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“How is that possible?” Magda asked. “How can they be dead, but not dead?”
Isidore showed the slightest hint of a smile. “That is the question that has led me to be down here, among the husks of the dead.”
The smile melted away, as if she were again lost in the vision of the memory.
“I saw tormented spirits, evil itself, lost in the black sorrow of eternal darkness. I dared not let my attention linger too long on such entities, lest they pull me into everlasting night with them and tear my soul apart.
“I saw the glory of the good spirits. I saw them at peace in gentle light. I didn’t want to disturb them, but I had to find the people who were missing. I had to ask them to help me, to tell me what they knew.
“One turned toward me, then, and I saw that it was Sophia’s spirit looking back at me through the soft golden glow. She said that I had already learned the truth. She said that there was nothing more to learn there.”
Magda’s brow drew together. “Sophia’s spirit? How could Sophia’s spirit turn and speak to you in the world of the dead?”
Isidore licked her lips. “Because she was dead.”
“What?”
Isidore cleared her throat. “It was her final journey to the spirit world. I knew then that she would not be returning back through the veil with me. She had given me the answer, and it was as simple as could be.”
Magda was shaken to realize that Sophia, a woman she didn’t know except through Isidore’s story, had died on the quest.
“What do you mean, the answer was as simple as could be?”
Isidore gently laid her hand on Magda’s arm. “It wasn’t complicated at all. I had learned it the very first thing. They weren’t there. The spirits of those people weren’t in the underworld. That was the simple truth.”
“If the simple truth is that they aren’t there, in the underworld, then that would have to mean that their spirits are still here, in this world, that they haven’t yet crossed over.”
Isidore’s only answer was a hint of a smile.
Chapter 32
Magda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Is that what you’re saying? That the spirits of all those people are still here in this world? I mean, if they really aren’t there in the world of the dead, then they could only be here, still in this world, still with us.” She caught herself glancing around the room, half expecting to see spirits hovering around her. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Isidore pressed her lips together for a moment, but then finally answered. “I’m afraid so. The truth is, though those people died, their spirits, their souls, have not yet been able to cross over to where they belong.”
Magda didn’t know how that was even possible, or if it really was possible. It occurred to her that maybe they had crossed over to where they belonged, but then they had somehow been pulled back.
But why?
She wiped a weary hand across her face. She feared to imagine the reasons for such a thing. She couldn’t begin to imagine the implications, the consequences. Her mind spun with a confusing tangle of thoughts. Isidore went on without Magda needing to prompt her.
“Sophia’s spirit swept in closer, then. Her arms spread open like a falcon swooping in to stop right before me. Even though I knew Sophia, I was terrified and felt as if I were frozen in place, unable to move. The spirit’s eyes—Sophia’s eyes—blazed with the same light that enveloped her.
“She stared out at me from the underworld and said, ‘You have the truth you came to find.’ I didn’t know what to do. As if to answer, her spirit came closer yet, right up to my face, and said, ‘Find them!’
“In that terrible instant, I had the answer I had come to find, the answer to everything I needed to know. I knew, then, what I had to do.
“I returned, having learned the truth I had journeyed to find. I returned a spiritist, but I returned without the spirit of the woman who had taught me. I returned in her place, taking her place.
“Sophia lay dead beside me in the center of the Grace, her hand clutching the blindfold she had used when she had taught me to be a spiritist.”
Magda could tell how much Isidore had come to like Sophia. She could see the grief etched in Isidore’s sightless face. Magda felt terrible for Isidore that the search for answers had cost Sophia’s life.
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
Isidore smiled distantly. “Yes, she ended up being a good friend in many ways. She helped me learn what it was that I needed to do to help my people.”
Magda cocked her head. “Are you saying that in making this discovery, that you thought it had become your duty to, to, what? Somehow escort missing ghosts to the world beyond?”
“I am saying that I knew then that the battle wasn’t over just because I had gone to the underworld and found part of the truth. The war that had started with the murder of the people of my town had only just begun. I realized then that I am a warrior in this struggle.”
“But you—”
“The same as you are here because you, too, have become a warrior.”
“Me?”
Isidore turned to Magda, almost as if she were able to look right into her eyes, the way Magda imagined that the spirit of Sophia had looked into Isidore’s eyes.
“You were wife to Baraccus, but since he died, you, too, have been searching for answers to troubling questions. You, too, came here, to a spiritist, because you need to learn the truth. You, too, want answers from beyond the grave, not unlike your husband had done. You do these things because you have the spirit of a warrior.
“Though you are not gifted, you have knowledge, abilities, and heart that make you a uniquely capable individual. You may think that anyone would do the things you do, such as confronting the council, but in fact they wouldn’t, they couldn’t. Only you could do the things that you have done, and you may be the only one now able to uncover the terrible truth. Make no mistake, Magda Searus, the enemy fears you, and with good reason, even if you don’t know it.”
“Fears me?”
“Yes. That is the mantle you have taken up. By coming here seeking a way to find the truth, you too have shown yourself to be a warrior. You have also shown yourself to be dangerous to them.”
Magda remembered all too well, then, how the dream walker had been there, lurking in her mind, and then had tried to kill her.
“I guess I have. I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but I guess I have. I’m not even gifted, but they for some reason don’t want me looking for the truth.”
“The journey to reveal the truth sometimes takes us to places we never expected to go,” Isidore said. “But it is vital that the right person walks that path because we are fighting against those who can enter our minds and steal our souls. Perhaps they see, somehow, that you are the right person, and so they fear you. Because they fear you, they will come after you.”
Magda couldn’t argue. From the day up on the outer Keep wall, when she decided that she wanted to live, she knew that she was seeking something essential.
Chapter 33
“So where did your journey to discover the truth take you after you returned and found Sophia dead?” Magda asked.
