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once.
Jake finally fell asleep for the night, and Lauren, with a sigh of relief,
stretched out on her bed with her parents notebook and a pen and tablet of
her own. She was determined to make sense of the legacy they had left
her determined to unravel the tangled mess of her past and find the truth at
the end of all those skeins of lies.
The notebook, when read front to back, made a bit more sense than it had when
she d started in the middle, and that at least reassured her. Her parents laid
out their objective to develop a method of running the magical energy from the
world of Oria through Earth and into the world they referred to as Kerras
without any loss or transmutation. She could make some sense of that she knew
where Earth was and she knew where Oria was, and she had some personal
experience now with magic. Kerras remained a blank to her, but it was a funny
sort of blank. She could feel the tampered places inside of her mind every
time she thought of it, and she realized that her memories regarding Kerras
were intact behind the barrier that her parents had created. To reach those
memories, she only had to find the tool that would remove the wall.
She kept reading, while the hour grew later and the quiet around her became so
thick it had a darkness all its own. Beyond the yellow light that puddled
around the lamp on her bedside table, outside with the cold, pale stars and
the faint sheen of frost on moon-spun grass, she could feel the weight of
movement, the unblinking intensity of watching eyes, the patient breath of
someone or something that waited for her to fall into a trap; and she sought
through the yellowed pages for the shape and the texture and the mechanism of
the trap that had been set for her.
When she closed her eyes for a moment, she could feel the magic again the
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rumbling storm in the distance, the ecstatic green lightning that she could
ride from one world to the next. She could see Brian smiling at her from
within the heart of the storm. He seemed so close that she could reach out and
touch him so close that she could walk across the chasm of death and bring him
back with her. So close she could almost lose herself in his embrace.
She drifted in the comfort of that nearness, in the sense of safety it spun
around her, until she could almost see his face& could almost hear his voice.
He stood close to her. Another step, a few more inches, just lean a little
more, reach out her hand, hold her breath and try. She pushed, fought for that
extra something that would take her to him, and as if she were in a dream, she
stumbled. And caught herself.
And the illusion that he was with her shattered like sugar glass. She lurched
upright, her eyes flying open, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was
sobbing as she had the night she received the news of his death; in that
moment, her loss was as fresh as it had been that very first day, and she
almost couldn t breathe with the agony. He d been pulled away from her a
second time.
When she could catch her breath and dry her eyes without them immediately
refilling with tears, she looked at his picture, which smiled at her from the
nightstand. She had never spent a night where she could not see that picture.
Not before his death. Not after it. She looked at him now, and he seemed
farther away than he had ever been, as if she had somehow failed a test, and
because of her failure even her memory of him was being stretched thin and
pale and hollow.
His dress blues bore ribbons from tours in Germany and Italy and Saudi
Arabia testament to his love for his country; the jaunty angle of his flight
cap told of his eternal optimism; and the warm reassurance in his eyes spoke
of his love for her. He d told her he d been thinking of her when the picture
was taken; that he d wanted her to know that he loved her and that he would
always be with her.
That smile and those eyes had seemed like a betrayal the night she received
the news that he was dead.
It had been a stupid, pointless accident. He was on his way home, taking a bus
from the base, and the bus skidded on a patch of black ice and rolled. It was
a bad accident; the bus looked like a tin can run over by a truck. But
everyone walked or at least crawled away from it, except for Brian. It could
have been anyone else. It should have been anyone else. But it wasn t.
The doctor told her Brian had been killed instantly, that he d experienced no
pain; the base chaplain offered her what little comfort he could; Brian s
friends cried and told her what a great guy he had been; the other Air Force
wives came around with baked goods and hugs and tears.
The funeral was closed-casket, but she knew Brian was really in there. Really
gone. She could feel it in the emptiness of the planet, in the hollowness of
her heart, the way the world no longer had enough air in it. He was gone, his
promise broken, and the dream that had hung so tantalizingly before her was a
lie.
Then here, lying in her bed feeling something of him hanging close to her,
feeling the magic that was her birthright flowing through her veins, she had
thought perhaps his promise had meant something more than the words lovers
tell each other to hold the darkness at bay that perhaps she might have him
back again, might cheat death, might truly win him from Death s grasp.
Death laughed instead. It was the ultimate reality, and Brian was gone
forever, and she had been foolish to think that even magic might let her see
him again, touch him again, make her even for one more moment the complete
human being she had been only when he was in her life. The echoes she felt of
him when she moved between the worlds were just that, weren t they? Echoes.
She wanted to scream and throw her parents book across the room. She wanted,
for just an instant, to die. She wanted to believe that Brian would be waiting
for her on the other side of Death. She wanted to hate him for leaving her
behind, alone, when after a lifetime of emptiness and loneliness she had
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finally found the love she had hungered for. If magic couldn t give him back
to her, what good was it?
She got out of bed, shivering in the cold room, and walked to the window. The
bare trees in front of her clawed at the moon; nothing soft or friendly about
them now. The harsh white moon glared down at her. No sound echoed into the
well of silence in which she stood.
She studied the darkness outside, the icy, fierce world beyond her little
puddle of warmth and light. She glared up at the stars, spattered through the
infinite velvet black of space, promising worlds and wonders beyond her reach.
She thought, I never wanted much. My little bit of time and space, my small
corner of order and love and direction, my few people to give my universe
boundaries and borders and a reason for existing. Brian& Jake& me. I accepted
the loss of my parents. I accepted that we three were all we had.
But I want him back, and I can feel him out there, and I won t just stand idly
by and concede defeat if there is any way, any way, that I can undo the awful
injustice that stole him from me.
She understood the Greek hero who strode into Hell to win back his love. She
would have gladly faced the rigors of a quest that had a clear objective and
clear rules. Go into Hell, take what you want, fight your way out, don t look
back.
She could have done it. She would have.
Just tell me what to do.
That wouldn t happen her parents book mentioned nothing about raising the
dead, summoning lost loves, giving flesh to ghosts. No simple quest, no
clear-cut rules, nothing but a slippery feeling that she might be able to
do& something.
She lifted her chin and pulled back her shoulders.  Might be able to do
something. How many widows ever got even that much?
She kicked her feet into terry slippers and pulled on a thick robe and strode [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]