by J. Thorn
“I can’t simply hand it over to you,” Samuel said.
“I’m not asking for that.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
The last mall walker vanished as Kole finished his explanation. Samuel shook Kole’s hand and thought his salvation was in the hands of the reversion anyway and one little side deal would not affect it one way or another. Kole would get to face Major and have a chance at revenge, in exchange for letting Samuel do whatever it was he needed to at the mountain’s peak. Major had fed Kole to the wolves and Kole would never forget it.
***
Lindsay’s voice brought Samuel back from 1976. “Did you hear what I asked?”
Samuel shook his head, his foot hanging in the air as it came to rest on the next step. He looked over his left shoulder at the windows cut into the side of the mountain, like two empty eyes.
“Bit of a daydream, sorry,” he said, judging the time he spent with Kole by the number of steps he had taken since gazing out of the arched openings. Samuel counted seven steps, unsure how many seconds that was or how disconnected he had become from their conversation.
“How far up do you think we have to go?” Lindsay asked for the second time.
Samuel shook his head but did not answer right away, leading Lindsay to believe he was off daydreaming again.
“Not much more. I think he’s waiting for us at the top, and we should get there before the reversion does.”
Without warning, Samuel felt Lindsay’s fingers grip the back of his shirt. He saw a determination in her eyes as she raised a hand into the air. Her other hand grabbed hold of his shoulder. Samuel reached for Scout, sheathed on his left hip, when Lindsay released his shirt and grabbed his wrist in a vise grip.
“I hope I don’t regret this,” she said, a wicked smile spreading across her face.
Samuel braced for the first blow, his mind racing ahead to what it would take to incapacitate her before she could do the same to him. A jolt of anguish shot through his chest as he realized he would have to destroy her if she jeopardized his chance at salvation.
Lindsay’s right hand fell to Samuel’s shoulder with a gentle nudge, and she took her left hand off of his wrist. She locked her fingers on the back of his neck and felt Samuel’s body spasm in confusion. His breath hitched, and he wore a quizzical look.
She leaned forward, her face coming to his while she gently pulled him closer. Samuel dropped the knife. He placed a hand on each of Lindsay’s hips and felt her breasts beginning to push against his chest. Samuel felt her warm breath on his mouth as her lips touched his. He closed his eyes as Lindsay used her tongue to caress his, her hands now moving in sensuous circles through his hair. Samuel felt his excitement and pushed it against her as she drew him tighter. He lost himself in the kiss, vague memories of passion returning and reminding him what it meant to live a full life, not the shadow he had become inside the reversion.
It was in that moment Samuel realized he could not succumb to the wolves, the horde, the spider-crabs, the rain, or even the tempting offers of those also stuck in the locality. Lindsay was not the reversion, and her kiss and the feel of her hands on his neck proved that unequivocally.
Samuel pulled back, leaving his forehead touching hers. She smiled and then blinked at him before placing an elegant kiss on the corner of his mouth. He tasted her on his lips and felt her in his heart.
“Is that the answer you needed?” she asked.
“That’ll do,” Samuel said. “Major or Kole?” he asked.
Samuel felt the presence of both men in the reversion like feeling the change in the air before a thunderstorm. He thought one or both of them may have tried to persuade Lindsay to turn on him. If Kole was willing to strike a deal with him Samuel knew he would probably do the same with Lindsay.
“Major.”
“What did he promise you, Lindsay?”
“A ticket home, but not to my home. He said he could reset me into the life of my choice, and erase any memories of this place and the shit that happens here. Major even said he’d erase my fucked-up childhood and wash the abuse from my mind.”
“But you didn’t believe he could do that.”
“I absolutely believed he could,” she said. “And that’s why I had to decline.”
Samuel rested his head against the wall of the spiraling rock but did not let Lindsay escape his embrace. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be real. I’d be living a lie. I’d be a lie. My asshole mother and the abuse I suffered, those times in life I thought I’d die, those made me who I am. As painful and stupid as it sounds, I can’t turn my back on that. It is me.”
Samuel raised one eyebrow, beginning to get a sense of what was happening inside her head. “But it wouldn’t have to be, and you’d never know it. If Major could wipe your past, then it wouldn’t be a lie but a new reality.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But there is something that Major couldn’t promise, and something he could never orchestrate.”
“What’s that?” Samuel asked.
“You, Samuel. I know you’re a broken man, and that you’ve done things in your past that have caused others pain. But I also know you’ve punished yourself enough. You’ve made your amends, and those you’ve harmed have forgiven you. They’ve given you the chance to leave the past behind.”
Samuel thought of Mara and the feelings she communicated to him as he transferred from one reversion to another.
“And I think I love you,” she said as if it were an inconsequential detail.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I’m not sure I could have turned that deal down, made that sacrifice for someone else.”
Lindsay smiled. “You already have,” she said.
“I don’t know how I knew, but I knew I loved you the moment you appeared on the doorstep of that cabin,” he said.
She grinned until the crack of thunder burst through the silence of the reversion and brought reality back into focus.
“Major’s going to be pissed when he realizes I’m not agreeing to his plan,” Lindsay said, her eyes shifting toward the carved openings where the cloud moved even closer to the mountain.
“That’s okay. I have someone joining the party that has unfinished business with Major, an old friend.”
Lindsay nodded and trusted Samuel knew how to handle Major.
“But we need to get going. Right now.”
She followed Samuel up the spiral staircase they had marched for hours.
***
Deva sensed the shift in energy just as a good sailor can read the wind on an open ocean. Things had changed, and they were not in his favor. It was the woman and her passion that would be the ruin of his plan and choke the life out of his opportunity to be released from duty. Deva suppressed the anger building in his chest, forcing it back down in hopes that reason, rather than emotion, would provide the answer. He felt Lindsay’s love for Samuel and that could make his son turn his back on his duty.
Deva sent a line of energy to Shallna, more specifically to the orb. Neither responded. He would be on his own at the end, whether it swung in his favor or not. Deva could not imagine continuing for another generation of the Great Cycle, the puppet master with strings on his own hands. It had always been the son to replace the father, the eternal march of existence that would not change. He refused to accept the woman’s meddling, the twisting of Samuel’s heart through the application of a useless, human emotion such as love. It was duty, honor and loyalty that kept the worlds from colliding, and when that atrophied like a diseased appendage, the reversion would lay waste to it, making room for the birth of another locality, trying again. The woman had no right to tamper with the great machinery of the reversion. She had no say in its infinite decisions and ways. If Deva, lord of the reversion and summoner of clouds, could not affect the flow, she certainly would not.
A crack shattered the silence of the final stages of the reversion, the last warning signal it
would provide him before the end of another world commenced. The rain stopped, but the lightning had begun. He knew Samuel and Lindsay were rising and would appear at the peak soon. If all energies aligned the way he thought they would, a few others would join the fray, too. Old energies died hard, like weeds gripping futile dirt, unable to die without tearing it from existence.
Deva stood and made his way to where the spiral staircase emerged from the floor. He felt the air moving upward and could almost smell the woman. In a few moments, he would have the opportunity for release, and it almost brought a smile to his lips.
***
“Tell me what you remember about him. Any detail or tendency might help if we have to make quick decisions.”
Samuel continued up the steps, each one feeling more final. He wondered if anyone had descended, and before his mind could slip too deep into that abyss, he thought about Lindsay’s question.
“We crossed paths once or twice. Not like we were ever friends or hung out. I remember a house party. We were underage, and the owner was a guy in his early twenties. He was bad news. His name was Perry and his only rule was ‘Don’t kick the dog.’ You could do blow on his living room coffee table and then shit in the corner of the kitchen, but you couldn’t kick the dog. This guy is sitting on the couch when I get there, and he’s got this look on his face. It’s Kole. If you’ve ever seen those angry kids with safety pins for earrings and looks of abject misery on their faces, you’ll understand what he looked like. Kole wasn’t a punk, more like a burnout.”
Lindsay huffed and shook her head. It had been a long time since she heard that term.
“There’s a keg in the basement, kids smoking dope in the bedrooms and music blaring. I think the cops may have shown up twice, but Perry knew how to deal with them. He could sweet talk enough to avoid an arrest or search of the house. Had any of those officers even looked past him into the foyer, they would have had probable cause.”
Samuel turned to look over his shoulder and down into the spiral of stone, where the light from the windows was no longer visible. Torches burned on the walls, the flames higher the closer they got to the peak.
“It’s a party, and shit that happens at parties happened this night. A few times I bumped into Kole at the keg and he was drinking heavily. By midnight, he was agitated to the point where he wanted to fight. Again, not an unusual occurrence at Perry’s. You could do what you wanted as long—”
“As you didn’t kick the dog,” Lindsay said.
“Yes,” Samuel said, shaking his head. “The only rule.”
She looked up and thought light oozed from somewhere above, and she realized they were almost there.
“Well, Kole finds a combatant and they’re punching the shit out of each other in the backyard. I mean, Kole is on top of this kid and busting skin open left and right. No weapons or cheap shit, just a simple, fisted beat down. At one point, he stops. Kole stands up and extends his hand to the kid on the ground, bleeding from the nose and mouth. He helps the kid up and pats him on the back before handing him a beer.”
Lindsay thought about the story and the unexpected ending. She figured Kole was pure evil, a rotten kid in an abusive environment. But she knew there had to be a reason Samuel told her that story.
“He’s honorable. I guess that’s what you should keep in mind. It’s a sick, twisted perspective on loyalty, but Kole has it, and I know he’ll honor the deal I made with him.”
“You did what?”
“Don’t act innocent,” Samuel said.
Lindsay nodded and acknowledged the hypocrisy of calling Samuel out after her encounter with Major.
“What’s the deal?”
“Simple,” he said. “We bring Major to the party, and he takes him home.”
“But how did you know Major would—” Lindsay’s question trailed off as the realization set in. “You fucking knew. You knew it all along and you played me.”
Samuel stopped and turned, while Lindsay did not. They stood face to face on the step, the anger flooding her expression.
“I didn’t play anybody. You cut a deal with Major that you didn’t intend on keeping, and you hid that from me.”
“I don’t remember being obligated to tell you anything, Samuel. And just how did you know what deal was struck in my conversation with Major,” Lindsay asked. “One that took place in the stupid-ass dreamworld.”
Samuel exhaled and sat on the next step. He had to calm her down and refocus their energy before they faced whatever awaited them at the peak.
“Because I can tune into others’ visions here. I couldn’t before, and now I can, sort of like dialing in a radio station. The signal isn’t always clear, and I miss things, but if it’s being broadcast, I can pick it up.”
“So you eavesdropped on mine?” Lindsay crossed her arms and bit her bottom lip.
“No. Yes. I guess so. Listen, I understand it feels like an invasion of privacy to you.”
“It is,” she said.
“Fine. It is. The point is Major is a dangerous man and if we aren’t ready for what’s about to take place, he’ll find a way to exploit it. And I’m sorry.”
Lindsay felt the sincerity in his voice and realized time spent discussing his intrusion was lost in planning their ultimate survival.
“This conversation isn’t over. You and I are going to talk about it later.”
He smiled, savoring the halfhearted anger in her voice, and the assumption they would have a later and be together in it.
“Deal,” he said. “Now tell me what Major wants.”
“The talisman. He now knows how to slip on his own, but he needs the talisman.”
“Right. So we’re going to make sure he gets the slip he wants.”
Lindsay turned her head sideways, her eyebrows creasing her forehead. She waited for him to continue.
“First-class delivery to our buddy, Kole.”
When Lindsay heard Samuel’s promise, she knew they would be leaving the reversion soon, one way or another. He would give his eternal life before he left her behind. Lindsay had no doubt.
***
Samuel immediately thought of the scene as something from the Middle Ages. The black iron ring fastened into the mortar extended all the way around the room, a torch fastened to it every few feet. They all crackled with the infused flame of liquid fuel, burning hot and fast in oranges and reds instead of the yellow and green hues typical to the reversion. The stone on the floor had been chiseled to near perfection, large blocks fitting together with seams so thin a sheet of paper could not slide between them.
The cauldron sat at the apex of the tower, and Samuel realized this had been the source of the light filtering down the spiral staircase. It served as a beacon, drawing them to the peak. Two windows punched through the stone walls on opposite sides of the room. Samuel realized the windows overlooked the mountain on its eastern and western faces. A stone bench ran the perimeter of the tower and sat two feet off the ground.
“The flame. It has changed with your arrival. No longer yellow or green, but the more natural spectrum one would expect.”
The voice snapped Samuel from his observation and drew his attention to the robed figure sitting next to the cauldron. The timbre and cadence brought him back to the edge of the marsh, where they had first spoken. Samuel thought back to that time, watching Deva climb from the murky waters. He tried to explain the reversion to Samuel in a way he would understand it. And then Deva disappeared back into the water and left Samuel to the cloud, the wolves and the horde.
Lindsay stood behind Samuel, gazing at the room and remaining silent, according to the plan.
“The lightning with thunder. Not something I’m used to hearing in the reversion,” Samuel replied.
Deva stood and pushed his long robe to the side while gripping his walking stick in his right hand. His white beard sat like a pristine cloud on his chest. His long hair ran over his shoulders and down his back. “It is unusual, I will admit.”
<
br /> Samuel waited. An itch began in his foot and worked its way up his body until it settled on the back of his neck. “You told me you were dead. You appeared as a rotting, walking corpse.”
Deva nodded, neither confirming nor denying the statement.
“Why?” Samuel asked.
“It was not my appearance that was different, but your perception.”
Lindsay looked at Samuel, and he shook his head.
“So what happens next?” he asked Deva.
“We’re all here to honor our duty, to do what is expected of us.”
“To die with this locality?” Lindsay asked.
Samuel glared at her and she stepped back behind him, mumbling to herself in frustration. She had already strayed from the plan, and Samuel knew it.
“To be released from the cycle,” Deva said. He stepped closer to them, his staff resonating through the stone room each time it struck the floor. “You have but one narrow perspective on the reversion that must fit into the circumstances you’ve created. Yours is but one single strand amongst a universe of infinite strands.”
Samuel looked at Lindsay and winced, trying to decipher Deva’s cryptic language.
“And you,” Deva said as he nodded at Lindsay. “You are but an infant here.”
Lindsay stared at Deva, unsure how she should interpret his comment.
“The cloud is bearing down. It’s bringing the storm. We don’t have time for riddles,” Samuel said.
Deva nodded. “Yes. I know others have yet to join us. Others who must face the reversion as well. They are close, but we still have a few more moments.”
Samuel waited.
“Do you have the knife? Scout?” Deva asked.
Samuel’s hand went to his pocket, where the knife poked against the thin fabric. It had appeared and disappeared so many times inside the reversion that he no longer checked. If it happened to be there, Samuel considered it a sign of good luck, although a temporary one.
“You gave it to me,” Samuel said, and then he paused. “Before this,” he added, moving his eyes around the current reversion.
