Death of the Body (Crossing Death) (21 page)

“If I do this,” I finally spoke, staring intently at Nicholas, “will you tell me about your encounter with the shadow people, leaving out no details?”

The smug smile faded as he nodded.

It wasn’t until this break in the conversation that I realized how we had ended up situated. The three of them—Nicholas, Xia, and Quon—sat on the edge of my twin bed while I stood over them, dominating. As I peered down at Nicholas’s upturned eyes, I couldn’t help but see a flash of uncertainty.

I had to stop and think for a few moments to come up with a plan that would have sufficient shock effect without driving the three of them out of the room in terror. I didn’t think I had enough grasp of the teleportation power to repeat the recent events, nor was I looking forward to feeling that cold again. No, I wouldn’t do that to myself. I still wasn’t sure exactly how I came back together after the mind splitting experience.

But it wouldn’t be too frightening if I were to try with an object. After all, the worst that could happen would be my inability to rematerialize it.

Then I got an idea that would be sure to impress. It would require strength on my part, as well as kindness in my pleading with all of the earth’s elements in regard to the laws I would have to bend, but I knew it could be done—I would take inspiration from my father.

I went to my closet and threw a pile of clothes that I didn’t remember putting on the shelf—all of which were probably dirty—in order to get to my small, metal toolbox.

I pulled out the hammer and held it lightly in my hands. The head was made of dark, heavy steel, and the handle of a light wood. I had only used it occasionally, once to put a bookcase together when I first arrived, and another few times when a friend needed to borrow it for a project. I focused on its shape, on the weight, on the coolness of the metal and the smoothness of the wood. I needed to know these things. I needed to have a connection to this object that belonged to me, a connection I didn’t have because I hadn’t used it enough. I needed to feel the elements of this hammer and how they affected the world.

The existence of this hammer had a ripple effect that extended beyond the tree that was cut down to fashion the handle, or the steel that was heated and shaped to make the head. It put together my bookcase, which was now weighted with books. That weight had to be supported by the planet as well. All of this was tied together.

I handed the hammer to Nicholas.

“This is a moment of trust, my friend. I will require the strength of your trust to make this work. You must trust me to do what I am going to ask you to do. I must trust you as well. If I don’t, then the circle of that trust will be broken and the power will fail. I want us to have this trust in each other so that you can tell me your story without fear.”

I took a few steps back and glanced over my right shoulder to ensure my alignment was correct.

“And what am I supposed to do with the hammer?” Nicholas asked.

I half grinned. “Throw it at me.”

His face contorted into an expression that said he hoped he misunderstood what I asked.

“As hard as you can,” I continued. “Trust.”

I saw the switch flip in his understanding. It told him that in order to trust me, he had to throw the hammer and trust that I wouldn’t get hurt. I had to trust him, and trust that he trusted me enough to actually throw the hammer. Still, I could see his hesitation.

Xia and Quon looked at him with stern expectation and disbelief. I almost expected Quon to wrestle the hammer away from Nicholas, his face was so shocked when Nicholas’s finally showed some resolve.

“You’d better get ready to call the nurse again, I think,” Quon whispered to Xia.

“As hard as you can,” I said in a voice that was barely audible.

Things moved in slow motion as soon as Nicholas wound up for the throw. I heard Xia gasp at one point but the hammer had already left Nicholas’s hand. I watched it turn over and over as it approached.

I had already opened the door in my mind and now just had to physically extend it around the hammer. I pushed my thoughts outward, a sensation that felt like stretching a large piece of plastic wrap. I could feel a space between levels just at the threshold of the door. My mind pushed the hammer into this space, and then the hammer, which was catapulting toward me, disappeared.

I didn’t want it to go too far. If I pushed it completely out of our world and into another, I would probably have no way of finding it without going in after it myself. I found it invigorating, knowing that I had experienced this sensation myself. It was much easier to monitor the hammer in the space between spaces having experienced these limits and boundaries myself.

My mind accompanied the hammer into the space between levels. Once there, I was able to change the direction of the hammer. This was not done by moving the hammer itself, but by changing the angle by which it reentered the door in my mind.

The hammer reappeared just two inches away from my nose. It was so close that all I could see was a dizzying blur. I felt the air on my face that the steel head displaced.

Now came the hard part. The hammer had changed directions almost a perfect ninety degrees. My alignment had been off just a degree or two, but would still suffice.

Nicholas made a noise that resembled a groan as he realized the hammer was now headed straight for the glass window. I heard everyone draw in a nervous breath as the hammer shattered the glass so effortlessly that it barely slowed in momentum.

I stretched my arms and hands out toward the window. The sound of the breaking glass was distinct and violent, but what no one else knew or understood was that I had learned the secret that had plagued me since childhood—how my father could break the glass into his secret chamber in the parliament building of Orenda.

Xia let her voice squeak slightly when she realized the shattered particles of glass were not responding to the law of gravity. Instead, they were suspended in the air, spinning on multiple invisible axes, reflecting light like a disco ball. It wasn’t exactly that the pieces of glass were defying the laws of gravity, just that they currently existed in a pocket between our world and one where the law of gravity didn’t exist.

The secret to my father’s glass doorway wasn’t that the glass was reconstructed by some unknown magic that repaired broken molecules, as I had originally thought. Instead, the actual magic was done before the glass was broken. My father simply asked the molecules to align themselves in such a way that the breaks would occur between them—the space within the elements was not what was broken, just the bindings between the elements themselves.

And since glass is technically a liquid, not a solid, the molecules themselves could eventually piece themselves back together anyway, just like broken water doesn’t stay broken once it is poured into a shape. Glass has the same properties. I just had to speed up the process.

I waited until the spinning splinters of glass had stopped, then asked them to realign themselves the same way they had been before they were broken. None of the pieces had any reason to ignore the request, and it wasn’t more than a few seconds before I was ready to pull them all back.

Molecules all want something. They want each other. I assume they are much like humans in that regard. They exist to create something, to fulfill a higher purpose beyond their own capability. When asked to reform this plate of glass, some became so excited that their atoms began moving faster and faster. Once hot, they pair up with the molecule next to them. Understanding the science is what allowed the magic.

I pulled the millions of tiny pieces back together. It was difficult to keep track of them all, but their excitement to come back together, with not a single one actually damaged, helped the process. The cracks sealed themselves as the smaller components rebounded on a level almost incomprehensible to the human mind.

My head was now swimming and every muscle in my body felt at the brink of breakdown. I could feel cold sweat beading on my forehead as my breathing grew labored. I forced myself to complete the glass pane just as a trickle of blood began to flow from my nose.

My knees buckled and I collapsed. It felt good to let the floor support me as I fell into a heap.

I heard everyone call my name in worry and I instantly had three pairs of hands shaking me.

“I’m fine,” I responded unwillingly. Just talking seemed like it took too much effort. “Trust, remember?”

The shaking stopped, but they all stayed kneeling over me, their wide eyes filled with shock and concern.

“Just let me rest for a minute,” I continued. “Nicholas, you can start your story.”

It was a long time before Nicholas’s smooth voice filled the room with something other than the sounds of breathing. The sun had just finished staining the sky a ferocious red, and the first stars were beginning to appear. I pulled a blanket down from the bed, and curled up inside it, cursing myself for using my abilities so soon after being so cold. I could feel the coldness seeping in again.

“Well…” Nicholas started, much more calmly than I had expected, “I know you and I haven’t really discussed our adopted parents, Edmund. Mostly, we’ve avoided talking about our childhoods all together.”

I grunted in agreement.

“My parents joined the Catholic church with the specific expectation of adopting someone from Saint Vincent’s. After years of trying to get through the catechism classes, they almost gave up. Then, when…”

“
…it
happened…” I continued for him.

“Yeah. When it happened, the orphanage had to either adopt us out or ship us off to another orphanage. They relaxed their restrictions a bit. My parents were not Catholic at the time of the adoption. They were allowed to adopt me under the assumption that they had a legitimate interest in the church, which wasn’t true. In fact, they practiced a pretty scary form of witchcraft.”

“Did they just want you for a sacrifice or something?” Quon jested.

Xia backhanded him. “Shut up.”

But Nicholas didn’t seem to be affected by the comment. In fact, he continued as if nothing were said. “Things often got a little scary for a kid but I wasn’t involved in most of the heavy stuff. My new parents cared about me a great deal. They took good care of me and gave me everything I wanted. They really did just want a child. Every time they got pregnant they would hold a ceremony in celebration and thank the gods and goddesses for blessing their union. Then my mom would miscarry.

“When I was fourteen, my parents were again expecting. My mom didn’t want to have another ceremony, because she had started to believe they were causing the miscarriages. My father insisted.

“I snuck down into the basement during the ritual. I had never been allowed to watch this particular ceremony, even though I had been involved in prayer circles, séances, and other rituals. I don’t remember much, but I do remember seeing my mother, naked, in the center of a large pentagram painted onto the cement floor. She was surrounded by the coven that had become my second family. The coven was a mixture of men and women, and as the ritual began they disrobed. Though I didn’t understand the sexual component of the ritual, as a young boy just starting to experience sexuality on my own, I did understand sex and realized the reasoning behind my father’s insistence on my mother complying with this bizarre séance. He wanted the sex, and he wanted it with the other members of the coven.

“I watched my mother cry, lying alone in the circle while the coven did what they did around her. At one time, she looked up and saw me sitting on the stairs. Her eyes didn
’t beg me to help her, but for the understanding of why she didn’t want to be there. I could tell she wished I were older. She wanted me to be a man strong enough to rescue her from my father. She wanted me to run away, to not watch, but at the same time couldn’t ask me to leave. She wanted me to stay and give her strength. Her eyes told me so much—like we were having a conversation.

“When she miscarried again, my father left. My mother, although very earthy and drawn to Wiccan beliefs—”

“Whoa!” Xia interrupted. “That ritual definitely wasn’t Wiccan. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds sort of like the Great Rite, but that’s a very specific ceremony held during Beltane. What you’re describing wasn’t right.”

“I know,” Nicholas responded. “It was my father’s bastardization of the rituals. He convinced my mother, the whole coven, that his ways were more powerful, better than the traditional rites. When my mother learned the truth she turned her back on them because of what my father had put her though. She sought for answers as to why she couldn’t have children in medicine, in Christianity, in Islam, and in Scientology. The drastic religious changes I experienced in my life were so jarring and instant, that I began to believe in none of them.”

“Well that explains why you are such a horn-dog. Like father like son, right?” Quon chided.

I felt an instant rush of panic, and rightfully so. As I bolted into an upright position I saw Nicholas’s eyes ignite in fury. His hands balled into fists.

“Quon! You insensitive idiot!” I bellowed.
Oh, please let my reprimand settle Nicholas down
, I thought to myself.

It did, but only slightly. “Sex for the fun of sex is one thing,” Nicholas contended through a clenched jaw. “I think we all know about
that
! My father was a bastard who used it to control and demean. I wouldn’t have cared if my father had been a swinger. I could even understand him having an affair or a whore on the side, but he humiliated my mother in front of his coven
on purpose
. He got off on the fact that she cried while he went to town on another woman in front of her. The whole situation was just… depraved. Not to mention that as it turned out, my father was giving the spirits of my mother’s unborn children to a demon. That is why she always miscarried.”