Twenty-Three

When I came here last time it wasn't through my own power, and I woke up alone in a strange forest. I realized now that was probably Edith's doing because one moment, I closed my eyes and the next I was in a wasteland. There was nothing as far as I could see beyond the dunes of sand that stretched out for miles and miles.

I stood and looked around. It was then I noticed the glowing silver rope tied around my waist. "Whoa," I said, before giving it a tug. The rope seemed endless as I looked to where it disappeared into the distance, but it weighed nothing. The only way I knew it was there was the physical feel of it. I stood a moment longer hoping for a pull in one direction or another. I was about to start walking when I heard a voice. It started as a whisper of words I couldn't quite understand, but then I knew it was Bran.

"Janis said because we have a strong connection and part of my mark helps to form a bridge between this world and where you're at. Where are you?" he asked, and I knew he was trying to be calm, but I could feel the worry and concern that laced through his words.

"I don't know. When I was here before I landed in a forest, but now there's nothing. It's all desert and sand for as far as I can see." Using my hand, I shielded my eyes from the sun and turned in a circle. "I think I see something. I'm going to walk toward it." A flash of metal caught my eye, and I hurried in that direction, but everything was strange here. The faster I moved the slower I got there but the rope around my waist stayed as it was. Never getting tighter, or having more slack.

"Can you see anything?" Bran asked, and I tried to focus on letting him see exactly what I saw.

"Not yet."

"Sometimes it's not what you see, it's what you don't see. Close your eyes and clear your mind. That's it, take some deep breaths," Bran said, and the sound of his voice soothed me and helped me focus. There was a whoosh of wind, and I felt my hair blow back. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the forest I'd been in with Edith. I hurried along in the direction we'd gone last time on what I would have sworn was the same path. The plants and everything were the same, but there was a dark heaviness that wasn't here before.

When I broke through the clearing at the end, I knew it was definitely the same path. The veil was in front of me. A shimmering wall that had no beginning and no end yet divided the world of the living from the beyond. Spirits were everywhere, some were only light and had no discernable features or shape. They floated right through the barrier as easy as they had floated around the forest.

But other spirits were not as lucky. They were in human form and stood at the base of the veil. Some of them put their hands up to it and were met with resistance. "They can't pass through," I said, and hoped Bran heard me.

"Do you see the wraith?" Bran asked, making me glance around and pay closer attention.

"Not yet. I'm going to get a little closer." I made my way through the spirits that were wandering aimlessly as though they couldn't see the veil but had been drawn to it.

Then I noticed some of them were frozen in place at the barrier. Other spirits avoided them, but the longer I watched them the more obvious it was they had not moved at all. "No, but there's something strange at the boundary." I walked nearer to one of them and was surprised to realize it was Edith. "Bran, something's wrong," I said to myself in a low voice.

"Please be careful," he whispered.

"Edith?" I slowly moved past some spirits that were near where she stood. They were wandering around in a circle, and looked like they weren't sure where they were supposed to go or where they even were. I slid past one and got closer to Edith. Except she wasn't anything like she had been. Instead of glowing with the internal light that seemed to emanate from most spirits, she looked grey and dull. When I was close enough to touch her, I reached out.

"Jordan, don't," I heard Bran say just before my finger made contact with her. She crumbled like ash so fine that it blew away leaving not a trace behind.

"Bran, something is definitely wrong." I walked closer to where she'd stood and noticed that her arm had been extended through the barrier. The opening was still there as I bent over to look inside. There, just on the other side, was a figure. It was dark and I couldn't see much through the small hole, but I'd seen that figure before and I knew exactly what it was. "The wraith."

I turned and bolted back the way I'd come and didn't stop running until I was so deep in the trees and underbrush, I wasn't sure where I was anymore. But that didn't matter right now. I tugged on the silver rope at my waist and was relieved it was still there before I turned to look back in the direction I'd run. I was too far into the forest to see the barrier anymore, and I tried not to think about what I'd seen, not wanting Bran to see, but he knew. He'd seen through my eyes everything I'd seen.

"Jordan, you need to come back, it's too risky there." I could feel his worry. The connection between us tugged at me to return to him. But I wasn't done yet.

"I need to make sure. If what I think I saw was true, then what's going on here is much worse than we imagined." The last thing I wanted to do was go back again. But I knew if I didn't do it now, I never would, and we needed to know what was happening.

I turned then and ran, only stopping when I was close enough to see the barrier. Staying under the cover of the thick trees and brush, I noticed Edith wasn't the only one that had been turned to ash. There were several other spirits, all of them in the same condition she was in, and when another spirit got a little too close, they crumbled without a trace. "Something's not right," I mumbled to myself.

Sudden pain shot through me, and my back felt like it had been touched by a white-hot branding iron. I was pulled backwards fast enough to blur everything within my vision. The air was squeezed from my lungs as the pain in my back grew even hotter.

"Jordan!"

My eyes shot open at the same time I sucked in a big breath of air. "Where am I?" I said as my eyes bounced around from Bran to Janis before I finally realized I was back.

"Are you okay?" Janis asked.

"I think so. Something strange is happening at the veil. I went to get a closer look and was pulled back here."

"Your connection is even stronger than I realized," Janis said.

"My back is burning. One minute I was standing in the woods near the boundary and the next my back was on fire, and I was being pulled back here." I squirmed around and tried to itch the area but couldn't reach it.

Bran turned me around and held my arms to steady me. His intake of breath startled me. "What is it?" I asked, and tried again to reach it. "What is it?"

"The Merkaba," Janis whispered.

"What? I don't know what that is," I said as Bran continued to stare at my back.

"A very strong mark of protection. If I had to guess, Bran's worry caused his mark to send you some protection of your own." She patted my back, and after gathering the stones and crystals that I'd flung off me when I sat up, she turned to face us both. "Now we learn to fight."

Bran pulled me into his arms and held me so tight it was nearly painful, and I clung to him. Because no matter how tight he held me it would never be tight enough, and I never wanted to feel the pain of being pulled away from him again.