“Yes! That is all I ever wanted for the girl.”
“To be happy, even? If at all possible?”
“Stop asking these silly questions! Of course I want that for her!”
Arthur watched as Jane Elring leaned back into her chair. The young investigator took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she cocked her head slightly in her bodyguard’s direction.
“You will make sure nobody disturbs us? Nobody walks into this room until I’m done,” she instructed.
“You got it.”
Caleb stood up and walked toward the door. He faced it quietly with his arms folded.
Jane straightened her back and took another deep breath. Arthur noticed that her breathing was rhythmic, as if she was meditating, or hypnotizing herself.
“Very well then, Mr. Toaves. Hold on tight, because this is going to be a trip.”
“What are you…?”
Arthur found finishing that sentence an impossible task. He couldn’t understand why, but it was as if all his thoughts abandoned him. He was left a mumbling fool, trying desperately to find words he didn’t even know existed anymore. Words that drifted somewhere, deep down, in the back of his mind where he couldn’t reach.
Then the room around him began to twist and curve. A strange force was warping his surroundings, stretching out the walls until they became oceans of the sickly green color they had been painted with.
Soon the entire room began to spin, or was it he that was spinning instead? How could you be sure that you were sitting still when everything stretched and spun all around you?
When Arthur looked at the floor he realized it was no longer there; in its place was a bright red light that called out to him. It wanted him to get up from the chair and dive into the depths of the aura that colored the room an eerie crimson.
Arthur was so dizzy that he thought he could never get up. Not even if the warmth of the red light felt so kind and inviting that all he wanted to do was give in to it.
Arthur knew enough to realize that he was not of proper mind and that, somehow, the young investigator had done this to him. How could he possibly escape her grasp? How could he free his riddled mind from the clutches of this monster? He was afraid, so very afraid, that he could never return from the hell that lay beneath his feet.
The red now was no longer kind and warm, but cold and demanding. Arthur knew then that it was hell that called to him. Reached out for him and desired his presence. This was the final reckoning of all the blood money he still possessed. This was the final judgment of the family name he so reluctantly carried. It would all end with him.
Arthur struggled up from his chair and knelt down. He tried to touch the red light that was now the floor, but his hand went straight through it.
Jane Elring’s voice echoed through the room. “Come on, Mr. Toaves. We can’t wait anymore. We have to go help Ellie.”
Ellie was down there? In hell? Waiting for him to come and rescue her?
Arthur took a deep breath and allowed himself to fall face-forward into the red light. There was no floor to break his fall.
He tumbled through the red aura and into an impenetrable darkness that surrounded him. It wasn’t a shadowy darkness. No. The presence of shadows implied that light was shining somewhere. This was pure blackness, the absence of all that was good and warm.
Arthur fell, and fell, and fell. Deeper and deeper into this terrible abyss that he knew would swallow him whole. It would consume him without any mercy. This was it. This cold and dark horror of a place was where it all ended.
Then, out of nowhere, he felt a small hand on his arm that stopped him from falling any farther. When he looked to his left he saw Jane Elring.
Her touch healed him. He could begin to think again and the dizziness that had conquered his head began to vanish.
“What have you done to me?” It was all he could think to ask.
Jane put her finger on her lips as if to shush him. With her hand still on his arm she began to walk, guiding him along the darkness in which she, apparently, could find a way.
Arthur refused. He didn’t want to go with her. She had done this to him and he couldn’t trust her moving forward. When he tried to stop moving, however, he realized that he couldn’t. He was forced to go along with her.
He looked down to see why his feet no longer obeyed his commands, only to realize that he didn’t have a body.
How was any of this possible? How could he move without a body? How could the young investigator hold his arm? How could he even see if he had no eyes to watch with?
“Have you killed me?” Arthur asked his question, only to wonder how he could ask anything at all without a mouth.
“We are in Ellie’s mind. I took you there because you have to help me help her. Very soon the light will come and you will be able to see again. I just have to find—”
Something interrupted the young investigator, though Arthur had no idea what it could have been. He saw only blackness. This terrible blackness where all thoughts and feelings came to die.
They were in Ellie’s mind? This cold and damp darkness was inside the young girl’s head? The energetic Ellie that liked to ride the horses and couldn’t ever stop asking him questions? How could such a horrible darkness live inside of her?
Then, to his dismay, Arthur realized that perhaps this darkness existed inside of him, too. Perhaps this was the place that they called the unconsciousness. That aspect of the mind where you could never find what you were looking for. Instead, you were usually found by whatever was looking for you.
“Found it!”
Jane began to run and Arthur could not help but follow her frantic pace. Together they raced through the darkness. Where to? He had no idea.
It could have been hours, it could have been seconds; Arthur had no sense of time in this strange place. Eventually a white light appeared in the distance and it became clear to him that this was their true destination.
“Where are we going, Jane? What is that light?”
“That’s the moment! That’s the moment where I can intervene!”
Arthur didn’t understand what she was talking about. Unable to stop, however, all he could do was follow the running girl toward this unknown and macabre destination.
Slowly the white light grew until it filled the entire horizon. It felt good to leave the darkness behind, Arthur thought, even if he only traded it in for the next great mystery he could probably never solve.
Jane said, “Only a little bit more. We’re almost there, Mr. Toaves!”
He said nothing. The lack of control was very painful but Arthur began to realize that it might be for the best. Where would he have wandered off to if the young investigator hadn’t gotten ahold of him? Surely he would have drowned in the cold abyss she’d managed to guide him away from.
But why was he here?
The white light was now so large that it blinded Arthur, yet he found himself unable to close his eyes. Of course, he had no eyes to begin with. So how could he even be blinded?
“This is it! Don’t be afraid, Mr. Toaves. I have you and I won’t let go!”
Arthur watched as the girl prepared to jump into the light. This was it, then. This was where she wanted to take him. This was what he had to be present for. Where would that light lead them? He once more found himself clueless. As the girl jumped into it, however, Arthur gave up all the ambitions of control he had left.
The next moment they were inside a bedroom. It was nighttime, which did little to hide the horrible spectacle that was unfolding.
Next to the bed lay a dead body, probably a man, with his face bashed in beyond all recognition. Blood flowed eerily from his mangled corpse.
To the left against the wall sat a large woman beating on a young girl. No! Not just any girl! It was Ellie that had her head against the wall, absorbing the large woman’s terrible rage.