Endlessly by C.V. Hunt Page A

and buckled them, then finished
dressing. “I left my smokes in the car,” he said, and headed for
the stairs.
    Despite the sunglasses, I could see she
was on the verge of tears. “I just wanted to make sure he was
real,” she breathed, fighting tears. She looked at me. “This is
real, right?”
    I nodded, realizing for the first time
that Ash was emotionally fragile. Was this the right thing for her?
Maybe she wasn’t cut out for it. I wondered if I should have
Jessica resend her soul. The world we lived in wasn’t designed for
delicate beings like her.
    I put my hand on her shoulder. “Come
here,” I whispered, drawing her close. As I inhaled her scent I
knew I could not let her go. I’d lived on my Spartan diet of
occasional meals for too long. I needed her; I couldn’t let anyone
or anything take her away. If I could have her near I would never
need anything. My connection with her was unbreakable. I would
protect her with my life.
    “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Jason is
just a jerk.” I looked around. “Where is your dog?” I
asked.
    Before she could answer Jason
reappeared at the top of the stairs. He stared at us embracing, his
cigarette nearly falling from his lips. He knew I was furious at
him for speaking to her the way he had. As he neared us he watched
me closely.
    Ash wiped tears from under her
sunglasses, and concentrated on my question about her dog. “A
friend of mine loves Pogo to death. I told him that I was really
busy this weekend and he volunteered to dog-sit.”
    Jason puffed on his cigarette. “Now
that we got that out of the way, lets get this party started,” he
said. He blew smoke in my face.
    “So where will you be most
comfortable?” I asked. “This might take awhile.”
    “I thought I might sit by the fire,”
she said, shrugging.
    Jason threw a few handfuls of dead
leaves on the fire to keep it going, then started gathering sticks
and adding them on. He pretended not to hear us. That didn’t
matter. He knew how this went.
    Ash sat, legs crossed, and eyes shut,
facing the fire, as I read from Jessica’s book. She listened to
every word I said, right to the end.
    Jason finally sat down on a fallen tree
trunk closer to the river. He said nothing. He knew Ash would need
to concentrate if she were to have any chance at all. She was over
two decades old, and that meant the process might not work. As I
read to her I thought: What if I had never found out? What if I’d
had to live with this insanity without ever knowing? I kept looking
up from the book, knowing I would never meet another like her. No
one else could have that aura. Yet I knew we might fail. If that
happened I was supposed to call Jessica. Ash knew too much. Telling
her these things made her a huge risk. Yet I had made up my mind, I
would not call Jessica. There was nothing Jason could do to stop
me.
    Jason cooperated, remaining silent.
This guided meditation was a type of hypnosis taking Ash back
before birth. She needed to envision a safe area. If I could get
her there, then we could explore the possibilities and learn what
kind of an incarnate she was.
    When we reached the safe area I said:
“Okay, Ash, you’re in your safe place. Envision it filling with
fog. There is nothing threatening about this fog. Imagine it
getting denser.” From the corner of my eye I saw Jason sit up
straight. He knew it was coming.
    “The fog is getting thicker and
thicker,” I went on. “You put your hand out in front of you, but
the fog is so thick, you cannot see your hand.” I waited for her to
visualize it. “Now it’s so thick you can see nothing but the fog.”
I waited a few moments. My heart pounded. I stifled my
terror.
    “While you are enveloped in this fog
you hear something in the distance. You are not afraid. This is the
sound of your incarnate approaching. How does it sound?” I paused.
Her face tightened. She concentrated on something distant. The
flames in the pit grew taller. I felt the tug of