Power Play (Amanda Byrne Book 1)

by Kimberly Keane

  “He should have lasted longer!” she screamed as the bailiff wrestled her to the floor. “It should have been his son. He should have had to watch his child die!”

  Sitting there, my brain completely on hold, I didn’t comprehend the words. I heard them and made note of them, much like the court stenographer typing on his machine. Awareness returned slowly, as if I woke from sleep on a lazy morning. Her words replayed themselves in my head over and over. Watch his child die. Watch his child die. She had wanted him to watch his child die. And then it clicked. Holy mothers of gods, I was looking at Katherine Smith, the curse maker. She had changed her name and become Mr. Bradley’s nurse. She had wanted to visit the pain of losing a child on him as he had visited it upon her.

  This was why the spirits had told Linda I could help her. I’d been broken like she currently was. I’d felt the hurt and rage that she felt. And I’d taken all that pain and turned it into violence, just like she had. Only I’d done it differently. I’d become violent to myself. I’d turned my rage inward. I looked at the scars on my wrists, one jagged and half-finished because I couldn’t keep hold of the blade. I understood that desire. That need. To let some of the hurt out. Helheim, I’d understand taking it out on Mr. Bradley. Hadn’t I just decided that I’d do what I’d done again, given half the chance? But she hadn’t taken either of those routes. Instead, she’d turned it against another child. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her child. We weren’t meant to attack children, for gods’ sake. We were supposed to support and protect them. Help them. Love them. Save them. She’d done the opposite. And the Fates wanted me to help her. No fucking way.

  I shook my head and looked skyward again.

  I can’t. I won’t. How could you even ask me?

  I sent the thought outward. I didn’t know if they got the message or not. It didn’t really matter. They’d know shortly, assuming they didn’t already. I wasn’t the person they thought I was. I couldn’t help her. No, I wouldn’t help her. Not someone who would so callously hurt a child, no matter what she’d been through.

  The bailiff had her upright and in cuffs. I met her eyes and I was surprised I couldn’t see fire where our psychic energies met. My malice toward her virtually met hers toward me. How didn’t I see this before? Why did I even think I could consider helping someone who would land such horror on a child?

  A grin stretched across her face, and she looked at Mr. Bradley, then back at me.

  I furrowed my brow. It was obvious she was taking pleasure in something, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. I looked over at Mr. Bradley. Maybe I could figure out whatever she already knew.

  It wasn’t difficult to figure out. Darkness poured out of him. More of it than I could have imagined could fit, and for a moment, I couldn’t wrap my head around how much of it there was. It didn’t matter that the psychic plane functioned under different rules; it was simply incomprehensible.

  The thing was the deepest black I had ever seen. It moved, undulated, and stretched, as if contained for too long. I recognized it as the same thing I’d seen ride through his aura before. And the same thing that had risen from Rick and dissipated when he’d died—only that was only a minute portion of the thing. Or a child of the thing.

  I stood and leaned forward, trying to sense something, anything, from it. No emotions. No energy. But I somehow had the impression that it was alive. Its form shifted continuously, much like Mr. Bradley’s form had, then it moved. With purpose. Toward the boys. Toward my boys.

  I vaulted over the divider and ran to the space between the darkness and them. It couldn’t have them. I would move earth, hell, and every worldly and non-worldly plane before I’d let this thing take my children.

  I raised my hands, not as if to stop the thing, but as if to corral it in my grasp.

  “Me,” I heard myself whisper. “Look at me.”

  I heard Miriam scream my name as liquid nitrogen enveloped me.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  I struggled to breathe, putting my hands over my mouth to try to warm what air I could find. The cold grew, and numbness found my fingers.

  “What are you?” I heard myself whisper.

  What was before. The answer was in my head. There was no voice, just a response.

  Before what? I thought and pulled another breath in. The air came slowly. Too damn slowly.

  Before everything. Before Oran Mor.

  Oran Mor, the great song, the Celtic primordial aria of creation. Everything is both a part of it and the creator of it. I didn’t understand what it meant, but I knew the story.

  But there was nothing before Oran Mor.

  There was me. I am Void. I am Ginnungagap.

  The Void was from the book of Genesis. And then God created light. Ginnungagap is what Norse mythology called the Void. It was a chasm bordered by two lands which brought about the first being: a frost giant whose slain body was used by the gods to build the universe over Ginnungagap.

  But Ginnungagap wasn’t here before everything, I thought. Muspelheim and Niflheim, the land of fire and the land of ice, were there; they were next to the Void.

  The child lectures me on things she knows nothing of, it said as if to itself.

  But the stories.

  Stories are half-truths and deceptions. You want to know the truth? Here it is. Silence descended. It was like nothing I had ever experienced—it was so loud I couldn’t hear my own screams. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. I couldn’t even feel the comfortable confines of my own body. My mind couldn’t process it all— it was too much and not enough, too complex and yet my mind was telling me it was simple. Vast nothingness. Absolute zero. No beginning. No ending. It was really and truly nothing. Not a hole. Not a darkness. It was lack of everything.

  Until the infinitesimal flaw appeared. A pinprick. Simultaneously hard to see and bright against the void. At first, I thought it was distant, and then I realized it was right there. Maybe inches from me. As if inches existed there. It was the only something in oblivion. And it was the smallest thing I’d ever seen.

  The pinprick brightened. First ever so slowly and then twinkling with color after color. It intensified and then flared so that I had to squint against it. I squeezed my eyes shut as it exploded with riotous sound and white-hot light. Pain shot through me. More intense than anything I’d previously felt. It electrified and then scorched me. I shrieked, clawing at myself. Dear gods, I couldn’t . . . no more, please no more . . . and then I exploded like the light had done not moments before.

  Either an eternity or a second later, I found myself resting in silk-soft warmth, a speck cradled in a pair of gentle hands that smelled of rich soil and fresh water.

  “Amanda,” an aged voice whispered to me, and I blinked.

  I reached up and touched my face and eyelids. “Urd?”

  “It is I.”

  “Where is the . . .” I searched for what to call it and remembered a few words of Gaelic. “Where is Tosd Mor?”

  The universe shuddered. As if existence itself gained weight. I’d named the Void. I’d given it an identity. One that hadn’t existed previously. And in this place of elemental birth, a naming gave something sustenance, life, existence.

  “Tosd Mor. Great Silence. A fitting name.”

  “What was that? The light and the sound and the explosion?”

  “The birth of existence.”

  “And that destroyed Tosd Mor.”

  “It was not destroyed. It was changed. And yet, change is many times experienced as destruction.”

  “Where is it, Tosd Mor?”

  “It is in us, and we are in it.”

  I would say my blood ran cold, but I hadn’t known cold before Tosd Mor had engulfed me. I didn’t know that anything could feel like that.

  “How do we get out? How do we get home?”

  “We become again. We are between; we exist, and we do not.”

  “Gods,” I groaned. I was never good at theories that contained inherent contrad
ictions. The Heisenberg principle. Schrödinger’s cat. The father, the son, and the holy ghost. “How can I exist and not exist at the same time?”

  “Expand your possibilities.”

  “Yeah, let me get right on that.”

  “You jest in this time of crisis?”

  I laughed, surprised I’d had it in me. “I think I’ve lost my mind.” It seemed simultaneously strange and perfectly normal that going crazy would feel peaceful. Maybe I had already started on that expanding possibilities thing.

  “Your mind has expanded . . . is expanding, but is not broken.”

  “But, if I don’t exist, how can I feel my body?”

  “It is what you expect to feel.”

  I closed my eyes and ran my hands over my face, then wrapped my arms around myself, reveling in the ability to feel my skin. After the terrifying ordeal Tosd Mor had put me through, it was even more warm and comforting than I usually would have found it. It was peaceful, soothing the nerves and calming the mind. It reminded me of sitting on my father’s lap when I was a little girl, his arms wrapped around me. I’d rest my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek and hearing the rumble of his voice through his rib cage. Nothing could hurt me there; it was my fortress. It had been a long time since I’d felt that. Too long. Eons. I curled up, much like I’d done in my father’s lap, letting everything fall away from me. Why had I asked how to get home? Why would I ever want to leave this place?

  “What would happen if we stayed here?” I said quietly, almost afraid to utter the words.

  “We would forget ourselves and not-exist more than exist.”

  “But.”

  “Nothing lasts forever, not even this.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Tosd Mor showed you its most painful change. This too will end. Outside of time, things can feel simultaneously like a moment and like an eternity. When this ends, it may become your most painful change.”

  I sighed. “You’re saying it’s not even possible to stay here, aren’t you?”

  “Not exactly. You can stay, but it may not seem like you have.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You can stay, but it may feel as if you’ve left.”

  I shook my head. “What does that mean?”

  “When it ends, it may feel like this has lasted only for seconds, or perhaps never happened at all. And yet, it would poke at your memories, insisting that it did. And then you may want so hard to return that you find yourself willing to do anything to make that happen.”

  I’d tried that. When I couldn’t have Sarah in my world, I tried to join her in hers. The thought that I had to go on without her. In that horrid place. In that awful time. It hurt so much. I needed to make that go away. To get away from the pain. To find a way to get to wherever she was. Years and countless hours of therapy later and I still hadn’t completely let go. Dear gods, how could anything be more painful than that?

  We can’t imagine things so far outside the realm of our own experiences.

  “You mean that it would be so bad, I can’t even imagine it.”

  I can only extrapolate based upon what I see of Tosd Mor and what I’ve seen of you.

  And then it clicked, what she was trying to explain. “It’s not that the pain would be worse. It’s that I may become someone else, something else. A being who would hurt others instead of myself. Someone who might join with Tosd Mor. Someone who thought wiping out existence would be worth ending my own pain.”

  Yes.

  I almost couldn’t imagine it. But before Sarah was stillborn, I couldn’t imagine trying to take my own life. I knew, better than some, that horrors can change us in ways we’d never believe it could.

  Oh gods, I wanted to stay. In this place, I could feel how tired my old self was. How much effort it took every day to keep moving forward. How worn I was trying to be the best mother, the best negotiator, the best person. The exhaustion of being someone who couldn’t save her daughter. Someone who had to be perfect, but never would be.

  But if I stayed, I would betray everything I believed in. I’d become like Kathryn, visiting my pain on the children of the world. I wouldn’t just be the person who couldn’t save Sarah, I’d be the person who betrayed her memory.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I let myself cry for a moment, mourning the loss of this place. Then I wiped my face, straightened what my mind thought was my spine, and said with more conviction than I felt, “How do we become again?”

  “We must sing the great song.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “We all know it.”

  A note sounded, as if in the distance, and after a brief hesitation, I met it with my voice. Urd harmonized with me. Colors birthed themselves from the darkness and added their voices. Scents rose on gentle breezes that brushed my skin and carried a melody. I felt heat, which was quickly followed by the bitter cold that was Tosd Mor. Each sound brought new sensation. And each sensation was met by the silence trying to drown it out.

  I did not think you would return. Tosd Mor’s words were in my head once again.

  Nor did I. Why were you in Mr. Bradley?

  He invited me.

  But why?

  Power.

  For who?

  For us both.

  I remembered the darkness that had risen from Rick when he’d died. Were you in Rick, too?

  Yes, but much less of me. You destroyed that part.

  Daniel had done that, but I didn’t argue the point. Instead, I asked another question: If it was a part of you and you exist outside of creation, how could it be destroyed?

  I am no longer outside. I exist. A pause, and Tosd Mor continued. But not all of me.

  What do you want?

  To be as I was before.

  You want to destroy creation?

  I want to reverse Oran Mor.

  Won’t that kill you?

  Some of me will remain after Oran Mor has ceased.

  How do you stop creation?

  It didn’t answer.

  You don’t know how to stop it, do you?

  Again, no response.

  What can I give you he couldn’t?

  You may hold a key. You may be able to give me what others have not.

  What’s that?

  No reply, but it didn’t need to answer. I knew. It wanted to try me on for size. It wanted to see if I could help in some way to end creation. To end the universe. To end existence.

  Fuck that. I wouldn’t let it wear me as a meat suit, using my power and abilities to hurt people. But I knew its power was much greater than my own. If I battled this thing/not-thing myself, I would lose. And maybe then it would have use of my power and my body. I couldn’t let that happen. I reached out for Urd.

  You have use of your power.

  She didn’t confirm our agreement, nor did she question my intent. She knew my mind and my emotions. She knew that I wouldn’t die to end existence, but I’d die to save it; and she knew that I thought it would happen exactly that way. She connected to me and then with me. We poured into one another. Her knowledge and power, my emotion and perception—we were both separate and one. Fitting in the place of contradictions. Tosd Mor was all around us and we were around it. We all occupied the same space and time, and we wondered how we could not have understood such antithetical concepts.

  All of time and creation was there for the viewing, but we focused on the moment in which we battled. Tosd Mor hadn’t simply entered Mr. Bradley and Rick, it had expanded and connected to people—thousands of them. A web of silence with Tosd Mor at its hub, strands of the Great Silence connecting them all together.

  We shuddered. We had to stop it. To destroy the web. To limit its power and free the others. We pushed our power into the strands of the web and loosened their hold. Then battered them with destructive force until they started to fray. Tosd Mor realized what we were doing, and it pushed against us with frozen stillness and silence.
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  Creation and its sibling, destruction, are riotous and chaotic, but move together in a choreographed dance. Just as light breaks darkness and sound silence, existence negates nothingness. We pushed back with that music of existence.

  Much like Tosd Mor was the Great Silence, Urd was existence. She wasn’t only the result of it and there at its birth, she was the mother and the child. It was a part of her and she of it. And now it was also a part of me. It was glorious. The exquisite song, the vibrant colors. Destruction, a terrible beauty, making way for growth, a brilliant delight. And rise giving way to decline: the celebration of the universe. A brilliant symmetry. It brought us to tears. This was how Urd lived. It was Urd.

  Is this what you experience all the time?

  Time is relative, but simply put, yes. Until now, though, I’d never felt it. Never knew how beautiful it was. Never understoo—

  Our revelry came to an abrupt halt as if we’d slammed into pavement from a two-story drop. People started dying. One by one. The people caught in Tosd Mor’s web. They simply dropped, their life winking out. And the symmetry we’d just witnessed distorted and twisted.

  We gaped. We hadn’t even considered that Tosd Mor would retaliate this way. Destroy what it had worked so hard to develop. It seemed that if it couldn’t keep us from breaking its hold, it would destroy what it couldn’t keep. If it couldn’t use them in its ultimate purpose, it would fall back to a secondary goal.

  We saw their faces, each one, as they collapsed. Shock and then nothing, their features going slack. Like Sarah’s face had looked. Too quiet. Too still. Their once lovely faces were now gone. And I recoiled from the horrible knowledge that their beauty no longer existed.

  Oh gods, No! Too much pain. Too much death. Not again. Never again. Rage erupted from the core of our being, sending a pyroclastic flow of power that decimated all the connections in seconds. But it wasn’t fast enough. Too many people had died. We couldn’t save them all. We’d lost too many. Three hundred and twelve people wouldn’t wake up tomorrow. Each of their faces was engraved in our memory, and their names became a litany in our mind.