by Jamie Magee
Landen smiled and looked back into my eyes. “Some believe that the gifted travelers are the oldest souls bound by past lives,” he answered, tilting his head and smiling at me as his eyes searched my face.
“I guess that means our families have always been with us,” I whispered.
I heard him laugh under his breath. “Right now, I don’t know if I’d see that as a positive,” he said, trying to hold the sarcasm out of his tone.
I playfully glared at him.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “I just want to know what we’re up against so I can protect you. It bothers me that my father doesn’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”
“You’re wrong. I can almost guarantee you that your dad thinks you can handle anything. He has an intense pride that comes from him every time he looks at you.” Seeing his doubt, I went on, “Maybe he’s the one that can’t handle it. I don’t think my father or Livingston can either.”
“August will tell us,” Landen murmured.
“Does your father realize that?”
“My grandfather has always played peacemaker between my dad and me. He has a way of making my dad let go, and me slow down both at the same time.”
“Maybe that’s what our parents are waiting on, the peacemaker.”
“He should be home soon...”
“Do you think they lost the star when Justus and Livingston went to bring back Adonia?” I asked, rolling to my side so I could get closer to him.
Landen arched a brow “Livingston is the only one, besides Justus, that’s been inside of the Blakeshire Palace.”
“Why did Beth go with them? Why didn’t they take more travelers?”
“August told me that just before I was born, that the storms were so bad that travelers were gone for months at a time. Justus and Livingston were the only ones close enough. Beth was from Esterious, so she went to help them find a new way in the palace.”
“I think it’s strange that no one knows where Beth and Adonia are,” I muttered as I furrowed my brow.
“Marc and I do as well. Marc's convinced that Beth is locked in that palace and that he needs to bring her home.” Unconsciously his arms flexed for an instant around my body.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
“I know that if I were Adonia and I lost my soul mate, I wouldn’t want to live anymore, and if I were Beth, no palace would be able to hold me.”
“Are they as strong as you?”
“I’ve never met them.”
I felt my eyes growing heavy. “Where shall we dream tonight?” I asked.
“Do you think we can choose?” Landen thought as he sat up with a rush of excitement.
“I think you choose. I’ve only ever gone to where you are,” I thought, pulling him back down to my side.
Landen had beaten me to our dreams almost every time. The only time I’d ever been first was the night we danced to the willow tree music box. “What if we plan to go to a place to see if we can control it?” he thought.
“Where?”
“Here sounds safe enough,” he thought as a grin spread across his face.
“If it works then what?”
“Let’s just test it, see what we can do. We never even tried to communicate this way.”
He rushed from the bed; I sat up completely confused, he came back a second later with our clothes.
I grinned and shook my head. It didn’t cross my mind that we needed them, but if we managed to make this work, if we could control this and explore, clothes were needed.
I pulled my dress back on and turned so he could help me with the zipper.
“This is a tragedy.” He thought in a teasing manner, as his lips touched my shoulder and his hands waved over the dress he had fought so hard to remove.
After a moment I closed my eyes, keeping my focus both on the space around Landen and me, refusing any other thoughts or fears. I began to drift. It felt like only a moment had passed before I opened my eyes again. My body lay sleeping on the bed before me. Landen’s body was still; only his chest rose and fell. It was surreal. My first reaction was panic, and then I heard, “Can you hear me?”
He stood at my side, staring at our bodies as they lay sleeping. Not only could I hear him, but I could also feel his discomfort.
“I can feel you, too.”
Landen looked at me a wicked grin spread across his face. We were both feeling control of this heart-racing gift we shared. He moved to the wall and knocked on it. Sound. We could hear.
I furrowed my brow, he shrugged. “It might be because we are in Chara—not the place we always met.” He came to my side. “Come on, I want to try something,” he said, holding my hand and leading us from the beach house to the path that took us to the string. Once there, we walked back through the passage close to our home. Landen hesitated as he used his gift to tell him where everyone was.
“My father is on his way to Jason’s house,” he thought.
“Where’s Livingston?”
“I can’t feel him anywhere close,” Landen thought. “Can you?”
I focused on the emotions around me, feeling the same dread and anxiousness that I’d felt before. I shook my head no. We passed through the field in the direction of my father’s house, and in the distance, I could see Ashten walking from the other direction. My dad was standing on the front porch of a beautiful two-story brick home accented by bay windows and mini balconies.
“Do you think they’ll be able to see us?” I asked.
“Brady was right behind me that day you gave me that note, and he didn’t see you.”
“I don’t remember seeing him,” I thought.
“You terrified him. All he saw were my arms going around thin air and a note appearing in my hand,” Landen thought, grinning.
“I think I would have been bothered if I’d seen that happen.”
We reached my father’s house at the same time that Ashten did. You didn’t need the insight of emotion to realize how concerned they both were.
Landen and I stepped cautiously closer, my father and Ashten never looked in our direction. It was an eerie feeling, almost ghostly.
“Are you sure they didn’t go to Esterious?” Dad asked Ashten.
“More than sure. Landen is not one to make decisions without thinking them through. Rose believes they just went far enough not to feel us,” Ashten answered.
“Did the medallion upset Willow?”
“I wasn’t there when Rose told her, but I was there when Willow told Livingston how she felt about Drake,” Ashten said, raising his brows.
Dad stared at Ashten in utter confusion.
“Livingston made the comment that Drake had never hurt her, and she told him exactly what she lived through.”
“Maybe I should have brought her home sooner,” Dad said to himself.
“You don’t know if that would have stopped the nightmares,” Ashten said, defending my father.
“I know that she’s a new person now that she has Landen. She’s surer of herself now.”
“Landen is, too,” Ashten said, looking in the direction of our house. “He’s calmer now. She gives him pause, and he needs that.” Ashten cleared his throat. “We need to get those girls home so the two of them can just live here in peace.”
“It’s not going to be that simple,” my father said, looking at Ashten with pain in his eyes.
“Jason, I will not allow them to face Donalt or anyone in Esterious,” Ashten said shortly. I felt his anger rise.
“We cannot make their choices for them anymore. All we’re doing is pushing them away from us. I’d rather stand at their side.”
Ashten crossed his arms over his chest and looked down. “I don’t know what scares me more—what they’re capable of now, or what they will be capable of,” he said quietly.
My father nodded.
“Where’s Livingston?” my dad asked.
“He left right after Landen and Willo
w. I think he went to Esterious.”
“Is he insane? It’s well after curfew there,” my father said with wide eyes.
“He always goes there at night. I think he wants to bring those girls home before Landen has a chance to.”
“Did you figure out how he knew that Willow’s nightmares had come back?” my father asked.
“He said he saw it in the stars,” Ashten answered.
My father swayed his head, clearly not believing what he’d just heard.
“I don’t know, Jason. He’s not the same person you knew twenty years ago. The only one he talks to is August, and it kills me to see Marc and Chrispin reach out to him only to be ignored,” Ashten said in an exhausted tone.
“They have you and Aubrey. You made them the men that they are. You should be proud of the family you raised.”
“I am. I just feel like I’m going to lose them now,” Ashten said, looking down. I felt his sorrow deepen.
“I’m going to try something,” I thought.
I reached my hand carefully to Ashten’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice my touch. I thought of the emotions I felt at the celebration, the overwhelming love, and peace. I remembered the smiling faces and the laughter.
His emotions began to change. As he surrendered to his peace, I felt the medallion on my neck tingle; then a warm rush flowed through my hand. It was a mesmerizing feeling. As it began to intensify, I looked back at Landen and felt the sensation flowing through him, too.
“You feel this?”
“It’s amazing. Does it always feel like this?”
“No, never.”
I reached my other hand out to my father’s shoulder. Letting the same memories flow through my mind. The charm hummed, and the sensation pushed through my hand. A smile came across my father’s face, and he looked at Ashten. “They’re going to be fine,” he said confidently.
Ashten nodded and stepped away from me, and I lost my touch. He glanced over his shoulder at my father as he walked away. I could still feel the peace that I gave him. My dad sighed and turned to walk inside his house, causing me to lose my touch on him as well. The high that I felt began to fade.
“Let’s follow him,” I thought, stepping toward my dad.
We passed through the front door behind my father. My mother was sitting in the front room on a long white couch. She had a sketchpad in her lap and was outlining our old house.
“Is everything okay?” she asked my father as he took a seat next to her.
“It will be,” he said.
“Do you want to check on Libby?” I thought.
Landen took my hand and led me to the staircase that was in front of the door.
I could sense Libby sleeping peacefully. At the top of the stairs, we opened the first door to the left. It was a huge room with high ceilings. The far wall of her room had a large bay window, and baby dolls and books lined the windowsill. It was a place made for the princess that she was. When we both walked to her bed to sneak a peek at her sleeping face, her eyelids fluttered open softly, a smile spread across her baby face, and she whispered, “Willow, is it time to get up?”
Being seen by her sent a surge of shock through the two of us. Our eyes flew open, and we were back in the beach house. Catching our breath, we sat up with a start. When we realized what we’d done, laughter exploded from the two of us.
When the rush wore off, we drifted back to sleep, and our souls walked along the beach through the sunrise.
The peaceful feeling of another person and the sound of the wood creaking on the front porch of the beach house brought us both back to our sleeping bodies. Landen jumped up and tiptoed toward the front of the house. He then looked back at me. “Rose,” he thought. I nodded in agreement.
Landen pulled the front door open, expecting to see Rose, but instead, he found a large basket sitting on the floor of the porch. He brought it into the house and set it on the coffee table in the front room. A note was attached to the top of the basket that said:
I thought you two would need a few things. Take your time. Love you.
In the basket under a blanket was a new sketchbook and food, along with a change of clothes.
“How did she know where we were?” I asked.
Landen smiled to himself as he reread the note. “This is her place. Sometimes trying to understand the intent around me can be difficult. Rose and August brought me here when I was fourteen and told me that whenever I needed peace, I could come here.”
We settled on the floor, making a picnic out of the fruit and muffins that Rose had brought.
“I could feel Rose differently just now,” he said, looking at me. “I felt her emotion of peace.”
I looked at him with wide eyes.
“Did you feel her differently?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I knew Rose didn’t want to disturb us, but I just took that as my insight.”
“That’s how my gift feels. You just know what they want to do,” Landen said, smiling at me as his eyes drifted to my lips for an instant.
“How are they merging?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t feel any emotion until you touched my dad last night.”
“Can we look for images today? For my friends?” I asked, rising to my knees.
“If we find them, we need to come back and get Brady and the others,” Landen said, standing.
I stood and began to pull out the clothes in the basket. Rose had packed the traditional travel clothes for Landen—black pants and a black T-shirt. For me, a solid black dress with wide straps. I looked at Landen and shook my head. I wasn’t sure how much I cared for always wearing black. He laughed at my expression. I then sighed and began to change into the dress. It felt soft against my skin, and it fell just above my knees. I pulled my necklace out and looked down at the sun and moon again, wondering for a moment about all it had witnessed.
The string was calm, even relaxing when we entered. When we passed by the passages to our world, we saw several others were in the string. Smiling faces and pleasant greetings came. Landen didn’t even know most of them by name. Whatever reputation he had before I came with drama was bound to have intensified.
The string became empty as other passages came into view.
I stopped walking right as we reached a cluster of doorways. I could feel something, a terror so powerful that it took my breath away. It was coming from Landen, too, but it didn’t belong to him. Landen looked forward, then back. After a moment of indecision, we walked back to where we’d just been.
“You could feel that, couldn’t you?” I asked.
“I want to get Brady and the others. I’m not sure if that’s coming from in the string or around it.”
“How far are we from Esterious?”
“Only a few passages,” Landen said, guiding me back to Chara.
After reaching our dimension, we walked back to our house and Landen went to the kitchen to call Brady while I waited impatiently on the front porch for help to arrive.
Moments later, two Jeeps pulled up in front of the house. Brady was in one with Marc. Chrispin was driving the other one with Dane and Clarissa. I climbed into the back seat of Brady’s Jeep with Landen, and then both Jeeps sped across the open field to the windmill.
Just before we entered, Landen told Brady that he would lead. He wanted Brady to bring up the tail and Marc and Chrispin to flank the sides, and he wanted Dane and me in the center with Clarissa. Brady argued with Landen, but he ultimately lost the argument. The others agreed that it didn’t matter where we stood. Being in the string was risky, regardless of where you were.
Our group weaved through the others making their way to the celebration. As we walked in silence, Landen would glance back at me, checking my expression. We’d already passed the point where we’d felt the fear earlier, but the tension was growing among the others. I had a feeling we were almost to Esterious. The hum of the current flowed more aggressively, then reached an annoying high pitch. Landen stopp
ed, and everyone stared at him, waiting for him to lead.
“Do you feel that?” Landen asked.
“No,” I answered, now concentrating on his emotion. I walked closer to him, and through him, I felt the fear again. When I reached his side, I felt it firsthand. “I do now.”
“Do you recognize them?”
“The vibe is all fear. I don’t know. They never...,” Landen stopped me with a tick of his head before I had to explain I’d never known any of my friends to have this kind of fear drowning them.
Landen motioned for the others to come closer as we crept forward.
“He’s here,” Landen thought.
He reached out to stop Brady from walking any further. In cat-like fashion, we took a few steps back then slid through a purple haze. Passing into this dimension, we were close to another waterfall. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as Victoria Falls, but the beauty was still breathtaking.
Landen paced, then stopped and checked himself to make sure he was confident before he spoke. “Drake is just a few feet away from here. Its a trap. He has someone with him, more than one, several, actually, and they’re expecting conflict.”
Anger swelled in the energy around us.
“Charging in is not the answer,” Clarissa said eyeing her brother, and cousins. “What if I passed through the string? He doesn’t know me. I could get a better understanding of what’s going on in there.”
After an onslaught of arguments erupted, Brady convinced Clarissa that it didn’t matter who went Drake would take us—Landen would come after one of our own.
They placed one plan on the table, then another.
I ventured out, looking at the waterfall and the tall overhanging trees. It thundered in the distance. The wind picked up.
Horror slammed into the energy around me.
I glanced to see if the others were in danger. I’d managed to walk almost fifty feet away from them. They were still discussing options. Their mood was tense, but no horror was with them.
I took a few more brave steps toward the worst emotion I’d ever felt. The trees covered the gray sky, giving the illusion of darkness. The branches swayed with the wind, causing a light whistle and drying the sweat on my face.
