“Jason?”
His smile was so filled with kindness that my heart burned with the almost forgotten feeling of being loved.
“Jase, are you really here?”
“Ara?” he said in that smooth, low voice. “You have to get up—you have to keep moving.”
“I—” My eyes rolled back, closing. “I can’t. I failed, Jase—”
“No. You only fail if you don’t get up.”
“But I didn’t find it—hope. I thought I did, but…it was only a thought—an idea, and I keep losing it. I just keep losing it.”
“Hope was never to be found, Ara. Hope is something you always had in you.”
“But, I'm not what my people needed me to be.”
“No, because you are more than they hoped you would be—capable of more than they allowed you to believe.”
I shook my head against the dirt. “I couldn't finish the walk. I'm no good to anyone, now.”
“You’re still as valued as you were when you left. You never needed to prove anything to them about your worth, sweet girl—you only need to prove it to yourself.”
“But it’s all gone. Everything I was supposed to be—supposed to do—all gone.”
“I don't know what the future holds for you when you return, Ara, and I don't know what your people will say, but I know that no matter what you’re worth to them, you will always be everything to one person in this world.” His shaggy hair fell loosely in the dirt above his brow, and his sparkling grin, as he ran his fingertips along my face, made me feel as if he was really here. “Find your way home, Ara—find your way back to that one person, and you will never doubt yourself or your worth, ever again.”
“Well, who are you talking about? What one person?”
“Your true love.” He shuffled a little closer; I felt his knees against mine. “He will hold you, kiss you and adore you—come what may.”
“David.” I smiled.
“Perhaps.” He stroked the tip of his thumb down my nose. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps he is much closer than you think—waiting for you to return to your dreams again, so he can hold you there, in his lonely reality—for eternity.”
“You?”
“Come back to me, Ara.” He took both my hands. “Come back to me…”
Dark splotches distorted the image of Jason’s face; I blinked a few times, trying to make it clearer.
“Come back to me…” His voice echoed away.
“Jase?” His touch dissolved. I sat bolt upright in the dark of night. “Jase?” Stay.
But he was gone again, leaving me battling with the deepest part of myself that loved him once—loved him, but never got to say goodbye. I wish I could’ve told him how I really felt—wish I could’ve told him in a room where it would have mattered.
But each time that battle began in me, screaming at the heavens, telling me to love him, I fought it down—sent it away. The girl I saw in my dreams was right; I loved him once, and I didn't want to grieve him. I could grieve my mum, I could possibly even grieve Mike, but…just not Jason.
I covered my face, trying to sneak back into the world he and I shared. But it was always only a dream—one that equalled reality in all five senses. I wanted to go back there—to him. And that scared me. Because I knew, of all things I had to face here, facing that truth was the worst.
I got up, got to my feet and started walking again.
He asked me to come back to him. He was here—if that was a dream or not, I didn't care. I felt home—felt him, and I just wanted that back again. Death, dream or reality. It didn't matter anymore.
The trees thickened around me as I scuffed gracelessly over the dirt. Each entangled finger of branches seemed to deliberately slow me down—touching me, grabbing me, snagging on my dress and arms.
“Stop it.” I shoved a dry, twiggy talon off my flesh. “Stop. Touching. Me!”
But none of them listened. They had me. They owned this part of the forest, and I wasn't allowed to go there.
I swiped my tears away and stood still in the crowded cage of dense shrubbery.
Maybe the trees were right. Maybe I was headed in the wrong direction. In my mind, I was walking to him—to Jason, but I was supposed to be walking home—to David. My husband. The one who has stayed with me, married me, put up with all my temper tantrums and stupid ideals. The one who always would.
Maybe I was supposed to walk back to him. Maybe I could never go to Jason because the road to the underworld was guarded by things unseen.
I had to turn around. I had to get back home—to life, to my people—to David.
Somewhere up in the night sky, the moon had risen, offering a pale glow to the darkness, illuminating the base of the trees in a soft, dull-blue—giving everything a dreary, grainy appearance. I looked along the length of my forearm and twisted it to see my elbow; the tattoos glowed, as if the moon was calling to them, and they were answering. Perhaps they had a clue, a message of some kind that would tell me how to get out of this forest.
Everyone seemed to have had their own theories before I left; ‘Follow the North star,’ Walter said. ‘Walk the path before your feet and don't look up,’ someone else had said, and Emily quite simply said, ‘Let your heart guide you.’
I looked behind me then to the path I’d been heading—to Jason—noticing that the trees had closed in, blocking that trail, making it impossible to get through.
Was that it? Follow my heart? Was I walking toward my heart?
I thought of David—saw his secret smile in my mind, felt the warmth of his love and let it fill me up from inside my chest, branching out like climbing vines.
“David.” I spun around then, in a completely different direction, but I knew it was the way. Walk toward what your heart desires.
“David,” I said to myself, and as I took a step, something cracked under my foot—the sound making my eyes wide before my hair and arms went vertical and my feet carried my body on a direct path downward.
I squealed, grasping at every branch to stop myself falling, coming to rest with a thunderous impact on my knees, my hands, then my head….
A rushing sound, like an express train in a subway, forced my eyes open. Small needles of dry pine blurred my vision for a second; I blinked them from my lashes, my eyes focusing on the waning daylight, while a woodsy, earthy smell dried my nostrils with each breath.
I lifted my face from the crook of my elbow and sat up, circling on my knees a few times in the barky bed I was laying.