Beyond the Veil by B. B. Griffith

Author:B. B. Griffith [Griffith, B. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The Walker

I am there.

I am there when the agents come to Midland. I walk behind them as they reach the camp. I reach for Caroline as she is swallowed up in the brawl, but my hands swipe nothing. I scream for Chaco to help, but he says that his charge is Grant. He says it again and again like he has to constantly remind himself or he’d be diving in.

And when the bell is ripped from Grant and Chaco does dive in, I see him dashed to the floor. I scream when Parsons plunges the turquoise knife into Grant’s grandfather. I watch as it cuts a soul that is still strong, that still had time. I watch as the knife destroys the natural order of things and rewrites a small portion of the soul map in one jagged, muddy swipe. My world lurches. I get a sense of drunken vertigo, and everything leers to one side for a second before righting itself again. I can do nothing. I am worthless.

Now all Parsons or Douglas needs to do is stab himself and ring the bell. Then I hand over the keys to the car and cross over forever, and one of them takes my place. I close my eyes. In a way, I want it to happen. In a way, it’s bittersweet. I wish I could tell Caroline goodbye, but my life has never been on point in the timing department anyway. It makes sense that it would end like this. Like I got hung up on.

Parsons says, “Ring the bell.” I squeeze my eyes shut. I hear the bell chime like a hammer striking a brass pipe that’s as big as a car…

…And nothing happens to me.

I open my eyes and find both agents very much alive and the bell very much rung. The sound’s shockwave has formed a bubble around the agents that is distorting time. I remember it well from when I died and rang the bell. The shockwave pushes outward slowly, like a kid blowing a bubble. But that was when I was in the thick of it. It never occurred to me that someone might ring the bell in the presence of death and not actually be dying themselves. But now that it’s happening, I remember Caroline and her last moments with Gam. The bell formed then, but Gam told her not to ring it. She could have, but she didn’t. The agents just did. And now the agents are waiting inside their bubble of time. They can only be waiting for one thing.

I feel the tug of the soul map calling me to a man named Abernathy Romer, but I don’t need the hint, because I’m already there. I watch as the soul of Abernathy sits up from his dead body and turns to his grandson, who is huddled over him. He reaches for Grant, and his hand passes right through the kid. He knows in that second that he’s been cut from his grandson, and he weeps.

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