Chapter 15
Eric’s words reverberated in Eden’s mind throughout the afternoon sessions. She tried hard to sink into the meditations and to find a center of peace, but it was hard. She had just so many questions now, and Eric’s suggestion had created a frisson of fear that wouldn’t let go.
By the time they hit the afternoon coffee break, he looked over at her and asked, “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t been able to pay attention at all. All those thoughts we shared beforehand just keep running over and over in my head.”
He nodded. “Mine too. Sorry. I should have just kept my mouth shut.”
“What good would that have done?” she asked, glancing around, making sure nobody was close enough to hear.
“The last thing we want is for you to be so upset and so triggered by all of this that you can’t enjoy being here.”
She frowned at him. “Enjoy being here? I’m not sure I will ever enjoy being here. I mean, look at the reason why I came.”
He contemplated her for a moment and then nodded. “That’s fair.”
She smiled. “Look. If we can get answers about Debbie, great. About the other woman who died here? Even better. If we can solve a problem with Origin, that’s a bonus. But expecting this to be an easy process? I’m not sure that is even in the equation.” And she left it at that.
Just then another woman approached them and casually started a conversation, which gave Eden a chance to step away from the one crowding her mind.
When Richard announced that they would all head outside for forty minutes just to take a break and to clear their minds, she was completely overwhelmed with relief and, at the same time, fear.
Where were they going?
Was it safe for anyone to go outside?
Would they become food to feed whatever the hell this monstrosity was that lingered outside in Origin, lying in wait to snatch some poor sap?
It was on the tip of her tongue to say something, but, as she glanced over at Eric, he discretely shook his head. She frowned and kept her mouth shut because, really, what could she say? Yet, at the same time, if something happened, and she said nothing, that would be way worse for her.
She walked toward the exit, a cup of tea in her hand, as Eric stepped up beside her. “If we get there first, hopefully people won’t disturb us.”
She frowned at him. “They might though. They might want to come visit us.”
His lips twitched. “Unless of course you’re thinking of doing what we did the last time. If it worked then, it might work now.”
She frowned. “We can’t just stay here the entire time and make people think that everything is hunky-dory.”
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. “I do understand that, and we do need to do something, but I think we have to give Stefan a chance to sort out what that something is.”
She let out a soft sigh. “For a minute there, I forgot about Stefan.”
“I’m guessing he wouldn’t appreciate that,” Eric quipped, with a smile.
“I know, right? He’s hardly forgettable, and yet there’s something about him,” she muttered. “It’s as if he’s here, yet he’s not, so I tend to forget him.”
“I’ll tell him that,” Eric teased, with a laugh.
She shrugged. “There’s also such a sense of peace when I think about him, and maybe that’s what the difference is.”
“I know he would definitely appreciate that sentiment,” Eric shared, as he looped his arm through hers. “Come on. Let’s head back up there.”
She winced, dragging her feet. “What if the portal opens?”
He pondered that as he moved at a slow and steady pace, inexorably dragging her along with him. When they got to the bench, he looked around and muttered, “It is a beautiful place.”
“How does something like this come about?” she asked. “For such a beautiful place, how is it that this becomes a scene of some horror film?”
“Maybe specifically because of that fake sense of serenity and beauty,” he suggested, looking over at her. “Maybe literally that is the answer. It could be a very simple and almost elegant explanation.”
“About what?”
“What if somebody died here, possibly violently, and so many years ago, which started all this?”
“How is it that one person could have that much power?” she asked. “That makes no sense.”
“For all we know,” he replied, eyeing her, “that could go back centuries ago, where something once stood here that goes back millennia. We don’t know, but Stefan says there’s an Origin here, and I don’t really know what that means, but I’m willing to go by his naming convention on it.
In that case, it would make sense that whatever this is has been here for a very long time, and, chances are, we won’t ever know the how and the why of it. ”
She sat down on the bench, glancing around to confirm that they were alone, and then she added, “If it’s been here for a very long time, it won’t budge very easily.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I was trying to think about that during the meditation.”
She snorted. “I’m glad it wasn’t just me who struggled to disappear into the unknown while doing the meditation. I found it almost impossible to follow his voice. Everything else was happening in my mind.”
“Everything but what?” he asked, looking at her.
“Just the usual things we need for meditation—calm, peace, quiet, serenity, balance—all the things I was hoping to find here.”
“Along with answers,” he noted. “Don’t you think the two of them could happen at the same time?”
“I was hoping so,” she whispered softly.
“I was really hoping for that. However, although I suspected Richard had something to do with Debbie’s death, I was hoping to find proof that he hadn’t.
Maybe there would be some proof that she had died of natural causes, and nobody could have done anything to save her.
” She stared around and asked, “Do you think she’s here? ”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “That’s the question we have to ask somebody who may have come out of the Origin portal.”
“I wonder if Stefan had a chance to talk to the … spirit, entity, woman? What do we call her?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’m also at a loss when it comes to the right wording of these things.”
She stretched back out on the bench, sliding her hips forward so her head could drop along the back of the seat, allowing her to stare up at the sky. “It just goes to show you how little terminology we have to give us a way to communicate on this topic.”
“I suppose a lot of words would work, but it’s not the words that are the issue for us,” he pointed out. “We’re looking for something much more in-depth than just that.”
“And yet communication is everything,” she noted.
“Speaking of communicating, that is also something you mentioned, but you didn’t go into details.”
She winced.
“Right, I gather you were hoping I wouldn’t bring it up again?”
“I guess I was hoping, yes,” she acknowledged. “It’s not as if I have any answers for you.”
“You could at least clarify. Have you had other ghosts, for lack of a better word, speak to you before?”
She rolled her head sideways so she could see him, then whispered, “My grandmother. … My grandfather. … My mother.” She rolled her head back to stare up at the sky. “Maybe a few others. But all the encounters, before all this, have been minimal.”
“What does minimal mean to you?”
“A sighting, sometimes a hi, sometimes a hello. My mother told me, I’m fine.
Just relax and let go because I was having such a hard time.
After speaking with her, I felt a lot better,” she shared.
“So, I can understand the need to hear and to speak to somebody who’s already gone past this world.
But I wasn’t looking for answers from them.
I wasn’t looking to speak with them, and maybe that’s the difference here. ”
Eric frowned. “I don’t know.”
When she looked over at him, she asked, “Are you angry that I didn’t tell you?”
“No, not at all,” he said, with a wry laugh. “I understand why you didn’t. I mean, it’s not as if you know me very well.”
“Right,” she agreed, “and it’s not as if you know me very well even now. We appear to have come together over something completely unexpected, even if I have seen a ghost or two in the past,” she murmured.
“As an estimate, any idea how many you’ve seen?”
She frowned and asked, “Does it matter?”
“No,” he replied carefully, “I guess it would just help me understand a little more where you stand on all this.”
She shrugged. “Probably dozens, maybe twice that. I don’t know. At some point in time, I just stopped seeing them.”
“Any idea why?”
“Yeah, they were in my way. I sounded a little bit crazy, talking to people who were not here on this physical plane, so I just told them all to go away.”
“And it worked?”
“It worked,” she confirmed, turning her attention to the area around them. “I was thinking about what you said earlier, … wondering if some bad event happened here, something that might have started Origin.”
“Like a natural disaster or something?”
“It could have been an earthquake. The hungry part is what really got to me. It’s the only thing I can think of for why it’s open, or why the woman, that one spirit, escaped.”
He sighed. “And I haven’t had any contact with Stefan, so I don’t know.” Just then, his phone rang. He looked down and said, “And, of course, here’s Stefan now.” He answered it. “You’re on Speaker, and I have Eden here with me.”
“Good,” Stefan replied, his voice brisk. “I have had several conversations over what is going on there. Nobody really has any answers, except for the fact that whatever has opened needs to be closed. We’re not sure how it opened, or why it opened, but we are very united on one front.”
“Which is?”
“Origin needs to be closed and fast.”
“And how do you close something like this?” she asked.
“Hi, Eden,” Stefan greeted her, his voice gentle. “I think the reason why you are there, in particular, is because you’re instrumental in closing it.”
She stopped, her gaze widening as she turned to stare at Eric. “I don’t think so,” she declared. “I don’t have any experience with this.”