Burden of the Soul

22.

I walked him through every step as I remembered it, showing him the exact spots where people stood and where Hannah had been put down in the dirt. I showed him where my knees buckled, and acted out the motion for him, trying to describe what it felt like to have Rex take control of my body. He looked confused and skeptical.

“But how can you be sure it was him?”

“He had done it earlier in the cottage. He had done it to Katrina too, in front of me. He actually threw her across the room.”

“Katrina knows about this?”

I nodded, hating to be the one to break all of this bad news to him. “She tried to kill me in the cottage shortly before you found me. That’s when he threw her. She was coming at me with a crow bar.”

“Why would he stop her?”

I turned my head to him slowly and stood up, taking a step back.

“No, I don’t mean it that way. But he was so set on me killing you. I don’t understand.”

I really didn’t want to have to be the one to explain it to him, but there was no other way. “You have to be the one to kill me in order to actually destroy me. Rex is sorta in the middle of a big war, I guess you could say. And you and I… well, I guess we’re each side’s secret weapon.”

“I still don’t understand why I would have to be the one to kill you.”

Dear god, he was going to drag it out of me. I took in a deep breath and sucked it up.

“You and I are two halves of one soul – apparently the oldest soul. And we had moved on to greener pastures, but then everything here got jacked up, and we came back to help. But surprise! One side took one half, you, and the other side took the other half, me.”

I exhaled the remaining air in my lungs and waited for the laughing to start. I had no idea how Brik had gotten through all of it without ever showing a sign of discomfort. The silence was so uncomfortable, I didn’t know what else to do but fill it.

“And Katrina is probably like my Dave, cause they each are supposed to give us romantic distraction so that we don’t come together ... because you’re supposed to kill me and I’m supposed to kill you.” It was just pouring out of my mouth like I was trying to win a medal for the most crap spoken in a minute.

“Wait a second…” He took a step toward me, then squinted his eyes and smirked. “Let me get this straight,” he said, dropping his head as he coughed out a laugh and tried to clear his throat to disguise it, probably in an effort to be polite. “I’m supposed to kill you, and you’re supposed to kill me?”

I shifted my feet a little bit under me and stuffed my hands in my back pockets. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the long and short of it.”

“Huh, wow. Well… I’ll think twice before walking through the woods at night with you again.”

I laughed awkwardly. He didn’t believe me. He may have even thought I was kidding, so I let him run with it.

“Okay, what happened next?”

With his hand he motioned back to the spot where I had explained picking up Hannah. I showed him how I had then walked to the water and actually took a few steps in, right to where I had stood with Hannah in my hands. If I made it out of this mess, these jeans would be getting thrown in the trash.

I explained how I had lowered her slightly and how horrible I felt—how my heart broke looking at how scared she was and how I tried to fight back the heaviness that made me do it and how for a few seconds I did.

But then I was at the part where he broke through the trees on the other side of the lake and explained how my arms forced her down and under. Then I told him how my tears took on a golden glow and sank below Hannah, wrapping around her until she was gone.

“The rest, well… you remember.”

“So she drowned.” He choked on the words as they came out.

“No, she didn’t. This same thing happened to my family.”

“Have you found them?” His eyes popped up to mine, shining brightly with hope. I turned back to the water; angry with myself for the pain I was about to inflict on him.

“I haven’t yet. No one has been able to tell me where they are or how to get them. Just that they’re not dead or destroyed. It’s like they’re in limbo or something.”

There was a crackling in the woods behind us, and both of our heads snapped in the direction of the noise. We saw some movement behind the tree line, and Devin's arm jutted out in front of me and pushed me behind his back. My hands instinctually went up to him, my palms flat against his stiffened muscles.

He backed up slightly into me, and I should have moved, but I couldn’t get my feet to step away from his back. My ankles had already sunk into the lakebed’s muck. My body wanted to fold into him. My forehead fell to the space between his shoulders and a calm spread through my mind and body.

But then I heard the voice bellow out from the darkness.

“Devin. Where are you, son?”

It was Rex, but I could hear more footsteps. There were others with him. They must have gone to the shed and seen that I wasn’t there.

“Quick, you have to hide,” Devin said to me, pushing me down at the shoulders.

“Where?” My voice was trembling as I said it. I had escaped death so closely too many times in one day. I felt as if my luck was running out for sure.

“Just get down and stay down as long as you can,” he said, pushing harder at my shoulders.

I slid down into the water and tried to stay under the surface, but kept floating to the top. The water was too shallow right there so I launched myself out toward the middle of the lake where it would be deeper. I swam underwater for a bit feeling the lake’s floor drop down below me. The muffled voices trailed off as they vibrated in waves through the water.

I sank down and then turned myself over, looking up and seeing the moonlight above the surface. I swam a bit farther out knowing I wasn’t very good at holding my breath, and maybe if I slipped to the surface and tread water with just the right strength I could let my lips slip out of the water to pull in more air. But as I swam farther out it felt as if I got caught in a current pulling me down. I whipped around trying to use my arms to pull back up closer to the surface, but continued to sink.

I was desperate as my lungs began to burn from holding my breath for too long. I thrashed my arms and kicked my legs with everything I had left, but still I was pulled deeper.

I looked down to see what could possibly be pulling me down and saw a glimmer of light, silver. I was being pulled toward it with greater speed. I felt like my lungs would burst. The water whipped past me on either side, and the force twisted and turned me until I was facing downward.

I sped toward the light, sweeping my arms wide, trying to turn myself upright again. But like a bullet, I was being launched closer to the light. It felt like my lungs were about to explode, and I clamped down on my lips, forcing them closed as my body urged to gasp for air. The light was getting bigger and bigger, and it felt like I had traveled the depth of an ocean.

I was shooting toward it. It was huge. No longer a spec, but a large circle of warm light that spread out in front of me.

With one last acceleration, the water pushed me through into the light and I flew up, my mouth opening and lungs gasping for air. I was back at the surface, but the light was from the sun setting with a warm glow. I coughed repeatedly, forcing air back into my lungs and blinked away the water dripping down my face. I kicked my legs to stay at the surface and spun around, taking in the circle of trees that surrounded the wide lake and the iron fence that followed its perimeter. Specs of color were traveling just beyond the fence and a few stopped and turned, looking out at the lake.

The specs of color were people—joggers and walkers, people pushing carriages. I recognized the setting, but never from this vantage point. I was at the center of the Reservoir in Central Park.

I let out a laugh that echoed across the water’s edge. So that’s how they had done it, and that’s why I was wet. Although it raised even more questions, mainly centered on the “How?” aspect. But for now, relief washed over me. As I started swimming to the northern edge of the reservoir, I could hear people calling out to me. As I got closer, I heard a young woman say, “Should we call the police?”

They were gathering behind the fence near the shore, and as I reached the edge, I pulled myself up onto the rocks and walked to the gathered onlookers.

“Honey, are you okay?” A woman was reaching through the fence toward me.

“How the hell did you get in there?”

I stepped up on the fence and tried to use my arms to pull me up, but I was too weak. What I had left in me I had used fighting against the current bringing me home.

“Someone call the police to get her out,” I heard a young man say over the murmur of voices.

“Everybody move.” I recognized the bellowing voice and saw his head bobbing above the crowd as he got closer. Demetrius reached the fence at a jog and reached his hand through to grab my arm. “Clara, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. You’re hurt.”

I nodded. “Yeah... a lot.”

Behind him, Oliver’s red hair burst through the crowd. When he reached the fence, Demetrius cupped his hands and leaned down to hoist Oliver over. He did it gracefully. He leapt over the fence and landed softly next to me without a sound.

He stood up straight and looked at me with a smile. “Man, you are a sight for sore eyes, Clara.”

“Yeah,” I said, barely able to nod. “My eyes are sore, too.”

He cupped his hands like Demetrius had and motioned for me to copy their move. I put my foot in the faux stirrup, and he launched me up slowly, allowing me the time to grab the top of the fence with my hands and swing my leg up. My leg was shaking, both from weakness and fear.

“Just hop over, don’t worry about landing. I’ll catch you.” Demetrius stood poised after pushing back on the crowd of people gathering around him.

I pushed off with my leg and flung myself into the air, clearing the top of the fence and dropping softly in Demetrius’ arms.

“Nice catch,” I said.

He set me down at his side and poked his hands through the fence, intertwining his fingers on the other side and allowing Oliver to hoist himself up from there. People were putting their hands on me to show their concern.

“Oh my, what happened to your head?”

“You should get to a doctor.”

“Did someone call the police?”

“I have 911 on the phone now.”

I knew I was back home in New York City when I heard a disgruntled voice on the outskirts of the crowd yell, “Get off the path!”

Oliver was back over and Demetrius’s arm slid over my shoulder and pulled me into his side. “Do you want me to carry you?”

“No, I think I can make it.” I couldn’t imagine the attention we would get if he carried me—dirty, soaked and wounded—through the park.

He made a path for us with his arm, pushing people out of the way. “But the cops are on their way,” one person said.

“Tell them we said, ‘Thanks,’” said Oliver, bouncing next to me and keeping people away.

We got to the larger path and made our way across the park to the West Side, sticking to the more hidden paths where possible. When we reached the park’s exit and walked out onto the brick paved sidewalk of Central Park West, we passed a cop on horseback. “Whoa, is everything alright?”

“Yes, we just had a little accident,” said Demetrius.

“I was asking her.”

I looked up at the cop through squinted eyes. “I had a little accident… my uncle is taking me home.” I turned and looked up at Demetrius, who had a smirk running across his face.

The cop got moving again, and Demetrius patted me on the back. “Atta girl.”

We walked across the street when the light turned and headed south toward home. A wave of relief poured over me as I recognized the brownstones and the people walking by. They were white with shock at the sight of me. Both Oliver and Demetrius picked up the pace ushering me through the pedestrians’ shock and concern.

“We should have taken a cab,” Oliver grumbled.

We reached our house and Oliver skipped up the steps, opening the door ahead of us. He called for Rose and Liv. “We’ve got her!”

I walked over the threshold and saw Rose and Liv at the end of the hall. Rose let out a cry of relief, her hands clasped together at her chest as she bent over at the waist. Liv smiled so big it looked like it could have hurt her face, and she took off at a run to me, colliding into my body and wrapping her arms around my back. I winced at the pressure, and she released me immediately, realizing I was in pain.

“We should get a doctor over here,” Demetrius told Rose as she waddled down the hallway to me, tears coming down her cheeks.

“Oh, Clara, what happened to you? We were so worried. Someone call Brik back before he gets on that plane.”

Liv took off to the living room as Rose looked me up and down, taking an inventory of all of my potential wounds. “She may have some broken ribs, and that gash will need stitches. Let's get you to a couch.”

Her warm hand enveloped mine as she led me down the hall, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Oliver dash up the stairs to the second floor. She led me to the long couch and sat me down.

“The TV’s off,” I said with a questioningly look toward Liv, who had her hand cupped over her cell phone and mouth as she spoke to Brik, I assumed. Rose chuckled in her throat and knelt down on the floor in front of me.

“What can I get you, honey?” There was so much I wanted. A bath. Some clean clothes. Sleep—definitely sleep. But at her question, as if on cue, my stomach rumbled furiously.

“Alright, then. Food it is.” She got up and went to the kitchen and started shuffling through cabinets and the refrigerator, pulling things out and lining them up on the counter.

I heard footsteps running down the stairs and then through the hall. Dave jumped out into the kitchen and looked around. His face was flushed, and his eyes were red and swollen. He looked horrible.

He fell to the floor at my feet, hugging my knees and crying uncontrollably. “I thought I lost you too,” he said.

They must have told him about his parents. My eyes started to burn as tears gathered, my heart clenching at the pain he must have been feeling. With my hands, I pulled him up on the couch next to me so I could lay my head on his shoulder without rubbing blood on his shirt.

“What happened to you? You’re hurt.”

“It’s a really long story,” I said, wrapping my arms more tightly around his midsection. Oliver came out into the kitchen right then.

“Oh, great! I was starting to get hungry.”

“Don’t you even think about it until Clara has had all the helpings she needs,” Rose said, shaking a whisk at him.

Demetrius took a seat on the couch opposite me, but I kept my arms around Dave.

“What time is it?” The question was already out of my mouth when I caught site of the cable box below the television. It was just after six. I looked back at Demetrius. “Ok, what day is it?”

“It’s Saturday. You’ve been missing all night. We didn’t know you were gone until early this morning when you and Brik hadn’t turned up. Then we got a call from the security guard that opens the castle. We took off immediately to get Brik, but your body wasn’t there.”

I felt Dave tense under my embrace at Demetrius’ choice of words. I shot Demetrius a sideways glance to scold him.

“So, you know then?”

Demetrius was referring to Dave’s parents, and he nudged his head in Dave’s direction to get the point across silently.

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Brik went crazy. He’s been storming around trying to rally more Guardians and get a group to head over there. Is that where you were?”

“You mean Ireland?”

He nodded.

“Yeah… I took the red eye, I guess you could say.”

“How the heck did you show up back in the Reservoir?” Oliver was chewing on something he had found in the kitchen as he asked the question.

“You were in Ireland?” Dave pushed me back slightly so he could look me in the eye as I answered.

“I guess, although I didn’t exactly have time to take in the sights.” I looked up at Oliver in the kitchen. “I didn’t have time to pick up any souvenirs either, sorry about that.” Oliver chuckled, spitting out a bit of whatever was in his mouth.

“We thought we had lost you for sure,” said Liv, now off the phone with Brik and sitting on the couch next to Demetrius. “He’s on his way, and telling the others to meet here.”

“So they must have given quite a fight by the look of you and Brik,” said Oliver, turning a chair at the kitchen table to face the living room then taking a seat.

“Brik?” I let my arms fall away from Dave, but I leaned back into his nook.

“Yeah, he’s got a huge gash on his forehead. We found him on the floor.”

A twinge of guilt grabbed at me remembering my struggling against Alister that had knocked Brik’s unconscious body over onto the stone floor. “Yeah,” I said. “They gave quite a fight.” I wasn’t lying, technically.

“So what all happened?”

I gave a short version, blasting through and leaving out some details, knowing that Brik was going to want a full recounting of it all when he got back. The scent of golden pancakes started filling the room, and Rose brought me a fresh stack at the couch. Everyone was patient while I stuffed my face and filled in the silence with their stories of the day. How frantic everyone was to find me. How Brik had gone back to the Other Side looking for any sign of my whereabouts and then decided on rounding up a group to go to Ireland and hunt down Devin. The plan was to at least kill Devin to prevent him from killing me.

I froze as the words came out, a sudden terror slipping through me. Demetrius explained it wouldn’t have ended the problem with Devin in the long term, but it would have at least bought them time to find me while Rex scrambled to bring Devin back one way or another.

I felt relief spread through my chest at the thought of Brik on his way back to the house, calling off the hunt to Ireland. Dave was reading my face out of the corner of his eye, so I took another forkful of pancake and started chewing.

I finished the stack, leaving my plate bare, and looked up to thank Rose.

“Now can I?” Oliver’s knee was bouncing.

Rose walked past him, throwing a dishtowel at his face.

“Go ahead, you animal.” She squeezed herself onto the couch on my other side. “I’m so glad you’re back safely, dear. Wherever did you find her?”

“She was bobbing at the center of the Reservoir. We were nearby running guard when we heard it buzz on a security guard’s walkie nearby. We took off at a run and got there just as a crowd was forming.”

“The Reservoir? How in the world did you end up in there?”

“I honestly don’t know. It was night, and I was at this lake with Devin…” I felt Dave stiffen at my side. I explained to everyone how the water started pulling me down and how I thought I was drowning. I told them about the light and how I seemed to just pop out the other side. They all looked at me with their jaws dropped. Demetrius was the first to move. He turned to Rose, his teeth grinding.

“That’s how they did it.”

Rose nodded. “We’ll have to warn Brik.”

“How did you get the monster gash?” Liv was bouncing with a little too much enthusiasm next to Demetrius, and he rolled his eyes as the couch vibrated.

“Devin did that.”

They stiffened and became very serious, each in their own way.

“It’s okay. He wasn’t trying to kill me. I mean, he wanted to… or was going to, but he stopped. He didn’t… obviously.”

They all turned pale with the new information. It was Rose who broke the silence, patting my knee with her hand.

“We’re so glad, sweetheart.” She gave me one last slap on the knee and then stood up. “You are in desperate need of a bath, darling. And we need to clean that wound out and get you into some fresh clothes.” As I stood up, Dave stood up as well, but Rose raised a single finger and rocked it back and forth. “No way, buddy. You can wait down here with the others.”

Rose led me upstairs and through my bedroom to the bathroom, where she drew a bath for me, all the while chattering on about trivial things such as her shopping list for the grocery store. I wanted to ask her about what I had seen on the Other Side. I wanted to ask her if she had the mark of murdering her Twin Flame. I nearly did until I heard someone stomping loudly up the stairs.

Brik was back and he was to my bedroom. Rose slowly and gently got up from the toilet and walked out to meet him. I heard him argue for a bit, that he needed to talk to me, but Rose stopped him somehow in her soft voice. I heard him leave the room as Rose came back into the bathroom holding a folded towel that smelled of lavender.

“Is he angry?”

“No,” she said. “Just intense as always. Don’t you worry about him right now. You take all the time you need.” She put the towel on the toilet where she had been sitting and left the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

The bath felt great, and my muscles were beginning to relax in the warmth. Now that my body was calming down, I could more acutely feel the points of injury, aching and shooting pains in my back, head, ankle, wrists and scratches all over my face.

After a while, I got up and dried off, then went into my room and put on clean clothes. It felt surreal, euphoric even, to put on such clean, fresh clothes. I heard a knock on the door and I called for whomever it was to come in.

Rose filed in, leading a man in a long brown trench coat, a fellow Guardian who specialized in medicine. It took an hour for him to stitch me up and check out the other injuries, which sure enough included some broken ribs. I had to be wrapped in tape around the midsection to help hold them in place.

“I’m impressed,” he said, while putting everything back in place. “There have been questions circling about whether you were actually a Master.” He threw a look at me, zipping his bag up and tossing it over his shoulder with a smile. “You’re a tough one, Clara.”

“A tired one is more like it.”

It was the truest thing I had ever said. I could have curled up and fallen asleep right there. The need for sleep embedded itself within every emotion that was floating just under the surface, ready to spring out. I lost my family. It was my fault. Everyone counted on me, and I highly doubted I was ever going to be able to live up to it. And I missed Devin. I missed him, which brought a wave of guilt as I thought about Dave downstairs.

The tears must have started to show, because he walked up and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“We put our lives at risk, sacrifice the pleasures of a normal life to defend good against evil,” he said, moving his hand to my chin and raising my gaze to his eyes. “Yet the hardest part of what we do is putting on the face that everything is okay. We’re fighting to preserve the bliss of ignorance that the ones we love don’t even realize they enjoy.”

I took in a deep breath, allowing his meaning to sink into every fiber and wound that needed to be hidden.

“We hide it from them, to protect them.”

I nodded, knowing I had to pull it together for the night. I had to dig deep to find the last bit of energy in my body to head into that evening as a normal 17-year-old girl—at least what I thought a normal 17-year-old Clara would be like. The truth was, I would never know for sure. Normal Clara was gone.

“Atta girl,” he said, pinching my chin between two fingers and heading out the door. Rose followed silently behind him, leaving me alone.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a few moments just breathing, fighting against the thoughts all coming at me at once. I kept breathing. Then looked down at the drying strands of hair and pinched one between two fingers. I pulled it up in front of my face and examined it. With the other hand I reached out and grabbed a single hair, letting the others fall to my shoulders. Holding it there, I used the other hand to reach up and peel back on the single split end that hung there. I twisted it in the light for a minute, looking at it from every angle until finally letting it fall to the floor, following it with my eyes until the light erased it from the air with a glint.

A short while later, Liv came in with a hair dryer and her bag of makeup to work her magic, which she did. After she left I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t only as if nothing had ever happened to me… I had never looked this good before. As if this role was only ever waiting for me to play it.

I took a deep breath and headed downstairs.

The doorbell rang. I watched as Oliver went to the door and opened it. The sun had gone down and the street lamps were on outside, but I could see Alli’s silhouette just beyond Oliver. She must have spotted me on the stairs because she pushed her way past the redheaded stranger.

“Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?” She was annoyed.

“Hey, Alli,” I said, wrapping my arms around her with a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

She peeled back from my arms and looked at me.

“Don’t tell me you forgot, Clara,” she said, with her hands on her hips.

The others started to file out from the kitchen and living room into the foyer, and she scanned the room in shock at the number of unfamiliar faces.

“Oh, Alli… this is my… family.” It seemed to suit us, although I could understand from her perspective how much of a mixed bag we appeared to be.

“Extended family,” I said, winking at her, hoping she would just go along. Luckily, Dave walked down the hall at that moment and came into the foyer, which was more than enough to make her happy.

“Oh crap,” he said. “I forgot to cancel the party.”

“Why would you do that? I swear to god, Clara. Don’t tell me you’re going to sabotage this at the last minute. You can’t do that to me.”

“I think a party is just what the doctor ordered, as long as you’re still up for it Clara,” Rose said looking at me for a decision.

I was tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep for days, but some residual echoes of adrenaline could keep me going for a bit longer. And by the desperate look on Alli’s face I would have to do just that—at least long enough for Cole to arrive, and then I could probably disappear.

I gave Rose a nod and shot a smile at Alli, who smiled back with relief. Rose turned back into the kitchen with her arm around Liv. “We’ve got a lot to do in a short amount of time. I’m going to need you to run to the store for me.