Kiersten's Arc

Chapter 16 of 33

Kiersten did not sleep again that night. At first light she walked to the mystic keep with the cut vine wrapped in a cloth. The wooden doors with their stained glass angels opened before she knocked. Quantum stood inside with Mother Angel and Ananda Luminae. They had already been told. "The portal learned my sleep," Kiersten said. She set the vine on the table. "If I close my eyes, it opens." Quantum picked up the vine. "Then we do not let you sleep alone. We watch the door from the inside." "You mean my dream." "I mean the room the hunter walks into," Quantum said. "We need to see the frame. Once we see it, we can seal it." Ananda set a ring of small clear crystals on the floor around a low cot. "Don't worry. The crystals do the heavy lifting. I just look pretty." They did not smile. "Lie down. We hold the outside. You hold the inside." Mother Angel pressed her palm to Kiersten's forehead. Her voice was soft and even. "We will be with you. Sleep as deep as you need. We will pull you back when it is time." Kiersten lay down. Witness settled under her ribs like a warm stone. She fell fast, deeper than any night before. She could feel the teachers breathing above her, far off, like weather. She stood inside a dream that was not hers. A small boy sat on a kitchen floor. He had a button nose and auburn eyes. Eduardo, at seven. A man stood over him, shouting. The man's mouth was open too wide. Something black sat inside it, curled behind his teeth, watching the boy the way a snake watches a mouse. The boy learned to make himself small. The black thing slid down and set roots in his chest. The demon. The scene rolled forward. Eduardo grew. The demon grew with him. It wore his father's face when he was scared and Eduardo's face when he was cruel. Kiersten watched him become the man who took from her. He was on the floor of the dream now, grown, his cap gone. He looked up at her. His auburn eyes were wet and clear for one breath. "Kiersten," he said. She wanted to kneel. She wanted to hold his face and tell him it was not his fault, that the thing in his chest had been placed there by a hand bigger than his. Her palms rose. She stopped them. Holding him would open the door again. Love was the shape the hunter used. "I see where it came from," she said. "It is not mine to carry. It is not mine to hold." She turned her back on him. She named the frame of the door aloud. "Pity. The door is pity." The dream cracked white. She woke inside the ring of crystals. Quantum was already writing. Mother Angel was already praying. Ananda closed the ring with a snap of light. "We have the frame," Quantum said. "Now we build the lock."