Linda looked around at the field of white mist, the starry sky. “I’m back,” she whispered. She looked down and saw the silver cord trailing from her navel. Then she raised her eyes. The open, shining gates stood ahead of her, with the Guardian in front of them, bent and cloaked, leaning on his cane. He watched the long parade of misty, human shapes walk through the doorway and dissolve into the light.
He raised his head, and Linda felt his gaze on her. “You again? What do you want, now?”
“I don’t even know how I got here.”
“Are you really so ignorant of your own power? You are among the scarce handful of humans who can enter this realm, and you’re telling me you did it unconsciously?”
“I… I don’t know.” She remembered Gregory telling her she was a seer. She hadn’t believed him. What if she really did have some power? “I guess I must have.”
“Never mind,” said the Guardian. “If there’s nothing you want, then go away. If there is something you want, let’s hear it.”
“I want Gregory to be alive again.”
He sighed. “This again? I already told you, there’s only one way to do that. If you truly want to save him, then trade places with him.”
“But then…” She swallowed, hard. “Then I’ll be trapped forever as a spirit. It’s a fate worse than death, isn’t it?”
“Some think so.”
“Is it really the only way?”
“Yes. As I’ve said.” The Guardian’s voice was flat, cold, empty of pity. “Are you really considering it?”
She lowered her eyes. She was trembling. “If I don’t do it, then no one will. I’m the only hope he has. Who knows if he’ll ever find another person he can communicate with. If I don’t help him…” Tears welled in her eyes.
“You barely know him,” said the Guardian, “and yet, you are willing to give up everything for him? You would sacrifice your own life to save a man damned by his own arrogance? What makes you think he even deserves to be saved?”
She raised her eyes and glared through her tears at the Guardian. “Everyone deserves a second chance. What’s the point of a punishment that drags on for all eternity? When he’s inside my mind, I feel his pain, and it’s terrible. He’s the loneliest person I’ve ever met. To be so alone, so cut off from everything that makes life worth living… I can’t imagine living with that sort of pain for a day, let alone five hundred years. Whatever sort of man he used to be, he’s a good person now, a kind person. He’d do the same for me, I know it.”
“If he’s really such a good man, he wouldn’t ask you to do this for him.”
“He didn’t. I want to do this for him.”
A few dead souls had stopped and were staring at her. “Move along!” snapped the Guardian. He waved them through the gates, then turned to face Linda again. “If you’re serious about this, then simply return to Earth and speak the words, ‘I offer myself for you, Gregory,’ and the transition will happen.”
“Really? That’s all?”
“You must mean it with all your heart… so if you’re going to do it, do it soon. If you wait, doubt will creep into your heart. Fear will hold you back, and your window of opportunity will vanish. Do you still wish to trade places with him?”
Linda pressed a hand to her chest. Even outside her body, she was still connected to it. She could feel her heart beating, felt the warmth of blood in her veins, the air in her lungs, a thousand little sensations that she’d always taken for granted, because they were so constant… but how she’d miss them, if they were gone! She thought about the satisfaction of sinking into a hot bath, or nestling beneath cool sheets in the summer. She thought about the joy of warm sun on her face and wind in her hair, the smell of cinnamon or her mom’s chocolate chip cookies, the taste of coffee, the comfort of a friend’s hug. She thought about never experiencing any of those things again, being trapped forever in a bodiless existence, watching life as if it were a movie, unable to participate, left only with the bittersweet memory of all she had lost. She thought about Gregory, who had lived like that for a time beyond the scope of her imagination. “Yes,” she said, her voice choked.
“You surprise me,” said the Guardian. “May I ask why?”
She wet her lips. “Because otherwise I would never be able to face myself. I would be aware every moment that he was suffering and that I could have stopped it, if I chose, but I chose not to. And because I love him.” She spoke the words without thinking, but as soon as she said them, she knew they were true. She hadn’t known Gregory very long, but in that short time they had shared an intimacy that went beyond the flesh. She had never felt so strongly about another person.
“I see,” said the Guardian. His voice was flat, unreadable. “Very well, then. You have made your choice.”
The stars faded, the gates faded, and she spun away into blackness.
Gregory was still inside Linda’s mind when she drifted off to sleep. He saw dreams, disjointed, vague images and feelings. Then he felt her slip away. Puzzled, he moved out of her body and looked down at her sleeping face.
She was still dreaming. There was a tiny furrow between her brows, and her large eyes moved restlessly beneath the lids. But at the same time, she was suddenly far away. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said her soul had left her body, but of course that was impossible. Wasn’t it?
No, he thought. Not impossible. When he’d first studied magic, so many centuries ago, Gregory had visited shamans and Tibetan monks who could command their souls to leave their bodies for short periods of time… but it took years, sometimes decades, of intensive study and discipline. He himself had trained night and day for five years before mastering the technique. Linda had never studied anything of the sort, he was sure. Could it be that somehow, she’d done through instinct what countless others had spent their lives trying to learn? Was she really that strong?
His essence flowed back into her. Her mind was dark, empty. It was like standing in a tomb. He searched for her soul, the spark of her consciousness, but could not find it. Then, slowly, he felt her thoughts stirring to life around him -- felt them swirling around him like currents, like a thousand tiny feathers tickling and brushing his soul. As she woke, her consciousness sharpened and brightened into a single point, and her eyes opened.
Her heart was beating quickly.
“Linda,” he said, “are you all right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” she said, but he could feel a strange mixture of emotions within her -- fear, compassion, and a strange, resigned sadness. It was the last that worried him the most.
“For a moment, I was afraid I had lost you.”
“What do you mean? I was just asleep.”
“You were more than simply asleep. Your soul had fled your body.”
“It had?”
“Yes. Where did you learn how to do that? To send your soul out and call it back?”
“I never learned. Are you sure?”
“I am sure. Where did you go? What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Tell me the truth.”
She sat up. Her normally active mind had fallen strangely silent, as though she were suppressing her thoughts, deliberately keeping her brain clear and empty. “Gregory,” she said at last, very quietly, “you’ve been a prisoner in this half-life for so long. It isn’t fair. I… there’s a way I can help you, but…”
A chill gripped his heart. He could feel the fear in her heart, but he couldn’t understand it. “What are you talking about? Tell me. Now.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked, and one spilled down her cheek. “I offer myself for you, Gregory,” she said.
A tingling heat swept through Gregory’s being. He gasped. Something inside him lurched once, twice. His heart? He raised his hands to his face and curled his fingers. He felt them move, felt muscle and bone… and for the first time in centuries, his heart pounded. He looked at Linda and saw her fading away, fading to nothing. “No!” he screamed, his voice raw with terror. “Dear God, no!”
Linda smiled sadly as she disappeared.