Chasm, page 14
Alexander looked at me, confused. “Your PTSD.”
“My what?” I knew what PTSD was, of course, it just had never occurred to me that I had it. Wasn’t that for soldiers? Or people who’d witnessed horrific…
Oh. Right.
“I…I never mentioned it,” I said, feeling very foolish. But I’d had good reason to stay quiet—they might have kicked me out again!
Keeping it quiet meant you didn’t learn anything, either.
Alexander cut through my thoughts. “Very well. We must start there if we expect to get anywhere.”
He then set about teaching me something called Partitioning which involved sectioning off the portion of my mind that held all of the painful memories associated with the Gateway. Time and time again I tried, only to have the memories spill over the top, seep out the sides of the container I built. Two hours later, I was beyond frustrated.
“It might be easier if I showed you,” he said, which definitely raised my hackles. The last thing I wanted was him scrounging around in my brain. He noticed my reaction and made a soothing gesture. “No, no, I meant I will allow you to enter my thoughts, so that you can see first hand what I’m doing.”
I considered. It was a tempting offer for more reasons than one. If I had access to Alexander’s thoughts, I might catch a glimpse of his true intentions; see it they differed from what he claimed.
“OK,” I said, “but my telepathy is pretty hit and miss.”
“It won’t be with me,” he said.
His odd statement proved true. As soon as he took my hand in his, I was pulled into his inner world. The landscape was well-ordered—almost to the point of OCD—all clean lines and angles. I knew my own mind would be filled with mazes and labyrinths, some of them leading nowhere.
Not being proficient at entering another’s thoughts, let alone their mind entirely, I had no idea where to look. As it turned out, I didn’t have time for exploration, anyway.
This way.
I followed the echo of this thought until I came to a formidable fortress, made of steel and stone, its walls so high that my mind’s eye couldn’t see the top. Now that was a Partition.
An instant later, I was blinking my eyes open in surprise. Alexander had simply severed the connection, and without my even attempting to withdraw, I’d been expelled from his mind.
“That was…impressive,” I said.
He gave me a sad smile. “Some things need to be locked up tight.”
Something took hold of me and I found myself wanting to comfort him. To hold him in my arms and tell the little boy inside that everything was alright; his people had been wrong to exile him. Thankfully, I resisted the urge, instead wondering if I was in the throes of Stockholm Syndrome.
Whether I trusted him or not, he was teaching me a very useful skill, and I went back to practicing.
My own fortress became higher, thicker, large enough to contain the pain and guilt that so often threatened to pull me into its abyss.
Alexander stayed with me while I worked, ever patient, ever encouraging, until it seemed I’d mastered the skill. The feelings were still there, but, locked up as they were, became much less threatening. Partitioning, where have you been all my life?
“I take it by your smile you have succeeded?” Alexander said.
“I think so,” I said, opening my eyes.
For the first time in hours I took note of my surroundings. The pastel colors of sunset told me just how long I’d been sitting there. My stomach rumbled as if on cue.
“Please,” he said, “I can see how eager you are, but let us eat. If you want to keep practicing after dinner, we will.”
It seemed a fair proposition and I was undeniably hungry, so Alexander led me to the balcony where a meal was already waiting for us.
I ate quickly, anxious to begin learning how to effectively block outside influence once and for all, but by the time sorbet was served, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open.
I stifled yet another yawn, unwilling to give into the exhaustion.
“I will continue our lesson if you insist,” Alexander said, “but I must caution you that being as tired as you clearly are, you will have a difficult time learning. The skills I’m teaching you take total concentration, which is why you feel so depleted. There is no shame in needing rest. We can begin again in the morning.”
Even as I was about to protest, a wave of sleepiness washed over me and I had to admit I was down for the count.
“Alright, but first thing,” I said.
“As you wish,” he said.
Dead on my feet, I all but stumbled to my room. Not even bothering to brush my teeth or change clothes, I simply collapsed onto the bed, asleep before my head hit the pillow.
22
For all my insistence that we begin first thing in the morning, I didn’t awaken until almost noon. It had been a blissfully dreamless sleep, and I stretched, feeling relaxed and refreshed.
I changed clothes, reminding myself as I did that I’d be a fool to trust Alexander just because he’d taught me Partitioning. Whatever his excuses, he’d still had me kidnapped, still drugged Kat in the process, to say nothing of the gunfire that accompanied his first attempt.
At the thought of Partitioning, I had an idea and went to sit cross-legged on the floor. I closed my eyes and began the process of centering that Master Dogan had taught me. I then tested my inner defenses, making sure they were well in place. When I felt confident they were, I opened my eyes, my gaze resting on the small figurine of a ballerina on a table near me.
You can do this.
And then, as if it were nothing, I did. The bronze dancer lifted a good six inches from her resting place and spun around, as if pirouetting. I clapped my hands together with glee, which caused the figurine to drop to the table. Unfazed, I lifted her again, higher this time. When I heard a knock at the door, she bobbled, but I was able to gently place her back where I’d found her.
“Yes?” I called.
“It’s Alexander,” came the reply. “I’ve been worried. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
I opened the door. I wasn’t about to admit my progress, but I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm.
“I’m great,” I said. “Your little trick kept a recurring nightmare at bay and I had the most wonderful sleep.”
“Excellent,” he said, seeming truly pleased. “Let us have lunch and we will continue your training.”
I followed him to the pool where, as usual, a meal was waiting. The Reds still gave me the creeps, but it was hard not to appreciate being waited on hand and foot.
As I was spreading rose jam on my toast, I noticed buds on the nearby calla lily bush.
“Do you like flowers?” Alexander asked, following my gaze.
I nodded. “Calla lilies especially.”
Alexander gave me a mischievous grin and said, “Say when.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, until I realized that one of the tiny buds was blooming right before my eyes. It was as though I was watching time-lapse photography; the green bud grew, turning creamy white as it opened.
Alexander looked at me questioningly and I finally said, “Oh! When.”
The lily, now the most perfect I’d ever seen, stopped growing. Alexander deftly twisted it from the bush and handed it to me. I marveled at its beauty, and how it had come to be.
“How did you do that?” I said.
“A very simple, yet delicate process,” he said. “There is a master gene within the plant that tells it when to start flowering. By gently manipulating that gene and the proteins it controls, I am able to speed up the cycle.”
“That’s so cool,” I said, still in awe. “Will you teach me how to do it?”
“Right now, if you like,” he said. “But I suspect you have a more useful skill you’d like to learn first.”
He was right about that; I wanted to pick up where we’d left off yesterday. No longer having to fear the influence of a Root—or Alexander—was the most valuable skill I could think of.
We began immediately, right there at the table. When a Red arrived to clear our plates, my stomach clenched but I didn’t indulge the fear, instead locking it up tight. Reds or no, I had work to do.
Alexander talked me through the process, which closely resembled Partitioning, except instead of building a wall around a single section of my mind, he instructed me to contain my mind as a whole. In reality, it was what I’d been doing for months—ever since I’d learned the Voice I’d thought was a friend was really a demon—but after hours of practice my technique became more precise and much stronger.
From behind my new fortress I felt the safest I had since the kidnapping. Either Alexander was the good guy he made himself out to be, or he was the evil bastard I feared him to be. Either way, I’d learned more in a couple of days with him than I had in a couple of months at the Institute. If he turned out to be evil, I at least had a shot at escaping. I’d defeated a Root Demon with no training. In time, I could defeat Alexander if I needed to.
“It’s good to see you smile,” Alexander said.
“It’s good to have reason to,” I said. Yet even as I did, I felt just how strongly I hoped I never had to fight Alexander. Not just because I needed his help, but because I found myself actually…liking him.
Alexander indulged my ambition, staying with me as I practiced the two forms of Partitioning over and over again. I needed them to become second nature, requiring no thought on my part.
When it was time for dinner, he had us served poolside, right where we’d eaten lunch six hours earlier. Six hours? I hadn’t even gotten up to go to the bathroom.
Alexander seemed willing to continue after dinner, but once again, breaking for food had allowed exhaustion to creep in. No amount of Partitioning could keep it out, so I surrendered, retiring to my room for the night.
The dream starts as it always does: skin prickling, hairs standing on end, hovering.
But that’s where the similarities end, because this time, I opened my eyes.
I am suspended, not above ground but above nothingness. Miles of nothingness. The electric charge in the air grows more intense; my skin feels increasingly hotter and my mind goes back to that other time, those other burns.
Wake up, I tell myself. Wake up right freaking now.
But I don’t, and when the air grows even more dense and buffets me against nothingness, my scream is silent, vocal cords too paralyzed to produce sound.
And then I’m being pulled down. Down into the nothingness. Down into what lies beyond nothingness. The feeling is vaguely familiar, and when realization dawns, not even terror can keep the scream from coming.
No, no, no… It’s not real, It’s not real!
I repeat the phrase over and over as my descent picks up speed. A familiar stench fills my nostrils, causing my blood to run cold in direct contrast to my burning skin. My thoughts become frantic as I try to figure a way out, try to understand why this is happening.
Alexander is the only answer, of course. Whether he’d put something in my food or just caused me to lower my guard with his grandiose ideas, I’d left myself open and now the Root is pulling me into the demon dimension.
I don’t waste time on rage; I’m falling too fast for such an indulgence. I have to go up.
UP!
I’m being shaken now. Over and over again as a pull stronger than gravity sucks me deeper, I am jolted to my core.
“Ember, wake up, wake up!”
My eyes flew open.
I was back in the villa bedroom. Alexander had a grip on my shoulders, though he ceased shaking me. His eyes searched mine, worried.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice anxious.
I just stared at him and remained mute. It hadn’t been a dream. Not this time, and maybe none of the others, either.
“It’s all right; you’re back now. You’re safe,” he said, his demeanor so sincere I was tempted to believe him, but I didn’t dare.
“Back from where?” I said, my throat raw, wondering how he would know unless he’d been the one doing the sending. Or allowing it, at the very least. “How did you know I was gone?”
“You were screaming bloody murder,” he said, abashed at my suspicions. “I could hear you from my suite. And as to knowing where you were… How do you think your Institute learned to perform Retrievals in the first place?”
“Then why didn’t you perform one?” I said, biting off each word. “Shaking me doesn’t exactly qualify.”
“I didn’t think you required one,” he said. “You were still tethered strongly to this world, otherwise barely a word would have escaped your lips. I didn’t want to interfere unless you needed me. Would you have liked me to just pop into your head without permission?”
I shook my head. He was right about that. And the screaming. Were I more in that world than this, my physical body would have been nearly comatose. Could I believe his concern or was this just another way to prove his trustworthiness to me?
“Can you tell me what happened?” he said, taking my affirmation as a sign I was ready to open up.
“There isn’t much to tell,” I said.
“Indulge me,” he said. “Please.”
There really wasn’t much, which made it seem unlikely that sharing it would come back to haunt me.
“It was a dream. At least, I thought it was, but then I was being sucked into the demon world,” I said, then decided to see how much information I could get from him. “Has it happened to you?”
“When I was a child,” he said, which could have come off as condescending, but instead just struck me as sad that a mere child could be subjected to such horror. “It was the most frightened I have ever been.”
“Who Retrieved you?” I said.
“My mother,” he replied with a nostalgia that quickly disappeared. “Enough of that. Please, tell me exactly what happened. No detail is too small.”
“It started a while ago,” I said. “As a dream. Then a nightmare. But this one was more than that.”
I went on to tell him the whole of it, which took all of two minutes. When I finished he appeared thoughtful, his expression one of respect.
“What you describe is very good news,” he said. “It’s what I’ve suspected for some time now.”
“We have very different ideas of what constitutes good news,” I said.
“We won’t,” he said, with a knowing smile. “Not when you hear what I have to tell you.
23
“Have you ever wondered what lies between the two worlds?” Alexander asked.
“You mean the Gateways?” I said, suddenly feeling less like I was going to be learning anything profound.
“A fair answer,” he acknowledged. “But not the only answer.”
My flesh pebbled and I said, “I’m listening.”
“What have you learned about how the Gateways were formed?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t exactly know how,” I said, “but I know it took the power of all the Daemons on the side of the humans.”
“And has your Institute told you what happened to that power once the Gateways were complete?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “No,” I said finally. “I assume it went back to those who were wielding it.”
“That would be the way of it,” he said, “had all of the Daemons survived.”
I tilted my head. “So, then…what did happen to it?”
“Energy doesn’t die,” he said, “and cannot be destroyed. So it lies in wait.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Apparently,” he said softly, leveling me with his penetrating gaze, “for you.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “For me to do what?” I said.
“To use it,” he said. “To claim your birthright.”
He rose then, and held out his hand for me to take. I laid my now trembling hand in his, and he led me to the full length mirror.
I wore my usual sleepwear, pajama bottoms and a tank top.
Alexander turned me around so that I had to look over my shoulder to see my reflection. His touch sent an involuntary shiver through me as he slid the thin strap of my tank aside to reveal my tattoo.
When I’d begun drawing parts of the symbol—long before I’d ever heard of the Gateway—I’d had no idea what they represented. Even when I’d combined the pieces, I considered it an elaborate doodle. Later, I learned that the swirling lines had a deeper meaning.
“You see here,” he said, tracing his finger along the symbol, “the Tree of Life, with a center trunk and branches on each side, representing the Gateways. But what’s this?”
He traced his finger over the line that split the circular symbol in half.
My voice quivered in much the same way my insides did when I said, “It symbolizes the separation of the worlds, each a mirror of the other.”
“Very good,” he said. “Do you know what it’s called?”
“The Dividing Line,” I said, thinking back to my lessons.
“That’s not what we call it,” he said. Before I could question who he meant by, “we,” he leaned even closer, as close as he had been when he showed me his eyes. The air between us was as charged as the air in my dream when he said, “We call it the Chasm.”
Like a struck tuning fork, I resonated with the word.
Chasm.
“And that’s where the leftover power is?” I said, though I didn’t need his nod of confirmation.
For a moment we stood there, holding each other’s gaze, his fingertips resting lightly on my bared shoulder.
But then Taren flashed in my mind and I cleared my throat, taking a giant step away.
“Why me?” I said, pacing. “You said it was waiting for me. Why? Why not you?”
“When you fought with the Root Demon, how did you do it?” he said.
Annoyed at the switch in gears, I said, “I jumped into Its mouth, though I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Before that,” he said, unfazed. “You fought with It.”
