Garda - Welcome to the Realm (23 page)

“So how is he?” He peeked up at me from where his head was bent over the table.

“Not good. The Os Malos have been hard at work on him. I found him in a rather compromising position, although I did manage to influence him enough to stop what he was doing.” The scene flashed through my mind, he had been about to take a stranger up against the wall. I shook my head.

“Well, that’s good then.” He went back to his puzzle.

“Yeah, I guess,” I stood up and moved to his sliding glass door, hugging myself with my arms, “but then he thought he was going crazy because he was hearing my voice in his head.”

“Oh.” I heard the chair creak and assumed he leaned back. He surprised me when he touched my shoulder.

“Monty, what am I going to do? How can I help him if he is questioning his own sanity when I speak to him?”

His eyebrows were drawn down, “Why are you calling me Monty?”

I shrugged again, “I don’t know, I guess Montgomery is just too stuffy for me—but that’s beside the point—what am I supposed to do?” I had opened my hands up in front of me in a pleading way.

He reached for a hand and pulled me over to his couch. The soft beige suede sighed when we sat down.

“Well, if you are worried about his sanity, then maybe you need to try another route.”

I scooted up to the edge of the couch, “What route is that?”

“Shock therapy,” his mouth spread into a wide smile.

“Shock therapy, what are you talking about?” Maybe he wasn’t as sane as I thought he was. Maybe I should be more worried about him than Mitch.

He laughed and squeezed my hand. “If hearing your voice is too much, maybe he needs to be shocked and be able to actually see your face.”

My heart accelerated, “What?”

“Maybe what he needs is to be able to see you, see that you are alright. Maybe then he will know that you don’t blame him and that he wasn’t at fault.”

I gaped at him, afraid that this might be a joke. “How?”

A smile so pure it radiated heaven crossed his face, “You step down into the living arena.” He patted my hand.

“You can do that?” Had I heard them ever talk about doing that? I had never seen Brock in the living arena before.

“Of course you can do that, although we don’t do it very often. Most times it is not a good idea for the dead to be magically alive and walking around in the open again.”

“But?” I knew there had to be more.

“But if Mitch is having such a hard time, then maybe showing yourself to him and helping him one on one would set him back on the correct path.” He let go of my hand and stood up, “I don’t know much about Mitch, but I do know there is a plan for him here when his time on Earth is done.”

I shuddered to think of Mitch as dead. As much as I wanted to be with him, I didn’t want him to die to accomplish it. If I were able to go back, to walk amongst the living again, I could be with him. I could gaze into his face again, kiss his lips.

Brock’s face came to mind, and I pushed it aside. Brock had nothing to do with this. This was about me seeing Mitch again, the chance to help him, to say goodbye properly if need be.

I stood up, “Let’s do it. Can you show me how?”

He walked up to me and placed his hands on my upper arms, “Of course I can, but remember that what you do down there will affect you. Your decisions will make a difference on your afterlife, good or bad.”

The impact of his words was strong and they soaked into my mind, “I understand.”

He examined me hard, “Are you sure?”

After a brief hesitation, I nodded, “Yes, I’m sure.”

He squeezed my arms one more time, “Then let’s go. We need to get you set up before you get started.”

~ Mitchell ~

With a groan, I rolled over in bed. A shaft of sunlight struck my face, and I squeezed my eyelids shut to keep the light out.

My memory was fuzzy from the night before, but I remembered a few things with perfect clarity.

I remembered the woman, Rebecca. I remembered how I almost took her savagely against the outside of Harry’s bar. It was just another one of the bad choices I had made recently. The disgust I felt for myself was overwhelming.

Then I came home and told Beth that I was in love with Corey. My head throbbed at the fuzzy recollection. When I had spoken those words last night, I had expected her to get angry, strike out—certainly not comfort me—but I never expected that it would have ended up with us making love on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had sex.

If it had not been for hearing Corey’s voice last night, things would have ended up quite differently. I would have become someone I did not want to become—but how was having sex with a stranger different than falling in love with another woman when I was married? Of course there was a big difference. Corey wasn’t some stranger, and I had never meant to fall in love with her. It had just happened.

The bedroom door creaked open. “Mitch, are you awake?”

“Yeah,” I cleared my throat, thick from sleep.

“I have coffee for you,” Beth walked closer to the bed, “and some Tylenol.”

My arm slowly dropped, and I tried to open my eyes by blinking rapidly a few times. “Thanks.” I pushed up from my back and leaned against a pillow, and took the mug and two white pills she handed me, all while avoiding her targeted gaze.

She sat down on the side of the mattress. I viewed her profile, her nose turned up slightly at the end, her chin softly rounded. She chewed on her lip. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid.

I took a sip of the hot coffee, still holding the pills in my hand. “Go ahead, Beth, I know you have something to say. I deserve whatever it is.”

She looked down to the bedroom rug. “I love you.”

I watched her closely; once again surprised she was not venting her anger or throwing hurtful words. Her confession threw me off balance.

Not knowing how to respond, I cleared my throat.

“I know that I hurt you. I cheated on you, and I lied to you, but I never stopped loving you.” Her soft green eyes peeked over her shoulder at me, almost pleading with me to believe her.

I rolled the pills around in my hand, “I know.”

“How long were you involved with her?” her voice was barely audible.

I didn’t want to talk about Corey, but maybe this was my chance to admit my sins.

“We weren’t together very long.” I threw the two pills from my hand into my mouth and swallowed them with a gulp of hot coffee.

“But you loved her.” That was not a question, I knew that, but I felt it deserved a response.

“Yes, I loved her.” I set my coffee mug down on the nightstand. “Beth, look at me.”

She hesitated, and then lifted her chin, shook back her hair, and turned to face me. Unshed tears brightened the color of her irises, and I fought to keep mine from reflecting the same thing.

“Yes, I loved her and she loved me, but you need to know that I never slept with her. Our relationship wasn’t like that; it was more emotional, not physical.” There, I had admitted it.

“Were you going to leave me?” The honesty of the question was so intense I wasn’t sure how to answer, but after staring into her face for a few moments, I knew I needed to continue being honest.

“I had thought about it.”

She blinked quickly a few times and turned away.

“Just because I thought about it, doesn’t mean that I would have done it. Like I said, we weren’t together very long, and then she died.”

“I guess I deserved that,” she mumbled.

I sat up and reached for her hand, “No, you didn’t deserve it. Beth, you are a good woman, and I do love you. I was going through a lot, I still am.”

She squeezed my hand, “Are we going to get through this?”

Our eyes met, and again I had to be honest with her, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” I released her hand and leaned back against the wall.

~Brock~

When I phased into Mitch’s room, I knew that Corey was not here. There was a brief lingering of her energy, so I knew she had been recently.

She was released from the Realm and she had gone straight to him. Beth and Mitch spoke softly in the bedroom. Was there a way to help them put things back together, without getting myself in trouble?

Beth walked out the door after saying she hoped they could work things out. Mitch watched her leave the room and his view came to rest right where I was standing. What if I spoke to him?

Mitch closed his eyes and the urge to step over the line was strong, but the consequences of my actions would be too much. I didn’t want to lose my chance with Corey.

I phased down to where Beth now stood in the kitchen. Her hands were still under the running water of the faucet as she stared out the window with unfocused vision. She was a beautiful woman. She had a strength inside of her that reminded me of Corey. It was no wonder that Mitch loved them both.

With a loud sigh, she picked up a sponge and started washing some dishes that lay in the bottom of the stainless steel sink. If only I could make it easier for her, but she wasn’t my charge.

Turning from her, I felt her pain as if it were my own, and knew some was my fault. I left her kitchen and ended up beside a guy in his car. The feeling of anger quickly communicated to me from the driver.

His driving was aggressive today; he drove less than eight feet behind another car going seventy miles per hour.

Slow down, Gary, relax. Work will still be there when you get there,
my voice reflected into his mind.

He glanced down at the speedometer and sighed. The distance between his car and the one in front of him grew as he took his foot off the accelerator for a moment.

Why couldn’t all my charges be this simple? I phased to the next one.

~Corey~

Monty and I phased to the living arena, landing inside the secure gates of a storage facility. We stood between two buildings; the bright orange siding on the walls caught my attention right away, stark white rolling garage doors lined both sides.

“Why are we here?” I asked Montgomery as I inspected the area.

“I told you we needed some things before you stepped down,” he grinned, “but first, I need to show you how to step down to the living arena.”

Was it anxiety or excitement that pulsed through my body as I thought about coming face to face with Mitch again?

“Okay, what do I do?”

“It’s pretty easy once you do it, but you have to remember a few things. You will be a little bit disoriented the first time or two.”

“Why is that?” I listened intently.

“When you are on this level here, you can see and hear things, but you can’t feel them. Your senses are very strong, Coralenna, and when you step over, it will be a bit overwhelming.”

“I don’t understand why it would be so different?”

He thought about it for a second, “Right now, you can hear things from the living arena, but they are more of a hushed background noise unless you are targeting something specific, like a conversation. When you step over, you will hear everything, not just those things you target, but everything. The sounds of life and the thoughts of others that are around you can be daunting.”

I still didn’t get what he meant, but wanted to move forward. “Alright, if you say so. Anything else I need to know?”

Montgomery got a serious gleam in his eye, “Yes, you need to be very careful here. You are not protected down here like you are above. You can be injured.”

“I can take care of myself,” I brushed his comment aside, eager to get moving. “So what do I do?”

He snickered and shook his head, “Picture a line in front of you that has an invisible wall. You have to step through the wall. Once you start to move through, it will pull you.”

“Pull me, right.” I nodded and pushed my hands down into the back pockets of my jeans.

“Watch me,” I turned and observed him as he seemed to concentrate for a moment before taking a step forward. A small ripple appeared to travel along his body.

“See?” he smiled at me.

He didn’t appear any different to me. Was he now at a different level? He didn’t appear to be.

“You try it now.” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited. I shrugged, didn’t look too difficult.

I imagined a clear glass wall in front of me; the bright orange metal wall stood on the other side, and I took a tentative step forward. A thickness started to suck me in, as if I was stepping into a vat of pudding, and suddenly I felt like I was being pulled into a vortex. With a snap, I landed on the other side.

I blinked rapidly at the same time the world struck me. The sounds around me were like standing in the middle of Times Square. The noise of cars driving past, a lawnmower, a dog barking, and voices, so many voices filled my head at once.

I staggered back a step and wanted to slam my hands over my ears.

“Block it out, Coralenna; just try to block it out.”

“Block it out? I can’t even think straight, much less try to concentrate to block something out!” The sound of my own voice appeared louder than it should have, and I finally put my hands over my ears.

As I stood with my hands tightly on the sides of my head, I felt something that I had not even realized I had been missing. A slight breeze floated over my skin. I inhaled the air swirling around me and picked up the scents of flowers, grass, animals, cars, and people.

I focused on the breeze, allowed it to fill me, and absorbed the soft feeling. The buzz in my ears slowed down. The scents flowing into my nose calmed. I slowly released the tension on my ears and moved my hands away.

The sounds were all there, but by focusing on something else, I was able to push them back to manageable amounts. I turned to consider my surroundings, taking in the colors and the sounds as I viewed the area.

“Better?” Montgomery asked from behind me. I gave him a thumbs up afraid my voice would be too loud again.

“You did that rather well, Coralenna, but I am not surprised.” He laughed at himself. “You just need to remember to focus on something and stay calm. Then the sounds, smells, and feelings won’t be so overwhelming.”