Aiden shook his head. “I can do it.” He pushed the key into the lock, feeling each ridge slide and fit into place, and turned. There was a thick thunk as the door unlocked. Here goes nothing. The door opened with a slight groan, probably from disuse. He reached for the light but Jon stopped him again.
“I wasn’t able to…” he trailed off. “After the investigation of the shooting, I wasn’t given a chance to get any work done to the place. Every time I thought I had a moment or a weekend, Key was either sending me on some random mission, or I was following you, or a certain detective came snooping around.”
“The one who called me in earlier,” Aiden stated.
“Yep! That guy. He is relentless,” Jon chuckled. “You can turn on the lights but I wanted you to be prepared.”
Nodding, Aiden flipped the switch and the hallway and kitchen filled with light. His eyes flashed to the inner frame of the door, inspecting it. A section was missing. “Shen shot me. I remember feeling like it was a clean through shot.” His hand ran across the damaged wood. “Guess I was right.”
He walked deeper into the apartment. The living room and kitchen weren’t damaged but the sofa bed was pushed away from the wall. The hidden compartment that hid Jin’s gun was open, the white box covered in layers of dust. He looked at the sleeper sofa. “It’s funny. I woke up with these memories of her death on a day that seem to repeat itself over and over, and I was absolutely out of my mind. She threatened to call her therapist for me. I was freaking out.”
“Yeah,” Tahir chuckled, a look of remembrance on her face. “That act you pulled at the front door was pretty funny.”
Aiden’s smile was small. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.” Steeling his shoulders, he turned towards their bedroom door. It was barely a door anymore. Wood and cheap composite that looked like wood was riddled with bullet holes and missing large chunks of it. The alarm on the door that would beep when it was opened was smashed, the wires from the inside exposed and dangling. Aiden pushed the door open. The only renovation it seemed the apartment complex had made was replacing the windows.
The room was a disaster. Like a bullet and shrapnel tornado had ripped through it.
He exhaled, the breaths shaky, before he felt his knees give out and hit the ground painfully, his head dropping into his hands. “I don’t know why this hurts,” he breathed. ” I know we made it out alive but…the thought that he stalked her and attacked us in our home, the one place we thought we were safe. That doesn’t leave you.”
Khione came to stand by his side. “Pain is never a good thing but it always prompts healing, something rough that scours the soul clean. Pain does not feel good but sometimes we have to feel it and confront it to move past it. You can’t heal something you never feel.”
His head rose from his hands and looked up at her. “Please just tell me you can get her back.”
The tall woman smiled. “I can get her back. Let’s get to work.” She turned to her Keepers. “Joshua, can you get me a lamp or candles? If it’s candles, we’ll need three. Or nine. Or fifty-one. We need to illuminate this room to illuminate the path. Derrick, we need new linen for this bed. Moses, bring me the water.”
“There are candles in the kitchen. In the pantry,” Aiden instructed as he got his feet back under him. “Linen is in that closet.”
“Aiden, do you have something that will connect our nameless spirit with her former self?”
Aiden paused before his hand drifted to his neck. He pulled Jin’s pocket watch necklace hidden within his shirt, his hands clenched tight around the chain. “Yes.”
Khione smiled. “Good.”
Khione’s Keepers moved while everyone else watched them work. Team Fox moved back towards the living room to make room with Jon sticking close to Key, as if he expected some kind of danger. By the time they were done, Aiden’s bedroom looked something akin to a séance. All of Jin’s candles were lit, thirty-six to be exact, and positioned along the windowsill, their nightstand and some balanced on plates across the floor.
Khione removed her shoes and moved to the bed, taking a seat closest to the nightstand. She held out her hand, beckoning Aiden to join her. He repeated her actions, sliding off his shoes and joining her on the bed.
Once settled, she placed a hand on top of his. “Where is the stone? Omi will need it.”
Key entered the bedroom and reached into a pocket, withdrawing the hemp bag. He handed it Omi and took a step back, hanging near the doorway.
“Lie down, Aiden.”
He did as he was told.
Omi moved into action, crushing the stone between her two hands until it was a fine dust. When Khione joined Aiden in lying down, Omi sprinkled the dust over her body, the white falling over her like fresh winter snow. “Don’t inhale it,” she instructed, glancing at Aiden. She then took their white ceramic pitcher filled with water and first poured it across Khione’s feet. The water was cold and Aiden tried not to jump when the water hit his feet.
“I need everyone to leave the room until we connect,” Khione instructed. “Everyone.”
“Absolutely not,” Omi admonished, her hands landing on wide hips. “You will need us.”
“Do not tell that lie, Omi. The passage is open. I am prepared.”
“At least let us see you across!” Joshua cried. “This is the last time we will see you, know you! Let us see you across!”
“Do not become sentimentally vulnerable now. We’ve had decades to prepare for this moment. We are connected,” she said, tapping her forehead. “And because of that, you will always be able to find me, to speak to me. I am not leaving you, only this world. Be brave.”
“This isn’t how I imagined it,” Charlie sniffled, the bangs of her dark short hair covering her eyes as she lowered her head. “I would have come back sooner…”
“Charlie, you came back at the right time. You came to manifest our belief. This was fate. You now know you cannot run from your purpose.”
“You cannot run from your purpose,” they all recited.
“Now your purpose here is complete. You’ve served me well, all of you,” Khione uttered, gifting them each with a tender look. “There are no such thing as goodbye for people like us. So I won’t say it. Neither will you. Àṣẹ?”
“Àṣẹ, Khione,” Derrick said, his brown eyes steady and unwavering. The others echoed his sentiments, the emotion heavy in their voices.
Khione watched as they left the room before grabbing Aiden’s hand. “We are ready, aren’t we, Aiden.”
Aiden looked at her out the corner of his eye before staring up ahead. “Yeah.”
Khione closed her eyes. “The defender of the west, we call on you. The protector of the east, we call on you. The custodian of the south, we call on you. The chaperone of the north, we call on you.”
The candlelight flickered and a loud rumbling noise, like their building was being rotated on its foundation, could be heard in every corner of the room.
“Connect us with the owner of the spirit drenched in this room. Connect us with the owner of this necklace. Connect us with her wayward traveling soul. Connect us even if she no longer knows her name.”
She clenched Aiden’s hand tight, her smooth palm sliding against his rough one. “Say her name, Aiden.” The smell of something fresh filled the room, like rain and wet dirt.
“Jin,” Aiden said.
There was a tingling sensation, akin to the one he felt when the Great Doors had transported them to another realm. He felt it in every pore, every cell, a stinging behind his eyes, a tightness in his chest. Last time he felt this, they’d witnessed a fight between some of the strongest angels in existence.
Now he was going to war with a realm itself.
“Jin Amaris.”
I’m coming.
CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE
Every day Yansá would tell her that her name was Jin and every day she would shake her head and say she didn’t know that name. She told them to leave her alone. She was happy and a
t peace.
She would wake up in the morning, stretch and work out the kinks sleeping on Oti’s hard stone floor caused. The goat was always near, usually huddled in a corner. Sometimes she would mosey on outside and find Oti balancing on a branch high up in a tree. Yansá would only come on certain days. The first few times she brought her something to eat, usually fruits or a skinned rabbit she found while searching for firewood. After a while, Yansá dropped a bow and arrow at her feet.
“You need to learn to hunt. I’ll teach you.”
It took weeks for her to learn how to hold the weapon right, and months to get the arrow to fly straight. Soon, she was efficient with it, able to hit a target across a clearing with glaring ease. The next time a skinned rabbit was brought back to Oti’s hut, it was because she caught it.
In between her hunting, she would go out with Yansá and watch as she used fire to burn a field of crops. When she asked why Yansá was doing that, Yansá said, “We burn the old to help the new grow.”
Once a week they visited Tulekahju, a lake of fire on the other side of the hill, and spend hours staring into it. Oti would follow along if she felt like it, which was rare. She said she hated the heat. Yansá often told her that there were several lakes of fire spread across the realms and they were all used as a form of rebirth. There was Ignis, Flanm Dife, Incendia, Garra and so on.
Tulekahju belonged to Discord. It wasn’t a very large lake. From one shore, you could see clear to the other side. Besides the flames, it looked like any other lake. She could imagine throwing a party out here, or maybe a wedding because a lake of fire as a backdrop would be really interesting. She wasn’t one for marrying, she didn’t think, so the thought remained a thought. There was even a lake house in the center of it, floating over the flames like a lily pad.
The flames of Tulekahju were low most of the time, tiny flicks of heat and light. Then, spontaneously, it would combust and the flames would grow and swell. It would swallow the lake house whole, burn hot and heavy for a few hours and then die back down. The house was burned to the ground and the only thing left were ashes.
The next time they would visit, the house would be back, whole and unscathed.
“The house…I know it’s burning down. I see the ashes. Yet, when we come back, the house is back. Why?” she would ask as she, Yansá and Oti would travel back to Oti’s hut. “You aren’t out here building new houses, are you?”
Yansá clucked her tongue. “Of course I’m not rebuilding it.”
“So how does it keep reappearing?”
“Because it wants to. It sees the flames as an obstacle. The flames see it as the enemy. However, the house does not want to be destroyed, it does not want to cease to exist; it doesn’t want to forget its purpose, its name. So…”
She snorted. “It rebuilds itself is what you’re saying.” She laughed. “I don’t believe you.”
“That’s fine,” Yansá said. “It doesn’t need your belief. It only needs belief in itself.”
“It’s a house. It doesn’t–”
“It is made of the same stars and dust and bits and pieces of the galaxy as you are. Your ancestors exist within that house; my ancestors exist within that house. Our futures exist within that house. How can you be so certain?”
Yansá and Oti continued walking but she stayed back to look at the house. She made up her mind. She needed the truth.
The next time they went to Tulekahju, they watched the flames engulf the house until it was nothing but embers. As Yansá and Oti began the trip back to Oti’s hut, she stayed.
Yansá stopped and looked back at her. “At night the Tule-Tule guard this space. They will not harm you on the shore–but if you trespass their land, they will attack. If you attack them, they will attack. If you are an intruder to this realm, they will attack.” She didn’t leave much more of an explanation but left behind some fruit wrapped in a linen cloth before she accompanied Oti back.
She stayed by the lake, warmed by the flames that covered it. When night fell, she made herself even more comfortable, loosening the sash around her kaftan and parting the folds. Soft cotton pants covered her legs, so she hiked them up over her calves to relieve them of the heat. Satisfied, she relaxed, leaning back against a tall carob tree because she was planning to stay up all night. She needed to know if Yansá was lying–that someone else was rebuilding the lake house–or if Yansá was telling the truth–the lake house would reappear on its own. The fire roared at dusk and engulfed the house.
It wasn’t until it was the darkest outside that she noticed the Tule-Tule. They hid in the bushes and in the trees, the leaves and branches rustling as they would move around, observing her. But none of them left the safety of the woods. With time, she forgot they were even there.
She fell asleep just before dawn. She woke up around noon, the sun high in the sky and she cursed. The lake house had been rebuilt, just as Yansá had promised but she failed to see how. She wouldn’t leave until she got her answer.
Growing hungry and bored with her fruit, she decided to hunt. Grabbing her bow and arrow and slipping her spear into her holster across her back, she ventured into the woods. It was daylight. The Tule-Tule never made much sound during the day.
She hid behind a tree and waited for prey, a rabbit, most likely because Discord was infested with them. An hour into her hunt, a grey and white rabbit appeared. She pulled back on her bow, the string taught against her cheek and waited for the perfect moment. Just as she was about to release her bow, just before she let her arrow fly, something dark and fast snatched the rabbit up.
“Leave this place,” something hissed. She swung towards the sound. Nothing. “Leave this place,” it hissed again, angry.
She refused. “I have to eat!”
“Leave!” The voice was right on her, the vibrations of its anger rippling across her skin like waves. A force pushed her from the tree she was hiding behind. She hit the ground hard and rolled, dashing to her feet and putting her back towards another tree trunk.
The force, malevolent and dense like a red tide, tried to kick her but she raised her hands and pushed back at it, digging her feet into the ground until it stopped. Wind rushed in her head but before she could catch the song it played, it was gone, leaving a trail of emptiness. The force took advantage of her hesitation and rushed at her again. As if it were furious, the force burst open like a damn and attacked her on all sides. She scuttled back, trying to ground herself, slow herself down, but she hit the tree with a grunt, her body feeling as if it were being bent around the trunk.
She reached for her spear. She was good with her bow and arrow but she felt like she’d been holding a spear all her life. The gold and red feather dangled in front of her as her eyes jutted back and forth, waiting for the next attack.
A knife, rudimentary as if it had been made from wood, whooooshed past her face, slicing her chin. Focusing, she could hear the sound of more approaching so she rotated her spear in front of her, hand over hand, the spear blurring in a ring of brown, red, gold and black, the speed enough to deflect the swarm of knives.
She scrambled for her bow and arrow but paused when she felt it again. The force of something. The pressure felt like someone was hovering over her shoulder, weighing it down. She gripped her spear and began to turn, intent on shoving it through the throat of whoever it was, but the sharp point of a knife held to her throat stopped her.
“You no turn. You no look,” it said, guttural and low, its breath hot and fragrant of moss. “Leave.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she replied tersely, her attention more on the knife than the Tule-Tule behind her.
“Leave.” The dead rabbit was dropped at her feet. “You leave this place.” The knife was slowly lowered but she could still feel its hot breath on the back of her neck.
Nodding, she collected her food and left.
This process repeated itself for weeks. She would try and stay up all night, hear the Tule-Tule in the woods, fall asleep, wak
e up way past dawn, then hunt. Some days she would encounter a Tule-Tule, who would violently demand she leave and some days she wouldn’t encounter any of them at all. By the third week, she considered giving up trying to figure out the mystery of the lake house. If she kept it up, the Tule-Tule would eventually lose their patience and hurt her if she continued to venture into their woods to hunt. She should just go back home, to Oti’s hut, and be content with never knowing…
“Jin?”
She recognized the name, only because of Yansá’s insistence of saying it often but it meant nothing to her. She turned around at the sound of the new voice, her hand tightening around her spear.
A man stood there, tall, handsome, and roguish, sun-kissed skin, sharp angular eyes, and dressed in clothing she hadn’t seen anyone else around here wear. He was alone, and she realized he’d made it this far into Discord without an escort. Even she wasn’t able to do that. She was impressed.
Her hand itched for her spear, but it was more of an instinct than a necessity. She didn’t feel a threat from this man. She felt calm around him.
“Yansá said that my name is Jin. It’s not a name I am familiar with but Yansá says my name is Jin because I think that’s what she has fooled herself into thinking she must do. You call me Jin…but…it sounds familiar coming from you.”
The man narrowed his eyes before he took a step closer. The itch was stronger this time. She took a step back and readied her spear, her bracelets sliding down her arm.
“I didn’t say you could come any closer.”
The man looked troubled but relieved at the same time. “I should have known this wasn’t going to be easy,” he said, chuckling low. “This reminds me of the first time we met. I came looking for you and you reacted the exact same way. At least I know it’s you.”
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 47
