Author's Note: And I'm on a roll again!! Woot! Okay, this whole next chapter is a huge dream sequence. It's a little confusing (at least parts of it are) but I'm also introducing a new original character, whom I think you're gonna love.
One more time: Please, please, please let me know if you want email updates. They are absolutely no trouble at all. They make me happy – really. I feel useless if I don't do them. Well. . . Okay, maybe not entirely useless, but I'd sure feel better about this if I had someone to send them to. (I just sent out a mass email to everyone on my mailing list and got no replies whatsoever – I need new addresses!)
Okay, here goes:
The first thing I saw was darkness. Perfect, black darkness – I kept blinking to make sure my eyes were open. Everything felt fuzzy; it wasn't quite real. I knew it was cold, but I couldn't really feel the cold, and I didn't know where it was coming from. I stretched my hands out beside me, and felt moisture. Again, I didn't know exactly where I was or what my surroundings were, but it was cold and wet and dark. I just knew it instinctively. Just at the edge of my consciousness were little voices, whispering from someplace far, far away, but getting closer all the time. I craned my neck upward; a sliver of something was cracking through the gloom. My eyes strained, but the harder I stared at it the harder it became to see. It was very high up – I could see that. Something frail and indistinct was glimmering at the edge of the darkness, and all the time the voices came closer. They were young voices, and as I listened I realized that there were four of them – two girls and two boys. One in particular seemed strangely familiar; even the words, although I couldn't hear them, seemed as if I had heard them somewhere before. I moved my hands along the sides of my strange little prison, and felt slime. There was something hard, and wet, and slimy surrounding me. Not touching me, but hovering very close. I ran my fingers along the grime-covered surfaces, keeping my eyes fixed on the fluctuating glimmer high above me. It was getting brighter.
Suddenly there was another sound behind the whispers. It seemed to come from someplace even farther off than the voices themselves: a deep, heavy thumping sound like the beating of an enormous drum. The whispers grew sharper, more insistent, and I realized they were calling my name over and over: Esther! Esther! They were shouting, but I could only just hear them, and with the shouts the thudding of the giant drum got faster and faster. The bright spot in the dark above me was beginning to take shape: a shivery white crescent appeared, expanding as it brightened. The drumming got louder, the vibrations hammering through my bones, and the voices became more and more restless. The white crescent shape widened and connected; it was no longer a crescent, but a jagged white ring. I opened my mouth to scream and felt myself fall back – but I hit the cold, curved walls of the well. The drumming was now so rapid it seemed as if the Ring above me was shaking from the vibrations. And then I realized it wasn't just one drum, but four – four drums, and four voices.
In a flash, I saw a number in my mind's eye: 10. It's ten o' clock, said a little voice. But not one of the four voices – this was somebody else. I realized who it was half a second too late: the thundering drums rattled like an earthquake, the four voices melded into one horrific scream, and the Ring rushed down towards me as I felt myself propelled upwards by some incredible, malicious force. I heard one voice separate itself out of the giant scream, and then Katie's terror-stricken face was right in front of me, her mouth still gaping open as the horrible sound rang out of her.
I shot straight up, my eyes wide open. As my breathing slowly returned to normal, I realized what had just happened. I should have known right from the beginning that it was only a dream, but it had felt so real. But then I wondered if, at this point, any of the visions I kept having were really "just dreams." I knew who the voices were now: Katie and her friends, the ones who had watched the tape. And the drumming noises had been the beating of their hearts as they felt the last hour of the seventh day coming closer. The other voice, of course, was Samara's. I knew it only too well. I wondered how the others had known my name. I hadn't spoken to anyone but Becca, and even in that case I had never told her who I was. I brought a hand up to my forehead to move my hair out of my face. I took a deep, steadying breath.
My eyes suddenly slid into sharp focus; something wasn't right here. I had had my eyes open before, but I hadn't been paying attention. I saw enough to figure out that I wasn't in the well anymore, and that had been enough. But I wasn't back in my bed yet – I was outside somewhere. The air smelled sweet and warm, and for a short, hopeful moment I thought I had returned to Middle Earth again. But no; this place was different. I was surrounded by honey-colored grass so tall I couldn't see over it. I got uneasily to my feet and found myself on a dusty dirt path. I could see the top of the wheat-grass, but it was still well over my line of vision. It was every bit as baffling as the first vision – maybe even more so, because here I didn't have that sense of lingering evil about to strike the way I always did with Samara's visions. I had absolutely no clue where I was. But, since I didn't feel any danger, I decided I might as well just follow the path and see where it led.
I kept my eyes on the dirt road, watching my bare feet kick up bits of light brownish dust along the way. This place felt familiar somehow. I walked quickly, as if I'd done it a thousand times before, and as I kept moving I found that I knew every little curve in the road instinctively. It was a bit alarming, but exciting too, as if I'd tapped into some distant part of myself that I'd completely forgotten. Eventually I reached a small clearing, an empty space where the path widened into a little circle just large enough for a gathering. The wheat grass grew tall over it, sheltering the clearing like a natural half-dome and filtering the sunlight so that the air in front of me looked like translucent gold. And there was someone there.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of a clearing was a boy with honey-brown skin and dark hair that fell past his shoulders. The outlines of his body seemed to shimmer, as if he was made up of nothing but air, and his eyes glittered like black diamonds. He smiled up at me, and I realized he seemed familiar too. I smiled back.
"I knew you'd find your way back," he said quietly.
His voice was odd; it was darkly majestic like the distant hooting of an owl, but it also seemed very, very young. He rose to his feet.
"Who are you?" I asked, "And where are we?"
He laughed.
"You don't remember me yet?" he asked, "That's okay – you will."
I cautiously stepped inside the clearing. I still didn't understand who this boy was, but I felt compelled to trust him.
"This is a safe place," he told me, "Nobody can touch you here."
As I moved closer, I realized he wasn't really a boy. Not in the sense that he was really young, anyway: his shoulders and chest were lean and muscular, like those of man who had been trained in hard combat for several years at least. His features were indistinct, like the borders of his body, but every line in his face seemed permanent, as if they had been carved there since the beginning of time. Etched over his heart was a strange scar that looked as if it had been branded into his skin: it was an image of the sun.
"I'm sorry," I said, "But I don't know you. Please, I have to be able to call you something."
"Still stubborn," he said, shaking his head fondly, "Even after all this time. But you can call me Fire-Wing."
"How old are you?"
"Just as old as you."
I glanced downward and noticed an amulet that hung from a black cord around his neck: it was a long, curved claw at least an inch thick at the base, but what sort of animal it could have come from was a mystery to me.
"What's this?" I asked, reaching out to pick it up.
I turned the claw over in my hand, running my fingers over the incredibly smooth material. Later I realized how rude it had been of me to just reach out and grab it like that, but he didn't he seem to mind.
"A dragon claw," he said, "You'll remember it too, eventually.
"Esther," he said, his tone shifting towards the serious, "I have to show you something."
He took my hand and led me away from the clearing, back into the folds of the wheat-grass and down another dirt path. He moved so fast, but I never saw his feet touch the ground; he just flew through the grass, with me close behind him, as if both of us had suddenly grown wings at the backs of our heels. Warm wind rushed past me, whistling in my ears and combing through my hair. I wanted to laugh it was so exhilarating, but all too quickly we stopped. We were at the edge of the grass field. Fire-Wing crouched beside me, his hand on my shoulder, and pointed to a gap between the grasses. I moved closer to the space and saw that we were on the edge of a drop-off at least a thousand feet high. Deep in the darkness below us, just beyond the rocky bottom of the cliff, was a grey, empty place. My head reeled with vertigo.
"It's all right," Fire-Wing assured me, "We're safe here. Can you see them?"
I braced myself, and looked further. The distance between our spot and the empty place hadn't lessened, but I could see everything perfectly as if I had eyes like an eagle. And then I saw them: swirling columns of dark mist, passing each other slowly, never touching, were moving aimlessly across the grey plains. Every now and then one of the mists would stop and begin to take shape, and once I almost saw a face inside it, but then the mist swirled up and continued moving, slowly and steadily as an oncoming storm.
"What are they?" I asked.
"Lost souls," said Fire-Wing, "That is a dead world. This isn't what's supposed to happen."
"You mean they're trapped there?"
"Yes. They all died before their time, and now they've become lost."
It was starting to dawn on me just why I was supposed to see this.
"I have to help them, don't I?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.
"Is it really so bad?" said Fire-Wing, his tone playfully scolding, "You've already made up your mind to help Becca. This is no different."
I laughed shortly.
"Yes, it is," I argued, turning away from the gap in the grass, "I've seen Becca already. I sort of know where to find her. With this, I don't even know where to start."
He nodded, then rose from the spot. He began walking back the way we had come. I got up quickly and followed him. His outlines glimmered so much he was almost difficult to see; I didn't want to lose him.
"Of course you don't," he said softly, "How could you? No one has ever done this before."
"You know something about all this, don't you?" I asked, running to catch up with him, "Why don't you just tell me? What is it I'm supposed to do?"
He stopped and turned to face me. His expression was flat – impossible to read – but something like amusement was apparent behind his eyes.
"What is it you wish to know?" he asked simply.
I hesitated. He wasn't coming right out and saying it of course, but I knew what he meant: whatever I was supposed to do in that dark plain, it was too complicated to just tell me all of it just like that. Also I had a feeling that I would need to figure out most of it on my own. But that just made me angry. I must have ended up in this place for a reason – he couldn't just drag me to that dark place and tell me I needed to fix it without telling me how. That wasn't fair.
"Well, who are those people?" I demanded, "And how did they get down there? Is it everyone who ever dies before their time, or just certain ones? What's the difference?"
He laughed.
"I thought you were sharper than that, Little Star," he chided.
"What?"
"Just think. What did you see just before you found this place?"
"I saw. . . I had a vision. I was in the well, and then I could hear Katie and the others calling out to me. I saw the Ring, and then I heard them screaming, and then I saw her face, and . . ."
Fire-Wing smiled.
"And then you were here," he finished for me.
"But you knew," I said, "How did you know what I saw?"
"I've always seen what you see," he replied matter-of-factly.
I shook my head in amazement; it was too much for me, at least for the time being. I tried to focus on what he'd told me: the dead place was related to my vision somehow. But what did that mean? At first I just puzzled over it hopelessly, but when the answer came to me it was so obvious I was thoroughly ashamed of myself for not recognizing it sooner: the lost souls, the columns of mist drifting through the dead world, were the souls of the people Samara had killed. They were all trapped because they had died of a supernatural cause, and all before their time. I still didn't know how that was supposed to help me, but it gave me a starting point.
I looked up at Fire-Wing, and I could see by the satisfaction in his eyes that he knew I had figured it out. I laughed sheepishly.
"I don't know why I couldn't see it," I said apologetically.
"It's all right," he assured me, "Time doesn't pass here. You can take as long as you need."
I smiled.
"Okay."
I took a deep breath.
"I think I know what I need to do first now. Will I be able to come back here once I leave?"
"Now that you've found this place again, I have no doubt of it."
"Good. Um. . . Why did you call me 'Little Star' just then?"
"That's your name, Esther."
I didn't know what to make of that, but I decided it wasn't important. I had an idea. And with that, I woke up.