I honestly could not come up with a title for this...So I looked to Poe.

Written for a few contests on Gaia. Many prompts.

Enjoy.

“Zee…”

The room was dark, endless, but the voice seemed to come from everywhere. I looked around wildly, both ears tuned in to the sound. The voice called out only once, but it echoed around the entire expanse of the dream world.

I turned one more time and froze: A figure stood in front of me, skin pale white, but covered in black markings. Black wings blended with the black backdrop, as did black horns on its head. It was a masculine being, humanoid, but impossible. Its eyes had been gauged out somehow, and the dark sockets leaked blood down the being’s face.

I sat bolt upright and stared wildly around the hotel room, wide awake – I could have sworn someone had been watching me. After a moment, I realized it must have just been paranoia left over from my dream. Satisfied that the room was empty save for myself and my assistant in the other bed, I settled beneath the covers and tried to go back to sleep.

– – –

When the sun rose the next morning, my assistant Evelyn gently shook my shoulder until I awoke. “I don’t know why you always lay on your good ear,” she said as I looked at her. “You can’t even hear your own alarm clock that way.”

“Maybe I do it on purpose?” I replied. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Were you up last night?”

She pressed a button on the coffee maker on the table and it began to boil water. “No. Why? Did something happen?”

I looked around the room again, then shook my head. “I don’t know. I think it was just a dream. Wasn’t related to this case if it was anything else.” I sighed and closed my eyes. Evelyn and I had driven four hours the previous day to reach the hotel before nightfall. I would have liked to sleep for a few more hours, but the detective that had called us would arrive soon.

“Get up,” Evelyn said. “Get in the shower. We’re leaving in forty-five minutes.”

Slowly, I dragged myself out of bed and to the bathroom, where I showered and dressed before settling at the table in the room and sipping a cup of coffee Evelyn had set before me.

“Detective Telberg will be here any minute to go over some things with you,” Evelyn explained. “He’ll take us to the house.”

I looked at the door, my mug between my hands. I took a sip, then grimaced. “This coffee is horrible,” I said.

“Solve this case,” Evelyn said, her voice low enough that I had to read her lips, “and you can have all the gourmet coffee you want. This missing girl is all over the TV – when the press reports that you solved it, we’ll renew the public’s view of psychics and get more calls than we can handle.”

“You’re more excited about this than I am,” I said, smiling. I watched Evelyn as she answered a knock at the door and led a well-dressed man into the room.

“Good morning,” the man said. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with short brown hair and a Portland accent. He introduced himself as Tim Telberg and shook Evelyn’s hand as she introduced herself. “You’re Zaire Epstein, right?” he said, looking at me.

“Call me Zee,” I said, rising to shake his hand. I offered him the only other chair at the table, and Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed.

“What do you know about this case?” the detective asked. “Have you seen it on television or anything?”

“I don’t watch television,” I replied. “I only know what you’ve told us: there’s a six-year-old missing and no one has any clue where she is or who my have taken her.”

Telberg rubbed the bridge of his nose and set a file on the table. “We’ve exhausted all our leads and resources, Zee.” He opened the file and slid a picture of the little girl across the table to me. “Mary von Lamsweerde,” he said. “Disappeared two weeks ago from her bed in the middle of the night. Her parents heard nothing, and they live so far out in the woods that no neighbors saw anything. To be honest, we’ve hit a brick wall.”

I looked up from the picture, holding in a comment that would have made him feel worse than he already did. “You sent us this picture already,” I said, looking at the pretty, young face as she smiled at the camera. Cases with missing children always hurt me the most, because they usually turned up dead or abused in other ways. It was one of the reasons I had stopped watching television – many times, when I saw a picture of the child on the screen, I saw what had happened to them and felt helpless to stop it.

“Have you…seen anything?” Telberg asked. He obviously was not used to dealing with psychics, and had admitted that when Evelyn and I had first spoken with him.

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ll get something when we go to the house, though.”

He nodded vaguely toward the door. “Do you want to head out, then?”

“Sure,” I said. I pulled on my jacket and followed him out the door, Evelyn beside me. From the hotel to the von Lamsweerde house, we had to drive nearly an hour. No one spoke until we lost radio reception as we got farther from the city. Evelyn started making small talk with the detective, but I tuned them out and stared out the window at the passing woods.

I had always lived in the city, since I was just over a week old. My mother had given birth while on a mission trip to Africa – and she named me after the country in which I was born, which was consequently her favorite country to visit as well. She named my younger sister Virginia, after the state she was born in. We basically moved from state to state and city to city when she found out my father was a convicted child rapist with a few other details on his record.

I watched Telberg in the rearview mirror. He looked nothing like my father, nothing like me, either. He could have been the one that killed my father, but I would not know. Telberg had these little ticks, twitches around his eyes when he got nervous. His little finger tapped the steering wheel every time Evelyn asked him a probing question. He had something to hide, something that had drawn him to the case and given him a certain sense of adamancy, and I did not need to be psychic to know that.

He hid it well, however, introducing Evelyn and I to the von Lamsweerdes with an air of hope in his voice that seemed to be more for the family than himself. He did not believe in what I did, but I was the family’s last hope.

As we sat in the family’s living room, Evelyn situated herself on my deaf side, saving everyone from dealing with my disability. I had not noticed the size of the house from the outside, but it was huge on the inside. It was one of the log cabins I had seen set on a mountainside ledge as my mother drove us to our next home, a house I had seen many times on television but had never been close to. I closed my eyes and took in the scent of the place – wood and nature, well-ventilated. What people say about missing senses is true: when one goes, the others get better.

“Are you sure about this, Detective?” Judy von Lemsweerde asked Telberg in a quiet voice. She did not realize I could read lips. “He’s so young.”

“He’s one of the best I’ve found,” Telberg replied. He glanced at me and saw the way I watched their mouths, then held a folder up to block my view as he continued speaking. I could only hear the slight hiss of a sharp S every few moments.

I realized there was nothing more for me to gain by talking to the parents. Everything they had to say would more than likely lead nowhere. I stood and moved around the coffee table and pulled out the photograph of Mary von Lemsweerde, then nodded for Evelyn to follow me as I headed for the door. “We’ll be waiting outside,” I told Telberg.

“Shouldn’t we wait for the parents?” Evelyn asked as she buttoned her coat.

“They won’t want to follow us,” I replied. I found a tree and sat beneath it, leaning against the trunk as I studied the picture. “I don’t like the family coming with us anyway. They’re usually too whiny to be helpful.”

“That’s a positive way of looking at it,” Evelyn said sarcastically. She rubbed her hands together and looked around the woods. “It’s beautiful out here.”

“Yeah,” I agreed absently. She had learned to talk while I worked, as it helped me to focus on the real world as I simultaneously searched for answers in the psychic world. She stopped talking when I closed my eyes and took a slow, audible breath – a sign I had seen something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Keep talking,” I said. In my mind, a million synapses went off at once, and I had to work out what they were trying to tell me. Her words were not processed in my mind, but rather worked as a foundation for me to build on: She existed in the real world. She spoke English. She stood in the center of a forest in rural Oregon on the property of a family whose child was missing. From there, I learned which direction to go and what to do.

I stood, saying, “Go get Telberg.” I looked around myself while Evelyn left to get him, holding on to what was in my head.

When she returned with Telberg, I set off into the woods. I had no idea where I was going, but followed the compass in my head nonetheless. Evelyn and Telberg followed behind me, trying to keep up with my pace. We navigated the forest, avoiding tree roots and rocks, animal burrows and ditches. Finally, we came to a stream, a small waterfall falling over an embankment. I stopped dead, panting slightly as I looked around.

“What’s here, Zee?” Telberg asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m not always shown what I’m looking for.”

“Zee.” I followed Evelyn’s voice. She stood probably ten yards away, lifting a scarf out of the dirt near the streambed.

I held my breath when I saw that it was a child’s scarf. A scrap of clothing buried beneath a pile of dirt was never a good sign. I looked up and down the length of the stream, looking for any other pieces of clothing. Closing my eyes, I tucked my fingers against my forehead and tried to see if I got any other directions.

Telberg touched my arm and I looked at him. “Do you want to try touching the scarf?” he asked.

I took the garment from him, feeling the dirt and stones nestled in the otherwise soft fabric. I let the ends of the scarf slide across my hands, alternating which hand held the scarf. I stared at the tan fabric, praying that I saw something. It was never easy returning to a family and telling them I had come up with nothing.

When I looked at Telberg, he had the same look in his eyes – he wanted to return with something, anything. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It usually comes easier than this.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He took the scarf back and wrapped it around one of his hands, staring at it with a strange look on his face, one I had noticed in the car and in the hotel room. “I’ll take this to the lab and see if they can find anything. We should look around the area a bit more, though.”

For the next hour or so, the three of us separated and searched the area around the stream. At one point, I sat beside the waterfall on the embankment and looked out across the ground below me, hoping to get a vision or a direction, but none came.

We returned to the house in silence, and Evelyn placed a hand on my back reassuringly as the house came into view. “We’re here for another couple days,” she said. “Maybe you’ll come up with something by the time we leave.”

“Maybe,” I echoed, looking up at the house.

“I don’t know why we didn’t find this scarf before,” Telberg said. “We searched this whole area for days. At least we have it now.”

The door opened as we neared and Judy von Lamsweerde angrily threw out three people. As soon as I saw them, all the air left my lungs and I fell backwards as if something had plowed over me. The wind knocked out of me, I struggled to breath for a few moments before I managed to get a full breath.

“Zee.” Evelyn knelt beside me and brushed my hair out of my face. “Are you okay? What happened?”

I closed my eyes and worked through the messages my brain sent me. The three people who had exited the house – and now stood near my feet – were somehow connected to the little girl’s disappearance.

I motioned for Telberg to lean closer and whispered, “Don’t let them go. They’re part of this.”

He looked at me, then at the three strangers. “How?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I rested my head on the ground for another minute or so, letting my body regain some semblance of strength. Evelyn rubbed my shoulder soothingly while Telberg spoke with the three people, although I could not hear what he said to them.

Evelyn helped me sit up, putting an arm around my shoulders so I would not fall backwards. I rubbed the bridge of my nose and my forehead, wondering what had caused me to fall over like that. It was something I had never experienced, not even when I first discovered my ability in preschool.

“Here.” I looked to the voice. One of the three strangers – a young, blonde woman – held an unopened bottle of water in front of me. I glanced at Telberg, who watched the girl with a steady eye, then took the bottle from her. It was still cold, condensation dripping from the plastic.

As I drank from the bottle, Evelyn bombarded me with an endless tirade of questions: How did I feel? Had I hit my head? Could I see alright? She picked leaves out of my hair and brushed off my back.

“I’m fine, Evelyn,” I said, pushing her hands away. “Stop acting like my mother.”

Evelyn gave me a look. “Well she’s not here to do that right now, is she?” She returned to brushing off my back, careful to pick off every speck of dirt that stuck to my jacket.

“It’s about lunch time,” Telberg said. I looked up at him. “Are you up to meeting at a café so we can talk to these people?”

“Yeah.” I nodded and got to my feet with Evelyn’s help. We walked to our cars – the three strangers had brought one of their own – and headed off down the road. Telberg told us that the three had come to the von Lamsweerde residence to talk to them about an archeological expedition they were on. They had come from Canada, so they had not heard about the missing child until Judy von Lamsweerde kicked them out of her house.

“You say you don’t know how they’re connected to the case?” Telberg said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

I shook my head. My hands trembled, and Evelyn had her arm around my shoulders.

“The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,” he muttered. I caught enough of his words to piece together the rest.

“I would have known if they were the kidnappers,” I said, leaning forward. “They aren’t, that much I know.”

He shook his head. “We can’t be sure until we talk to them.” He turned after the strangers’ car, which drove in front of us. We were in the parking lot of a diner, which worked for everyone as a place to talk and get something to eat.

Inside, we sat around a large, round table and ordered drinks. I looked around at the three strangers. Two were male, one dressed as a stereotypical archeologist and the other dressed like a rich man. The third was the female who had handed me the bottle of water.

“I’ll pay for this all,” said the well-dressed one. He held out a hand to Telberg. “I’m Adam Pfahl,” he said, shaking each of our hands. “This is Todd Simms and Kay Arbus.”

“Detective Tim Telberg, Evelyn Frissel, and Zee Epstein,” Telberg said. “You said you were archeologists?”

“Todd and I are,” Kay said. “Adam sponsored this expedition and insisted he come along.”

“Expedition for what, exactly?” Telberg asked as a waitress brought us our drinks.

“An ancient manuscript,” Adam said. “I’ve been searching for it for years and figured it was time to hire some professional help.”

Telberg stuck a straw in his cup, his little finger tapping the glass. “What kind of manuscript is it?”

“To be honest,” Todd said, “we really don’t know. Adam has a few leads on where to find it, but no idea what it is about or who the author is.”

“My family has been searching for it for a long time,” Adam put in. “We know that it’s important to our family, and we know that we need to find it soon. It’s so old now that it’s probably falling apart.”

“How old are we talking about here?” Evelyn asked. I looked at her. Mysteries always seemed to excite her, especially historical ones. I half-expected her to turn to me and offer my assistance.

Kay shrugged. “Centuries.”

I leaned forward to see her. “Why were you at the von Lamsweerde house?”

“The last journal entry Adam found from his father mentioned the name,” Todd answered. “We had no idea their daughter was missing.”

“But why would an ancient manuscript be in Oregon?” I asked. “This country’s only four hundred years old.”

“It was only a clue that led us here.” Adam steepled his fingers and leaned toward me, making me uncomfortable. “A starting point for us to base our search off of. There will be more clues, and we will follow them until we find the manuscript.”

“Hey.” Telberg glared at Adam, forcing him to sit back in the booth. “We have a source that says – ”

At that moment, something broke loose in my chest, the sensation something like my flesh being pulled from my body. I sucked in my breath and clapped a hand to my chest, closing my eyes.

“Oh my God,” Kay said.

Evelyn put a hand on my shoulder, used to my small bouts of pain. She knew to let the moment pass, and I would be fine afterwards. She recognized it as a form of my ability, and treated it as such. “What happened?” she asked when I looked around the table. Telberg and the two archeologists stared at me with wide eyes; Adam watched me with something of a smile in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said, turning away from Adam.

Beneath the table, he nudged my foot, then apologized as if it had been accidental. He looked at Telberg and said, “You were saying?”

Telberg watched me for another moment or so, waiting to see if I told him anything with my eyes. He then finished his question: “We have a source that says you are connected to the missing girl’s case. Do you know any reason why?”

Todd looked at Kay. “Should we?”

“I don’t know.” Telberg looked at me and I shook my head. He had trusted me to get information about these three strangers, but I had nothing more to provide.

From there, we dropped the subject of whether or not they were suspects. Telberg obtained the number of their hotel room, which was on the same floor as mine and Evelyn’s. He made sure to get home phone numbers and addresses. Needless to say, the meal was awkward from that point on: I said very little, Evelyn tried to make friendly conversation, Telberg watched me for any sign that I had seen something. When it came time to pay, Adam immediately handed the waitress a rather robust amount of cash with a smooth smile I was sure caused the waitress to swoon.

Evelyn insisted that I rest for the remainder of the day, so we returned to the hotel room. I slept for a few hours while Evelyn and Telberg worked through some information about the case, figuring that since I had one deaf side, they could do it in the same room.

It was late when I woke up, nearly half past eight. I stretched and opened my eyes on a dark room, the only light coming from the television.

“How are you feeling?” Evelyn asked, turning the television down a few notches.

“Fine,” I said, stretching.

“That’s good.” She stood and stopped beside my bed. “I got you some dinner. Do you want it?”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Sure.” I watched as she went to the small refrigerator and opened the door. “Did you and Telberg find anything?”

She shook her head as she returned to my bed with a Styrofoam container. “We couldn’t figure out how they’re connected to the little girl. Are you sure that’s why you fell over? We were out there for a while – maybe you were just dehydrated?”

It was my turn to shake my head. “That was something trying to deliberately tell me they had something to do with it.” I opened the container and picked up half the turkey sandwich in it.

“What if it was trying to tell you something else?”

“No,” I said.

“They’re looking for a manuscript, Zee. How can they be involved with a missing child? They’re not even from this country.”

“I know.” I looked at her, my eyes hard. “But I’ve never been wrong before.”

“Not after you got your interpretation right,” she pointed out. “You told me once that it’s like reading a book: You get prompts, but never see the full picture, which you have to fill in yourself. Everyone interprets things differently.”

I sighed. “I don’t know. It’s different this time – I know at least one of them has something to do with this. We’ve interacted with people before who have no record and can hide their crime well.”

“I’ll tell the detective you’re positive about this. Eat up, now.” She tapped a finger on the container before returning to her bed and turning the television up again.

A couple hours later, Evelyn turned off the television and we got ready to go to bed for the night. Evelyn brushed her teeth in the bathroom while I changed my clothes.

I put the Styrofoam container in the trash, but froze when I turned around. The monster from my dream stood in the center of the room, watching me. Scratches bled around its eyes, probably from where it had clawed its own eyes out. Now that I saw it in the light, I saw the ghostly white of its skin, the black markings that stood out against it like a mesh of black ink.

I dropped to my knees, showing it submission. It stepped closer, a devil’s tail whipping behind it as it adjusted its wings. Flightless, I knew enough physics to know that, but threatening all the same. A chain rested on the floor, attached to the creature’s ankle by a shackle.

It took a step toward me, its bleeding eye sockets locked on me. I crawled backwards, looking desperately to the bathroom door, wanting to yell for Evelyn but unable to find my voice.

“Stop,” I said, my back hitting the wall. “Please, stop. Just leave me alone.” My mother had always told me to be careful what I did and who I helped with my gift. She warned me that if I could see something, that something could see me back. If I opened the door to another dimension, passage could be in both ways.

I pulled my knees to my chest as it continued to move closer, and covered my eyes in hopes that it would go away by itself. When I looked and it was still there, I was finally able to call Evelyn’s name. As she rushed out of the bathroom, the being extended a hand toward me, pulling it slowly back when it noticed Evelyn.

“What is it, Zee?” Evelyn said. She knelt beside me and tried to get me to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you see it?” I cried, putting my face into her shoulder. “Make it go away.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Evelyn said desperately. “Zee, will you tell me what you see?”

I pointed at the being, but it had vanished. “It was just there,” I whispered. “I swear it was.”

“What was there? Talk to me, Zee.”

“I don’t know what it was,” I yelled. “I think-I think…” I paused, steadying my breathing. “I think it wants me. It wants to kill me. My mom said they don’t like me interfering in their world – and now it’s going to kill me.”

“Okay,” Evelyn said, pulling me into a hug. “Calm down before you hyperventilate. It’s okay. It’s gone now.” She believed me, no matter what I said, and that was the reason she had been my assistant for so long. Anyone else would have brushed it off as a hallucination or a dream, but not Evelyn.

“I can’t escape it,” I said, gripping a handful of her shirt. “It will always find me.”

“It’s not here anymore,” Evelyn said again, obviously trying to soothe me. “If it wanted you dead, it would have killed you a long time ago.”

The sense in her words calmed me considerably, but I still had to sleep with the light on that night.

– – –

Torchlight grew from the walls until it filled the entire room, wherever it was. It looked like a tomb, and I half-expected to see a sarcophagus in the center of the floor. Instead, the floor was littered with pages of paper, yellowed and covered with handwriting. I moved carefully across the floor and knelt to pick up a page, but it fell apart in my fingers. I looked around at the other pages: each one was flaky and thin, too brittle to stand up to handling.

Slowly, I stood and looked around again. I felt like I had been there before, but knew I had never seen the place. If dreams were built from what had accumulated in the mind throughout a person’s lifetime, then this scene was not a dream, but a vision. With that knowledge in mind, I set about looking around the room, taking in every detail.

A small sound drew my attention to the part of the room behind me. The place had ledges carved almost as benches against most of the walls, and a boy sat on one in the back of the room. He had fair skin and scratches on his face and neck, and dark hair from which poked two small horns that I could barely see.

He looked down, and I followed his gaze. A young girl slept with her head on his leg. I recognized her immediately as Mary von Lamsweerde.

I stumbled backwards, somewhat unnerved by the boy. He watched me with a steady gaze as I again looked at a page from the floor. It was a manuscript, written on pages and pages of ancient paper in a script I had only seen on history programs.

I looked up at the boy again and he stared hard at me. Then he blinked and I found myself in darkness once again.

Evelyn did not need to wake me that morning; I seemed to fall straight from my dream into consciousness. She was awake, however, and looked at me as I sat up. “Good morning,” she said.

“What would you say,” I began slowly, “if I told you that the manuscript they’re looking for and Mary von Lamsweerde are in the same place?”

She looked at me strangely, then moved to the coffee machine. “You mean you know where she is?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I saw the room where she is, but I don’t know where it is.”

“What did it look like? Were there posters or anything on the walls to tell you where it was?”

“No.” I shook my head slowly, staring into my lap as I recalled the scene. “It was like one of those crypt rooms like in the Egyptian pyramids. There were no windows or anything, and the pages of this old manuscript were all over the floor.”

“And you say the girl is there?” She sat in a chair at the table and watched me.

“Yeah. She didn’t look hurt or anything. And there was this guy there…” I left out the part about his horns. “I don’t even know if he was real or not.”

“Why not?”

“He had horns.” I held my fingers up, hooked against my head to form mock horns. “He had horns on his head.” I shook my head and looked away. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Maybe we should talk to Detective Telberg.” She poured a cup of coffee and passed it to me. “He might have some answers.”

I nodded absently, not really paying attention to what she was saying. I took a sip of my coffee and again grimaced at the bitterness of it. “That room, though…It doesn’t seem like a feasible place. I mean, there were torches burning, so there had to be some way for it to vent. And how would she eat?”

Evelyn walked to the bathroom and began to blow-dry her hair. I had not noticed it was wet, but did not dwell on it. “What if the room just looked like that from inside?” she yelled over the sound of the machine. “There could have been a door somewhere.”

“I don’t think there was,” I replied.

On the nightstand, our work cell phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the number, then took the phone to Evelyn when I saw that it was Telberg. I let her talk to him while I showered and dressed, then we headed out. Telberg wanted to take us to the police station to talk about my dream some more. He picked us up and drove us nearly to the other side of the city.

In the lobby of the station, I looked at the framed pictures and newspaper clippings that hung on the walls. One in particular caught my eye, and I moved closer to it as Telberg talked with the receptionist. The caption beneath the picture read Captain Hastings outside the newly completed Wells Fargo Building, 1972.

I looked closer at the photograph, specifically at the building in the background. A sign behind the Captain announced the opening of the building, and the fact that it was the tallest in the city.

“Can we go here?” I asked Telberg, pointing at the picture.

He looked at me. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at the picture again. “I just feel like I need to go.”

Evelyn approached and regarded the picture. “We passed this building coming in,” she said.

“It’s only a few minutes away,” Telberg said. “We’ll go, but we have to come back here afterwards.”

When we got in the car again, he drove us to the building, about ten minutes away. I got out and stared up at the building, the tallest in the city. Something drew me to the top.

“Can we go up?” I asked Telberg.

He sighed and gave me a strange look, but led us inside and flashed his badge to anyone who tried to stop us. On the roof, he said, “It’s windier up here, so be careful.”

I went to the edge of the roof anyway and looked down. Forty stories up, a long way from the street below. “The view is amazing from up here,” I commented.

“Can you hurry up, please?” Evelyn hugged herself against the chill in the air and the fact that she was terrified to be up so high. “Why did you want us to come out here, anyway?”

“Something told me to come here,” I said. Seemingly without my conscious control, I climbed onto the edge of the guardrail around the perimeter of the roof. Telberg and Evelyn both yelled something at me, but the wind whistled loudly in my ear and I could not hear them.

Then, as in the café the day before, something pulled at my chest, like a hook through my ribs. I let out a cry of pain and fell forward. Almost immediately, I realized I would die as soon as I hit the pavement. Air whipped at my face, blew my hair back, sounded in my ear like a siren.

I closed my eyes, unable to watch the sidewalk rise to meet me. As soon as the world disappeared, my descent slowed. I felt something underneath me and opened my eyes a bit to see what was going on. I had no will to scream as I looked directly into the bleeding eye sockets of the creature from my nightmares. It was beneath me, its wings outstretched as far as they would go. Somehow, it was slowing my descent.

When we reached the ground, it set me gently on my feet, but my knees gave out and I dropped. I looked up at the thing as black feathers fell around me. Closing my eyes, I tried to control my breathing so I would not pass out, and I half prayed that the being would be gone when I opened my eyes.

It was still there, still looking down at me.

“Why did you do that?” I asked hoarsely.

It knelt in front of me and I withdrew slightly as those empty black holes neared my face. When it spoke, the being’s lips did not move: “I need to help you.”

I took in the words, then blinked. The creature was gone. I looked around myself, trying to see where it had gone through the crowd of people that had gathered.

Someone called my name on my deaf side, and I looked in the voice’s direction. Kay and Todd rushed toward me, Adam behind them. Kay dropped to her knees and felt my face and neck to make sure I was okay, although what she hoped to accomplish, I did not know.

“What happened?” she asked, her face almost as white as the being’s.

I shook so badly that I could not speak, my throat too tight for words.

“Oh, my God,” she went on. “I saw you fall, but then you just slowed down. What happened? Did you jump?”

All I could do was let noise escape my throat.

“How was the weather up there?” Adam asked. I looked at him, but Kay and Todd acted as if nothing had happened. Adam looked down at me, his arms crossed and the same smile in his eyes as had been there in the café.

I closed my eyes and turned to the ground, still struggling to calm my breathing. Eventually, I became so light-headed that I passed out into Todd’s arms.

Minutes later, Telberg held something potent to my nose – not actual smelling salt, but something close. I swatted his hand away, sneezed once, and coughed a few times before opening my eyes. Telberg helped me to sit straight as I rubbed my eyes.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Evelyn said. She sounded choked up, but embraced me tightly as I compulsively swiped at my nose. “Don’t do that to me again.”

Telberg watched me, his eyes letting me know that he wanted to know exactly what had happened for me to survive a forty-story fall. He stood and shooed the crowd away, although many came back once he turned around. “I want you three to meet us at the police station in fifteen minutes,” he told Adam, Kay, and Todd. He then left to get the car we had arrived in and helped me into the back seat.

During the drive back to the police station, he demanded to know everything, and I told him. I told about the first dream I had had about the being, right up to when it caught me mid-air. I left out what it had said to me afterwards, feeling that it was up to me to decipher. I told him about the room from my dream and the pain I had felt at the café. By the time we reached the police station, he was prepared to drag answers out of the three Canadians even it if came to detaining them overnight.

“What do you know about Mary von Lamsweerde?” he asked as he dropped the girl’s file on the table. He paced around the table in a meeting room, where Evelyn, the strangers, and I sat.

“We don’t know anything,” Todd said, his voice level.

“Then how come he can put your manuscript and the girl in the same room together?” Telberg said, pointing at me.

I watched the three of them. While Kay and Todd seemed a bit nervous, Adam was perfectly calm, sitting casually with his arms folded across his chest. “How does he know it’s our manuscript?” he asked.

Telberg looked at me for the answer, and I said, “I just know.”

“He just knows,” Adam echoed. “Couldn’t there just be papers laying around someone’s basement or wherever you saw them together?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I said, staring hard at him. “I know it was your manuscript because I am psychic and I know.”

“You ‘know.’” He smiled bitterly and looked at Telberg. “You’re trusting a psychic’s word? What has the American justice system come to?”

I stood, glaring down at him. “When I collapsed at the von Lamsweerde house, it meant you three were connected. When I fell off the roof today, I was told that I would be helped, and I’ll be damned if I find out you did something to her while I sat idly by. I have no physical proof of what I say, at least not yet. If we find something, I swear I’ll have the three of you locked away for whatever reasons I decide to see.” I held up my fingers as air quotes around the last word.

I looked at all three of them, then to a movement I caught out of the corner of my eye. The being stood in the corner, watching me. I watched it for a moment, then sat down.

“He just openly admitted that he makes shit up,” Adam said, sitting up as he motioned toward me. “I can’t believe you trust him more than us.”

“He has never been wrong,” Telberg said. He leaned on the table and sighed. “Okay, here’s the deal. We have a missing child and a psychic who puts your manuscript at the same place with her. From now on, we will work together to find the manuscript, because so far, it’s the only lead we have.”

“What about the scarf?” Evelyn asked.

Telberg shook his head. “They won’t have any results until next week at the earliest.” He looked at Adam. “You guys brought an SUV. If Zee finds anything, we go together. If you try to leave, I will have you arrested. I want you to give anything you have on the manuscript over to Zee to look at, see if he gets anything from it.”

“I’ll go get it now if you want,” Kay said. “It’s in the back of the car.”

“Go,” Telberg said. He looked at Todd and Adam. “Is there anything you know outside of what she’s getting?”

“Adam only gave us what he had,” Todd replied. He looked at Adam for elaboration.

“I only know what’s in my journal,” Adam said.

I looked at the being as I noticed the pronoun Adam had used. It stared at me, still as stone. I felt slightly unnerved by the way those sockets pointed directly at me, and by the way the fresh blood in its face shone in the light. Looking at it, I had no idea how something so menacing could possibly want to help me.

“What are you looking at?” Adam asked as he kicked my foot.

I faced him. The others stared at me as well; I must have missed something they said to me. “Nothing,” I answered.

Adam glanced over his shoulder at where the being stood, his gaze lingering a moment too long. “Freak,” he said, returning his eyes to me.

The word no longer hurt me. I ignored him and waited quietly for Kay to return from their vehicle. When she finally returned, she carried only a journal. It was an old book, leather-bound, the edges of the pages lined with golden paint. A buckle held it closed.

She slid the book across the table to me, and I picked it up, hoping to read a bit of what was inside. Instead, I immediately saw a castle and recognized it as Louis XIV’s Versailles château in France. I stood at the head of its corridor at sunrise, and the myriad colors bounced off the mirrors along the back wall of the long room.

“France,” I said. I looked at the being: One of its wings twitched as if one of its feathers had been misplaced.

“What do you mean?” Telberg said. He watched me with intense eyes.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but we need to get to France. Versailles.”

“Great.” Adam slapped his hands on the table as he stood. “I’ll buy the plane tickets. Let’s get this show on the road.”

I did not want to fly with him, but by the end of the day, we were on a flight to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. I hated flying, feared and loathed it with every cell in my body. The number of times I had dreamed of airplane crashes and the shock when I found out they were not just dreams overwhelmed me too many times to count.

Evelyn held my hand as I tried my hardest not to look out the window. Telberg sat on my deaf side, doing paperwork and playing Spider Solitaire on his laptop. I played along with him to distract myself, telling him to nudge me and look at me when he spoke so I could read his lips.

We did the same as our connecting flight took us out across the Atlantic toward Europe. It was an overnight flight, so I could sleep through most of it. Still, however, it took me much longer than usual to fall asleep. Telberg and I watched a DVD on his laptop, and my head fell on his shoulder when I finally fell asleep. Evelyn told me later that he had wanted to push me away, but that she had convinced him that letting me sleep was better than me having a panic attack mid-flight.

– – –

It was dark in the crypt-like room this time, light coming from only one torch. Mary von Lamsweerde slept again on one of the ledges, her breath coming softly in her slumber. Pages of the manuscript still littered the floor.

I looked around for the boy, hoping to be able to speak in this dream. As I turned around, I saw the being instead, leaning casually against the wall, its wings outstretched for comfort. This time, I saw that it had a heavy iron ball attached to the chain around its foot.

“Who are you?” I asked it, not moving from where I stood. “Where’d the boy go?”

It closed its eyes and looked down, then its body began to change: The black wings shrank, then disappeared; the horns shortened into small stumps; the tail disappeared. Color returned to the skin and the black markings snaked into a static point on its left shoulder. Clothing erupted over its skinny frame, completing the transformation from the being to the boy.

He faced me and opened his eyes, then looked down.

I stepped backwards, wanting desperately to escape the dream. “What’s going on? What are you?”

“A god.” The words seemed to come from the air; the boy’s mouth never moved, not for any of the things he said. “Locked in ink on paper.”

“What is this place?” I asked.

“A tomb.” The whisper solely entered my left ear, my deaf side – a sensation I had never experienced before. After that, it returned to both ears, rendering me unable to tell which side was dominant. “Threatened by another god like myself.”

I stepped forward and looked around the room, running my hands across the walls. I did not dare show my back to the boy. “What do you mean, you’re a god? What religion are you from?”

“A dead one,” the air replied. “One that locked us away long ago, taken from the world so we would not destroy it.”

“You’re a bad god?” I looked at him, frozen.

“Not me.”

I stared at him, unsure whether to trust his words. Kneeling, I picked up a page from the floor. “What’s this?” I asked. I opened my mouth to begin reading from the page, but it flew out of my hand before I could draw a breath.

“Do not read it aloud. Once you do, he becomes unstoppable.”

The page fluttered to the floor, crumpling as it hit. “Who does?”

“Another one whose name has been lost to time, existing only on the pages covering this chamber.” He had had his eyes fixed on me the entire time I roamed around the room, unmoving and unwavering. Now, however, he touched the wall behind himself and the rest of the torches erupted with flame. “He stole this child so someone would look for her – so you would look for her, and so you would find her. He wanted you to read the page out loud, or to lead him to this place so someone would read the pages aloud.”

“So his essence is literally on these pages?” I gathered a stack and skimmed the words. “If you’re both gods, then shouldn’t you have pages somewhere as well?”

He nodded once. “He destroyed them.”

“Wouldn’t that destroy you?”

“I exist in your mind,” he replied. “I exist in your subconscious. I hide my god-form from the child, but it must exist somewhere.”

“That’s why you were calling my name the first night.” I sat on one of the ledges. “You wanted me to remember you.”

“I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to bring you here and show you this place before you met him, before you brought him here.”

“Before I…?” Something clicked in my mind then. “Adam.”

The boy nodded once. “We have been clashing in the child’s subconscious. His god-form exists only in her mind. She holds the key to his survival. If she says his name, she will allow him to exist as a god in the human world, but she can also destroy him with a single word.”

I looked at Mary von Lamsweerde. “What word?”

“Whichever one she chooses to designate in her own mind.”

“Can’t I do that for you?” I stood and began to pace slowly. “You exist in my mind, right?”

“Not exclusively,” he said. “A part of me exists in the child’s mind as well.”

I watched him. “What can I do?”

“Find this place. Find the child. Have her speak his name and destroy him. He stands no chance if you keep him away from here.”

“If she destroys him, what will happen to you?”

He looked down. “I serve no purpose anymore.”

“How could you not?” I approached him. “You can become a part of our world, integrate yourself. You could live out the rest of your life in peace and freedom.”

“I serve no purpose anymore.” He turned his eyes to me. “I am not like you. I am hideous.”

I looked at the horns on his head, at the scratches on his face. If they healed without much scarring, he would be attractive.

“When he is gone, I will be the last,” he said. “I will be obsolete. I will join the others.”

After a few more moments of holding his gaze, I began to pace again. “What happens if you burn these papers? Will he exist solely in the girl’s mind with no other way of escaping?”

“Yes.”

“Then why haven’t you burned the pages yet?” I scooped up a large armful of them and threw them into the air.

“I cannot do it,” he replied. “It must be done by someone who does not know his god-form. It would harm the child if you do it now.”

“I exist here, don’t I?” I looked around. “I am physically in this room right now, and on the airplane at the same time.”

He nodded. “I made your spirit solid.”

Mary von Lamsweerde slept peacefully, unaware of my presence. “I can’t take her back, then.” I faced the boy. “How do we get here?”

“A mirror.” He looked slowly to his right. Behind a drape in the corner stood a small mirrors, probably no larger than a yard in each direction, and as ancient as the pages on the ground.

“Of course,” I said. “The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. There’s hundreds of mirrors in there. But which one’s the right one?”

“I will wait for you there, but now, you must go.”

I opened my mouth to object, but everything went black before I could speak.

“There’s half an hour until we land,” Evelyn said as I awoke. Vague sunlight streamed through the window beside her. “Zee, what’s wrong? What happened?”

I elbowed Telberg until he woke up. He hailed a stewardess and ordered coffee for the three of us. When he could focus, I began telling them everything, quiet enough that only they could hear.

Telberg seemed less than amused when I finished. He looked at me with a skeptical expression. “You’re psychic, I can handle that,” he said. “But gods and magic mirrors? Be serious, Zee.” The twitch in his eye belied the hope he found in the idea. I had seen the child, and I knew how to get to her – he found it hard to believe, but it was all he needed.

“I know,” I said. “Just bear with me. You’ll see when we reach Versailles.”

“What if the castle’s not open today?” Evelyn asked. “Can we wait another day?”

“As long as Adam doesn’t suspect us, we should be fine.” I watched as a steward passed.

Telberg sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This is going to make one hell of a report,” he said.

– – –

From Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris to Versailles, we took a bus. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at the castle and waited for the tour to begin. The thing about overnight flights is that they usually arrive rather early in the morning. Even after spending hours at Customs at the airport, we managed to catch the first tour of the day, which was rather full.

The six of us walked through the castle, pretending to be interested in what the tour guide said even though none of us spoke French. When she turned her back, we snuck off down a hallway and examined the brochure’s map. We then navigated our way to the Hall of Mirrors.

“What are we looking for?” Kay asked, her eyes wide as she took in the enormous room. It was a rather magnificent place, a massive natural sunroom built for the Sun King himself. A mirror to a god’s crypt hidden in a tribute to a godlike king.

“A mirror,” I said.

“You’re kidding,” Adam said. He looked at me skeptically, but I avoided his eyes. “This whole place is mirrors.”

“How are we supposed to know which one we’re looking for?” Todd asked. I was inwardly glad that he and Kay were not involved with Adam’s plot; they seemed like such nice people.

“You’ll know,” I replied.

“Why don’t you three start up here,” Telberg said. “We’ll start at the other end and meet in the middle.”

Evelyn, Telberg, and I set off down the corridor, taking in the size of the place. I hoped that whatever the boy had meant by I will wait for you would become apparent to me soon.

“When we find the mirror,” I said quietly, aware of the potential for sound to carry, “someone needs to go in and get the girl out. I’ll light the pages on fire. Evelyn, you can get the girl.”

“I’ll keep track of Adam,” Telberg said. “If what you say is true, then he won’t be happy about any of this.”

“I don’t think he knows we know yet,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like he does.”

We reached the end of the corridor and began looking at the mirrors. I only saw myself in each one, and the windows behind me. The hundreds of mirrors were arranged in seventeen arches that reflected the seventeen windows facing them, looking out over the gardens.

Evelyn cried out beside me. I looked over to see her on the ground, having fallen backwards at whatever had frightened her. Telberg and I ran to her. When he reached her, Telberg looked into the mirror and saw the being staring directly at him with those empty sockets. He drew in his breath, but recognized the being and instead turned his energy to helping Evelyn up.

I looked to the other side of the corridor. Adam, Todd, and Kay came running toward us, Adam in the lead with a twisted smile on his face.

“Evelyn, go,” I said, helping her to her feet. “He won’t hurt you.” I took her hand and led her over the red barrier and through the mirror, not sure myself what to expect. Climbing through the mirror was just like passing through a window, however.

Mary von Lamsweerde screamed when she saw us. “Get them away,” she yelled at the being, who had turned back into the boy.

His voice echoed around the room, his lips still not moving: “They’re here to help.”

Evelyn paused for a moment to gape at him, but as I heard Adam begin to yell behind me, I gave her a gentle shove in the girl’s direction. As she grabbed the child, I began piling the pages into the center of the floor. With one swipe of his hand, the boy gathered them and held them suspended in a stationary tornado.

I glanced at him to say a silent thank you, then grabbed a torch from the wall and touched the flame to the tornado. The pages went up in flames easily as Adam managed to break free of Telberg’s grip. He burst through the mirror in time for the entire tornado to catch fire.

“Damn you, Zee,” he yelled, something demonic and frightening in his voice. He dropped to his knees and let out terrible cries of pain.

Telberg poked his head through the mirror, the climbed all the way through. “Oh my God,” he said slowly as he looked around. He looked at me as I stood beside the boy. “You weren’t lying.”

“No, I wasn’t.” I looked at the boy as he slowly lowered his hand. The tornado dissolved into shreds of charred paper as Adam continued to release dreadful cries of pain.

“The rest of the pages will burn away,” the boy said. He approached Adam slowly and knelt before him, taking Adam by the chin and forcing their eyes to meet. “Get the child.”

Being the closest to the mirror, Telberg stepped back through and brought Evelyn and Mary von Lamsweerde back through. On the other side of the mirror, Todd and Kay watched, amazed.

The child stepped forward and hugged the boy. “I don’t want you to go,” she said.

He looked at her. “I can’t stay,” he replied. “Say his name.”

She cupped her hands around his ear and whispered into it.

“And your secret word?” the boy prompted.

“No,” Adam pleaded. “Please, don’t. Let me live. Please.”

The girl gave him a fierce look, telling him she was not afraid of him. Looking at the boy, she balled her hands into fists, threw them into the air, and said, “Ponies!” I smiled, wondering how the fate of the world had come to rest on a six-year-old’s shoulders.

The boy drew in a breath and blew it out slowly on Adam’s forehead. Adam let out a bloodcurdling scream, and I watched with a mixture of horror and amazement as Adam’s body dissolved into thousands of bits of paper, charred and fragile as they floated through the air. Soon, Adam was nothing but a pile of charcoal on the floor.

Evelyn picked up the child as she began to pout. Her eyes filled with tears as she pleaded for the boy not to leave her alone with the strangers.

The boy stood and approached me. He turned and led us all out of the room. “It will seal when it empties,” he explained. Once we all left the room, I saw a change in the mirror, the reflection becoming a bit clearer than it had been before.

He led us across the corridor and stopped infront of one of the windows. “So long since I’ve seen the sun,” he said, then closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and stretched his arms out to his sides. As if the sunlight blew on him, his body slowly began to dissolve into the same charred paper as Adam’s had. The pieces floated through the air, settled in the grass.

And then he was gone, the last of whatever dead religion gone forever.

– – –

Telberg and I sat in the International Arrivals area of Charles de Gaulle, waiting for Mary von Lamsweerde’s parents to arrive. We watched as Evelyn tried to keep the child entertained with coloring books and card games. The child, however, was more interested in reading everything she could see.

“He chose a child because they read everything they can,” I said. “She would have been the most likely to read the manuscript aloud and resurrect him.”

The detective nodded, but said nothing for a few minutes. He tapped his little finger on the armrest. “I lost my oldest daughter when she was that age,” he said, then looked at me. “I never would have believed you if I hadn’t wished for a miracle to bring her back.”

“There’s impossibility in everything,” I said. “She could still be out there, waiting for you to come rescue her.”

He shook his head. “Possibility means nothing to me now.”

I raised my eyebrows. “After this, the possibilities are endless.”