Unfaithful (19 page)

We reached a cave from the mouth of which a waterfall tumbled hundreds of feet through rings of rock located at different heights. We walked along a rocky path, climbing toward the top of what looked like a natural skyscraper. Fascinated, I stared at red-leafed trees that grew upside down, their branches reaching toward us. As we made our way along the path I heard the sound of falling water that gradually became closer and more deafening. When we finally reached the small summit I teetered and clung to Evan for support. The rocky ledge we were on broke off abruptly, plunging into the void as if we’d reached the limit of the world. Curiosity drove me on to the edge and I discovered where the sound of falling water was coming from. I held my breath as I saw below us a vast city all of alabaster. An infinite series of waterfalls flowed from the mountain into the river surrounding the city.

Evan looked at me, curious to see my reaction. The giant alabaster palaces towered over everything, streams of water flowing through them and small waterfalls pouring from their windows.

“What is this place?” I murmured, amazed.

“Come with me. I’ll show you.”

I stared at the waterfalls thundering down. “How do we get there?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

Evan nodded at a large tree trunk that lay among the rocks. “We’ll ride down on that, but you’ll have to hold on tight.” My eyes went wide with terror and he laughed out loud. “Just kidding! There’s a path.” He winked at me and led me by the hand down a stairway carved into the rock that passed behind the waterfalls. For the first time I was grateful he’d only been teasing me; Evan was capable of anything.

We reached the bottom and I realized I’d been wrong. It wasn’t alabaster. The city that rose from the water was made of unrefined diamond, so opaque it looked white. From below, the buildings looked even more majestic. Surreal waterfalls flowed here and there, reflecting the glow from the enormous moon above. A light mist cast a mysterious halo on everything, making the atmosphere gothic. I recognized features from different eras. Bridges with spires and pinnacles stood on rocks protruding from the water. Overhead was a statue of a dragon with its wings spread. I remembered seeing something vaguely like it when we’d studied French gothic cathedrals at school. In the distance atop tall, tall pillars were two more giant statues of lions that seemed to be guarding something. The buildings were of different sizes. The larger ones looked like sixteenth-century baptisteries complete with surrounding colonnades and Michelangelo-style cupolas, while the smaller ones had more Asian-looking domes. One in particular caught my eye. It was smaller than all the others and looked like a wedding gazebo, ivy-covered with carved floral motifs.

“We call this place Diamantea, the Celestial City,” Evan explained. “Some simply call it the City. We don’t really know what it’s for. It’s not small, but it can’t be home to many souls, and it’s the only building complex in all heaven. We think it’s a place where souls meet, go for walks, or spend time together. This is where we appear when we cross over for the first time.”

“Does the same thing go for mortal souls?”

“I think so but I’m not sure. No Subterranean knows. We can only guess. We help souls cross over, but once we get here our senses can’t perceive them any more. There. That’s the spot where I appeared.” He pointed to his right at a roofless colonnade that reminded me of an arena.

I tried to imagine Evan in this place, lost and alone, but I couldn’t visualize him any way other than the way I knew him: fearless and confident. Suddenly I started and spun around, alarmed. “Did you see that too?” A shiver lingered in my spine; for a second I thought I’d seen a shadow.

“There’s nothing here, Gemma. Relax,” Evan reassured me, sensing how nervous I was.

The city was both enchanting and eerie to me, knowing as I did that at this very moment hundreds, maybe thousands, of other souls filled the palaces that to our eyes appeared empty. Knowing that this was probably the spot souls from all over the world went after death.

“It’s not a good idea to stay here,” I murmured grimly. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Evan said. “Let’s go.”

I took his hand and followed him. Not far away I glimpsed what looked like a cave covered with purple ivy suspended over the river at the edge of Diamantea. It turned out to be a natural passageway made of plants and artistically interwoven vines, a tunnel of lavender flowers.

I let go of Evan’s hand and hurried to it, laughing. The scent was intoxicating. I turned toward him and opened my arms wide. “God, this place is enchanting!” My voice echoed with a strange melodic effect and I clapped my hand over my mouth. Evan held a finger to his lips. I crouched down, peering through the branches at the water that flowed beneath the tunnel. The world all around us was lilac-colored.

Delightful interlaced flowers covered everything, their shape like nothing I’d ever seen on earth. They were round and so full they looked like they were about to burst, but one end had a sort of doubled-over neck. I breathed in their scent and stood up. “I would love to lie down here and read for hours on end,” I told him dreamily.

“Read me instead,” Evan dared me, a roguish glint in his eyes.

I clasped the pendant I always wore and touched the stone Evan had given me, my diamond. It was still unfamiliar to my touch, but knowing it was there warmed my heart. Evan sensed this thought and held me close, pressing me back against the wall of flowers. He nuzzled my neck as if the scent were coming from me, then brushed his nose against my ear, sending a shiver down my back. “Did you know,” he asked, “that when a male penguin chooses a mate, he scours the whole beach in search of the perfect stone to offer her? If she accepts it, they stay together for life.”

“Are you saying you’re a penguin?” I joked, even though he was so close it left me dazed, but he remained serious and kissed me right below the ear.

“I’m saying I’ve chosen you,” he whispered.

I stroked the gem as a shiver spread his warmth through me. “Then I accept your stone.” Suspecting that Evan was on the verge of forgetting where we were, I rested my hand on his upper arm to remind him.

“Don’t stop me,” he protested. “This is the tunnel of love.”

“How would you know?” A smile escaped me.

“But it’s true! Enamored souls come here and swear their eternal love for each other.”

“You can’t know that,” I reminded him. He was teasing me, but it was a game I didn’t dislike in the least.

Evan rested his hands on either side of my head, blocking my way. “Look, I’m the expert here,” he insisted. He leaned in to kiss me, but I slipped under his arm and ran down the tunnel, unable to hold back the laughter that produced a strange echo.

“Where are you going?” he scolded, laughing as he chased me. I kept running. “Come back here! I still have to show you the surprise.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to look at him as a sly smile spread across his face.

“What, do you mean that wasn’t the surprise? But you said—” I was confused.

Evan led the way, quickly climbing a steep promontory. “I never said it was.” He cast me a sidelong glance, grinning.

My wet clothes clung to my skin, but the warm air lessened the discomfort. My legs seemed to be holding out well though we’d been walking for hours now. How many, I couldn’t say. I’d completely lost track of time, among other things, and the fact that the moonlight hadn’t changed since we’d arrived didn’t help me gain my bearings.

We’d walked across bridges of intertwined branches and crossed the river below them inside a giant water lily, blue streaked with silver, that had immediately closed over our heads. Evan had seized the opportunity to try to kiss me, but I’d dodged his every attempt, jostling the flower, which had begun to emit a soft glow, as if ticklish. We’d climbed rocks so high I had the urge to fly. Finally I glimpsed a pinkish sky beyond us, revealing that the peak was near. A rich floral scent filled my nostrils at all times. A breath of air caressed my hair and when I looked up, a shiver ran down my arms. I wasn’t sure whether it had been caused by the gentle breeze or the breathtaking view that had opened up in front of me. I held my breath as the entire valley revealed itself to my eyes in all its glory.

An incredible, primeval glory.

Nature bloomed in splendid profusion, painting a surreal landscape whose colors and shapes formed a harmonious whole. Yet the valley contained something even more magnificent that held sway over everything else and riveted my attention. Despite the distance I grasped its vital essence as it stood tall, challenging the sky, towering over all the rest, ruling all that surrounded it. Majestic. Eternal. Ancient.

“The tree of life,” I whispered, almost without realizing it.

“And of the knowledge of good and evil,” Evan said.

Still mesmerized, I sensed a movement to my right and jumped when I saw two beautiful, tawny-furred creatures grazing on the red grass. They had thick lion’s manes and two thin horns that curved back toward their long tails. They looked like big, prehistoric dogs. Then I remembered: these were the same creatures depicted in some of the statues in the celestial city. Evan went over to the two animals and one of them bowed before him, allowing him to stroke its fur.

“Tyadons are shy but loyal creatures that are always found in pairs. It’s said that God placed the breath of life of one of them in the other so nothing could separate them and then sent them to earth to protect mankind. But then it was discovered that if one of them died, the other lost its
prana
, the spirit that dwelled within it. The battle for survival led to their extinction so God—seeing man’s cruelty—decided to keep them for Himself,” Evan explained. He laughed and leapt onto the tyadon’s back.

I opened my eyes wide. “Oh no . . .”

Evan looked at me as if he’d just climbed onto a scooter instead of a giant prehistoric dog-lion. “We need a ride,” he said, shrugging and smiling to himself. Before I could reply, he nudged the animal with his heel. It took off at a gallop, but he stopped it a few yards away. “You going to take much longer?” he joked, turning back to look at me.

I pressed my lips together, not about to give in, and quickly climbed onto the other animal. Once I’d mounted it I wasn’t sure how to ride it. I grabbed its horns, which were spread out like handlebars on a motorcycle, but the tyadon shook its head, seeming annoyed, so I wound my hands in its thick mane, hoping I wasn’t hurting it.

“I’d hang on tight if I were you,” Evan warned me a second before the air was sucked from my lungs. The landscape became a blur and my brain finally caught up: my animal had shot off behind the one Evan was riding and we were racing like the wind. Their steps alternated rapidly, barely touching the ground, and at times they leapt so far forward I wasn’t sure they couldn’t fly. It was an electrifying, otherworldly experience. Racing at two hundred miles an hour on Evan’s motorcycle had never left me as breathless as I was now, even though Evan controlled the air around us so I wouldn’t suffocate. It was an indescribable thrill I knew I could never get used to.

I opened my eyes again when the air stopped lashing my skin. My animal had come to a halt right behind Evan’s. I dismounted carefully, not because I was afraid I’d fall but because all my attention was riveted on what my eyes beheld. The colors were so intense they dazzled me. I looked up but couldn’t see the sky. The tree towered over everything.

A mighty network of interlaced trunks rose majestically into the sky. The branches swooped down in dense and impenetrable arrangements, snaking across the ground. It was almost impossible to believe that the tree was a single living organism.

I looked at the opalescent, unusually colored leaves that clothed its branches. My neck craned, I swiveled and peered toward the sky. Silvery light winked through the sparse gaps among the leaves.

“It’s so . . .” No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to find words.

“Ancient?” Evan suggested.

“Magnificent. I feel its energy,” I told him. A steady tingling coursed through me from head to toe.

“Is this how you imagined it?” Evan already knew my answer. There in that place, I was an open book to him.

“Not with all these colors,” I admitted, fascinated by the incredible hues that covered it. Evan chuckled and for some reason I had the impression he was laughing at me again. A moment later, he pursed his lips. A soft melodious sound like a gentle whistle issued from his mouth and I started when a dense shadow moved over our heads. I looked up in alarm and my breath caught in my throat.

Butterflies.

His whistle had stirred them. Countless butterflies, as big as my hand, had risen into the air, leaving the trunks on which they’d been resting. The sky was filled with their incredible colors: red, purple, deepest blue, amber, even bright pink; opalescent shades that blended together to create new ones. The sight left me breathless.

Watching their colorful wings flutter around us, I tried not to make a sound that might scare them away. As they passed, a delicate floral fragrance lingered in the air, the same one I’d perceived in the distance. It was an irresistible scent.