Page 65 of Ex Somnis

“If you wanted them here, they could be.”

“No.” I turn to him again. “They couldn’t. Because if copies were enough, you’d have brought her here years ago. The woman you lost. You’d be sitting with her right now instead of standing on a gravel path talking to me. But having a copy of her is not enough, because it’s hollow. You know it is, and no matter how beautiful you make it…” I gesture at the garden, the impossible roses, the endless afternoon light, “… you’re still just a man alone in a place he built for company that won’t come.”

“Tessa knows exactly what this is,” he grits out. “We both do. And she made a promise she has to keep.”

“What promise?” I ask again.

“Have you ever heard of soul contracts?”

Cold moves through me alongside a pull to somewhere?

What was that?

“A friend told me about them.” I sound impressively normal.

Surprise flickers in his gaze, but he schools it quickly.

“Tessa promised me to make a soul contract to stay with me in elsewhere.”

“She promised.” I turn the word over. “But she hasn’t made the contract yet.”

“No. She couldn’t.” He tilts his head slightly. “You’re wondering why.”

I know why.

“Because she’s tethered to me.”

“Yes.” He lets that land. “And you weren’t in elsewhere.”

Oh.

Oh, shit.

No, no, no.

The crystal at my chest burns hot enough to hurt.

Get out, Lenny.

Right-fucking-now.

I turn and start walking back toward the restaurant. Fast.

“Lenny.” He’s behind me, but his footsteps on the gravel are unhurried. “I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t as simple as you want it to be.”

“Walk and talk,” I pant out, already moving faster.

“You haven’t seen half of what this place can be. I’ve kept it to things you recognize, things that feel like home to you. But elsewhere is so much more than a garden, or a restaurant, or a kitchen.”

The world disappears.

One second, there is gravel beneath my feet. The next, nothing I know how to describe. No ground, no sky, no up or down, only colors without shape, light without source, and warmth without touch.

Something wraps around me that doesn’t have arms and somehow still feels like being held.

Accepted.

Loved.