Chapter Seven

I gawked at her. “My book?”

“Uh-huh. Don’t you remember? Well, it was years ago during a sleepover at my house. One of our first, I think, because I have the impression we were really young. We were looking at an old book of fairytales; all the drawings were boring black and white. The girls in the stories were lame and mostly hung around waiting for rescue. We were both budding feminists and not impressed. I said you could do better.”

A hazy recollection formed. “I-I had a drawing tablet with me,” I stammered in shock.

“That’s right. Even back then you were always scribbling away.” Melanie chuckled. “You were very bossy. I remember I wanted to call the hero Kyle because I had a crush on a boy at school named Kyle, but you insisted the name had to be Griffin. It stuck in my head because it was a funny name, and I’d never heard it before.”

I tried desperately to summon the details of that night but could only bring to mind a blank sheet of paper and my hand holding a pencil. “I remember drawing, but I can’t visualize the pictures. Did I tell you the story?”

“No. I’m not sure we got that far. You told me the title was The Rose Stone, but maybe you worked on the pictures later. We were kids and got distracted easily. I don’t think we talked about it again. I’m surprised I even remember that much, since it happened so many years ago.” Melanie gave me the once over. “You look a little pale. Are you feeling worse?”

I straightened up and forced a smile. “No, I’m fine. I had a long day. I’ll take the rest of my meds and relax.”

We said goodnight. I shut the door and then leaned against the wall, swamped by an overwhelming flood of emotions. My legs shook, but not from any illness this time. Had a half-remembered story from my childhood spearheaded an elaborate mental ruse to convince me the Commonwealth was real? If so, I had no reason to return. Griffin was merely a figment of my youthful imagination. Perhaps a desperate yearning for love buried in my subconscious.

I squared my shoulders. No—the Commonwealth of the Rose was real. I would find the way again to Griffin and the others, and Melanie had unknowingly opened another door. I needed to search my old sketchbooks.

Along the back wall was a row of screens hiding a pile of dusty storage cartons. I dragged them to the couch. They were filled with odds and ends from my childhood, including sketchbooks I could never bear to toss away. Melanie was right when she said I was always drawing. I don’t remember a time without a pencil or crayon in my hand. I even doodled borders on math tests, much to my teachers’ amusement.

Over the years, I discarded random sketches, but always kept the wire-bound notebooks. They felt like a part of me, but I hadn’t examined them in years. Now I pawed through the pages in a frenzy. Few had dates, but by the skill level, I worked out a rough approximation of my age for each sketch. Apparently, my younger self also loved to draw boys emphasizing their faults. In the last carton, I pounced on a notebook with a caricature on the front page of a kid named Wesley. I had considered him particularly poopy-headed because he refused to pay any attention to me. Wesley had transferred to our school about the time of my first sleepover at Melanie’s house. I hurriedly thumbed through the pages, but they held nothing of interest.

On the bottom of the bin was the final sketchbook, different from the others. The cover had no idle scribblings. I opened it, and a flutter of excitement raced through me. There was a title page done in my childish hand, The Rose Stone. I had printed the words with a flourish, lots of curlicues and fancy embellishments.

I turned the page to the first sketch and sucked in a breath. A boy sat in a saddle holding the reins of his mount. The creature he rode had lop-ears and was, most definitely, not a horse. The details were crude, but the shape of the boy’s face had an uncanny familiarity. I ran my fingertips over the paper. “Griffin,” I whispered. This was hardly a polished portrait, I didn’t have the skill back then, but hair and eye color were the right shade of brown and the scar on his face in the same location. It was more pronounced though, as if recently inflicted. The perspective was off, too. The lyr was much bigger or, perhaps, Griffin much smaller. He must have been young. The lyr’s coat mimicked Cirrus’ tawny shade, but I was no expert in lyrs and had no clue if that animal was the same. Not a single rose was present, but the lyr stood among clusters of blue flowers with dabs of white in the center.

Griffin’s outfit bore no resemblance to a guard’s uniform. He had on a long sleeve shirt, no tabard, no sword or bow at hand, just simple, everyday rustic clothing. Exactly what Griffin would have worn as a child on the family farm.

Other differences were apparent, too, such as the saddle. The pommel was rounded rather than T-shaped and not nearly wide enough to make a fitting perch for a warbird. Griffin’s head was slightly turned, and his eyes looked to the side. Now that was unusual. Kids that age always drew people facing front, but Griffin seemed to peer out from the page. I had a strange impression he searched for something.

Nothing was written on the drawing to give a clue to the story. With mounting frustration, I scoured my mind for hints but came up empty. Any original plot points were muddied by the other books devoured in my youth, waiting for poopy-headed boys such as Wesley to pay attention. For the first time in my life, I regretted being such a voracious reader.

The next page had a pencil sketch of an oval standing on end, the interior filled with little jagged marks. Spiky lines protruded from the sides, the way a child would portray the rays of the sun. Was this my interpretation of the Rose Stone? I wished I had bothered to add color.

I studied the drawing when it dawned on me that I’d never seen the actual Rose Stone, but assumed it was a crystal. This one had a multitude of crisscrosses and straight lines that may have been my representation of facets. I’d obviously spent a lot of time on them and the whole composition gave the impression of a carefully constructed pattern, surprisingly complex for a child. A single blur in the center distorted the clarity of the whole. I wondered why I hadn’t bothered to clean a pencil smudge. I peered closer. The blur had a strangely familiar shape. It wasn’t an animal or a flower, but I was certain I’d seen something identical recently.

The answer eluded me, so I flipped to the next page and experienced another letdown. Here, artistic inspiration took a completely different track. The sketch was a house. It was either white, or I’d decided not to add color, but the door and the shutters on the windows were bright turquoise. In the background were rolling green hills and long-stemmed plants with spiky yellow poofs on top, perhaps a fanciful representation of grain growing in the field. Was it a farm? I had included animals in the yard, although drawn with imaginative flair. Since when did a pig have a mane and zebra stripes?

The next page was also a disappointment. A blue line snaked across the paper past a scattering of concentric circles, brown chevrons, and green blotches. A series of black dots, one big and several small, clustered in the corner. Near to them at the top of the page was a red rose in the middle of one of the concentric circles.

No matter which way I turned the picture, none of it made any sense, at least not a pattern I recognized. I thumbed through the rest of the sketchbook but found only blank pages. That was oddest of all. My sketchbooks filled in short order, but it was as if I finished these drawings and then shoved them aside and forgot them. I don’t even remember packing the book away.

I blew out my cheeks in disgust. Apparently, I hadn’t been taken enough with the story of the Rose Stone to draw more and, unfortunately, didn’t leave any notes. My fingers trembled again, and I rubbed my hands against my jeans in frustration. I was muddle-headed and tired, and a thread of anxiety took root. I had been handed a perfectly logical explanation for a hallucination. My mind recreated the Commonwealth of the Rose from childhood imaginings, but I chose to dismiss it because I wanted Griffin to be real. That was close to the ramblings of a nutcase.

“A fresh start in the morning,” I muttered.

I ignored the anti-hallucinatory pills and took the meds that knocked back the dull ache and muscle weakness. I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling, mind whirling, body spent. If I mentioned my belief that I visited another reality to either Melanie or Dr. Turner, they’d point at the notebook and conclude my subconscious latched onto sketches from childhood and formed a vivid hallucination, so solid it imbued life into a fantasy.

I imagined Dr. Turner folding his arms and shaking his head. “I warned you. Why didn’t you take the meds?” Melanie would study me with large anxious eyes.

Of course, they were right. Any sensible person would head to the hospital to be pumped full of drugs to end the visions. Anyone who disagreed with the diagnosis was too far gone to make rational decisions and should be hospitalized at once.

I ran a hand through my hair. Storybook be damned. I had formed a connection to another world as a child and then lost it. Only a void in my heart remained. I tried to fill it with work and then I thought I could fill it with Elliot, but that itch for more remained. I wanted desperately to visit the Commonwealth of the Rose again.

I squirmed under the covers. It wasn’t the Commonwealth, but Griffin I needed to see. I had left him and the guard in danger, yanked away by forces I didn’t understand. I closed my eyes and relaxed, focusing my thoughts on Griffin.

My breathing became shallow. Comforting warmth seeped through me. My mind drifted away as sleep encroached. “Where are you?” I mumbled.

A soft whisper filled my head. “Searching for you.”

With a smile, I tumbled headfirst into the deep empty well of sleep.

****

Tap, tap, tap.

“Danya’s drum!” My eyes shot open, and I was instantly letdown. Danya’s drum didn’t wake me. Instead, the gentle patter of rain beat against the skylight. I sank into the pillow. The intense longing to return to the Commonwealth proved fruitless.

I got out of bed, a little wobbly on my feet. The medication for the muscle weakness had begun to wear off, but it wasn’t time for another dose. The day was gray and dismal, dark enough for the streetlights to stay on. It matched my mood to a T. I peered out the window. Bobbing umbrellas sheltered a river of pedestrians flowing down the street. The traffic light at the corner blinked out, and I flinched at squealing brakes. An instant later technology triumphed, the light shone bright, and the traffic moved. Yippee. Civilization reasserted itself.

Even a breakfast of the remaining slice of leftover pizza (usually an attitude enhancer) didn’t help. I stood in front of the painting of Griffin, searching for inspiration but haunted by the image of the sparking wire. I chose a paintbrush, touched the tip to the canvas and put it down with a shudder. I didn’t want to draw that horrible thing. It didn’t belong in my Commonwealth. Thoughts of the eerie wire kept a damper on my spirits.

A cloud obscured my artistic vision, leaving me with no distinct idea where to begin. “Did the carvers break through?” I murmured. “Is your daughter safe? Are you?” My portrait of Griffin made no reply. Only returning to the Commonwealth would provide answers and, for the moment, that seemed beyond my ability.

Usually a walk cleared my head, but I’d done little of that lately. My life had been consumed with medical tests and worry. The pain had eased for the moment, but the muscle weakness in my legs also gave me a staggering lurch that attracted unwanted stares. I glared at the hated cane propped against the door—a symbol that control over my life had slipped away.

“It’s only a hunk of metal,” I said to myself.

I threw on a jacket and leaned on the cane. The handhold had a T-shaped grip identical to the warbird perch on Griffin’s saddle and the feel was strangely comforting. I hated to admit it, but the cane helped my balance and allowed me to carefully ease down the stairs. By the time I reached the entrance, the rain had decreased to a drizzle, but the cloudy sky remained ominous. I had decided against an umbrella; the cane was cumbersome enough to lug around. I pulled the hood over my head and stood in the doorway wondering which way to go. Each direction was equally wet.

The coffee shop two blocks away had excellent pastry, so I headed there. The streetlight in front of my building flickered and then flared back to brilliance. I passed underneath the next one, and it did the same thing. Evidently, technology was having an off day, too.

I arrived at the coffee shop thankful the daily commuters hadn’t scarfed the last of the blueberry scones. I ordered a latte, too. A crooning, high-pitched hum filled the air. The lights dimmed and an instant later returned to brightness. The woman behind the counter rolled her eyes. “It’s been doing that all morning.”

The rain began again, pouring down in buckets, and I decided to wait it out and rest my legs before going home. I took my order to a booth. A previous customer had left that day’s newspaper at the table and the headline reported scattered outages in the city. I read the article as I ate. The reporter quoted an official at the power company insisting the trouble was an “indeterminate drain.” I snorted. “That means they don’t have a clue.”

By the time I finished the latte and scone, the rain had slackened to a drizzle again. I left the coffeeshop and ambled to the loft. Maybe it was the fresh air or the blueberry scone, but as I navigated the stairs, I had another stirring of creative juices. As soon as I got inside, I propped the cane by the door and went right to the easel. The mostly blank canvas called me to find the story.

I roughed in a pencil sketch of Danya, Abril, and Bram in the background behind Griffin. Racer and Sojourn soared overhead. I grabbed a brush and paint and worked until my hand ached. My stomach rumbled, too, so I took a break to make a sandwich and eat in front of the TV. The news continued to report scattered outages.

“The power company is working to maintain the grid,” said the newscaster. “Currently, the problem is concentrated in several areas of the central business district.”

The lightbulb in the lamp on the end table made a fizzing sound and then pop! The light went out. I replaced the bulb.

Flash-flash-flash-pause. Flash-flash-flash-pause.

Strange blinking lights from outside flickered a pattern on the wall. Curious, I went to the window, lifted the sash, and peered down at the street. The rain had stopped. Below, two workers from the power company stood by a lift truck deep in conversation. The streetlight next to them was stuck in a repetitive loop.

Flash-flash-flash-pause.

My lips twitched in a smile. The power company needed to replace a light bulb, too, albeit larger. The light continued to flash the mysterious sequence. One man got in the lift truck and called to kill the power.

The other scratched his head. “I did, but it turned on again.”

The streetlight bulb exploded, showering the ground with glass. The shattered bulb exposed a snapped wire. It dangled from the post, jumping to and fro. In the half-light, tiny sparks streamed from the tip.

Flash-flash-flash-pause. Flash-flash-flash-pause.

The wire stopped its jerky dance and stiffened. The tip rose and pointed directly at me. The path is marked, said the darkling. Slowly now, I test the portals. Soon they will open to me.

I gripped the sill, blood turning to ice water. Neither of the two utility workers looked at the sparking wire. They hadn’t heard a thing. My hands shook, and not because of muscle weakness.

The wire jerked again and then dropped to hang limply. The sparks sputtered out. “Okay,” yelled the man on the ground. “The power is off this time.”

Mouth dry with fear, I shut the window, hurried to the bathroom, and fumbled in my medicine cabinet for Dr. Turner’s new anti-hallucinatory prescription. I opened the bottle and shook a pill into my hand. I stared at it, my thoughts in a whirl. Was my mind lost in an ever-deepening hallucination? If I didn’t take this now, would death come knocking sooner?

“This is it,” I said, heart thumping. “Decide once and for all what is real and what isn’t.”

I dropped the pill in the bottle and returned it to the cabinet. I didn’t need any medication. This was no dreamworld, no hallucination. The darkling was real and hunting me. Time was running out, and I wouldn’t do anything to prevent finding the way to Griffin again.

As the afternoon wore on, I continued to paint, the need to add more details pressing on me. Eventually, the light faded, and the clouds emptied again. The rain sent rivulets washing down the street. Every so often, I paused to look out the window. I tensed each time, but only heard normal city sounds and the patter of the droplets against the glass. The streetlight below burned steady and bright.

Early in the evening, Melanie called to confirm our departure time for tomorrow morning. I waved off her invitation for dinner as I wanted to be alone. My muscles ached again. I’d stood way too long and rejected the pain pills as they made me groggy. I needed to be sharp to paint. My gaze went to the window, and I shuddered. I needed to be sharp to hear, but the voice of the darkling didn’t return. At bedtime, I surrendered to the constant hurt and took the meds. Drowsiness conquered me in nothing flat.

I slept fitfully and kept jerking awake. No nightmares that I recalled, but my nerves sparked like that dancing wire. Rising anxiety over the first treatment didn’t help either. I woke the next morning to sun streaming through the skylight over my bed and the hefty weight of disappointment. Despite my consistent yearning to return to the Commonwealth, I hadn’t budged an inch or dreamt of Griffin once.

As I waited for Melanie, I scrutinized the painting. I had accomplished a lot with my burst of creativity the day before but had mixed emotions. The artist in me was thrilled. This composition had more energy than anything I’d ever done. The woman in me was unsettled. It was merely a static picture. I hadn’t brought my desires to life. The Commonwealth of the Rose remained frustratingly out of reach.

I flexed my fingers. The urge to paint came again, but the canvas was too big to lug to the hospital, plus I had to be flat on my back when they transfused the drug. On a whim, I tossed the old tablet with the Rose Stone drawings in my purse. It had plenty of empty pages. If I couldn’t paint, maybe I’d feel strong enough to draw.

Melanie was right on time. I took the cane with no argument, checked into the hospital, and was shown to a treatment room. While Melanie stayed outside to wait for Dr. Turner, I propped the cane against the wall and settled on the bed. I dug out the sketchpad and put it within arm’s reach on the nightstand next to me. In the hallway came the indistinct murmur of voices.

“I hear you and Dr. Turner,” I shouted. “No secrets behind the patient’s back. That’s rude.”

The door opened, and they entered. “It’s no secret,” huffed Melanie. “We were discussing the procedure and there’s obviously nothing wrong with your hearing.”

A nurse came in behind them. She pushed an IV stand attached to a tray with an assortment of small vials.

“Make yourself comfortable,” said Dr. Turner. “One of the side-effects is drowsiness, so don’t fight sleep. We’ll have you hooked to monitors, but the nurses and I will check on you frequently. How is your pain level?”

I shifted on the bed and winced. “Getting worse.”

He motioned to the tray. “I’ve added extra medications to control the pain and tremors.” The nurse attached me to several beeping machines. She inserted the IV, and I flinched at the momentary sting.

One by one, Dr. Turner injected the contents of the little vials into the IV. Within a few minutes, a slight burning sensation centered in my arm where the needle entered the vein. Warmth flowed from the injection point throughout my body, and I became lightheaded. The pain disappeared, and my cares drifted away. “Hey, this isn’t awful.” I yawned. “Don’t bother to stay, Mel. I’ll probably doze off.”

She patted my hand. “I’ll be back after work.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” said Dr. Turner. “I realize this is stressful, Jess, but try to relax,” he said kindly.

“How soon will you learn if it’s successful?”

“That’s the good part. Within forty-eight hours of the first treatment, we should see a change in the tumor’s size.”

Or nothing at all. I pushed the dismal thought aside. As Dr. Turner headed to the door, I mouthed to Melanie, “He likes you.” She rolled her eyes and followed him.

The nurse put the call button on the bed within easy reach of my hand. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “A cold drink, perhaps? Do you want the TV on?”

“No thanks, but you can hand me the sketchbook.”

She gave it to me and said, “I’ll check on you in a little bit, and so will Dr. Turner. If you need me in the meantime, push the button.”

The door shut behind her, and I was alone. I thumbed through the tablet and stopped at the final bizarre drawing. It still resembled nothing but silly scrawls across the page. I’d never been an abstract artist. What idea was supposed to be conveyed by those dots and whirls? With a sigh, I leaned back and shut my eyes. The sensation of warmth in my arm vanished. I floated, heart at ease, and then began to fall.

Down.

Down.

Down.

The window was shut, the single noise in the room was the soft rhythmic tone of a medical monitor. Beep-beep, beep-beep. My breathing unconsciously echoed the beat, in and out, in and out.

Beep-beep, beep-beep.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

I shifted in the bed. The abrupt change to rhythmic tapping became louder, drowning out the machine.

“Jess,” Griffin shouted with excitement. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you, Griffin,” I murmured sleepily. “Where are you? How do I find the way?”

“Follow the drum…” His voice faded to a whisper then disappeared.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

Louder and faster came the call, urging me on. “This way,” said Danya. “Hurry. The path is closing.”

My mind reached out to touch a gentle presence and then I chased it along a mystic trail. In the distance, a spark flared to sudden brilliance and sped toward me. It was fire, but also ice. It was merciless hate. The touch of death.

I taste the power of this world. When every path is marked, its spark is mine.

I latched onto the drumbeat, and it pulled me to safety. The spark flickered and faded into the darkness.