(Continues from Melting into a Vision)

Tevra

A light blooms in the darkness, and the vision fades. He’s gone anyway, no need to keep watching. I brush at a tear tracking down my cheek with a shaking hand. I didn’t know what I’d seen, and I didn’t care. Later I would sit in darkness snug in my apartment and unpack everything I’d seen and experienced. Right now I wanted to sit with the memory and crushing sorrow accompanying his death.

Another train sped up the tracks blowing past me as I checked the station sign. Where the hell is Scarborough? I cursed and pulled out my smartphone to check the schedule. No bars greeted me, and I shook my head. Damn the Hudson line and its lack of reception. I lived in Westchester County a stone’s throw from New York City but my phone’s still searching for a tower.

Annoyed, I pocket my phone and resume reading, but the magic had fled from the book’s pages, breaking its spell. Twenty minutes later a train stopped, and I boarded it, flashed my monthly pass at the conductor and took a seat. I headed to my empty apartment to end one workday and get ready for another.

* * *

Days passed. I bought every book the author had written. She wrote only about one place and its people. And in each one, I found more than an escape. I found Shayari. I dreamed about her verdant lands and a voice calling me to come to her borders. They would admit me. I wanted to go.

I dreamed of a man standing alone in a mountain pass facing an army. He went up in magical flames after setting one last spell. His face haunted me for days. I’d witnessed his sacrifice, but he’d never know he wasn’t alone with the biting wind and the snow.

I grew thinner as I stretched between two worlds. In one, I had a toehold loosening day by day as my fingers strained towards the other and the silver tree beckoning me home. I blinked, and memory receded, tucking all its pages back between the covers of my mind. I knew who I was–Tevra Jones–and this world was not my home.

Find the earlier parts of this series here.

If you missed a part, worry not. This will be available from Amazon in 2017.
The adventure continues tomorrow.

For the November Notes Writing Challenge hosted by  Sarah Doughty of Heartstring Eulogies and Rosema of A Reading Writer.