A few more steps along life's road
Perhaps a few more years
Then by God's grace we'll meet again
Beyond the Vale of Tears
- Anonymous
Perhaps a few more years
Then by God's grace we'll meet again
Beyond the Vale of Tears
- Anonymous
SYNOPSIS:
There’s no rest for the weary in the afterlife. We all must earn our passage to the next world . . . or pay the ultimate price.
Logan Leonard comes to his senses with his memory full of holes, and a familiar woman asks him if he remembers how and why he died. She tells him he must earn his passage to the next level, leads him through doorways to impossible places with surreal landscapes and bizarre inhabitants, and sends him into pictures that are portals to his past. Logan meets his spirit guide in the form of a friendly dog, finds and then loses the woman of his dreams, and battles a madman who has enslaved the entire populace of the afterlife world.
Then menacing shadows come to claim Logan, and suddenly the stakes are his own immortal soul, along with the souls of everyone he loves. All he has to do to earn his passage is rescue his dream woman—who may end up rescuing him—defeat the shadows and their master, and correct the mistakes he made that ruined his life. If he fails, everyone will burn.
Because the punishment for failure is a one-way ticket to Hell.
Full of hope, heart, humor, and romance, Beyond the Vale is a reality-bending fantasy with ultimate triumph and redemption as the grand finale.
There’s no rest for the weary in the afterlife. We all must earn our passage to the next world . . . or pay the ultimate price.
Logan Leonard comes to his senses with his memory full of holes, and a familiar woman asks him if he remembers how and why he died. She tells him he must earn his passage to the next level, leads him through doorways to impossible places with surreal landscapes and bizarre inhabitants, and sends him into pictures that are portals to his past. Logan meets his spirit guide in the form of a friendly dog, finds and then loses the woman of his dreams, and battles a madman who has enslaved the entire populace of the afterlife world.
Then menacing shadows come to claim Logan, and suddenly the stakes are his own immortal soul, along with the souls of everyone he loves. All he has to do to earn his passage is rescue his dream woman—who may end up rescuing him—defeat the shadows and their master, and correct the mistakes he made that ruined his life. If he fails, everyone will burn.
Because the punishment for failure is a one-way ticket to Hell.
Full of hope, heart, humor, and romance, Beyond the Vale is a reality-bending fantasy with ultimate triumph and redemption as the grand finale.
Chapter 1
“Sir, you’re next,” the attendant at the turnstile said, tapping Logan’s shoulder. It was more of an insistent poke, but Logan didn’t turn around.
He was too busy watching her, and this time she wasn’t just an apparition or a dream. She was radiant, exquisite. Three-dimensional and very much alive. She stood seven lines down to his right, next in line at her own turnstile, which led to a different corridor than Logan’s. He had to catch her before she passed through.
It might be his only chance, the chance he’d waited a lifetime for.
“Sir, you’re holding up the line,” the attendant said with a sharper poke.
Logan glanced at the long line behind him, and the multiple lines to either side. Nobody chatted on a cell phone or fiddled with palm-sized computers. The crowd was motionless, some faces puckered in confusion, some serene and smiling, most expressionless. She stepped toward the turnstile. He wanted to call her name, but he didn’t know it yet. If only she would turn and see him watching her, she might--
“Everybody’s waiting on you, Mr. Leonard,” the attendant said.
Logan spun to face the attendant. How did this guy know his name?
“It’s her,” he said, his heart pounding.
“Who’s her, sir?”
“The woman of my . . . ” Logan winced. He’d almost said of my dreams. “She’s . . . I have to . . . ”
He was about to muscle his way through the lethargic crowd and bolt toward her, but the attendant took his arm in a firm grip.
“No need to worry about that now, Mr. Leonard.”
Although the attendant was a foot shorter than Logan and twenty pounds lighter, Logan couldn’t refuse the guy’s determined tug. Because he had no idea why he was here, or how he got here. Or even where “here” was.
Was he having blackouts again? He didn’t even remember what he’d just been doing, and that was a bloody red flag.
He couldn’t let anyone know how lost he was. He had to play along until his fuzzy memory cleared. No more monotonous tests that never yielded worthwhile results, no more head doctors who couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with him.
No more pills that only seemed to steal the soul of his imagination a chunk at a time with each new prescription.
He tried to pull his arm out of the attendant’s grasp, but he was too late. She had already passed through her turnstile, was already gone, headed to her . . . where was she going anyway?
Where were any of them going?
Dammit, why couldn’t he remember? His memory usually snapped back into place as soon as he realized he’d had a blackout.
“If you’ll just come this way, Mr. Leonard,” the attendant said with a patronizing smile, his grip gentle yet forceful.
Until now, Logan had only ever seen her—his Aphrodite—in his dreams. Lady Godiva’s long golden locks, Mona Lisa’s tempting smile, and an anti-Medusa’s passionate gaze that turned his heart of stone back to pulsating flesh.
The shrinks told him that when he had lucid dreams, where his conscious mind recognized he was dreaming and intruded on his subconscious, generally one of three things happened: either he stayed in the dream and was able to manipulate his dream environment according to his wishes, or his dream landscape changed radically—along with whoever or whatever populated it—and snapped him into a completely different dream, or he woke up.
None of the three happened.
The crowd remained listless. The long lines of humdrum faces disappeared a hundred feet away in the curve of the featureless corridor. Though his mind screamed at him to wake up, he was bound to this plane, whatever it was.
Great. Another blackout, and this one was melting what was left of his brain.
Logan watched his feet as the attendant steered him past the turnstile and down the hallway beyond it. He wore his favorite high-top Nikes, saw the faded but comfortable blue jeans on his legs, and looked at his hands.
“If I can see my hands and feet, I’m not dreaming,” he mumbled, recalling what one of his therapists had told him about learning to control his dreams.
The hallway was as featureless as the outer corridor. Off-white walls and doors, brass doorknobs, white tile floor, white stucco ceiling with recessed track lighting. It was a hall of closed doors spaced about twelve feet apart, at least ten to a side before the hallway curved out of sight.
The attendant stopped at the fifth door on the left, twisted the doorknob, and thrust the door open. Theoretically, it should open into the adjacent hallway. The corridors past the turnstiles were too close together to leave any space between them.
But surprise, it got curiouser and curiouser: a room lay beyond the doorway, about sixteen by twenty feet. Clean beige carpet, numerous framed photos of different sizes on the walls, and two plush burgundy sofas facing each other three feet apart in the center of the room.
Logan barely noticed all that, and didn’t even look at the pictures. His attention was focused on the woman sitting on the sofa. Caucasian, mid-twenties, maybe five years younger than he was, raven-black hair pinned up in a bun, and stunning. Short-sleeved scarlet silk blouse, creased white slacks, red pumps, brown horn-rimmed glasses that managed to look dorky and sexy at the same time. But she wasn’t his Aphrodite. Nobody else could be.
Yet something about her was familiar. Did he know her, but lose the memory along with so many others?
“Hi, Logan.” She smiled—a little sadly—and gestured at the couch opposite her. “Have a seat.”
Well, that answered that question. She obviously knew him. He had to pull it together, and not reveal his near-total amnesia until he figured out what was going on. He headed for the other couch, the attendant forgotten, and fell onto it thinking, Name. Her name is . . . Blank. Don’t embarrass yourself. Let her speak first.
“You can call me Jessica,” she said, and began poking buttons on a palm-held device.
It seemed like an odd thing to say, especially to someone you know who’s also supposed to know you, until a terrifying thought struck him like a hammer-punch to the gut.
He’d finally had a complete break with reality. He was locked up in a loony bin somewhere, wandering around in his own mad little fantasy world.
Nothing has to make sense when you’re crazy.
How do you know me, do I know you, who are you, where am I, why am I here, why can’t I remember what happened to me, and just exactly what the hell is going on? All questions that Logan couldn’t ask or answer. Yet.
You-can-call-me-Jessica looked up at him with another sad smile and showed him the display on her hand-held. “Your files. I’ve been assigned to plead your case.”
Files? Case? The way she said it sounded like she’d been chosen to monitor all the other kids on the playground, which meant she didn’t get to play with them. Worse, it meant nobody wanted to play with her. He frowned, not daring to speak. Best to keep his mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Jessica chuckled, the sound even sadder than her smile. “Tell me what you do remember, Logan.”
“What I do remember?” He couldn’t believe he blurted it out. Doofus.
“Whatever you can,” she said, as if it suddenly made mud clear.
“Why am I here, and where is here?” There, that removed all doubt.
She laughed, waving a hand at him. “Relax, Logan. I’m not here to interrogate you. I’m here to . . . monitor your progression, and . . . suggest alternatives, should you lose your way.”
“Do I know you?” he managed to croak.
She smirked, a dark cloud on an otherwise sunshiny face. “I’m just trying to earn my passage, Logan. Just like you.”
Plunging with Alice down into a very late white rabbit’s burrow would be preferable to this nonsense. Time for a tea party. Mad Hatters invited.
Make it a convention.
“Passage?” he finally choked out.
She sighed. “It’s not so important that you remember where or when. I’m thinking more how and why.”
He gaped at her, so very not-in-control of this lunacy. The school bus was plummeting down the ravine, children screaming.
“How and why what?”
She leaned toward him, ignoring her palm-held device, her knees almost touching his.
“Logan, think,” she said, her fist clenching. “Do you remember how it happened?”
Bats in his belfry, their flapping wings shredding a multitude of cobwebs. “How what happened?”
Another sad smile. “How you died, Logan.”
“Sir, you’re next,” the attendant at the turnstile said, tapping Logan’s shoulder. It was more of an insistent poke, but Logan didn’t turn around.
He was too busy watching her, and this time she wasn’t just an apparition or a dream. She was radiant, exquisite. Three-dimensional and very much alive. She stood seven lines down to his right, next in line at her own turnstile, which led to a different corridor than Logan’s. He had to catch her before she passed through.
It might be his only chance, the chance he’d waited a lifetime for.
“Sir, you’re holding up the line,” the attendant said with a sharper poke.
Logan glanced at the long line behind him, and the multiple lines to either side. Nobody chatted on a cell phone or fiddled with palm-sized computers. The crowd was motionless, some faces puckered in confusion, some serene and smiling, most expressionless. She stepped toward the turnstile. He wanted to call her name, but he didn’t know it yet. If only she would turn and see him watching her, she might--
“Everybody’s waiting on you, Mr. Leonard,” the attendant said.
Logan spun to face the attendant. How did this guy know his name?
“It’s her,” he said, his heart pounding.
“Who’s her, sir?”
“The woman of my . . . ” Logan winced. He’d almost said of my dreams. “She’s . . . I have to . . . ”
He was about to muscle his way through the lethargic crowd and bolt toward her, but the attendant took his arm in a firm grip.
“No need to worry about that now, Mr. Leonard.”
Although the attendant was a foot shorter than Logan and twenty pounds lighter, Logan couldn’t refuse the guy’s determined tug. Because he had no idea why he was here, or how he got here. Or even where “here” was.
Was he having blackouts again? He didn’t even remember what he’d just been doing, and that was a bloody red flag.
He couldn’t let anyone know how lost he was. He had to play along until his fuzzy memory cleared. No more monotonous tests that never yielded worthwhile results, no more head doctors who couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with him.
No more pills that only seemed to steal the soul of his imagination a chunk at a time with each new prescription.
He tried to pull his arm out of the attendant’s grasp, but he was too late. She had already passed through her turnstile, was already gone, headed to her . . . where was she going anyway?
Where were any of them going?
Dammit, why couldn’t he remember? His memory usually snapped back into place as soon as he realized he’d had a blackout.
“If you’ll just come this way, Mr. Leonard,” the attendant said with a patronizing smile, his grip gentle yet forceful.
Until now, Logan had only ever seen her—his Aphrodite—in his dreams. Lady Godiva’s long golden locks, Mona Lisa’s tempting smile, and an anti-Medusa’s passionate gaze that turned his heart of stone back to pulsating flesh.
The shrinks told him that when he had lucid dreams, where his conscious mind recognized he was dreaming and intruded on his subconscious, generally one of three things happened: either he stayed in the dream and was able to manipulate his dream environment according to his wishes, or his dream landscape changed radically—along with whoever or whatever populated it—and snapped him into a completely different dream, or he woke up.
None of the three happened.
The crowd remained listless. The long lines of humdrum faces disappeared a hundred feet away in the curve of the featureless corridor. Though his mind screamed at him to wake up, he was bound to this plane, whatever it was.
Great. Another blackout, and this one was melting what was left of his brain.
Logan watched his feet as the attendant steered him past the turnstile and down the hallway beyond it. He wore his favorite high-top Nikes, saw the faded but comfortable blue jeans on his legs, and looked at his hands.
“If I can see my hands and feet, I’m not dreaming,” he mumbled, recalling what one of his therapists had told him about learning to control his dreams.
The hallway was as featureless as the outer corridor. Off-white walls and doors, brass doorknobs, white tile floor, white stucco ceiling with recessed track lighting. It was a hall of closed doors spaced about twelve feet apart, at least ten to a side before the hallway curved out of sight.
The attendant stopped at the fifth door on the left, twisted the doorknob, and thrust the door open. Theoretically, it should open into the adjacent hallway. The corridors past the turnstiles were too close together to leave any space between them.
But surprise, it got curiouser and curiouser: a room lay beyond the doorway, about sixteen by twenty feet. Clean beige carpet, numerous framed photos of different sizes on the walls, and two plush burgundy sofas facing each other three feet apart in the center of the room.
Logan barely noticed all that, and didn’t even look at the pictures. His attention was focused on the woman sitting on the sofa. Caucasian, mid-twenties, maybe five years younger than he was, raven-black hair pinned up in a bun, and stunning. Short-sleeved scarlet silk blouse, creased white slacks, red pumps, brown horn-rimmed glasses that managed to look dorky and sexy at the same time. But she wasn’t his Aphrodite. Nobody else could be.
Yet something about her was familiar. Did he know her, but lose the memory along with so many others?
“Hi, Logan.” She smiled—a little sadly—and gestured at the couch opposite her. “Have a seat.”
Well, that answered that question. She obviously knew him. He had to pull it together, and not reveal his near-total amnesia until he figured out what was going on. He headed for the other couch, the attendant forgotten, and fell onto it thinking, Name. Her name is . . . Blank. Don’t embarrass yourself. Let her speak first.
“You can call me Jessica,” she said, and began poking buttons on a palm-held device.
It seemed like an odd thing to say, especially to someone you know who’s also supposed to know you, until a terrifying thought struck him like a hammer-punch to the gut.
He’d finally had a complete break with reality. He was locked up in a loony bin somewhere, wandering around in his own mad little fantasy world.
Nothing has to make sense when you’re crazy.
How do you know me, do I know you, who are you, where am I, why am I here, why can’t I remember what happened to me, and just exactly what the hell is going on? All questions that Logan couldn’t ask or answer. Yet.
You-can-call-me-Jessica looked up at him with another sad smile and showed him the display on her hand-held. “Your files. I’ve been assigned to plead your case.”
Files? Case? The way she said it sounded like she’d been chosen to monitor all the other kids on the playground, which meant she didn’t get to play with them. Worse, it meant nobody wanted to play with her. He frowned, not daring to speak. Best to keep his mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Jessica chuckled, the sound even sadder than her smile. “Tell me what you do remember, Logan.”
“What I do remember?” He couldn’t believe he blurted it out. Doofus.
“Whatever you can,” she said, as if it suddenly made mud clear.
“Why am I here, and where is here?” There, that removed all doubt.
She laughed, waving a hand at him. “Relax, Logan. I’m not here to interrogate you. I’m here to . . . monitor your progression, and . . . suggest alternatives, should you lose your way.”
“Do I know you?” he managed to croak.
She smirked, a dark cloud on an otherwise sunshiny face. “I’m just trying to earn my passage, Logan. Just like you.”
Plunging with Alice down into a very late white rabbit’s burrow would be preferable to this nonsense. Time for a tea party. Mad Hatters invited.
Make it a convention.
“Passage?” he finally choked out.
She sighed. “It’s not so important that you remember where or when. I’m thinking more how and why.”
He gaped at her, so very not-in-control of this lunacy. The school bus was plummeting down the ravine, children screaming.
“How and why what?”
She leaned toward him, ignoring her palm-held device, her knees almost touching his.
“Logan, think,” she said, her fist clenching. “Do you remember how it happened?”
Bats in his belfry, their flapping wings shredding a multitude of cobwebs. “How what happened?”
Another sad smile. “How you died, Logan.”
Chapter 2
Logan leaped up from the couch and glared at her. “What?”
Jessica sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned back. “I was afraid of this.”
“What kind of sick joke is this?” He trembled, clenching his fists.
She looked up at him, and he gritted his teeth at the pity he saw in her gaze. How dare she!
He knew it was a lie, had to be a lie. He was unquestionably alive; blood pumped in his ears, pulsing against the backs of his eyeballs. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breath came in quick harsh gasps as he shuddered with a mix of outrage and fear.
“Sometimes when a death is traumatic, the subject suffers from acute memory lapses,” she said.
“Subject?” He pointed a shaky finger at her. “Listen, lady. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, or who put you up to this . . . demented prank, but I’ve had enough of it.” Determined to find out the truth about what was really going on, he spun and stomped toward the door to this impossible room.
The door which was no longer there.
He twisted around in a jerky three-sixty, mouth hanging open, heart about to burst. No doors. Just four walls, liberally hung with framed photos. When he realized what the pictures had in common, the room started spinning around him.
Had someone drugged him? Was he freaking out from a mis-prescribed psychotropic medication? Maybe an accidental overdose? Forgot when he took his last pill, took one too many too soon. Maybe had a few beers with it. Or a bottle of tequila.
Jessica was up and standing beside him before he fell. She gently took his arm and steered him back to the sofa. He slumped into it like a jellyfish on dry sand.
She sat across from him again, giving nothing away. He leaned forward, but his rubber legs refused to stand. He propped his elbows on his knees and plopped his head in his hands, fighting tears and struggling to remember something, anything. He felt like a man drowning in quicksand, reaching in vain for vines dangling ten feet overhead.
He drew several deep shuddering breaths. Was this what going crazy felt like? But if you wondered if you were insane, didn’t that mean you weren’t?
“Take your time, Logan,” Jessica said, and he heard nothing patronizing in her tone. “I’m right here for you, only you. Whenever you’re ready.”
She didn’t sound like any shrink he’d ever seen. Definitely didn’t look like one.
Good actress.
After a long minute of useless brain-straining, he spoke. “Please don’t do this to me.”
“Believe it or not, I’m not doing anything to you, Logan. I’m here to help you.”
He lifted his head, waved his hands. “Then help me figure out what the hell is going on, dammit!”
Jessica nodded, deserving an Academy Award. So where was the hidden camera?
He gazed into her eyes and realized he wasn’t seeing pity. Her concern was genuine. She wanted him to win this game, whatever it was.
“Why don’t we start simple, Logan? Tell me one thing you do remember.”
Okay, that should be easy enough. Come on, Logan, think. Just don’t tell her about the woman from your dreams.
“I remember my name,” he said, chuckling.
“Okay, good. That’s a start.” She grinned as if he’d just won the lottery.
He waited for a prompt, maybe a telltale clue in some cryptic line. Or for his friends and family to jump out from behind the couches and yell, “Surprise!” But his memory was so shot full of holes that he wasn’t certain he would even recognize his friends and family if he saw them—if he had any of either left—and she just watched him, enigmatic smile unwavering.
“Miles to go before I sleep,” he mumbled.
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
He shook his head, rattling marbles in his otherwise empty skull. “Just a line from an old movie: ‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, and miles to go before I sleep,’ or something like that. Brainwashed sleeper spies were supposed to respond to it, and wake up from their trance or whatever, and kill the president or something.”
She slapped her palms on her knees. “That’s wonderful!”
“What’s wonderful?”
“That’s something else you remember. See? Your memories are intact, Logan. You’ve just suppressed some of them. Let’s figure out more, then we’ll figure out why you suppressed them. And what we’re going to do about it.”
Okay, now she sounded like a shrink. A bewitchingly pretty one, with cobalt blue eyes that said she really cared about him and wanted to help him find his way out of this maze.
“This isn’t really death, is it?”
“No, death is when you die. You’ve already leaped that hurdle. Think of this as a new and different kind of life, like I do. One where you have to learn how to live it.”
Insanity. She wasn’t backing off the whole oh-by-the-way-Logan-you’re-dead thing. Who was the crazy one here, and who the hell was running the asylum? He had to revise his strategy if he was going to get anything besides arcane responses.
He waved a hand at the walls, eyebrows raised. “Where’d you get the pictures from? They’re impossible.”
“What do you notice about the pictures, Logan?”
If she was here to help him, why wouldn’t she give him a sensible, direct answer? How much did she really know about him, and just exactly what was in the “files” on him in her little computer?
He scowled at her. “They’re all of me. At different ages, in different stages of my . . . life. At impossible angles. When no one was there with a camera.”
“Would you like to look at some of them, and see if anything comes back to you?”
“No, I don’t want to look at them. Why won’t you just answer my question?”
She sighed. “They’re not pictures, really. They’re windows, or maybe portals is a better word, into . . . certain events during your lifetime. I’ll look at them with you, if you like.”
He snorted, shaking his head. Pictures were not windows into the past, or portals or whatever, and if they were, in this upside-down and backward world, he didn’t want to fall through one and get stuck there. He focused on her eyes, and almost couldn’t stand to see the truth in them.
“No, Jessica. No windows. No portals. No more word games. I just want to get the hell out of here and go home.”
“Where is home, Logan?”
It’s where the heart is. It’s where you can never go again. It’s refuge from the tedium of life, shelter from the storm. Where family is always there to greet you with friendly smiles and open arms.
“I’ll know when I get there. Just no more of this, please. Let me out of here.”
She waved a palm with a flourish, aiming another enchanting smile at the wall to her right. “You’re always free to go whenever you like, Logan.”
He looked, and saw three closed doors in the wall that had formerly been festooned with photos. Featureless other than brass doorknobs. No numbers. No pictures, windows, or portals. Spaced about three feet apart, wall to wall.
Turning, he grinned at her and jerked a thumb behind him. “You’re frickin’ kidding me, right?”
She waved her hands at him, palm-held computer forgotten, lost, or gone, and there was something . . . something in her eyes . . .
“Why would I kid you, Logan? Make your choice.”
He turned to face the doors, glad to see they were still there and afraid to look in her eyes anymore. Afraid he might recognize her. He spoke to force the ghosts away.
“Well, Monty, let’s make a deal. Can ya tell ’em, Johnny, what’s hidden behind door number one?”
He half-turned toward her, and she laughed and shook her head. He pictured her long black locks freed from the bun and rustling against her shoulders, a fresh summer breeze blowing her innocent merriment his way.
Maybe she was in one or several of the framed picture-window-portals on the three remaining walls, a puzzle piece in his misty past.
What was the harm in looking at just one?
“Your sense of humor is and always has been your most admirable trait,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that, Logan. Laugh in your next last breath. It’ll make dying a second time easier.”
“Sense of humor, yeah, okay.” He glanced around. Next last breath. Right. Jessica the cryptic scribe, keeper of the sacred scrolls.
Damn her and all this madness, whoever she was. If the doors weren’t behind him when he turned back around, then screw it. He would take up skydiving without a parachute.
He flicked his thumb backward again.
“Door number one: Bengal tiger. Starved. Feral. Sharp claws, big fangs. I’m lunch.”
“Interesting. Hunter becomes prey. Terrifying if you weren’t already dead. I’d rather you stay here with me. Help me plead your case. But go on, what’s next? Door number two.”
His neck jerked around involuntarily, and door number two was still there, maybe until he plunged into the rabbit’s hole for good. He almost cackled when he spoke. Of what value was a sense of humor when you were supposed to be dead?
“Door number two? Salvation. Answers to all questions. The truth about why interstellar alien species avoid the hell out of us when they drop by. Luke, I am your father. A game of shells, but with doors instead. Each door changes from one moment to the next, and guessing is a fool’s game. Which shell shall I choose?”
She grinned. “So, Johnny, what’s behind door number three?”
This wasn’t funny anymore.
“Who knows, Jessica?” Her name tasted bitter and sweet on his tongue at the same time. “An all-expense-paid, three-week vacation to Hawaii for two, with options for a condo-share package. A brand new car. How about perdition, huh? The bottomless pit?”
“I’ll come with you if you like,” she said.
Who was she to dare say that?
The crusher was, he believed she meant it.
She lowered her gaze and reached both hands behind her neck. He thought he saw tears glimmering in her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. She drew a silver chain out from beneath the collar of her blouse, stood, and held it out to him. An oval silver pendant the size of a penny dangled from it. At first it looked like a blob of mercury dripping from an invisible faucet. Logan looked closer and realized it was a teardrop.
“This is my gift to you, Logan, for your travels.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She took his hand and dropped the pendant and chain into his open palm before he could refuse it.
“Jessica, what—”
“It’s a magic pendant.” She closed his fingers around it. “You get three Time-Outs. Just rub it like a genie’s lamp and call my name. I’ll come, but I can’t guarantee I can get you out of whatever predicament you’re in. All I can do is answer questions, and only for a minute. Remember, you only get three, so don’t waste them.”
The white rabbit’s burrow was deep and dark, and growing more so by the second.
“I can tell you don’t want me to go with you, Logan. I see it in your eyes. Just like . . .” She released his hand and swiped at her tears. Her lips trembled and her eyes narrowed. “Just whatever you do, do not lose it. I can’t help you if you do. And watch out for . . .” She waved a hand, scowling and shaking her head.
“For what?”
“I don’t know what they’ll look like to you. Maybe just shadows, following you even when the sun’s behind you. Maybe they’ll look like friends. Check their eyes. They may be smiling, but their eyes will be empty. They’ll lie to you and make you believe it’s the truth. And they’ll try to trick you, and make you choose the wrong path. Don’t let them get their claws in you, Logan. And don’t forget that your sense of humor is every bit as much of a weapon as a sword or gun.” She took a deep shuddering breath, let it out. “I’ve said all I’m allowed to say. I know you’ve chosen to go, and alone. So choose wisely on your journey.”
Without thinking about it, he stuffed the pendant and necklace into the front pocket of his jeans. “Look, Jessica, I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and figure out what’s going on. Maybe the shadows are tricking you, because I can assure you, I am not dead. So—”
“Just go, will you?” She turned away from him, but not before he saw more tears roll down her cheeks. “Pick your door and go, and stop breaking my heart. Again.”
Damn. Okay. She was the safe damsel, and he was the knight in distress, and that meant leaving her behind even if she was an old friend. Because he couldn’t make anyone else take this road, wherever it led. It was his, and it was behind door number . . .
What the hell. Two. Hopefully the pea hadn’t moved to another shell, because he needed answers. He twisted the knob, cringing in anticipation of a ton of rippling muscle in black-and-orange-striped fur pouncing on him, claws and fangs ripping his flesh. He knew if he looked back at Jessica, he would stay with her and they would look at haunted picture portals together, so he gritted his teeth and without a backward glance stepped through the doorway.
He emerged on a narrow, empty strip of beach that stretched as far as the eye could see. Crashing waves rolled in on either side of the sand bar. Two incoming tides made the strip narrower with each new breaker.
When he looked back, the door and doorway were gone.
Logan leaped up from the couch and glared at her. “What?”
Jessica sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned back. “I was afraid of this.”
“What kind of sick joke is this?” He trembled, clenching his fists.
She looked up at him, and he gritted his teeth at the pity he saw in her gaze. How dare she!
He knew it was a lie, had to be a lie. He was unquestionably alive; blood pumped in his ears, pulsing against the backs of his eyeballs. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breath came in quick harsh gasps as he shuddered with a mix of outrage and fear.
“Sometimes when a death is traumatic, the subject suffers from acute memory lapses,” she said.
“Subject?” He pointed a shaky finger at her. “Listen, lady. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, or who put you up to this . . . demented prank, but I’ve had enough of it.” Determined to find out the truth about what was really going on, he spun and stomped toward the door to this impossible room.
The door which was no longer there.
He twisted around in a jerky three-sixty, mouth hanging open, heart about to burst. No doors. Just four walls, liberally hung with framed photos. When he realized what the pictures had in common, the room started spinning around him.
Had someone drugged him? Was he freaking out from a mis-prescribed psychotropic medication? Maybe an accidental overdose? Forgot when he took his last pill, took one too many too soon. Maybe had a few beers with it. Or a bottle of tequila.
Jessica was up and standing beside him before he fell. She gently took his arm and steered him back to the sofa. He slumped into it like a jellyfish on dry sand.
She sat across from him again, giving nothing away. He leaned forward, but his rubber legs refused to stand. He propped his elbows on his knees and plopped his head in his hands, fighting tears and struggling to remember something, anything. He felt like a man drowning in quicksand, reaching in vain for vines dangling ten feet overhead.
He drew several deep shuddering breaths. Was this what going crazy felt like? But if you wondered if you were insane, didn’t that mean you weren’t?
“Take your time, Logan,” Jessica said, and he heard nothing patronizing in her tone. “I’m right here for you, only you. Whenever you’re ready.”
She didn’t sound like any shrink he’d ever seen. Definitely didn’t look like one.
Good actress.
After a long minute of useless brain-straining, he spoke. “Please don’t do this to me.”
“Believe it or not, I’m not doing anything to you, Logan. I’m here to help you.”
He lifted his head, waved his hands. “Then help me figure out what the hell is going on, dammit!”
Jessica nodded, deserving an Academy Award. So where was the hidden camera?
He gazed into her eyes and realized he wasn’t seeing pity. Her concern was genuine. She wanted him to win this game, whatever it was.
“Why don’t we start simple, Logan? Tell me one thing you do remember.”
Okay, that should be easy enough. Come on, Logan, think. Just don’t tell her about the woman from your dreams.
“I remember my name,” he said, chuckling.
“Okay, good. That’s a start.” She grinned as if he’d just won the lottery.
He waited for a prompt, maybe a telltale clue in some cryptic line. Or for his friends and family to jump out from behind the couches and yell, “Surprise!” But his memory was so shot full of holes that he wasn’t certain he would even recognize his friends and family if he saw them—if he had any of either left—and she just watched him, enigmatic smile unwavering.
“Miles to go before I sleep,” he mumbled.
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
He shook his head, rattling marbles in his otherwise empty skull. “Just a line from an old movie: ‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, and miles to go before I sleep,’ or something like that. Brainwashed sleeper spies were supposed to respond to it, and wake up from their trance or whatever, and kill the president or something.”
She slapped her palms on her knees. “That’s wonderful!”
“What’s wonderful?”
“That’s something else you remember. See? Your memories are intact, Logan. You’ve just suppressed some of them. Let’s figure out more, then we’ll figure out why you suppressed them. And what we’re going to do about it.”
Okay, now she sounded like a shrink. A bewitchingly pretty one, with cobalt blue eyes that said she really cared about him and wanted to help him find his way out of this maze.
“This isn’t really death, is it?”
“No, death is when you die. You’ve already leaped that hurdle. Think of this as a new and different kind of life, like I do. One where you have to learn how to live it.”
Insanity. She wasn’t backing off the whole oh-by-the-way-Logan-you’re-dead thing. Who was the crazy one here, and who the hell was running the asylum? He had to revise his strategy if he was going to get anything besides arcane responses.
He waved a hand at the walls, eyebrows raised. “Where’d you get the pictures from? They’re impossible.”
“What do you notice about the pictures, Logan?”
If she was here to help him, why wouldn’t she give him a sensible, direct answer? How much did she really know about him, and just exactly what was in the “files” on him in her little computer?
He scowled at her. “They’re all of me. At different ages, in different stages of my . . . life. At impossible angles. When no one was there with a camera.”
“Would you like to look at some of them, and see if anything comes back to you?”
“No, I don’t want to look at them. Why won’t you just answer my question?”
She sighed. “They’re not pictures, really. They’re windows, or maybe portals is a better word, into . . . certain events during your lifetime. I’ll look at them with you, if you like.”
He snorted, shaking his head. Pictures were not windows into the past, or portals or whatever, and if they were, in this upside-down and backward world, he didn’t want to fall through one and get stuck there. He focused on her eyes, and almost couldn’t stand to see the truth in them.
“No, Jessica. No windows. No portals. No more word games. I just want to get the hell out of here and go home.”
“Where is home, Logan?”
It’s where the heart is. It’s where you can never go again. It’s refuge from the tedium of life, shelter from the storm. Where family is always there to greet you with friendly smiles and open arms.
“I’ll know when I get there. Just no more of this, please. Let me out of here.”
She waved a palm with a flourish, aiming another enchanting smile at the wall to her right. “You’re always free to go whenever you like, Logan.”
He looked, and saw three closed doors in the wall that had formerly been festooned with photos. Featureless other than brass doorknobs. No numbers. No pictures, windows, or portals. Spaced about three feet apart, wall to wall.
Turning, he grinned at her and jerked a thumb behind him. “You’re frickin’ kidding me, right?”
She waved her hands at him, palm-held computer forgotten, lost, or gone, and there was something . . . something in her eyes . . .
“Why would I kid you, Logan? Make your choice.”
He turned to face the doors, glad to see they were still there and afraid to look in her eyes anymore. Afraid he might recognize her. He spoke to force the ghosts away.
“Well, Monty, let’s make a deal. Can ya tell ’em, Johnny, what’s hidden behind door number one?”
He half-turned toward her, and she laughed and shook her head. He pictured her long black locks freed from the bun and rustling against her shoulders, a fresh summer breeze blowing her innocent merriment his way.
Maybe she was in one or several of the framed picture-window-portals on the three remaining walls, a puzzle piece in his misty past.
What was the harm in looking at just one?
“Your sense of humor is and always has been your most admirable trait,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that, Logan. Laugh in your next last breath. It’ll make dying a second time easier.”
“Sense of humor, yeah, okay.” He glanced around. Next last breath. Right. Jessica the cryptic scribe, keeper of the sacred scrolls.
Damn her and all this madness, whoever she was. If the doors weren’t behind him when he turned back around, then screw it. He would take up skydiving without a parachute.
He flicked his thumb backward again.
“Door number one: Bengal tiger. Starved. Feral. Sharp claws, big fangs. I’m lunch.”
“Interesting. Hunter becomes prey. Terrifying if you weren’t already dead. I’d rather you stay here with me. Help me plead your case. But go on, what’s next? Door number two.”
His neck jerked around involuntarily, and door number two was still there, maybe until he plunged into the rabbit’s hole for good. He almost cackled when he spoke. Of what value was a sense of humor when you were supposed to be dead?
“Door number two? Salvation. Answers to all questions. The truth about why interstellar alien species avoid the hell out of us when they drop by. Luke, I am your father. A game of shells, but with doors instead. Each door changes from one moment to the next, and guessing is a fool’s game. Which shell shall I choose?”
She grinned. “So, Johnny, what’s behind door number three?”
This wasn’t funny anymore.
“Who knows, Jessica?” Her name tasted bitter and sweet on his tongue at the same time. “An all-expense-paid, three-week vacation to Hawaii for two, with options for a condo-share package. A brand new car. How about perdition, huh? The bottomless pit?”
“I’ll come with you if you like,” she said.
Who was she to dare say that?
The crusher was, he believed she meant it.
She lowered her gaze and reached both hands behind her neck. He thought he saw tears glimmering in her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. She drew a silver chain out from beneath the collar of her blouse, stood, and held it out to him. An oval silver pendant the size of a penny dangled from it. At first it looked like a blob of mercury dripping from an invisible faucet. Logan looked closer and realized it was a teardrop.
“This is my gift to you, Logan, for your travels.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She took his hand and dropped the pendant and chain into his open palm before he could refuse it.
“Jessica, what—”
“It’s a magic pendant.” She closed his fingers around it. “You get three Time-Outs. Just rub it like a genie’s lamp and call my name. I’ll come, but I can’t guarantee I can get you out of whatever predicament you’re in. All I can do is answer questions, and only for a minute. Remember, you only get three, so don’t waste them.”
The white rabbit’s burrow was deep and dark, and growing more so by the second.
“I can tell you don’t want me to go with you, Logan. I see it in your eyes. Just like . . .” She released his hand and swiped at her tears. Her lips trembled and her eyes narrowed. “Just whatever you do, do not lose it. I can’t help you if you do. And watch out for . . .” She waved a hand, scowling and shaking her head.
“For what?”
“I don’t know what they’ll look like to you. Maybe just shadows, following you even when the sun’s behind you. Maybe they’ll look like friends. Check their eyes. They may be smiling, but their eyes will be empty. They’ll lie to you and make you believe it’s the truth. And they’ll try to trick you, and make you choose the wrong path. Don’t let them get their claws in you, Logan. And don’t forget that your sense of humor is every bit as much of a weapon as a sword or gun.” She took a deep shuddering breath, let it out. “I’ve said all I’m allowed to say. I know you’ve chosen to go, and alone. So choose wisely on your journey.”
Without thinking about it, he stuffed the pendant and necklace into the front pocket of his jeans. “Look, Jessica, I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and figure out what’s going on. Maybe the shadows are tricking you, because I can assure you, I am not dead. So—”
“Just go, will you?” She turned away from him, but not before he saw more tears roll down her cheeks. “Pick your door and go, and stop breaking my heart. Again.”
Damn. Okay. She was the safe damsel, and he was the knight in distress, and that meant leaving her behind even if she was an old friend. Because he couldn’t make anyone else take this road, wherever it led. It was his, and it was behind door number . . .
What the hell. Two. Hopefully the pea hadn’t moved to another shell, because he needed answers. He twisted the knob, cringing in anticipation of a ton of rippling muscle in black-and-orange-striped fur pouncing on him, claws and fangs ripping his flesh. He knew if he looked back at Jessica, he would stay with her and they would look at haunted picture portals together, so he gritted his teeth and without a backward glance stepped through the doorway.
He emerged on a narrow, empty strip of beach that stretched as far as the eye could see. Crashing waves rolled in on either side of the sand bar. Two incoming tides made the strip narrower with each new breaker.
When he looked back, the door and doorway were gone.
Chapter 3
Which way to go? Judging by the encroaching tides, Logan didn’t have much time to decide. The sun was directly overhead, no help there even if he knew where he was.
Well, whatever kind of crazy place this was, hallucination or real, the sand couldn’t stretch on forever without eventually hitting solid land, could it?
Logan thrust his hand into his jeans pocket, touching the teardrop pendant.
No, best wait. Don’t waste a Time-Out yet. He could find his way out of this, thank you very much. He made a mental note to lay off the tequila, likely the cause of his most recent disturbing blackout. And screw the head doctors; no more pills. They should have warned him that dementia with vivid hallucinations was a side effect.
“Get a grip, Logan,” he muttered. “Ride this thing out until it starts making sense.”
So, one way was as good as the other. He headed off in the direction he was facing, quickly speeding up to a sustainable trot. Whatever he did with his life that he couldn’t remember, he apparently stayed in good shape. He kept a steady stride, knowing he had a long way to go from the way the sandbar tapered off into the horizon.
As impossible as this place was, he still smelled the briny seawater, tasted its salty tang on his lips. On a normal beach bordering land, the constant murmur of the waves could easily lull him into a nap. As he jogged, he scanned the sky for gulls, terns, cormorants, and pelicans. Or albatrosses, one of which was his predicament. None in sight. Perhaps the dark storm clouds rolling in from either side of the sandy strip—in sync with the waves, it seemed—had sent the seabirds winging home.
The run put him in a light trance and he let his mind wander, ready to grasp a firm hold on anything that smacked of a reality he couldn’t yet see with his eyes.
What had Jessica meant when she’d said he was breaking her heart again? It implied that not only did she know him, but also that he knew her, and that he’d done something to hurt her, maybe deliberately.
Her eyes were mesmerizing, lovely, the mirrors to a soul very much alive. His were the same color. Hair the same color too. The animal inside of him—the hunter—remembered that women often told him how irresistible his eyes were. He’d seduced several into his bed with just a wink and a smile.
Wait . . . hadn’t Jessica said something about a hunter? Hunter becomes prey, in response to his half-joking about a tiger waiting behind door number one. What did she mean by that? Was she a former lover, jilted in the end like so many before her, all because none of them measured up to the woman he saw in his dreams?
“Jesus,” he muttered, “what did I do?” He slowed to a walk and squinted as a figure appeared on the horizon. “Okay, what the hell is that?”
No more time for daydreams. The distant speck advancing toward him on the sandbar didn’t seem shaped like a man, and it didn’t run like a man. Hopefully not a Bengal tiger. Regardless of what it was, Logan wasn’t willing to turn and run from it. He resumed his trot, and the figure gradually grew larger as they approached each other.
The waves moved in, only about forty feet of sand between the battling surfs now. He figured he had covered a couple hundred yards when he identified the approaching figure. He slowed, but kept moving toward it.
It was a horse. It slowed in sync with him, and they ambled toward each other.
Big black stallion, muscles rippling, mane and tail waving in the cross-breezes. Logan stopped ten feet away, and the stallion did too. It stood there with its head moving from side to side, watching him, eyes lazy and disinterested.
After a short staring contest, it asked him, “So, what do we do now?”
Logan flinched, shook his head. He rubbed his eyes, but the horse was still there when he looked again. “Huh?”
“I suppose you probably want a ride,” it said.
A talking horse, of course, of course. A goofy theme song from an ancient sitcom played in Logan’s head, distracting him from this dire predicament. Jessica had said he would face some dilemmas, and told him to choose wisely. Having that song stuck in his head was bad enough.
Maybe he should have stayed and looked at haunted picture portals with Jessica. Picture portals of a past possibly best forgotten. He was pretty sure, despite his nearly blank memory banks, that monsters lurked there.
“A ride? Well, yeah, I suppose,” he said, his throat suddenly constricted and dry. “Uhh . . . kind of you to offer.”
“I wasn’t offering,” the stallion said with a nicker, sounding like it was mocking him.
“Well, excuse the hell out of me.” A sarcastic talking horse. Great. Just what Logan needed right now. His hand stroked his jeans pocket, feeling the pendant.
How close to time for a Time-Out, however implausible that magic was?
“I am strong and swift,” the horse said, rearing and striking out with its forelegs as it gave a hearty neigh.
“I can see that.” Logan shook his head. How deep was he in the bunny’s burrow now?
“I can carry you,” the horse said, prancing forward a few feet. “We can find land together. But I have a rule: I must know the names of those I carry. Names have power, and I don’t want you thinking you have power over me.”
“Jesus.” Logan dared to move forward too, unable to take his eyes off the horse’s.
“I met Jesus. I let him ride me, and trust me, you are no Jesus.”
“No, I mean . . . Jesus.” Logan cleared his throat. “I’m Logan. My name is Logan.”
The horse stared at him, not moving, head turned sideways with one eye boring into his. Distant thunder rumbled.
Logan waved his hands. “Logan McRae Leonard. My full name. Now can we ride?”
“Hmm. You mean Leonard McRae Logan? Or McRae Leonard Logan? Or is it Leonard Logan McRae? Did those idiot humans mix up your surname, middle name, and first name in records somewhere along the way?”
“I’m gonna drown soon, and I get the frickin’ smartass talking horse,” Logan mumbled, watching the dark clouds.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. So we’re kind of running out of time here. How about that ride?”
The horse tracked the clouds with Logan for a moment, then let out a nervous whinny. “Well, in addition to being strong and swift, I am also honorable. So I can’t exactly let you drown.”
“What remarkable integrity you have. And modest too.”
“Watch it, buddy. I recognize sarcasm when I hear it.”
“Sorry. No offense intended. Just . . . tripping on the weird stuff happening, you know?”
“Very well, Logan McRae Leonard. Hop on.” The stallion turned sideways, showing the saddle it wore and offering a stirrup to Logan.
Logan slid a foot into the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn, then froze. “Hey, as long as we’re working together here, I’d kind of like to know your name. You know, power and all that. Fair is fair.”
“We are not working together, Logan McRae Leonard. I am working for myself, and have decided to help you. And fair is something artificial you humans use in games. You are at my mercy. Without me, you’ll soon drown. You should be thankful I am merciful.”
“Okay already. Thank you.” Logan swung a leg up and mounted, faltered for a second, then slid his foot into the other stirrup and got his balance in the saddle. He leaned forward, grasping the horse’s mane. “So can we please go now?”
The horse’s muzzle flapped with a loud exhalation, maybe indignation. Still not moving, as badly as they needed to run.
“If you must know,” it finally said, tossing its head, “my name is Bob.”
Logan snorted. “Bob? Really?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Jesus, no, Bob. I was just expecting something like Midnight, or frickin’ Black Thunder.” Or Mr. Ed.
“Well, how much choice did you have in naming yourself, hmm? Discuss it with your parents when your mother was pregnant with you?”
“Bob it is! Onward, Bob. Please. Don’t make me beg. I could have covered another few hundred yards by now.”
“Well, not that I had a choice either, but I like Bob for a name. Elegant in its simplicity. And a palindrome, too.”
“I know all about palindromes. I don’t remember hardly any damn thing else, but was it a car or a cat I saw? Radar, kayak, racecar. Listen to that thunder. Look at them waves. Go now, Bob?”
With a whinny and another toss of his head, Bob proceeded in the same direction he’d been running. Logan tugged on Bob’s mane.
“Whoa, boy. I mean Bob. Wrong way.”
Bob stopped and turned an eye to Logan. “What do you mean, wrong way? I just came from that direction, and there’s nothing back there, Logan.”
“Well, I just came from the direction you’re heading, and trust me, there’s a whole lot of nothing back that way too, Bob.”
“So you suddenly know this place better than I do, hmm?”
Logan closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Felt the waves moving in.
“I’ve just got a feeling, okay? We need to go the way I was headed.”
Bob snorted. “Fine. Makes no difference to me. Just understand I am doing this to help you, not because you’re the boss of anybody. I can come here anytime, and leave when I please.”
Logan had never imagined dementia could be this exhilarating, terrifying, or amusing. This was by far the best hallucination he had ever experienced, drug-induced or otherwise.
He chuckled. “I don’t suppose you could take me with you if you leave, could you?”
“Well, no. I am powerful and mighty, but you can’t come where I go.”
“All righty then, Bob, let’s ride, buddy!”
They did. And Bob was swifter than his muscles or ego suggested. Despite the insane impossibility of the situation, Logan reveled in the wind of their flight, the pounding of Bob’s hooves in the sand, the nearly breathless elation of a race against nothing more or less than death.
No, death is when you die. Think of this as a new and different kind of life.
“One that I have to learn to live,” Logan said, getting the rhythm of being jounced in the saddle.
“What’s that?”
“I said I have to learn how to live this life!”
“It’s about time you started figuring things out,” Bob said, putting on an astonishing burst of speed.
Logan laughed as Bob’s nostrils flared, spittle flew, and hooves churned up sand that was getting wetter by the second. Twenty feet between incoming waves now. No other land in sight.
“Go, Bob, go! You’re the wind, buddy!”
Bob said nothing for a change, giving it his all. Had any horse ever run this fast, won a race like this? Had any man ever felt so free, so alive?
Ten feet now, and the sea spray splattered them both. As fast as Bob was, his pace was slowed by the roiling surf, the thickening sand. In seconds that Logan counted in breaths, the sand bar disappeared beneath the waves, and Bob was practically swimming. They were both soaked, weighed down by the bountiful waters that gave forth life just the same as they promised death.
The clouds blotted out the sun, turning everything gray.
“Not dying,” Logan said, his breath ragged, tasting brine.
“No, Logan. Living!”
“Thank you, Bob. For trying.”
“You’re welcome, Logan. Believe it or not, it was a pleasure to meet you. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
Hope? Hell, Logan needed a miracle. No land. Sandbar four feet under now, the ocean rising. Magic Time-Out pendant nearly forgotten.
In moments, Bob was thrashing against the pounding waves, unable to carry Logan any farther. Logan floated off the saddle, treaded water beside the amazing stallion, and grabbed his mane.
“What do we do now, Bob?”
“We swim, Logan. Can you?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Logan sputtered as a wave washed over his head. “I don’t want you to die! I don’t want to die!”
Bob nuzzled him and whinnied. “Death is not dying, my friend. And dying is not death.”
Logan laughed, totally invested in the illusion. He hung onto Bob’s mane. “Got any more profound philosophical nuggets before we find out, big guy?”
Bob went under, and resurfaced spluttering a few seconds later with some advice.
“Remember to live, in whatever way you can.” A snort, another quick breath. “Don’t forget what I gave you.” A wave washed over them both, and their eyes met as they resurfaced. “And whatever you do, Logan, don’t give up, don’t give your soul away to the shadows, and remember to laugh in your next last breath.”
Another huge wave separated them. Logan shook his head, blinking. He didn’t see Bob. Where did he go? He seemed to have just vanished. Weren’t horses strong swimmers?
Logan treaded water, no longer feeling the bottom against his feet as he bounced in the clashing waves, no longer seeing hide nor hair of his intended savior.
He spun around in a full circle as lightning struck the water in the near distance, and thunder rumbled.
Laughing in delirium, part of him sad at the loss of a friend he never really got to know. Lost again, not just in his mind this time. He reached in his pocket, his jeans tight from being soaked, and yanked out the magic pendant.
Then a wave struck him like the Apocalypse and tumbled him in its wrath, and he lost hold of Jessica’s gift.
All content this page copyright © 2017 by Kerry Denney
All rights reserved
All rights reserved
