Leitheia smiled slightly. “I can tell all of that, yes. But there is a price.”
“How much?”
“No, not money,” Leitheia said, her voice sharp with indignation. “I would not be so mundane. I have no use for money.”
“Everyone has use for money,” Dhara argued.
Kean pressed her fingers, warning her not to press the point. “Leitheia doesn’t. The way we will pay her is in power.”
“Power…”
Leitheia waved a hand in front of her. “I am two hundred forty-three years old, my dear. Without the power that I am paid from my sessions, like this one, I would have been long dead.”
Dhara’s disbelief was written all over her face, and Kean could only hope that Leitheia was willing to be patient. Though Leitheia was a family friend and had worked with his father a number of times, she was also a well-respected, honorable woman of great power and pull in the spirit world. She did not tolerate disrespect, and she had no need to help Dhara if she sensed that Dhara was not fully convinced of her ability.
“I am going to help you for Kean’s sake,” Leitheia told Dhara, with no small amount of terseness in her voice. “But only if you will accept gratefully.”
“I don’t understand how I’m supposed to pay you,” Dhara said, looking to Kean for help. “I don’t have any power. Not the kind in your…world. I only know about science. Disease. The human body and how it works. That’s my life.”
Leitheia waved her hand again, as though erasing Dhara’s words. “That is not your life. It is your profession. There is a difference, and if there is not, then you have problems far greater than I can ever assist you with. You pay me with your life force, my dear. It’s a small amount for you, but it buys me time. I live from year to year on borrowed life force.”
Kean knew without a doubt that Dhara was on the verge of running straight out of the front door and back into the storm, which she would gladly have faced rather than dealing with Leitheia. He berated himself for not better preparing her, but there was little that he could do about that now. “I’ll pay you, Leitheia.”
“No,” the mystic said fiercely. “You have a shortened lifespan already.”
“What?” Dhara looked at Kean, her brow knit. “Why? Are you sick?”
“No,” he said, lacing their fingers together. “It’s part of what I am. Dhara, what Leitheia needs may shorten your lifespan by a few months. A few weeks. It is miniscule. She never takes more than what she has to. You can trust her. I would never—ever—put you in danger. You know that.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Dhara whispered, her eyes wide and luminous as she looked up at him, clutching his hand.
He tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Trust me?”
She nodded slowly, and Kean turned to Leitheia, nodding at her. “We’ll pay the price. But spare her, won’t you? In honor of my father and your friendship with him.”
“A few weeks,” Leitheia agreed. “For your father. But she has to let her guard down.”
“You’re both talking about me like I’m not here,” Dhara complained, looking between the two. “Look, I know that I seem nervous, but this is about me. It’s my life that’s being affected. I have a right to be cautious, don’t I?”
Leitheia said nothing in response, but Kean stroked his thumb along hers soothingly, nodding. “Of course. Just try to relax. Close your eyes, and let Leitheia read you.”
“It’s already begun,” Leitheia said, as Dhara tried to follow Kean’s instructions and relax, shaking out her shoulders. “The moment she walked in, I could sense the disturbance within her. The journey I’m going to have to take her on is not pleasant, but it will give her the answers that she needs. You have to be prepared. Can you suffer for your answers?”
Kean looked at Dhara, watching the fear and determination war in her expression.
“I’ll be fine,” Dhara said. But then she twitched, as though flinching away from an unseen irritant. “What was that?”
“It’s my energy, infiltrating yours,” Leitheia said, her eyes still closed. “It’s our minds joining.”
Kean found that he was holding his breath, as though what was happening to Dhara was happening to him too. He wished that he could stand in for her, or that there was another way—one that would be more suitable to her scientific leanings. But Leitheia was the best in the mystic realm, and she would be able to tell them what they needed to know more quickly than anyone else could. More thoroughly than any other method they might employ.
He hadn’t told Dhara what this would entail, because he had known that she would refuse, and he couldn’t let her do that. When he had seen her that morning, writhing on the floor of her house, possessed by a power that was outside of his control, he had known that he would do anything to help rid her of the force that, if left unchecked, would eventually kill her. The fire had been lapping at the floorboards around her, just starting to get out of control. It would leave permanent scars on the house, but it didn’t have to leave scars on her. Nothing ever would, as long as he was alive to protect her.
And he would protect her. But as he watched Leitheia’s energy invade and overtake Dhara’s, as he watched Dhara begin to shake with the impact of the joining, as he saw her dusky skin go pale and her eyes roll back in her head, he wished with all of his might that there had been some better way to protect her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dhara
It was the strangest sensation. Like being submerged underwater, but the water was hot and burned, like fire, but not as strong. It wasn’t going to kill her; it was only going to hurt her. It was only going to sap her energy and leave her limp and vulnerable to any force that might try to penetrate her. Dhara could assess this from afar, as though the body experiencing the sensation wasn’t actually hers. In fact, as she sat there and thought about it, her consciousness seemed to drift upward, settling in the far corner of the room, high up, near the ceiling, watching the physical version of herself sit on the cushion, shaking, her hand trapped in Kean’s.
From such a position, she could watch with an almost clinical air as her body endured some kind of terrible force that seemed to overtake her, knocking her prone in front of Leitheia. On some level, she was perturbed, but she was also curious. What was happening to her? What would Leitheia find?
She didn’t have to wait long for her answer. Almost as soon as the thought had occurred to her conscious, mental self, she was thrown back to a time that she instinctively knew was many years ago. She was alone, cold, scared, and angry, her one thought that she had to find her parents before it was too late.
And then Dhara saw herself. Not her adult self, but what she had looked like as a child. The version of Dhara scurrying through an empty, dark street could have been no more than six or seven years old. She was poorly dressed, her slight form shivering in the cold night air, and she looked terrified, with eyes far too big for her face and hair that hung in matted strings down her back.
It was her face, but she had no memory of that night. She had grown up in New Delhi, amongst the modern skyscrapers, the beautiful professional people, and the same modern conveniences that she had here in America. This black alley had been no part of her childhood, and she couldn’t understand what her seven-year-old self was doing there now, running, undoubtedly, from or toward danger.
Young Dhara ran faster, taking corners too quickly, her bare feet sliding along the grungy pathways and making her stumble and fall. Her knees were dirty and her palms were scraped, but she picked herself back up, running faster.
And then the scene changed. There was a room—a small one, the walls covered in tapestries with gaudy colors and patterns that were designed to hide the cheapness of the fabric. The floor was thatched, and there were only benches to sit on, one table pushed up against a far wall. The table was empty, and the people who sat around it were morose, angry, and intimidating.
There was her mother—but a different woman from whom sh
e remembered. Her mother had always bene poised and sophisticated, proud of her family and herself for all the successes in their lives. And there was her father, but a poor, tired, haggard version of the upstanding businessman whom Dhara remembered. The other people, she didn’t recognize, but then her seven-year-old self appeared in the doorway, out of breath, terrified, and desperate.
In her native Hindi, the small child threw herself down on the ground. “Mother, please! Please, do not make me go back! Please! I will be good. I promise to be good.”
The child’s distress was certainly distracting, but as Dhara watched from her spot above the world, what she noticed most was that the child was prostrating herself in front of a woman whom Dhara didn’t recognize—not the woman she knew as her mother.
The woman kicked at the child, knocking her away as she yelled back at her in Hindi. “Go away, you animal. I don’t want your tears.”
“Mother, please!”
The conversation continued, but Dhara couldn’t follow it. She could only stare at the child version of herself, sobbing and pleading with a woman who was not her mother while the woman she knew to be her mother watched impassively from the sidelines. She didn’t understand where the scene was taking place or why she was there. She would remember such a night—surely it would be etched in her mind forever—and yet she knew she had never seen this scene unfold before.
Her heart ached for her young self, and she wanted to reach out and comfort the child, but she had no form or body. She had no control over any of it. She could only hover and watch as more shouting ensued, the adults now becoming angry with each other. Her seven-year-oldself tried to scurry away, but she was yanked up by her hair and thrown back to the ground.
An anger boiled up in Dhara as she watched, an anger so strong that it seemed to take on a life of its own. Her power seemed suddenly tangible and all-consuming, and when her younger self took a blow to the stomach for crying too loudly, the anger erupted. Flames leaped out of Dhara, burning the scene in front of her—the house, the dirty alleyway, the people she knew but did not recognize in those forms. All of it burned in front of her eyes, the pain of the fire searing through Dhara’s veins as she shuddered above them, watching almost helplessly as it all burned from her own doing.
When the flames cleared and she opened her eyes, Dhara was staring up at the ceiling in Leitheia’s forest hut, her chest heaving with effort, her heart racing, and her entire body as exhausted and achy as if she had just been in a fight. Her physical pain was nothing in comparison to the grief that overwhelmed her, and as she lay there, everything she thought she knew in chaos in her head, Dhara began to sob.
She sobbed for what she had just witnessed, for the emotions that it had stirred in her, and for the little girl who had been so scared. But mostly she sobbed for reasons she didn’t understand at all—years and years of emotions that had been bottled up inside of her came pouring out in a downpour as torrential as the one outside. Powerless to stop it, she gave herself over to the feelings, and when Kean’s arms moved around her, she leaned against his chest, letting him wrap her up in his warmth and safety.
It was nice to be held in his arms, but it did little to stem the sorrow. She didn’t know how long she cried, but eventually she did begin to run out of tears. Eventually, the shaking eased. Eventually, the flush of grief left her skin, and then she could begin to catch her breath, her fingers curled in the fabric of Kean’s shirt as he rubbed her back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, stroking his hand up into her hair and smoothing it back from her damp face. “I’m so sorry, honey. There was no other way. We had to see what was underneath—where all of this began.”
“It wasn’t true,” Dhara whispered. “I saw me, but that wasn’t me. I never lived that. That never happened to me. I had a life in New Delhi. My family—they were good parents. Kind. Loving. I went to school, and I played outside, and I ate at restaurants. I was normal. I wasn’t that girl. Those weren’t my parents.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear, stroking her cheek without arguing with her. He was only offering comfort, but she couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t lie there and let him think that what she had seen had really happened. Without warning, she pushed away from him, scrambling to her feet.
“You’re not a truth teller,” Dhara shouted at Leitheia. “Garland of truth? That’s bullshit. You’re a liar. You’re a fraud. You’re a—”
“Dhara!” Kean was on his feet too, standing behind her, trying to pull her back to him so he could make her be quiet.
She pushed him off, advancing on Leitheia with every intent to punish the woman for what she had done. How dare she twist Dhara’s childhood and show her things that she knew had ever happened? The woman had taken advantage of her vulnerability and used some cheap party trick to plant images in Dhara’s mind that she knew would mess with her psyche.
Dhara wasn’t going to stand for it. She wasn’t going to stand for any of it anymore. She was taking her life back—it was hers, damn it! She knew what her life had been like. She knew how hard she had worked for what she had. She knew how much she loved her parents and how much they loved her. She had just—just—
When did you last speak to your parents?
The question infiltrated her thoughts, like it wasn’t her own. It wasn’t her voice in her head, and she reeled backward, halting her advance on Leitheia and spinning around to see who had spoken to her.
What is your mother’s name?
Another question that inspired terror. Why was it such a hard question? Dhara knew her mother’s name! Of course, she did. What child didn’t know the name of the woman who had raised her up into the person she had become? The woman whom she called for advice all the time? The woman who was so proud of her that she …
Do you have anything from your parents?
It was Leitheia’s voice in her head, Dhara suddenly realized. She was standing in the woman’s living room, Kean just inches behind her, not touching her but ready to grab her if she panicked again. And in front of her, the wizened old woman looked up at her.
It was the expression on Leitheia’s face that made it all become real for Dhara. It was an expression of pure, sincere, complete sympathy. Every line in the woman’s face, the downturn of her lips, the look in her eyes—all of it showed compassion and care. There was no malice. No fraud. No ill intent.
There was truth and connection, and Dhara sank to her knees, burying her head in her hands as she rocked back and forth, trying to keep herself safe.
She knew nothing about her family, she realized. She couldn’t produce names. Dates. Where did they live? What did her father do? When had she last talked to him? Had they ever come out to visit her?
None of that information was in her memory banks, and the few memories that she did have were like a mirage.
Was it possible that what Leitheia had seen her was her truth and that her entire life had been a lie?
Dhara didn’t know how it was possible, but nothing in her life now seemed possible. If she could believe in ghosts and spirits and mystics and creatures who—whatever they were—could fly through the air, then was it such a stretch to imagine that some force had altered her memory and her perceptions of herself? Had she always been haunted and never known it? Was she breaking through some sort of fourth wall that she had never known existed?
Any of it was possible. The only thing that was certain was that nothing would ever be the same.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kean
He closed the door on the bedroom in Leitheia’s tiny home, reluctant to put a wall between Dhara and himself, but also knowing that she needed quiet and rest in the aftermath of the trauma she had just suffered. As the door clicked shut, he rested his hand against it, wishing that his touch could somehow comfort her.
But it couldn’t. Not right now.
“She’ll be all right,” Leitheia said, still sitting on her cushion in the center of the room. “It’s har
d now, but she’ll come through it. She’s stronger than she knows.”
Kean turned toward her, shaking his head. “I don’t understand what just happened. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“It’s a very unusual case,” Leitheia said quietly. “I gave her back the weeks of lifespan I took from her. So much of her life has been taken from her already that it just didn’t seem right to take even another day.”
He sat down beside the woman again, his fists clenched in his lap. “Someone hurt her. Lied to her. Tell me who it was.”
Leitheia sighed and stretched back, reaching for the tea that sat on the small table behind her. She took a sip of it, swirling the warm liquid around gently in the cup. “It’s not a Jinn that haunts her. I know that’s what you thought, and you hoped that I could see the source of the Jinn’s power and attack it from that source. I can’t. I won’t be able to. You’ll need help that I cannot give you.”
“Just tell me what it is at least,” Kean said, almost pleading. It was strange. He wasn’t used to pleading for anything, but the thought of Dhara ever having to endure something like this again was too much for him to handle. He would stand in for her if he could—he wouldn’t even think twice.
“It’s her,” Leitheia said. “It’s a part of her, one that was split apart from her and mutated into this supernatural manifestation that you see now. It’s her own self.”
Kean shook his head. “I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s a dark magic that does it,” Leitheia said, sipping at her tea, her expression grim. “I was there with her, seeing what she was seeing. It’s patchy and longtucked away, but the memory is there. She never lived in New Delhi. She didn’t have the life she imagined. Not even for a day.”
“But—”
“I know,” Leitheia said, cutting off his protests. “Her memories were created for her. They’re shallow memories, attached to enough emotion and reality to keep her from questioning them. The dissonance the false memories created have fed the part of her that was split off and hidden away, and it’s become a monster inside of her, attacking her from the inside out.”
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