Time to think is difficult. Loss is difficult. Losing a loved one can be agony.
Wendy’s mind was filled with thoughts of her Great uncle, how she could reverse Tin’s consumption of his spirit, if it was even possible. The incantations in Tin’s mind were so strange and haunting. They felt familiar, she could almost recognize the actions the words she did not know would illicit, but her ignorance of the language made it impossible for her to truly connect to the magic.
When she wasn’t worried about Great uncle, she was working with Anesuishe and Fang to help Isheanesu, who was slowly evaporating.
“This light that is burning inside of me,” Isheanesu said, “after I disappeared, after the resurrection of the man, I ended up in the eternal light of creation, but it was not at all like I expected it to be. It was everywhere and I moved through it. I wasn’t evaporating, or maybe I was, but I was bigger, puffy, like I was made of bubbles. It is a place of light, but I was afraid there. It was so vast, not empty, but so big there would be no way to know how many others were there.”
“Did you ever hear a language like this while you were there?” Wendy asked and then she opened her mouth and twisted her tongue and lips into the very foreign sounds that she’d heard inside of Tin’s head.
Isheanesu shook his ashen colored head as the vapors of his evaporating spirit poured off of him.
As she said the words, though, the tips of Wendy’s fingers began to illuminate as though she had off-white bulbs at the ends of each. She looked at her hands, then at Anesuishe and Isheanesu.
“That’s the light,” Isheanesu said with wonder in his voice. “I can’t believe this.”
Fang walked to stand in front of Wendy. They were in her living room and Fang had been standing quietly like she was in deep thought.
“Say those words again, I wonder if it makes it go away or intensifies it.”
Wendy did as Fang asked and as she said the words, the lights subsided on each of her fingers.
“The incantation opens and shuts,” Fang explained as she watched the lights disappear. She looked back at Anesuishe. “It won’t eat away at her soul like some words do, they are clean.”
Anesuishe nodded. “The pre-human spells should all be clean that way. Their soul magic was more pure, before evil incanters attached so much baggage to them, greedy for power that allowed them to cheat the final death. I still don’t understand why anyone would want that.”
Fang looked sincerely at Wendy.
“You are in possession of rare and powerful knowledge. If others learn what you have, it will endanger all of reality. We should not know these words, do not speak them again. Use them only if you must and with the voice of your spirit.”
Wendy understood the gravity of the new incantation she had acquired and there were others in her mind.
“If you can focus,” Fang said, “find the words inside of Isheanesu, you should be able to deactivate them.”
It made sense, and Wendy focused on the hazy form of Isheanesu whose back was facing her, even though he smiled at her; Isheanesu’s head was always turned 180 degrees from the natural position that he enjoyed before his death.
The light inside of Isheanesu wasn’t bright because it was very small. Wendy closed her eyes and knelt before him, and she focused until she heard the tiny echoes of the inhuman incantation that was slowly evaporating her ancestor. When she was sure that she heard it, Wendy said the incantation forcefully in her mind and she directed it toward the tiny echo. She felt the intention of the words blast from her mind and toward the echo that dissipated almost immediately. When she stood and opened her eyes, Isheanesu was still gray, but the vapors no longer poured off of him.
“You are very good,” Fang said and smiled at Wendy with pride.
“She is the best,” Anesuishe said.
“You stopped it,” Isheanesu said.
“But I can’t bring back what you lost,” Wendy said.
“You gave us more time together and we will cherish it.”
Stephanie arrived as the sun was setting and Wendy worried that something had happened to her; she’d arrived inside the house as a blur of her energies.
“There’s people looking for your friends at the CZS,” she said excitedly. “They’re friendly and I made myself visible to one of them! I’ve never done that before to someone who wasn’t a medium.”
“Who are they?” Wendy asks.
“Friends. They are waiting for me to bring you back. They want to save their friends and tear the place down.”
“They sound like my kind of people,” Wendy said and just before she said an incantation to fly back to the CZS, Fang called out to her.
“Save your friends and stop the man with these incantations. He cannot be trusted with them.”
Wendy nodded and she was off.
Stephanie follows Wendy back to the CZS, and just after she lands in front of the car she does not recognize near her own, the headlights turn on. Everyone inside the car gets out; a white woman, an older white man, a younger one around her age, and a Latino man.
“My name is Wendy, I see spirits and I know incantations. I learned this from the spirits of my ancestors. My friends Ivan and Clay disappeared after they helped me last year and apparently they’re in there. Some doctor is using them for something and if we don’t save them soon, I don’t think we’ll be able to.”
Everyone nods at one another, and then they all feel the ground shake.
“What’s happening?” Wendy asks and they’re all clueless. Then they all look at the main building of the CZS behind it’s high wrought-iron fence.
There is a loud bang! and then the bright light of an explosion, and everyone takes cover behind the car. From their position, they see what looks like a spacecraft launching into space.
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