“Love…” Ivan says, and then he stops and looks extremely frustrated. “Trying I to….” Ivan stops again and his eyebrows furrow, he grits his teeth. His eyes burst into green flames and he throws a ball of his green energy that looks like a fireball past Clay’s head and it smashes into a thicket of trees, sending up wooden splinters and dust.
“Stop it,” Clay says forcefully, and when Ivan tries to stand and leave, Clay puts a hand firmly on his shoulder. His eyes glow green and he stares at Ivan. “I get that this is difficult, but you need to stop being a baby about it…”
“Fuck!” Ivan yells at Clay. It is quick and hurtful like he spits in Clay’s face.
Since the apparent death of the Red Father, Ivan has been speaking his words out of order. He has mostly been expressing himself with one word to avoid the jumble, but this has frustrated Clay who thinks that Ivan isn’t trying hard enough.
“Listen to me,” Clay says, “Alia is doing what she can to figure this out and you heard what she said. That new lady we met, Wendy, she is helping too and they will find an answer, but you need to try.”
Ivan looks away and brushes Clay’s hand roughly from his shoulder.
“What do you want from me?” Clay asks. “I’m gonna do what I can to help you…”
“It to need you just stop!” Ivan storms away and leaves Clay seething outside.
Ivan goes into the house and Alia is there with her eyes closed. She sits at the dining room table and Ivan sees her, outlined in a sky blue glow. She opens her eyes when she realizes he is there and she smiles gently at him.
“Me leave won’t alone he! Like me see I to him this want don’t.” Ivan yells and Alia stands before him.
“You’re mad that that beautiful man outside is trying to help you?” Alia says sarcastically. “Don’t be a brat Ivan. You have no idea how lucky you are to have him. The last guy that said he loved me tried to give me to that red man.”
“Won’t alone me leave he…”
“He won’t let you give up? He sounds like a real asshole…” Alia rolls and eyes. “You see how good Brittany’s been doing? She’s still jumbling words, but she’s easier to understand than you, and you know why? Cause she’s been trying. Now go outside and apologize, and keep trying!”
Ivan leaves the house reluctantly.
He had spent time in the actual red realm that Brittany hadn’t, Alia is being unfair. The Red Father had dislocated his soul from his body and trapped him in a place that seemed to be the source of his abilities. It seemed that he had taken control of Brittany’s mind without sending her soul to a different place, but she came away affected like Ivan had. Ivan worries about her, Clay and Alia too. She hardly leaves her room and she refuses to return to work because she does not want to leave the house.
Ivan sits angrily in front of Clay.
“Tell me you love me,” Clay says.
Ivan sighs, rolls his eyes, “You…”
Alia is not a medium, but Wendy had left the spirit of her ancient relative, Tendayi, to help them figure out what had happened to Ivan and Brittany. Because Alia is not a medium, Tendayi is unable to pilot her body and Alia can’t see her in the physical realm, but the two can meet on the mental plane of existence, which surprises Alia because technically the woman has not had a physical mind in centuries. The souls of deceased people can access the mental plane of existence if they were able to do so in their lives, and if they have access to the plane from the location where their soul is located.
Alia and Tendayi speak in Alia’s park on the mental plane.
“The red man is not dead, you do realize that?” Tendayi asks. “And because he is not, we can find him. Look.” Tendayi raises her hands in a flourish and a square, like a screen, appears and provides a window into the red realm.
“How can you do that?”
“I am not doing it, I am guiding you as you do it,” Tenadayi laughs. “Maybe it is not obvious to you yet, but the parallels of reality are your playground, or entertainment. I do not know if you can travel there, but you can view it.”
Alia uses the same skill when she stares into the solar futures, but she had assumed that she needed to exist in a parallel and be conscious of her ability in order to see it and she tells this to Tendayi.
“Well, that is wrong,” Tendayi says playfully. “You need to work, you need practice. I am helping you see the red realm, it is easier for you with help. It takes real focus to see a place like that one.” Tendayi stares at the square view into the red realm.
“Where is that?” Alia asks.
“I can’t tell you location, but that is where the man is now. And if I am feeling correctly, this place is like a jumble of the variables that created our reality. I suspect that when Ivan was held there, his very being was rearranged to accommodate his new environment. With time, he should reorient to our world, and with powers like his, Ivan should be able to fix himself. His powers are intimately related to the Earth of our reality and he knows how to feel and manipulate it’s energies. The sister should be fine as well, she is already further along than Ivan.”
Alia nods.
“Go and work with him, focus his mind, feel what is off in him, and help him tune to the world. I will leave you now, but you can always find me.”
Alia opens her eyes and Ivan and Clay are glaring at one another across the table.
“Stop fighting!” Alia says. “You guys need to find your harmony. Clay,” Alia yells, “help this man harmonize!”
“What does that even mean?” Clay asks.
“He’s out of sync with our realm, he’s out of sync with you. Help him,” Alia says.
The couple holds hands and Alia watches as they both seem to power up with green energy. There are flashes of static in the air, and then streaks of lighting dance between them.
“Don’t move, I’ll get Brittany.” Alia runs to the back room and brings Brittany into the dining room. When she sees Ivan and Clay, she cowers and shakes her head.
“I can’t deal with this anymore stuff,” Brittany says on the verge of tears.
Clay breaks his concentration with Ivan and rushes to Brittany’s side.
“Don’t worry,” he says as he hugs her. “Brere gyaa’d hunnuh,” he says in Gullah, just like his grandfather had all those years ago.
Everyone watches as a healing aura radiates from the siblings.
“I feel better already,” Brittany smiles and she excused herself to her room.
“Now Ivan,” Alia says, wiping tears from her eyes as discreetly as possible. The scene between the siblings had been very touching.
Clay sits across from Ivan at the table.
“I’m…fine…now,” he says with effort and Clay can see veins protruding from his head.
“Just relax babe,” Clay says softly and he grabs his hands.
Alia jumps back from the table when a huge flame suddenly flared up around the two. It has no heat, no smoke, and when Alia runs her hands through it, it almost feels like running her hand through water.
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