And now she was gone. He had enough of the Seeker ability to know that Rosalie’s essence had not come back. His despair at this knowledge caused his face to harden almost into immobility, as if he was afraid that if he gave vent to his feelings, something would break.
Barbara came in softly, standing just inside the door for a minute to study the face in profile. She knew how he felt about Rosalie, and she didn’t have to be a Seeker to know it. Being a woman of wide experience, she saw the signs in his added brusqueness with the girl, and in the abstraction when she wasn’t around. But she had never discussed it with him. Brandon had a deep well of emotions that he seldom shared, even with Meg whom he looked upon as his own mother. He would resent anyone who pried into this most private of sanctums, no matter how well-intentioned.
Barbara walked further into the room, and Brandon faced her. He was expressionless as always, but his dark eyes seemed darker, and Barbara recognized the pain he was not aware he was showing. Her heart went out to him, but she kept her voice neutral.
“How is she?”
Brandon shrugged. “No change.”
“Meg said she needed a jolt to wake her up,” Barbara said, looking down at Rosalie’s peaceful face.
“Like an electric shock?” he asked, clearly sceptical.
“Well,” Barbara temporized, “maybe not anything so crude. I think she’s still drifting somewhere, maybe hurt, trying to recover. She may have lost her anchor to her mind when what Cole calls a dark light knocked her loose. She needs to find her anchor.”
“How can we help her do that?”
Barbara shrugged. “I don’t know. She needs something to come back to. Sometimes the most obvious solutions escape our notice because we get caught up in complex thinking.”
She lapsed into silence, and after a moment, laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder before walking out. She hoped she had given him the nudge he needed to see what he needed to do.
Brandon looked down at Rosalie, his gaze lingering on her slightly-parted pale lips, and remembered the tingle he’d felt when she had leaned towards him in the car. Her lips had been rosy then, and he had been drawn to her as irresistibly as a hooked fish being reeled in. He had been beyond words then, choking on the feelings that clogged his throat. But not anymore.
He began to talk.
The young girl watched the sun glinting off the clear stream, smelling the wild flowers and grass that grew around her. It was a lovely morning, and a breeze playfully lifted her hair from her nape, cooling it deliciously. She gave a small sigh, and it was tinged with sadness, but she didn’t know what she was sad about.
She no longer remembered who she was.
She opened her eyes this morning, and the first thing she saw was a butterfly hovering over a yellow flower. She smiled at the beauty of the iridescent wings and the grace of the butterfly as it tasted the nectar waiting for it. She sat up, but the butterfly continued to hover unconcernedly, as if knowing no harm could come to it.
She had wandered all over this wonder land and had come upon the spring, and had sat there for hours. The sun never moved from its position.
She was idly swishing a finger in the water, watching the waves ripple outward when she became aware of a sound.
It was faint, like the rustling of the leaves of trees in the wind, but it grew stronger. She listened intently, the water drying on her finger unheeded. Before long, she was sure it was a voice. It was a human voice, and it was saying something.
She strained to understand what the voice was saying, but it ran into each other into an unintelligible murmur. She sat up and made towards what she thought was the direction of the voice, and barely noticed that her surroundings had begun to waver and shimmer. Her whole focus was in discerning what the voice was saying.
The voice struck a chord in her being, and she strained even harder to understand. Finally, the murmur solidified into distinct syllables, and they formed a pattern over and over again.
“Rosalie, come back to me.”
She felt confusion washing over her. It took her some time, but the insistence and quiet desperation in that voice finally released understanding. For the first time, she realized that she had been lost. It was a beautiful, peaceful world, but it wasn’t real and she didn’t belong here. She had to get back.
She had to get back to that voice.
She blinked.
Brandon was leaned in close to her ear, tendrils of her hair wafting and tickling his face every time he spoke. He had been patiently speaking those five words for an hour, his eyes closed in concentration, when he felt her move. His eyes flew open and he was looking straight into her wondering eyes.
Rosalie saw a mixture of emotions – relief, joy, wonder, gratitude - in Brandon’s face which he made no effort to hide from her, and she smiled. With no hesitation at all, he kissed her. It was still a gentle kiss, but it was also urgent, and her lips quivered in response.
Brandon released her reluctantly, and took her hand instead. “You can back,” he said simply.
Rosalie swallowed, her parched throat making her voice husky. “There was this voice buzzing in my ear, it was annoying,” she joked weakly, her hand squeezing back. They looked at each other and smiled, and everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
Rosalie wished she didn’t have to go home, but she reluctantly agreed that she had to resume as normal a life as she could.
The Foster family would remain in Stronghold as they tried to rebuild the lives that had been radically altered 16 years ago, and Rosalie had no part in that.
She had told Cole about the woman at the stake, and he understood at once. He had immediately made arrangements for an emergency meeting with the elders to discuss the ramifications of the possession for Seekers, which was a new wrinkle in the convoluted channels of mind travel. He promised to be in touch soon to arrange for a conference with the council.
In the meantime, she was packing her bags for the trip back home. She took her time, not wanting to leave. Her connection with Justin had been severed, and she thought that it may have been a lifeline that Justin had unconsciously forged in his struggle to get free of the alien presence in his mind. He was a powerful Seeker, but right now he was still growing into his mind, and now and then lapsed into the child he had been when he had been taken.
Her link with Brandon, however, had become even stronger in the week they spent in Eden. They talked about themselves, and their love for each other, and Rosalie marvelled at the hidden depths of her erstwhile stone-faced trainer. With her, Brandon dropped his guard, which made her feel fiercely protective of this unexpectedly vulnerable man.
He seemed troubled as they prepared to go back to Stronghold, and Rosalie had taken him aside.
“What is it?” she asked, searching his face.
He played with her fingers as was his habit, and his warmth still made her feel tingly, but she kept her mind on finding out what was worrying him. Finally, he blurted out, “You’re so young! What if you change your mind?”
Rosalie laughed. “Quoth graybeard!” He looked a little hurt, making him seem younger all at once. “What if you change your mind?”
He looked so comically affronted that she laughed again, capturing his restless fingers in hers. She fixed him with a firm stare, “I won’t change my mind.” What he saw in her face seemed to reassure him, and he began to look happier.
But now it was Rosalie who was feeling troubled. She wanted to stay with Brandon but knew that society would frown at that because of her age. She sighed as she finally zipped up her bag and made her way downstairs with lagging footsteps. Brandon was waiting for her.
“Are you bringing me home?” she asked hopefully, handing him her bag. He grinned, nodding, and her heart suddenly felt lighter. She would savor the four-hour trip for all it was worth, and let matters take its course. After all, she had a whole future with Brandon ahead of her.
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