by Blair Drake
She would potentially burn out her talisman. That wasn’t the answer either. She needed to get to the bottom of this. Her mother was right; it was holding her back. She created the proper portal and stepped through. It closed behind her. She spun around in shock. “I left Gideon behind.” She instinctively reached up to see if Winter was okay. He was still curled up in her neck.
That’s when she realized she’d also come through the portal without a talisman. She shoved her fingers into her pockets and searched, but they were empty. Of course, she left her talisman on the headmaster’s desk. She held out her bare hands and stared at them. She swallowed hard and looked at Luke in shock. He studied her, not understanding what the problem was. But then, why would he? He didn’t know anything about her.
She tried to focus on the issue at hand, just in case this world faded away with her reserves. “You walked away. You never said goodbye. You never contacted me again. You never answered my texts. You disappeared. I thought you cared.”
He came around the desk and reached for her, but his hands went right through hers. She stared. “I don’t get how this works.”
“But you will, you really will. This is a gift we have right now,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t know how long you can stay here, but surely you understand now what happened a year ago.”
She frowned. “Were you just like me? Were you part of a group on a quest?”
He nodded. “And I was part of the group that lost somebody.”
She gasped. “Oh, no.”
He nodded sadly. “I spent the last year trying to figure out how to get back in there and help him.”
“Can’t you?” she asked. “I’ve seen him, you know.”
His face went completely blank for a moment, but then his questions burst out. “How? Where?”
“It’s hard to explain, but it’s like he’s always there in my peripheral vision, maybe like he’s wavering through the dimension?” she asked, scrunching her face up in confusion. “I said I don’t understand how this works. I mean, I’ve only made portals for a day, maybe a little longer. I don’t know. I’ve lost all sense of time. When I was tossed into this, I ended up in some icy tundra all alone.”
He nodded. “That’s your lesson.”
This time it was her turn for her jaw to drop. “I’ve been hearing that same refrain over and over.” She shook her head. “Was that you?”
He winced and stared down at his hands. “Yes. That was me.”
She didn’t know what to say. What could she say, except “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He gave her a sideways glance and muttered, “Why didn’t you recognize my voice?”
Her mind went blank. “Because sounds don’t come across through the gap in the dimensions the same. Because even now you sound different – older,” she hazarded a guess, then added, “Because I hadn’t heard from you for over a year. Because you walked away and wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Sorry if you weren’t the first person who came to mind when I heard a voice in my head,” she said sarcastically. She tried to stop herself. This wasn’t productive. She reached up and rubbed her temple. “Look. I have to try and heal things to get back to where I belong.”
“So you came here to figure out why I walked away?” he asked, his tone dry. He shook his head and waved around the room. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I was here the last year. But once I finished my quest, I moved on. The same as you will. You will not be able to go back. When you leave, you’re gone. You can’t communicate with those you leave behind.”
She stared at him in shock. “What? Why?”
“Let me amend that,” he said, his tone turning harsh. “You can only go back and communicate with those people you left behind if they are willing to communicate with you.”
She stared at him wordlessly, hearing echoes of her mother’s words.
“In other words, because you wouldn’t talk to me, I couldn’t talk to you? So, who is it that slammed the door on whom? Which one of us wouldn’t say goodbye, and which one of us walked away and wouldn’t see the other?”
He turned and walked back to his desk, sitting down hard. “So, don’t come here expecting an apology from me. I spent the last year waiting for you to grow enough to hear me.”
She stared at him in shock. It never occurred to her he’d been trying to reach her—how unfair. Pissed, she snapped, “You moved up, moved on, gained abilities I couldn’t even comprehend,” she said slowly. “I was stuck behind, dealing with the only methods of communication I knew, and yet you’re upset with me?”
There was a spare chair across from his desk. Her knees were suddenly weak, so she sat down and thought about the waste of the last year. “I thought of you every single day. I tried to find out what happened, I talked the teachers, the other students. I did everything I could short of bawling my eyes out and begging Hettie to tell me what happened to you. And you’re mad at me. I’m…” words failed her.
He leaned forward, his tone apologetic. “In the beginning, no. I didn’t expect that at all. I was so sure I could be strong enough to find a way to communicate with you, that I could get you to sit up and take notice because of the bond we had. But I couldn’t seem to get through to you. I know it’s not fair to blame you. For the longest time, I blamed myself. It just seemed everything I tried, everything I did, I could only stand there and watch for months, every day, several times a day. Every evening, before you went to sleep, all I could do was whisper to you, drop a kiss in the air just above your cheeks.” He stared down at his hand as if remembering times gone by.
“I knew your challenge would be coming soon. I was terrified for you. It was deadly when I did mine.” He turned to stare out the window. “I’m still not dealing very well with the loss of Trace. He was a friend of mind. You knew him, you know. Losing him was a failure we could never seem to make right.”
“But again, it wasn’t your fault,” she said, overwhelmed by what he was saying. That’s he’d been looking over her all this time, caring for her even though she hadn’t known it. He’d not asked for anything in return, accepting that she’d make to him when she was ready. And she had – finally.
She watched the regret, the guilt cross and settle on his face. “It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated. “I thought I recognized him but not really. I remembered him as maybe being your friend, one of the older members of the school, but I didn’t have much to do with your friends,” she admitted. “I only saw you.”
“Now that’s good to hear.”
He smiled tenderly, her heart melting as it always had. They’d connected instantly back in the beginning and that was no different now. She’d been bereft without him. And apparently so had he. She refocused on his words.
“After it happened, I couldn’t stop wondering if I could have done something different. There are no easy answers. We’ve held meetings all year, trying to figure out how to fix it. We didn’t know how it happened, why it happened, so we were terrified of it happening again.”
She turned to glance around. “Was it the darkness?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know. Of course, the easy answer is to blame the darkness. Something caused it to shift, to become an encroaching darkness. It was the one oddity that couldn’t be explained away, the one thing from before that couldn’t be added to the equation. Once it changed, there was no way to understand just how or what effect it might have as we can see it is powerful.”
“It wasn’t there when you had your quest?”
He shook his head. “No, I never saw it myself.”
In spite of herself, she had to ask, “What was your ability?”
He snorted. “One that’s foolish, considering the problem right now between us. It’s communication. That’s how we’re talking now without physical contact. I know many different languages in the universe, including dead languages.” He chuckled. “Even this type of language.” He made an odd squeaking sound. Winter responded from her neck.
“You
can talk to the animals, and they can understand you? That’s unbelievable!” she cried out in delight. “You know I can open portals?”
“And you’re doing a good job of it. You walked into my office as if it were nothing.”
“Oh, it’s definitely something and not easy. I’m caught in this 2-D world, and I can’t get back to the normal world.”
He cleared his throat gently and gave her a soft smile. “And yet, I’m not part of the 2-D world.”
The truth settled inside like a lead pill. All she could do was stare up at him. “But …” She fell silent. She’d been to visit her mother, her father, and Hettie. She glanced around. “Every time I try to go back, I can’t.”
“That’s different. That’s because you haven’t completed the quest. When you do that, you can return.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what the quest is.”
“How’s your portal-making coming along?” he asked with a tilt of his lips. His gaze warmed as he studied her. “By the way, it’s lovely to see you again.”
She blushed, her heart warming. He’d always had that effect on her. “What happened to us this last year?” she asked. “I felt like I lost everything when you didn’t come back.”
He reached across the desk and stretched out an arm.
That’s when she realized she hadn’t had to touch him to open the connection. Because of him… Would she ever understand this craziness? Or was it Luke maintaining the communication. She stood and walked over. Instead of grabbing his arm, she came around the desk and plunked herself in his lap and fell through him to the chair. She wrapped her arms around his neck and realized that, although he was substantial, he wasn’t solid enough for her to hold. He chuckled, but his arms came around her and held her close. Talk about a blending of bodies… and hearts. She leaned back. “You know what a mind-bender all this is?”
He nodded, his gaze turning serious. But she could see the truth in his eyes. Finally understanding what he must’ve gone through himself, she pushed the bangs off her forehead and rested her cheek against his. “I can’t imagine what you went through alone.” She sighed. “I wish I’d been there with you. I wish you’d been there with me. I know you were but I didn’t know it.”
“I wish you were too. You don’t realize it, but you’re doing very well. I’m two years older than you, and you’re only one year behind me.”
“Even though I only have one parent who’s magical?” she said with a laugh.
He turned and smiled, his gaze slightly shuttered. “So you know that?”
She grinned. “I know my mother’s alive, and I know she is one of the voices in my head.”
Surprise lit up his gaze, and he said in wonder, “Wow, you’ve really come a long way.”
She shook her head. “And yet I’m still not able to return home.”
“Depending on what your emotional lesson is, that’s stopping you from reaching your full potential,” he said. “Time is an issue, but also it’s very much how you look at things. In your case, you’ve slammed a lot of doors closed. If you want to create portals, you have to unlock those doors.”
She stared at him and then said slowly, “But are you sure about that in my case? Or was that your experience?”
He settled back with a half-smile and tilted his head in agreement. “You’re right. The experience is completely different for everybody. Some have no emotional attachments with their quests. Some have no lessons to learn. For them it’s just mastery of a skill. The experience is completely different for every one of us.”
“So mine is because I closed doors on so many aspects of my life? I have to learn to open them so I can be free to open doorways to other places or worlds? I have to know where every door goes to?” It sounded more profound than she thought possible. It also felt right.
“Exactly. You’re right on track.”
“It’s all because of my school pin, my talisman. Except the lights on it are going out one by one. Did that happen to yours?”
He shrugged. “Mine had no lights.” He winced. “Then again, I broke mine.”
“Ouch. That couldn’t have been good.” She thought about what he said, then nodded. “That confirms what I was thinking about the circle of lights mimicking the portals I create. But I’m down to only three, maybe four, lights left. And I’m afraid the darkness is getting closer every time a light goes out.”
He bolted to his feet, leaving her sitting on the chair with a sensation of him having walked right through her physical body leaving her feeling cold, creepy, and yet warm at the same time. She gave a mock shudder. “Please don’t do that again.”
He twisted to look back at her. “I’ll try not to, but that darkness is something to be very wary of.”
She nodded. “I got that. It follows me everywhere.”
He looked at her quizzically again. “But there’s no darkness here.”
She stared at him in surprise, got off the chair, and walked to the window. Outside was nothing but sunshine and light. As a matter-of-fact, it was like a white fog was all around. She couldn’t see trees or buildings. She turned slowly and asked, “Where are we?”
His lips tilted to the side. “I can’t exactly explain it. As soon as you finish your quest, you will join us here.”
“Then I better finish it fast because there is a good chance I may not get here.”
He rushed to her side, reaching out to grab her hands. She watched the two forms blend together as one. “You have to go back. You have to finish this. We don’t have a clue what that darkness is all about, but I lost one friend. I can’t lose another.” He gave her a tiny smile, leaned forward, and kissed her on the forehead. “Now go home.”
And just like that, she found herself back in the headmaster’s office. She turned around and found no sign of him. “That’s not fair. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.”
His voice whispered in her mind. “Now that you’ve opened the door, there is no goodbye. We will always be a part of each other. But I want you with me forever, not lost in some kind of wormhole nobody understands.”
“Wormhole?” she said out loud, not liking the sound of that. She walked over to the headmaster’s bookshelves behind the desk and spotted a book on wormholes on the right-hand side.
She reached for the book quickly before anyone understood what she was planning and tried to stop her.
The bolt of energy picked her up off her feet and slammed her against the floor on the other side of the room as energy flowed through her.
Visions and scientific data filled her mind, and she learned about wormholes, more than she could possibly want to know. And yes, some of it made sense, but a lot of it didn’t. She wasn’t even sure what to do with the information she’d just learned. At least now she understood she was already making small wormholes.
“Luke, do you know what the missing student’s ability was, what his challenge was?”
“Not all of it, but it had to do with portals.”
She closed her eyes. “Shit.” That would explain why she was seeing him, why the darkness was after her. Maybe it had a taste for wormholes after all.
Chapter 21
As soon as she sat up from her latest bolt of transference learning, her gaze landed on Gideon, sitting on the headmaster’s desk beside her talisman. To know both waited for her filled her with relief. Instinctively, she reached for Winter. He squeaked in her ear, but he sounded more like he was asking if she was okay rather than being hurt himself. She patted him reassuringly, then reached for the cat.
She scooped Gideon up and squeezed him tightly. From where she stood, she could see only three lights left on her talisman, and one of those was fading. Hopefully she’d learned enough. She was out of time.
Now if only she understood what the darkness was looking for. If it waited for an opportunity to snag her, she figured it would either try when the talisman ran out of lights or while she was in transit via a portal. It made sense as she would be at her weakest
then. The transit didn’t last long, but it was possible it just didn’t appear to take a long time, but it was long enough for the darkness to reach out and grab her.
That was a horrifying thought.
She closed her eyes and assessed how she felt. She felt strong, vital, free. Finding out all these truths left her with a sense of identity and self-confidence she hadn’t expected. It was all lovely but still didn’t keep the fear at bay. Her particular challenge was to deal with the doors she closed so she might build and open new ones—portals in this case.
The lesson made so much sense now.
No reason why she shouldn’t be able to go home now. But to try and fail would mean she’d used up one of her lights for nothing.
Then she remembered the portal she opened to talk to Luke.
She didn’t have the talisman with her then. And although one light had gone down, she hadn’t lost more. She lifted the Talisman off the cigar box on the headmaster’s desk and said, “If you’re not needed to travel through a portal to see Luke, even though I didn’t physically cross, then do I need you at all, or can I leave you here?”
A shocked cry rang out in her mind.
She snorted. “Okay, I’ll take that as a no.”
“It’s there to help keep you grounded,” her mother said urgently. “Keep it with you.”
“I didn’t need it when I when to visit Luke though.”
“No. You were standing strong on your own.”
“So maybe my talisman is making me weak.” She could see her mother shaking her head in her mind’s eye.
“No, that’s not how it works.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t explain why I made the crossing without the talisman, but it still lost power.”
“You made two crossings, and it only lost you one light.”
“That still doesn’t make any sense,” she argued.
“I think this is a case of trusting you can do this. You have the love and support you need to go home,” Luke piped up. “But preferably right away please, so I know you’re safe and sound where you belong.”
