Monroe was in the center of the room, sitting Indian style with her eyes closed. Evan was leaned back on the sofa with a really old book in his hand. Austin was next to him with a book that looked just as old, if not older. Nana was in the chair just behind Monroe. She saw us first, and the way she slowly rose from her seat with wide eyes would have led you to believe that it’d been years since we last saw her, not a few days.
I let my shoulders fall in relief as I walked to her outstretched arms.
“Oh my,” she said as she swayed me, then reached for Madison. “You guys have survived a lifetime in just days.”
“Use ‘survive’ loosely,” Madison said, squeezing her before walking over to Austin and nudging him to move over. “Listen, buddy, I’ll give you anything if you promise to stay within feet of me until we get back to Chara.”
“Are you alright?” Austin asked, reaching his arm around her as Evan made it to his feet.
“You’re just calm, balanced.”
“Still painful?” Austin asked her.
“More so.”
Evan reached to squeeze her shoulder before he walked over and hugged me.
“They’re outside,” I said to him, but at that moment Draven and Aden walked in the room - Evan had them both in his arms in that same breath.
The tears I was trying to hold back began to burn at the sight of their embrace. Evan was such a good dad, the only alive one I knew. This had to be killing him. Without even trying, I could see that he and Nana had been doing everything in their power to figure out what that wooden box had to do with us, why my mom left it. They had even researched every family line they could to try and understand if we’d lived before this life - with no luck.
“How is she?” I asked Nana as I glanced down at Monroe.
“Quiet. She let me see her, though, just long enough to assure me that all of you were okay. I’ve been watching this meditation. She goes really deep.”
“What is she seeing?” I asked, knowing the last time I looked into her that I’d just seen darkness.
“Flashes, blood, stairs, raging water,” Nana answered.
“Common theme,” I breathed. “Mom didn’t say anything to you?” I questioned knowing that the new memories in my mind had led me to believe that Nana and Evan had known all the while that something like this would happen.
Nana was blocking most of her thoughts from me. At first that didn’t strike me as odd, simply because I had never really dared to look into her past, or her thoughts. She was my mentor – not someone I needed to help.
Nana’s knowing glance eased over me silently telling me that she was not going to engage my newfound memories in any shape or form. “You know your mom: she keeps her deepest fears to herself. I knew she was planning to send Kara away, planning for you to leave. I knew that she’d been training someone to take over while she went on a hiatus, but I think she thought she had more time. That’s why her office was looking for her.”
“I just don’t get this message in a bottle stuff. Why not just tell me?” I complained.
Nana nodded toward where Monroe was. “You don’t know this, but your mom was a lot like Monroe as a girl. She only saw flashes, heard things here and there. She spent the greater part of her youth trying to fight it, block it out. Autumn helped her balance it. Your grandparents did not believe such things. Your great grandparents did, but they died when your mom was just a girl. I don’t think she had a clear answer to give you.”
That, or she was indeed on a stage, as Cashton had said more than once. As I thought of him once again I tried to figure out why he hadn’t popped in yet, Nana’s eyes focused on me, then a ghost of a smile came to the corners of her lips.
“You found him,” she whispered.
“He found me. Did Mom say something to you?” I questioned back just as quietly as I tried to see my answer.
“First time we taught her to see, help the dead, she said his name. She’s been looking for him since she was a girl.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I watched my mother through Nana’s memories. I knew that my mom was looking for him, but by all outward appearances she had no idea why.
“I wish she would have opened up to me, at the very least explained what she was feeling, what this message from her means.”
“She could have,” Nana said as her eyes wandered to the hall where the shadow images were still lingering. “But maybe she was telling you what she could, as safely as she could. If she laid too much out for you, someone or something could have seen that and used that information to confuse you, send you in the wrong direction.”
“I should call Kara.”
“No, let it be. I’ve talked to her every day. She thinks you’re happy and safe. If she knew otherwise, it could bring her more harm than good.”
I glanced down as I wiped away a tear that’d escaped.
“Where’s the wooden box?” I heard Draven ask.
“Right here,” Austin said, removing books from the massive coffee table in the center of the room. The wooden block was under them, along with notes in a different language.
“Did August figure anything out about it?” I asked.
“He says it’s like the scroll,” Austin answered. “You cannot read forward with the interpretation until the first step is done. Apparently, there are no less than ten possible languages on this thing. You have to figure out the first one in order to know what is next - and even then, the next step might be in a new language. In the end, it’s possible that they would make a pattern that will lead you to another source.”
“Could it be any more impossible?” Madison said with a grunt. She looked so bad, like she was being eaten alive from the inside. I could even swear she was paler now.
“It could. This is not meant to fool you, but those who are trying to destroy you. It’s easy to think that the enemy has all the answers, but truth be told some of them may be just as blind as you,” Nana assured her.
Draven was kneeling down next to the table that centered the sofa, looking at the wood as if it were a poisonous snake. Aden mirrored him on the opposite side. They often moved in sync when they were around each other, and right now was no different. They both reached for the box, letting their fingertips run across the carvings on the outside of it. Nothing happened.
Over this entire jacked up situation, I briskly walked over and picked up the box like it was an ordinary object, rattling it to see if I could hear anything inside. In protest, Draven and Aden both reached for me. I turned just so I could shake it once, prove it was nothing but a piece of wood and move on with a new plan for tonight - redeem some souls and go home, forget the ‘combining’ business.
Because I was smaller than them, it was easy for me to dodge them - but somewhere in the mix of the three of us scrambling, a rush of air burst into my hands. Wide-eyed, the three of us stepped back. I was left holding the box, and I didn’t want to. I dropped it, but someone caught it with their energy before it hit the floor.
Nana leaned down to grasp it from the thin air, and as she did I realized who had stopped it from hitting the floor: Monroe.
“You’re awake,” I gasped.
“Hours earlier than she should be,” Austin said, standing to see what we did to the wood.
Nana gently set it down on the table, then removed the top. Inside, lying on purple velvet were two knives - but they were not your everyday daggers. The handles looked like frozen flowing water or glass. The blades were jagged, so sharp that even the dim room highlighted each point.
I fell to my knees as the air in my lungs left me. Everything was telling me that Bianca was a liar, that she was playing us just to destroy us - but the proof was right there. Monroe waking before the end of her seemingly forced meditation was a sign we were moving in the right direction.
Nana picked up the blades at the same time that I felt a surge of energy spill into the room. She pulled them closer, examining them, then joined the two blades side by side. The odd-shaped handles fit together like a puzzle piece.
“In Latin, it reads ‘power as one - power as many’,” she said in a tone that was laced with sorrow.
As the rest of us - with the exception of Monroe - hung our heads, Evan left the room immediately, unable to handle the wicked truth that was in front of us. The silence was heartbreaking, building the rage I felt in my soul.
“Monroe,” I said flatly, “right or wrong, tell me now.” My eyes slowly moved across the red Oriental rug until they rose to hers. There, all I saw were the same images Aden had in his mind. She let us all see that.
“We agreed,” Draven said finally. “We agreed that if we had a way out, we would do this. The blades apart will join us. The blades together at the hand of a Witness will divide us.”
“You agreed,” I said, rising to my feet, barely noticing that it took every ounce of my strength to do so.
I left the room without another word, pushing through the images in the open hall and finally running to the door, down the porch, and toward the tree outline of the driveway. With each step, it became harder to breathe.
I knew Draven wouldn’t follow me. He knew me. He knew he needed to let me get over this shock. I had no doubt that Madison wanted to come to my side, but the pain of emotions would be near deadly for her.
Before I knew it, I was standing just before a family plot of headstones. The only sound beyond the distant testing of sound equipment was the wind and a few breaths of nature.
I cried. I let it all out, every tear that I’d held back over the last few months, every emotion. I let every angry, fearful tear fall. I don’t know how long it took until the last one had fallen, but I knew the sun was setting behind me, that the moss dangling from the trees was shadowing its rays, making it look as if I were standing in a glass prism of nature.
I tried to take myself out of this moment, to rise above it all and see the big picture, but I couldn’t find the will. I tried to understand what I could have done that was so horrible that the universe found it righteous to punish me. I mean how odd is it to have both of your parents, your friends, and the boy you love at the same time? Why us? Why did I have to choose, sacrifice? Why were the people I loved so willing to lay down everything without so much as a promise in return?
Somehow, I found my way to a numb feeling, one that gave me distance from every negative emotion. I could hear words of wisdom that Nana had spoken over us when we were just kids, words that taught us how to understand the darkness that haunted us. She would always say, ‘I know it’s terrifying to hear them, see them, but just imagine how afraid they are - and once you help them, walk away with the simple lesson that sometimes you have to lose it all in order to find your way to peace. Your abilities are a gift, not a curse. You see the span of humanity, and you will never have to wonder if it’s all worth it because you already know. You know each time you bring peace to the damned. You know in the end there is peace for everyone.’
With that thought in mind, I tried to find my own assurance. If that blade could divide Draven and Aden again, I wanted a Witness that I trusted to do it. I had no reason not to trust Clarissa or her soul mate Dane. Everything I saw about them through their family was honorable, peaceful – even in their darkest moments – but I didn’t know them. Not like I knew Silas.
I covered my mouth, trying to subdue the nauseous feeling I felt creeping up my throat. What kind of girl would look him in the eye and ask him to save the boy that took her away from him? What kind of person could use another soul, their heart, for nothing more than their own personal gain? I didn’t want to be that girl, but I had no choice. If he agreed to help me with this, then I would have no reason to argue about it anymore, no reason to be afraid.
Even though he thought I was taken from him or that I broke his heart, I knew Silas was wise, strong, balanced, that he was not cold enough to watch someone die just because he could. The memories of me convincing him not to kill Britain all those years ago gave me that impression. Under the fearless guardian, Silas was a peaceful soul who only fought when he had a reason.
I knew that a few days ago in The Realm – or any other time – he could have found a way to permanently separate Draven and me once and for all, but he didn’t. He was waiting on a reason, a point where his hand would be forced.
I told myself that his hand would not be forced tonight, that saving them, dividing them would bring me and him to a more balanced friendship. If he refused to, then I would do everything in my power to forget he existed until the end of my time.
“Silas,” I whispered.
Nothing happened.
“Silas, please,” I said again, refusing to let another tear fall.
The wind picked up, and I turned, expecting to see him. But it wasn’t him that heard my call.
Chapter Eighteen
I’d never seen Clarissa in a peaceful moment, so until this point I hadn’t realized how beautiful she was. I could clearly see the resemblance of her brothers, Landen and Brady, in her. Her eyes were green, whereas theirs were blue - but her features were sculpted perfectly in place, just as theirs were. A calm, worldly energy encased her essence. It wasn’t the life of a Witness that brought out that beauty. She’s always had it - only now, wisdom embraced all that she was.