room again in such a hurry the door slams behind him.
Navin’s eyes glare into mine and I can see his pupils grow and shrink as the light fades in and out. He is so close that the sweat glistens from his pores. Why are his cheeks so red? Something is different. An awareness kicks in that I can only describe as crystalline—the magnification through a looking glass, or the cast of light against falling particles in the air. The earth’s kaleidoscope suddenly shifts to create a clearer picture of the colors and shapes around me.
Geo spoke of this. The Void, or the Awakening—something that Ephemes haven’t enough years to experience. The particles in the air come to life, bouncing in front of my eyes. Had they been there before? Every detail regenerates my senses. I notice everything: a lightbulb flicker, two doors—one ahead and one behind, and that it will take me thirteen seconds to free my hands. My brain effortlessly calculates the distance between Navin and Ian.
“The Void,” Geo said, “is where the mind finally releases control over how much one sees, or how much one feels in order to protect them from excess. The Void of our own trenches where we lie in wait for the next tragedy or the shackles of our own fear.”
Where has that uncomfortable oppression that tells me I have no control over the next moment gone? My hands are calm, and my heart keeps a normal rhythm. Yet something tells me this isn’t half of what Velieri know, or even a quarter of the Awakening. Somewhere, between this realm and that, there are voices I can hear. They make no sense and seem so quiet even God will have to listen carefully—every cadence unique. Or perhaps these voices are God?
The boundaries of a forty-foot room disappear in the same manner that my human boundaries flee, revealing an interworking where spirit collides with the flesh—one that I’ve never experienced. It was once a mystery how Navin snuck into the recesses of my brain, but at this moment, his strategy seems almost . . . obvious.
Navin shakes his head, filling the already dank room with misted sweat. A gun appears at my temple before I even know his hand has moved. The barrel eats so hard at my skin, my head battles to stay upright. Yet beyond the distance between us, or the weapon cutting into my skull, the corruption in his eyes tells me of the child he’d once been, the false and misguided intentions turning to hate of Ephemes instead of a solution for the many.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I say quietly, my heart a steady beat. He doesn’t say anything, yet there is a flicker in his brow that tells me more. “You were good once.”
