Demicore

Chapter 18

“And so he has.” Announced a strange and familiar voice that had not come with them on this trip. Katlin screamed. Sonya turned white as a sheet. Elizabeth looked between them quizzically wondering if that really was an answer to the thought that she just had. The figure looked past Sonya and Katlin as though she could not see them. She was pale, almost pasty, even her clothes. She looked transparent… almost. As though if you concentrated hard enough, you would be able to see through her. Everything but the bright red silk scarf tied around her eyes. It was there. They could see it. But they could also see through it to empty sockets that held a very piercing stare. When she looked at a person, it was as though she could look through their flesh and bone into their innermost thoughts and soul.

She gazed at Elizabeth with her all-seeing stare long enough it made the other women uncomfortable before speaking again without an apparent effect on the subject of her attention, “He has heard your request, Elizabeth, and has sent me to you to aide you on your journey.” Even her voice sounded slightly ethereal. Katlin shivered.

“Yes,” Elizabeth answered. She could see the fear and confusion the others were feeling, but she felt none of it herself. She was calm and somehow reassured by the presence of this stranger.

“I have been instructed to tell you that your remarkable faith is being rewarded,” she smiled slightly when she said it. Her smile was as beautiful and terrifying as her presence.

“What are you doing here?” Sonya asked rather pointedly, finally finding her voice.

Her gaze shifted from Elizabeth to Sonya. To Sonya, this apparition was terrifying. Logic dictated that it wasn’t possible for her to be here, ghost or not, and she was having a lot of trouble processing what her eyes and ears reported.

“I would call you a doubting Thomas, but instead I will call you your father’s image. You always seek facts where sometimes you have to go on faith. I told you what I am doing here: I am sent by the One True God to give assistance in this quest.”

“Ok, if you’ve been sent back from the afterlife to give us a hand here, do you have any useful information you can supply?” Sonya asked, trying hard to wrap her mind around the situation.

“Andy?” Katlin asked, finally finding her voice. A tear slipped down her right cheek. She wanted to believe that this really was her friend, but…

“Yes, there is relevant information,” she stated, “That I will reveal as the time is right. For now, you need to finish collecting your items so we can begin our journey.”

Katlin and Sonya finished getting their gear together and making sure they were set for what may lie ahead, at least as good as they could be while Elizabeth stayed with Andy.

“Andrea,” Elizabeth said. It was a statement, not a question or beginning a conversation. This was the person he had loved while she was dead. How ironic that now he loved her again while Andy was dead and more still that she was back to help find him. She had been pretty when she was alive. She was still in an odd way. “So… How does this whole thing work?”

Andy smiled. Elizabeth could see why Erik had cared for her. If they had lived at the same time, she imagined that she and Andy would have been friends – if that smile and what she had heard of this woman were any indication of who she really was. “I do not need the things that a living body needs. Food, sleep, bodily functions. I am in a semi-solid state so the three of you can see and hear me, but no one else,” she paused to let her words take root.

“Why?”

“Because those are the rules. My presence would frighten most people,” she replied gently.

“There will be people we have to deal with?”

“The people of the jungle are an important part of the ecosystem. Even this far in the future, many of them still live the same ways they did when you were alive and hundreds of years before,” Katlin answered for Andy having overheard the question and desperately wanting to get back into the conversation. She had so very many questions.

“Is he still alive and ok?” Elizabeth choked out the question, hoping that she already knew the answer. If Andrea was here and not acting urgent, then Erik must be alright…

“Yes,” she replied solemnly, “for now.”

“Then we’d better get moving. If it’s just for now that means that something bad could happen to him any minute and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened because I’m standing around talking about it,” her words carried the same conviction that had motivated Erik all those years without her. Sonya picked up her pace grabbing the last of the gear they needed and “locking” the craft, Katlin set aside her insatiable curiosity, and Andrea shed a single tear from under the red silk scarf. As it hit the ground, the tear shifted and a blessing changed the soil.

Before anyone could ask what had happened, Elizabeth was picking up the pack that had been laid at her feet for her to carry and walking into the jungle ahead of them.

“Where are you going?” Katlin called after her, “How do you know you’re headed the right way?” Having not yet gotten direction from Andy or triangulated the tracking gear, she was very concerned. It’s just not smart to go traipsing into the jungle without a really good idea where you’re going and how to get there.

Elizabeth just pointed up. Directly above her was the second craft, thoroughly wedged between two trees and pointed in the direction she was headed. “That should get us good and started. We can move while you’re finishing whatever you’re currently doing.” Katlin and Sonya stood with their mouths slightly ajar for a moment before taking off to follow her. Andy just smiled. They had just watched her go from complete defeat to drawing on reserves of inner strength that they had no idea she possessed.

It bolstered Katlin’s confidence to see Elizabeth display what she was made of like this. If her mother had these inner reserves, then the rest of them must, too, by default which meant that no matter what happened they would make it through together. She took a moment to be amazed at the amount of devotion that much love entailed.

They travelled past exotic flowers, vines, roots, and several varieties of reptile and animal life without Elizabeth seeming to notice. Sonya and Katlin would like to have stopped to study some of them. There were a few rare ones. Some of those plants were useful in medicine… and yet Elizabeth continued to move forward. When she ran out of a trail to follow, she turned to ask Andrea if they were still moving in the correct direction. She pushed them until they couldn’t see where they were walking and so were forced to set a camp.

Sonya set up the “force fields” to ward off any unwelcome guests. Katlin made something that wasn’t really fire, but was warm and gave light. They ate a small meal out of sealed packages that were in the packs. It was tasteless, but nutritional and filling. They rolled out sleeping bags that were as thin as two layers of satin sewn together.

“Exactly how are these supposed to do anything for us out here?” Elizabeth asked.