OF DELICATE PIECES
A. Lynden Rolland
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2015 by A. Lynden Rolland
OF DELICATE PIECES by A. Lynden Rolland
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published by Month9Books, LLC.
Cover design by Najla Qamber Designs
Cover copyright © 2015 Month9Books
To anyone putting pieces back together
The world does not provide visibility.
The world does not create tangibility.
The imagination does.
That is the true reality.
Abigail Frank, “The Manual of Sight”
OF DELICATE PIECES
A. Lynden Rolland
Chapter One
In her dream, Alex was back in the desert, the one with the footprints, except this time the sky was green. The sand clung to her feet, weighing her down, and she worried how long she would have to endure it. Chase appeared and intertwined his fingers with hers, and a pleasant zap of electricity struck her palm. Alex heard a satisfactory click as their hands snapped into place. The light from the setting sun framed his silhouette, forcing Alex to blink several times, blind to his features. Warmth overcame her.
“Chase.” His name tasted like sunlight, and the sky brightened. “Is this my dream or yours?”
“If I had to bet on it, I’d guess yours because we’re back in this litter box again.”
“You’ve had dreams like this before, too.”
Chase glanced over his shoulder. “I have no footprints. Like I’m not really supposed to be here. And I’ve never had a dream that leads home to Parrish. Ready? Any minute now.” They could hear the sound of the waves before the bay materialized next to them. “We’re back.”
The sand hardened with water, allowing them to walk without restraint. Never did the icy fingertips of the waves find a way to reach them. This world couldn’t touch them anymore.
Chase looked out at the horizon. “What is it that you’re looking for? There has to be some reason your mind is so adamant about taking you back here. Not that I mind long walks on the beach, but it’s a little cliché.”
He let go of her hand and instead wrapped his arm around the small of her back. In every place their bodies touched, Alex’s nerves zinged, struck by the electricity between them. The sky winced in a snapshot of lightning.
She took a deep breath, expecting the familiar aroma of salt water and seaweed. Instead, sugar sprinkled the breeze like sweetened raindrops of comfort and home. It could be because this was where they were born, where they met and grew up together. Or it could be because Chase himself was her home no matter where the world placed them.
He gestured to some kids playing volleyball near a bonfire: four brothers and a sickly undersized girl on the sidelines. “There we are again. Your mind is like a movie on cable. You keep rerunning the same stuff. I think I’m going to start calling you Showtime.”
“That’s a horrible nickname.”
“I could think of worse.”
Alex slowed to observe the thirteen-year-old version of herself, deep in conversation by the fire. The younger version of Chase kneeled in front of her, reaching out to graze his fingertips along her temple, to tuck her unruly hair behind her ear. The surrounding children watched them, transfixed, envying them, but the dream version of Alex took no notice. It was the moment in life when Chase told her that she was perfect to him, broken and all.
Her biggest mistake back then was assuming he would always be around to gather what was left of her in his arms, to carry her. When death had reared its ugly head and snatched Chase by the collar, he’d dropped her. She couldn’t pick up the pieces alone.
She hoped the meaning of her dream had nothing to do with the end of the night. She’d spent plenty of time trying to forget about that. If she knew then what she knew now, she wouldn’t have questioned her sanity or the idea of spirits—now that she was one. She and Chase were stuck between alive and dead, in a mental world Alex loved more and more every day.
“I could be looking for you,” Alex suggested.
“Impossible. I’m already yours.”
When Alex first began to have this dream, she and Chase participated, like actors on a very lifelike stage. They knew it wasn’t real, but they went along with it anyway. Now they were spectators, strolling past the scene and continuing down the beach, hand in hand. If she allowed herself to keep sleeping, she and Chase would walk along the coast until they reached the infamous Esker woods. Wind ripped from the waves and struck them. Even the world shivered thinking of those woods. She wouldn’t allow the dream to go so far as to lead them there, not after what had happened. Their bodies were dead, and as spirits, their lives depended on the energy in their minds, something almost as fragile as the body. If that part of them died, too, where would they end up? And more importantly to Alex, would they find each other again?
Yes, her subconscious replied. Chase will always find me.
They had lived the entirety of their short lives together, and they found each other in death. It was hard to imagine something the two of them could not withstand between the iron vise of their grasp on one another, but this world never ceased to surprise Alex, to toy with her. She turned back for one last look at the bonfire, at the children they used to be.
Alex dug her feet into the sand, stopping.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Alex allowed Chase to pull her forward once again. She leaned into his chest where she fit and where she couldn’t look back. The light from the moon pooled around them like a spotlight.
She could have sworn she’d seen her old friend, Liv Frank, staring in wonder right at them, eyes wide, mouth ajar. Like she’d seen a ghost.
That was impossible, right? This was a dream. Then again, at one point, Alex might have believed that two dead kids walking down the beach hand in hand would also be impossible.
The mind is so deceptive.
***
Alex waited for the hesitancy to pass in the lull between sleeping and waking. In the wretched space between Chase’s death and her own, she had lived solely for this moment each day, a split second when her mind hadn’t had time to remind her of what made it splinter. At the time, her doctor insisted that this was a good thing; it proved her mind had the ability to heal, that her cracks wouldn’t break her. She was reluctant to believe his psychobabble.
She did believe, however, in the power of the moment. It bestowed the mind a brief hiatus from the confines of reason. The world was not always such a beautiful place, and so Alex clung to blissful ignorance when she could. This morning, that little hiatus of time overflowed with whispers. A waterlogged echo warped the words, preventing Alex from understanding the overlapping voices. Her head felt heavy and overloaded.
The whispers soon dulled, and Alex gave in and sat up in bed. Chase wasn’t there, but she had a feeling he had been. His fingerprints were all over the air. She couldn’t be sure what time it was. Even if the towering trees surrounding Eidolon didn’t create an artificia
l night on the sunniest of days, the white-gray fog clung to the air like the exhaust from a dying car. It lingered, a constant canopy, an appropriate setting for ghosts. But the sun was like a stubborn child, and often it would find a way to push its first bits of sunlight into her world.
This morning’s rays found her nightstand and a photograph of Alex’s mom next to Chase’s mom, both of them glowing and pregnant. Propped next to the frame was a small square of paper. The handwritten drawing of an hourglass appeared in Alex’s pocket after she’d been attacked last spring. She tried to throw it away, rip it up, burn it, and toss it from her balcony, but it always reappeared in her pocket. Her friend, Skye, told her it could have been there all along and she didn’t know to look for it. If that was the case, perhaps her mind could be kind enough to explain the meaning. If only. In this world, “clarity” was like looking through a kaleidoscope.
Alex stared at the drawing like she did every morning. Chase’s question echoed in her mind, What are you looking for?
Answers.
What answers could a stupid hourglass give her? She wanted to know what happened to her mother. The target on her back in the form of a dead prophet wasn’t an acceptable answer. She wanted to know why she looked identical to that dead prophet, Sephi Anovark. An hourglass didn’t help.
Last spring the ragged sketch depicted only a dusting of sand at the bottom of the glass, but now the grains were distributed evenly between the top and the bottom. Whatever it meant, it appeared she was running out of time to figure it out.
She slid from her bed, and a stream of sand shimmied to the floor like a dash of rain, and the soles of her feet felt soft as though she’d been shuffling along the beach. She still wasn’t accustomed to living in a world the mind could manipulate. It felt all too easy to straddle the thin line between fantasy and reality.
She shook her head and gazed down to find that she was already dressed, a perk derived from the same mental manipulation. Duly noted. She’d take the good with the bad.
She left her bed in disarray, knowing it would be tidy when she returned. If she could imagine an ideal space for herself, this room satisfied her vision. She hadn’t seen another spirit’s room, even Chase’s, but she assumed it would appear the way the occupant envisioned it. Her room with its thick, white throw rugs, sunken chairs, and fluffy blankets, felt shabbily quaint. It was always warm and smelled of extinguished candle flames. She found peace in the distressed white wood flooring, the chipped white brick, and fractured paneling bathed in light from a rickety chandelier overhead. It was so different from the dirty, mossy black exterior of Brigitta Hall, her home.
Morning yawned through the French doors leading to her balcony, smelling of earth and fog. She could see the crowds already hindering the main street of Eidolon’s older shops. Lazuli Street’s congestion deepened with each passing day that summer. Because Alex had a clear view of the street a mile away, she could zero in on faces and conversations if she wanted. But she didn’t want.
The unsettling bout of tourism coughed its curiosity up toward her balcony, and so she shut the doors, sacrificing fresh air for the protection of the glass. Even from such a distance, she could be seen and heard, and she promised Romey, the Brigitta director, that she wouldn’t step outside unless she wanted her room assignment changed. Due to accelerated senses and amplified vision, those spirits a mile away could see her as easily as she could see them.
She searched her mind for any signs of Chase. She assumed the whispers she heard in her head moments ago slid between the swinging gateway of her mind and his. The noises surrounding Chase often leaked into Alex’s mind and vice versa. The more and more time she spent dead, the better Alex became at managing it, at shutting the floodgate when she so desired. Though it seemed impossible to latch it.
Chase might have gotten up early. He might be downstairs in the vestibule or outside in the courtyard. Considering the number of voices she’d heard, he was surrounded by people.
Her hair tied itself into a ponytail, a sign of impending productivity. She felt like someone was waiting for her. And as soon as she thought about it, her door swung open.
Despite the vibe, a vacant corridor awaited her. She moved down the crooked hallway of the seventh floor before turning the corner to find Skye Gossamer poised on the railing of the balcony overlooking the vestibule.
Skye waved and adjusted a blue and yellow flower tucked behind her ear. “Took you long enough.”
“I woke up two minutes ago.”
Skye raised her auburn brows as if to say, Exactly.
Each floor had a common area overlooking the grand entrance hall below. Skye perched on the decorative railing like a bird on a wire. With her blanket of hair, Skye reminded Alex of a redheaded Rapunzel.
“It makes me nervous with you sitting like that.”
“I won’t fall. Not that it would injure me if I did.”
Alex peered down at the seven stories below. “You might not be strong enough to keep a fall like that from hurting.”
“I know my way around my brain.”
“It’s distracting.”
Skye gave her a pitying look that indicated how ridiculous she thought this was, but she dismounted nonetheless. Alex noticed a handful of newbury boys on an adjacent terrace staring at her unusual friend in fascination. Skye had that effect on people, especially boys.
Alex took a seat on one of the bistro chairs and rested her elbows on the matching table. “What are you doing up so early? Waiting for me?”
“I’m trying to be a good neighbor. If we had newspapers, I would have brought it in for you.”
The idea of a newspaper was absurd in a world so brilliant in its technology. News would always be a constant, but the source of its distribution evolved steadily. In Eidolon, news traveled as spirits traveled: using frequency waves.
Alex looked out at the shimmering headlines suspended over the vestibule in a checkerboard of electronic media. The morning news scrolled across the room like projections of stray thoughts. In the hoopla following the attack last spring, newburies rushed to read every ration of news they could devour. Whoever would have thought that keeping up with the times would become the latest trend?
She doubted that most of the newburies had ever blackened their fingertips with newspaper ink during life. Alex certainly hadn’t, but she blamed this gossip fad on the simplicity of reading with accelerated mind power and the lack of effort. Although she scoffed at the articles, in actuality, she craved more. The afterworld was so sparsely populated that the news tasted as juicy on her lips as high school gossip, especially when so much of it involved her. She pretended that she hated the attention, but she couldn’t deny that a piece of her enjoyed it. She tucked that secret into her pocket with the hourglass sketch.
The installation of the news projections in both Brigitta Hall and in the adjacent learning center sparked a lengthy debate among the staff. Half of the faculty argued that the center had always been closed to the outside world, shielding the newly buried until they were ready. For the sake of tradition, they believed the campus should remain primitive. On the other hand, some reasoned that this was a way to ease the newburies into the reality of the spiritual world outside Brigitta, and the familiar environment of a school was a great way to introduce the news.
The contemporary crowd claimed victory, and now dozens of newburies stood transfixed underneath the projections each morning. Fingers outstretched, they searched the feed by skimming the article titles in the frequency waves and pulling them from midair. With the constant crowd, the energy, and eagerness, the vestibule now reminded Alex of the New York Stock Exchange. If she desired, she could select an article from the reel, tug it away from its energy feed, and read it at her leisure, but something caused her mind to pound and pulse that morning.
She blamed the pollution of Skye’s apprehension.
“Spill it.” Alex sighed. “You might as well tell me what’s on y
our mind.” She poked the moving field of energy and it rippled in front of her.
“Do you want to go downstairs?” Skye asked, adjusting the flower behind her ear.
Alex glanced again at the vestibule, scattered with spirits wearing everything from sweatpants to eveningwear depending on their moods. If she went down there, they would watch her, and she’d rather be the one observing. Last year, she grew used to the teachers gawking at her, even interrogating her, but now after the attack, the entire world knew her secret. Her teachers encouraged her to steer clear of the negative articles, so she pretended not to care that her name appeared in the headlines like a celebrity on a binge.
But of course she cared. Of course she wanted to know what others said about her. Who wouldn’t?
Alex tried to ignore the itch in her fingertips as she browsed the bylines. “How bad is it this morning?”
Skye shrugged. “It could be worse.”
The itch intensified. “Sephi Anovark?”
“Of course.”
What could they possibly have left to write about her? Alex wondered, thinking about Sephi’s love letters coincidentally twenty feet away from them. The temperamental box containing those letters hibernated in Alex’s room, stubbornly refusing to share any more of its stories.
“Am I mentioned?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
Alex grimaced at the projections but wondered how genuine it seemed because it took all her effort to turn away. She didn’t know why she tried so hard. She would end up scratching the itch until she bled.
She could recite yesterday’s article easily with her Wikipedia brain.
What is the Big Deal?
Sigorny L.
The Voice of the Newburies
Last spring, a photo went viral and our campus flooded with questions about prophets, crime, and violence. When it comes to the potential return of the infamous Josephine Anovark, many of you have been posing this question:
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