Drake guided me over the hill and then right through the wave that danced on thin air.
Do you want to hear something odd? A friend of mine named Austin was the one that had managed to connect my friends and me with the idea of other dimensions. The one who allowed us to think we could escape the darkness around us.
Austin is from Chara. He’s a traveler, a person who guides others from dimension to dimension. He stumbled across us a few years ago. When he figured out that it didn’t really shock us that he appeared out of nowhere, and that we were not your ordinary teens, he told us of other worlds. He instantly wanted to bring us to Chara, but time and circumstance never seemed to line up the right way. Austin tried to prepare us for what we would see or endure when we eventually would travel with him.
I remember feeling how mesmerized Aden and the others were with seeing the gateways to the passage, that wave that divides the air. The sensation was different for me. I was scared. Scared because I knew, deep inside, those passages would link me to my dreams one day. For me, it was easier to want than have. If I wanted it, the best of my life was still before me; once I had it, I’d have to fight to keep it.
Drake gripped my hand tighter once the white glow surrounded us. Now that I wasn’t seeing vibrant auras, this experience was all new once again. I could still see the shades of light that led to various other worlds, but white dominated the glow around us.
“I would ask you if you were afraid, but I assume fear is still absent to you,” he said as he glanced at me.
The string had this illuminating glow that seemed to absorb the gaze of its passengers, but the light was not powerful enough to lighten his dark eyes; instead, they glistened. The allure that resided in his gaze was magnified—which pretty much blew my mind. They were already too much to handle at times.
“You make it hard to focus on any dark emotion.”
That glint in his eyes filled with astonishment. Apparently, his bluntness made me face my dark emotions, and mine made him believe there was reason to feel positive ones. He brought my hand to his lips and let them linger there for a moment. I felt fire burn through my soul and a deep anticipation clench my core.
“I feared it the first time I was in here,” he murmured as we began to walk.
“You? Afraid?” I teased.
I thought he would smile with that phrase, but his expression turned morbid, cold. “Donalt held a knife to my mother’s neck and demanded that my father teach me the paths. He told him if he ran, if he chose not to bring me back, he would kill my mother slowly, ensure that she bled out for days.”
I felt a sickness settle in my throat as rage encased my soul. That ghost better hope that Willow finds a way to end him before I get my hands on him. Because I can guarantee that she will have more mercy than I would.
“He brought you back,” I supplied, trying to focus on the one solid father figure he did have.
“And when he did, when he was alone with my mother, she scorned him for hours, didn’t speak to him for weeks. She wanted him to run, but he couldn’t.”
“Because he loved her.”
“More than anything,” he said as pride absorbed his emotions.
I knew it was a good thing that he was getting this out in the open. To keep him on this track, I had to find a way to show him some positive aspects. “Where did he take you the first time in here?”
“A special place,” he said as the grin I was searching for emerged on the corners of his lips. I love his subtle smile simply because you never really knew what he was thinking when it emerged. Walking mystery. That was what this boy was.
“At least you got to spend time with him outside of Esterious.”
“When I was younger, it was fun; as I got older, we fought,” he answered as grief and anger took over the pride in his emotions.
If we pushed through this, would he be better for it?
“About?”
“Where I wanted to go. I could see all of the passages, but two were brighter than the others. He always wanted me to go to the less bright of the two. Donalt convinced me that he was purposely keeping me away from the girl that was in my thoughts.”
I smirked, realizing he had avoided saying the name of that girl.
“I’m sure you asked him why and he gave you a solid answer.”
He didn’t answer for a moment or two. I glanced up at him, could see flashes of the conversations he and his father had, but not enough to answer my question.
“He told me that sometimes the obvious path is not the right one, that the vague passage I could see held an intense past of mine. That my roots were in that past, that no matter how damaged or twisted my life ever became that I could return to my roots and heal, grow in a different direction.”
“Did he take you to Chara?”
“No,” was his only response.
“Which one was I behind?” That was a bold question that stated that in some way I believed he was mine.
“Both,” he boldly stated as that emotion I was calling love emerged.
I had no response to that. After a few more minutes, I decided to push the father point some more.
“Your dad must have been a good teacher. I know when I was first digging in your head, I saw you in here alone when you were young.”
“Digging, huh?”
A sly smile invaded my image. “Don’t act like you don’t know I did that. You already admitted to testing me by playing a part.”
He nodded once. “Why are you pushing the conversation to my father?”
“A few reasons.”
“Listening.”
“Well, for one you thanked me for allowing you to talk about him.”
“And another?”
“I’m trying to get you past the bubble.”
“The what?” he said as a disbelieving grin spread across his face.
“You know the bubble.”
“You’ve lost me, Madison Marie.”
“It’s like a bubble of fear. Say you’re wigged out about something, like a speech or something. You fret over it, think about it a thousand times, imagine how horrible it is going to be, have a few freak outs, then the time comes and there is this bubble of energy—this wall standing between who you are and who you will be once the next moments are over. It’s terrifying because you can’t see past it. Everything that you have thought or done for days has been focused on that point. In your mind, it is everything; it will make or break you. As soon as you step past that bubble and find yourself in the moment and the question of fight or flight is null and void, you have no choice but to do your thing—and when it’s over, when the adrenaline is settling into your system, you feel a numb sensation. One that leads you to believe that you were a fool to fear it in the first place because not only were you meant to say what you had to say or do what you had to do, but you knew it so well that a natural instinct took over and you rocked the hell out of that moment.”
He stopped in the string and gazed down at me with absolute wonder in his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your mind is?”
“No one that matters,” I said with a blush.
“Do I matter?”
I felt myself turn crimson as the scent of roses wafted around us. “More than you know.” I playfully glared at him. “Stop deflecting. You have a bubble.”
“I have more than one,” he murmured as he carefully leaned down and let his lips just barely tease mine.
“You’re trying to distract me,” I said as I reached up and laced my fingers through his thick, dark hair. With a natural ease, his lips met mine. I stayed constantly aware of every part of him, but when our flesh met, even in the briefest of moments, that awareness was amplified. I knew when he held his breath, when his body tensed, how much power he put behind his lips, his tongue. We spoke a thousand words with each fluttering touch. I moved my lips against his, feeling sensual power meet mine, feeling him relax into me. There was something so indescribably erotic about how we me
lted into one another. You’d think we were old lovers that knew each other’s bodies better than our own. Not that we were raw, fresh, that every moment like this stopped time in some way.
As our kiss broke, his eyes fell into mine. “Distracting you? I see myself more as an opportunist,” he said as his hands moved down the sides of my body. When I sighed with that movement, a secret smile lingered on his lips.
Matching his play, my hands reached for his chest and slid down his body, stopping just before they reached his belt. When I felt him tense, I matched that secret smile.
His hands clasped mine with a slight hiss. “Birthday girl, we are never going to make it back to my palace if we don’t stop teasing one another.”
“I don’t tease, Drake. I say what I mean and mean what I say.”
He lifted a brow as doubt flashed over his eyes.
“When I’m not hurt, that is.”
Rapidly, those eyes moved across my stare. “What did you dream? Why is pain absent from your eyes now?”
“I honestly don’t know. But I know that as wild as my thoughts were, it would have taken more than a dream to quell them. I understand where you are coming from, I really do.” My eyes searched his as I tried to understand my own mind and soul. “I think what takes the pain away is that you respect the emotions I have. You’re a man about it. You don’t call them foolish. You’re not afraid of my mind. That tells me we are going to figure this out.”
His hands cradled my face as he moved his body against mine. “You’re a queen. You were born with the heart and mind of a queen. Passion vibrates through you. You think and feel deeply, and more often than not, think of yourself last. The only thing I have to figure out is how to prove to you that I was born to be your king.” His lips brushed against mine. “We’ve been tested. It may seem as if we failed, but I know it only made us stronger. That when we get past this wall of emotions, we will be invincible…I never meant to hurt you.”
I could only nod and lean in to him as his arms went around me. Moment by moment, the anger and jealousy I’d had was fading—but I knew, just as he did, that those emotions were just waiting for one reason to erupt. One shred of doubt.
We walked past the dark gray shades that I knew led to his dimension. A few others were passing through the passages. Each of them was from Chara, but they still slightly bowed to us as they passed by us.
We were approaching a haze that was a deep purple with what looked like diamonds moving across that shade.
“Ready?” he asked. I offered a simple nod as he pulled me through.
You never really knew what to expect when they pulled you through these passages. I had found myself in cellars by generators, in fields, inside the palace. My understanding of the passages was that at some point, or even currently, a large source of energy paved the path. Also that in theory everyone should be able to see these said passages, but only a select few do.
After the tingling sensation of the purple haze passed over us, I found myself standing at a crossroads. In every direction, there were mountains and rolling hills.
“Crossroads. Oh, the irony,” I said with a shy smile.
I heard him laugh as he adjusted his grip on my hand. “The real irony is that I made that passage.”
“You made it?”
He nodded once. “Storms in the string were insane when I first traveled through them. My father could sense them long before they ever manifested. He had us turn back as he felt one coming that first time in here. We weren’t fast enough, though. Right as it approached, he covered my body with his as I struggled to pull him to that passage. He fought with me, but the wave of energy forced us through.”
“Why didn’t he want to come in here?”
“He couldn’t see it. He thought we were walking into the wall of the string, that we would be burned alive and my mother would pay the price for that.”
“Was this the brighter passage you could see, or the dimmer one?”
He furrowed his brow, questioning why I assumed that he was taking me to one or the other. It was just a lucky guess. I mean, I doubt he would have mentioned it unless that was in his plans. “The dim one. But you see, my father believes in following signs. He thought because the storm came out of nowhere and I found this passage that it was connected to me. That the universe wanted me to have this anchor.”
“Well, you are kind of at a crossroads, so maybe he had a point.”
“Perhaps,” he murmured as he tenderly pulled my hand and encouraged me to walk forward.
The road had a sharp curve just ahead that led around a massive hill. I kept my stare on the horizon. Even though the mountain was sharp and looked daring, there were colors of lush green and random wildflowers. Danger alongside of beauty.
I assumed that this was nothing more than a walk through nature and was cool with that, but I was so wrong. Right as the road turned, a town came into view. Not an ordinary town; one glance easily showed how eccentric every building was. They were all random colors that ranged from rust to vibrant shades of blue, green, even purple. Some of the buildings were built into the hills, others stood alone, but the structures were not like the ones at my home. There were no sharp lines, at least not many of them. Some of the buildings looked like waves, others would curve here and there. It was wild to stare at.
The streets were lined with people. They all seemed ordinary enough to me. It was rather cold out, so it was hard to judge the individual personalities under their long jackets. Like us, each of them had a long scarf on; the women wore them on the outside, and the men on the inside.
“This is awesome,” I said as a wide smile came to my face.
“You think?” he asked seriously, judging my expression to see if I were being polite.
“Are you kidding? I feel like I just walked into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.”
“Who?”
I moved my head from side to side. “We’ve got so many movies to catch you up on.”
I could see him trying to compare the I Love Lucy show we watched to this place.
“One day, we’ll watch it. I meant it as a compliment. I swear.”
He must have believed me because he nodded once. “These people, their ancestors anyway, were nomadic, great explorers that moved everything and everyone with them.”
He pointed to a mountain ridge around the town. “There is a dark forest that is nearly impossible to pass through on the other side of that range. Once they reached the mountaintop and found their way to the valley, they lost the urge to move on. They were in love with the land; everything was in abundance, at least for the small of amount of them that were there at the time.”
We had reach the beginning of the town, and now I could see that the reason the buildings looked so odd at a distance was that they were not complete, or they looked like they were in progress. Parts of them would be in detail, where others were still rough-hewn stone.
Seeing how mesmerized I was, he went on. “The early records state that as soon as they set up camp all illness left them; even little cuts or bruises from their travels healed instantly. Youth and vitality was felt in every soul. All at once, instead of looking for land that would perfectly fit them they started to look for their soul, a soul that would fit their vessel perfectly.”
“I could so analyze that history for hours.”
All along the sidewalk, there were little shops or chairs set up; some were artists, others poets, and some were of arts and crafts. Musicians were here and there with crowds around them. The alluring smell of something divine was in the air.
There was something else along the sidewalk, too: what looked like a statue of a woman playing a fiddle was halfway in the ground and half above.
“That is kind of suffocating,” I said to myself as my mind rushed back to the dream I had, that feeling of sinking, a thick muscle tightening around me.
“It’s meant to be liberating,” he said as he watched me take in the detail of the halfway-buried stat
ue. “There are seasons of heavy rain here. The first one the settlers lived through was dramatic.”
I glanced to the mountains over the buildings. “Flooding?”
“Nothing serious. What was so dramatic was that as the rain washed down the hills, homes were discovered. They realized they were not the first to find this place.”
“Like a lost city?”
“That was what they assumed, but there were no bodies or anything to date the old city. Before long, they realized that the buildings were reflecting their inner desire, creating what was on the inside on the outside.”
“You’re joking.”
“That is the myth of their history. It’s a bit altered today. The early settlers became deeply spiritual, connected to their inner selves. A lot of them became seers.”
“Like what I can do?” I asked as I found myself listening for the ghostly whispers that followed me in every dimension, with the exception of Chara. I heard none here, which led me to believe that strife was not something the souls here died with.
“They saw the future. Some only saw moments before; others, decades in the future.”
“Well, that kinda takes the excitement out of living, now doesn’t it?” I quipped. You would think with all the hell that was surrounding me, I would want to know where it ends—but for me, the paths of discovery are more valuable than the end result.
“They were wise with that insight. They never spoke of what they saw. Later, as time moved forward the elderly were always present at the birth of new souls. They witnessed their first sleep, then later just as the child turned two they would present the family with a structure or sculpture like this one,” he said, nodding to the woman that I was yearning to chisel free from the sidewalk.
“With each wet season, the structure would erode away; how quickly or slowly it eroded was symbolic of the child’s inner journey. It is said that at the end of the life, if that life was lived to its fullest potential, the structure would be completely revealed and that soul’s mark on the Earth would be in place.”
“What happens if something happens before they complete their path, like an accident or something?”