Conclave (Vampire Conclave: Book 3), page 28
“Then you need to bring the mage here so she can awaken the baby and the others,” I tell him. “Could you also locate a healer to come to me? I don’t think it would be wise for me to move any more than I already have. It might aggravate my injuries.”
“Right away, Your Highness,” Kieran says as he dashes through the breach to Alfheim.
“And what about the werewolves?” I ask Agatha. “Are they still trying to get into the mansion?”
“No,” she says, looking perplexed. “The instant you and the others went to Alfheim, they retreated.”
“I guess that’s not surprising,” I say, realizing too late that the werewolf attack was simply a ploy to get me to take Evie to the alfar home world. “Agatha, do you know much about the history of the breach?”
“As its keeper, I know everything, Your Highness,” she says proudly. “What is it that you would like to know?”
“The mage who created it,” I say, “did he ever try to go back to Alfheim?”
“Oh yes, several times, from what I understand. But he couldn’t.”
“Why is that?”
“His father had a spell placed on the portal to prevent him from entering it.”
“Wait,” I say, “so he isn’t supposed to be able to enter the breach at all?”
“Well, no, not by himself.”
“What do you mean exactly?”
“His father held out hope that he would change his ways,” Agatha tells me. “I suppose he was like any parent would be about their child. He asked the mages to place a special restriction on the portal that would allow his son to return to Alfheim if he was accompanied by a royal from House Moonshade.”
So that’s why Evie had to remain on Earth for so long. She was waiting for me to come of age and learn about my true lineage. The spell cast by my ancestor prevented her from returning, so she simply bided her time and waited for me, but how did she know I would eventually be born? Was she able to use a time spell to see into the future? I don’t have any of the answers that I need, only more questions.
“Since he was a mind mage,” I say to Agatha, “why didn’t he simply use his magic to coerce a royal on this side of the portal to take him back through it?”
“Oh, no, he couldn’t do that,” she’s quick to say with a shake of her head. “Moonstone Manor is named that because it’s built on a layer of moonstones. That’s why they’re so rare in Alfheim now. Each moonstone was enchanted to negate a mind mage’s power over anyone inside this house, so that the dark mage couldn’t simply waltz back into Alfheim on the arm of a coerced royal.”
It’s only now that I realize Evie played me like a fiddle and used my sense of common decency against me. She knew if she showed up here all tattered and with a pack of werewolves nipping at her heels that I would take her with us to Alfheim to keep her and the baby safe.
When Kieran returns with a female healer to tend to my wounds, Shael also accompanies him back, looking anxious about my condition.
“She will be fine,” the healer reassures a frazzled Shael after doing a quick examination of me. “I can mend her injuries, but I would rather do it here, so we don’t cause more damage trying to move her somewhere else. Somebody will need to carry her to a bed afterwards because the pain of being healed will more than likely cause her to pass out.”
I can’t say her words fill me with much comfort.
“I’ll carry her,” Kieran readily volunteers.
“Let’s lay her down on the floor,” the healer instructs.
I want to tell Shael everything I know before I’m rendered unconscious, but she’s stubborn and tells me that a full explanation can wait until later.
“Are you ready, Princess?” the healer asks as she kneels beside me.
“Yes,” I answer, because the sooner I’m healed, the sooner I can look for Julian and find a way to get him back. I’m only able to keep my panic under control because I refuse to believe I’ve lost him forever. A love story like ours doesn’t end with sadness. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. If I allow my mind to consider anything else, I’ll end up losing my sanity to grief.
“I’m sorry,” the healer tells me, her eyes full of remorse for what she’s about to do.
I wish I could take in a deep breath to brace myself for what’s coming next, but even that small act of comfort is denied me, since it would simply cause more pain than relief.
The healer places her hands on top of my chest. A searing pain radiates from her palms to the rest of my body, and that’s the last sensation I feel before I black out and travel to a land of nothingness.
I wake up a few hours later. As soon as I do, I ask Shael to bring Alden, Nadia, Helen, and Viktor to my room so I can tell them what happened and who Evie actually is all at one time. It’s not a story I want to keep repeating. Once is enough.
While I remain in bed and retell my account about what happened with Evie and Julian, Viktor lies across my lap holding his head up against my stomach in an effort to bring me solace. As I mindlessly stroke the soft fur along his back, I find a great deal of comfort in his closeness.
“I can’t believe our sweet little Evie is a dark mage,” Helen says, completely flabbergasted by the news and heartbroken over our temporary loss of Julian. At least, I think of it as temporary, because I don’t plan to let Evie kill him or keep him trapped inside his own body. “And she’s the one who cast the spell to turn Petru and the others into vampires?”
“She said she needed their combined life forces to power the spell she used to coax Bathory’s soul into Julian’s body. Apparently becoming a vampire was just a side effect of the magic she used because they were human. She seemed almost proud for having created them and gifting them with eternal life.”
“I always wondered why Julian looked after her all the time,” Helen says. “Mystery solved, I suppose.”
“But why did Thallan specifically choose Julian to be the human host for Bathory’s life force?” Alden asks, allowing his bewilderment over the situation to show. “He could have chosen any of them. You would have thought Bathory would want to remain a woman. Mira or even Sophie would have been a more logical choice.”
“Was that the dark mage’s name? Thallan?” I ask.
“Yes,” Alden answers. “Thallan Moonshade.”
“Well, let’s just refer to Thallan as Evie because trying to go back and forth with the names would just lead to confusion for everyone. Anyway, Evie must have found out about the connection Julian and I would have to one another somehow. She seemed to know a lot of things that she shouldn’t have. The only logical explanation is that she used a time spell at some point to learn whether or not she would ever be able to return to Alfheim. If that’s what she did, then she would have discovered the link between Julian and me. All I know is that all of this was orchestrated in order for her to return to Alfheim.”
“Did Evie happen to give you a hint about what she plans to do to our world?” Nadia asks worriedly.
I shake my head. “No. All she said was that she wanted revenge. Who she plans to exact that revenge on, I’m not sure, but I think we should assume the worst and consider everyone a target for her madness, especially anyone associated with our house.”
“Well,” Alden says pensively while his brow furrows in deep thought as he considers the direness of our situation, “we can’t do much else except search for her, but if Evie is actually Thallan Moonshade, she’s going to be a formidable adversary. No mage in the history of our world has ever been that powerful. It took every other mage in Alfheim just to contain Thallan’s power while he was imprisoned in Castle Moonshade to prevent his escape, and even then, he found a way out.”
“If that’s what it took back then, odds are we’ll need every mage this time too to stop Evie from destroying Alfheim,” I reason.
“I think you’re asking for a miracle if you think all the houses will band together in a united front that easily,” Nadia tells me.
“Then I guess a miracle is what’s called for in this situation,” I say. “We either stand together or die. There are no other choices, because Evie isn’t going to stop until she accomplishes what she went back to Alfheim to do. She’s waited over a millennium to return, and I’ll wager her patience is stretched to its limit by this point.”
Shael sits down beside me on the bed and takes one of my hands with hers. “And Julian?” she asks softly. “What should we do about him?”
“You can’t kill him without killing me too,” I remind her, never more grateful for that connection than right now. “I haven’t given up hope that we can save him and neither should any of the rest of you.” I look pointedly at Helen because I can feel what an emotional wreck she is over what’s happened to a man we both love. She nods, giving me her full support over the matter. “There has to be a way to get Bathory’s spirit out of Julian, because I refuse to believe it’s a hopeless cause. I want to speak with the most powerful mage we have, Shael. I want to know if there’s a spell we can cast to save him. If alfar magic linked Julian’s soul to Bathory’s, then surely alfar magic can break it.”
“As soon as we return to Alfheim, I’ll arrange an audience with our head mage,” she says. The sound of her words is comforting, but I can still feel her doubt that Julian can be salvaged out of this mess.
“We’ll all do what we can, Sarah,” Nadia reassures me, offering me a little more hope.
“I saw him,” I tell them, remembering the lost, frightened look Julian gave me before he said my name like a cry for help. “He was able to take control away from Bathory for a split second. Some of you might believe I’m a fool for believing I can save him, but I know in my heart that I can get my Julian back. I refuse to leave him trapped inside his own body forever, and I’ll be damned if I let Evie take him away from me.”
No one says a word in response, and they don’t have to. I can feel their skepticism that we’ll ever be able to return Julian to the way he was, but I won’t let their feelings of doubt dissuade me.
I believe I’ll be able to rescue the man who has captured my heart and given me the gift of the new life that’s growing inside me. I’ve waited too long to find someone who makes me feel whole just to lose him to darkness. If it comes down to it, I’ll wage war with Evie for Julian’s soul, because there’s more than one dark mage in the Moonshade family, and I have no intentions of fighting fair.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you so much for reading Conclave, the third book in The Vampire Conclave Series.
If you have enjoyed this book please take a moment to leave a review. To leave a review please visit:
Conclave
Thank you in advance for leaving a review for the book.
Sincerely,
S.J. West.
MORE FROM S.J. WEST
* * *
The Watcher Chronicles
As a thank you for purchasing Conclave, the third book in The Vampire Conclave Series, I have included in this book the first chapter of Broken, book1 of The Watcher Chronicles.
When a broken world is what you call home, you adapt and become stronger than you thought you could in order to survive whatever obstacles fate might throw your way. But can you ever truly leave hope behind?
At the tender age of seven, Jess Riley¡¯s parents were ripped out of her life by the Tear, a ripple of white light in the sky which randomly transports people from Earth to alternate realities and distant planets once a year. On the night the Tear first appeared, the Watchers, a mysterious group of men possessing supernatural powers, made their presence known to the leaders of the world, earning their complete trust to deal with the turmoil the Tear caused.
Now twenty-two years old, Jess is an agent working for the Watcher Agency searching for a way to bring her parents back home. When the leader of the Watchers, Mason Collier, recruits her to join his team, Jess quickly discovers she is meant to play a major role in sealing the Tear forever. Mason and Jess instantly find themselves drawn to one another but they both resist their mutual attraction for different reasons. Broken by past events in their lives, they each struggle to overcome their fears and find the strength to take a chance on one another.
Exclusively on Amazon, Free on KU!
Broken, The Watcher Chronicles, Book 1
Sneak Peek
Now, please enjoy this sample of
Broken, The Watcher Chronicles, Book 1
CHAPTER 1
The world my parents knew doesn’t exist anymore. On the night they were taken from me, the people of Earth learned definitively that we are not alone in the universe. A permanent ripple of white light now laces the sky, like a silky ribbon of fate, reminding any remaining disbelievers that their lives could be irrevocably changed in an instant. Day or night, you can see the Tear, which has literally transported people off our world, like my parents, and substituted people and creatures from alternate realities and distant planets in their place.
All our scientists have been able to tell us is that what we perceive as a Tear in the sky is actually one end of a wormhole, but none of them can explain where the Tear came from or how it chooses its victims. Even with our advanced, modern science, no one can find a way to stop the wormhole from opening and ripping our loved ones from our lives, casting them out into the unknown.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Jess. You know the chances of them ever coming back are slim.”
I look at my best friend, Faison, in the dim light cast by the moon and the Tear in the sky. Her perfectly-braided auburn hair hangs over her right shoulder against the emerald green of the scrubs she is wearing. Faison is the classic version of a true southern belle, a status in our circle of friends I could never quite seem to achieve no matter how hard Mama Lynn, the woman who raised us, tried to make me into one.
We are sitting on a red and black plaid wool blanket in the middle of my parents’ land. On the night of their disappearance, my parents and I had been looking up at the sky because we were actually going to be able to see the Aurora Borealis in the Deep South. It was supposed to be an event caused by the after-effects of a large solar storm, which no one would ever see again for a thousand years.
December 20, 2012, just before Santa had a chance to visit seven-year-old me, is the date I lost my parents.
At exactly seven o’clock in the evening, the ripple appeared in the sky and opened to reveal two planets, one blue and one orange. When I reached out to my parents for comfort, thinking the world was about to end, I found only empty warm spots on the blanket where they had been lying only moments before.
Every year since then, the ripple has opened at the exact same time and date that it first happened. Sometimes those who were chosen from our planet return to the spot they were taken from. So, every year, I come back to my parents’ home, hoping to win the lottery of their safe return.
I glance down at my phone and see it’s a minute until seven. I reach for Faison’s hand. She clasps mine tightly, neither of us knowing if one, both, or neither of us will be chosen to travel through the Tear this year.
The Tear opens, showing only blackness on the other side. For 15 years, we have seen various worlds and distant constellations through the ripple, but never absolute darkness. The other side of the Tear looks void of anything, a great expanse of nothingness. I suddenly consider the absurd possibility that we won’t have to deal with any new Tearers this year. The idea almost makes me laugh. The odds it would take for us to get that lucky don’t exist in the real world.
“What do you think is comin’ through?” Faison asks, her hand squeezing mine tighter with justifiable worry.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say, reaching for the plasma pistol in front of me with my free hand, “but you’re safe with me.”
“I know I am, Jess.” I hear the tease in Faison’s voice just before she says, “Even if you are 120 pounds of nothin’ and can’t scare a fly.”
I shake my head in feigned disappointment, keeping my eyes on the Tear as it closes. “Geez, no respect for Watcher agents these days, not even from the best friend of one.”
“Well, if you actually ate something every once in a while, maybe you wouldn’t look like a bag of bones. I don’t know how Tearers are supposed to be frightened of someone who looks like a brown-haired Barbie doll.”
I just sigh and stand up, pulling Faison swiftly to her feet with a jerk of my arm.
“Listen, I know you don’t like me being an agent, but it’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life. Mama Lynn understands why I have to do it. I don’t know why you refuse to.”
Faison crosses her arms over her ample bosom. If I look like Barbie, Faison’s curves make her look like a Playmate of the Year.
“Mama Lynn thinks the world rises and sets just for you; of course, she wouldn’t second-guess what you decided to go and do with your life. I just want you to know that you’re not foolin’ me, Jess. I know you think working for the Watchers will help you find a way to get your parents back.”
“You don’t know it won’t,” I say defensively.
It’s an old argument between Faison and me. I know she doesn’t think working for the Watchers will help me find my parents, and I can’t deny she might be right. But the odds are 50-50 as far as I’m concerned. As long as there is a chance I can get them back, I’m going to take it, no matter the cost.
“I need to get back to the station,” I tell her. “I’m lucky they let me come here this year as it is. Rookies don’t usually get to take time off on this night.”
Faison bends down and picks up the blanket from the grass, folding it into a neat square.
“Call Mama Lynn and make sure she’s ok first,” Faison instructs. “Then you can drop me off at the hospital. They asked all the nurses to come in for the first few hours after the Tear opened.”
“Right away, Your Highness,” Kieran says as he dashes through the breach to Alfheim.
“And what about the werewolves?” I ask Agatha. “Are they still trying to get into the mansion?”
“No,” she says, looking perplexed. “The instant you and the others went to Alfheim, they retreated.”
“I guess that’s not surprising,” I say, realizing too late that the werewolf attack was simply a ploy to get me to take Evie to the alfar home world. “Agatha, do you know much about the history of the breach?”
“As its keeper, I know everything, Your Highness,” she says proudly. “What is it that you would like to know?”
“The mage who created it,” I say, “did he ever try to go back to Alfheim?”
“Oh yes, several times, from what I understand. But he couldn’t.”
“Why is that?”
“His father had a spell placed on the portal to prevent him from entering it.”
“Wait,” I say, “so he isn’t supposed to be able to enter the breach at all?”
“Well, no, not by himself.”
“What do you mean exactly?”
“His father held out hope that he would change his ways,” Agatha tells me. “I suppose he was like any parent would be about their child. He asked the mages to place a special restriction on the portal that would allow his son to return to Alfheim if he was accompanied by a royal from House Moonshade.”
So that’s why Evie had to remain on Earth for so long. She was waiting for me to come of age and learn about my true lineage. The spell cast by my ancestor prevented her from returning, so she simply bided her time and waited for me, but how did she know I would eventually be born? Was she able to use a time spell to see into the future? I don’t have any of the answers that I need, only more questions.
“Since he was a mind mage,” I say to Agatha, “why didn’t he simply use his magic to coerce a royal on this side of the portal to take him back through it?”
“Oh, no, he couldn’t do that,” she’s quick to say with a shake of her head. “Moonstone Manor is named that because it’s built on a layer of moonstones. That’s why they’re so rare in Alfheim now. Each moonstone was enchanted to negate a mind mage’s power over anyone inside this house, so that the dark mage couldn’t simply waltz back into Alfheim on the arm of a coerced royal.”
It’s only now that I realize Evie played me like a fiddle and used my sense of common decency against me. She knew if she showed up here all tattered and with a pack of werewolves nipping at her heels that I would take her with us to Alfheim to keep her and the baby safe.
When Kieran returns with a female healer to tend to my wounds, Shael also accompanies him back, looking anxious about my condition.
“She will be fine,” the healer reassures a frazzled Shael after doing a quick examination of me. “I can mend her injuries, but I would rather do it here, so we don’t cause more damage trying to move her somewhere else. Somebody will need to carry her to a bed afterwards because the pain of being healed will more than likely cause her to pass out.”
I can’t say her words fill me with much comfort.
“I’ll carry her,” Kieran readily volunteers.
“Let’s lay her down on the floor,” the healer instructs.
I want to tell Shael everything I know before I’m rendered unconscious, but she’s stubborn and tells me that a full explanation can wait until later.
“Are you ready, Princess?” the healer asks as she kneels beside me.
“Yes,” I answer, because the sooner I’m healed, the sooner I can look for Julian and find a way to get him back. I’m only able to keep my panic under control because I refuse to believe I’ve lost him forever. A love story like ours doesn’t end with sadness. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. If I allow my mind to consider anything else, I’ll end up losing my sanity to grief.
“I’m sorry,” the healer tells me, her eyes full of remorse for what she’s about to do.
I wish I could take in a deep breath to brace myself for what’s coming next, but even that small act of comfort is denied me, since it would simply cause more pain than relief.
The healer places her hands on top of my chest. A searing pain radiates from her palms to the rest of my body, and that’s the last sensation I feel before I black out and travel to a land of nothingness.
I wake up a few hours later. As soon as I do, I ask Shael to bring Alden, Nadia, Helen, and Viktor to my room so I can tell them what happened and who Evie actually is all at one time. It’s not a story I want to keep repeating. Once is enough.
While I remain in bed and retell my account about what happened with Evie and Julian, Viktor lies across my lap holding his head up against my stomach in an effort to bring me solace. As I mindlessly stroke the soft fur along his back, I find a great deal of comfort in his closeness.
“I can’t believe our sweet little Evie is a dark mage,” Helen says, completely flabbergasted by the news and heartbroken over our temporary loss of Julian. At least, I think of it as temporary, because I don’t plan to let Evie kill him or keep him trapped inside his own body. “And she’s the one who cast the spell to turn Petru and the others into vampires?”
“She said she needed their combined life forces to power the spell she used to coax Bathory’s soul into Julian’s body. Apparently becoming a vampire was just a side effect of the magic she used because they were human. She seemed almost proud for having created them and gifting them with eternal life.”
“I always wondered why Julian looked after her all the time,” Helen says. “Mystery solved, I suppose.”
“But why did Thallan specifically choose Julian to be the human host for Bathory’s life force?” Alden asks, allowing his bewilderment over the situation to show. “He could have chosen any of them. You would have thought Bathory would want to remain a woman. Mira or even Sophie would have been a more logical choice.”
“Was that the dark mage’s name? Thallan?” I ask.
“Yes,” Alden answers. “Thallan Moonshade.”
“Well, let’s just refer to Thallan as Evie because trying to go back and forth with the names would just lead to confusion for everyone. Anyway, Evie must have found out about the connection Julian and I would have to one another somehow. She seemed to know a lot of things that she shouldn’t have. The only logical explanation is that she used a time spell at some point to learn whether or not she would ever be able to return to Alfheim. If that’s what she did, then she would have discovered the link between Julian and me. All I know is that all of this was orchestrated in order for her to return to Alfheim.”
“Did Evie happen to give you a hint about what she plans to do to our world?” Nadia asks worriedly.
I shake my head. “No. All she said was that she wanted revenge. Who she plans to exact that revenge on, I’m not sure, but I think we should assume the worst and consider everyone a target for her madness, especially anyone associated with our house.”
“Well,” Alden says pensively while his brow furrows in deep thought as he considers the direness of our situation, “we can’t do much else except search for her, but if Evie is actually Thallan Moonshade, she’s going to be a formidable adversary. No mage in the history of our world has ever been that powerful. It took every other mage in Alfheim just to contain Thallan’s power while he was imprisoned in Castle Moonshade to prevent his escape, and even then, he found a way out.”
“If that’s what it took back then, odds are we’ll need every mage this time too to stop Evie from destroying Alfheim,” I reason.
“I think you’re asking for a miracle if you think all the houses will band together in a united front that easily,” Nadia tells me.
“Then I guess a miracle is what’s called for in this situation,” I say. “We either stand together or die. There are no other choices, because Evie isn’t going to stop until she accomplishes what she went back to Alfheim to do. She’s waited over a millennium to return, and I’ll wager her patience is stretched to its limit by this point.”
Shael sits down beside me on the bed and takes one of my hands with hers. “And Julian?” she asks softly. “What should we do about him?”
“You can’t kill him without killing me too,” I remind her, never more grateful for that connection than right now. “I haven’t given up hope that we can save him and neither should any of the rest of you.” I look pointedly at Helen because I can feel what an emotional wreck she is over what’s happened to a man we both love. She nods, giving me her full support over the matter. “There has to be a way to get Bathory’s spirit out of Julian, because I refuse to believe it’s a hopeless cause. I want to speak with the most powerful mage we have, Shael. I want to know if there’s a spell we can cast to save him. If alfar magic linked Julian’s soul to Bathory’s, then surely alfar magic can break it.”
“As soon as we return to Alfheim, I’ll arrange an audience with our head mage,” she says. The sound of her words is comforting, but I can still feel her doubt that Julian can be salvaged out of this mess.
“We’ll all do what we can, Sarah,” Nadia reassures me, offering me a little more hope.
“I saw him,” I tell them, remembering the lost, frightened look Julian gave me before he said my name like a cry for help. “He was able to take control away from Bathory for a split second. Some of you might believe I’m a fool for believing I can save him, but I know in my heart that I can get my Julian back. I refuse to leave him trapped inside his own body forever, and I’ll be damned if I let Evie take him away from me.”
No one says a word in response, and they don’t have to. I can feel their skepticism that we’ll ever be able to return Julian to the way he was, but I won’t let their feelings of doubt dissuade me.
I believe I’ll be able to rescue the man who has captured my heart and given me the gift of the new life that’s growing inside me. I’ve waited too long to find someone who makes me feel whole just to lose him to darkness. If it comes down to it, I’ll wage war with Evie for Julian’s soul, because there’s more than one dark mage in the Moonshade family, and I have no intentions of fighting fair.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you so much for reading Conclave, the third book in The Vampire Conclave Series.
If you have enjoyed this book please take a moment to leave a review. To leave a review please visit:
Conclave
Thank you in advance for leaving a review for the book.
Sincerely,
S.J. West.
MORE FROM S.J. WEST
* * *
The Watcher Chronicles
As a thank you for purchasing Conclave, the third book in The Vampire Conclave Series, I have included in this book the first chapter of Broken, book1 of The Watcher Chronicles.
When a broken world is what you call home, you adapt and become stronger than you thought you could in order to survive whatever obstacles fate might throw your way. But can you ever truly leave hope behind?
At the tender age of seven, Jess Riley¡¯s parents were ripped out of her life by the Tear, a ripple of white light in the sky which randomly transports people from Earth to alternate realities and distant planets once a year. On the night the Tear first appeared, the Watchers, a mysterious group of men possessing supernatural powers, made their presence known to the leaders of the world, earning their complete trust to deal with the turmoil the Tear caused.
Now twenty-two years old, Jess is an agent working for the Watcher Agency searching for a way to bring her parents back home. When the leader of the Watchers, Mason Collier, recruits her to join his team, Jess quickly discovers she is meant to play a major role in sealing the Tear forever. Mason and Jess instantly find themselves drawn to one another but they both resist their mutual attraction for different reasons. Broken by past events in their lives, they each struggle to overcome their fears and find the strength to take a chance on one another.
Exclusively on Amazon, Free on KU!
Broken, The Watcher Chronicles, Book 1
Sneak Peek
Now, please enjoy this sample of
Broken, The Watcher Chronicles, Book 1
CHAPTER 1
The world my parents knew doesn’t exist anymore. On the night they were taken from me, the people of Earth learned definitively that we are not alone in the universe. A permanent ripple of white light now laces the sky, like a silky ribbon of fate, reminding any remaining disbelievers that their lives could be irrevocably changed in an instant. Day or night, you can see the Tear, which has literally transported people off our world, like my parents, and substituted people and creatures from alternate realities and distant planets in their place.
All our scientists have been able to tell us is that what we perceive as a Tear in the sky is actually one end of a wormhole, but none of them can explain where the Tear came from or how it chooses its victims. Even with our advanced, modern science, no one can find a way to stop the wormhole from opening and ripping our loved ones from our lives, casting them out into the unknown.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Jess. You know the chances of them ever coming back are slim.”
I look at my best friend, Faison, in the dim light cast by the moon and the Tear in the sky. Her perfectly-braided auburn hair hangs over her right shoulder against the emerald green of the scrubs she is wearing. Faison is the classic version of a true southern belle, a status in our circle of friends I could never quite seem to achieve no matter how hard Mama Lynn, the woman who raised us, tried to make me into one.
We are sitting on a red and black plaid wool blanket in the middle of my parents’ land. On the night of their disappearance, my parents and I had been looking up at the sky because we were actually going to be able to see the Aurora Borealis in the Deep South. It was supposed to be an event caused by the after-effects of a large solar storm, which no one would ever see again for a thousand years.
December 20, 2012, just before Santa had a chance to visit seven-year-old me, is the date I lost my parents.
At exactly seven o’clock in the evening, the ripple appeared in the sky and opened to reveal two planets, one blue and one orange. When I reached out to my parents for comfort, thinking the world was about to end, I found only empty warm spots on the blanket where they had been lying only moments before.
Every year since then, the ripple has opened at the exact same time and date that it first happened. Sometimes those who were chosen from our planet return to the spot they were taken from. So, every year, I come back to my parents’ home, hoping to win the lottery of their safe return.
I glance down at my phone and see it’s a minute until seven. I reach for Faison’s hand. She clasps mine tightly, neither of us knowing if one, both, or neither of us will be chosen to travel through the Tear this year.
The Tear opens, showing only blackness on the other side. For 15 years, we have seen various worlds and distant constellations through the ripple, but never absolute darkness. The other side of the Tear looks void of anything, a great expanse of nothingness. I suddenly consider the absurd possibility that we won’t have to deal with any new Tearers this year. The idea almost makes me laugh. The odds it would take for us to get that lucky don’t exist in the real world.
“What do you think is comin’ through?” Faison asks, her hand squeezing mine tighter with justifiable worry.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say, reaching for the plasma pistol in front of me with my free hand, “but you’re safe with me.”
“I know I am, Jess.” I hear the tease in Faison’s voice just before she says, “Even if you are 120 pounds of nothin’ and can’t scare a fly.”
I shake my head in feigned disappointment, keeping my eyes on the Tear as it closes. “Geez, no respect for Watcher agents these days, not even from the best friend of one.”
“Well, if you actually ate something every once in a while, maybe you wouldn’t look like a bag of bones. I don’t know how Tearers are supposed to be frightened of someone who looks like a brown-haired Barbie doll.”
I just sigh and stand up, pulling Faison swiftly to her feet with a jerk of my arm.
“Listen, I know you don’t like me being an agent, but it’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life. Mama Lynn understands why I have to do it. I don’t know why you refuse to.”
Faison crosses her arms over her ample bosom. If I look like Barbie, Faison’s curves make her look like a Playmate of the Year.
“Mama Lynn thinks the world rises and sets just for you; of course, she wouldn’t second-guess what you decided to go and do with your life. I just want you to know that you’re not foolin’ me, Jess. I know you think working for the Watchers will help you find a way to get your parents back.”
“You don’t know it won’t,” I say defensively.
It’s an old argument between Faison and me. I know she doesn’t think working for the Watchers will help me find my parents, and I can’t deny she might be right. But the odds are 50-50 as far as I’m concerned. As long as there is a chance I can get them back, I’m going to take it, no matter the cost.
“I need to get back to the station,” I tell her. “I’m lucky they let me come here this year as it is. Rookies don’t usually get to take time off on this night.”
Faison bends down and picks up the blanket from the grass, folding it into a neat square.
“Call Mama Lynn and make sure she’s ok first,” Faison instructs. “Then you can drop me off at the hospital. They asked all the nurses to come in for the first few hours after the Tear opened.”
