Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  Sad.

  Three letters for a short word that holds a lot of emotion, but what is it really?

  What’s happy? I would think that when you do have this emotion you wouldn’t think to yourself, “I’m happy.” You would just be. So does that mean I’m happy? Maybe I’m okay.

  Are you okay?

  Another unknown thought that isn’t mine.

  Am I okay?

  _________________

  I don’t know. I thought about it for a long time. I’m not happy, because I’ve never known another thing other than this—black, dark, forever. I don’t know anything. I don’t know if I’m okay or why these thoughts come into my head. All I know is that my name is not Emma.

  Then I begin to question myself. Maybe I am Emma. It could be my name—Emma. Where does Emma come from?

  _________________

  Florida.

  That’s it; Florida. I know it. Emma is from Florida. Where is that?

  Amelia.

  That’s my name—Amelia. Emma is short for Amelia. Amelia Clarice Barton.

  Then something crazy begins to happen; I can remember. Suddenly everything comes back to me in an overwhelming rush.

  Keep my soul safe. Phantom Lagoon is my home; my safe harbor. I no longer belong to a family; I am a loner. I feel no pain here, because it does not exist; nor will I let it exist. My soul is concealed in this stone; it is my life. I must let go, forget, and never look back. The blame shall be none but my own, for I was born of only half, to be reunited later in life. I am an Essence.

  What was once an unknown thought is one no longer—my soul is protecting me. And it always will.

  Chapter 29

  The Return

  Sometimes it all becomes too much. Your body and mind will just give way. Part of you may want to blissfully fade into nothing, but you never do. After a while all the memories and emotions make you shut down but never fully disappear—it’s safer for you this way, to be excluded. It’s a time to be alone, to heal, and to find yourself. It doesn’t mean you’ve given up or stopped trying; it just means you know what’s best for you.

  Breathing is medicine. I forgot how to breathe, but I’m learning all over again.

  _________________

  I’m coughing up what seems like gallons of water when I wake up. There is gravel underneath me, and it feels familiar. When I look above me, I see the crystal walls of the cave of Phantom Lagoon. There is no light except a small lamp a few feet away from me; there is also a blanket. I crawl over, shaking from the cold, and wrap it around me. When I feel the fleece, I realize I’m dripping wet. My brown hair is slicked back, close to my head. I draw it forward, squeezing out the excess water. I continue to cough and wrap the blanket tighter around me. I hear something in the cave and don’t bother to hide. After a few soft footsteps, Luna comes into view.

  “Emma,” she says in a relieved voice; almost like a mother after finally seeing her child after an accident. “Does anything hurt?” She comes to my side and another shiver convulses through me.

  “Hurt?” I say with a hoarse voice. I cough again, feeling a faint burn in my throat.

  She takes her old green shawl that matches her dress and wraps it around me for warmth. “So much has changed.” Her French accent lingers as she speaks. “You’ve been gone for a long time.”

  It takes me moment to process the words.

  “Where did I go?” My voice hurts to speak at normal volume, so I fade with each word, finally into a whisper.

  Luna sits next to me, her gown flares out around us, and she places her arm around me. “I don’t know.” The words hover between us, and the only thing I hear is the faint trickle of water from the pool within the cave. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  The question bothers me. What’s the answer? It must be so simple, but I can’t think. Luna stares at me, intrigued and scared for me at the same time. “I was stuck.”

  That’s all I can remember—the nagging thought that I couldn’t escape; the knowing of something more being out there, but the inability of ever being able to reach it.

  “And before that?”

  I let myself think for a long time. Before that. It seemed like there had always been a black, dark abyss. But there was an Emma whose real name was Amelia—that is me. I’m the Emma that was being called. I couldn’t answer the voice; then when I did, it was gone.

  “Do you remember Eliza?”

  The face flickers in my mind: olive skin, red hair—she didn’t want to remember what her dad looked like.

  “Yes, her father disappeared from Phantom Lagoon.”

  Luna is quiet before her next question. “What about Kenzie?”

  Her face bombards my memory—blond curls, big smile. It fills me with both good and bad memories. The last thing I remember about her is that she ran away. Eliza and I tried to find her, but when our time ran out, Eliza gave me a note before leaving—a note that was originally meant for her father.

  2034 - Kenzie left.

  “Is she okay?” I can barely whisper, and I’m unsure of my words. I remember I found her, and we ran. I remember drowning.

  “Are you okay?” she asks in a soft voice.

  I don’t look at her and concentrate on my hands instead. They are withered because of soaking in the water and feel like ice. I see in front of me the pool of water that Eliza had showed me once. The liquid crystal.

  “You didn’t disappear like the other souls do,” Luna tells me, following my gaze. “Even after your stone disappeared, you stayed. You didn’t disappear, but we could see you growing pale. I tried something that I always do when someone arrives back at Phantom Lagoon late by just a moment.”

  “You tried to drown me.” My voice is lost in the whispers of the cave.

  She stares at me in shock. “Your soul—I was trying to drown your soul. There are myths in our world, just as there are for a human’s. There are theories that water acts as a force field—that’s why some people think the mirror stones have to be kept in the lagoon. We thought, if we could drown your soul while it was still inside you, it would be trapped there.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “No one ever dreamed it would work.”

  “What happened to me?” I ask, feeling more vulnerable with each second.

  “After we drowned your soul, you didn’t wake up. I could tell you were still with us, but not for long. We tried talking to you.

  “Nothing worked for days. Someone always watched over you and said your name. Sometimes we were able to get a response from you—you would kick, move, but you would never talk. I saw your lips moving once, but there was no sound. I could tell when you were in pain. It was sketched so plainly on your face. It scared Eliza, and after a while, she said she couldn’t watch you anymore. Complete strangers stepped in to take her place. In an odd way it united us. We thought there might be a way to help someone who stays out after dark too long. People began to have hopes again.”

  She smiles, but the emotion is gone in the next second.

  “Sadly our hope died fast. A month passed, and you still didn’t wake up. No one wanted to take their shifts anymore, because they were sure you would never wake up. We moved you into the cave because people began to think of you as dead. As discouraged as I was at their decision to give up on you, I could understand their feelings, and on the days you never moved or showed signs of life…” she trails off, lost in a memory. “I felt the same—I thought you were gone. Other days we could hear you screaming from within the cave.”

  I feel Luna’s gaze on me, but I don’t look at her. I can only see the liquid crystal I had been placed in, after everyone gave up on me. I feel my throat burn, trying to hold back questions and cries. Finally I release a world’s amount of tension, and I lean into Luna as my body heaves the emotions I couldn’t express while I was lost in my void. I cry. No tears, but my lungs seek oxygen all too much, and my chest expands and releases, until I am calm enough to breathe again.

  Luna wraps he
r other arm around my shoulder. “Amelia, ça va bien se passer. Shh, it’s going to be all right.” It was the first time I had heard her speak in her native tongue. It passed through my core, as if I could feel it healing me. “Rien ne va vous faire du mal. Nothing is going to harm you, Emma.”

  She is quiet except for her soft whispers, calming me to a safe sleep, where there is no void.

  _________________

  “I feel like I’ve never made the right choices,” I tell Luna as we sit in the cave, talking about everything I need to hear before I go out into the real world again.

  She lets out a long breath. “Sometimes, if you let your thoughts build up inside you, evil will grow. It’s important to let go of things that make you upset, because it will only drag you deeper into your own hell.”

  I let her words repeat themselves inside my head. It will only drag you deeper into your own hell.

  “Why did this happen to me? I mean, what about Kenzie? Is she all right?”

  “Kenzie got back in time. She was upset for being lied to, but we’ve explained everything to her, and she understands now. No forgiveness, but understands. As for you, Emma, I think you brought yourself into that trance.”

  “What do you mean?” I pull my knees to my chin, feeling safer but not trusting what Luna might say.

  “Amelia,” her French accent makes my name beautiful as she rubs my back. “You had already built your hell around you. I could see you, everyday getting worse. You were blaming everything on yourself. You never forgave yourself for leaving your family behind. Even from the first day you came here, I saw immediately how you condemned yourself for things that happened by fate. Your death was no one’s fault, and it’s a part of life. I know you don’t want to be an Essence—nobody does.”

  I stare forward into the cave, hearing Luna’s calming voice next to me. “But why did I go into the trance, Luna? What does this have to do with anything?” I go instinctively to wipe a tear, still none. I thought after years of being an Essence I would learn, but there will always be that moment when Kenzie and I both cried real tears again, each of us dying as an Essence.

  “You needed time for yourself,” she says. “You didn’t know it, but your soul did. Everyone needs time to forget and relax.”

  “But I didn’t feel safe. I knew there was more out there, even though I couldn’t think of it. It ate away at me,” I tell Luna, feeling myself getting worked up again.

  “Remember how you lost part of your soul after you were born?” she asks me, turning to face me, trying her best to keep me calm.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You grew separately. When it joined with you in Phantom Lagoon, it knew things you didn’t from just being here longer. When Mackenzie left, it must have known you needed time to heal yourself, so there has always been part of you keeping yourself safe.”

  “I know. I’ve heard it before. Especially when I was human—right before I became an Essence—it was like it was warning me what was about to happen, letting me brace myself for when I left my human life. Especially the first few nights in Phantom Lagoon, I could feel it helping me.”

  “Have you ever felt better by just holding your stone?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Luna adjust herself and take out a necklace. She hands me a pale purple stone secured on a leather string.

  “Is that mine?” I stare at it, not believing the change in color. It had once been a deep purple, but now it was a soft lilac. The only way I recognize it is by the brown dent that has always been there, a scar left from leaving my family.

  “Yes.” She places the cord around my neck, and I instantly feel warmth radiating from the stone. “It’s changed in the time you have been away. Some scars have healed, but there are some that never will or just need more time.”

  “Why is the color different?” I ask, fingering the stone and seeing that some of the small cracks on the surface have been erased, smoothed over, and even though I can still see the brown dent on the side, I rub it as if it were a sore muscle.

  “Because you’re different.” She smiles. “These stones are truly a part of us. They provide strength for everyone. It’s what makes us immortal.”

  “Do you have one?” I release the stone from my grasp and let it fall to my neck where it belongs.

  “It had once been a dark almost-red pink.” She takes a chain off her neck and holds out the stone. It looks like it was larger once, but was cut in half. It’s a light almost-white pink now, and except for the jagged edges that make it seem to be only half of a stone, that’s the only scar; the rest is smooth, making it appear as a river stone.

  “What happened to it?” I ask, running my thumb over the rough edge.

  She drags her pointer finger across the surface with slow, gentle care. “Things worked differently back then. Magic scared everyone, and you could die if someone thought you could control it. I don’t know if Phantom Lagoon works with magic, but there was a time when you didn’t need it to stay alive. When I lived in Europe, we just needed the stones and natural water. I’d always stay near a stream at night, fingering the stone and hoping someone wouldn’t find me.” She stops for a moment and smiles. “But I guess being found by your soul mate isn’t bad.”

  “That’s how you met him?” When she thinks of him, I can feel her stone radiate with happiness, and I have no doubt that this man was truly meant for her soul.

  “He was human, and I wasn’t. I didn’t tell him, but I know he understood I was different. We fell in love quickly, and soon I trusted him with my secret. I didn’t know what to call our in-between state, but after I tried to describe everything, the first thing he said was, ‘You’re a beautiful essence of everything that is good in my life.’ That’s what I decided to call our kind. An Essence.”

  She’s quiet for a while again and smiles, as if she’s in her own world. I can tell she is remembering him; maybe even hearing his voice. The grin leaves her face, growing more serious; and she looks at me again.

  “I had to leave for my own safety, but he couldn’t come with me. It was like I left half myself behind with him.” She fingers the spot on the stone where a large part of it appears to be missing. “I waited for him to find me for years, until I knew he must have died from old age…or something.” She mumbles the words, and I can feel the pain in her unfinished love story. “I’ve been looking for a way out of here ever since.”

  Chapter 30

  Homecoming

  “Are you ready?” Luna steps up and offers me her hand. I take it but don’t follow her when she starts walking.

  “Luna, how long was I away?”

  I stare around me, seeing the cave with open eyes. It hasn’t changed at all. The crystal walls still glimmer when light passes over; the liquid in the small pool appears as a false solid that runs through my fingers.

  Luna stops but doesn’t turn to face me. “Mackenzie was able to leave the cave at the beginning of October, so it’s been four months.”

  “Months?” I try the words on for size, but they don’t fit. “So, it’s January now?”

  “Almost February,” she says, looking back at me over her shoulder, waiting for me to follow. “There’s still snow on the ground.”

  She continues to walk, so I hurry to catch up to her. I try my best to not look at the bodies while we pass through the crystal cave, but I can’t help but notice a few that weren’t here the last time.

  Luna notices my wandering gaze. “Hikers—an entire family. They came right before winter struck and each of them picked up a stone. A mother, father, daughter, and son. Sherri, their daughter, gets along with Mackenzie very well since she is only a few years older. Their son Drew is ten, like Tyler, so it’s double trouble,” she says, smiling to herself. “But they are happy.”

  I stare at the face of Sherri, long brown hair to her elbows; I can almost picture her playing with Kenzie. “What about the parents?”

  Luna is quiet. “Sti
ll adjusting.”

  When we round a corner and light from the opening begins to stream into the cave, the sun reflects off the crystals making the entire place glow. When I look outside, I’m blinded temporarily, but as my eyes adjust, I see a sheet of fresh white snow covering the ground. Icicles cling to the rock wall that surrounds the lagoon’s water. The moss that used to coat the trees and rocks is gone. In its wake are snowflakes pure in color and untouched. The water of the lagoon is partially frozen as the ice slabs lean into the water. Trees are weighed down by wet snow and hang low. The sun is high in the sky, shining down in a blinding manner. The white reflects the light, as the snow begins to melt, preparing for spring.

  “Here we are.” Luna stops just shy of the opening and gestures for me to go first. “Everyone will be thrilled to see you.” She smiles at me for encouragement. Her face is serene, relaxed, telling me to do the same.

  I squint my eyes past the bright snow and start to recognize faces. When they look back at me, they freeze, stunned, seeing a ghost. I don’t know what to do. I look around for Eliza or Kenzie, but I don’t see them. The air is still, as everyone tries to figure out how I’m standing here. No one moves toward or away from me, but they stand, astonished and amazed at the sight of me.

  “Emma?” The voice comes from my left side, and when I turn, I see Eliza. Her red hair hangs limp around her face, curling toward her cheeks. Her eyes are tired when they look at me, and I can see, by the way she holds herself, it is as if she hasn’t slept in weeks. But now her face has a glow to it. Maybe she doesn’t believe I’m here, because she doesn’t dare look away from me.

  “You’re…okay?” Her voice cracks the smallest bit on the word “okay.”

  She steps toward me like a dream, thinking I will disappear with a sudden movement, just dust in the wind.

  “Oh, my God.” She covers her mouth, but I can still see a smile.

  I smile back at her, but I don’t know what to say.