A Way (The Voyagers Book 1) (22 page)

Dex didn’t wait for her to argue his suspicions.  He left the porch and headed back to the car.  As he was leaving he heard Gerald finish the conversation behind him.

“We will find them, Mary.  And the first thing I’m going to do, is teach them both, how to get their souls away from you.” 

CHAPTER 46

Dex returned to the cottage, feeling empty, in a daze and with a sour animosity gurgling in his stomach.  He knew it should be directed at the people that had taken Jessie away from him again, but he directed some of the blame at Gerald.  He locked his teeth together, to keep any words he would regret, from spilling out, and remained silent, as he pulled the car into the garage, for the final time in that realm.  He left the key in the ignition, but covered it with a dust blanket, to keep it preserved.  The inane actions he forced his hands and body to perform, brought him back to a sense of calm, and he was finally able to speak to his friend. Gerald was observing him carefully, from a distance.

“I think forgetting that Jessie was wearing the necklace will work to our advantage, I really do.”  Dex’s voice lifted to an enthusiasm he didn’t really feel.  “Once I get the cottage closed up we can leave.  Back there, you were right.  They couldn’t be too far ahead of us.  There should be some clues we can follow.”

He had never discussed with Gerald, what they had become.  They both knew they were breaking the rules, but he would’ve done anything to find Jessie, rules or no rules.

Gerald didn’t share his positivity, the guilt he felt about not letting Dex go to Jessie sooner, was disintegrating any hope he had left.  They would have to start over again. If Rebecca and Mary had been telling the truth, Jessie and Sammy might be lost to them forever. 

“Ok, but remember what I want you to show me this time, before we exit,” Gerald said. “It might help us, using the same vessels hasn’t worked, we were recognized too easily.”  Dex nodded his agreement.

“You’re right, I think we should separate completely after we jump this time, we’ll be able to cover more ground.” 

He thought back to the snow storm.  He had given Gerald the same instructions, only this time Jessie wouldn’t be sheltered in a barn, curled up in the hay.  This time she was a needle lost in it.  Dex didn’t like going in different directions, they had always stuck together in their search, but it was a necessary risk. He knew they were running out of time.  The more they manipulated the gateway, the more apparent it would become to the voyagers, but he still had one trick up his sleeve.

Dex was one of the few that could read the gateway’s energy.  Instructions for manipulation were like a drawing that became clearer, each time he jumped.  He used these directions to develop the entrance to the gateway that only he and Gerald knew about; one that would take them to the gateway without the risk of encountering other souls.  Their voyages, to locate the five, had become more intense and a private entrance to the gateway allowed them to pass through it more often.  Using it didn’t alert any other voyagers; the personal entrance gave them the ability to hide what he had taught himself, and today, he would teach Gerald.  It was imperative this new knowledge didn’t fall into the wrong hands, like Rebecca’s.  She was always the same, in every realm, making it simple for her to be recognized.  She followed a pattern. He wanted to keep it that way.

Still feeling defeat, they walked through the doorway connecting the garage to the cottage, and heard an urgent pounding on the front door.  Gerald looked at Dex, who held his hand up, to silent him.  He mouthed the words, “no one knows we’re here.”

They chose the cottage for its solitude; the causeway approaching it, allowed them to easily see if anyone was following them.

The knocking came again, this time with a little less vigor; the visitor losing hope that it would be answered.  A voice whispered through the crack in the door.  Dex’s eyes widened with surprise and he bolted down the hall towards it.  When he swung open the door her small shape was silhouetted against the fading afternoon sun.  It was Sammy.

“Sammy!”  He said, incredulously. “How did you know we were here?” 

“I saw your car pull onto the causeway.  I was hiding in the woods,” she replied.

Her face was flushed and scratched, like she just hiked through a mile of rose bushes, but she was smiling with relief.  Dex had never been so excited to see anyone in his entire life.  Gerald reached for Sammy’s hand and pulled her inside.  He scanned the woods that surrounded the cottage, shut the door and slammed the dead bolt together.

Gerald led her into the living room and sat her on the couch.  “Explain,” was the only word that he could get out. 

“We went to your house, Sammy.  Your mother told us that your father had taken you.”  Dex still didn’t know how much she knew about the gateway.  He wanted to hear what happened in her own words, but thought she might need a little more prompting than the harsh, ‘explain’, she received from her brother.

“Dad took us to the gateway.  Jessie was so confused; he kept telling her to - go stand over there - and was pointing to a giant rock.  He made her drink some lemonade.  Her eyes changed, and reminded me of how I feel when I wake up in a strange place, and for a few minutes I’m confused where I am.   She didn’t want to do what he was asking, so he told me that he would be right back, and he walked her towards the fuzzy spot.  They disappeared and I ran; that’s when I saw you.” 

She stopped to catch her breath, looking uneasily between Dex and Gerald.

“I should’ve followed them, I could have protected her until you found us again.”  The tears that prickled her eyes overflowed under her lashes and she turned her head into Gerald’s shoulder.  He patted her hair and looked at Dex.  She understood more than they thought.  She could’ve helped them; could help them.

“Sammy, what do you mean, fuzzy spot?” Dex was overwhelmed.
Can she actually see the gateway that has always been invisible to me?

“The gateway, it looks fuzzy,” she answered matter-of-factly.

Gerald shifted, so he could see her eyes.  “You can see the gateway?”  They heard of voyagers hearing a hum when they got close to it, but had never heard of one being able to see it.

“Yep, Jessie can’t though.  They really should’ve been giving me that disgusting tea, or been more careful with what I overheard.  I’m the one that put Jessie’s necklace in a place where I knew she would find it.” 

Dex couldn’t believe what he was hearing; Sammy was the solution they were looking for.  They would have to leave before the voyagers found her.

“Does anyone know about this cottage?  Rebecca has never been here, has she?”  Dex started gathering the loose papers laying around the room, and lit a fire to burn them.  Sammy shock her head, ‘no’, but he could see the unsureness in her eyes.

“Rebecca knows everything, I don’t know how, someone has to be helping her.  I heard her telling my mother that she could tell what you were going to do, before you did it. This was long before you came here.  Rebecca knew you were coming, that’s how I knew to watch for you.”  Dex saw Gerald stiffen, beside her, and close his eyes.

“Gerald, do you know something?”  Dex asked, carefully.  Suddenly uncomfortable, the expression on his friend’s face made him dread the explanation. “Do you know how Rebecca is predicting what we’re going to do?”

“I might,” Gerald said.  “I heard a conversation once.  You’re not going to like it, Dex.”

Dex didn’t like anything that involved that girl, but he needed to know.  He lowered himself into the black leather wing back chair, across from the siblings, crossed his legs and leaned towards them. 

“Tell me.”

“It was a few months after you left.  I told you Jessie and Rebecca became friends and she was at our house all the time.  One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the kitchen to get something to eat.  She was sitting at the table, talking to my father.  At first, I was confused by their conversation; it didn’t make any sense.  She kept saying Jessie owed her, after what she had done to her, and thanked him repeatedly, for sending you away.  She said she would find you and make you love her again, the way the voyagers planned it.”

Dex stopped him.  “Make me LOVE her AGAIN?  What the hell does that mean?  I never loved that awful girl.” He dropped his voice when he saw Sammy flinch.  She had never seen him angry. “That can’t be right.”

“She said, that before you left the first time, she should’ve asked permission to follow you, to prevent Jessie from getting near you.  She felt the voyagers had failed her, and the protectors of the five had betrayed her, by letting their personal feelings get involved.  Then, when my father protested, she told him that if it wasn’t for them, you and her would be together, and be the most powerful voyagers in all the realms.”  He stopped telling the story, buried deep in his memory, to let Dex process his words.

“It doesn’t make sense.  I didn’t leave the first time, I was killed in an accident.” 

How many lies have I been told
?  His mother told him they had taken Jessie’s memory away when he left the first time.  Instead, she lived through the grief of losing him.  Her stories about him leaving and never returning, hadn’t been made up; she actually lived them.

“I don’t think you did, Dex, from what I heard that night.  You were with Rebecca and then you met your soul’s actual mate.  You left Rebecca, to be with Jessie.  There is some sort of power she would’ve gained by being with you, and she feels that chance was stolen from her.  She talked my father into getting you through the gateway the first time.  That was way before they knew of a way to erase Jessie’s memory. After he saw what your disappearing did to his daughter, he worked with your father to try and fix it.  They made sure you could be together again and allowed another voyager to protect Sammy.  It was an ally of Rebecca’s that tricked Sammy’s soul, into that realm.  She risked all the voyagers, just to get you away from Jessie.”

Dex didn’t believe it.  There was no way, in any realm, he would have been in love with Rebecca; he loathed the sight of her. 

“It can’t be true.  What could be so important that she would put everyone in danger and ruin so many lives?  I don’t even remember having any feeling towards her, other than hate.” 

A rancid taste appeared on the back of his tongue, as the truth became clear. Jessie wasn’t the only one that had been given the tea.  They used his wiped memory against him.  If he didn’t remember the first time he entered the gateway, how would he protest when they asked him to do it again?  Something else was bothering him about what Gerald and Sammy were piecing together.

“Maybe, she wants the power you’ve gained from the gateway?”  Gerald filed through his recollections, trying to grasp more of Rebecca’s chatter, from so long ago. 

“She might just be a jealous person that hates to lose,” Sammy offered.  Dex smiled at her. He appreciated her simplicity, but he couldn’t shake the idea that Rebecca had more to gain than just a bit of enhanced power over the gateway.

“Right now, it’s too late to figure out what’s going on with Rebecca.  We have to leave.  Sammy, you’re going to jump with me.”  Dex stood up and began burning all evidence that they had ever been there.

Gerald started to protest.  Dex had promised to share with him the ability to change his vessel, he wouldn’t be able to do it without jumping with him. Dex spoke before he could protest.

“It’s not hard, I’ll explain it to you before you enter.  But if it doesn’t work, we will meet at a rondevu at the specified time and I will jump with you then.  If it does, we will find you later.” 

Dex was told that two voyagers couldn’t jump together and, after he found Gerald, it was the first thing he taught himself.  Now, after hearing what Sammy just told them, others had learned the same trick.  If they figured that out, soon they would be able to pick specific realms to jump to, not just to the next one in their soul’s path, as voyagers traditionally did.  If that happened, Jessie
would
become the needle in the haystack.  The voyagers working against them, were getting closer to making sure, the five were never together again.

“We just have to figure out the locations where we want to go.  We know that they aren’t going to let Jessie come back here, but they never take her far.  There were signs of her being here in other realms, even if I was always too late to find her.”  Dex was tapping his finger against his chin, thinking.

“I’ll come back here, you and Sammy pick somewhere random.”  Gerald suggested.  “If what I proposed works, then Rebecca, or any of the other voyagers looking for us, won’t recognize me.”

Sammy, where do you want to go?”  Dex knew what her request would be, before she opened her mouth

“Wherever you think Peter might be.” 

Dex didn’t have any idea where his brother, Peter, was; the odds were against them that he would be in the realm they chose.  He might still be too far behind.

And remember what you promised me, Dex.”  He hadn’t forgotten.  This would be the last time for a while he would see Sammy as a little girl.

“I’m going to grab the journals, it will be easier for two people to carry them.  Sammy, I think there is a sweater upstairs that will fit you.” 

She was only wearing a polka dot bathing suit top, a pair of shorts, and flip flops.  He wondered how the transformation would work on another person.  He had only tried it once before, on himself, and still shuddered thinking about the results.

Gerald turned to his sister. “Are you ok doing this?  You won’t be able to say good bye to anyone?”

Sammy face was set in determination.  “The only people I care about are either in this room or on the other side of the gateway.  I’ll be fine.”