Toby was reeling her in, and things seemed to be going okay, until he realized something was wrong.
Sally was coming in fast—too fast. Part of it was the strength of Toby’s own telekinetic pull, and part of it was Sally’s own frantic efforts to return to her body. But there was something else.
When he first reached Sally in the darkness of the lake—the abyss—he had felt another force pulling her deeper into the depths. Whatever it was, it was much stronger than he was, but with Sally’s help he had been able to gradually draw her toward him. It was a slow, arduous process, with Toby constantly worried that the force on the other end would dig in its psychic heels and pull her all the way back.
That hadn’t happened.
There had been some resistance at first, a few sharp tugs on the astral tether, then nothing. Now he couldn’t feel the other force at all, and it worried him.
He told himself it didn’t matter. Sally was almost back. He could see her coming, her spectral form shooting toward him like a circus performer fired out of a cannon. He glanced over at Charles, and saw that he was standing almost directly behind Sally’s motionless body.
“Out of the way, Chuck!” Toby shouted. “Incoming!”
Charles frowned in confusion, then realized at the last second what was about to happen, and leaped out of the way.
Sally’s astral body connected with the flesh, blood, and bone she normally called home with all the force of a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball socking into a catcher’s mitt.
This time she didn’t just stumble a few steps. She was knocked off her feet and went flying backward like she’d been hit by an invisible battering ram. She landed on her rump and slid across the dusty concrete floor.
Toby and Charles rushed over, but she batted away their helping hands and their questions of concern.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I think it was sleeping and I woke it up. It was so dark in there I couldn’t see a thing, not even with my…” She tried to indicate her astral eyes. “I started to panic and I screamed.” She grabbed Charles by the arm. “I woke it up.”
“It’s okay,” Charles assured her. “You’re back and it’s gone. We’ll return another day and…”
“It’s not gone,” Sally said.
Toby snapped his head around and looked at the dark water in the middle channel. He suddenly understood why he hadn’t felt any resistance on the other end of the tether.
“It’s coming.”