10:22
Gwen looked over at Ivan’s cry. He was standing next to the fountain and it looked like Dan and Abe were lying on the ground. She shouldn’t be able to feel them without touching them but Siobhan’s suggestion that all their Magick was stronger in The House made her reach for them with her Magick.
Their feelings were faint, thin across the distance between them, but still there. Elation. Joy. Excitement. That was Abe. A deep sense of satisfaction. Wonder. Tamped excitement. Those were Dan’s. Even though she wasn’t reaching for Ivan, she also felt him. Wonder. An unfurling blossom of belief. Calculation and a feeling of immense potential. The curiosity of what he could do with all this.
It was all so beautiful. Gwen smiled and basked in the shared feelings for a mikro then turned to look at Prairie. “How’s it going over there?”
Before Prairie could answer Gwen heard Ivan yell. “It’s filling up. Damn!”
Prairie shrugged and smiled at Gwen.
“I think it’s going–” Her eyes went wide. Too wide. And a wave of fear flowed from her, seizing Gwen by the chest. Gwen followed the direction of Prairie’s stare. The dendrons were withdrawing slowly from Dempsey, Patti, and Ben’s faces. That was good. What drew the look and feeling of horror from Prairie?”
“What?”
“Their souls!”
Prairie lunged and snatched at the air between Dempsey’s face and the retreating plant matter. Then she made a falling lunge over his chest to grab at a similar area on Patti’s face. She clapped her right hand into her left then fell over Patti and snatched at Ben’s face with the empty right hand. She fell into the gap between Patti and Ben’s body with her hands up like she was holding reins.
She turned to Gwen, her face stark. “The plant is pulling their souls from their bodies!”
Gwen turned wildly, screaming, “Siobhan!”
Siobhan looked at her then shifted to look at Prairie whose shoulders were clearing the ground as her hold on the tethers invisible to Gwen yanked her upwards. Her heels scrabbled at the earth as she fought the pull.
“What is it?” Siobhan yelled as she ran, bag flopping on her leg and flower crown flying behind her.
Prairie started, her gaze going to Siobhan. “Their souls are attached to the plants!”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” Prairie’s back arched off the ground and she dug harder with her heels as her entire frame was yanked forward.
Eyes wide Siobhan turned to the hedge. Her lips moved on a silent communication then she whirled around on a sharp inhale. “Not the plants! The souls are tearing at the dendrons!”
Prairie gave a cry as she was literally torn from the ground and into the air. Gwen lunged and wrapped her arms around Prairie, adding her weight to the resistance against the tug of the air roots and the souls connected to them.
Prairie’s head fell back, landing against Gwen’s chest with a thunk. Gwen looked down to see Prairie’s eyes rolled back, only the whites showing. And then she felt a sensation like falling and floating combined and then…
Boop
Static
Even as she floated into the nothing she tightened her arms around Prairie and dug her chin into the top of her friend’s head. She closed her eyes hard, swallowed harder, and latched onto her sense of Prairie as reality fell away.
Shush shush swoosh
Shush shush swoosh
Gwen cracked an eye at the odd sound that played through her ears and into her brain. And revealed a wonderland. Not like one with talking caterpillars or rabbits wearing a single glove. More like…
“What tween girl’s fantasy puked all over?”
The sky was pink. Only no. Not pink. Pink and gold and liquid and there was some violet and turquoise in it. No, not turquoise. Peacock.
Yeah, so the exact shade of blue was probably not the most important thing to focus on but it was something. Something to focus on. Because as she looked around everything shifted. And shifted some more. The shush shush swoosh sound may have been emanating from it. Like the shifting air had its own tide and that tide had the song of shush shush swoosh
Some of it was like oil on water. And some of it was like there was a layer of cellophane stretched across the world on which liquid pooled and swirled on each side, the swirling and pooling in no way coordinated so the air was gyrating and shimmying. Vertigo seized Gwen, caused by the lack of cohesion.
She squinted, trying to force the world into some semblance of sense but all it did was make the formless swirl of it all form into things that were roughly humanoid but only roughly. They were different heights and different widths but they shared a few things in common. They moved like they floated, lifting their feet and thrusting their legs forward in slow languid movements.
And, Gwen squinted again, it didn’t look like those feet touched the ground. Though, really, ground was kind of a stretch. The surface they walked upon had a fuzzy quality to it, like heat shimmers coming off a sidewalk in a heatwave. The other thing the figures had in common was they took had a fuzzy quality, the edges of their forms equally dispersing like heat on pavement.
Maybe they, not the air, were the source of the shush shush swoosh? Their movements seemed part of the sound, making the impression clearer. But maybe they moved to the sound of the tide/not tide and were not the source of it?
They were thick on the air. In fact, Gwen might be encouraged to believe they were the air. Only if they were the air, was she breathing them? The thought should have raised panic in her and somewhere very far back in her mind she sort of felt panic rising but it couldn’t compete with the dreamy haze caused by the hypnotic movements of the air/people and the swirling colors. Also, there was a soft, whicking sound. Not quite a breeze or a mechanical hum. Maybe it was the sound of countless voices lying over each other, talking in whispers rather than shouts.
Her arms, still wrapped around Prairie, loosened as she tried to take in the unreality of it all. Prairie turned in her arms and looked up at her with wide eyes. She searched Gwen’s face then patted her with her open palms.
“You aren’t.” She stopped and looked inwards then took a deep, deep breath while opening her eyes even more. Her gaze flickered over Gwen’s features again then looked around the landscape before looking back at Gwen. “No. You aren’t.”
“Aren’t what?” Gwen’s voice came out slow and slightly slurred.
“Dead.”
Instantly the lethargy fled Gwen. “What?”
“Dead.” Prairie gave a soft, close-mouthed smile and gently extricated herself from Gwen’s hold. Gwen stumbled slightly, only realizing then that she’d been leaning on Prairie as much as holding her.
Suddenly there was a large form pressing in on her left, keeping her upright. She startled, fists up only to lower them when she saw it was Kirby holding her up with his massive shoulder.
All three heads were intently looking at her, the expressions in each slightly different which while not as trippy as the environment they were in was still interesting and weird.
“Hello, Gwen.” The words seemed to be emitting from the central head which was holding her gaze with steady gravity. She squinted to confirm. Yep, the mouth of the central head was definitely moving and words definitely came out of it.
Leaning slightly towards Prairie, she asked from the corner of her mouth, “Did Kirby just talk to me?”
The central head answered. “Yes.”
“Hello!” the right head said, “Hello hello hello!”
“Gwen!” came from the left head.
“Gwen,” Prairie laid her hand on the left head. “This is Bunny.”
The left head repeated, “Gwen!” in an excited tone.
“This is One,” Prairie patted the central head who nodded and said with great gravitas, “Gwen.”
“And this,” Prairie ran her hand over the right head, “is Hello.”
The head, that was Hello, nuzzled Prairie’s hand then looked at Gwen and in a very loud and very enthusiastic voice yelled, “HELLO!”
And all three of them spoke. Not barked. Not boofed. Spoke in words that Gwen understood.
“And this,” Prairie waved at the warping air and color and the countless spirits, because yes, Gwen was pretty damned sure the fuzzy humanoid floaty beings were spirits, moving throughout and making it all look like a sea full of jellyfish, “is Spiritus.”
“As in the Spirit Realm.” Gwen bobbed her head like she understood but, no, damn it, she didn’t. Understand. Nope. Did not understand. And yet the waves of calm and confidence flowing from Prairie and into her said that Prairie was speaking her truth. This was the Spirit Realm. Which lead to the obvious question which maybe Prairie already answered but darned if it didn’t bear repeating, “Am I dead?”
The question came out with a bit more force than she’d intended but, come on. The Spirit Realm.
“No.” Rather than Prairie answering it was the central head of Kirby, that was One, “You are not dead. My One brought you into Spiritus.”
Gwen jerked a look at Prairie. “Is that something you can do?”
Prairie lifted her shoulders while shaking her head slowly. “No? I mean, yes.” She looked around then back at Gwen. “Obviously I did. If One says I did.” She looked down at Kirby, or rather One, for clarification. One nodded. Then Prairie looked back at Gwen and firmed her shoulders. “If One says I did then I did.”
“So, I’m not dead.”
“Not dead!” Bunny shouted, then nudged their head under Gwen’s arm and began rooting their nose around in her hoodie pocket. “Bunny?”
While Gwen looked down with confusion at the dog digging in her pocket, Prairie leaned over and stared into One’s eyes. “I didn’t know I could do this,” she whispered.
One just looked solemnly at Prairie, answering her without words. Not only was it clear there was some silent communication going on between them but the sudden tension that gripped Prairie dissipated, her slumping shoulders and softening expression making it clear for even those in the group who couldn’t read emotions. Which was, maybe, none of them. Gwen could feel and, she squinted, see threads of connection binding Prairie and Kirby.
She turned her squint on Prairie. “This is the Spirit Plane?”
“Yes.”
“It’s very–” she waved a vague hand around.
“Yes?”
“Pastel?”
Prairie looked around. “It is.”
“Pastel?”
Prairie grinned. “You want to know why Spiritus is pastel and not gloom, doom, and figures in hooded robes.”
“That would be nice, yes.”
Prairie tilted her head and slowly scanned the environment before turning back to smile at Gwen. “Spiritus appears different ways to different Magickers. Its a reflection of who they are and how they see it.”
“And you are pastel?”
“I was.” She did another quick visual scan then focused back on Gwen. “I was six when I saw my first Spirit; seven when I first sidestepped into Spiritus.”
Six? Prairie was six when her Magick manifested? Gwen’s mind boggled.
Usually people manifested in their teens. No one was certain why. Some said hormones. Some said strong emotions.Others unformed brain structures. Though some of those would have applied to kids too. Others had theories that younger children simply could not process Magick. Or their bodies couldn’t channel it. Gwen had always thought it might be a combination of hormones, brain structures, and need.
Kids wanted. Things. Love. Structure. And largely they got that. From parents. Established social institutions like schools and churches. From society even.
Teens individuated, stepping away from those established structures. They sought things from new sources. Sought answers. From books. Other people. Faith. Music. Others with their ideological leanings. They were seekers, were teens. And somtimes when you went searching you found things. And sometimes things found you.
But six?
Prairie’s voice penetrated the miasma of thoughts filling Gwen’s brain, bringing her back to the moment.
“There are as many manifestations of Spiritus as there are Magickers who can touch it though most fall into more traditional images. Black and grey and oppressive. Misty endless forests of denuded trees. Full moons and bonfires and carpets of fallen leaves. And figures in hooded robes. But,” she shrugged and looked around again. “I kind of like the pastel. It suits me.”
“It does.” Gwen grinned and Prairie returned it.
Gwen bent her knees and gave an experimental hop. The ground, as she thought it would, gave beneath her feet. It felt a bit like standing on a big bowl of jello. The firm stuff at the edges of the bowl that you kind of had to gnaw on. Before she could test it further by giving a big old trampoline leap, the center head, One, spoke. “Your friends are this way, My One.”
Oh My Heart! Gwen could practically bask in the warmth of the connection between Kirby and Prairie, like a fire you cuddled up next to wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot cocoa with extra marshmallows.
She pressed a hand to her chest, closed her eyes, breathed it all in. Then the words sunk in and suddenly all she was feeling was panic like her soul was trying to rush through her skin. “They’re here? Are they–”
One turned to look at her, “Dead? No.”
“Spiritus isn’t just for the dead, Gwen,” Prairie’s soft tone blanketed Gwen, the confidence and comfort coming off of her going a long way to settling Gwen’s jumping nerves. “Those in comas also dwell here until their spirits are ready to return to their bodies. Also, the souls of some people in altered states from either drugs or mental illness find their way here. This,” she waved a slow hand, “is a place where souls may rest until they are ready to return to the living or they make the transition beyond.”
“Beyond?” The question just kind of jumped out of Gwen. It probably wasn’t the most sensible or relevant but it was what jumped out.
Prairie dug her hands into the back pockets of her scrubs then looked around the technicolor wonderland of Spiritus before settling her gaze on something like a far horizon though, of course, there was no horizon in this place. Potentially a metaphorical horizon considering Prairie’s next words.
“I don’t know what lies beyond. I just know something does. Maybe,” she focused on Gwen and cocked her head, “the plane the creators come from? Until Rapunzel mentioned being from elsewhere I really didn’t have any concrete evidence to suggest the where of it all. Maybe they go elsewhere, not that plane. But it is interesting to think about it sometimes. Other times its just easier to accept there are things that are true but I don’t have knowledge of.”
“Like God.”
Prairie nodded. “Like God.”
“Do you believe?”
“In a creator?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we have pretty clear proof there are creators.”
“But who created them?”
“Another group of Magick users who needed to make a prison for someone?”
Gwen shook her head to clear the sudden onrush of “what the fuck?” that carried on a wave of vertigo. “I–” She bit her lip. “Yeah. That’s trippy too.”
“It is.” Prairie’s smile was soft, a compliment to the wave of gentle regard pouring from her and washing over Gwen.
They might have said more but One spoke up, “Come.”
Gwen shook off her confusion and walked next to Prairie as they followed Kirby. At first she had her head on swivel, taking in all the surreal scenery and the countless floating spirits that made up a chunk of it, but the more she took in the more her brain went into a hard “nope” which lead to her tripping over her feet. She was fairly sure if she fell she’d bounce but why take that risk? Best she just pick a point, like spotting when doing turns in dance class, and keep her focus on it.
Kirby, walking in front of them, seemed a nice solid point to focus on. Their – no need to assume gender because all three heads sounded male but she was so not going to look between Kirby’s legs to confirm – black and brown form stood out stark against the pastel psychedelia of the rest of the plain. Add to that the edges of them was solid, not static wibble-wobble. They were all-together a great option for a visual anchor in this shifting plane.
As she was studiously focusing on the flex of their powerful front haunches when something new appeared in the floofy, sizzley environment slightly in front of them it almost immediately caught her attention. With some caution she shifted her gaze from Kirby’s dark and solid form and to what was appearing in front of them.
It looked like domes, growing out of the ground or perhaps adhered to it. And they stretched as far as Gwen could see then a bit more than that. They were orderly, like the rows of gravestones in a cemetery, if gravestones were made of a semi-opaque membrane that expanded and contracted, almost as if the domes breathed.
Which was to say they did not look like gravestones at all. But, there was something in the orderly rows stretching far across the plane that invoked a sense of calm such as experienced in a cemetery.
Or, Gwen frowned, was it the orderly rows invoking a sense of calm? She relaxed her mental control on her Magick and let it spread. She picked up Prairie’s curiosity, calm, and a very slight edge of concern. A big old cup of C.
And from Kirby she read three very distinct and different clumps of feel. One held a breathless wonder, a need to surge and explore and sniff and pounce. Another was childish wonder, a sense of everything being right with the world and everything being new and exciting and they just wanted to sniff it all up and then sniff it up again! The third was an old soul. A placid pool. Deep. Learned. Indulgent. Kind.
Oh, wow. Bunny. Hello. One. Each was a distinct personality. Personality? Fursonality?
And she was off-track. Reeling in the urge to explore the newness that was Kirby or sit comfortably within the placid comfort of Prairie, Gwen imagined her Magick like a sheet of silk chiffon unfurling on the air and flowing out to the domes.
As her Magick settled over the first row of domes she picked up distinct and different emotions from each. Distinct and different except for one that they all shared. Joy. A pipping, popping, effervescent joy that bubbled from them and flowed back to pip and pop in her brain and her blood. For a mikro she almost gave in to the siren call of it to just close her eyes and wallow. But she drew herself back from that abyss and pulled her Magick back to hover just off the domes.
“There are people in each of those domes,” she said with awe, letting her gaze scan the field of domes and take in the enormity of what lay before her. “So many people.”
“Yes.” Prairie nodded. “I think of them as sleepers. The domes are like cocoons that protect them while they rest.”
Scanning the domes which stretched literally as far as she could see side to side and onto the horizon, Gwen was once more almost drowned in the effervescent joy pouring from each. She squinched her eyes and forced herself to turn her gaze from them and back to Prairie.
“Joy.”
“Hmm?”
The joy pushed at Gwen, filled her, buoyed her so she had to look down to make sure her feet were still firmly planted on what passed for ground in this place. Her skin felt stretched, elastic, like she was a balloon full of joy.
It was both unnerving and enervating, like she wasn’t sure how far she could stretch before she popped, and the overwhelming sense of joy overrode any sense of concern or fear that image should have evinced in her. She drew a sharp breath through her nose and forced herself to focus on Prairie.
“They are, all of them, feeling joy. Other emotions too, which you’d expect. But all of them are feeling joy.”
Prairie nodded. “I think it keeps them content so they can rest and renew.”
Gwen scanned the domes again and sighed. “There are so many.”
“There are a lot of people in the world who are resting.”
“No.” Gwen shook her head and looked at Prairie. “I mean there are so many.” Gwen scanned the field again. “How are we going to find Dempsey, Patti, and Ben?”
“We follow their souls.” Prairie lifted her arm, the movement slowed by the cords wrapped around it. Cords? Gwen squinted. Yes, cords, wrapped around Prairie’s arm on one end while the others disappeared in the direction of the domes.
“Are those cords their souls?”
“A little bit of them, yes.”
“Uh, shouldn’t they be connected to their bodies?”
“They should be.” Prairie looked down at the cords wrapped around her wrist. “But they disconnected.”
“That seems bad.”
“It does.” Prairie’s expression darkened then lightened almost immediately. “But I have them.” She lifted her wrist.
“And you can reattach them?”
For a mikro Prairie stared at her feet, her eyes tracking. A mist of emotion, a combination of concern, fear, and uncertainty flowed off her, tickling at Gwen’s Magick. But then she looked up with a soft smile. “I will reattach them.”
There was no hesitation in her response. If Gwen hadn’t been reading her features, and the subtle mist of emotion seeping from her, she’d have been sold. As it was, she pushed down her own apprehension and curved her mouth around a reassuring smile. She laid a hand on Prairie’s shoulder and gave a soft squeeze.
“Of course, you will.” She wrinkled her nose. “D’uh.”
She felt a measure of confidence wick from her and into Prairie. Her brow wrinkled on a frown. She had not meant to do that. It was like her Magick was in charge and not her and that caused a bubble of apprehension to form in her belly. But then it was gone. Like in a snap. What the what the?
Instinctively she thickened the membrane of Magick she retained as a barrier between her core and others. Calm settled over her and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Only then did she give Prairie a bright smile before making a sweeping gesture towards the field of domes. “Let’s do this!”
Jerking a quick nod, Prairie curled her fingers around the soul strands and made a reeling motion. Slowly she pulled on the strands, balling the slack in her palm. They then slithered from her palm and joined the part wrapped around her wrist. They seemed to thin and compress as the bulk didn’t pile up around Prairie’s thin arm.
Prairie looked behind them, calling, “Kirby?”
Kirby responded, “My One?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were there.”
“Always, My One.”
Prairie gave a small smile, then shifted her attention to the strands wrapped around her wrist. She began walking forward, continuing to reel the strands in.
Eye on the length stretching towards the domes, Gwen bounced and bound on the buoyant ground, keeping close to Prairie’s side without restricting her movement. Prairie walked on the membranous surface that passed as ground with no difficulty at all while Gwen forced herself not to wobble or stumble. It made sense. This was Prairie’s domain.
In fact, Gwen slanted a glance at Prairie striding confidently forward while reeling in the strands, Prairie seemed almost a different person. Her shoulders were back and square, her jaw firm, and her gaze intent on the far distance.
Prairie had never seemed shrunk to Gwen before but seeing her now, in her element, Gwen realized that her friend was diminished in, air quotes, the real world. Like the weight of her Magick lay on her, a damp blanket, dragging her down just a little bit. And here that blanket was gone. In the world outside of this place Prairie’s steps were almost always silent, made so by legs slowed by the burden of her Magick. Not hesitant, but not confident either. And here she strode, showing no strain at all.
Gwen shook off the thought as Prairie began weaving through the domes and Gwen worked to match her steps to her friend’s. The wobbly ground gave beneath her feet and she tipped sideways. She threw out a hand instinctively to regain her balance and almost came into contact with one of the domes. Something had her yanking her hand back, certain that she did not want to contact a dome.
She curled her hands into fists and buried those fists against her chest as she pushed herself in Prairie’s direction. How long they walked or how many domes they passed she couldn’t say. She was too busy trying to keep her feet under her and her hands against her chest and not get too far behind Prairie.
There was a homogenity to the domes and the even rows that made the whole thing kind of blur and lulled her into a mildly dissociated state. So, when Prairie suddenly stopped next to one of the domes Gwen almost barrelled into her. The unsure footing made it doubly hard to stop the collision but with some seesawing and shuffling she avoided it.
When she saw Prairie looking at her she threw her hands out jazz-hands style. “Ta da!”
Prairie grinned and shook her head. Then she lifted her arm and tapped on the strand pulled taut between it and the mound. “Found them.”
Gwen frowned and stared at the dome. “They’re all in there? Seems pretty small.”
“No. One of them is,” Prairie ran her fingers along the taut strand and stared inwards for a mikro before focusing again on Gwen. “It’s Ben.”
Gwen eyeballed the hazy surface of the dome. “How do we get him out of there?”
“Maybe I pull the strand?”
Putting actions to words, Prairie laid her free hand on the strand then closed her fingers and yanked. And immediately was yanked forward by the cord retracting into the dome with equal force. She yelped and took two quick steps back before she impacted the dome.
She jerked a look at Gwen. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Probably not.”
Prairie contemplated the surface of the dome, then shifted her attention to the cord protruding through it.
“I think, maybe,” she closed her free hand gently around the strand. After a mikro it began to pulse as colors danced along it from where Prairie’s hand laid towards the dome. She turned a quick look to Gwen. “I can feel Ben but the connection is hazy.”
“Huh.”
A thought flirted at the back of Gwen’s brain. Without giving it too much consideration, she gently laid her hand on Prairie’s arm slightly above where the soul strands coiled. She breathed in and out then pushed a combination of comfort and yearning into Prairie. The colors dancing along the strand brightened and the surface of it rippled as the colors chased along the strand and entered the dome.
Prairie drew in a surprised breath and looked quickly at Gwen.
“Is it working better?”
Prairie nodded. “Better.” But then the excitement in her eyes dimmed. “But I still feel blocked.”
She closed the distance between herself and the dome and laid both hands on the surface of it. Gwen stepped forward with her, keeping her contact with Prairie’s arm and the flow of emotions from herself to Prairie. The surface brightened, taking on the colors from the strand. The entirety of it pulsed, the colors and the surface itself, jumping subtly beneath the press of Prairie’s hands.
Prairie looked over at Gwen. “Maybe just more pressure? I feel him more but the barrier is still there.”
She bit her lip then flexed her shoulders and shoved her hands harder into the surface of the dome. It dented under the pressure but did not give. Then a great ripple carried across the surface, cascading top to bottom. The force of it carried into what passed for ground and it bucked beneath Prairie and Gwen’s feet. Gwen, not ready at all for it, found herself lifted and tossed up and forward.
She had a mikro to exhale before she slammed shoulder first into the dome. And then through it. Instinctively she tightened her hold on Prairie’s arm as she fell. Right before her head pierced the dome she saw Prairie’s eyes widen. Prairie’s lips parted on a gasp Gwen didn’t hear as her head cleared the surface of the dome.
It was bigger inside than out. That was obvious as she fell through open air on the other side of the surface. She twisted so her back was towards the thrust of the fall. The rotation turned her enough to see Prairie falling through the surface behind her, her arm still held firmly in Gwen’s hand.
“Ah!” she hollered.
“Ah!” Prairie echoed as Gwen’s back connected with the ground that was not bouncy. Not bouncy at all. The hit jostled her hard enough her teeth clunked together and the air jetted out of her chest. It was made worse when Prairie landed smack on top of her, letting out another startled yelp. She planted her hands on Prairie’s shoulders, curling her fingers into Prairie’s scrub top.
Prairie braced her hands on the ground and pushed up with her arms so she hovered over Gwen instead of laying on top of her. With a twist of her torso, she rotated herself so she fell to the side to lay next to Gwen with her gaze focused on the dome’s surface far enough from them it might as well have been the sky.
Eventually she turned her head to look at Gwen. Gwen looked right back.
Gwen lifted her brows. “So, that happened.”
“It did.” Prairie’s voice was softer than usual, probably because she’d also lost her breath in the fall and subsequent collision.
“What now?”
Prairie pushed up to a sit and looked to her right over Gwen’s prone figure. She gently brushed her fingers over the soul strands still wrapped around her wrist, stopping to gently trace the one pulsing with light and Magick. “I think we go there.”
Gwen turned her head to see what there Prairie referenced.
The environment inside the dome was completely bare. Not even a tumbleweed to break the barren stretch of ground. Except for a scrubby looking tenement building springing up about twenty feet from them, like it had emerged from the earth all mushroom like.
She slanted a glance at Prairie then looked at the building again. “Makes sense.”
Prairie rose to a crouch then stood. Once her feet were secure under her, she reached her free hand down to Gwen. Gwen grabbed it and let Prairie help her to her own feet.
She brushed her hands down her legs, brushing away imaginary dirt then focused her gaze on the tenement. A sense of peace and the omnipresent joy pulsed from the building. It called to her, not so much demanding as beckoning her to approach.
“Let’s do this.”
Prairie nodded and closed the distance between them and the front stoop of the building. She climbed the short flight of three stairs and raised her hand to knock on the door. Then turned and looked at Gwen who was one step behind her.
“It feels rude to not knock.”
Gwen shrugged then stepped up next to Prairie. “Follow your instinct.”
“Okay.”
Prairie gave a short rap on the door then waited with her head cocked. When no response came, she knocked again. When no response came to that knock she curled her fingers around the knob of the door, twisted it, and when the catch released she pushed the door open.
Gwen blinked when it opened to a softly lit space with no walls. She flicked a look around to confirm. Yep. No walls. Just soft light growing increasingly brighter until it narrowed like a spotlight on a small bed.
Ben leaned over the small figure lying on the bed. It was a boy with features similar enough to Ben to almost be a miniature of him. The boy’s hands were curled around the edge of the sheet tucked up tight under his chin. Even from where Gwen stood slightly separate she could see the sheet was threadbare, almost see through in several spots. And yet it was obviously clean. Directly below where the boy’s fingers clutched was a spot that was darned with thread several shades brighter than the faded ecru of the sheet.
Tears inextricably formed in Gwen’s eyes as she took in the scene. The expression on the features turned up to Ben were so heavy with love she felt it like a punch to the chest. And the expression Ben reflected to the boy was fuller with the feeling, if that was even possible.
Gwen sniffled and blinked hard, her lower lip wobbling. A quick look at Prairie showed a similar look on her friend’s face. Prairie lifted a hand and dashed away a tear then pressed it to her chest. Gwen lifted her hand and brushed a tear from Prairie’s other eye then turned back as movement at the bed caught her eye.
Ben sat gently on the edge of the bed and smiled down at the boy then pulled a blanket, equally as threadbare as the sheet, up from the boy’s waist and tucked it just below the boy’s knuckles.
The boy beamed at Ben. “Tell me a story, Bennie!”
“I’ve already told you two, Chris Cross!”
“Two’s not enough. Tell me tree! Tree!” The boy released the sheet to hold up three fingers which should have been pudgy at the boy’s age but were thin, the bones pressing against his dark skin. “Tree!”
Ben smiled down at the boy, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Fine. Tree. But then you have to sleep.”
“Okay, Bennie.” The boy turned his head and pressed a kiss to Ben’s cheek. “But make it a good story!”
Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His emotions hit Gwen like a brick right in the bridge of her nose. Joy. Love. Regret. Longing. And a sense of purpose so strong it threatened to overflow the fragile vessel of his body. “It will be the best story.”
Gwen gulped and took a step forward. Prairie’s hand closed on her arm and she shook her head, jerking her chin towards Ben then looking down at the soul strand stretching between her arm and him.
“He’s so happy,” she whispered.
Gwen gulped again and nodded. “He is. So happy.”
“It feels wrong to pull him out.”
Gwen curled her lips inwards then shifted her gaze back to Ben and the boy. For a long, long moment she contemplated the image of him. As she did so the image shifted. The blanket Ben had pulled up was back at the boy’s waist.
The boy beamed at Ben. Again. And said, again, “Tell me a story, Bennie!”
Ben gave the boy a gentle smile and said “I’ve already told you two, Chris Cross!”
And the scene looped back on itself, repeating exactly.
Gwen bit her lip and looked at Prairie. “Is it wrong to pull someone from a honeyed trap? Because that’s what this is.”
“He looks so happy.”
“He does.” Gwen gave Prairie a watery smile. “But it’s still a trap.”
Prairie raised both hands and pressed them to her brow, covering her eyes with her palms. The soul strand connecting Prairie to Ben pulsed and the mix of love, joy, fear, and purpose coming from Ben pulsed stronger through the space, flowing through Gwen’s skin and spooling within her heart.
“He wouldn’t thank us for leaving him in a trap, no matter how beautiful it is. You know what Ben would do if he fell into a trap?”
Prairie lowered her hands and stared at the scene of Ben and Chris. “He’d claw his way out with his fingernails if that was what it took.”
Gwen nodded and blinked back more tears. “He’d claw his way out with his fingernails.”
Prairie tightened her mouth then took a deep breath. “Okay.” She curled her free hand around the soul strand and gave a gentle tug. “Ben?”
Ben turned to look at Prairie. He frowned, looked down at the boy in the bed, then back at Prairie. “Prairie?” He shifted her attention to Gwen. “Gwen?”
“It’s time to go home, Ben.” Prairie’s soft voice was ripe with emotion, tight with tears as she forced a soft smile. “Say goodbye to Chris.”
Ben’s lips curled and his gaze darted. There was the distinct sheen of tears in it as he shifted his gaze back to the boy. “I–”
His voice cracked and he trailed off into silence.
“Don’t say goodbye,” instinct drove Gwen to say. “Just tell him a story.”
Ben darted a quick look at Gwen. She nodded and looked to the boy. “He’s waiting.”
“There was a boy,” Ben started.
Gwen looked at Prairie. “Do it now.”
Prairie nodded and tugged on the soul strand in her hand. Ben lifted with the pull, his body flowing across the space between himself and Prairie. And he kept telling his story, giving no indication he felt the pull even when his body collided with Prairie’s and then melted into her.
His voice lingered a mikro longer on the air, “his name was Chris and his brother, Ben, loved him very much.”
The boy in the bed faded into the light, leaving Prairie and Gwen alone in the bright space. Prairie stared down at where Ben had flowed into her then looked up at Gwen with a hand pressed to her mouth. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks and Gwen didn’t have the heart to wipe them away. Especially as she had a similar flow down her own cheeks.
Brushing away the tears with her fingers, she turned to look up at the dome stretching over them. “One down. Two to go.”
Prairie sniffled then nodded. “Two to go.”
Gwen cast a look around the bright space. “How do we get out of here?”
“I think,” Prairie dashed away her own tears then turned her gaze to the dome, “I just will it.”
And then they were standing outside the dome. There was no flash of light or feeling of movement or anything. Just one moment they were in the bright interior of the dome; the next they were standing in the field of domes.
Prairie caressed the two strands remaining wrapped around her wrist then looked at Gwen. Tears still streaked her cheeks, but she squared her jaw and looked along the length of the strands stretching towards the field of domes.
“So,” Gwen sniffled then smiled. “Think the other two will break our hearts?”
Prairie gave a closed mouth smile. “What are the chances they won’t?”
Gwen shrugged. “We can hope.”
“Sure. Hope.”
Enter The Woods 