Chapter 28
The False Homecoming
It was the dead of night. Connie awoke with a start. She found herself in a dark place, and all was silent except for the mechanical ticking of a clock nearby. She was lying beneath the covers in a soft bed in a bedroom. The door was ajar, which admitted a feeble sliver of light from somewhere outside the room.
She lay still in the bed for a while, taking in her surroundings. The bedroom was completely unfamiliar to her. Seeing that she was alone, she sat up. At once, the acrid scent of ozone filled her nostrils, and she felt a sense of vertigo, as if she had just stepped off a merry-go-round that had been turning just a little too quickly. There was also a slight ringing in her ears. She turned her head to see an old-fashioned, wind-up alarm clock on the nightstand. Its painted numerals and hands read 3:34. She smiled to herself. For all the magic she saw on Cerinya, it comforted her to see a mechanical object that ran on nothing but the natural laws of physics and a little ingenuity.
The acrid scent and the dizziness gradually disappeared, but now her body felt numb and tingly, like she was heavily intoxicated with both coffee and alcohol. Gingerly, she sat up, bracing herself to prevent falling over. The connection between her spirit and her body felt thin and tenuous to her. It was a feeling she’d felt in her first days in Cerinya. She thought the sensation might be a side effect of the spell that Snow had cast, but at least she was back in her own body again. A pang of sadness flowed through her at that thought. Although she was relieved that she had left Cerinya, she remembered Sind and her promise to him that was left undone.
Connie pulled away the covers and got out of the bed. In the feeble light, she saw she was wearing a dainty, white nightgown. She turned her arm around as she examined its gauzy sleeves. This was nothing she would have chosen for herself. She wondered what Alyndia had been doing with her body. Now on her feet, she walked over to the doorway. Her legs felt different. As she walked, she felt as though her movements were now being done by remote control. She felt as though she were floating instead of walking. She then wondered if Alyndia had gone to bed drunk or taken a heavy sedative before she turned in for the night.
She opened the door to see a short hallway. For all its dark wood trim and old-fashioned flower wallpaper, this was an old house, entirely unfamiliar to her. To her left was a staircase leading down. Dim, yellow light from an incandescent lamp shone from somewhere at the bottom of the staircase. The house was silent except for the rushing sound of air from the heating vents. To her right, beyond one of the doors, she heard heavy breathing. She listened hard. The slight ringing in her ears had not diminished since she woke up, and it deafened her somewhat, so she was not sure whether it was one or two breathers she heard. She wondered who slept there.
Now Connie was ambling down the hallway toward the stairs and the source of the light. She braced herself against the papered walls of the hallway as she went. She looked down from the top of the stairway. The staircase curled around a living room area furnished with antique furniture. The living room was empty and still; there were no pets about. A pewter lamp with a stained-glass lampshade had been left burning by the doorway to another room. Surrounding the multicolored lamp, she saw a soft, prismatic halo. She realized, at that point, how fuzzy her vision was.
She made her way down the carpeted stairs, clutching the railway as she went. Then she made her way through the living room, past the lamp. She flipped on a light switch and found herself in the kitchen. She scanned the kitchen for some clue as to where she was. The cabinetry in the kitchen looked old, though the appliances were modern.
Her mouth felt dry, and she had a bad taste in her mouth. She opened some cabinets to find a glass. As she did so, she noticed a burn scar on her left wrist. She took a moment to examine it. The burn had healed nicely, although the scar would likely remain forever. She found a glass and filled it with water from the tap. She took a cautious sip. At first, the water tasted oppressively bitter to her. She nearly choked on it. Then the flavor subsided to what she believed tap water normally tasted like. She leaned against the counter while she sipped on the water while wondering where Alyndia had taken her. She pulled aside the curtains covering the window over the kitchen sink. Outside, it was black. A lone streetlight shone on the street at the end of a long driveway. This house appeared to be located in some rural neighborhood, certainly not Jersey City.
Connie turned away from the window. A wave of vertigo washed over her again. Spots appeared before her eyes. She thought she would faint. At that moment, the glass of water slipped from her hand and shattered loudly on the ceramic floor. The loud noise immediately jolted her out of the vertigo. She gasped and immediately turned to the kitchen doorway, where she watched, having no idea who might appear there. To her relief, the house remained silent and still. Then she spotted a telephone affixed to the wall. Her first thought was to contact the agency and inform them of her whereabouts. Then she thought it best to call MacGregor first to get the scoop on what had been happening to her since she left. No doubt, he would be able to fill her in so that she could address any changes Alyndia had made to her life in the time she assumed her identity.
Supporting herself in the kitchen to keep from falling, she guided herself over to the phone, avoiding the broken glass on the floor as she went. Once at the phone, she picked up the handset and dialed the number for her apartment. While she waited for MacGregor to pick up the phone, she studied the numbers written on a pad hung next to the phone. With her blurred vision, she had trouble making out the hastily scribbled notes and phone numbers there. The phone rang nearly ten times. She was beginning to think she’d dialed the wrong number when MacGregor finally answered. She knew it was him in an instant, but his voice sounded strange to her, perhaps because he had woken him up. She glanced at a digital clock on the microwave. It read 3:48.
“Hi, Will. Connie here,” she said. Her old voice sounded much huskier and fuller than Alyndia’s. It was like listening to the voice of an old friend.
“Connie?” he asked. “Is that really you?”
“Yes. It’s nice to hear your voice again.”
“Where did you go? When we showed up at the hospital, they said you’d checked out.”
“Will, you won’t believe what I’ve been through,” she began. “Remember that case we were investigating with Professor Layton? He was telling the truth.”
“What do you mean Layton was telling the truth?”
“You won’t believe this, but there’s a planet sharing Earth’s orbit on the other side of the sun.”
“What?” he asked, incredulous.
“You heard what I said. And that story Layton gave us about meeting this woman from another dimension. Well, it’s also true. Only she’s not from another dimension at all. He just found a way to contact these people. It was some sort of spell-technology interface he ran across. He was right, too, about them breathing chlorine and drinking hydrochloric acid. And they use spells the same way we use machinery.”
Connie told him briefly about her experience of going to Cerinya and how she got involved in the quest. When she finished, she listened on the line for his reaction, but Will had gone silent. For a moment, Connie thought she heard a woman’s voice on the other side asking who the caller was. Connie broke her train of thought.
“Is someone there with you?”
“No, no, it’s the television. The television is on.”
“Oh,” Connie said, suspecting a truer truth but not ready to deal with it at the moment anyway.
“Let me go turn it off.”
Before Connie could respond, the line went silent for a moment. About ten seconds later, MacGregor returned. When he spoke again, he sounded more awake than before.
“How do you know all of this, Connie?”
“Because I’ve been there, you numbskull. Do you think I’m making all of this up?”
Will’s failure to believe her didn’t surprise Connie. Still, she thought she could convince him later if she could come up with the proper proof.
“For starters, Connie, you very well know there’s no other planet in the Earth’s orbit. Jeeze. You sound worse now than you did before you went into the psych ward.”
This was a strange turn in the conversation. “I was in a psychiatric ward? Where?”
“At Mercy. You know that already, don’t you?”
“Why was I there?” she asked, trying to sound calm as she spoke.
“You were committed.”
Those words sent a faint but unmistakable shiver through her anesthetized body. “For what? What did I do?”
“You weren’t well when you woke up from that coma. I thought you would have realized that by now.”
“But it wasn’t me, Will!” she said, her voice almost a plea. “That was Alyndia. That was the sorceress Layton contacted with his machine. Our souls swapped bodies when I put on that bracelet he intended for his wife.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe this, do you?”
His disbelief vexed her. She thought they’d had a better relationship than that. She clenched her teeth, realizing it would take longer to convince him than she at first assumed. She decided to change her tune for the time being and do some damage control.
“Okay,” she said in an attempt to calm herself. “Let’s forget about all the nonsense about the planet for now. Does the agency know about me getting committed?”
Connie heard MacGregor gasp on hearing the question. It then occurred to her how pointless it was to ask, as the omniscient agency knew everything.
“You know as well as I do that the agency sent you there.”
“It sent me? By whose orders? Watson’s?”
“Partly.”
“I see. Well, I’m just going to have to give that bastard a call.”
“Don’t bother,” he said abruptly. “You’ve already been retired from the agency.”
“I have?”
On hearing this, white-hot fury compounded by hatred for all living things surged through Connie’s bones. So intense was the fury that, for an instant, she had the sensation of leaving her body.
“They kicked me out of the agency? Are you telling me they kicked me out?” Now her eyes were wet with tears of rage. The line stayed silent. “Why?”
“Mental noncompliance.”
“What kind of noncompliance?”
“Your mental state was called into question after your accident,” he said, speaking haltingly. “You were evaluated by the agency. When the results came in, you were found to have changed. I don’t know the details, but you were deemed unfit to continue your work with the agency.”
“How could they do this to me?!”
“How do you think I feel, Connie? You were my partner. We’ve been through a lot together.
Connie tore a paper towel from a dispenser and wiped her eyes as she rallied control of her emotions.
“Why did Watson do this to me?” she asked, her voice nearly a cry. “Just wait until I get my hands on him!”
MacGregor paused before he spoke again. “It wasn’t only Watson—it was me who reported you.”
“You turned me in? Why—why did you do that?”
“I was worried about you. You were so different after you woke up from the coma. I thought maybe the doctors would be able to help you out, to find out what was wrong with you.” Now he sounded choked up. “Things just got out of control when Watson got involved. He jumped into it with both feet. There was nothing I could do for you after that.”
“What’s my recourse? I can protest the decision, can’t I?”
“I’m afraid that opportunity has passed. While you were at the hospital, you signed a document saying that you agreed with the findings of the board and that you willingly resigned from the agency.”
“So, not only did they kick me out, I also quit.”
“That’s what happened.”
“I would never have done that. I loved my work. You know that. Will, you’ve got to get me back into the agency. You’ve got to help me fix this thing.”
“Where are you?”
“This might sound funny, but I have no idea where I am. I can only say it’s a private home in a rural area.”
“You have an out-of-state number,” he replied, probably reading the caller ID at the apartment. “Looks like Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?”
Connie was shocked to hear that. She hadn’t been to Wisconsin since she left her family years back. At that moment, Connie noticed a pile of unpaid bills resting on a small tableau by the dining room table. “Just a moment. I can find out.” Holding the cordless phone to her head, she walked over to the table and picked up a few of the folded papers. She managed to focus her vision well enough to see that the bills were addressed to James and Joy West. Shocked by what she saw, she again felt her spirit leave her body, this time further and more completely than before. For an instant, she thought she saw the image of an angry Alyndia standing next to her. Connie shook off Alyndia’s image and the feeling of disembodiment.
“I can’t believe this!” she said, wringing the bill in her hand.
“What is it?”
“I’m at my sister, Joy’s house. Can you believe that? Alyndia actually brought me to my sister’s house!” Connie followed this statement with a string of expletives.
“Now you’re sounding like your old self again, Connie,” Will said.
“What the hell am I doing here, Will? Tell me why I am here.”
Before MacGregor could answer, a woman’s voice came from behind Connie: “You already know why you’re here.”
Startled at the sound of the voice, Connie spun around to see her sister Joy standing at the entrance to the kitchen, looking sleepy, dressed in a powder-blue bathrobe.
“Who are you talking to?” Joy asked.
Connie stared at her, jarred by seeing her sister in the flesh for the first time in fifteen years. “I’ll call you right back, Will,” she said into the phone without removing her eyes from Joy. She hung up without waiting for him to respond.
“Where’s Alyndia?” Rahl asked. “Shouldn’t she be here by now?”
“Calicus didn’t say how long the process was supposed to take.”
Rahl leaned over the woman he knew as Connie. He placed his cheek to her nose and mouth. “I do not detect her breathing.” He covered her nose and mouth with his hand. The woman did not stir. Rahl moved his hand to her neck to feel for a pulse. “I do not feel her heartbeat.”
“She was fine a moment ago.” Snow said, sounding slightly concerned. She knelt next to the body across from Rahl and placed her hand at the woman’s throat. She verified what Rahl had found. “Calicus!” she called into the air. “Calicus! Something is wrong!” she called out again when she heard no response. All remained silent except for the gentle sigh of the astral wind that blew across the Wild.
Rahl shook the woman. Her body was limp like a rag doll.
“Alyndia! Can you hear me? Wake up!”
Theo stepped forward as Rahl continued shaking her. “She is dead,” he said. “Her spirit has departed. I sense it from here.”
He withdrew his curved humor extraction knife from his belt. Tristana stepped forward with a heart-sized metal box cradled at her breast.
Snow glanced at the knife. “What are you planning to do with that?”
“We must take her humors while she is freshly dead,” the spirit mage replied.
“She’s not dead. She can’t be. I cast the spells correctly. It should have worked. Calicus!” she called out again into the ether.
Theo took another step forward.
“Be gone, Theo,” Snow said, “or we shall be taking your humors.”
Theo looked to Rahl on hearing Snow’s threat. Rahl looked down at Connie.
“We must do CPR on her.” Rahl said. “We must do it now before her brain dies. Perhaps we may resuscitate her.”
“Good idea,” Snow said.
They quickly got into their positions to perform CPR as Connie had taught them. Snow began pressing rhythmically on Connie’s chest while Rahl periodically breathed air into her lungs. Theo and Tristana stood over them while they did this, him holding the knife and her holding the box, both ready to extract the vital humors that lay within the woman’s heart should her spirit not return.
Connie stared at Joy, momentarily unable to speak, while she tried to sum up her feelings of the moment.
“Interesting conversation. You told me you were Alyndia earlier. Who are you now?”
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“I’m Connie, your sister. Alyndia was an impostor.”
Joy stared at Connie with a look of both irritation and sleepiness. Connie glowered back at her with years of pent-up anger, unsure how much of her conversation with MacGregor Joy had overheard or what Alyndia had told her. She waited for Joy to speak.
“Enough of these games, Connie. Come to bed.”
“What do you mean, come to bed? I don’t even want to be here. Where are my things? I’m going home.”
At those words, Joy threw off some of her sleepiness. Her gaze fell on the shards of broken glass on the kitchen floor as she spoke. “What do you mean you’re going back to New Jersey? It’s not even 4:00 in the morning. Besides, you said you were going to see Mom later today.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere near her.”
Joy knitted her brow at Connie. “What has happened to you since you went to bed?”
A few seconds later, James appeared at the doorway beside Joy, wearing a light blue bathrobe that matched hers. “I heard you talking down here. What’s going on? And who broke the glass?” he asked.
“Connie says she wants to go back to New Jersey,” Joy said, clutching her husband like a teddy bear. “She also doesn’t want to see Mom anymore.”
James gave Connie a concerned look. “Connie, Faith went through a lot of trouble to get you out of that psychiatric ward. You hated it there. Remember? And if you go back, there’s no telling how long they’ll keep you there.”
“I’m not going back. And if anyone tries to force me, I’ll break their arms.”
“Where do you want to go, then?”
“Back to my partner and my job. Most of all, away from this place.”
“We’ve already told your mom you’ll visit her. She’s expecting you later today.”
Connie narrowed her eyes at them. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn. By the way, how did I obligate myself into doing this? Did you trick Alyndia into coming here, or was it her idea? Did Calicus have something to do with this?”
“Who is Calicus?” James asked.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joy added.
“Why should I believe you?”
Joy looked at her husband. “She different than she was yesterday. You see it, don’t you?”
“If she’s that bi-polar, maybe she should go back to the ward. Didn’t Faith say she was a suicide risk?”
Connie could not believe she heard those words. “Who’s a suicide risk? Me? Did Alyndia try to commit suicide while she was in my body?”
“We don’t know what actually happened,” Joy said. “I just heard something about it from Faith.”
“Now I’ve heard it all,” Connie said, covering her eyes. “No wonder they kicked me out of the agency.”
“You really didn’t know any of this?” Joy asked her. “This is all news to you?”
“Yes. I just woke up in your bed upstairs a little while ago. I had no idea where I was or how I got here.”
“So you, or rather, Alyndia, was telling me the truth earlier in the evening in that she was not you, and you were occupying her body in her world.”
“At least that part of what she told you is true.”
“Then, you don’t know anything about Mom?”
“What about her?”
“She’s dying, Connie. She’s at the hospital as we speak. She doesn’t have much time left. She wants to see you one last time before she passes on.”
Joy explained briefly the circumstances of the illness. Connie listened in silence as she took in the information.
“She’s suffering horribly, but she says she won’t go until she sees you again.”
“Why does she want to see me so badly? So that she can lay another guilt trip on me? Or leave a horrible memory that will torment me the rest of my life?”
A tear rolled down Joy’s cheek. “My God, Connie! That happened so long ago. Can’t you just let it go?”
“I’ll never forget how you all made me feel, how you all shut me out. Don’t you know that I loved him too? Don’t you know I would never have done anything to hurt him?”
“I was young, Connie. So were Faith and Felicity. We never knew you were hurt so badly.”
“I loved him,” Connie said, her eyes welling with tears. She felt the glacial ice within her heart beginning to melt. The emotion was ripping her apart inside. The image of her father floated into her mind. I love you, Dad.
Joy walked up to Connie, her arms outstretched. “Let me hold you, Connie. Be my sister again. Let us love you. Let God love you.”
At Joy’s approach, Connie felt a tightening in her chest. Once Joy had breached her personal space, almost automatically, she grasped Joy by the shoulders and shoved her away. Joy fell backward. James caught her just before she hit the dining room table. At once, she began to cry in his arms. He glared at Connie.
“What the hell did you just do to your sister?”
“She’s not my sister,” Connie shot retorted. “Not after she held me responsible for my father’s death.”
“I didn’t accuse you, and you know I didn’t,” Joy said, crying.
Connie gazed at her sister’s tear-streaked face. For an instant, she felt pity for her, but she shook off the feeling. This is what you get for bringing me into your house against my will, she thought.
“Perhaps you did not accuse me outright, but you didn’t defend me, either. And for that I will never forgive you,” Connie said. “Nor will I forgive the rest of you.”
“Will you at least see Mom tomorrow? You don’t have to stay long, and you don’t have to tell her anything. Just show up. It would mean so much to her. And if you do it, I promise to never try to contact you again. You’ll live the rest of your life without ever hearing from me. What do you say? Will you do this one thing?”
“What did I just tell you? Were you listening?”
“You won’t even think about it?”
“No.”
James broke in. “Connie, you ought to listen to your sister. Go with her to see your mom today. You may never have a chance to do this again.”
“Look, I don’t have to put up with this. I didn’t ask to be here. I’m going to get dressed now.”
Connie walked through the kitchen toward the staircase. James grabbed her suddenly by the forearm as she walked past him, halting her. She glanced at his hand on her arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him.
“I want you to apologize to your sister for shoving her.”
“I will not,” she said.
“Yes, you will. I don’t care who you are. No one comes into my house and pushes my wife around.” He spun Connie around to where she was facing Joy while retaining his grip. “Now apologize.”
“Let her go,” Joy said to James before she could answer.
“But I don’t like the way she pushed you.”
“You better listen to your wife, or you’re going to get hurt,” Connie said, gazing coldly at him. “Don’t forget—I have my strength back now.”
James responded by tightening his grip on her arm. “Apologize. Now.”
“James, let her go,” Joy said again. “If she wants to leave, that’s her choice. She’ll regret this someday.”
“Fine,” he said, releasing Connie.
“Wise move, James.”
“You make me sick.”
James embraced Joy, who began sobbing again. Connie turned away from them and headed slowly for the stairs, feeling emotionally drained. Once she reached the foot of the staircase, she turned to them. “I’ll need a taxi to the airport. Do me a favor and call one for me.”
Rahl and Snow had spent almost five minutes doing CPR on Connie. Now they were getting tired. Still, the body refused to breathe. They paused in their ministrations while Rahl felt for a pulse. There was none.
“She’s not coming around,” he said. “Her heart refuses to beat.”
“Are we doing this wrong?” Snow asked.
“This is the way she taught us.”
“I told you both: Her spirit is departed,” Theo said. “She no longer bears an aura.”
Rahl looked up at Snow, who now seemed resigned to quit. “You say the spells were cast properly?”
“Rahl. You know me better than that.”
“Then why did this happen?”
Snow shook her head. “I don’t know. For what I can tell, Alyndia’s spirit was not drawn back. Perhaps we cast the wrong combination of spells. I’m not one to fix the blame, but perhaps Calicus made a mistake. I only did what he instructed me to do.”
“Then where is Alyndia?”
The sorceress shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. She’s drifting in the Wild for all I know.”
“Very well. Then you have to reverse what you have done.”
“You mean cast the inverse of the spells?”
“Yes. Can you do it?”
“Of course, I can do it.” Then Snow brought a pensive finger to her nose. “But before I do, I need to think about how to do it for a moment. It won’t be easy, and if I fail on even one of the spells, then both of them are doomed.”
“We do not have a choice. So do it now. And hurry.” Rahl looked up at Theo with his knife and Tristana with her box standing over them. “I need one of you to help me with the CPR. We must do this until Snow casts her spells.”
“You want me to do CPR on her?” Theo asked, bemused. “You must not forget I’m a spirit mage. Death is a natural process. Reviving her from imminent death is against my philosophy.”
“Pooh on your philosophy,” Snow said. “She did CPR to save your life. You can do it to save hers. Now get to work.”
Theo handed his knife to Tristana and knelt before Connie, taking Snow’s place. Moments later, he massaged her heart while Rahl continued the breathing into her lungs.
Upstairs, Connie dressed quietly, fuming. The only clothes she could find were dresses. It was a minor thing, but it irritated her more than she already was. While she was getting dressed, she noticed blood on the wooden floor and carpet. It appeared she had tracked it in from the hallway. She reached down to the floor and felt it in her fingers. It was fresh. She wondered where it came from. On a hunch, she sat down in the chair in front of the vanity and checked the bottom of her feet. There, in the arch of her right foot, she found a shard from the broken glass in the kitchen. The shard hadn’t penetrated deeply, despite how much it bled. What surprised her was that she felt no pain at all from the wound. She pulled out the shard and felt nothing when she did. She rubbed her legs, then her arm, and realized that she could hardly feel her own touch. This discovery made her uneasy. She got a tissue paper from a box on the vanity and applied pressure until the bleeding stopped.
Joy appeared at the doorway, now more composed and resolute than she’d been earlier. She leaned against the doorframe and watched Connie with a forlorn expression. On seeing her, Connie got to her feet and resumed dressing. The room remained silent except for the ticking of the alarm clock at the bedside.
“You’re bleeding,” Joy said finally.
“It’s nothing.”
“Do you want me to get you something for it?”
“No,” she replied curtly, zipping up the dress. “You know, Alyndia had the worst taste in clothes. How could she dress me this way? I look like Mary Poppins.”
“Those are my clothes. I gave them for her to wear because she didn’t bring a change of clothes with her.”
“And look at this roll on my belly. I didn’t have this before. She made me fat.”
“Connie, you should stay a little longer—at least until daylight.”
“Why should I?” she asked as she adjusted the dress at her hips.
“Do you have any money?”
“I’ll call my partner before I leave. He can wire me some.”
“You don’t have to do that. James and I will drive you to the airport if you’d like. We’ll even pay for your flight back. Just stay a little longer.”
“It’s not a good idea. Like I told you earlier, I didn’t ask to be here. Besides, Alyndia has really screwed up my life—big time. I need to get back to Jersey ASAP and try to get my life back.”
“Gosh, I didn’t believe her. What a difference I see now.”
Connie looked up at Joy from slipping on her shoes. “What do you mean?”
“Now I see the difference between you and Alyndia. You’re totally different people.”
“Maybe I am Alyndia,” Connie said, humoring her.
Joy shook her head.
“How do you know I’m not her? Is it the way I act?”
Joy gave her a sad smile. “It’s more than that. I sense a different person in you. Call it intuition or whatnot, but it’s a definite feeling.”
Connie laughed derisively as she tied her shoes. “Viva la difference, baby. I’m glad I’m not her, and I wouldn’t want to be her.”
“Have you ever met her?”
“No, but I know quite a bit about her. In fact, I have intimate knowledge about her.” Shoes tied, Connie stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. “I get this impression that you liked her. Am I right?”
Joy shrugged. “She did seem friendly and easy to talk to.”
“Maybe you think she’s a better person than me. Well, I’ll bet she didn’t tell you that her trip to this world was one way. By coming here, she was essentially committing suicide. She left behind some people who really loved her.”
“She said she came to be with the one she loved.”
“No. She ran away from her pitiful life. That’s what she did. As for myself, I never run away.”
“I disagree with you, Connie.”
Connie looked up at Joy, startled by that remark.
Joy continued, her voice absent of malice, “You’re the one who ran away years ago, and now you’re the one running away again.”
Connie froze on hearing that remark. It cut into her breast like a knife, wounding her deeply. After the sting subsided, she felt the strongest urge to punch her sister in the mouth for that statement. She remained still while repressing the anger she felt. Then, regaining her senses, she got to her feet and scanned the vanity and desk. “Whatever you say, Joy,” she said in a carefully controlled way to hide her wound. She picked up a hairbrush she saw lying on the vanity and began brushing her hair. “It’s a minor issue to me. Is there a phone in here? I need to call a cab.”
“You can use the phone in the kitchen,” Joy said quietly.
“I think I have it now,” Snow said as she stepped up to Rahl and Theo, who still performed CPR on Connie.
“You’d better. I don’t think her body can take much more of this, and neither can I,” Theo said out of breath as he continued pressing rhythmically on the woman’s chest.
“Are you sure you have it?” Rahl asked her.
“I think so, but it will be tricky,” Snow replied to Rahl with uncharacteristic uncertainty in her voice. “We will only have one chance to do this. Either I do this right the first time or Theo will have a few more humors for his collection.” Snow knelt before the dying woman and laid her spell book before her. She waved her hands for the two to part. Taking the cue, Rahl and Theo stopped working on the woman and stepped aside.
Now Snow clasped her hands flatly together, the tips of her fingers grazing her chin. Her eyelids fluttered as she fell quickly into a deep, meditative state. After a few moments, she placed her hands a few inches above the dying woman’s chest and began the lengthy incantation needed to recall Connie’s spirit…
Connie hung up the phone. The taxi had been called. It would take him fifteen minutes to get there. Now Joy and James sat at the table, staring at Connie. James was making a pot of coffee. She was about to call MacGregor back, but she was beginning to feel woozy again. The feeling swept over her like a wave in slow motion. She fought it off momentarily, hoping it wouldn’t occur periodically as it did when she inhabited Alyndia’s body in Cerinya. Fearing she might lose her balance, Connie took a seat at the table with James and Joy. At once she felt awkward with both their eyes upon her.
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Joy asked her again.
“There is nothing in the world that would make me stay,” Connie said, rubbing her forehead. The lightheaded feeling was intensifying. The room appeared to rotate around her. It was the same as when she put on the iridium bracelet at the hospital. She clutched the table to steady herself.
Joy observed this. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I don’t know. I just—feel—” She had trouble moving her mouth. It felt as if it were filled with molasses. There came a creeping feeling of numbness in her feet, then her legs. She thought she might fall off the chair at any moment. “I used to feel this way in Cerinya. Why do I feel it now? Was there a problem with the—” She could not find the word. “—the spell?”
She lost consciousness momentarily. When she opened her eyes, she was lying partially prone on the floor of the dining room. James held her in his arms, having caught her just before she hit the floor. Joy sat on the floor at her side.
Although James was nearly embracing Connie, his voice came to her from what seemed a place far away: “Are you okay, Connie?”
“What should I do?” she heard Joy ask him.
At once, Connie heard an intensely loud, almost deafening ripping sound in her ears. The sound was reminiscent of the tearing of a large sheet; only she sensed the ripping sound in her arms, legs, and then her trunk. There was the brief feeling of inertia, and then the clarity of her thought returned in an instant. She opened her eyes. She was now peering down herself, lying on the floor of the dining room with James still holding her and Joy nearby.
“Connie!” came Joy’s voice from what seemed a long tunnel.
Connie had left her body completely. She looked at her astral hands as her body lay sprawled at her feet. Her hands were not hers, nor were they Alyndia’s, but an amalgam of the two. This mystified her. She looked at Joy now. She kept shaking her in James’ arms. Connie watched the scene with detached amusement.
“Oh, God! She’s not breathing,” James said.
“Is she having a heart attack?”
“I don’t know. Quick—call 9-1-1. Tell them to send an ambulance!”
As James prepared to perform CPR on the ashen-pale woman, a flustered Joy scanned the room for the telephone, as if she had forgotten where the phone was located. She grabbed the cordless phone from its cradle on the wall. A nervous wreck, she dropped the phone. She picked it up again, dropped it again, picked it up, then hurriedly dialed 911 in while clutching it tightly in her trembling hands.
At that moment, James and Joy paused and looked at each other. Their eyes and nostrils began to burn.
“Oh, my God,” she said, covering her nose and mouth. “What’s that awful smell?”
“It—it smells like chlorine!” he said, coughing.
As Connie watched the scene unfold, she slowly began drifting upwards and away from it. She willed herself to return to the scene but found that something was pulling her away. Now the kitchen appeared as a disembodied square of light, floating, insignificant, in the middle in a swirling ocean of grainy darkness. Connie then became aware of a presence beside her. She turned to see Alyndia floating next to her in a robe of hazy blue light surrounded by a yellow halo. The sight of her floating there surprised Connie. Alyndia appeared as an amalgam of Connie’s body, a mixture of both women.
“Alyndia! It’s you!”
“Yes, it is I.”
Connie looked around at the swirling blackness around them. “Where are we?”
“This is what we call the Wild. Your people call it the Astral Plane. It’s the plane of existence that envelops and connects all worlds.”
Connie took in this concept while she tried to fathom the meaning of the blackness. The two spirits gazed at each other for a moment.
“Why are you here and not back on Cerinya?”
“I do not know. I believe that something has gone wrong with the spell. I cannot return and am trapped here.”
Connie, then recalling all she had learned on Earth, became angry.
“You wrecked my life,” she said to Alyndia in a baleful tone.
“What do you mean—I wrecked your life?”
“Because of you, I lost my job, my partner, my sanity, and who knows what else.”
“You should thank me for what I did,” Alyndia said. “I have rid your life of all that was unwholesome. Now, I am restored for you what is most valuable.”
This remark incensed Connie further. Alyndia seemed to sense her anger, and it momentarily startled her.
“How the hell do you know what is valuable to me? Isn’t it my life?”
“I saw what you did while you were talking to James and your sister. I saw everything.”
“So?”
“Your sister and her husband are good people. You should be ashamed of yourself for conducting yourself the way you did.”
“I am not ashamed," Connie retorted. “They brought it on themselves for bringing me to their home.”
“But what about your mother? Doesn’t she matter to you?”
“Of course she matters to me. I hope she burns in hell, if there is one.”
Alyndia shook her head in disbelief. Now her aura blushed from blue to purple, to pink, and then to red. She shook her head as she spoke, “You’re evil. Do you know that? You’re so evil. You’re vain. You’re proud. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“So you think I’m evil? I’ll show you what evil is.”
At those words, Connie brought her spirit into Alyndia’s. The elemental sorceress reciprocated, and now the energy of the adversarial spirits mingled and swirled in a crazy, iridescent tornado of crimson light, each seeking to consume the other.
Meanwhile, back in Cerinya, Snow had cast the last spell. Now she raised her hands to the sky, formed her hands into fists, and pulled toward her the spirit of Connie to bring her back to the body.
Connie’s and Alyndia’s spirits came together, and they began fighting in the ether. Their spirits flowed and ebbed, their life’s energy flowing between both as each gained an upper hand, psychically wounding each other with their own anger and pain. Alyndia then felt the flux of magic in the ether, followed by the cloying tug of Connie’s earthly body. She now tried to break away from Connie to return to it, but Connie held her fast, wrapping around her spirit like a great serpent, keeping her in the ether. Then Connie also felt a force tugging hard on her spirit, pulling her away from Alyndia. She resisted the tug.
Alyndia spoke to Connie. “Release me—release me now.”
“No, I will not. You will pay for ruining my life.”
“Someone has reversed the spell. Our bodies are calling us back. Don’t you feel it? Release me, and go back to Cerinya.”
“No.”
“Connie, if we do not return now, we will both surely die.”
Now for the third time, Snow tugged on the fabric of the spirit of the plane to guide Connie back. To her surprise, the body remained inanimate on the ground. Snow opened her eyes and got to her feet. She stared down at the body. She shook her head, puzzled.
“What is wrong?” Rahl asked finally, seeing that Snow had quit concentrating.
“I don’t know,” a bemused Snow answered. “The spells felt like they worked. I thought I had her, but for some reason she won’t come. It is if she is fighting me. Why, I do not know.”
“Perhaps a demon has caught her spirit,” Theo said.
Snow looked down at the pale, unmoving woman. “If so, her spirit will be consumed, and there is nothing we can do.” Snow turned away. “We may never know what happened to her spirit.” Without another word, head bowed, Snow began walking away toward the rest of the party.
Theo retrieved his knife from Tristana. He looked to Rahl, who remained behind, gazing down at the body. “May I?”
Rahl looked up at Theo, strongly dismayed at his persistence in wanting her humors. Then he looked away from the body and Theo as he spoke. “Do as you wish, Theo,” he replied. “Take them for the good of the party. Then we will set her on a pyre.”
“Thank you, Rahl.”
Rahl left them to join the rest of the party. Now with a knife in hand and Tristana close beside him with the box, Theo knelt over the body and began pulling aside the robe to expose the woman’s chest. Now with her bare chest exposed, Theo placed the knife at the dead at the top of the rib cage in preparation to cut her open to extract her heart. At that instant, the body gave a mighty heave, and the woman beneath his knife began gasping for air. Theo jumped back, so startled that he nearly dropped his knife.
“Rahl! Snow! She’s waking up!” Theo called out toward the party. An instant later, the entire party was running toward the scene.
Connie sat up and looked around. “Oh, God!” were her first words as she clutched her chest.
Theo picked up his knife. “Connie!”
Connie shook her head to fight off the feeling. She felt incredibly dizzy and could scarcely maintain her balance. She was seized by enormous pain and tightness in her chest. For an instant, she thought she smelled chlorine in the air. She quickly forgot about this when she caught sight of Theo standing over her with his curved knife. She immediately jumped to her feet despite the dizziness she felt. Rahl was there immediately to catch her in case she fell.
“Don’t you come near me with that thing!” she told Theo.
“We thought you were dead,” he said.
“Obviously, I’m not!” she said with a strong note of irritation in her voice. “I had returned to my body on Earth. Why am I back here?”
Snow stepped up to her. She gazed into Connie’s face as if not quite able to believe she was not an illusion. “I called you back.”
“Why?” she asked, perplexed, as she steadied herself in Rahl’s arms.
The feeling of vertigo was beginning to subside. Her chest still hurt like hell. It felt bruised and sore, as though someone had been beating on it with a baseball bat.
“Something went wrong,” Snow replied after some hesitation. “Perhaps we did not cast the proper combination of spells to move you and Alyndia back to your bodies. Your body here was dying because Alyndia was never drawn back here the way she was supposed to.”
“I saw her.”
“You saw Alyndia? Where?”
“She was trapped in the Wild.”
Connie recalled the spiritual struggle between her and Alyndia. Although it happened only a moment ago, the memory of it resided in a place in her mind that made it seem like it happened years ago.
“I was starting to think that a demon had caught you on your journey back,” Snow continued. “I see that your aura has changed. It has become brighter. This can’t be an effect of the spells I cast.” Now Snow gazed deeply into her eyes. “Did something happen when you encountered Alyndia?”
Connie did not want to talk about it. Without a word, she turned away from Snow and shook herself from Rahl’s grasp. Just then, she realized her robe was still pulled open and her breasts were out on display. She nonchalantly drew her robe shut and then briskly walked away from the group to sort out her feelings.