Chapter 14 #2
“It’s a repeating sequence.” Jasper reaches for the sheet of paper beside him. “Numbers that appear too consistently to feel accidental. Four forty-four stands for alignment. Stability. Protection. Confirmation.”
He uncaps a pen and writes 444 at the top of the page.
We all watch him as he writes underneath it, muttering the words under his breath.
4 better. 4 worse. 4 ever.
I stare at it longer than I mean to.
Four people. Same numbers. Same time.
That’s insane.
Absolutely insane.
“That dickhead Spencer didn’t even have a chance.” Jasper chuckles.
“Spencer?” Paul looks up from the sheet of paper while pushing his glasses up his nose.
“What has Boston Ken got to do with it?” Ridge chimes in.
“Nothing. I checked.” Jasper caps his pen again. “He’s not one of her connections.”
“Good,” I mutter automatically. Just hearing Spencer’s name puts me in a worse mood. “He kept texting her saying he was coming to Vernonia, then suddenly his car broke down or some shit. Whined about how he’s had the worst few weeks.”
Jasper makes a tiny sound, half laugh, half satisfaction. “That was probably me.”
“You?” Paul repeats.
“I sent hexes his way.” He shrugs lightly. “Nothing major. Mostly inconvenience-based manifestations.”
“Are you telling us you spiritually slashed that man’s tires?” Ridge huffs a laugh.
“I’m saying the universe agreed with me.”
Rule two.
“Good job, Jasp,” I praise, and his smile turns even bigger.
Fuck, I miss my best friend.
Ridge points his lollipop at him. “Between your hexes and me texting him that she’s ours and he should stay well back, he’s probably not coming anyway.”
Paul turns to look at him. “You told him she’s ours? Not yours. Ours?”
Ridge shrugs, one corner of his mouth pulling up. “Yeah.”
“Why would you, Ridge? We said that this discussion is not over. I won’t—”
“I have her back,” he cuts him off but looks utterly unbothered. “She wants me, even if she wants you idiots too.” He cringes, then glances at me sideways. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say, because it is.
“So, if we manage to wake Sleeping Beauty up, I’m fine with whatever she wants, because if that happens, I have everything I want.”
Ridge turns to me and gives me a long look, and I nod.
Because yeah.
If I can have her. If she comes back to me.
Shit.
She’s got all of us completely insane.
“See, baby boy agrees.” Ridge turns back to Paul. “I think I figured my shit out. Now you have to work on yours.”
“And how did that suddenly happen?” Paul scoffs.
“There are a lot of things that can happen in dreams.” Ridge grins, and Paul gives him a look that communicates volumes without using any of them. “Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, Dr. Bennett. I’m talking about stuff like tarot readings.”
That makes Jasper perk up.
Ridge slightly leans back in his chair, pointing the lollipop at him. “I accidentally ended up in one of your dreams once, little Shaw.”
Jasper’s eyes go huge. “You were?”
“Mm-hmm.” Ridge looks weirdly amused by this. “Do you like pickles?”
“What?”
“Pickles,” Ridge repeats. “Big fan?”
“Um.” Jasper glances at me briefly, like maybe I can explain literally any part of this conversation. “Yeah? I love pickles. What does that have to do with dreams?”
Ridge snorts softly. “You dream about pickles.”
Jasper frowns, looking offended. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, you absolutely do.”
“I don’t dream at all.”
“Everybody dreams.” Paul leans back against the tree with the swings, crossing his arms.
“I know everybody dreams,” Jasper says, sounding annoyed now.
“I just can’t remember them. Ever. Doesn’t matter what I do.
” He gestures vaguely toward the mountain of crystals around him.
“Tea, meditation, mugwort, affirmations, frequencies, whatever book tells me will unlock my subconscious. Nothing works.”
Ridge’s amusement fades slightly.
“That’s literally the only reason I got into astrology and tarot instead,” Jasper continues. “I always wanted to learn dream stuff because…” His voice catches, and he glances at me again. “Because it was Mom’s thing.”
Ah, shit.
“But no matter how hard I try, I can’t fucking remember any of them.”
“That’s weird,” Ridge says slowly. “Because your dreams are vivid as hell. You should at least—”
The gate creaks again. We all turn to look and find Mabel coming through first with her hand on Seraphine’s elbow.
My mother is wearing a long green cardigan, and her eyes are on the garden rather than the ground, which is sometimes a good sign and sometimes isn’t.
I’ve been reading it for long enough that I can usually tell, but not always. Not today.
“I know her,” Ridge says quietly.
“Yeah,” I say. “Small town. That’s my mom.”
“No. I mean, I know her from a dream.” He glances at Jasper. “She was in yours.”
“People dream about their parents,” Paul mutters, visibly still thinking through what Ridge pushed at him earlier.
“No, not a dream projection. Her. She kicked me out of the dream. With considerable force.”
Before Jasper can answer, Seraphine looks up from the garden path and sees us, her gaze moving from me to him.
“My boys,” she greets warmly.
The tightness in my chest that has been there for days eases a little on instinct now that she recognizes him.
Jasper exhales hard enough that I realize he’d been holding his breath and crosses the garden quickly to her. She cups his face with both hands immediately, thumbs brushing over his cheeks like she’s making sure he’s real.
He says something quietly to her that I can’t hear, then he glances back at us over his shoulder. “She’s having a good day.”
Paul and Ridge exchange a look.
“Then let’s ask her,” Paul carefully suggests before he walks over and greets Mabel with a kiss on her cheek.
Jasper nods and helps Mom over to the garden bench while Mabel lowers herself beside her, then he crouches in front of Mom, one hand resting lightly on her knee.
“Mom, Nevan and the guys want to ask you a question. Can you tell us about soul contracts?”
Mom’s head tilts slightly. Her eyes drift past Jasper to the rest of us, then they stop longest on Ridge. Recognition flickers across her face.
“You all need to know,” she says quietly.
“Yeah,” Jasper agrees. “We do.”
Mom folds her hands loosely in her lap.
“A soul contract is made from the part of you that doesn’t sleep.” A breeze moves through the garden, and Seraphine watches it pass through the trees. “Soul contracts belong to the self.”
Paul frowns slightly. “What does that actually mean?”
“It means your waking mind cannot make one.” Her gaze drifts slowly between us.
“Only the dreaming part can. The oldest part. The part underneath fear, ego, and loneliness. A soul contract is not words,” she continues softly.
“Words are only how the soul shapes recognition into something the body can understand. A soul contract happens when one soul recognizes another soul completely and answers.”
The garden suddenly feels colder.
“Is there a way to undo one?” Paul asks.
“When you make one, there is no turning back.”
I feel the hairs lift slightly along my arms.
“So, if someone would make a soul contract to stay in her dreams, in 5D,” I start, trying to gather the facts the guys have told me that apparently Lennon told them.
“It locks, like a door closing.” Her gaze shifts to Ridge again. “Or opening. They cannot be undone. Not by regret. Not by fear. Not even by death, sometimes.”
“Well,” Ridge clears his throat, “That’s deeply horrifying. Thank you.”
Paul slaps him over the back of the head.
“Ow.”
“The sleeping part of you is small,” Seraphine continues as if she didn’t just witness a mild assault between two grown men. “The dreaming part is much older. It knows what you love before you do.”
“What you love?” I ask.
“When the soul chooses, it does not choose halfway.”
“Okay, so we have to make sure there won’t be any soul contracts.” Paul nods. “But if someone gets stuck between dreams and waking life, without any contracts being made, can they come back?”
Mom’s gaze drifts toward the trees again. “Yes.”
Every muscle in my body tightens at once.
“How?” Ridge asks immediately.
Mom hums softly, like she’s listening to voices far away. “The soul has to remember there’s something to return to.”
Ridge frowns. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” she says patiently. “You cannot pull someone back who no longer reaches toward you.”
Paul steps closer slightly. “Lennon is trying to come back.”
“Yes,” Mom agrees easily. “Very hard.”
Before I can even ask how she would know, hope punches straight through my ribs so fast it almost hurts.
“Then why can’t she wake up?” I ask instead, and it’s not more than a whisper.
“Because more of her love is listening to elsewhere.”
A cold feeling crawls up my spine.
“Can that part be forced back?” Paul asks.
“No.” Mom shakes her head. “Love is invitation only.”
Ridge scoffs softly. “Cool. Hate that.”
“You cannot drag a soul home. You can only give it reasons to stay.” Mom smiles faintly, and nobody speaks for a second.
Then Jasper asks quietly, “And if the soul loves someone in both places?”
Mom’s expression changes to sadness.
Real sadness.
“Then it hurts,” she says.
I press two fingers over my nose.
Still can’t breathe through it.
Still awake.
4 better. 4 worse. 4 ever.
Yeah, I think.
Sounds about right.