Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Garden disappeared in a sucking green to black. My skin burned, my guts trying to climb out of me, and the pressure in my head explosive as I fell through nothing.
The air was thicker, and my chest heaved with the effort of breathing. Ranth’s hands on my shoulders sent golden sparkles across my vision, and I could breathe easily again. Swirls of light twirled off in all directions. What was Ranth doing here—and where was here?
“Sorry, I forgot you aren’t dead,” he said nonchalantly.
“Where are we, and how are you here?” I asked, focusing on my feet.
The ground didn’t appear to be solid, even though our feet connected with it.
It was black, like black glass. The space was endlessly black except for glowing swirls threading through the air like neon paint under a black light.
The colors cast enough light that I could see Ranth.
“I wasn’t accepted in the garden yet, so I can still travel. We are at a crossroads—a plane that intersects worlds. Your desire must have brought us here. Now, you must make your choice, knowing the risk. But Sorrel…” Ranth began.
The decision was clear and then muddied. If I didn’t go back, my friends would be devastated. They meant so much to me. I was already giving up Ranth. If I had a chance, I had to take it.
“Not home, then,” I said, gritting my teeth against the guilt of choosing her over my friends. I wanted both. Maybe I could have both. “How do we get there?” I asked, marveling at the number of swirls in constant motion, colored threads that all lead to a different place.
Ranth closed his eyes. “That is where you seek to go.” He pointed to a swirl that was like a moon and a star had collided in silver sparks.
I walked toward it, and he pulled me back. “You don’t need to move. We know where we wish to go. We can just go there.”
“How?”
“You use your core to travel, like when you use your maca to go planar, and you know where you want to go. This time there is no root. You just imagine your destination.”
“But I don’t know what the Sisters look like or where they are.”
“You know what you seek. Dream it and the dream will take you.”
The pressure of his invisible fingers laced with mine, and I closed my eyes. The whispers clawed into my head, and images of a red-edged portal were accompanied by echoes of my mother’s silent scream. Withered silver hands pulled her spirit from her body, taking her away from me.
We fell through the floor that wasn’t there. The traveling sensation tore at my insides, and I choked back vomit as my head filled with cotton under the pressure. Silver blurred my vision, but the whispers told me I was in the right place. A void. A graveyard of lost souls.
“What now?” I asked, but my voice faded in and out much like the whispers themselves.
Ranth spoke in my head. “Where do we go?” He squeezed my fingers knitted into his.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Harold said petal-like husks.
” I closed my eyes and imagined piles of spirits turned thin, like specters.
We started moving, and when I opened my eyes, we were in a cave of shiny silver.
Water dripped from the ceiling, and white stalactites hung down like vampire fangs.
My breath came out in clouds, and silvery shapes flickered and darted in the shadows.
Ranth let go of me, and the darkness closed, sending the chill of the unknown through my veins. I moved closer to Ranth. His hand clamped around my waist was the only thing keeping me from running.
“The fear is not a threat. Accept it, and it will fade.” His voice in my head calmed me. But how could I accept fear? Wasn’t it a gut reaction, like breathing?
“Fear is a choice. You can choose to submit to it or fight it. Submit and it will lessen. Believe in yourself, Sorrel. I know how strong you are.”
I focused on my breathing, homing in on the fear. Then I embraced both, letting my anxiety leave me in a cloud of white. Strength rippled through me, and the flickering specters faded into the shadows.
Then the whispers rose from the ground in swirls of sound until they filled my thoughts.
I bent over, covering my ears, the sound bleeding inside my head. But Ranth’s voice cut through the whispers. “Find your own words and make the whispers your own voice. Chant with them.” I stared at him, confused.
“You wished for lessons, yes?” he asked.
“This isn’t teaching. You tell me things, and then I do them.”
He laughed, and the whispers pushed back a little, enough for me to think. Chant, but with what words? This was too hard. I covered my ears and screamed, trying to block out the sound. I dropped to the cave’s floor. Ranth’s arms slipped around me.
I can do this.
The whispers pushed into me, building louder and louder. I stopped fighting them and let them swirl in my head. I called upon my ancestors, building it into a chant. “Beloved ancestors, I ask for your direction and aid.” The words blurred into a song, which muddled with the whispers in my head.
At first, my voice wavered, then the song became mine, pushing the whispers back. But the whispers rose, undulating into a song until they were no longer whispers at all, and I had words of power. The key that would release my mother and me from this place.
Taking Ranth’s hand, I walked forward and called out into the shadows.
“Mom?”
Specters rushed and flurried, as if a million bats had been disturbed from sleep. I ducked as they whipped past with smoke-like wings, swirling up to the ceiling, then back to the floor and rushing off into shadows.
But a glimmer in front of me gave me courage and hope.
I walked forward and raised a palm up.
“Mom?” I tried again.
The silvery shadow approached us, curling around my hand without touching. I reached out to grasp it, and my fingers seared as if touching dry ice. I cried out, and the whispers drowned my thoughts.
Ranth fell to the floor with me, arms around me as I covered my ears, writhing against the whispers.
I don’t know if it was seconds or minutes, but when I opened my eyes, the whispers were gone. My hand had been healed, and Ranth’s arms were still around me.
“What happened?” I croaked, my throat raw from screaming.
Ranth whispered in my mind, “You made contact, but the Sisters do not have to let her go. Your mother is part of this place. For her to leave, you would have to bargain with them. They will want things that you do not wish to give.”
“Such as?”
“Your life for hers.”
The cold bit into me. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I tried, but you wouldn’t listen. They collect life to give them energy. If not your life, then someone else’s.”
“I wouldn’t sacrifice someone else, and my mother would never forgive me if I replaced her here. There must be another way.”
“There might be. But I’m not sure you can do it.”
“Try me,” I said, looking into his liquid-brown eyes.
His arms tightened around me, and he leaned into me. His voice was in my head again. “You could bargain with power, then leave before you pay. It would be unfair, but you have tasted of the earth…” His voice was in my head, but he folded something into my hand.
A leaf.
“You mean trick them by using earth magic?” I thought back.
“They will have to be convinced you will give your power to them. They cannot see inside your head unless they touch you, and here you do not have a form they can touch. Still, your words must be true for them to believe.”
“But will they bargain? Why would they do that?”
“The Sisters can pull a soul, or they can take power from a human. It’s a similar process. If they agree, then…”
“What stops them from killing me?”
“Nothing. They take what they want, and you have come to their domain. But you have power that you can fight them with.”
“That didn’t help my mother.”
“Your mother couldn’t do what you do.”
“No. She couldn’t walk in the planes like I can….”
“I would guess there are other things she could not do as you could. Your strength is your power, and they can try to wrest it from you, but you can stop it. We can. The words…” The silvery shadows darted, lurking closer.
“Yes, I know. Okay. How do I call the Sisters?”
“Ask your mother to come with you. When her spirit curls around you this time, make your bargain.”
“That sounds too simple. It has to be more complicated, or lots of people would come in here.”
“No one can come here. You are here because of me and Harold. Others could not enter without permission, or they would never be able to leave.”
I stood, and Ranth kept his hand on my shoulder.
“Mom?” I called out. A glimmer of silver flashed through the shadows.
“Mom?” I called louder. And the specter flitted closer, its shadowy outline tattered at the edges. In the center was the silver flash.
“Mom?” I lowered my voice this time, holding out my hand as if to a timid stray. The specter came closer and closer until it curled around my palm like before.
I called out in the language of the whispers, “I wish to take her with me. Bargain with me.” The whispers responded, but this time I didn’t fight it.
“Your life force, one for one.”
“You can take my power instead, but I do not offer my life.” My chest tightened. I knew what I was doing, what it would mean. I had to do this.
“We don’t believe you.” The whispers gathered around me. They had to believe me. I had to find the right words. Would I give my power up to get my mother back? Would she forgive me? The Sisters had to think the words were true...
“You’ve taken something from me. If you let my mother leave here, then you can take my power.” And silently I added, but not unless I give you permission. I swallowed, as if I were actually considering it.
“Unfettered? A promise?” they asked, sweeping around me.
“An offer, a bargain,” I replied as the whispers prodded me.
“We agree. You may go, but your powers stay with us.”