Burden of the Soul

14.

“Leave me alone,” I said, my voice muffled through the fabric I was pressing my face into.

“I’m sorry, I’ll go.” It was Dave. I had thought it was Brik coming for more or one of the other strangers coming to smooth things over between us. I shot up in bed and turned to him.

“No,” I said, wiping my hand across my face to clean myself up as much as I could, thankful for the darkness. “I just thought you were one of them. I mean you are, I know you are, but …”

“I wanted to tell you, Clara. I swear. It was just …”

His voice trailed off and never came back to that thought. I watched as his shadow came closer and sat next to me on the side of the bed. We sat like that for a moment before he let out a long exhale. “So … some night, right?”

His casual tone made me laugh a bit. “Yeah, some night.”

“Is it true about your aunt?”

“Yeah.” My voice shook a little as I said it, the welling up in my chest coming back with full strength.

“And your dad?”

I couldn’t get the single word out again, but the answer came through in my silence.

“I’m really sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

I bit my lower lip, pushing back on the tears that were about to come, holding them down in my chest.

He must have understood because he didn’t press for more. I felt his warm hand slide across the edge of the bed until it reached mine. He tested the waters for a moment, probably to see if I would pull my hand away from the touch, but I didn’t.

His pinky finger floated over mine and without me willing it to, without my mind telling my fingers what to do, they automatically opened to his, inviting the whole of his hand to intertwine with mine. Electricity shot up my arm and split the chill in my chest, replacing it with a warm throbbing, like my heart was expanding at his touch.

His hand pulled mine back as he turned himself to me, our knees touching. His other hand reached out from the darkness and cupped the side of my neck right under my jaw and the air caught in my throat.

“Clara, I…” He stopped himself, his forehead falling onto mine, his breath blowing over my face as he stumbled over the words. “… I have feelings for you, but not because anyone told me to or is making me. I want you to know that.”

“I know.” It was a whisper. I was incapable of pulling in enough air at that moment to speak any louder. If he hadn’t been just an inch or so from my face, he likely would have missed it.

I felt his face edge in even closer, and then the tip of his nose was running up my cheek. My heart beat at the sides of my ribcage. I felt his lips run over my bottom lip, pulling at my upper lip slightly.

“I choose you,” he whispered, each slight movement of his lips felt by mine. His warm breath flowed into my mouth with the words as his hand slid from the side of my neck to the front, his thumb coming to a resting spot at its nape.

Again, my body took the reins without any direction from my mind. My mind was stunned frozen in that moment, unable to operate, but my body did as it pleased. My lips closed around his lower lip, hugging it gently. I had often thought about kissing, but had never had the opportunity or the guts to try it.

I had asked Alli how to do it once—If there were some tricks of the trade or things I should know, but she wasn’t much help, having very little experience herself. And by the sound of it, the little experience she had wasn’t very good, because what she had described—awkward smacking and noses bumping—was nothing like what I was experiencing at that moment. It was like an out-of-body experience, watching myself kiss Dave, my free hand rising to his neck and back behind his head, where my fingers gripped his soft, brown hair.

Our lips moved in unison. Our heads tilted and swayed back and forth, altering between giving and receiving. He was pulling me closer to him. His hand was pulling at my waist. I felt him shifting his weight toward the center of the bed, and my body followed. I had never done anything like this with anyone, yet I responded so naturally to it. His body felt familiar, comfortable.

My eyes were closed, but I saw each curve of his face as it rubbed against mine, including the deep groove of his cheek as it trailed across my lip. He was smiling.

And then a flash of color sprang across my vision and I saw Devin’s face. His expression was strained with immense pain as he gasped for air, forcing a single word out: “Clara.”

I threw my eyes open and shot myself upright on the bed, freeing myself from the tangle of his legs and the hold of his arms. I blinked rapidly to throw the image of this strange, pained face from my mind, but each time my eyes were closed it waited for me there. I left my eyes open wide, my lungs pulling for oxygen and my lips still warm from Dave’s.

“What’s wrong?” He was next to me again, his hand back on mine.

“I’m sorry … I don’t know … it’s just,” I said, clamoring for some sequence of words that would make it go away and put me back his arms, feeling his breath mixing with mine. But the words never came.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have …” he was lifting himself from the bed as he said it, breaking off at the tail end of his sentence. “I’ll go.”

My hand shot up in the dark and grabbed his, ready to pull him back, but he gave in before it was necessary, falling back next to me.

“Please. Just stay.” It was all I could piece together. There was so little I knew, so little I understood that night, but I wanted him to stay, of that I was sure. And it wasn’t just the need to be with someone, to not be alone. For over a year I had ignored my need and desire for affection, for touch from anyone I cared for. I didn’t want to go back to the isolation so soon.

We sat just breathing for a moment, then he pushed himself back to the headboard and extended his hand for me to follow. We lay on top of the covers. I coiled under his arm and realized I had been right—I did fit perfectly.

My arm rested on his chest and raised with each breath he took, then lowered as he exhaled.

“Do you believe him?” My hand bounced as he asked the question.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t really know what to believe right now.”

“I’ve heard my parents talk about things like that before. They never talked to me directly about it, but I would overhear stuff every now and then. Most of it started a year ago, around the same time we moved down the street, and they mostly waited until I was out of the room or they thought I was asleep. But I could still hear them. The walls in that brownstone are pretty thin.”

“Why’d you guys have to move?”

“I was told it was due to a security breach, that’s it. A couple days later we were moved.”

I was quiet, just allowing the vibrations of his voice to travel through his chest into my skin.

“I wasn’t complaining though. The move worked out pretty well for me.” His head tilted down, and he looked at me with an embarrassed gaze. “I liked that we were moving closer to you.”

I blushed at his honesty, and turned my head down. “I figured you didn’t know I was alive.”

“Oh, I’ve been well aware of you for awhile now, in that way I mean. You’re a pretty intimidating girl to approach.”

“Oh sure,” I said, letting my eyes roll at the ridiculousness of that comment. I swam through the pool of memories in my mind, trying to excavate a single time when I would have considered myself intimidating or even noticeable in school.

“You are, trust me,” he said, letting his head fall back against my pillows. “You’re not like the others. You move like you’re a breeze, just floating through a room. The other girls all play themselves down, ya know? Because they think that makes them more approachable, more desirable or something. They look uncomfortable with themselves all the time. As if they’re always trying to cover something up. But you … you are who you are. You’re genuine.” His hand behind my knee traveled up my leg a few inches, sending a chill up my spine. “Genuinely intimidating,” he said, his hand running the few inches back to my knee.

“If I’m intimidating, you must be a terrible Guardian.”

“Guardian in training, actually,” he said, a smirk spreading across his face in the dark. He pulled his hand out from behind my head and lifted his arm up, twisting it to show the bare skin of his forearm. I reached up and dragged my forefinger across his skin, registering the barcode tattoos of the other Guardians.

“One day,” he said, leaning over to kiss my forehead while swinging his arm back under my neck.

His hand coiled through my hair, pulling a strand out and swinging it around a finger. It was a few minutes before either of us spoke again. It was Dave who broke the silence, letting his hand fall from my hair and sighing.

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t even know him.”

“But you knew who I was talking about.”

I lifted myself slightly, half of my body on his. It all came so naturally to me with him. It felt comfortable and familiar. Like my body wanted to be as close to him as possible, and not just because I had seen people do it in movies or heard the Bronzed Brigade talking about their make out sessions in detail. This was different. It felt sincere.

“There is so much I don’t understand right now, Dave. I don’t know what to think about anything, except this.” My hand ran up his chest and rested at his heart. “This is good. I choose this.”

His right hand found the crook of my jaw and pulled my lips to his. We kissed.

“But you haven’t met him yet,” he said, his lips again moving against mine.

A laugh escaped me and I let myself roll back onto his arm. “Trust me, I have no plans of running off to find the guy who wants to kill me.”

“I promise I won’t let that happen.” His lips traced the words along my forehead.

“I don’t think it’s up to us, Dave.” Despair was evident in my voice then. The weight of everything, if it was true, finally settled on my shoulders. The weight I carried and the possible fate I was walking toward with each step, with each dream.

“There’s always a choice, Clara.” His arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me in closer, and I melted into him in response. “Go ahead and sleep.”

The word vibrated in his chest as an echo that lulled me into a dreamless sleep. Sounds from downstairs floated to the second floor from time to time, occasional voices including what sounded like Oliver asking, “Who ate all the pizza?”

I dozed into a soft, dark fog and remained there for some time. I slept undisturbed by dreams or visions—the first time in over a year. The sound of the door opening woke me, and I realized I was still wrapped in Dave’s arms.

I sprang upright, a guilty teenager caught in the act. Dave’s body tensed and shot up, swooping me behind him with one protective arm. Apparently this was a move ingrained in the Guardian training. His stance relaxed when we both registered the outline of Oliver’s red hair in the doorway.

“I’m sorry to wake you guys, but Brik said Dave should go to school. It wouldn’t help matters if rumors of teenage scandal got people asking questions.”

Dave hunched over and started rubbing his arm. It must have gone numb under the weight of my head for so many hours.

“Sorry, man. But you gotta go to school. Boss’s orders.” Oliver had turned sideways, probably feeling a bit embarrassed by what he had walked in on. I knew I was, but then again it could have been a lot worse.

“Just give me a minute,” said Dave.

“Sorry … I mean, I checked the guest room first, but you weren’t there, ya know?”

“It’s okay, Oliver,” he said, running a hand through his hair while stretching his other arm.

“I just figured… soul mates and all.” He was jostling from foot to foot in the doorway, trying to explain his intrusion.

But Dave caught the phrase and was suddenly awake and wide-eyed.

“It’s fine, Oliver. Just give him a minute,” I said, putting a little oomph in my voice, hoping to cut Oliver off before he could do any more damage. If ever I wanted to have a phrase stricken from the record, it was then.

“Right, okay,” he said, closing the door behind him. We were back in the darkness, but I could still see Dave’s head turn to me.

“Soul mates?”

I was thankful for the darkness. He couldn’t see the bright crimson I undoubtedly turned at the phrase.

“Ummm, yeah. You missed that part,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest.

I braced myself for him to run, but he just sat there looking off at nothing. And then shrugged.

“I guess that makes sense,” he said.

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I mean, it makes sense sort of. Cole razzed me so bad for the past year. It wasn’t normal to be so hung up on a girl I had never really spoken to. To only be interested in one girl for that long without any encouragement.” Then he looked at me with a smile. “It sorta goes against nature for a teenage guy. To only have eyes for one girl.”

He only had eyes for me. That’s what it sounded like he was saying, and the realization brought a smile to my face as I thought of all the moments over the past year when I had been completely oblivious. I had gone so far out of my way to remain within the scenery of high school life. Little did I know somewhere along the line I had floated to the foreground of Dave’s life against all of my conscious efforts. I was glad for it.

He stood up from the bed and leaned over, kissing me on the forehead. “It’s about the only thing that makes sense from last night,” he said. Before he slipped completely through the half-closed door, he poked his head back with a single laugh and said, “Brik’s pretty freaking devious, if you ask me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the humor he was finding. “Yeah, to say the least.”

He paused for a moment, just smiling at me. “I’ll see you later, Clara.”

He was going to come back. He wasn’t running away. Joy sprang out through every inch of my body. “Okay,” I said, unable to keep my excitement out of the word.

He laughed, and then was gone.

I fell back against my bed with my arms spread wide after the door closed, knowing I was alone. I laughed to myself. I couldn’t help but think of the phone call I would undoubtedly get from Alli later if any word of my night with Dave got back to her. And I froze with a panic suddenly worried about him telling someone.

What if he innocently mentioned it to Cole, but someone overheard and ignited the rumor mill? But then the smile crept back over my face as my eyes slid shut again, picturing the look on Trischa’s face when the news got to her.

I weaved in and out of sleep for what felt like ages, occasionally ending up back in the green field, the tree standing bare off in the distance, but I was alone. He never came. Then finally the scent of pancakes brought me back. I rolled over in bed and saw it was just after 9 am. I was still wearing my clothes from last night, clothes I had trudged through the park in, clothes I had cuddled next to my father in, clothes I had embraced my aunt in when I met her on the stoop.

The events of the day before came rushing back as I realized it wasn’t my father making breakfast, or my quirky aunt. They were gone.

The weight of the clothes became too much for me and I slowly took them off and changed into a pair of yoga pants and an old New York City marathon t-shirt Dad had given me years ago.

I popped into my bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth and pull my hair back in a loose ponytail before heading out of my room.

I made my way downstairs and heard the TV buzzing and the clatter of plates being pulled from a cupboard. Rose was in the kitchen peeling pancakes off the griddle. Oliver had returned to his position on the couch, this time without the snoring, and Liv skipped up to me as I rounded the corner.

“Hi, Clara. Did you sleep well?” It was far too much enthusiasm for me to stomach, and it cast a deep shadow on the mood I had woken up in. I should be as enthusiastic if not more—I had just spent the night in Dave’s arms—but the weight I had tried to tear from my body when undressing ended up staying even though the clothes were gone.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” I said, walking over to the counter where Rose was placing a stack of warm pancakes on a plate.

“Here you go, love. You must be starving,” she said. “Besides, Oliver’s been told he can’t have thirds until you get your first helping.”

His head popped up over the couch with a Cheshire Cat-like grin, and then sank back down out of sight. I took the plate from her and sat at the table, Liv taking the seat directly across from me.

“Where are the others?” I wasn’t looking at anyone in particular when I asked, but it was Liv who jumped at the chance to answer.

“Demetrius is on Guard … well, we all are technically, but it’s a lot easier now that you’re in on it,” she said. “There are obviously perks to being able to stay inside.” She motioned with her hand to the pancakes I was dividing into bite-sized triangles.

“I love perks,” Oliver agreed from the couch as he flipped the station a few times.

“What about Brik?”

Rose sat in the seat next to me with a cup of tea in her hands. “On the Other Side, darling. Checking in with the elders, bringing them up to speed.” She blew on her tea, casting the steam into wild swirls off the cup’s rim.

“He’s on the Other Side? I mean … can he do that?”

“Yes. It can be done, it just needs to be done carefully under the circumstances,” she said with a nod.

I felt comforted by her proximity to me—a comfort that only a maternal figure can give. She felt familiar, and reminded me a little of my own mother, or what she would have grown into if she had been given the chance.

Oliver was slyly making his way to the kitchen for his third helping, unstopped by Rose.

“Oliver, before you make another plate, let me remind you that Demetrius has not eaten yet and will want to.”

“There’s enough here,” he said, as he passed us with a huge stack of pancakes on his way back to the couch.

“It’s your ass, kid,” she said, laughing over her tea. She turned and saw me watching the display. I must have had a warped expression on my face, because she suddenly understood another level of my confusion. I had been an only child, and friends had been few and far between due to the seen parental and unseen Guardian restrictions.

I had never witnessed family dynamics close up without a studio audience directing me where to laugh. The motley crew that had come into my life and taken over my home in the past 12 hours were far from what I had ever experienced before. I didn’t know how to receive them.

“Oliver and Liv are brother and sister. They are new to this detail of the Guard, as you can tell by their lack of professionalism,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Demetrius and I have worked as Guardians for a long time, though the past twenty years have been the most demanding of our services. We worked with your mother and aunt. They are both very dear to us.”

Tears were beginning to swell her eyes, but her smile never dissipated. “Brik as well … he loves your aunt very much. More than he’ll likely admit.”

Aunt Grace had never mentioned him before that one day a year ago when she brought him over, and had never mentioned him since. It was difficult to imagine any of these people being as close with my family as I was, but her eyes told me she knew my pain—that she understood and felt it too.

“My dad?”

“Not a Guardian by choice,” she smirked. “He really loved your mother. Quite a lot. They were very happy.”

“Until they weren’t,” I said with a sour tone. I pushed the plate back. I really didn’t have an appetite.

“They knew the risks, darling.”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t tell me. Why wouldn’t they tell me themselves, instead of making me find out from some hipster in need of a hair cut?”

She laughed a bit at the jab before answering.

“You were young, possibly too young to understand. It was always important that we not only protect you from Rex, but also from being forced to awaken before you were ready. Those were your parents’ rules. They were protecting their daughter’s childhood. Your mother had wanted to start slowly, bring you in bit by bit. She said she had a gut feeling that it was for the best. My understanding is that she had begun before her disappearance. I’m sure she would have explained more if she had the chance.”

She wasn’t like Brik when she explained these secrets to me. Her emotions read on her face, and they were comforting. To see her pause and choke on the words, her eyes glistening over, made me feel more at ease with my own feelings—that I wasn’t wrong to be so distraught, confused and angry about my loss.

“You only know now because it became completely necessary. It’s regrettable you had to learn everything this way. Regrettable to everyone other than the couch potatoes,” she said it, nodding her head toward the living room where Liv and Oliver sat expressionless watching a morning talk show.

She ran her wrinkled, rose-colored hand through my ponytail, twisting the ends of my hair. It reminded me of when Mom would play with my hair, laying in bed with me at night reading to me before I fell asleep. I ached for her.

“Would it bring them back?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, though the thought was clear and vivid in my mind.

“Would what bring them back?”

“Killing Devin.” I looked her dead in the eye and a ripple of fear ran through me as I registered the glint of willingness that showed itself within me. Under all the uncovered layers of myself, was there a killer just waiting in the shadows?

She scanned my face, taking in my intent, and as if hearing the questions I posed in my mind, she laid a hand on my knee and answered.

“There’s no way to know what end your choices will bring.”

“Then why go through all of this trouble?” I motioned to the ginger siblings in the living room to express my bigger meaning.

She leaned in, her hand still warm on my knee. “Because we have faith in you, Clara.”

The sincerity in her expression gave me goose bumps.

“No pressure or anything, right?” I scoffed as I said it. My fingers began to play with the dangling key on my right wrist as I stared off at nothing, hoping to blink away the tears.

“May I ask you something?” She leaned back a bit and let go of my knee.

“Sure.”

“What is that for?” She motioned to the key in my fingers when she asked.

“Oh … um, I honestly don’t know. It was my mother’s and then Aunt Grace had it. She threw it at me last night right before …” I had to stop myself.

“It was always yours,” she said, politely ignoring my slip in emotion.

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother was holding on to it for you. And then your aunt was doing the same,” she said. “It was always yours, we all just agreed that it would be kept safe if it was in the care of Guardians until you were of age, rather than in the hands of a rambunctious toddler.

“It just appeared after you were born, hanging around your neck while you slept in your crib,” she said, her eyes on the key. “No one knows why, or what it’s for. It was the first time that’s ever happened, but then again there’s been a lot of ‘firsts’ lately.”

I ran my fingers over the key and added this new bit of information to the “to be sorted” pile in my mind.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, sweetheart. But it’ll be fine. We’re all here with you now.”

I let go of the key and stood up out of my chair, reaching for my dirty dish. “Ya know, I think I’m going to go up to my room. It’s been a long …” I trailed off as I realized the last day wasn’t even the beginning of it, as my impression of time disintegrated at the edges, realizing what was a day when you had apparently been around for millennia in some form or another.

“You don’t worry about that,” said Rose, taking the dish from my hands and rising up out of her chair. “You take all the time you need.”

She reached one hand and kissed the top of my head. She was practically a stranger, but it felt amazing.

I went back to my bedroom and paced for a bit, tickling the key with my fingers, just thinking about things. I went to my nightstand and pulled out old folders and magazines until I got to the bottom of the pile and found what I was looking for. It had stayed there untouched since we moved in, but its faded red cover and disintegrating gold filigree looked the same it had the day I buried it away in that drawer.

I sat on the floor with my back resting against my bed and opened the front cover. The two photographs I had tucked inside the book slipped out onto my lap. I held them up side by side and took in their smiling faces, first young and in love and then as new parents, holding me just after I was born.

The tears came quickly, seeing their faces again together as it should have always been. Soul mates.

I remembered our last afternoon together and the conversation we had about how Alice’s entire world had changed, and she felt lost and confused… how she didn’t really know who she was anymore. Her explanation of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, not understanding the changes that were happening, but knowing it was what needed to happen.

She wasn’t talking about Alice or the Caterpillar. She had been talking about me, but I completely missed her warning. She had wanted to tell me, but couldn’t find the right way to do it.

At that moment I heard rustling downstairs as the front door opened and Demetrius’s booming voice echoed up the stairwell.

I wanted to be alone, and focus all of my energy on piecing together this puzzle without the distraction of people downstairs or mid-morning talk shows. I shut the book and headed to my walk-in closet. I closed the door behind me and turned on the overhead light, then sat in the far back corner with the book opened once again on my lap.

I flipped to the back of the book and saw the murmurs of my mother’s handwriting through the thin-skinned pages. I turned the pages gently and saw it, a letter addressed to me written in the back of the book, dated the day before my sixteenth birthday.

My Sweet Clara,

I don’t know where to begin. I feel as if my time with you is drawing short, though I can’t explain why. If you are reading this, then it is most likely true that I have been taken from you. Even the thought of missing a day with you hurts my heart.

I want you to know that I love you, more than I ever thought possible. Being your mother has been the greatest experience of my existence, and I will cherish the love I have shared with you for eternity.

I wish I could have been the one to explain it all to you, to hold you when you battle with the confusion you will undoubtedly feel. Know this: You are everything they say and so much more. There is an infinite amount of love in your heart, and it will guide you if you allow it. Connect with your inner knowledge and trust it, though it may feel odd at first. Trust that you are here for a reason and allow that mysterious knowledge embedded deep within your heart to guide you, and in turn, guide the others.

Be patient with yourself, and remind Brik to be patient with you, too. Be still and listen to your heart. Trust your inner wisdom. Pay attention to your dreams. Collected, they are the map that will guide you to the wisdom your heart holds. We will be together again.

I love you, with all of my soul.

Mom

The tears ripped at my eyes, burning trenches down my cheeks and falling to the book on my lap. I closed the book and set it to the side, then tucked my knees up and cried. I cried for the loss of my mother all over again, and now the loss of my father and my aunt—the only family I had ever known.

I cried for their expectations of me.

They all expected me to guide them, but I couldn’t even give someone directions to the East Village if they asked, and here they were waiting for me to lead them into a spiritual war, a crusade. They were expecting me to be capable of murder.

I cried for all of my inadequacies and for the disappointment they would all undoubtedly feel when I failed.

I felt a chill as the air around me cooled in contrast to the hot tears still streaming down my face. Then the chill grew stronger, piercing into my hips where I sat on the ground, no longer fuzzy but hard and frozen. I opened my eyes slowly and blinked a few times, checking to make sure they were in fact open. The darkness was palpable. I turned my head up to my closet light, but it was gone.

I stood up in a rush and threw my hand out to the side, but instead of feeling the luster paint of my closet wall, I felt stone and grunted in confusion.

“Great. This dream again,” I said, exasperated.

“Who’s there?”

I nearly swallowed my tongue at the sound of the voice. I faced out to the center of the room where the pool of warm, glowing light fell from the circular opening above. I had been here before, but the voice hadn’t.

“Who are you?” It was a male voice, and sounded familiar though I couldn’t place it. I began to circle the room quietly, one silent step at a time, my back still pressed against the wall. I was trying to move as far away from him as possible—a difficult thing to do in a round room.

With each step I begged myself to wake up. It had to be another one of my vivid dreams, where I mistook myself for being awake because everything looked and felt real. The stones in the floor were uneven, and I stubbed my bare toe against one. I held back the whimper as best I could, but froze instantly, hoping the slight sound would have gone unnoticed.

“I can hear you moving around, or doing a piss poor job of it, at least.” He had an accent.

My eyes finally adjusted, and I could see his figure moving just beyond the circle of light at the room’s center. His hair was lighter and caught glints of the orange light as it poured out, evaporating into the darkness.

“Look, we could go on circling one another until ya truly bust yourself up, or we could have a proper introduction. So … ladies first.”

“How did you know I’m a girl?”

“Well, if you’re a bloke I feel right sorry for ya with a voice like that.” I saw his figure move a few steps closer to me, still just beyond the light, so I immediately took a few extra steps along the wall to keep a maximum distance.

“You go first,” I said, trembling.

“Alright then,” he said, stepping into the center of the room, the glowing light revealing him. My heart expanded until it felt like it reached outside of my body in all directions. Breaths poured out over my bottom lip as my eyes aligned with his. I took a step forward, feeling the air pulling me to him.

I recognized him, but not this feeling. It was so much stronger, this pull toward him. The details of his face, his hair, his body, were so clear. His hands dug into the pockets of his jeans, and he stood, shifting his weight.

“Devin,” I said. An overwhelmed exhale carried his name out from my lips, pushed by my beating heart.

His brow crinkled and his eyes narrowed at the sound of his name. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

I couldn’t fight it any longer, though Brik’s warnings spiraled through thoughts. The air pulled at my legs and they followed, taking small steps to him. I could hear the slow patter of my feet against the stone as I closed the distance between us. He must have heard me too, because he took a cautionary step back, resting at the light’s edge.

The muted light pulled me in, and I watched as his eyes registered my form and his expression turned from strained and confused to shocked. His mouth opened and his eyes widened. His chest began to rise and fall with greater effort.

“Clara,” he whispered, barely moving his lips.

The name floated to me, melting into every pore and imbedding itself in my chest. He was standing at least ten feet away from me, but it was as if I could feel his body heat, as if everything between us was liquid—as if we were liquid, and every beat of his heart rolled over me, every breath he took rippled into my skin.

He blinked a few times and shook his head slightly, knocking himself out of his frozen, shocked state. “Was that you crying? I came looking in the ruins when I heard someone crying, but I’ve never been in this room before.”

His accent rolled around the walls as he spoke. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. It was as if he was magnetized, as if I had fallen into his gravitational pull. I began memorizing every detail of him. The way his scuffed sandy blonde hair hung over his forehead and swayed when he turned his head. The contours of his arms, lean muscles casting shadows across his skin’s surface. The cobalt waves of his eyes.

He was taking me in as well, his eyes scanning the length of my body, and I suddenly flushed, realizing what I was wearing and how I looked. I chastised myself for not putting slightly more effort into my appearance that morning.

I spoke before I realized the words were fluttering through my mind. “Is this a dream?”

His eyes met mine, and the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “Yours or mine, do you think?”

“I’ve dreamt of you before.”

“And I you.”

He took a step closer to me as he said it, and I couldn’t help but allow my leg to mirror the movement cutting down the space between us. It felt good to be closer to him. Relief poured over me. It felt like my heart was glowing brighter the closer we were. As if my heart was a light bulb and he its energy source.

“I don’t suppose you know how to get out of this place, do you?”

I looked around the room allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness and found the outline of the large wooden door slightly behind him.

“There’s a door over there,” I said. “It was locked the last time I was here, though.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Once before, after my …” I caught myself. It suddenly seemed impossible to explain the events that had happened before the last time I came to this mysterious room, or the events that had happened just yesterday. And it all came rushing back to me, all of Brik’s words and his final, chilling warning—that Devin would want to kill me.

I took a step back from him toward the edge of the light and watched as his legs followed me. He was just a few feet away. I felt my hands become charged, and it took every bit of my focus to hold them at my sides.

“You sound American,” he said, looking down at me. He was a bit taller and began to tower over me the closer he got. It occurred to me that I would fit perfectly in his embrace, my head reaching the nook of his shoulder in an embrace. Just like Dave.

“You sound like a leprechaun.” I had been thinking it, but I was shocked it had slipped out, that I hadn’t been able to censor the thought. His laugh bounced off of the floor and floated up, circling the tube of light.

“Like the Lucky Charms fella, and all that? Aye, I believe I’ve heard that before,” he said, shooting me a full-on smile that made my cheeks flush. “So, Clara of America … it seems we find ourselves in a bit of predicament.”

He took another step closer to me. I yanked down on my arms, pinning them to my sides. He was close enough now that I could reach out and touch him, and my arms went wild at the thought, my finger tips begging to know the texture of his skin.

My chest began to rise and fall visibly as my heart pounded. He must have known everything. Was he coming closer to kill me then? There was no way out of the room. I was trapped and wouldn’t be able to defend myself. I couldn’t even muster up the desire to defend myself against his touch, regardless of its motivation.

“I’m not quite sure how I even got into this room, let alone how to get out of it,” he said, never taking his eyes away from mine. “It appears as if this dream has trapped us in here.” His smile rolled out across his face slowly.

Again, my thoughts came spilling out before I could haul them back into my mind. “Is it true you want to kill me?”

His head jutted back as if the words had struck him across the face and the smile disappeared.

“Kill you? Apparently you and I are having very different sorts of dreams about one another.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” I said.

His hand reached up and gently rested on the side of my arm. My skin underneath his hand tingled and became hot, as if all the blood in my body rushed to greet him. I tried to pull my focus away in order to form a coherent thought, but it refused.

“I don’t want to kill you, Clara,” his eyes locked into mine with a depth of conviction I had never seen before. “I do want to know you. You haunt me, and have for years.”

His face twitched with a half smile as a thought occurred to him.

“It’s a rake of bad luck if I’m a murderer in yours, though,” he said, laughing a bit. “Odds would be better for me if you had a boyfriend, but there’s no changing someone’s opinion if they think you’re evil.”

“I don’t think you’re evil. I don’t think I do, at least. It’s just… that’s what I was told.”

“Someone told you I wanted to kill you?”

I finally got a hold of the words slipping from my mind out into the open air and pulled them back. I wasn’t sure how much I was at liberty to say, and more importantly, how much I could say before he thought I was completely crazy. If this was a dream, I didn’t want to do anything that could make it end. I stood silently gazing up at him and watched as his face softened. His other hand was moving now, reaching to my arm.

All I needed to do was step into his open arms and fall into his chest. It would be so easy and every inch of my body wanted it, but I pulled back on myself, locking my feet in place, motionless yet altered by his touch.

“The first time I saw you, I was a little boy,” he said, sliding his right hand up to my shoulder. “You were standing in a field and I was running to you, or trying to. We kept moving all the time—we never stayed anywhere long enough for me to make friends. You were all I had then. I’ve had similar dreams, but you were never this close, no matter how fast I would run. I could never reach you.”

His left hand now slid up to my shoulder and the motion left chilled, tingling paths on my arm, tracing the distance he traveled. My breathing quickened as both of his hands reached my neck.

“For years I hoped that one day I would have a dream where I could get to you, be close to you. And now, as luck would have it, I finally got that dream.”

Was it possible for two people to be trapped in the same dream? Could two people separated by an ocean in real life be drawn together in their minds?

I could make out every detail of his face, and could see the small specs of silver drowning in the blue of his eyes. I could see the hint of blond stubble around his chin and jaw in patches he had missed while shaving.

His hands slid up from my neck, turned my head up to meet his as he was leaning in, his thumbs resting just under my ears. My stomach dropped and gravity seemed to dissolve around me as I fought the sensations of falling and flying at the same time.

My eyes felt heavy and my lids fell, leaving me in darkness as the mental shadow of Devin’s softened face nearly connecting with mine danced behind my eyes.

Suddenly, I felt a pressure on the back of my right shoulder and then a slight shaking. The chill of the air warmed suddenly, and I felt enclosed, as if the openness of the round room had collapsed on me. The dampness in the air dried up and felt prickly against my skin, and the warmth of Devin’s touch faded away until it was completely gone.

“Clara …” It was a different voice coming from behind me. The shaking became more pronounced, and it shook my eyes open. I was staring at a plain, white wall, just inches away from my face. Dim light fell over my shoulders and I blinked repeatedly, trying to take myself back to that room, to bring Devin’s hands back.

“What’s with you and closets?”

It was Brik behind me. I could punch him in the gut for having taken me out of that moment. I turned and saw him standing over me with a confused look on his face. “Do you realize how creepy you can be? What were you doing?”

I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to let him into that memory, that room… I didn’t want him coming any closer to Devin than I had already mistakenly brought him.

“Nothing,” I said, contorting my face into an innocently blank expression. He didn’t buy it though. His eyebrow curved up as he considered me for a moment. “It’s just been a lot to take in, that’s all. And I’m feeling a little out of sorts.”

His eyebrow remained curved, but my explanation seemed to soften the suspicious look behind his eyes. So I laid it on thicker. “It’s just… I feel like I’m falling apart.”

I let my head fall downward and gave a sniffle to suggest the oncoming of tears, and that did the trick. It made him uncomfortable, and he wanted out of the situation. When it came to the Guardians, it seemed like it was Rose’s job to comfort and nurture. Brik didn’t seem to want anything to do with the emotional side of things.

“Um … right, sure,” he said, backing out of the walk-in closet, avoiding eye contact with me. “Just, get dressed. We need to get going soon and, well… yeah. Get dressed.”

“Where are we going?”

He stopped in the doorway, framed by the natural light pouring through the atrium from the skylight above. He looked at his feet for a moment and then raised his head, finally meeting my eyes and exhaled deeply.

“To the Other Side. They want to talk to you.”

“Who wants to talk to me?”

There was a pause before his lips moved again, and his face elongated into a severe look.

“The Masters.”

The door clicked behind him punctuating his words, and I was left in the yellowish glow of my bedroom light, listening to him clopping down the stairs to the first floor landing.