Chapter Twelve
I reached for Britain’s phone. I was scared that if I didn’t text him like I told Bianca I would that he’d just show up too.
There was only one text from him beyond his new address, it came a bit ago warning me that Bianca was on her way to my house.
I took a deep breath and texted: That warning came a little too late. Not good.
Sorry. Am I going to see you before your mom comes back in town.
Gonna try tomorrow.
I hit the ‘Sleep’ button on his phone and tossed it in the drawer of the nightstand.
I reached for my phone. The last text was from Draven. He said he was on his way. That was five minutes ago. I scrolled through the other texts. There was one from my mom, telling me about her flight and that she heard I was getting better, to keep fighting.
I heard Kara and Draven’s hypnotic voice echoing through the house. My eyes moved to the stairs, expecting to see him there at any moment. Once I had myself together and he still hadn’t come up, I went down.
He was on his cell phone, his shoulders were pulled back a bit and he was nodding along. I heard my mom’s voice echoing through.
“Yeah, okay,” he said before he hung up.
“What was that about?”
He tried to hide the anger in his expression but failed. “Nana wants to work with you on your void. They said to give you space.”
“Now? I thought we were doing the seeing thing?”
His shy grin had a flare of relief in it. He knew then I didn’t put my mom or anyone up to talking to him about me.
“All kinds of time,” his grin became devilish. “She said if the creek is swollen for you to stay with us. More rain is coming and she doesn’t trust the wood.”
Kara was on the phone in the kitchen. I could tell she was talking to her husband because everything she was saying was at the speed of light, describing some creative flow she must have had today. Her husband, Robert, was the only one that seemed to understand her when she talked like that. I used to think it was because he was a writer, too, but now I’m not so sure. She asked him to hold on and then looked at us as we walked in the kitchen.
“Did you talk to Mom?” she asked.
“He did,” I said ticking my head to Draven.
Kara lifted her brow. “All right, then.”
“Good,” she said, smiling. “Be careful. It’s getting bad out there again.”
I stared at her for a second, my gaze shouted thank you for having my back before.
As soon as we stepped on the steps, the guitar faded, and for a second I heard silence. Draven gripped my hand and led me past my car to his Hummer parked outside of the garage. I studied the shadows of the trees across the pavement then I heard the whispers begin. At first, I was sure they weren’t in English, but then I heard: “...Charlie…Charlie Myers.” They hissed in overlapping taunts.
I glared at the thin air around me. Draven opened the door for me. Once I climbed in, he spoke, “They do know you by name. The dead hear a lot in the echo around them. Don’t stress it.”
“When you teach me to see—when I see them—how scary is it?” I asked in a shaky voice. I was positive if my body chilled up, if I was slammed with an anxious feeling, that may or may not be my own, scared or not, I’d be useless. I’d make them even angrier.
“It’s like watching home movies.”
I leaned closer doubting him.
He grinned shyly and glanced away. “I’m serious.” He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me toward the driveway, right to the heart of the nothing saying my name.
“There are never as many as you think. They read you. Out of all of us…you’ve been able to protect your mind the best.” His fingertips grazed my brow. “You hide behind a song you hear—the song that’s playing inside your house right now. From behind the music, you can still see what you need to fight, but you’re protected, your doors are shut tight.”
I was too freaked to hear a damn word he was saying!
“Can you remember it clearly now?” he asked.
The song? I gave him a weak nod.
“All right…,” he said. “Focus on it. We’re about to make this soul remember who he is.”
“Wait! Are you crazy? I’m not ready. I don’t even know how!”
“When you listen—not hear—listen, you see. You won’t be standing in this driveway. You’ll be standing in the center of every single memory this soul has.”
I shook my head. I was terrified.
“The dead leave themselves wide open, the living are harder, but it’s all the same principle.”
He leaned closer to me and stared intently into my eyes.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
I tried.
“Search the memories. Find a point before they lost their way. Say one word. The name of a loved one, pet, a place, a toy something that will cause them to remember the emotion they had at that point. If you pick the right one, the ripple will clear the muddy waters. Nature takes over after that point.”
Down deep, I mean really deep inside, I felt this pull, this desire to fight, to end darkness, but everywhere else I was horrified. I didn’t want to do this. “What if I can’t see? What if they just attack? They’ve been violent before.”
“It’s all in your mind, Charlie. Four nights ago you thought they swarmed because they were scared and we were the pin hole opening they had out of hell—to redemption.”
I could feel the embers of how well that discussion went over.
“If there’s too many and you can’t remember how to hide behind your song, demand they go away. Mean it, in all ways. They will, for at least a bit.”
“I can’t.”
A mix of frustration and devotion flooded his eyes. “I will never let anything hurt you. I have no idea what’s in your void, but I have to know that you can defend your mind. Your soul.”
Way to go mom! Thanks to her convo, Draven’s self-loathing side of his personality was sure to convince him once I broke through my void I was still going to keep him in the dark.
“I’m not doing it alone again,” I swore.
“We don’t always get to chose when to engage or who’s at our side when the enemy strikes first.” He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist as tight as he could and whispered, “Breathe,” in my ear.
I let another breath out as I watched the shadows slither across the pavement.
“Play the song in your mind,” he whispered against my neck. “Do you hear it?”
I nodded, feeling the warm sensation of his breath.
Draven squeezed his arms then in a demanding tone he said, “Show yourself.”
I saw the shadows across the ground begin to move together. Within an instant, they were mimicking the image of a man. I couldn’t see any of his features. He was dark and artic. Fog leaked from my lips as the dense sensation of oppression oozed down my soul. I could hear his mocking laugh and annoying hiss. It would deepen into a growl as the waves of foulness its presence brought wreaked havoc on my sanity. Fear was there for a blink of an eye then stunned shock stilled the madness of denial swarming in my mind.
When the impossible morphs into existence before you there is nothing you can do but move through it.
“Listen,” Draven whispered into my ear. “Look past the darkness and listen. Who was he? How did he get here?”
“Charlie…” the image hissed at me. Only now his voice was more distance, confused as to why I wasn’t trembling but seeing him, truly seeing him for what he was.
I focused on the music in my mind. My song. I took ownership of the protection and confidence I sensed. I had a shield. As soon as I sensed this, I stood up straighter and found determination, beauty in the beast of evil. I listened and stared forward. I didn’t feel Draven’s arms around me. I didn’t see the driveway or the image. I was standing in a glow.
The purest, clearest of waters swirled around me t
urning into smooth walls. Through this element a life that didn’t belong to me was gliding before my eyes. The emotions flowed deeply. Only the most obsessive minds could dare to unravel them with the care each deserved. The darkest points soured my soul to where I had to depend on shock to push past them. Every bad turn I watched his soul make left me anxious when I glanced back in trepidation.
These points were the downfall; they were a reaction that was given a life form when the soul believed he had no control. I searched for a moment when he believed in the impossible, when life was a gift he could not wait to unwrap. He needed a moment that made him feel the way I did when I played. When he realized he wasn’t isolated from the almighty vim our universe was made of, but an intricate thread that helped weave our souls toward an evolution of awareness. Awareness that moved us beyond right and wrong, that ceased a culture of blame, and harnessed beings that searched for solutions, for the seed of individuality in their soul meant to inspire all.
This man had lived hundreds of years ago…somewhere in the east. He had been on his own most of his life. Never had a wife or a child. He couldn’t clearly recall his parents. In his mind, they’d left him. He lived his life in anger, full of hate, always struggling to survive. As I searched deeper in his life, I could see an older woman rocking him to sleep as a child. I listened to what she said and repeated it slowly: ‘je vous amie ma beaute douce.’
I pulled myself out of the illusion and focused on the figure in front of me. He was no longer a dark shadow, but the soul of a man. The oppression he’d used to sour me was chipping away from us both. The air was losing its bite; we shared the numbing high of falling from an electrifying high. The impossible was possible.
With wonder and awed devotion, he gazed into my eyes silently begging me to say the words again.
‘je vous amie ma beaute douce,’ I repeated.
He grew younger. The tithes of damnation that bound his soul unraveled. Breath by breath he didn’t recall his missed opportunities with sour regret. He understood he simply knew what paths were broken, why they must be avoided. He didn’t see his darkest hours as inevitable, a curse that numbed him into a shocked state, he saw the power he had to move through them. The despotic emotions that had chained him became hard limits he’d chose to hold when they fought swell inside of him again. All of these resolutions seeded into his soul. His existence had relevance once more. Inside he carried the lessons of this life as a weapon hidden in instinct.
He was a child once again. His smile was flooded with gratitude, he glanced from me to all around him, then bowed his head and turned, slowly vanishing, leaving the hard fought lessons of the life that had chained him in his past.
I stood in disbelief as I listened to the silence. Draven’s arms loosened as he stepped in front of me. In his eyes I found a pride that I didn’t think I deserved.
I did nothing.
My Creator had.
As the prayer of Saint Francis so eloquently notes, He’d used me as an instrument of his peace. I was humbled by the task given to me. Just as humbled as I was when I had a guitar in my hand, when I felt my existence leave the space I was in better than I found it. The immortality of my vim had left its mark. The mark wasn’t tangible, something I could hold in my hands as proof.
My mark was left in the soul of another.
“What did I say?” I asked in a daze.
“’I love you, my sweet beauty’…you made him remember his grandmother.”
“Do I speak French?”
With an impish grin he said, “Not well.”
“It’s quiet.”
“For now, more will come.”
“French?” I questioned, wondering if that was why, at times, I couldn’t understand what the whispers were saying.
“We see images from all over, from every time period.” He tilted his head. “According to Austin, we’ve seen souls from cultures that exist in other dimensions.”
That is why I was certain there were no accidents. Austin was meant to find us. He was meant to expand the boundaries we assumed were unmovable. To lead us to people who could help us master our supernatural traits. No matter how awesome and sure we were that we had reached the top of our game, the real truth was we’d barely begun.
I glanced around feeling the addiction of using what was inside of me swell. “You could literally spend all day doing this. Every single one of them has the power to change the world. The vibration would be felt by everyone.”
“There she is,” he said a bit too dryly. He shrugged when he saw my hard stare. “I don’t like being told I have to do something. This deal wasn’t a choice. We make it work or it makes us miserable. I can’t help how I see it.”
This was familiar to me, our views. I knew greatness was inside of Draven. I could know this all day long. I could want everything for him. It wasn’t going to matter until he saw it. Music was his hard limit. He wasn’t going to look for any solution because he didn’t want to find an answer that told him to set aside his instruments. If the choice was to play or save the souls of humanity, he’d choose to play. He loathed how selfish this made him feel, but was too angry at the possibility to think his way around it.
Figuring out what we were and why had taken center stage in my mindset.
I was asking the wrong questions.
I’d searched for validation and proof that we had to sacrifice our passions for a greater good. In his own way, Draven had told me there was no division between him and his music. I had no division, Aden didn’t. Madison’s obsession with art was just as deep. To suppress our creative desires, and all the vim it attracted, would be the same as suppressing our souls. How could we help anyone, bare the ride I’d just taken, if we were shattered inside?
I needed to understand how two seemingly different gifts intertwined.
“I’ll never ask you not to play again.”
He glanced away, landing his glare on the sidewalk.
“I’m not saying that because I’m jarred by where I’m at in life. I’m saying it because I believe it.” I grimaced. “For almost two days I forgot that I played. I craved my phone and its music like an addict. When I did hear music—hearing wasn’t enough. I was outside looking in. I never want you to feel as empty as I did.”
In a heartbeat he pulled me to his chest and rocked us side to side as his lips fell on my temple. My arms slid up his back, hooking around his shoulders. We were closer in this moment than we had been in a long while. It was my fault. I spent too much time trying to prove a point, to change him. I should’ve listened. I should’ve believed it was possible I was wrong. Reality checks like this cut the deepest, but they’re the ones you never forget. No matter how backed against the wall you may find yourself down the road.