The Space Beyond (The Book of Phoenix) (5 page)

“Make the ears and nose pointier. We looked kind of like elves then. And we had no eyebrows or eyelashes, remember?”

By the time we were done, the sun was setting and we had several drawings of Nathayden in his various forms. We assumed they represented his lifetimes before he and Rebethannah had become One, most spent here on Earth, but some not. They were all vaguely familiar, except the last one. If only we could remember all of these lives, and the hundreds or thousands of others we’d lived, in the same detail as the memory of our Separation. Maybe Mira was right—painful memories, unfortunately, had a way of bubbling up on their own no matter how hard we tried to suppress them.

“Now what?” I asked when Jeric finally dropped the pencil and shook out his hand.

“No idea. I just had the urge to draw these, like if I didn’t, he’d disappear completely from my memory.”

I nodded with total understanding. Now that we’d experienced that deluge of memories, I felt like many of them were already slipping away. More specifically, those that included Nathayden … which were most of them.

“What about Rebethannah?” I asked. “Should we draw her?”

Jeric stared at the Book for a long moment, then dropped it and practically jumped to his feet as though it had sprouted legs and teeth.

He rolled his neck and shoulders, as though to play it off, then rubbed his stomach. “Not right now. I’m not feeling it like I did with him. And if I don’t eat something soon, my stomach will devour itself.”

As if in answer, my own stomach growled with hunger. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Although a former hotel, the manor didn’t offer room service unless you were sick or injured and confined to bed by order of the healers, so we had no choice but to freshen up and head down to the dining room, where we found Brock and Asia taking their seats. After filling our plates at the buffet, we sat down with them and told them everything we remembered.

“Wow. You’re one of Theo’s cases of gradually then suddenly,” Asia said. “I can’t believe you remembered
all
of that at once.”

“Well, not everything. Not by a long shot. There were tons more holes left open than filled,” I said. “It was like what Melinda and Uri and the Guides said, though. Both of you were in all of these memories, always in our lives. So were Nathayden and Rebethannah. We remember them pretty clearly. At least, we remember the connection we had with them.”

Although now that we were in the present, I didn’t feel it as strongly, especially the link to Betsy. The gut feeling was fading with the memories.

“Shit. I wish we could remember more,” Brock said before taking a bite of his hamburger.

“Music,” Jeric suggested. “That’s what worked for us, anyway. Leni put on some old jazz and big band from the roaring twenties, and it took us back.”

“We tried that,” Brock said. “Didn’t work.”

“Actually,” Asia corrected, “we only listened to Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole. Maybe we should try something older.”

“Hmm …” Brock seemed to consider this. “You’re right. You’re so damn smart.”

He leaned in for a kiss, but Asia shouldered him away.

“I’m eating, dork,” she said around a mouthful of food.

If that had been Jeric, I would have taken the kiss anyway, at least on the cheek. Asia and Brock seemed to have a different relationship from ours, though. Although they tended to joke around a lot, I thought they did it to hide a lot of hurt. I sensed pain—recent pain—in them that they didn’t share with the rest of the world. I wondered if that had anything to do with what had Asia on edge a couple of weeks ago when I had tried to talk to her in the corridor. She’d started to mention something with her and Brock, but had clammed up right away. Maybe some day she’d come to trust me enough to share, but until then, it wasn’t my place to pry.

I pushed my food around on my plate, tracing the image of a phoenix on the dish with a strand of spaghetti, while gnawing on my lip as I considered something.

“I have another idea,” I finally said. “Jeric and I have this old journal that our Guides left for us to help us remember.”

“The Book of Phoenix?” Asia interrupted. “We found it, too. It helped us come here and to the Gate.”

Jeric looked at me sideways. We hadn’t known this.

“Was your last life written in it?” Jeric asked.

“No,” Brock said. “Nothing to tell from ours. But yours was.”

“You read Jacey’s journal?” I asked, and although I usually had a hard time thinking of her as actually me, this made me squirm. There were some pretty private moments detailed in the entries.

“Sorry,” Asia said, catching on to my discomfort, “but we had to. It saved us. Our souls.”

I grabbed my glass and took a drink of water, washing away the weird embarrassment.

“So anyway,” I said, pushing on, “Theo said something about how Jacquelena had owned the Book in the past, before Jacey. I thought maybe it’s something where we’ve left clues for ourselves, like they’d mentioned that day when they told us about the Sacred Seven.”

“Oh,” Asia crooned. “I like this idea. Did you find anything?”

I frowned. “Well, no. I was hoping maybe if you guys looked at it, you’d remember something from the past. Maybe figure out any clues.”

“We know that thing by heart,” Brock said. “Studied it inside and out until Theo said he needed it back for you guys. If there was anything, I’m sure we would have noticed.”

“We’ve added some things,” Jeric said. “Some drawings of Nathayden and other stuff. Maybe those will at least help you remember something.”

“You should borrow it for the night and see if it helps,” I suggested.

After we finished eating, they followed us to our room and took the Book back to their own room. The next day, they came back with a few of their own memories.

“Just more flashes, mostly,” Asia said as we ate breakfast at the same table where we’d eaten dinner last night, in the same seats. “But we do remember more about Nathayden and Rebethannah now. Nathayden, especially. I mean, we remember her there all the time, too, but not as clearly. You know what I mean?”

I kind of did, but it had been the opposite for me. I’d remembered her more clearly than him.

“Do you remember when we were all Separated by Enyxa?” I asked, lowering my voice because it was such a sad memory. “Do you remember what happened to them?”

Brock and Asia looked at each other, communicating silently.

“Not really,” Brock finally said. “We remember trying to get our Separated souls to the Space Between together so we wouldn’t permanently lose each other.”

“I vaguely remember seeing Enyxa attack us,” Asia said. “You first, then us, then she went after … ugh, I can’t remember their name when they were One, but the body Nathayden and Rebethannah were in.”

“And the agony. I remember that clearly,” Brock muttered.

“You didn’t see what Enyxa did with them?” Jeric asked, and he told him what we remembered of Enyxa carrying Nathayden off and Rebethannah chasing after them. Neither Brock nor Asia remembered that part, so they didn’t know what happened to the two halves either.

“They haven’t been here on Earth, so nobody’s heard word of them since,” I added when he was done.

“Maybe they were able to escape and get to the Space Between,” Asia suggested.

“Yeah. They’re strong. Surely they made it,” Brock said. “They’re probably together and chose to go somewhere different than Earth. Somewhere safer. Hell, maybe they got lucky, and they’re still on their first cycle since the Separation.”

Nice thought, but I highly doubted the idea. Guardians didn’t have easy lives, even on the quieter worlds. We didn’t live to old age unless we became Guides, and that was a decision we had to make in the Space Between, right after our last life ended and before our next life began. In other words, at a time when you’re wanting another chance to beat Enyxa and her Lakari. Guardians, especially at our level, rarely made that kind of decision.

I didn’t think Nathayden and Rebethannah would give up their roles as warriors. However, from what I understood from the Keeper, time passed differently in the Space Between than it did on physical worlds. So perhaps time passed differently between worlds. I wanted to believe those souls who had always been closest to us were in a good place. A better place than Earth. And that they were together and able to enjoy life. I liked Brock’s theory for that reason.

When Jeric and I were in our room later that night, though, all hopes for that were dashed. I crawled into bed and set the Book of Phoenix on my lap to study it once again. It fell open to the last drawing Jeric had done of Nathayden. And scrawled onto the opposite page in a barely legible hand that neither of us recognized were two words:

Save Rebethannah
.

Chapter 5

“I called Brock and Asia,” Leni said in the morning, and I scowled although she couldn’t see me as I stood under the shower. She was somewhere on the other side of the curtain since I couldn’t talk her into joining me. She’d already been in and out before I’d even awoken. Talking through any kind of barrier, even as thin as the plastic sheet between us now, usually felt surreal, but at the moment, I felt a hair of nostalgia for when I could take a shower in peace. “We have to figure out what to do, Jeric.”

She must have sensed my displeasure. Wouldn’t have been hard—we’d already talked the subject to death last night after finding the mysterious message in the Book. The damn thing freaked me out. It wasn’t the first time random messages had appeared. The words “You know the rest. Remember.” were still imprinted several pages back, trying to get Leni to remember that she was Jacey and I was Micah, but that didn’t mean I jumped with joy over this time. Funny how the logical part of me knew I
should
believe the magical note, because when I hadn’t believed any of this before, Leni and I had almost been killed. I’d promised to be more open-minded about things, and I’d accepted quite a bit of shit that I’d never have believed before—I had my hearing back, for God’s sake. But what the hell were we supposed to do with this message?
Save Rebethannah?
How were we supposed to do that if we didn’t even know who or where she was?

Leni had an idea of what we were supposed to do, and that’s what had me on edge more than anything. She wanted to share the idea with Brock and Asia, and after what the healers and the Guides had told us, Brock and Asia would follow us.

I didn’t want to lead them—or anyone.

I placed my hands against the shower wall and let the hot water pour over my head and down my back for several more seconds, loosening the tense muscles of my neck and shoulders, before reluctantly twisting the knob to the off position. When I jerked the curtain open, I about jumped out of my skin at the sight of Leni. She’d been silent for the last couple of minutes, so I’d thought she’d left the bathroom. She sat on the closed toilet, though, and reached behind her for a towel. She stood up to hand it to me, and I couldn’t control myself, especially as her sea green gaze raked down my naked body and lingered at my junk. It came to attention with no thought of my own. When her eyes came back to mine, her brow jutted upward as she pressed the towel against my chest.

“They’re on their way right now,” she said, before turning and sauntering out of the bathroom, her perfect ass swaying as she pulled the door closed behind her.

Damn. The girl would be the death of me. Or at least of my dick. It wasn’t used to not getting its way every single time. But the manor was only so big, and no matter where they’d been, it wouldn’t take long for Brock and Asia to get here. I could be easily satisfied in that short time, but that wouldn’t be cool for Leni, so I talked myself down as I dried off so I’d be able to throw my jeans on.

Living at the manor was what I’d imagined college being like. Most Guardians were young with only the healers lasting past their twenties, and we lived in rooms in the mansion or the hotel with communal meals in a dining hall, classes, and meetings and such. We even had a gym for physical training and Guides who were sometimes like professors. Only, we roomed with our other halves rather than typical same-sex roommates. At least there was that. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, dried and dressed, Leni already had our bed made and dorm-like room straightened up. Just in time because there was a knock on the door.

I sat on my side of the bed, up against the padded headboard left over from when this place was an actual hotel, while Leni swished Brock and Asia inside. She then circled to her side of the bed and plopped the Book in the center, opened to the message. Brock and Asia each took a corner at the foot of the bed, sat, and leaned over to study the two simple words and their complex meaning.

“Did you write them?” I asked with the smallest bit of hope. Leni had dismissed this idea, and I had to agree it made no sense.

“Of course not,” Asia said.

“It has to be from Nathayden, right?” Leni asked as she leaned against the headboard next to me. There was a noticeable space between us, though, showing that we weren’t on the same page with this. Actually, if it were up to me, there would be no page. I’d tear it out and burn it and go on as though we’d never seen the stupid message. As wrong as I knew that was, I didn’t want us involved. We weren’t ready. Leni and I were newbs at this whole Guardian thing.

Brock and Asia straightened up after closely inspecting the two words that had mysteriously appeared kind of like the phoenix marks on our arms. Brock scratched his head, and then he shrugged.

“No idea. Who else could it be from?” he asked.

“My only other idea was the Keeper,” Leni said. “But it doesn’t feel right.”

“Who’s the Keeper?” Asia asked.

Leni and I both cocked our heads at the same time.

“She means the Keeper of the Space Between,” I clarified.

Brock and Asia exchanged a look that seemed pretty meaningful, but then again, maybe I was reading too much into it. An old habit left over from being deaf for so long.

“What is it?” Leni asked. Had she noticed the silent communication, too?

“I didn’t have anyone called a Keeper when I was there,” Brock said. “Did you, Asia?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve told you all about it. There was just a bodiless voice surrounding me, telling me my options.”

“Wait,” Leni said, “you two weren’t at the Space Between together?”

“No,” Brock said. “You were?”

“Well, yeah,” Leni said. “Wow. You guys got lucky then, to come to the same world at the same time.”

Asia shrugged. “The Space Between is weird. From what I’ve heard, it’s different for everybody and from life to life … or death to death, however you want to put it.”

“I know it changes,” Leni said, “but you really didn’t have a Keeper? Someone who explained everything and your choices?”

Asia shook her head. “Just the voice.”

“I had a guy, but he didn’t call himself the Keeper,” Brock said.

Asia’s mouth twisted, and her wide eyes narrowed as she appeared to be considering something. “You know what I think? I think the voice—or your Keeper—or whoever is supposedly divulging secrets is really a manifestation from our own souls, telling us what we already know deep down. I mean, it’s not like we get
real
answers. Like, don’t you wonder more about what there is besides the different worlds our souls can go to?”

Leni leaned forward, and I could feel her interest spark. “Yes! Like, is there a Heaven and a Hell or just other worlds?”

“Right,” Asia said. “As high up on the echelon as we had gone, almost to the level right below the angels or spirits or whatever you want to call them, shouldn’t we know more about those things? But we don’t—Brock and I don’t, anyway. We have all these fat holes in the memories of our past lives and the other worlds we’ve been on. And we remember
nothing
beyond what we experience in physical forms. Like, the Space Between, for example. It’s always different, and we never remember it every time we go. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “You think we’re just talking to ourselves in the Space Between?”

“Not exactly,” Brock answered. “Just the remembering part. We think our souls remember everything we know while we’re in the Space Between, but as soon as we move on to the next life, we forget it all.”

Asia nodded. “There’s someone or some force, like a higher power or the angels, guiding us to the decision for our next life, but we don’t think they give us any answers we don’t already know.”

“Huh,” Leni said as she leaned back against the headboard and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “So, if that’s true, and we’re really only helping ourselves even in the Space Between, then it’s probably true that we’ve left clues for our future selves.” She paused as she thought harder on this idea, and then her excitement grew again. “And I think we did that with the Book! My gut’s telling me that we’ve used the Book in the past for many things, like discovering our missions. That would explain why the Lakari would want it—so we wouldn’t discover our own secrets before they killed us.”

She paused for a moment, staring at her hands as her fingers tapped a rhythm on the blanket, and I already knew her next thought. I had to control myself from clamping my hand over her mouth to keep her from saying it, as though that would prevent the thought from already being a reality. Because remembering our pasts was kind of fun, like solving a weird mystery, but what she was thinking took us to a whole different level. One I wasn’t ready for.

“I have this strong feeling the guy in the Gate who’d sounded so desperate was Nathayden. And I think … saving Rebethannah is our first mission.”

She lifted her head to look at us. I turned mine to stare at the wall, my jaw clenching. She already knew my feelings on this theory.

“What do you guys think?” she asked when nobody said anything.

My eyes cut to Brock and Asia, who shared another look, but they didn’t hold back this time. Asia reached out and laid her hand on Leni’s knee.

“You tell us,” she said to my other half. “We remembered last night that this has always been your thing, like your super power—you lead us to the souls we’re supposed to help.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I jumped to my feet as though the bed itself had caused the feeling. But what I felt came from inside, and no matter how much I wanted to deny it, to make it go away, to pretend it didn’t exist, I couldn’t. The truth is the truth, and what Asia just said was no doubt a truth. I knew it in my gut, or in my soul, as everyone else would say. Leni—or Jacquelena, to be more accurate—was our light, showing us the way. Theo and Mira had emphasized this when we’d been Forged at the Gate. Not just mine, but everybody’s. I hadn’t fully understood what that meant at the time, but it was starting to make more sense.

Didn’t mean I liked it.

“No,” I said, unable to form the words I wanted to say. “Just … no. Not yet.”

“Jeric—” Leni started, and I spun on her.

“Can you really say you feel ready to do this?” I demanded, leaning over her on the bed. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Leni stared at me for a moment, opening her mouth then closing it like a carp as she considered my question.

“Yes,” she finally said, and when I lifted my brow and sucked in a breath to argue, she held a hand up. “It’s not knowledge to be gained, Jeric. I don’t have to learn this. It’s intuition. Instinct. My soul talking to me. I know how that sounds, but look at our lives now. Look at what we
do
know and tell me that relying on our instinct, on our
souls
that have existed for eons compared to our measly human brains, isn’t what we’re supposed to do.
That’s
the lesson we’re supposed to learn more than any others. Am I right?”

She turned back to Brock and Asia, who both nodded.

“So we’re just supposed to cut off our brains and all logic?” I snapped.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Asia said with a sigh. “You just have to let your brain catch up to what you already know in your soul.”

I glared at each of them in turn, not sure why this bothered me so much. I’d practically vowed to trust Leni and her intuition, to accept her as our light to lead the way. And I knew deep down that she’d be right—that her soul would know exactly what we’re supposed to do. The “normal” side of me, the Jeric I’d been for the last twenty-three years, however, bristled at the thought of going out and being some kind of supernatural-like ninja, helping people who probably didn’t even know they needed to be helped. How were we supposed to do that anyway?

“So you think your
soul
will lead us right to whoever Rebethannah is now?” I demanded. “And you really think that’s our mission?”

Leni pressed her lips together and dropped her gaze to the blanket again. “I don’t know yet,” she nearly whispered, but then she lifted her eyes to me and raised her voice. “But it’s time to find out.”

We argued about it some more until Asia finally suggested we talk to Melinda and Uri or to some other Guardians since we didn’t really know the protocol for missions yet anyway. I hoped they’d be too busy for a day or two so we could think through this further, maybe gather more information and figure out if we were really supposed to find Rebethannah. No such luck. Life was definitely a woman with her mood swings, and right now, she was a bitch. Melinda and Uri invited us down right away, and a few minutes later, we were all gathered in the same meeting room C where they’d told us we were part of the Sacred Seven—which, by the way, we still had no recollection of. Mira and Theo were also in there. Leni and I glanced at each other as we took our seats across the table from them.

“This was good timing,” Theo said. “Mira and I were about to leave the manor for a while and were going to call you to say goodbye.”

“Where are you going?” Leni asked, curiosity getting the best of her when she’d been acting like she didn’t care about them the whole time we’d been here.

“We have a pair of Twin Flames to help,” Mira explained. “We’ll be out of touch for a while. They’re older than you two were when you needed us, so we should only be gone for a few months. But it could take longer to bring them together.”

Theo lifted his clasped hands to rest on the table. His eyes were full of warmth as he looked at Leni. “We wanted you to know first that we believe in you. That we know you—all of you—are ready to serve your roles for the Guardians.”