Chapter 23:

When Jeramy woke the next morning, it was to the most horrible smell he had ever encountered in his life. Already confused about waking up in an odd bed, he didn’t know what to think. Finally he sat up, and after dressing quickly went to find Mya. Who knew, perhaps the bad smell were the dragons burning someone, or something alive. He still had not seen one and was unaware of their inability to breath fire.

“Mya, it smells like... what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Uh... to tell you the truth, it does bear some strange resemblance to cooking, but.. Is the food supposed to be on fire?”

“Shut up, and go get me some water...”

Mya had been next to a large fire, which was even taller thanks to the flammable food. Her hair was pulled back, but her face and arms were somewhat blackened by soot. Her clothes were a mess.

“What were you trying to cook?” Jeramy asked, bringing some water and throwing it on the fire, food, and Mya.

She looked up at him with a death glare and shook some water off herself. “I don’t rightly know. Enoch came in, woke me up, said he couldn’t cook breakfast and gave me instructions.”

“Did you follow them?”

“They were complicated! He said it should be done before you woke up.”

“Well, he was right. It sure was done. Are you going to try again?”

“No.”

“How about if I help?”

“How about if I watch?”

“Nope... Gotta help me if you want food.” He winked at Mya.

“Fine, Fine.” She sighed and began to get out the food she had set aside before she began cooking. Jeramy went to clean the burnt stuff at the bottom of the pan.

In an hour, with Jeramy showing Mya some tricks to cooking over an open fire and Mya setting various things alight accidentally, an edible meal was prepared that didn’t smell all that bad.

“Ok, you have to tell me. How did you learn that?”

“Camping out.”

“With your mom?”

“No.” He said it rather shortly, and the calm look he had had in his eyes had turned to a terribly sad one. Mya decided not to ask any further questions about that, knowing she had hit a sore spot.

“Oh, well. This is delicious. You have to write down the recipe... and very detailed instructions.”

Jeramy smiled. “How about we make it again, and I supervise the fire hazzard carefully?”

“I didn’t know this meat was flammable!”

“I wasn’t talking about the meat...”

“Wha...?? Oh!” She huffed a bit, but didn’t throw another pillow at him. Mostly because she didn’t have one near her. “Meanie.”

All Jeramy did was smile.

Finally Mya put her food down.

“I just wish I knew what happens when one of the thirteen changes.”

“Oh, Enoch told me that. Each of the thirteen are supposed to come. But with the war in the physical world, no one will leave their post, and most of them are too busy fortifying their armies.”

“Oh, then I guess they are going to watch it?”

“Yes, something like this has happened once before, I believe.”

“Done your homework, I see.”

“Of course. One of us has to be ready.” He winked.

“Hey! I’m always ready for anything! What are you talking about?”

“Well, you aren’t exactly on the rampage to gather information, are you?”

“Well, I just thought...” Here is paused

“Enoch would keep you posted?” Jeramy supplied.

“Sure. That, or someone else would.”

“Well, Enoch won’t be around forever, and how many others of the thirteen have you met and talked with?”

“I... haven’t conversed with anyone.” Looking flustered for a moment, Mya sat there shaking her head as if trying to clear her mind. Finally she looked at her lap and sighed. “I don’t know why I got this job. You’ve done everything right so far.”

“Nah. You’ve done all right for yourself. And besides, I have my own job to do. I’ll stick around, but I’m not sure I can promise forever.”

Jumping up, Mya hugged him. “You’ve got to be my best friend. No, that’s not right. You are my best friend. But not just because you’re my only friend.”

Jeramy was a bit surprised at this sudden outpouring of emotion from Mya, and now it was his turn to be flustered. Red in the face, he smiled at Mya, and managed a quick hug back before she jumped away.

“So, what else did Enoch say?” she said to break the awkward silence.

“Well, I told him a bit about what we saw. And he said it sounds like we have a special connection.”

“Connection?”

“A strong spiritual connection. He also said we should try to make it as strong as we can.”

“So, did you get any information on how to do that?” she arched an eyebrow as she looked at Jeramy’s sheepish grin. “Wait, let me guess, you didn’t think to ask about that?”

“Well, I thought you might have an idea. You seemed to know so much about this spiritual realm.” He scratched his head. “I guess I was...”

An idea formed in Mya’s head and she stopped listening to Jeramy to think. This connection is spiritual? That shouldn’t be too hard. But... how to test it?

“Um, how about we play guessing games?” Mya suggested out loud. Jeramy looked at her funny. Noticing his look, Mya sighed. “Well, with a connection we would be able to talk to each other without words, right? If it was a spiritual connection? It’s one of the first things I learned in the spirit world.”

“Well, that makes sense. I’m thinking of a color..”

“Blue?”

“No.”

“Well... Darn. Let’s try again.”

Their conversation when like this for several minutes before Mya realized that neither of them were wearing their rings.

“How would the rings be able to help us?” Jermay asked.

“They are supposed to do something. Enoch said something about it. They can’t hurt at any rate. Let’s just try them.”

As they put them on, both of them were surprised that the rings fit each of their fingers perfectly.

“Look,” Mya held up her ring finger. “It actually fits. It used to be too big for me! Are my fingers fatter?”

Jermay examined hers, and then looked at his. “Actually, I am surprised mine is actually on my finger. It used to be smaller.”

“Well, this is weird. Let’s get back to ‘the connection.’”

“Is that what you are going to be calling it now?”

“I think so. It fits. Anyway, let’s try again. What color am I thinking of?” Mya shut her eyes and tried to send a mental picture to Jeramy.

“Blue.”

“Yellow.”

“Darn.”

“That’s not anywhere near the color. I guess the rings were a bad idea. Let me try once though.”

“What color am I thinking of?” Jermay watched as Mya closed her eyes for just a second.

“Red”

Jeramy looked at her with his mouth open.

“Lucky guess. Ok, what number am I thinking of, between one and... one hundred?”

Mya closed her eyes and concentrated for a bit longer this time.

“Thirty seven.”

Arching eyebrow, Jeramy just stared at her.

“What? Am I not right?” Mya thought again. “No, it was thirty seven.”

It took Jermay a second longer to recover. On one level he thought it was cool, but on another it was really strange to have someone reading his mind. Or really, the thoughts he sent. “Weird. How are you doing that?”

“It’s really hard to explain with words.”

“Try.”

“I will! Let me think.” Rubbing her forehead, Mya tried to figure out how to explain to someone something she had no words for. Finally, she hit on an idea.

“You know how you see things in the water?”

“Yes.” Jeramy looked at her patiently.

“Well, it’s like someone is putting those pictures there for you, and you have to use different eyes to see it, right?”

“Sort of.”

“Well, you are getting those images from somewhere and you are not using your eyes. I am just getting images from you, and using that spiritual eye. Or ear. ‘Sense’ would be a good word.”

“I think I get you.”

“It’s just like being in the spiritual realm. Would you like to try now? I think I pretty much have the guessing game down.”

“Works for me.”

It didn’t take Jeramy long to perfect the technique of ‘guessing the number’ with Mya’s explanation.

“It’s so weird” he commented after a bit. It’s sorta like reading your mind.”

“Only the thoughts I want you to send.” Like Jeramy, she was a bit wary of opening her mind to another.

“Well now, what have you two been up to all this time?” Enoch came in late in the afternoon to check on them.

“Working.” Mya answered quickly, and then “You’re... terribly upset?”

“What? Me? No child I’m...” Enoch looked confused.

“No, no, Jeramy.”

“What’s wrong with Jeramy?”

“Nothing,” Jeramy said, looking up at Enoch. “You were slightly wrong Mya, I was going for terrified. We are working on the connection,” Jeramy turned to Enoch again. “We are trying to send our thoughts to each other. And some emotions.”

“Oh, well, how is it coming?”

“We are getting better. Jeramy still can’t guess the emotions I’m sending him, but we’ve only just started this.”

“Well, that isn’t surprising. Sight is so much easier for humans to deal with and understand. Comprehension when dealing with sound or emotion is harder. Have you tried words yet?”

Both of the young ones shook their heads.

“I would try to send words to each other next.”

“We’ll try that tomorrow. Right now, we are having a hard time with all the emotions.”

“Yes, of course, all the emotions.” Enoch managed to keep a straight face, but Mya noticed a bit of a twinkle behind his eyes. The blood rushed to her face, and Enoch’s lips twitched.

Jeramy just sat their looking at Enoch, wondering what the joke was.

“Speaking of tomorrow, however,” Enoch broke the awkward silence after a few moments, “I need to start teaching you what you need to know before you take your place as one of the thirteen. You should still have plenty of time to work on the connection though.”

“Well, what do I need to know? What is there to this job anyway?”

“Much is there to learn about this job. Your main job is peace keeper of your part of the spiritual realm. Also, certain spiritual beings will be under your care. Right now, at the start of war, it is very important you learn all of this so you know what course of action to take.”

At the mention of the war, Mya drooped a bit. She had been about to say that lessons seemed pretty boring to her, but the thought that she had helped start the war made her nod her head and agree.

“Sounds good to me, then.”

“Well, I’ll see you in the reading room in the morning then. Goodnight Mya, Jeramy. I still have some more work to do, so I won’t be back soon.”

After he had gone, Jeramy stood up as well.

“We should work on the connection more tomorrow. It’s late now and I don’t think we could get much more done.”

Nodding her head, Mya stood up to see him out the door. “Not much more we can do. I’ll see you after the lesson though, and I’ll cook lunch for us. Just kidding! Just kidding!” she added hastily, seeing the look on Jeramy’s face.