Hold Fast - Part Twelve
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The wind sweeps away the grey clouds as morning unfolds, leaving bright, cool autumn sunshine glowing on everything. The inlet turns a deep and clear blue. With the sunlight pouring into it, I can spot little fish darting around in the shallows by the rock shoals.
We’ve already left the water pretty far behind. We’re deep into the trees now, striking out directly across the forest, making straight for the mountainside. It shouldn’t be as long of a hike today. We took Moondancer much further up the inlet, closer to where we need to be.
I follow Will across the rippling shallows of a wide stream, swollen with all the recent rain. Robin is up ahead, leading the way alongside Aiden.
“The first thing I’m gonna do when we get home is take the longest shower,” I tell the others, dragging my sleeve over my face, removing some of the light sheen of sweat.
“The first thing for me will be to restore Kasey, give her some energy back.” Will gazes admiringly up at the canopy, watching it move in the breeze. “I can’t wait to talk to her about all this.”
“First thing I’m gonna do is see if Gabby feels like giving me a day off just to sleep,” Aiden says, offering me a hand as I step out of the stream. “What about you, Robin?”
Robin holds aside a branch for the rest of us, thinking about her answer.
“Faith, um…” she begins slowly, “She’s really tight with her coworkers, and really loves her job. She’s worked there for ages. But the business got a new owner recently. He’s been changing up the place, making it look all bland and corporate. Taking down all the little touches Faith and her friends put into it over the years with the old owner. Modernizing, as he puts it. She’s been pretty bummed out about it, trying to figure out what to do. I’ve been telling her she’s working way too hard, that she really needs to take a break, get some rest. ‘Course… this isn’t the vacation I had in mind.”
Robin lets out a soft sigh, then finishes – “Guess what I’d like to do is go back to worrying about problems like that. Having dinner with her and talking about it. It would be a relief, now. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Aiden, Will, and I exchange a pained look of sympathy, then stop where we are, having surprised ourselves by breaking out of the forest and into the wide stretch of meadow before the mountain.
We all tilt our heads back to gaze up at it. It’s so tall, brushing the boundless azure skies. White snow glints on the peaks.
It’s a good place to stop for lunch, so we sit down in the sunshine to quickly eat some cold sandwiches and have a long, cool drink of water.
I’m finding myself oddly distracted by the sunlight, the way it moves and plays over me. I can’t think why, but it brings a blush to my cheeks.
“Is there a plan?” Robin asks, as we pack up our things again. “Or should we just walk around this area?”
Aiden squints through the sunshine, his eyes narrowed against the rising wind. “I think let’s start here, try and do a half-loop around this side of the mountain. If that doesn’t work we’ve got our backup plan.”
Robin looks at him in surprise. “What’s that? Backup plan?”
“We’ll – explain if it’s looking like we need it,” I tell her hastily.
“Okay…” Robin gazes at me in faint confusion, then shrugs her shoulders and gets to her feet, tossing her auburn braid over her shoulder. “Then let’s go.”
The wind grows stronger as we start our hike around the rocky base of the mountain. Aiden and Robin are alternating between talking to each other or calling out for Faith, but I’ve fallen silent.
Will comes to walk beside me.
“Penny for your thoughts, Jamie?” he asks breezily, putting his hands in his pockets.
“Oh, I – I’m just thinking about what you said earlier…” I lift my eyes to his face, meeting his green eyes. “You’re dead.”
“Yes, I know,” Will says, with a little laugh. “Surely you knew, too?”
“You made me realize that we don’t know what happens to illusions when they die.”
“Well, if it comes to that, we can hardly say we know what happens to humans,” Will says, casting his eyes over the enormous trees blanketing the mountainside. “Except on a physical level, that is-” He stops for a second, absorbing what I said, then goes on more slowly - “And… I suppose we don’t even know that much about illusions.”
Exactly. It would be bad science to assume that the death of an illusion would be the same as the death of a human. The illusions we’ve met so far aren’t even based on humans.
“Do dead illusions come back?” I ask Will softly. “Do they even really disappear in the first place?”
“The illusion’s necklace certainly never disappeared,” Will points out.
I turn my gaze to the forest, realizing that I feel completely unsure about what might be roaming there.
And these threads of magic blowing all over the mountainside – even now causing the occasional flutter of white-blue sparks in Aiden’s eyes – what about them? I really don’t know…
Distracted as I am, I nearly walk right through it before I notice it.
I catch Aiden’s arm with a gasp. He freezes uncertainly, staring at me in bewildered alarm. Makes sense, because no one can see it but me. That’s how it always is with ghost memories.
The pillar of soft white mist is fainter than any ghost memory I’ve come across before. Almost indiscernible. I’m not sure I’d be able to see it at all if I hadn’t been sleeping in a hammock of pure magic for the last couple of nights. My Vision is more powerfully charged up than it ever has been before.
Without it I’d completely have missed this. I almost did anyways. But there it is, sitting on the vast mountainside all alone.
“What’s going on?” calls Robin, who’s gone a few yards ahead of us.
“There’s a ghost memory,” I whisper to Aiden, staring at it in disbelief. “How can there be one here?”
Aiden’s blue eyes fill with surprise. “I don’t know… I guess they show up where there’s been high emotion and some magic hanging around.”
“It’s barely visible, even with my Vision this charged.”
“Maybe it was formed with secondhand Guardian magic, like illusion magic?”
Robin is coming back over to join us, holding some escaped auburn curls out of her face. “Everything okay back here?”
“Yes, just, um-” I catch Robin’s arm and draw her back a few steps. “Hang on a sec. We spotted a ghost, of sorts. I just want to see what it is.”
“I…” Robin stares hard at me, then gives her head a helpless shake, backing away. “Alright, whatever. Do what you need to do.”
Aiden gives me a subtle little nod of encouragement. I turn my eyes back to the ghost memory, making sure to put my back to Robin. I know that my eyes turn completely white when I use my Vision with it this charged up.
I sweep a hand through the ghost memory, activating it.
Ghost memories usually melt and spill out to form into figures I can See, but this one seems to simply… melt away. The white mist hits the rocky mountainside and just vanishes.
I start to draw back in disappointment, then gasp sharply a loud voice crashes against my ears. A startlingly deep, wild, growling voice. Roaring at top volume, but also sounding like it’s choking and gasping.
“YOU – CAN’T – DO THIS TO ME!” the powerful voice roars, echoing off of the mountain. “THIS IS – MY TERRITORY – NYX! WE’RE BROTHERS – YOU CAN’T-”
“I can,” a voice as cold as the deepest ice in the world answers. “Your energy will serve something greater, brother… but first the Six will have to become five…”
“Nyx, don’t!” wails a desperate, frantic voice that I instantly recognize as Violet. “Don’t – NO!”
There’s a strange, strangled cry of pain, and then an earth-shattering explosion so violent that I stagger backwards with a gasp and crash into Aiden.
I don’t remember burying my face in his chest or seizing two handfuls of his henley, but I must have. When I draw back I find myself wrapped in a pair of strong arms, with a pair of worried blue eyes gazing into mine.
“Jamie?” Aiden lifts one hand to gently cup my face. “Are you okay? What-?”
“This – this is where it happened,” I stammer, trembling all over. “This is where the illusion died, where – the Sorcerer killed him.”
Aiden stares down at me, pale in the face, then blinks hard as a flicker of magic blusters through his eyes and disappears again.
I realize abruptly that Will and Robin heard all of that, too. They’re both staring at me in alarm and confusion.
Now that I’m looking around at the terrain, I recognize it. I’ve seen this place before, in the brief memory that Violet showed us from her recollection of that night. The memory that Aiden pulled the necklace right out of. I didn’t notice before because it was snowing in the memory, and it’s all windy autumn sunlight now. But this is the same landscape.
“Okay, I…” Robin hesitates, glancing uncertainly between me and Aiden. “I’m sorry, but does this have anything to do with Faith? Because if not I’d really like to get moving again. We’re spending daylight.”
“Jamie,” Will shouts. “Over here!”
I look up, still shaky from the last scream of that enormous voice. Will is standing a few paces away from us, by a forested patch of the mountainside. He’s staring at something on the ground.
I rush over to join him, with Aiden and Robin right behind me.
Will points into the trees as I stop by his side. The forest floor here is blanketed with thick masses of Michaelmas daisies. Soft, pale purple in their fall blossom. I stare blankly at them for a moment, then lift my eyes to look around at the nearby boulders, the enormous old trees. Someone has described this exact place to me.
Robin, who just rushed up behind us, drags in a sharp breath that confirms what I was thinking.
“This…” She drops down to her knees, staring at the flowers with perfectly round eyes. “This is where my dream starts… these are the flowers!”
I slowly lift my eyes to meet Aiden’s. He stares into them, matching my expression of bewildered disbelief.
“Okay,” he says firmly. “You know what? We’re doing Jamie’s experiment.”
~~~~
“I’m still not sure about this plan,” Robin says nervously.
I can tell, and I understand, but I don’t know what else we can do at this point. We spent the whole day searching the regular way. We roamed all over that mountainside, and found nothing.
The good news is Robin only sleepwalks at night, so we couldn’t have done this earlier anyways. Besides, hiking, searching, shouting for Faith until the sun went down – it took a lot out of us. That should help Robin fall asleep. She’s sitting on the sleeping bag swaying with exhaustion. Her shoulders are slumped, her eyes only half open. Even her braid somehow looks tired, since it’s coming undone from the wind that’s been blustering across the mountainside all day.
“I know,” I tell her, wincing apologetically. “I get why this is so scary, believe me, I do-”
“Sleepwalking through the old-growth forest in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t want to do it either,” I admit, twisting the heist ring around my finger. “But we’re pretty sure you’re trying to sleepwalk somewhere specific. Someone is tampering with your dreams.”
Robin lets out an exhausted, brittle laugh, rubbing her eyes. “That is…”
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” I interrupt gently, “But – I mean – how do you explain this?”
I gesture around at the grove of old trees, the boulders and pale purple wildflowers all around us. It took a while to get back here, but we had Will fly up high to pinpoint the location so we couldn’t lose it.
He’s perched on one of the low-hanging branches of the trees encircling us, watching Robin fidget with the sleeping bag she’s sitting on. She bites her lip, still searching for an answer to my question.
“We’ll be right there,” Aiden reminds her, in his deep, calming voice. “The whole time. We won’t let you get hurt, I promise.”
Robin anxiously rubs her elbow. “I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to fall asleep, though. Like, out here in the woods, and not knowing what’s going to happen while I’m out.”
“Just try,” I tell her encouragingly. “And remember we’re right here with you.”
“This could be what leads us to Faith,” Aiden adds softly.
Robin stares at us, thinking hard, then swallows and falls flat onto her back on the sleeping bag.
“Don’t leave me alone,” she says quietly, pulling a blanket over herself.
“Not for one minute,” I promise.
“Is there anything we might do to help you sleep, Captain?” Will asks.
I repeat the question for Robin, who shakes her head. “It’s gonna be difficult no matter what. I’m not used to sleeping in a forest. I don’t even really camp.”
“Oh, I have an idea!” I answer brightly, slipping my phone out of my pocket. “Let’s try this.”
I open up the white noise app I have, set it to ocean wave sounds, and place my phone by Robin’s head in the flowers. She breathes out a tired laugh, pressing her palms to her eyes.
“Really?”
“Hey, it might help! It definitely won’t hurt.” I give her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Just try.”
Robin gazes up at the sky overhead, as if asking it what the hell she’s doing. Then she closes her eyes and rolls onto her side. Folding her arms around herself protectively, burrowing her face into the sleeping bag.
I cuddle up against Aiden on the other sleeping bag. He takes my hand, opens the connection, and uses it to send a measured little burst of magic Robin’s way. She relaxes visibly in the toasty warmth that folds itself around her.
We let the sound of the wind through the forest and the wave noises from my phone take over, giving Robin quiet so she can fall asleep. No one speaks for a while, until Aiden narrows his eyes at me when I startle at the sound of a branch breaking somewhere.
“You’re so jumpy, Keane,” he murmurs, tweaking a strand of my hair. “I thought you got past your fear of the forest at night.”
“Mostly, yeah, but I just feel more and more sure that there’s something out here with us. And…” I bite my lip, then let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll be honest, it didn’t feel good to hear the illusion die. Especially knowing that Violet was there, but under the Sorcerer’s control. She couldn’t stop him. She just had to watch that happen to her friend, right in front of her eyes, knowing there was nothing she could do.”
Aiden’s blue eyes soften. He squeezes me closer to him. I tuck my head into his neck, then lift it again as Will says softly, regretfully -
“Pulls me to pieces, knowing that Ariana must have felt something like that when I died.” He drops his gaze to his calloused hands, then down to the rest of his body, everything still exactly as it was when he was twenty-five years old. “I do wish I could tell her that I’m happy now. Free again, even.”
He lifts his gaze to the Port Sitka stars above us, the first new sky he’s seen in so long.
“Yeah,” I answer softly. “I wish we could give Violet that kind of news, too.”
“We may be able to give Robin good news,” Aiden reminds me, brushing a kiss onto my temple. “If this plan works.”
“If I could ever fall asleep with you guys talkin’ about stuff I don’t understand,” mumbles a drowsy voice from the sleeping bag.
“Oops! Sorry, Robin. We’ll shut up.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she murmurs, flicking a hand at me. “Helps, actually. Reminds me I’m not alone out here.”
“Never,” Aiden tells her firmly.
Robin lapses back into sleepy silence. I’m exhausted, too. I have to make an effort to sit upright against Aiden, to not let his heat lull me too much.
Aiden takes the illusion’s necklace from his pocket and glances down at it. No signs of life yet, so we go back to talking quietly. Robin doesn’t stir again, or say anything.
So it startles all of us when Aiden draws in a sharp breath, his eyes lighting up with a swirling rush of magic. I snap upright and drop my gaze to the necklace, which has started rumbling and glowing in Aiden’s hand.
Robin slowly sits up on the sleeping bag, her head hanging down.
“Faith…” she sighs, pushing the blanket aside, stumbling to her feet.
“Here we go,” Will says breathlessly, dropping down from the tree with his trademark log-jumper’s grace.
Aiden and I scramble to our feet and rush over to Robin. I snatch up my phone, nervously toss my hair out of my face, and take her hand.
“We’ve got you, Captain,” I tell her earnestly.
She begins slowly stumbling forward, pulling me with her. Will darts out ahead to scout for obstacles hidden in the shadows, and Aiden scatters a few fireflies into the air. They settle around us, coming with us as we leave the grove, stepping together out onto the exposed mountainside.
“Jesus,” Aiden sputters, zipping up his jacket.
“It’s because there are fewer trees to stop the wind,” I explain, shivering in the frosty cold.
“Alright, I’m spending a little magic to keep us warm. This is too much.”
“Fine by me!” I draw closer to Robin, who’s still stumbling resolutely forward. “Should we maybe get more fireflies, too?”
Aiden makes a few more, to my immense relief.
“Thank you, Sugar Maple.”
“No problem. I get it. It’s spooky out here.”
Yes, it really is. The mountain is cold and dark in endless proportions. Our voices, our little fireflies are the only break in it all. The moonlight is caught up in the clouds above us, only occasionally making it through. It’s hard to make out anything beyond our shifting circle of gold, but I get the impression we’re hiking somewhere to the north, further up the slope.
Aiden suddenly narrows his eyes, looking at me over the top of Robin’s head. “What if this is a trap?”
“Laid by whom?” Will asks, surprised.
“The Sorcerer. Nyx. He might be stuck in his own part of the forest now, but back when the illusions had more power they could all go between each other’s territories, right? And he stole all the power from the illusion here. He had Violet collecting energy for him before we set her free. Maybe he has enough power again, to go where he wants.”
“But Violet said he couldn’t get out yet,” I remind him. “She seemed sure about that.”
“Does the dream magic feel corrupted, Aiden?” Will asks.
Aiden thinks it over for a moment, then looks relieved. “Come to think of it, no. It doesn’t.”
That thought reassures all of us, but only for a minute or two. We’re steadily hiking further and further out into the darkness. The damp soil slides beneath our feet, sending loose little rocks rolling. Our footsteps crunch on the frosty wild grass, but we can barely hear it over the roar of the wind rippling the forest.
That roar makes me think of the roaring voice from the ghost memory. It was terrifying, but it was also torn apart with pain and sorrow and fear. I can’t tell if I’m frightened of it, or if I wish I could give it a hug.
Right now, in the deep darkness, the tearing wind, the vast wilderness – I’m leaning towards frightened.
“There’s a ditch coming up!” Will shouts to us.
Aiden and I take firm hold of Robin’s hands to guide her over it, but she doesn’t need our help. She takes a very precise, wide step over it, all without opening her eyes or lifting her head. She practically pulls us across.
Will watches her forge ahead, startled. “How did she know?”
“Because her dream started from the right place this time,” Aiden murmurs, realizing it out loud.
“Faith,” Robin sighs again, her voice growing breathless with hope.
Aiden’s fireflies cast their glow onto something to our left. We’ve come up against a wall of rock in the face of the mountainside, high and steep. We walked right past this same place today during our search. There are lots of big boulders here, and they loom up at us out of the darkness, slip past us like ghosts. Robin weaves right around them, completely without the need of our help. The frozen wind rushes against her face, blowing her bangs back and tugging at her curls. She shivers, but keeps going.
“Brave one, isn’t she?” Will says approvingly. “I’d say there’s nothing she’d stop at for-”
He breaks off as Robin stops where she is, hesitating uncertainly. Still asleep, but now there’s a worried crease between her eyebrows.
“Faith?” she murmurs. “Where are you…? I’m here…”
She starts stumbling forward again, but this time in an aimless way, as if she’s feeling around in the dark. She’s turning in a slow circle, like she just got lost and doesn’t understand how.
“Okay,” Aiden rumbles, catching a handful of the back of Robin’s jacket. “So, um – what now?”
I’m… not sure. I really, really didn’t think Robin would lead us to a random dead end on the face of the mountain. I know it would be much more logical to assume she would lead us nowhere in particular, but – still. Somehow this makes less sense to me.
“No, there’s got to be something here!” I gaze around in the soft glow of Aiden’s fireflies, running them over the boulders, the trees. “Just don’t let Robin go, I’ll find-”
I stop still, rub my eyes, and stare at the rock wall to our left.
Will peers searchingly at me. “Saw something, Jamie?”
“Not exactly…”
It’s more like… when I run my eyes over a certain part of the rock wall, I can feel my Vision struggling to adjust. Trying to let me See something there.
I point at the rock wall, turning to Aiden and Will. “There’s something strange going on with this.”
Aiden comes over to have a look at it, pulling Robin with him.
I gently take her arm. “Should I wake her up, Aiden?”
“Yeah, I think so. She’s not leading us anywhere anymore. Just let me put out the fireflies, those will be hard to explain.”
I take out my flashlight instead, give Robin a gentle shake, then give her a harder one. “Hey, Captain! We need you to wake up now.”
I don’t want to shake her any harder, but the wind snaps another branch somewhere with a loud crack and spares me from having to. Robin startles awake, panting and bewildered, then automatically seizes hold of my wrist.
“What’s-?”
“Hey, it’s okay!” I tell her quickly, catching her eyes with mine, giving her a reassuring smile. “Everything’s alright! You did great.”
Robin snaps instantly to the full awareness of someone who woke up in strange and startling circumstances. Her light brown eyes sweep the windblown forest around us, blinking fast.
“This – this is exactly where I was,” she stammers.
“I know. Your dream brought us here. You definitely led us to something, we’re just trying to figure out what it is.”
Aiden is staring intently at the mossy rock wall. He can sense there’s something unusual about it, too. He takes a few steps closer, cautiously starts to reach a hand out towards it, then gives a startled jolt and freezes, his blue eyes going very wide.
We all heard it. The sound that just moved through the forest. An enormous growl, almost like thunder, but also not like thunder. The echoing growl had too much breath behind it, like it was let out on a big, forceful exhale. It was too slow, too deep, too – animal.
Aiden, Robin, and I instinctively seize hold of each other, spinning around to face the forest and put our backs to the rock wall.
“What – what was that?” I stammer softly, holding tight to Aiden.
Aiden takes a deep breath, then a step forward. Robin and I start to follow him, then stop when he shoots us a look over his shoulder, silently telling us to stay where we are. He slowly, carefully picks his way forward under the beam of my flashlight, with Will following at his shoulder.
I only realize I’m holding Robin’s arm very tightly when she puts her hand over mine and gives me a gentle squeeze. Somehow she’s the one trying to reassure me, even though I’m the one with paranormal experience.
It’s just that I don’t know which I’m more afraid of. Whatever it is that made the noise we just heard, or the sight of Aiden walking out to face it without me.
In fact, it’s intolerable. I can’t do it. I let go of Robin and go rushing after Aiden.
He whips around when he hears me coming. Flashes me one of those dark, threatening glares that he and his brothers have down to perfection. Unfortunately for all three of them, those absolutely don’t work on me anymore.
“Jamie,” Aiden growls sternly, pointing at the rock wall. “Get back over-”
I freeze halfway to him, seeing the rush of white-blue magic swirling to life in his eyes. My hands fly up to my mouth as something moves behind him. Something glowing. Something huge.
Aiden slowly turns around, and finds himself face-to-face with it.
A massive, panting, ice-white bear. Towering over Aiden, staring down at him from a pair of gigantic, blank white eyes.
My mouth falls open. The flash of blinding terror that comes down on me nearly sends me down to my knees. My heart stops like it was hit with lightning. It feels like every fear button I have was just slammed at once. My every screaming, panicked instinct begs me to throw myself backwards and run.
But my eyes lock onto the huge, deadly sharp fangs, so close to Aiden. He actually looks small compared to the bear, which is blown out of all proportions that nature allows. It’s down on all four feet, but it stands high over Aiden’s head.
Aiden is standing there motionless, stunned into frozen silence.
The bear opens its mouth, and roars.
I don’t remember telling my legs to move. Suddenly I’m just stumbling forward, then flat-out sprinting for Aiden, shouting for him as Robin starts shouting for me.
The panic is so blinding that I’m only aware of things in fragmented sensory bursts. Catching Aiden’s wrist in my hand and yanking him backwards, the white glow of the bear too close to me, the echoing of that roar in my ringing ears, my heartbeat going way too hard and too fast, the relief of feeling Aiden break into a run beside me, Robin catching my jacket and using it to wrench us further away from the bear. The cool, hard dampness of the rock wall against my back as Aiden, Robin, and I all press ourselves up against it, backed into it by the approaching bear.
Black spots start to appear at random across my vision.
Oh, that’s a new panic symptom, I think to myself, very distantly. Am I going to faint? Right in front of Aiden? That’s not the best. Bet I made some pretty unmanly noises just now, too. This experiment is going less than great.
The bear is slowly drawing closer, huffing sharply, its head down low and its ears pointed back. Its white eyes are perfectly round, expressing nothing directly, but I can sense the hostility behind them with agonizing clarity.
“Jamie!” someone is shouting in my ear. “It’s an illusion, it’s only an illusion!”
I slowly turn my head to look at Aiden. His words are fighting to sink in through my panic haze. I find myself reading his lips instead of listening.
It’s only an illusion.
I turn back to face the bear, realizing that it’s glowing and translucent, like Will… that it’s like a line art painting of a bear, shaded in with glimmering white mist. I can see right through it.
And it put answering Guardian magic into Aiden’s eyes.
“It’s an illusion,” I stammer, sinking back against the rock wall in disbelief. “It’s the illusion! Holy shit!”
“Jamie, you ran right at a bear!” Aiden stammers back. “I’m s-so proud of you!”
“What the fuck?” Robin asks weakly. “Is that the type of thing you really want to encourage?”
“You see this?” I point at the bear, struggling to breathe even knowing that it’s an illusion. “You still think bears are cute, Captain?”
“Yes,” she answers, crushed back against the rock wall in blank terror.
“Oh, my god.”
“What do we do?” Aiden cuts in urgently. “Jamie, I assume you know exactly what to do in a bear attack? Seems like the kind of thing you’ve probably looked up?”
“Yes, b-but I’m panicking! I think – I think if it’s a grizzly bear you need to fight back as hard as you can, but if it’s a black bear you should just play dead? Or – no, no, it’s the opposite! If it’s a grizzly – grizzly b-bear, you-”
“What sort of bear is this one?” Aiden interrupts.
“I have no idea!”
“Then how does any of this help us?” Robin asks frantically.
“Okay, well, I’m trying!” I wail, wrenching my inhaler out of my pocket. “It’s hard to remember when I’m freaking out!”
Without thinking, I hold up a please wait finger at the bear, then turn aside to use my inhaler.
The bear has stopped in its advance, and now looks a little confused.
“Where did Will go?” Aiden manages.
Will appears beside him, frazzled and out of breath. “Thank god you summoned me, I fell through the rock wall! I was quite lost in there!”
The bear suddenly snarls, puffing itself up. Aiden, Robin, and I all seize hold of each other again, gasping in perfect tandem.
“I think we’re supposed to talk to it in a calm tone?” I stammer weakly.
Aiden slowly holds out his hands, then says to the bear, in a carefully calm voice: “You’re supposed to be dead. Why are you not dead?”
The bear takes a menacing step closer, and Will rushes out in front of us.
“No, damn and curse it, don’t you dare!” he warns the bear, putting up his hands. “These are my mortals!”
The bear moves like it’s going to walk right through him. Its nose pushes against Will’s outstretched hand, and – doesn’t go through it. To Will’s immense surprise, and evidently to the bear’s, too. They stare at each other, both of them shocked.
Will slowly lifts his hand, experimentally gives the bear’s nose a scratch. The bear closes its eyes, enjoying itself, then opens them again very quickly, staring down at Will in disbelief.
“What…?” Will stammers, then slowly turns to look at us, his eyes very wide. “Ghost – ghost illusion.”
“What in the fucking… what’s going on here?” Robin asks blankly, struggling to get a breath. “What am I seeing? Am I still asleep?”
“Sorry, Robin, we accidentally misled you,” I answer, trembling against Aiden. “The illusion that lives here isn’t quite gone, after all.”
The bear lifts its head, turns its huge, icy white eyes on Robin. A voice drifts out into the darkness, a deep, growling voice that I instantly recognize from the ghost memory.
Robin? the bear asks. Are you Robin?
Aiden, Will, and I all turn sharply to stare at our captain. She gazes up at the bear in helpless confusion, then dazedly answers: “Yes.”
The bear straightens up, its ears relaxing.
I’ve been calling for you, it answers. I’m glad you heard me.
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