A Way (The Voyagers Book 1) (12 page)

CHAPTER 23

His parents encouraged him to sleep that night, but even though he rejected it the day before, he asked for their assurances that he had made the right choice.  Above all, he wanted them to reiterate the confidence they had in him finding Jessie again.  He knew by the time the morning sky started to turn blue, that if her father had kept his word, Jessie would be waking up not being able to recall any of the memories they had made together.  When he found her in the new realm, his soul decided to exit the gateway into, it was up to him to provide the clues to help her remember.

Dex was finishing his last tea – his mother had sternly reminded him that it was not technically his last – when he heard a knock on the door and his father opened it, to invite Gerald in. 

“
Would you like some tea, breakfast, to take my son to his possible death
?”  He imagined his father saying when in fact it had just been a curt, ‘good morning,’ and a quiet, ‘thanks for doing this.’ 

Gerald stood awkwardly by the front door, trying to look anywhere, other than at Dex, and failing. 

“Is it done?”  Dex asked, not able to meet his best friend’s eyes.

Gerald nodded.  He seemed to be having difficulty trying to figure out what to say.  Instead, he shook his head when Dex’s mother offered him something to eat.

“Well, did she forget?  Did it work?”  Dex still didn’t know what ‘it’ was.

“I saw her before I left,” Gerald found his voice. “She asked me where I was going, I said to pick up Dex.  She asked me, what kind of a name is Dex?  I tried a bit more to see if she was joking.” He looked to Dex smiling, slightly cautious. “You know how she is?”

Dex nodded and urged him to continue.  At the same time, not wanting to hear it. 

“I said, you know, Alex? She got this blank look on her face.  I could tell she wasn’t acting.  I’ve seen the way her face changes whenever she hears your name, I’ve recognized it since she was eight.”  Gerald looked down at his shoes. “She didn’t know who I was talking about.  It’s done.”

Dex released a long breath, only realizing when his lungs started to sting, that he had been holding it.

“Good, well then…..” he trailed off. 

That was what Dex wanted.  There was no reason for him to prolong what he had made up his mind to do.  He stood up and crossed the room, stoically, to his mother.  He hugged her; she hugged him back harder.   When he stepped out of her embrace, he could see tears swimming in her eyes. 

“I should go get Peter, you will want to say good bye to him.” Even in her distress, his mother still managed to speak a few words.

Dex grabbed her arm, fighting back the tears that were now falling freely down her cheeks, saturating the collar of her white shirt.

“No, I can’t.  I just need to go.  Besides, I’ll see you all again before I even know it, right?” He sounded more confident than he felt. 

His mother rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. “Right.”  She smiled through her slowing tears. 

His father moved to her side and laid his arm across her shaking shoulders.  He extended his free arm towards his oldest son.  Dex raised his own to meet it. They shook hands. Dex recognized eyes, so much like his own, looking back into his. 

“We are so proud of you son.  You are saving something that is very important to so many people.” 

Dex gripped his father’s hand tightly and quickly released it.  There was only one thing left to say.

“See you soon.” 

Taking one look around the only home he had ever known, Dex tried to commit everything he saw to memory. He turned quickly, to leave, without even grabbing a coat. If he stopped and thought about something else other than the gateway, the responsibility he had been given but didn’t want, he would change his mind.  Gerald opened the door and Dex walked outside, without looking back.   His mother’s sobs were silenced by the closing door.

CHAPTER 24

Dex and Gerald hiked sullenly, through the snow covered woods. When the silence became too overwhelming, one of them had to break it, to make sure, what was about to happen was actually real.

“Pa and I spent a few hours out on the lake yesterday.”  Gerald decided it was safe to speak.  Dex had stopped clenching and unclenching his hands; his shoulders had relaxed a little. 

“The lake is frozen, good for walking on and the snow has packed down good, since it warmed up some after the storm.”  He was making small talk.  Dex appreciated that after the last two days had been filled with terms he hadn’t even heard before Jessie’s birthday. 

“Anyway,” Gerald continued. “He told me for sure where it was, this gateway, even though we already knew.” Dex visibly tensed in front of him.

“I wish I could go you know, I don’t have any reason to stay here.”  Dex stopped and spun around so suddenly, Gerald almost tripped into him. 

“But you aren’t going, are you?”  Dex didn’t want to get mad at his friend, he knew all the reasons it was his soul moving on and not Gerald’s. 

He put his hand on Gerald’s shoulder.  “I just need you to look after her ok?  She will tell you that she can look after herself, and of course she can, but everyone should have someone looking out for them and I won’t be around to do it anymore.”

Gerald’s eyes were glassy, this was hard for him too.  They had been friends longer than either of them even knew. 
What had his mother called them?  Boarding souls?

“You know I will, Dex.  I promise you if you ever need me to, you know, in the other realms,” he rolled his eyes, not believing he was actually saying the words, “I’ll help you find her.”

“I guess that depends on if we can even find each other.”  Even if he didn’t sound like it, Dex was grateful for his friend’s attempt to help.

They started walking again, and stopped when they reached, what they was sure was, the edge of the frozen, snow packed lake.  The island sat still, in the middle.  From the shoreline, it shared the appearance with what it was concealing. Another world. 

As they eased onto the ice, Dex started to run through all his favorite moments of the life he was about to leave behind: finding Jessie in the barn, swimming with Gerald, laughing with his mother, fishing with his father, giving Sammy piggyback rides, tricking Peter into doing his chores, Jessie, Jessie, always Jessie.  He heard the words before he saw what he was straining to find, but hoping not to.

“There it is.”  Dex eyes followed in the direction to where Gerald was pointing.  It looked like a regular rock. 

“That’s it.”  They moved towards it slowly. 

The feeling that surged through Dex’s body when he had stood in front of it with Jessie, was gone.  He looked at their tree. He would never forget her face when she saw it.  Jessie had already forgotten that it ever happened

“That’s it.  Pa said you just have to walk behind it and poof….” 

Where had Gerald been while pa had been explaining the gateway to me?
Dex wondered and almost cracked a smile. 
And poof? 
If his father had put it that way he never would have agreed to do what he was about to do.

“Dex, there is something I didn’t tell you about Jessie, and her forgetting who you are.”  Gerald glanced at him nervously.  Dex felt like a cold liquid had been poured over his brain. 

“What?  Don’t tell me it didn’t work?  I can’t….”

Gerald cut him off. “It worked.  I’m sure of it, it’s just that while I was talking about you, she kept rubbing this stone hanging around her neck.  I asked her where it came from; I knew it was from you.  For her birthday right?”  Dex nodded and revisited the memory that seemed to have happened so long ago. 

“She said she didn’t know where it came from, just that she would never take it off.   I just figured you should know that, thought it might help.”

“You’re right, it was from me, and thank you; it does help.”  He didn’t care.  There was no one around to laugh or smirk, so he hugged his friend and patted his back.  “It helps a lot.”

Gerald stood rooted to the spot for hours, after his friend, Dex, vanished behind the rock.  He stood while the tears he didn’t know he cried, left frozen streaks on his cheeks, his feet grew numb, and the sun moved lower and lower in the sky.  It wasn’t until he heard a twig snap behind him and his father came into his sight line, that he allowed himself to turn around and leave the island he would never set foot on again. 

*******

The logs cracked on the fire, shifted, and sent ashes floating through the air.  Ellie brushed one off the arm of the chair.  “I won’t lie to Dex again, Benjamin.  That wasn’t the deal when you agreed to bring me into this”.

Benjamin crossed one leg over the other, placing his hands on his knee, staring into the fire. “Whether it was the deal or not, we did what we had to do, to protect the gateway.  We took the risk bringing them together again, we all knew what the consequences could be.”  He considered the subject closed and lifted himself off the chair to leave his wife to her misgivings.  She grabbed his hand roughly, before he had a chance to exit the room.

“We lied to our son.  What are we going to do when he finds Jessie again and she doesn’t remember him?  We convinced him that wiping her memory was temporary, that it would be intact when her soul entered the next realm.  He believes that he will remember everything instantly.  All so you, Jed, and the others could betray the voyagers that don’t want the gateway used for selfish purposes.”

Benjamin yanked his hand from her grasp and stood unmoving, looking straight ahead into the darkness of his house. “You’re just as excited, as Jed and I, of what you refer to as ‘selfish purposes’. What Dex could achieve for us is too important. He won’t have a chance to find her again.  I’ll never let that happen.” 

He left the room, not giving her a chance to continue the argument.  He was right.  There was nothing left for her to defend.  She had sold her soul to their cause, long ago.

Ellie sat ridged, watching the flames until there was nothing left of them, but smoldering coals.

Dex

Dex knew, after he had made the decision to leave his family, his friend and Jessie, that his parents had not told him the whole truth.  When he arrived in the next realm he vaguely remembered his parents and the girl, whose name was just beyond the reach of his imagination, and existed only in his dreams.  She started visiting him during his unconsciousness first a few times a month and then reoccurring more and more.  When the images and daily thoughts became more vivid, he started to question his mother.  With her help his memories developed, but when Dex questioned her about the girl in his dreams, she would dismiss him and tell him it was all in his head.   Yes, they were voyagers. No, they had never met any others.  They only knew there were more like them and that his father was one of the protectors of the gateway.

His father was even more closed off about the subject; a shadow drifted over his eyes whenever his son questioned him about the past lives his soul had encountered.  Giving Dex limited information, his father encouraged him to learn more and insisted that he was the future of the voyagers.  Dex was the one that could make the difference in discovering new ways to use the passage into new realms.  His father took him to the location of the mysterious gateway. Dex led the way, like he was walking a well-worn path that he travelled daily.  For a few months, after, he would visit the rock on the island, hoping for a resolution to show itself, to appear out of thin air.  None ever came, and Dex felt himself slipping into a darkness.  He knew there was something missing.  If his parents wouldn’t tell him what it was, then it was up to him to discover it without their assistance. 

This determination is what lead him to make the decision jump for the second time.  He was nervous that if he influenced the gateway to his own advantage, he could cause irreparable damage to it.  His parents assured him there was no danger to the gateway or the other voyagers.  The longer Dex stayed in this present realm, the more he felt less like himself.  He could feel the reality he lived in evaporating.  The blond haired, blue eyed girl invaded his thoughts when he was awake and haunted them when he was asleep.  He looked for her in stranger’s eyes.  Finally, his mother, after watching her son being consumed with an obsession he wasn’t sure was even real, stopped him when he was leaving for the island.  She was aware he had started spending most of his days there, but he hadn’t revealed his new plans.

“Dex!” She called to him, as he was exiting the back kitchen door.  “Before you leave, can you sit for a bit?” 

She decided to remain calling him by his nickname, Dex.  Benjamin thought it would be too risky; he wanted to limit his son’s memory, but he was unable to change her mind.  She reminded her husband of the promise they had made to Dex, and risks he had taken to protect them, that she had made a vow to her son too.  Today was the day she was going to make it right.  She had watched him flounder for too long.

He displayed a look of anticipation as he backed up and sat in the chair opposite his mother.  She reached for his hand, but he jerked his away.  He was impatient; he needed answers, not her sympathy.

“I was right, wasn’t I?”  Dex asked, his clenched jaw flinching. 

She knew what he meant and nodded slightly. 

“You have always been intuitive.  Your soul has always been so open.  I warned your father that the more we kept the truth from you, the more you would dig to find the missing pieces.”  She placed both of her hands, palm down on the table, steadying herself.  “What do you know?” 

“I know that you told me the voyagers are protecting themselves, the gateway, and by doing this they don’t care who they hurt.  I remember Jessie. You promised me that I would find her again, but that hasn’t happened, has it?”  Dex started to raise his voice. It was the first time he realized that he had known the mysterious girl’s name all along, he was just afraid to speak it.  It was with false pretenses that he left everything he knew to save the voyagers. 

“Do you know where she is?  Can you explain to me, exactly why you thought it would be ok, to keep her existence hidden from me?  I remember, ma.  I remember you filling my head with ideas of soul mates and how they’re never separated.  If any of that was true, then why is the only place I can see her, is in my dreams?  My whole life here has been a long feeling of déjà vu and she is the only thing that is missing.”  He didn’t tell her that he also remembered his best friend, Gerald, and Jessie’s little sister, Sammy. 

“I don’t know where she is Dex.  Her protectors took her away, we haven’t been in contact with them for years.   A few days after you left I was told that they met with other voyagers and there was an agreement the five could never meet again.  We would continue to protect you and Peter, and Jed would still look after the souls of Gerald, Jessie and Sammy.  We could all lose our privileges that came with this responsibility, if we ever allowed the five to connect again.  We would lose our children.  Your soul, and theirs, would be given to someone else to protect.  I couldn’t risk that, so I agreed.  It came down to losing my sons or you being happy with Jessie.”  Her voice broke.  “I’m so sorry, Dex.  I relinquished your happiness for mine.”

Dex tried to contain his boiling rage.  He stood up and paced back and forth from one end of the tiny kitchen to the next.

“I’ve made the decision to go back into the gateway, today, to find Jessie.  If I don’t find her, where my soul ends up, then I will keep entering it until I do.”

Her face held no emotion, his declaration wasn’t a surprise to her.  She knew that once he figured out what the voyager’s had done, she wouldn’t be able to keep him from leaving.

“There’s something else you need to know.”  His mother continued with her confession.  “When Jessie’s memory was taken from her, I was made to believe that it would only be in that realm.” 

This was the part that hurt her the most.  When Benjamin had told her the real truth about what they had done to Jessie, she felt betrayed.  She was terrified of how Dex would react.

“What do you mean?” Dex banged his hands down on the table and leaned across the table to her, his eyes a dark storm.

“Jessie won’t know you.  She’ll remember nothing of the time her soul spent with you.  The memory loss was implanted in her to follow her to any realm she entered.  I didn’t know, Dex.  I didn’t know it was possible, but that was what your father and hers had been working towards during those times they disappeared for days.  They discovered a way to suppress memories permanently.”

“Then I will make her remember.”  Dex thought of what Gerald told him before he faded away from his past.  He was thankful he had trained himself to be so in tune with his memory recalls and visions.  Dex was sure that dream was not just a figment of his imagination; it was a sign.   Jessie had not fully forgotten him.  She remembered her promise about the necklace. 

A sudden understanding passed though him.  “The five never asked for our souls to be the saviors of the voyagers or the gateway.  I’m going to find all of them and we’re going to end this together.”   The single souls had never been a danger to them, it had been the voyagers all along.

He stormed out of the kitchen.  Without any resistance, his mother let him go.