I HAD FALLEN asleep in the barn, exhausted from Vlad’s madness at Karen’s house. No dreams. Just sleep and then waking again, caught between darkness and shafts of light streaming through cracks in the barn walls.
Slowly, the events of the last couple days filtered into my awareness—the church bombings, DARPA’s wiping of my brain, my role as the 49th Mystic, Vlad and his Leedhan . . .
Were they real? How was that even possible? I blinked as the thought filled me with anxiety. Why was all of this happening to me? Who was I to be caught up in such a terrible state of things?
But I knew who I was. Vlad had told me. I was the one who couldn’t trust anyone. Including myself. Maybe least of all myself. I mean, I hardly had a brain! Well, I did, but it was floating away from me because I didn’t have anything to tie it to.
Steve. Steve was the only one I could trust. But Steve was out of ideas, assuming that he was still Steve.
I gasped and jerked up. How long had I been asleep? What if Vlad had . . .
My question stopped there, because there was a man in the barn, sitting on one of the hay bales, watching me.
For a long second we just stared at each other, he smiling, I panicking, because all I could think about was Vlad. And this Vlad didn’t have a shirt on. Or shoes. Only black pants, drenched, like his long hair.
“Good day, 49th. My name is Thomas Hunter.”
All I heard was hunter and I knew that he was Vlad. He’d found me again!
I bolted to my feet, only then remembering my speed. My instinct was to escape. Flushed with adrenaline, I embraced all of my fear and rage and flew at him, screaming.
He didn’t even have time to wipe the grin off his face before my fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him backward off the bale of hay.
I fled, streaking for the door, across the lawn, up to the house.
“Steve!”
In that panic, I didn’t care if Steve was really Steve or if Karen was really Karen, because I knew that Vlad was behind me and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
In my rush, I failed to turn the doorknob all the way, so when I crashed through the door, the frame splintered with a loud crack.
“Steve!”
He was jumping up from the couch, shotgun spilling to the floor. Karen sat on a stool at the breakfast bar, stunned by my entrance.
“He’s here!”
“Who’s here?” Steve started for the window, then thought better and jumped back for the shotgun. “Who, Vlad?”
“He’s here?” Karen cried, shoving off the stool. It clattered to the wood floor.
I bounded to the stairs and was halfway up before thinking that getting trapped upstairs might not be a good thing. So I whirled back. Steve was at the blinds, looking through the slats.
Then leaping for the door. Slamming it shut.
“That’s him?” The door bounced open, latch broken. He dropped the shotgun, grabbed a crate filled with firewood, and shoved it against the door. But that wasn’t going to hold anyone out.
“You’re sure that’s him?” he shouted.
Karen was at the window now, peering through the blinds. That was another thing—the window was broken. Keeping Vlad out wasn’t going to work. We had to either get out or use the shotgun.
“That’s not Vlad,” Karen rasped, stepping back. “Not Vlad, Vlad.”
But Vlad could be anyone. I vaulted the railing and landed on the floor like a cat. “We have to get to the car!”
“And go where?” Steve asked. “We can’t just run, they’ll find us!”
The clock on the wall read 9:37. I’d been asleep less than two hours.
“He isn’t wearing a shirt,” Karen said. “His hair’s wet. You sure he’s Vlad?”
“Who else would he be? Just keep the gun on the door. Go for his head, his eyes.”
Karen still wasn’t convinced. “Hold on . . .”
But then it didn’t matter because a fist was pounding on the door.
“Hello in there! There’s no need to be frightened.”
Steve backed up, shotgun raised. None of us spoke, we just stood there, rooted to the floor.
A hand suddenly tore down the blinds at the broken window. In the frame stood the bare-chested man, breathing hard. His green eyes glanced between us.
“What’s the meaning of this? I’m here for the 49th—to help her, not harm her, for the love of Elyon!”
“We can’t trust him,” I snapped, and I almost went after him again, because who else would know anything about the 49th except for Vlad?
Steve had the shotgun on him. “Don’t move.”
The man eyed the weapon and slowly lifted his hands chest high. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those. Please don’t use it.”
“Who are you?” Karen demanded.
His eyes settled on me, deep and piercing. “My name is Thomas Hunter, as I said. I’ve come with urgent news for Rachelle. That is you, isn’t it? The 49th Mystic from Other Earth?”
The roof ticked as it warmed under the sun.
“Thomas Hunter?” Karen said. “That’s not possible.” Spinning to Steve: “Shoot him!”
“Wait!” I was terrified, but I wondered if he could be telling the truth.
“It’s one of them!” Karen cried, stepping back. “Looking like . . . Thomas Hunter died two decades ago.”
“In this reality, yes,” the man claiming to be Thomas said, eyes still on me. “But not in my dream world, Other Earth, which is as real as this world. There, I’m the commander of the Circle. I was sent here by Talya, the man with the lion, and by Justin, who appointed the 49th to find the Five Seals of Truth before the Realm of Mystics is destroyed.”
It all sounded impossibly true to me. A fantasy I had once dreamed.
“Vlad could say those things,” Karen said.
“He could, but he isn’t. Thomas of Hunter is.” His voice was gentle now, unconcerned. “Look in my eyes and tell me, 49th: what is seeing beyond what you think should be?”
The voice I’d heard in my head. It was his? Heat gathered at the back of my neck.
“It’s the voice of truth, leading you to the Fourth Seal. Hear it and you will know that I’ve come to help, not harm. Please, I beg you. Listen to your heart.”
“Why are you wet?” Steve demanded. “What kind of pants are those?”
“I’ve emerged from a pool beyond the trees,” he said. “I’m not dreaming of this world, like I used to. I’ve come through the sea. But we’re running out of time. If you don’t find the last two seals in the next two days, the Realm will—”
“How can we know any of this is true?” Steve interrupted. “It’s crazy!”
“It doesn’t matter if you think it’s true. Only whether she does, and for her I have proof. If you just let me in, I’ll show her.”
“Show her now,” Karen snapped. “From there.”
He considered this briefly, then lifted one hand and squeezed some water from his wet hair into his palm. He held it out to me.
“Drink.”
I glanced at Steve, at a loss.
“It’s from the lake I just passed through. Drink it and you’ll know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Steve’s tone was as adamant as his words.
“For the love of Elyon, please. How can I point the way to the Fourth Seal if you stand here questioning my identity? We don’t have time for this!”
“What will happen if I drink it?”
“You’ll know.”
“Know that I’m not a Leedhan, who are incapable of love. Know that I speak only truth. Know the meaning of the seals now on your arm.”
“Water can’t—”
“These waters can!” Thomas interrupted. “She was poisoned with Leedhan blood. It was used with your mechanisms to erase her memories. This water will return her memories. Drink!”
I stepped forward slowly, drawn by his promise. The heat in my neck was spreading down my back.
“This is a mistake!” Karen said. “All of it. None of this was supposed to happen! I have to reach the president!”
“Shut up,” Steve shot back. To me: “Just hold on, Rachelle. I’m not sure about this.”
I ignored him, eyes on Thomas. Steve had convinced me I’d tapped into a different consciousness found in my dreams. That’s why I could do the things I could. If what Thomas said was true, he knew all about that higher consciousness, or whatever it was. If not . . .
What did I have to lose? My mind? I’d already lost it.
Steve made no attempt to stop me as I stepped up to the shattered window and held out my hands. I could smell the scent of fresh flowers on Thomas. His jaw was smooth and his chest was scarred. A strong chest with bronzed skin.
The mad idea that he was a man from the same world I’d visited in my dreams felt nearly irresistible. Maybe because it was true.
He poured hardly more than a splash of water into my hands, then put his much larger hands under mine and looked into my eyes.
“Know this, daughter of Elyon.” Tenderly, like a father. “The Leedhan doesn’t know I’ve come. In taking your mind, he’s unwittingly made you like a child, which is a gift. Use your innocence for truth now. Believe. Drink the water and know that in this realm, the lake is inside of you.”
Then he lifted my hands to my mouth.
I set my lips into my palms, tilted my head back, and let the water flow into my mouth, then down my throat.
The moment the liquid hit my stomach, heat flashed through my hips, gathered at my back, and rose like a ball of fire up my spine. It happened in the space of a single breath, and when the heat reached my mind, it detonated in a light that blinded me to this world and opened me to another.
My head jerked back and I gasped, overwhelmed by the intensity of it. Of love. Of truth. Of knowing.
Steve was yelling something, but he was distant to me. Karen’s shrill voice sounded like a cricket at the far edges of my consciousness. I was at the center, watching streams of truth flooding into my awareness.
And I knew . . .
I knew I was tapped into the higher consciousness that Steve had tried to explain to me. Only it wasn’t what he thought, because it was a consciousness that couldn’t be described in words.
My whole body was shaking, I could feel that, but I was strangely disconnected from it. It was almost as if I was filling my mind. My eternal self, unbound by space and time. My body was only an earthen vessel and I was using it to experience myself in this world. Until now, that earthen vessel had somehow taken me over.
My earthen vessel self only knew up and down, plus and minus, and all things as polarity, but my eternal self knew an infinite reality, beyond the knowledge of good and evil. And in that infinite space, I knew once again the full meaning of the three seals on my shoulder.
The First Seal, the outer band, was white. White: Origin is Infinite. God is infinite light.
The Second Seal was a green band of light. Green: I am the Light of the World. Inchristi is me and in me.
The Third Seal was the way. Black: Seeing the Light in Darkness is my Journey.
All of this I knew instantly, and it shook me to the core. But there was more, because I also remembered everything I’d forgotten about my dreams in both worlds—everything surrounding my quest for the five seals, both in Project Eden and in Other Earth. All of it, including meeting the boy before Thomas vanished into the clear green sea to find me.
I knew it all, and then the light collapsed back in on itself and was gone.
The room had gone silent. I opened my eyes and looked around, breathing hard, still shaking. Steve was by the door, staring. Karen was at the breakfast bar, crying silently into her hands. Thomas stood by the fireplace, watching me with a smile.
How much time had passed?
“What happened?” Steve managed.
I turned my head. “I’m . . . I’m in love,” I said.
His stare was blank.
To Thomas: “With Jacob. He’s Albino.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Samuel’s in trouble.”
“Yes, he is.”
When the student is ready, the teaching will appear. I was ready. I was very ready.
“I’m going to find the Fourth Seal.”
“Yes, you are.”
The voice filled my mind as it had so many times, tender and loving.
What is seeing beyond what you think should be, precious daughter?
But I knew! Talya had told me. Little Maya had told me. I had known about this truth for a long time and known it in the storm with Talya. And now I knew it here, in this reality, where the Fourth Seal could be found.
There was only one way to see the kingdom.
I turned to Steve. “At DARPA I saw words etched into the wall. A riddle.”
“You . . . How can you . . . You’re remembering?”
“What were they?”
He hesitated. “What is seeing . . . something about beyond.”
“What is seeing beyond what you think should be?” I said.
He nodded. Glanced at Thomas.
But my eyes were on the door beside Steve. Because the words were there now, burned into the wood. And as I watched, a band of light emerged from the wood, forming a two-foot white circle around the words.
“Like that,” I breathed, staring.
Steve followed my eyes, saw the markings, and stumbled backward.
I stepped forward as a green band emerged from the wood.
“How . . .” Behind me, Karen was seeing what we were seeing.
The center of the seal filled in with black as I walked toward the door on feet as light as feathers. The first three seals. White. Green. Black.
And below the seals, the finger pointing the way to the Fourth Seal. What is seeing beyond what you think should be?
I stopped eighteen inches from the door.
“What we think should be is what the flesh self thinks should be,” I said, voice thin. “Gravity should draw down. Water should not support your weight. You should be in fashion. The world should be nice to you. The flesh holds judgment and grievance against whatever isn’t what it thinks should be.”
I pulled up my right sleeve so they could all see, lifted my arm, and slowly extended my hand toward the door. As I did, a red cross filled the black center. But of course, I thought. Of course!
“Our journey in this life is to see light in the darkness. The only way to see beyond what the flesh self thinks should be is to surrender. Surrender everything that blocks sight of the light. All judgment, all grievance, all blaming of wrong. Deny that self. Let go of all attachments in this life. Be in the world but not of it.”
I knew what was coming next, and my anticipation of the Fourth Seal robbed me of breath.
“Red: Surrender is the Means to Seeing the Light,” I whispered, and pressed my palm against the center of the cross.
For a moment, nothing. Then it came, radiant and hot as if lit by a thousand volts. A red glow filled the room. The energy surged up my arm, burned hot on my right shoulder, then winked out, leaving me trembling where I stood.
I slowly twisted my head and stared at my shoulder. There, at the center of the black core encircled by green and white bands, shone a red cross, reaching into my flesh.
I had the Fourth Seal, and it was surrender.
FOR AN HOUR Steve and Karen paced and questioned and stared and touched my shoulder, just to be sure what they’d seen was real. Steve was like a child in his excitement, Karen the stubborn doubter, questioning everything that had happened in a desperate attempt to cling to what she thought she knew about the world.
I didn’t speak much and answered their questions more with silence than with thoughtful insight. Although I did tell Steve that he was right about belief and consciousness. In Other Earth it was called binding. What you bind in heaven is bound on Earth. What you bind through faith in a higher plane manifests on Earth.
But my mind was more on the path before me, both in this world and in Other Earth. Talya had said the Fourth Seal would show me my path. I was sure that the me there now had the Fourth Seal as well and would find her way, though I would remain unaware of what she was facing until I fell asleep and dreamed.
And I would dream again, Thomas said. The dreams wouldn’t work in a linear way as they had before, but I would dream and know what the other me was doing, both ways.
So I set my mind on my path in this world.
My whole demeanor had shifted. It was as though in the space of twenty minutes I had grown up ten years, Steve said. But none of that mattered to me because my mind was fixed on my quest.
I would undoubtedly need that focus. All of it.
Vlad was no fool.
Thomas had found a blue shirt and some hiking boots that fit him well enough. He wouldn’t consider changing his pants—his would dry out just fine, as would his hair, which was tangled, befitting a warrior from Other Earth, I thought.
I spent more than half of the first hour outside with him while Steve and Karen argued over a course of action. We were the same, he and I. Two dreamers who’d changed the world in one way or another.
We talked about Samuel. An impulsive but passionate son who brought a smile to both of our faces.
We talked about Jacob’s drowning near the Realm of Mystics, and how he’d missed such simple truth for so long.
I’d lost a father in David but found one in Thomas. He, far more than Steve, was my mentor now. And I his.
Strangely, I already knew what we would do next. It was obvious to me and I knew we had to move quickly. But I let Steve and Karen talk as I acclimated to my new way of being. And to Thomas, whom I adored.
“It’s time,” I finally said, seated next to Thomas on the porch seat.
He nodded and stood. “Yes. It is.”
He opened the door for me and I stepped in. Steve and Karen dropped their discussion and turned from the center of the room.
“Karen, you said the next bombing will happen this afternoon?”
She gave a little nod.
“You should call the president now and tell him to call it off. Everything, including StetNox.”
“You don’t understand. Vlad—”
“Vlad will do what Vlad will do, and both you and Calvin Johnson will deal with the consequences of your actions as the world sees fit when I’m finished doing what I need to do.”
She blinked. “What are you going to do?”
“Find the Fifth Seal.”
She stared at me dumbly.
“I’d like to meet with the president,” I said. “You can arrange it, right?”
“Half the world is looking for you! He’ll never put himself in a compromising position. Meeting with you would incriminate him.”
“I think he’ll agree to meet.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you’re going to tell him that Thomas Hunter is risen from the dead and will talk to the media if he doesn’t.”