12. Chapter Twelve #2
Our worlds. The phrase tingles at the base of my skull. “What does that mean? Are you saying you’re not from…here?” I gesture vaguely, encompassing my apartment and the city beyond.
“No. Not from your realm.” He remains by the window, making no attempt to approach me further. Perhaps he senses that any sudden movement would send me bolting.
My thoughts race as I struggle to fit his presence into some framework my mind can process. Ghost? Vision? Delusion? Mental breakdown? None of these explanations feel right, but the alternative—that a being from another world is standing in my space—seems equally impossible.
Yet here he is.
“What’s your name?” I ask, grabbing onto this basic question like a lifeline, something solid in the shifting unreality of this moment.
“I have many names in many languages.” He tilts his head in that now-familiar gesture. “But you may call me Ash.”
“Ash,” I repeat, the single syllable strange on my tongue. Simple and ordinary enough. Though it doesn’t match the extraordinary figure before me.
Curiosity pushes past my fear, pulling me forward a half-step from the safety of the front door. My breathing shallows. “Why are you here?”
“A complicated question with a simple answer.” He spins back to the window, his profile stark against the glass. “I’m here because of you. Because you called to me across worlds, whether you were aware or not.”
“I didn’t call anyone,” I argue, but even as I speak, something flickers in my chest. My fingers pick at the hem of my shirt as I wait for him to explain.
“Not with words, no.” Ash looks back at me, and though I can’t see his gaze, I feel the weight of it all the same. “With something far more powerful. With the absence at your core that nothing in this world can fill.”
My breath catches. How could he know that? That vast emptiness I’ve carried for as long as I can remember, that hollow space no amount of moving or changing or trying has ever been able to fill?
“Who are you?” I inquire once more, voice barely above a whisper.
“I am the God of Longing.”
The statement hangs in the air between us, too enormous to process immediately. A god? Standing in my shabby apartment with its leaky faucet and second-hand furniture? Looking at me in my worn, ratty clothes like I’m something precious?
Impossible. This isn’t real…right?
“That’s not—” I begin before pausing. What do I know about what’s possible? My entire life has been an exercise in emptiness, in yearning for something I couldn’t name. Who am I to say what gods exist or don’t?
I lean against the refrigerator, legs suddenly weak. “Let’s say I believe you,” I manage, though I’m not sure I do. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. With me. Leaving flowers while I sleep.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, seeming to consider his words. “I am here because you are mine,” he answers after a minute, each word measured. “Or rather, your soul is. Your soul is the perfect match to mine, promised to me many years ago.”
The statement sinks into my skin, ripples of implication spreading outward. This isn’t real.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I say, forcing my voice to remain level despite the tremor building in my limbs. “I’m just a person. A nobody. I’ve never been anybody’s, not even my own parents’.”
“You are far more than you realize, Maven.” There’s something in his voice now—a depth of emotion that tightens my throat. “You have lived many lives before this one. And in each, I have found you. In each, I have waited.”
The room tilts, the universe shifting beneath my feet. “So, what—you’re saying I’ve been reincarnated? That we’ve known each other before?”
“Yes.” A single word, but laden with meaning. As though we share a history that should render us familiar.
My arms wrap around my waist as I grasp for something solid in this conversation that keeps veering into whatever the fuck this is.
“If what you’re saying is true, if I belong to you, why am I here?
Why have I lived so many lives and you’ve waited, as you say?
” Knowing my mind is creating this scenario makes it easier to ask questions.
The atmosphere around him darkens, as if shadows gather more densely in his vicinity. I’ve upset him, though I’m not sure how I know.
“Because you must give me permission,” he says, his voice lower now, edged with something sharp. “You must consent to leave this mortal world with me, or you remain trapped in the cycle of reincarnation forever.”
The implication blazes my vision like a neon sign. This is so strange… “You’re saying I’ve said no. In every life?”
“Yes.” The word carries years of disappointment.
“Why?” I press, needing to understand the point of this hallucination. “If my soul is yours, why would I keep refusing? There must be a reason.”
He’s silent for a long moment. “At times, you did not believe me.” What an insufficient answer. “Others, you couldn’t comprehend leaving everything you knew for a place—a life—you couldn’t imagine.”
I consider this, forcing my face to remain composed despite the storm building inside me. If he’s telling the truth, previous versions of me ran from him after denying his request. There must be a reason for that—a warning I should heed.
But what if he’s lying? What if he’s not a god at all, but something darker? A demon or monster trying to trick my soul away? Or, more likely, what if he’s nothing but a manifestation of my lonely mind, evidence of a breakdown I’ve been edging toward for a while?
I study him from my spot in the kitchen, this tall figure in his anachronistic coat with fabric obscuring his features. There’s power in him; that much is clear from the electric charge that surrounds his body. But power isn’t the same as goodness.
And yet…he’s never hurt me. He has, in fact, helped me through a panic attack. Has given me the only consistent comfort I’ve known through his dream visitations.
I’ve reached a point where I’ve lost the energy to be properly afraid. If he meant me harm, surely he would have done it by now. If he’s a delusion, then I’m already lost to madness, and nothing I do matters anyway.
“I think you should go,” I murmur, the decision forming even as the words leave my mouth.
He stiffens, the movement slight but noticeable. “Maven—”
“No.” I straighten, stepping fully from the kitchen now. “I don’t know what you are, and god or not, I need you to leave. I need to think because there’s no way this is real.”
“You’ve had a thousand lifetimes to think,” he counters under his breath, an edge entering his voice.
“Well, I don’t remember any of them!” The words burst from me, louder than intended. “So, excuse me if I need more than five minutes to process all this crazy shit!”
“I’ve waited centuries—”
“I don’t care!” Heat floods my face, rising from some wellspring I didn’t know existed.
“I don’t care if you’re a god or how long you’ve waited or what you think my soul is!
Right now, in this life, in this moment, I’m asking you to go.
To stop telling me these…these fairy tales about past lives and things that are yours. Just go.”
The shadows around him deepen, the air crackling with tension. For a moment I think he might refuse, might insist on staying until I believe whatever version of reality he’s selling.
Instead, he shifts toward my nightstand. With deliberate care, he places something on its surface before facing me once more.
“I will go,” he says, voice subdued. “But, Maven Talmay, I am real. What we are to each other is real. And I will wait as long as it takes for you to remember what your soul has forgotten.”
Before I can respond, he simply…vanishes. Not in a dramatic puff of smoke or flash of light, but between one blink and the next. One moment he’s there, solid and imposing, and the next he’s gone, leaving only a subtle disturbance in the air where he stood.
I stare at the empty space, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
“Fuck,” I whisper to the vacant apartment. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I didn’t imagine that. Yes, I did. No, there’s no way. My mind might be broken, but it’s not creative enough to conjure that entire interaction—the resonance of his voice or the crackling tension when he was upset.
He has to be real. A ghost, at the very least. Maybe something more, if I allow myself to consider the possibility that gods might walk among us.
After several minutes of standing frozen, my eyes catch on the thing he left. I approach the table cautiously, as if it might hold a bomb rather than another dead bloom.
There on the surface lies a peony, its petals a pale pink to white ombré. Unlike most of my dried flowers that curl inward, this one has been preserved at the peak of its opening, each petal extended in perfect balance.
A single fingertip grazes its surface, and I half-expect it to dissolve into nothing. It doesn’t. It’s solid and real, bits of darker pigment visible beneath the velvet surface.
Another token from a being who claims to have known me across lifetimes. Who says my soul belongs with him. To him.
I lift the flower carefully, bringing it to the jar on my dresser. As I open the lid and place it among the others, I’m struck by how perfectly it fits—like the missing piece of a collection I didn’t know I was curating.
Just like him, perhaps. The missing piece of a puzzle I’ve been trying to solve my entire life without knowing what picture I’m meant to be assembling.
The thought sends a shiver up my spine.
What am I supposed to do now? Believe a self-proclaimed god who claims my soul is his? Dismiss the entire encounter as a psychotic break? Call Dr. Voss and book myself into the nearest psychiatric facility?
None of those options appeal.
Instead, I return to my bed with a deep sigh, tugging the covers up to my chin despite knowing sleep will elude me for the remainder of the night. My mind races with possibilities too vast and strange to fully comprehend as I glare at the cracked ceiling.
One thing I know for certain: if Ash is real—if everything he said is true—then I’m so fucked.