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Her eyebrows narrow. “And if he’s not here, in the, what did you call this—the sunny place—”
I look at the grass. “Then he is in shadow.”
She shivers. “What does that mean?”
“What is your father like in life?” I ask instead. “Is he a man with peace in his heart?”
She pauses, her brow still furrowed. Breathing out a heavy sigh, she shakes her head. “No. No, I wouldn’t describe him that way.”
I nod. “Then we will begin in the land of shadow. Come. I will take you.”
Ksenia stays quiet beside me as we walk across the field and up one of the gently sloping hills. She pauses and reaches out, grasping one of my biceps when she sees a cluster of souls in a bower of fruit trees.
“Do you feel something?” I ask. Perhaps she’s wrong about her father.
She shakes her head. “No,” she whispers, eyes wide as she watches the people move easily with each other, plucking fruit from the tree. One plays a guitar, and the others harmonize a beautiful spontaneous song. In another field further off, others chase each other, laughter ringing out.
“Come then,” I say. As much as possible, I try not to disturb the inhabitants of this realm.
She watches them the entire time we pass by. I understand that, too. It is a hopeful thing to know that peace and joy and rest like this are possible.
After we crest another hill, I lead her to a small, stony outcropping and wave my hand to reveal a vibrating portal.
“How do you do that?” Ksenia blinks, startled, and lets go of my arm to take several steps back.
“Oh.” I pause. I don’t really think about my abilities anymore; they’re such second nature. “Part of being a plane jumper, I guess. I can move around this realm. When I first came here, I explored and felt drawn to these. . . I don’t know how to describe it. These energy points. And then when I really focused on them and did the same thing when I plane-jump, these doorways appeared.”
“So are they different planes on the same plane, or what?”
I pause. “I never thought of that. I always thought of them as just portals to different parts of the same realm, but I guess I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know?”
I shrug. “My father didn’t intend to give me this ability. He was disappointed with how all of his experiments turned out, but me most of all.”
Her mouth drops open. “But you can do this.” She gestures at the pulsing portal of light in front of us. “And you brought us here in the first place. How could he—” Then she shakes her head. “You know what, never mind. He was obviously an asshole. Come on.”
She reaches for my arm, and I extend a middle one to her. I like that she prefers to be attached to me wherever we go. But especially if she is right, and stepping through the portal means plane-jumping again. . . I wrap my arms around her with an extra firm grip as together, we enter the realm of shadow.
Chapter Twenty-Four
KSENIA
I don’t know what I expected as we step through. Everything was just so bright and delightful where we were. It was daytime, and, by stepping through that shimmering doorway of what felt just like. . . air. . . suddenly it’s now night.
Well, not night exactly, but like twilight. Except there’s no moon and no stars. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, and I freeze on the crunching, dry grass on the other side of the portal, clinging to Kharon’s arm and glad he’s still holding me.
I blink and look around. I can finally make out shapes as my eyes adjust to the dark. It’s mostly flat here, endlessly flat. Except, when what I first thought were shadowy clumps of bushes move. . . and I realize they’re people. Or whatever’s left of people by the time they get to this place. I shiver and step closer to Kharon, all but crawling up him at this point.
There’s nothing else here, just these tall, shriveled-up, weedy-looking flowers and the people.
“Can they see us?” I whisper, my nails digging into Kharon’s skin. I don’t mean to, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His arm securely around my shoulder tucks me against his side, another arm snuggly around my waist.
“They don’t notice much,” he says, stepping forward. Reluctantly clinging to his side like I am, I move with him. Immediately I feel bad. If my Dad’s here, I want to find him. But then I shudder because all I want in the world is for him not to be here. He had to have made it out of that ambush. He had to.
Of course he made it out, I argue to myself. He taught me everything I know, and I made it out. So, of course he did, too.
