The Spaces Between Us

by Ethan Johnson

  He wasn’t the decorative candle type, but this night proved to be the exception. He looked around for a place to set the candle, and spotted the coaster set. He went to the coffee table and removed a coaster and set it on the center of the table, then put the candle on top. He figured it could double as a drip tray, and it wasn’t like he had lots of company over that was going to leave wet rings on his furniture. He sat on the sofa and contemplated the waxy cylinder, then reached forward to straighten up the wick, unsure as to how to light it, not being a smoker and not keeping matches handy.

  Idiot, he thought. He brought the candle into the kitchen and turned on one of the burners on his gas stove. The blue flame flared up in a ring and he adjusted it to the highest setting. He touched the wick to the flame, waited for the wick to catch fire, and then shut off the burner. Candlelight glowed against his shirt as he carried it back to the coffee table.

  There, that’s better, he thought. He shut off the lights, then sat on the sofa, gazing intently at the swaying flame. The pressure against his forehead hadn’t gone away since he was at work, and now as he watched the candle burn, he felt the pressing feeling intensify. He heard his thought-voice speak again.

  Purity of heart. Purity of thought. Purity of motive.

  Marc nodded, mesmerized by the candle.

  Speak the words.

  He cocked his head. What for? There wasn’t anybody around to hear them.

  Purity of heart. Purity of thought. Purity of motive. Speak the words.

  He sighed and relented. “Purity of heart, purity of thought, purity of motive. Happy now?”

  The flame danced a bit.

  What do you desire most?

  He didn’t think he’d get this opportunity again, but here it was. Agnes, he thought. The flame flickered. The pressing against his forehead was harder still.

  Speak the words.

  “Purity of heart…”

  Speak your desire.

  He looked down and searched for the right words. After two days filled with wrong answers, he didn’t want to squander this opportunity. “I want to see my sister Agnes again. I want her to be safe, I want her to be healthy, I want her to be happy, I want her…” Tears fell from his eyes. He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Purity of heart. Purity of thought. Purity of motive. Speak your desire.

  He shook his head. He knew what he had to say, but he could not give voice to it.

  Turn to the light. Speak your desire to the light. It is the way.

  He looked up and wiped away tears. Since when did he have a spiritual bone in his body? The flame danced and flickered, and not unlike his monitor earlier that day, it seemed exceptionally bright. But unlike his sensory disturbances in the office, here everything seemed inspired, and primal. Something was behind the flame, something ancient. Whatever it was had sacred knowledge, he was sure of it. He had wondered once or twice how belief systems began eons ago, amongst the first humans, and surmised that it had something to do with superstition and a simplistic view of how the world worked. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Speak to the light. It is the way.

  Marc cleared his throat and tried to stiffen his resolve. He would speak the words to the flame. He would speak from his heart. “I want to see my sister Agnes again. I want her to be safe, I want her to be healthy, I want her to be happy, I want her to know that…” His throat tightened, and hot tears flowed down his cheeks again. He wasn’t going to choke this time. “I want her to know that I love her.”

  The flame swayed lazily back and forth. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen. Magic wasn’t real, and in any case, he didn’t know any spells. This was a feel-good exercise, and his mind came up with this ritual to assuage his torrent of thoughts about what was wrong and what to do to fix this. That’s what this was, he reasoned, just a stupid exercise in futility.

  But the pressing against his forehead remained, stronger than ever. He felt his heart open wide, he felt the love that he felt for Agnes but never shared. He felt a warmth permeate his body, starting from his feet and rising to the top of his head. This wasn’t a sensation he had felt before. His family wasn’t particularly touchy-feely, and it wasn’t like he and his siblings said “I love you” with any degree of regularity, which is to say, for as long as he could remember.

  He sat in silence and watched the flame until he felt he could barely stay awake anymore. He leaned forward to blow out the candle, but before he did, he said, “I love you, Agnes.” And with that, he blew the candle out. Grey smoke coiled up and wafted toward the ceiling.

  Marc let out another heavy sigh and got up to get ready for bed. He did his nightly ritual, brushing his teeth, using the toilet, tossing his shirt into the dirty clothes hamper. He snapped off the bathroom light and stepped out into the dark apartment. He swore and flicked a light switch. He took a cursory glance at the living room before turning to his bedroom and crawling into bed for the night.

  He did a double-take.

  Agnes stood in the living room beside the coffee table, wreathed in a thin wisp of smoke and still wearing her tea-stained clothing from the day before, with her knit bag slung over her shoulder. She looked up and Marc saw her sad, sweet smile.

  “I love you too.”

  CHAPTER 14: AGNES, EXPLAINED

  Marc did not speak. Marc could not speak.

  He could not speak because he wanted to scream, and the scream was lodged in his throat, just like other times he had nightmares and tried to cry out for help before being hacked to death by marauders, or a hockey-masked killer, or his Civics teacher, only to be rendered unable to sound the alarm.

  He took the next available action. He stumbled forward, reached out, and laid his hands upon Agnes’s slight shoulders. He felt them against his palms. He squeezed, and he felt resistance. She was in his apartment. Wasn’t she? He pulled her close to him. He hugged her, and felt his bare chest press up against the fabric of her clothing. He felt her hands lightly touch his bare back, and her hair under his chin. Agnes was here. But how?

  Marc released Agnes from his embrace, and took a step backward, unsure if he could let her out of his sight. If this was a dream, it was the most lucid one he’d ever had. But if it was a dream, she’d vanish again. If not during the dream itself, he’d find out he’d dozed off on the sofa and he’d wake up alone, with the candle perilously close to extinguishing itself in a pool of hot wax.

  “Marc?”

  “Uh… yeah?”

  “Could you put a shirt on? You’re making me uncomfortable.”

  He looked down. “Um, yeah, sure.” He went back to the hamper and pulled his shirt back on. He hastily returned to the living room, and Agnes was sitting on the sofa.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He flicked on another light and stared at his wayward sister dumbly. She patted the sofa. “Sit next to me.” He hesitated, like a kicked puppy. She looked at him with her sad smile, and he decided that sitting down would be okay. “I know that this is a lot to process, Marc, and I know that you’re not ready for much of anything I am going to tell you. But you wanted answers, and I promised an explanation.”

  “Um… okay. Am I dreaming, Agnes?”

  Agnes smiled and patted his thigh. “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re… you’re really here? But… how? And where have you been?”

  “You called for me, Marc.”

  “Wait, what? Called for you? I didn’t cast any spells, at least, I don’t think I did.”

  Agnes gestured toward the candle. “The light is the way.”

  He recoiled in horror. “Was… was, uh, that you in my head?”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to explain everything you want to know in the time we have together. For now, it’s best to know that you called for me, and the light is the way.”

  He struggled to form a single complete sentence. So many questions! Which did he want answered most of all?

  “How… did you get here?”
/>   “You called for me.”

  “No, I mean, how did you get here? I flew home yesterday. Did you take another flight?”

  Agnes shook her head. “I don’t fly, Marc.”

  “So, what, the train, then?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Then I’m dreaming. Great. Just really flipping great.”

  She shook her head and patted his thigh once more. “You’re not dreaming, Marc, you just don’t understand the things I know.”

  He leapt from the sofa and paced the floor. “Like what? You’re really freaking me out.”

  Agnes nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry you found out like this. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have done any of this, but it’s not up to me. Things have happened that require me to be more… forthcoming.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “What things?”

  She patted the sofa again. “Please sit.”

  He resisted the invitation. She was right… this was too much to process and she had barely made a dent in explaining the last day and a half. Agnes waited patiently, then patted the sofa again. “Sit please, Marc.”

  He plopped down on the sofa again.

  “How old are you?”

  He snorted. “You know how old I am, Agnes.”

  “Please answer me.”

  “Twenty-nine.” He paused. “Okay, almost. Twenty-eight.”

  “Yes, twenty-eight. And you were born, you were a child, then you became an adult, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “And you’re going to get older, and then one day you’re doing to die, right?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Marc gave a worried look to his sister. “This isn’t some vampire thing, is it?”

  Agnes shook her head. “No, Marc. I just need to you to think about how you’ve thought about everything, starting with how you believe time works.”

  Marc snorted sharply. “So, you’re a time traveler now, is that it? We’re going to go look at dinosaurs after this?”

  “Marc, I need you to be more mindful. Please answer my question.”

  “Yes, fine. You win. I was born, I grew up, and I’ll die someday. The end.”

  “And can you see any point of that timeline, or just everything that has happened up until now?”

  “Just the past, obviously. If I could see the future that would make me psychic.”

  “Perhaps it would. Or you could decide when you live, not just how.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “When was the last time you saw me?”

  “You know that it was yesterday, Agnes, when you hid in your bedroom closet rather than explaining why you passed out and scared the crap out of me.”

  She smiled. “And what was I wearing?”

  “Well, you had on… um, well, what you’re wearing now.”

  “Was there anything special about what I was wearing?”

  Marc wondered if that was a trick question, as Agnes seemed to go out of her way to be nondescript. “No.”

  She cocked her head and smiled. “Nothing at all?”

  He looked her up and down. “No, nothing except the… tea stains.” Agnes grabbed his hand and pressed it to a brown stain on her pant leg. It was still damp. His eyes widened. He pulled his hand away and said, “Ewwww.”

  “How long has it been since you saw me?”

  “I just said, yesterday.”

  She shook her head. “Be specific, Marc. I’m trying to teach you.”

  He looked at the clock on his cable TV box. “Well, it’s about 11 o’clock at night now, and you disappeared around 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon, so… what, 34 hours, give or take?”

  She smiled. “Do I seem as though I’ve been gone for 34 hours?”

  He shook his head.

  “This is the most important question of all: how did I get here?”

  Without missing a beat, Marc answered, “Time machine. In your closet.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a time machine, Marc. If I had, you’d know.”

  “Um, how’s that?”

  “If I used a time machine, I’d need it to go somewhere else, like say, back home tonight. And if that’s what I used, it would be here in your apartment.”

  He glanced at her bag. “It’s in there.”

  “You’re learning. But you emptied out my bag before, and there wasn’t any time machine then, was there?”

  He was unsure of how to answer. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. I mean, uh, well, there was that notebook you took away from me.”

  She slid the notebook out of her knit bag and laid it on the coffee table. “This notebook?”

  He read the neat lettering on the cover: IMAGE ONE. He nodded.

  “Open it.”

  He looked at his sister, then reached down to flip the cover and reveal the first written page underneath.

  CHAPTER 15: THE NOTEBOOK

  How had something so innocuous filled Marc with such dread? There was the notebook itself. It could be found in any office supply section of any supermarket: 120 pages, college ruled, green cover, spiral bound. There was the neat lettering on the center of the cover, in a single line, titling the volume as IMAGE ONE. And when he exposed the first page of the notebook, written in Agnes’s neat cursive, looking as though it were written when she was at least ten years younger, there was an undated entry that began with three familiar words:

  Purity of heart

  He hadn’t read anything that followed just yet, as those three words alone sent a shock through him and curdled his stomach. He leaned back against the sofa, ran his fingers through his hair, and threw his head back and stared up at the ceiling. It was official. He had gone completely insane. Now was the time to wake up from this nightmare as his only saving grace. Failing that, he’d go quietly… he’d look up places to check himself in and remove himself from society.

  Agnes spoke softly. “You’ve seen these words before.” Marc groaned. She leaned forward and read the remainder of the entry. “Purity of thought.” He groaned louder. “Purity of motive.”

  He howled. “Enough! Stop it, Agnes, just stop it! I’m not crazy. None of this is happening. I’m going to wake up now, and I’ll be in my bed.”

  She patted his thigh again. “You’re not dreaming, and you’re not crazy. You’re my brother, and you’ve heard the voice.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides and snapped his attention to Agnes. “What voice?”

  She reached over and tapped the notebook. “When I wrote this, I was hearing a voice in my head, over and over. It wasn’t another person. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was the voice I normally think with, which is to say, no voice at all.” Marc’s eyes widened. She gave him a sad smile again. “You heard it too.”

  Marc nodded.

  “When?”

  “Um… uh, today.”

  Agnes pitched forward a little, toward her brother. “Marc, this is important. What were you doing when you heard these things?”

  He looked up, as if to remember something that happened in the third grade. “I, uh, was thinking about you, and what was wrong, and where you had gone.”

  Agnes raised her eyebrows. “And then…?”

  “I heard… something. Like you said, it wasn’t another person’s voice, it was my thinking voice. And it started to repeat the same things over and over.”

  “Did the... voice... say anything else?”

  He winced. “Yeah, it asked me what I desired the most, and I said ‘answers’.”

  “And did it give you any answers?”

  He shook his head. “No, it said I wasn’t ready for answers.”

  She frowned. “Hm.”

  “‘Hm’, what?”

  “When it spoke to me, it asked me what I desired the most as well.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I asked to know my purpose.”

  “And what did, uh… it say?”

  “It said, ‘you will light the way.’”
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br />   Marc arched his eyebrows. “The way to what?”

  Agnes nodded in the direction of the cable box clock. “You’ve got work in the morning.”

  He reached out and grabbed her thigh. “I don’t care. The way to what?”

  She patted his hand. “Marc, the voice told you three things for a reason. It told you everything you ever need to know, better than anything I could ever say. At first, I didn’t understand, but over time, as I learned, I saw the truth was plainly in front of me all along. I began to understand how far removed from the way we have all become.”

  Marc leapt to his feet. “Oh, I get it, you’re some kind of religious nut now.”

  “Not as you have been conditioned to think of it. I will say this: there is no religion higher than truth.”

  Marc sneered. “As what is the truth, Saint Agnes?”

  Agnes leaned forward, closed her notebook, and pulled it onto her lap. Then she reached up over her shoulder and draped a throw blanket over her legs. She held on to the top corners and looked up at her brother with an impassive expression. “With this blanket, I return home.”

  “What?”

  She tossed the remainder of the blanket up over her head, and in an instant, it fell to the sofa with nothing noticeably underneath.

  “Agnes! Agnes!” Marc rushed forward and pulled the blanket away. Nothing but his scratchy sofa cushion. He ran his hands all over the sofa, then pulled off the cushions, but found no sign of Agnes.

  “Oh, come on!”

  CHAPTER 16: TUESDAY

  Tuesday morning, Gracie awoke to a ray of sunlight striking her eyes. She hadn’t pulled the curtains entirely closed the night before, and she muttered curses as she sat up and kicked her legs over the side of the bed.