by Anna Elias
Rose laughed. “Oh, that Hillary. It was her, right? She’s always looking out for me.”
“We’re not at liberty to say, ma’am,” the same gruff voice answered, but his tone had softened.
“I’m fine, Officer,” Rose replied. “This young man is my ... cousin’s son from Pittsburgh, and I haven’t seen him since he was a boy. When he came to visit earlier today, I thought it was someone trying to sell me something. You tell Hillary I’m fine, everything is fine, thank you. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you.”
Link peeked again to see her wave and close the door. He listened until their footsteps left the porch.
“I’m sorry,” Rose said, returning to the living room. She clasped her trembling hands to still them. “Hillary and I have been neighbors for years. She’s looked out for me since, well, since Valerie died.” She studied his sweating face. “Are you all right?”
Link shifted, testing for control. The Spirit let go and he collapsed against the couch. Fear poured off like steam. “I imagined having to explain Valerie to them,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, but his personal truth wasn’t necessary.
Rose smiled. “No. I don’t think that would have gone over so well.”
She sat on the couch this time, and Valerie took her hand in Link’s. The touch startled Rose, but Valerie flooded her mother with love.
That simple gesture broke the dam, and Rose collapsed in Link’s arms. She wept uncontrollably as ten years of hatred, guilt, and loss gushed out. Valerie wrapped his arms around her mother and held on tight, rocking to and fro as Rose’s body convulsed in spasms of release, like an emotional exorcism.
This intense connection blasted Link’s senses into orbit. Seconds ticked like hammer blows from the mantel clock; leaves rustled on the trees outside like a thousand birds taking flight, and Rose’s fresh-cut flowers smelled as pungent as a bottle of perfume. The experience lasted two, maybe three minutes, but that short time encompassed an eternity. And when it ended, one life had forever changed.
Rose excused herself to clean up.
Link used the time to decompress. His tattoo had kicked in at some point during the process, the ancient symbol a glowing, buzzing adapter that allowed his mortal flesh to conduct this kind of immense energy without harming Rose or himself. The vibration and heat subsided, his hypersensitivity dissolved, and the tattoo returned to its normal iridescence.
Rose’s eyes were puffy and swollen when she returned. She clutched a handkerchief, but her steps seemed lighter, easier, and she looked at Link’s face.
Not in the eye, though, he noticed. Not yet.
“I missed my husband when he died. My lifelong love, my honest-to-goodness other half. But when you lose a child...” She paused, struggling to keep it together, “The pain never dies. Someday, if you’re lucky enough to be a parent, you’ll understand that level of love.” She dabbed her eyes. “I’ll get us something to drink.”
After she left, the depth and clarity of Tricia Martin’s pain hit like a train. She must loathe Link the way Rose detested Zach, and for the same reason. It would take a great deal more than unopened letters and a short driveway visit to prove his innocence, allow forgiveness, and win her trust.
Another reason this Spirit chose me, he thought.
Valerie rippled inside with tiny waves of confirmation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AVANI
The open-air market teemed with evening shoppers buying dried seaweed, bagged rice, packaged meats, and a vast array of fruits and vegetables sold by the gram. Avani didn’t recognize much of anything in the bins, but the Spirit made her mouth water for it.
The market stood across from a seven-story, block-shaped hotel in a small city, forty kilometers south of Fukushima. Cherry trees lined the busy street, their fragrant pink blossoms ablaze in the last rays of the evening sun. A steady stream of people passed underneath, many of them wearing business suits or skirts, stopping to shop on their way home from work.
She is coming.
Avani had just enough time to register the Spirit’s thought when Minako pulled into the hotel across the street and parked in a side lot. She walked into the building dressed in work clothes and emerged thirty minutes later wearing a casual shirt and jeans. Her clean, wet hair was pulled back in a bun, and she carried a canvas grocery bag.
Avani ducked behind one of the displays as Minako entered the market.
She passed within ten feet of Avani, leaving a trailing scent of lavender bath soap and peach-infused shampoo.
Avani squirmed, anxious, but the Spirit calmed her. They waited until Minako stood alone by the mushrooms to walk over.
The young woman jerked up, a frown souring her beautiful face as she looked around for help. “You are stalking me?”
“I never stopped loving you.”
“You stopped showing it,” Minako snapped at her grandmother, then her ill temper softened. “You should go home,” she told Avani. “Our family does not concern you. My grandmother no longer concerns me. You do not belong in the middle of this, whatever this is. Please leave.” She hurried off, but the Spirit led Avani around the bright red bayberries to join her.
“When you were seven, I took you and your mother to see the cherry blossoms in my home city. You asked if they glowed all night after getting so much sun in the day. Do you remember?”
Minako froze.
“Your mind turned toward energy even then. We stopped for mochi afterward.”
A wistful smiled crossed Minako’s lips. “They tasted like big soft pearls filled with ice cream.”
The Spirit’s memory made Avani’s mouth water for mochi, too.
“And you tasted your first kakigori.”
“The sun melted the shaved ice so quickly I had to drink it.” Minako searched Avani’s eyes. “Grandmother?”
Avani felt the Spirit’s green flecks flash inside her irises.
Tears of joy brightened Minako’s eyes then anger returned. “You disowned me when I married, and you never spoke to my children, though I named my daughter after you. I wanted to please you and bring us back together.” She dried her tears. “I was wrong.” She strode to the cashier and paid.
Her grandmother waited, then walked with her toward the hotel.
Minako sped up. Avani kept pace. Minako stopped and spun around. “You have waited too long,” she hissed. “It is too late.”
She started off again, but her grandmother grabbed her arm. “Follow me.” She made Avani bow to a passing couple before leading Minako behind a closed store.
“Why are you doing this, Grandmother?” Beads of perspiration dotted Minako’s lip. “Why are you here?”
The Spirit swelled, filling every nook and crevice inside Avani. “It is never too late.” She tightened her grip on Minako’s trembling hands and held fast. The wind whipped, the air flashed green, and they vanished. Cherry blossoms fluttered across Minako’s spilled bag of food.
They reappeared inside a large commercial building that was softly lit and void of people.
Minako trembled, clutching Avani’s arm with one hand and the ghost of her food bag with the other. “W-where are we?” she asked as their halting footsteps echoed across the broad, spacious corridor.
Bright moonlight beamed through a domed, glass roof high above. Large pictures and glass-covered displays identified this place as some kind of gallery or museum. Avani worried they might set off a motion sensor or alarm.
The Spirit ebbed her concern.
“Come, Minako,” Grandmother said. “There is something you must see.”
She led them down a wide, open ramp that spiraled beneath a dangling, missile-like bomb, and stopped at a ground floor filled with more pictures and displays. A large sign read Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. The name barely registered with Avani before they entered a large exhibit reflecting the US bombing in 1945.
Avani stopped, stunned at the horrifying photographs, video images, and real-life memorabilia.
; Minako froze, eyes wide and staring.
“The morning was like most,” Grandmother explained, “considering our country was in the midst of war. Children went to school, people went to work, and many families with infants and elders remained at home.”
A shattered wall clock on display read 11:02.
“That time marks the precise moment the bomb hit. On the morning of August 9, 1945.”
She led them past photos, illustrations, and artifacts from Nagasaki after the bombing: a water tower with twisted legs that had blasted eight-hundred meters off its foundation to land atop a middle school; melted glass still clutched in the bones of its owner’s hand; a lunchbox with the contents charred inside; a helmet with the victim’s skull still in the liner, and pictures of brick walls with human shadows imprinted on them from the blast.
Minako sank onto a bench.
Bile burned Avani’s throat. She had seen images of Hell depicted in artwork, and heard it described by the pastor at her friend’s church in Texas—lakes of fire, weeping and gnashing teeth, endless pain and suffering. She’d never believed in the invisible, cajoling devil at the center of those tales, a fallen angel set out to trick poor saints into becoming sinners so he could populate his ghastly realm. But she knew without a shred of doubt that devil-sized evil existed in people—real people, like the boys who had killed her father out of fear and hate. People who willfully neglected the poor, sick, and hungry, and people who found ways to create and profit from the hell fires of war.
“Between sixty and eighty thousand people died. An exact number was impossible to determine with so many bodies disintegrated.” The Spirit’s voice was gentle, but her words were pointed. “The impact killed almost half. The rest died over time, from painful burns and injuries, or from radiation poisoning.”
Minako rocked back and forth, eyes trained on the floor at her feet.
The horrors tore at Avani, too, but the Spirit soothed her and continued.
“I was a young woman then,” Grandmother explained. She took Minako’s hand and helped her to her feet. She guided them toward more displays. “My husband and I lived with my parents. He was too ill to serve in Japan’s army, or to work, so he stayed home with our first child. I was pregnant but still teaching at a school four kilometers away.” She paused. “I ran home after the bombing, but nothing remained. I searched through rubble so hot it melted my shoes and scorched my feet. My fingers blistered from lifting pieces of what used to be our home.”
She pressed Avani’s hand against a wall-mounted glass case filled with photos of scorched and mangled bodies, and threadbare articles of clothing that had somehow survived the blast. “I found my husband, his body a charred mass of bone and flesh. His arms held the blackened remains of our two-year-old son. My mother lay nearby. The white lotus comb I had given her was seared to her skull. I never found my father. I never had a chance to say goodbye.”
Hate and anger crept up in Avani like poison vines, and she waited for the same in this Spirit. But an overwhelming compassion flooded through her and sheared off those creepers at their root. The Spirit replaced them with feelings of love and hope and stilled Avani’s mind like a clear pond.
Minako studied the artifacts through tears. Her chin trembled.
“They dropped these first.” Grandmother pointed to a tattered leaflet covered in Japanese text. “Thousands rained down from American airplanes, warning citizens to stop fighting the United States and to flee before we felt the power of this weapon. We read the words but did not understand the meaning. No one could. Even after Hiroshima. These were the world’s first atomic bombs.
“No nation is blameless in war, and no one side is completely right,” she continued. “Japan bore the guilt of many atrocities—at Pearl Harbor and at every camp that held prisoners. But as no nation is blameless in war”—she indicated the room around them—“no war is ever worth this.”
Tears flowed down Minako’s face. When she finally spoke, her voice came as a bare whisper. “I studied these bombings as part of my training. I learned the lethal mix of plutonium and uranium with nuclear fission. But this ...” Her voice cracked. “This is a hell no science should be allowed to create.”
Her grandmother wiped Minako’s cheek. “The radiation sickness took my unborn child,” she said, “but I moved away and eventually remarried. After many tries, I conceived another child—a daughter, your mother. Her name, Sachiko, means child of happiness because she brought joy. I never wanted her, or her children, to know suffering of this kind.”
The Spirit held Minako’s hands and a blast of wisdom surged between them. She lifted her granddaughter’s chin. Their gaze met and her green flecks sparkled in Avani’s eyes
“Maybe now you understand why I could not forgive you when you married an American man—a military man no less, then chose to study this same power that devastated our country, our people. When you started your family, I could not accept your American children carrying my blood.” She indicated the ruins around them. “Not after this.”
The Spirit paused. Her love welled. Avani wondered why until she spoke again.
“I was wrong, Minako. And I ask you to forgive me.”
Minako’s eyes widened. She stumbled back.
Avani jolted, too, but the Spirit’s love flooded her.
Minako wept. “I’m so sorry.” She flung her arms around Avani to hug her grandmother, and their years of hurt and silence swelled like a giant wave that crashed into watery foam against the shore.
The medallion in Avani’s tattoo ignited to handle the surge, and her senses sharpened so she could hear dust settle on the displays, and the distant wall clock tick like thunderclaps. Liam had said that time in Elysium moved differently and meant more. Avani could not have understood this without witnessing this connection—fleeting and infinite, endless and microscopic. Two lifetimes, almost one hundred collective years, merged as though they’d never been apart. Love was, indeed, the purest and most powerful force of all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE ROGUE
Metal clacked to a stop as Aaron pumped the last drop of gas into the SUV, his final errand before returning to the shelter. He winced against the acrid fumes, replaced the nozzle, and walked inside the station’s convenience store to buy a cold bottle of water.
A sick-looking man with gray skin, dull eyes, and coarse black hair stood in back by the cases of drinks. Though he appeared young, his body smelled old and—rotting. Aaron’s new tattoo warmed around his ankle, but a chill gripped his spine. He ignored both and reached to slide a case door open.
You are one of them, a voice spoke, thin and raspy.
Aaron froze. The young man hadn’t moved, and no other customers were around.
I need your help.
Goosebumps erupted. Aaron turned toward the zombie-looking man.
I know you, Aaron Hall. The man’s cracked dry lips never moved. You are the only one who can help me.
Aaron’s knees threatened to give way, and his pulse thumped in his ears like bass drums. “Who are you?”
Speak with your mind. I hear your thoughts.
Aaron shivered and peeked at the stranger’s left ankle, above his sandaled foot. No tattoo.
The voice in his head told Aaron to leave, to run away as fast as he could and never look back. But his tattoo’s response piqued his interest.
Who are you?
A lost Spirit.
He’s not a Vessel.
My Vessel died. I barely survived. This body won’t last much longer. Please. I need to save him and finish my journey, so my soul can go to Elysium.
Elysium. Aaron’s tight shoulders softened at the familiar word. What makes you think I can help?
You bear the mark.
Aaron’s long pants hid his tattoo. He hadn’t shown any sign of the burning. This Spirit must be for real.
Yes, the voice answered. But if you are not ready, I will understand and try to find another before this flesh expires
. The corpse-like man turned to limp off.
Wait.
He stopped.
Aaron’s gut twisted in every direction and his head screamed for him to run, but one body and two souls could die if he left. I haven’t had my first assignment.
The man shuffled closer, like a puppet moving on strings. Help me, and you will complete your first assignment. When we return to the ship, they will know you are ready.
Aaron took comfort in the Spirit’s words, in how they fit the Program. But this one didn’t feel like the other Spirits at the lake. They seemed graceful, luminous—
Free.
The word startled.
Those Spirits were free. I was, too, before the accident.
Aaron would have to be more careful. His thoughts were obviously an open book.
Now I seek redemption from the woman I loved and lost. The Spirit’s voice strengthened. You understand this, having lost such love yourself.
Aaron’s nerves coiled around images of Shellie’s open casket. The booties nestled in her arm.
You lost two at one time, yes? Your wife and ... your daughter.
Aaron lurched at the Spirit’s word. He knew it. He’d known from the moment they told him Shellie was pregnant. Their baby would have been his little girl. Sorrow tore at him again.
The Spirit changed, his voice urgent and persuasive. My journey won’t take us far, Aaron, and you will finish in time. Your Chief, Captain Hugh, and the others will be proud. Only the strongest and most select Vessels can take on a Spirit without the ceremony.
The words sounded right in his ear, and Aaron’s tattoo warmed and glimmered like those on the Vessels at Prism Lake. Even so, his stomach gnawed, and caution screamed in his head. All Vessels feel this way the first time, right? He didn’t remember seeing such angst and trepidation in Link, Avani, or Tal, but maybe the ceremony prevented it.
It grows easier with every Spirit.
The words soothed. Aaron exhaled. What do I do?
