As we held each other that tingling sensation swarmed within me, his presence was embracing my soul. Filling in all the cracks of my heart, elevating me to a level of exaltation that I didn’t know existed.
As we lay staring into each other’s eyes, sleep escaped us. I sighed and rolled onto my back, so I could look through the sky light, at the night sky. I could see the moon. It seemed to be growing fuller by the moment. I reached my hand to my chest and let my fingers dance across the details of my medallion. Landen rolled to his side and stared down at the sun and crescent moon. I sensed his confusion.
“Do you really think we lived before?” I asked him.
He looked from the medallion into my eyes. “I’ve never given credit to the myth of living past lives before,” he whispered, “but I know I’ve seen you wear this before.” He looked back to the sun and the moon.
“Are there any other myths about travelers?” I asked in a light-hearted tone, reaching for his face to trace his perfect profile.
Landen smiled and looked back into my eyes. “Some believe that the gifted travelers are the oldest souls bound by past lives,” he answered, tilting his head and smiling at me as his eyes searched my face.
I smiled, realizing that if that were true, I’d always had Landen close to my soul. It also meant that Libby, my father, and Rose had always been with me as well. I sighed, feeling stronger. “Well, at least that means our families have always been with us,” I whispered.
I heard him laugh under his breath. “Right now, I don’t know if I’d see that as a positive,” he said, trying to hold the sarcasm out of his tone.
I playfully glared at him.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “I just want to know what we’re up against so I can protect you. It bothers me that my father doesn’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”
“You’re wrong. I can almost guarantee you that your father thinks you can handle anything. He has a strong pride that comes from him every time he looks at you,” I promised Landen.
“Then why won’t he tell me?” he said, almost to himself.
“Maybe he’s the one that can’t handle it. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think my father or Livingston can either.”
“August will tell us,” Landen murmured looking deeply into my eyes.
“Does your father realize that?” I asked.
“My grandfather has always played peacemaker between me and my father. He has a way of making my father let go and me slow down both at the same time.”
“Maybe that’s what our fathers are waiting on, the peacemaker,” I said with a sinful grin as I my fingertips traced his firm chest.
“He should be home soon,” Landen said with a sigh as my lips teased his neck and he pulled me closer.
“Do you think they lost the star when Justus and Livingston went to bring home Adonia?” I asked, rolling to my side so I could get closer to him.
Landen nodded. “Livingston is the only one besides Justus that’s ever been inside the Blakeshire Palace.”
“Why did Beth go with them? Why didn’t they take more travelers?” I asked as I halted my hands and stared into his eyes.
“August told me that just before I was born, that the storms were so bad that travelers would be gone for months at a time. Justus and Livingston were the only ones close enough to go. Beth was from Esterious, so she went to help them find a new way in the palace.”
“I think it’s strange that no one knows where Beth and Adonia are,” I muttered as I furrowed my brow.
“Marc and I do as well. Marc is convinced that Beth is locked in that palace and that he needs to bring her home.” Unconsciously his arms flexed for an instant around my body.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
“I know that if I were Adonia and I lost my soul mate, I wouldn’t want to live anymore, and if I were Beth, no palace would be able to hold me.”
“Are they as strong as you?”
“I’ve never met them.”
I felt my eyes growing heavy and smiled at Landen.
“So where shall we dream tonight?
” I asked.
“Do you think we can choose?”
Landen thought as he sat up with a rush of excitement.
“I think you choose. I’ve only ever gone to where you are,”
I thought, pulling him back down to my side.
Landen had beaten me to our dreams almost every time. The only time I’d ever been first was the night we danced to the willow tree music box. He was focusing in a straight stare.
“What if we plan to go to a place to see if we can control it?”
he thought.
“Where?”
“Here sounds safe enough,”
he thought as a grin spread across his face.
“If it works then what?”
“Let’s just test it, see what we can do. We never even tried to communicate this way.”
He rushed from the bed, I sat up completely confused, he came back a second later with our clothes.
I grinned and shook my head. It didn’t cross my mind that we needed them, but if we managed to make this work, if we could control this and explore, clothes were needed.
I pulled my dress back on, and turned so he could help me with a zipper.
“This is a tragedy.”
He thought in a teasing manner, as his lips touched my shoulder and his hands waved over the dress he had fought so hard to remove.
“Keep talking like that and we are never going to fall asleep,” I teased as I pulled him to follow me to the bed.
After a moment I closed my eyes, keeping my focus both on the space around me and Landen, refusing any other thoughts or fears. I began to drift. It felt like only a moment had passed before I opened my eyes again. My body lay sleeping on the bed before me. Landen’s body was still; only his chest rose and fell. The scene was so surreal. My first reaction was panic, and then I heard,
“Can you hear me?”
He stood at my side, staring at our bodies as they lay sleeping. Not only could I hear him, I could also feel his discomfort.
“I can feel you, too.”
Landen looked slowly at me, a sinful grin spread across his face. We were both feeling control of this heart-racing gift we shared.
He moved to the wall and knocked on it. Sound. We could clearly hear.
I furrowed my brow, he shrugged.
“It might be because we are in Chara, it could be because we are controlling it.”
He came to my side.
“Come on, I want to try something,”
he said, holding my hand and leading us from the beach house to the path that led to the string. Once there, we walked back through the passage close to our home. Landen hesitated as he used his gift to tell him where everyone was.
“My father is on his way to Jason’s house,”
he thought.
“Where’s Livingston?”
“I can’t feel him anywhere close,”
Landen thought.
“Can you?”
I focused on the emotions around me, feeling the same dread and anxiousness that I’d felt before, but unsure as to where it was coming from. I shook my head no. We passed through the field in the direction of my father’s house, and in the distance I could see Ashten walking from the other direction. My father was standing on the front porch of a beautiful two-story brick home, the front of which was framed by bay windows.
“Do you think they’ll be able to see us?”
I asked.
“Brady was right behind me that day you gave me that note, and he didn’t see you,”
Landen thought.
“I don’t remember seeing him,”
I thought.
“You terrified him. All he saw were my arms going around thin air and a note appearing in my hand,”
Landen thought, grinning.
“I think I would have been bothered if I’d seen that happen,”
I thought, shaking my head in disbelief.
We reached my father’s house at the same time that Ashten did. You didn’t need the insight of emotion to realize how concerned they both were.
Landen and I stepped cautiously closer, my father and Ashten never looked in our direction. It was an eerie feeling, almost ghostly.
“Are you sure they didn’t go to Esterious?” my father asked Ashten.
“More than sure. Landen is not one to make decisions without thinking them through. Rose believes they just went far enough not to feel us,” Ashten answered.
“Did it upset Willow when she was told that the medallion belonged to her before?” my father asked.
“I wasn’t there when Rose told her, but I was there when she told Livingston how she felt about Drake,” Ashten said, raising his brows.
My father looked at Ashten in utter confusion.
“Livingston made the comment that Drake had never hurt her, and she told him exactly what she lived through.”
My father looked down. I could feel his remorse. “Maybe I should have brought her home sooner,” he said to himself.
“You don’t know if that would have stopped the nightmares,” Ashten said, defending my father.
“I know that she’s a new person now that she has Landen. She’s more sure of herself now than she’s ever been,” my father said quietly.
“Landen is, too,” Ashten said, looking in the direction of our house. “He’s calmer now, she gives him pause and he needs that.” Ashten cleared his throat. “We need to get those girls home so the two of them can just live here in peace.”
“It’s not going to be that simple,” my father said, looking at Ashten with pain in his eyes.
“Jason, I will not allow them to face Donalt or anyone in Esterious,” Ashten said shortly. I felt his anger rise.
“We cannot make their choices for them anymore. All we’re doing is pushing them away from us. I’d rather stand at their side,” my father said in a calm tone.
Ashten crossed his arms over his chest and looked down. “I don’t know what scares me more—what they’re capable of now, or what they
will
be capable of,” he said quietly.
My father nodded.
“Where’s Livingston?” my father asked.
“He left right after Landen and Willow. I think he went to Esterious.”
“Is he insane? It’s well after curfew there,” my father said with wide eyes.
“He always goes there at night. I think he wants to bring those girls home before Landen has a chance to.”
“Did you figure out how he knew that Willow’s nightmares had come back?” my father asked.
“He said he saw it in the stars,” Ashten answered.
My father shook his head from side to side, clearly not believing what he’d just heard.
“I don’t know, Jason. He’s not the same person you knew twenty years ago. The only one he really talks to is August, and it kills me to see Marc and Chrispin reach out to him only to be ignored,” Ashten said in an exhausted tone.
“They have you and Aubrey. You made them the men that they are. You should be proud of the family you raised.”
“I am. I just feel like I’m going to lose them now,” Ashten said, looking down. I felt his sorrow deepen.
“I’m going to try something,”
I thought.
I reached my hand carefully to Ashten’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice my touch. I thought of the emotions I felt from the celebration, the overwhelming love and peace. I remembered the smiling faces and the laughter.
His emotion began to change. As he surrendered to his peace, I felt the medallion on my neck tingle, then a warm rush flowed through my hand. It was a mesmerizing feeling. As it began to intensify, I looked back at Landen and felt the sensation flowing through him, too.
“You feel this?”
I thought, astonished.
“It’s amazing. Does it always feel like this?”
“No, never.”
I reached my other hand out to my father’s shoulder. Letting the same memories flow through my mind. The charm hummed, and the sensation pushed through my hand. A smile came across my father’s face, and he looked at Ashten. “They’re going to be fine,” he said confidently.
Ashten nodded and stepped away from me, and I lost my touch. He glanced over his shoulder at my father as he walked away. I could still feel the peace that I gave him. My father sighed and turned to walk inside his house, causing me to lose my touch on him as well. The high that I felt began to fade.
“Let’s follow him. I want to help my mom, too,”
I thought, stepping toward my dad.
We passed through the front door behind my father. My mother was sitting in the front room on a long white couch. She had a sketchpad in her lap and was outlining the house I was raised in.
“Is everything okay?” she asked my father as he took a seat next to her.
“It will be. We’re just asking them to take in a lot at one time,” my father said, putting his arm around her.
“Do you think she’ll ever understand that we only wanted to keep her safe?” my mother said, feeling a deep regret.
“They both will one day. We can’t blame them for being upset. If I were Landen, I’d be furious. At least he’s still calm enough to ask questions,” my father said.
“I just think if we’d come home, Monica would be alive, and the other girls would be safe in their homes,” my mother said in a cracked voice as she laid her head on my father’s shoulder.