Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) (35 page)

“It’s not over.” Reece lurched to his feet and strode away from the fire pit toward the back of his house as if the experience hadn’t affected him at all.

Brandon slowly rose from the bench, Dana stood, and they followed. For a guy who couldn’t see, Reece moved fast. Not over? Brandon felt like they’d just finished sudden-death overtime in the Super Bowl and they weren’t done?

He broke into a sluggish jog till he caught up with Reece. “Care to expand on what ‘not over’ means?”

“Yes, as soon as the four of us are together. I want to make sure the professor is okay.”

The three of them reached Reece’s back door together and if Brandon didn’t know better, he’d swear the big man was seeing again. He reached for the door handle without hesitation and pushed through.

“Marcus?” Reece called the professor’s name twice before he got an answer.

“I’m here.”

Brandon slogged into the living room and stared at Marcus. His complexion was paler than usual, but other than that the professor looked well. “You’re all right, Prof?”

“I’m good.”

He stood, then sat back down on the couch his body had been lying on for almost five hours. Marcus breathed like he’d just finished a marathon. Good, Brandon wasn’t the only one ready for a break.

“It will take an abundance of time to process the complexity and spiritual implications of what I just experienced, but yes, I truly am well.”

“Regretfully, for all of us, there isn’t any time for processing.” Reece stood like a statue, his long arms folded across his chest.

Marcus gazed up at him. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s two of us, bro.” Brandon eased over next to the professor.

A voice rang out from above them. “It’s time to go after the Wolf in the heavens, Marcus.”

Doug eased down the stairs and came to a stop next to Reece.

“Now?” Brandon said. He glanced at Dana. Her eyes told him she wondered the same thing.

The professor looked down, then raised his head slowly. “It’s not.”

“It is,” Doug said. “I’ve never heard more clearly from the Spirit. The time is now. I believe Reece agrees.”

Marcus shook his head. “Proceeding into that course of action is not a path I’m able to take.”

“I realize you’ve been through a harrowing journey and need time to analyze what has happened.” Reece lumbered toward Marcus. “I realize what we all just came out of has exhausted us physically and emotionally as well as spiritually. But there isn’t time for recovery right now. You don’t think you have it in you to enter
immediately into another battle, but you do. You have the strength, Professor, his strength.”

Marcus shook his head. “That isn’t what I meant to indicate.” He rubbed his hair. “Confronting the Wolf is not my path.”

“What?”

“I’m not to go in with you and the other Warriors.”

“It’s the path for all of those of the prophecy.” Reece took a step forward, his arms still folded. “We cannot do this without you. The Spirit has told me more than once that you are the key to victory over the Wolf. That without you, we are lost.”

“I’m sorry.”

Reece turned. “Dana? Brandon? Am I missing something here?”

Brandon hesitated before answering. Missing something? Yeah. Any hint of sanity. Reece and Doug wanted them to go after the Wolf right now? After what each of them had been through? Brandon was at the point of collapse. Dana had to be as well. But it didn’t seem that way when she spoke.

“I think Reece and Doug might be right. I feel like Jesus told me the same thing. The time to go after the Wolf is now. Believe me, I don’t want to, but I have little doubt of what we are to do.” She turned to Brandon and stared at him for several seconds before speaking again. “Brandon, have you asked the Spirit? If yes, what has he said?”

He hadn’t even thought of asking the Spirit what their next move was. He was thinking of sleep. But in the next moment the answer came.
Now.
He turned to Marcus. “We gotta go in, bro.”

“That might be the state of affairs for the three of you, but it isn’t for me. I’m sorry.”

Reece stood to his full six-foot-five height and raised his voice a notch above normal. “Marcus Amber, put down your own desires, your self, the thing you feel you should do, and take hold of the thing you know you must do!”

Marcus stared at Reece, his eyes more intense than Brandon had ever seen them, his countenance like granite. As he opened his mouth to speak, a thundering knock came from the front door.

“Well now, it looks like we have a party crasher who wants to join this friendly discussion.” Brandon turned to Reece. “Were you expecting guests?”

He didn’t wait for an answer and loped toward the front of the house. He glanced back at the others, then opened the door. Tristan Barrow stood on the wood porch, his arms folded and legs spread shoulder-width apart. Behind him and to either side stood Jotham and Orson.

“Hello, Song.” Tristan grinned and gazed at the rest of the Warriors. “We’re not interrupting anything, are we?”

Brandon stepped back and ushered them in. The three angels clomped down the two steps into Reece’s sunken living room and stood in front of the fireplace, Tristan in the middle, Jotham and Orson to his sides.

“Welcome.” Reece stood and gestured to the others. “No interruption at all. Your timing is impeccable. We’re just about to go in to confront the Wolf.”

“Yes, it is time for that.” Tristan glanced around the room. “All of you are going in?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Tristan looked at the floor for a moment, then raised his head and stared at Reece. “So you don’t believe Marcus when he says he knows he’s to take a different path?”

“I know what the prophecy says, that the four must face the Wolf.”

“Let it go, Reece. Allow Marcus to hear from the Spirit as clearly as you do.”

“He’s not to go with us?”

Marcus stared at Tristan. Even though he knew he wasn’t to go with the other Warriors, he had little doubt no quarter of rest was being offered to him either.

Tristan turned to Marcus, arm outstretched, eyes full of joy. “Will you go with me?”

Marcus didn’t respond. The laughter in Tristan’s eyes drew him, but whatever journey the angel wanted to take him on would not be all joy. Far from it. Facing what he’d done to Layne and choosing to tell Kat about it were sure to be part of wherever Tristan wanted to take him, and Marcus wasn’t ready. He was worn out, exhausted from his ordeal on the ledge with Zennon, and Marcus didn’t know if he could face any more potential realities without his brain splitting open.

Because there was no answer this time, no solution he could analyze and formulate that would save him. No principle of quantum mechanics that could be applied to create a happily ever after. Each one of the paths ended in wrenching pain for him, for Kat . . . but where else could he go?

“Will you join me, Marcus Amber?”

He stared into Tristan’s eyes, then into Brandon’s and Dana’s. He held her gaze. Strange. For just an instant it felt like he wasn’t seeing Dana’s eyes, but Kat’s. And in that moment he saw the tiniest flicker of hope.

“Yes, I will join you.”

Tristan grinned and his head tilted back as if he were about to laugh. “I am glad for you. This is the path of truth.” He turned back to Reece. “Go. Battle the Wolf. Fulfill the prophecy. He is for you.” Tristan reached his hand out. “Marcus?”

Marcus walked over and laid his palm in Tristan’s. Tristan nodded at the remaining Warriors and an instant later Reece’s living room vanished.

No one spoke. What could any of them say? Dana considered the options. There was only one. Go in without Marcus, but she believed Reece was right. The four of them were to confront the
Wolf, not three. And if Reece was right about Marcus being the key to their overcoming the Wolf, should they wait to go in till the professor did whatever he had to do?

Brandon was the first to break the silence. “That kind of puts a kibosh on our plans.”

Dana sighed. “Leave it to you to try to be funny at a time like this.”

“It wasn’t funny? I saw the distinct hint of a smile on Reece’s face. Really. You didn’t notice?”

“You heard what Tristan said.” Reece reached out his hands. “We still go in.”

“Are you sure?” Dana moved toward Reece, as did Brandon on his other side.

“Without question.”

Brandon asked, “Are we going in from here?”

Reece shook his head. “But we need to get to where we’re going in from.” He smiled.

“Well Spring?” Dana said. “Really?”

“Yes. Where else?”

“Here we come, Scotty,” Brandon said.

Dana moved her fingers toward Reece’s hand like she was reaching out to touch a scared fawn. The instant their hands met, their surroundings vanished and the three of them stood on the white-stone porch down the path from the main cabin at Well Spring Ranch.

FORTY-NINE

M
ARCUS GASPED
. T
HE RUSH THIS TIME WAS NOTHING LIKE
traveling through a soul’s gate. This was faster and more exhilarating than any other time he had voyaged into a spiritual realm. He wasn’t in the eye of the hurricane. He was on the fringe, moving a million miles an hour, and he didn’t want it to stop.

But within seconds, the earth—or something like the earth—grew solid under his feet and he spun to take in his surroundings. Laughter burst out of his mouth. “Elation beyond anything I’ve experienced.”

“Yes,” Tristan said. “Few taste this while still wrapped in the confines of their mortal coil.”

To their right and below them a huge golden-hued meadow—of wheat? grass?—spread to a blue horizon. In front of them a massive waterfall thundered hundreds of feet into a pool so clear and so deep, it made Marcus blink to make sure it was real. To their left ran a forest, and in the middle of the fir trees lay a lake so still the water seemed not to be water but trees planted upside down.

“This place . . . the . . . everything . . . the colors are so . . . vivid.”

Marcus laughed at himself. Describing the colors as vivid was as vast an understatement as he’d ever made. It was like saying the universe was somewhat large. The most brilliant blue on earth was dull compared to the azure and cobalt hues that were splashed across the sky and lake. The greens of the trees and gold in the meadow made
the richest emerald colors of the Pacific Ocean in midsummer and the deepest golden sun of Hawaii seem pale by comparison. And one breath of the air here rendered all the most-treasured fragrances of earth odorless.

Marcus did a slow spin. “Where are we?”

Tristan laughed. “A place every man and woman longs for even though it does not exist in their wildest imaginings.”

“What place?”

“A land where lies cannot live even for a moment. It’s a country where the truth is seen by all those who face it.”

“Face it?” Marcus said.

Tristan’s face grew sober. “Face what would have been if they had chosen differently.”

Marcus closed his eyes and pressed hard on one side of his nose. Unbelievable. The answer shouldn’t have surprised him—he knew this was coming—but still, the answer did.

“And if I choose to face this truth, what will be the outcome? Will the sorrow of what I would face be too much?”

“I cannot know what will happen to you if you choose to face the memories and then see what might have been. I’ve never had to face one of my regrets because I’ve not made a choice that would force that emotion upon me.”

Marcus frowned. “How can you insinuate this is a place men and women long for when your description indicates the greatest pain I can imagine lies before me?”

“I invited you to come. It is your choice to face what might have been.” Tristan grabbed Marcus’s shoulders and peered into his eyes. “But though the truth may slay you, it will also set you free.”

The truth would set him free. Did he believe that? Marcus stared at Tristan. “I will go with you.”

The angel grinned at Marcus and his eyes seemed to throw off showers of light making the charge of anticipation and fear that pulsed through Marcus all the stronger.

Tristan held out his palm. “Grab my hand.”

Marcus waited for another rush but this time it didn’t come. There was no sensation of movement, no swirling around his mind and heart and body. The journey was instant. One moment he stood with the angel on the hill; the next he was in a grassland seemingly as vast as the one that held the field of doors—the souls of all people on earth.