Page 47 of The Quiet
The scouts who had found them guided them through the terrain, speaking little of the spirit of Life. Ella briefly overheard chatter indicating that plans to rebuild it were already under way. There was no emotion in the statement, no shock, no resentment, as if they’d knocked over a pile of blocks.
Little else was said, the scouts reminding them again that they shouldn’t ask too many questions if they wanted to return home.
The war didn’t end how you think it did.The words lingered like they’d been painted on the doorframe of her mind, branding every new thought that walked through.
“Ella,” she heard, and turned from the window to the people waiting in the room around her.
An unconscious Jade was hoisted up on Kay’s shoulder.
Ella was surprised by Jade’s presence, having to remind herself for what felt like the hundredth time that her friend was, in fact, alive. Kay was watching her face even now, so attentive to thelover he thought he’d lost. Ella had to continue to remind herself about several things that had happened in the last few hours, including where they were now.
They stood, miraculously, in front of a pool that would take them back to the Imperia. Despite it all, Ella felt distant from herself and everything else. Why did the moment feel like a tragedy? One so reminiscent of the one she’d experienced just days before that had cost her her friends–which she now realized had only been Alex.
Other scouts belonging to this small, and well kept empire, had found Jade in The Quiet and had brought her to this palace. The palace was a fortress, ornate and beautiful but at best like a mansion in size, and not the only thing bestowed with a grand title.
Paris, or the Empress, as they called her, waited near the doorway, with Hollow, the scout who had found them, leaning against the wall by her side. Paris had freely shared that she knew Crow had entered The Quiet but had no information on his whereabouts. Jade had grabbed Crow as he’d leapt through the embolism, thinking she was saving him and apparently now knew just as little as anyone else.
Paris did not appear to share any connections or alliances with the Imperia. Ella thought back on the fortified walls of the Imperia camp they’d escaped from and assumed it could be the opposite, but she didn’t ask. She couldn’t ask. And where was Jackson?
Paris watched her with secretive, brown eyes that represented all of those unanswered questions. She was dressed in long, beautiful azure robes, her illustrious, black hair woven throughornate, diamond threaded string. Though she couldn’t rule more than a few smaller territories, she seemed to be adorned for things to come. This entire world brimmed with swollen anticipation. Ella almost dared to call it hope.
While she questioned, Kay’s busy intellect had been silenced by Jade’s existence and the need to return to the Imperia. Paris assured them that Jade would wake up promptly after returning to the other side. Many minds could only tolerate The Quiet for so long, and Jade wasn’t the only one that needed medical attention.
Despite the throbbing pain in her arm, Ella looked back out at the bustling town, in hopes that she might catch some lingering glimpse of Crow. The night before she’d found herself staring out of the window to her room as if he might simply appear. She’d been relieved to sleep in a bed, her wound medicated at last, but some sense of longing had kept her close to the glass panes for much of the night.
Kay was already in the water up to his knees, the ripples from his movements casting dancing light across the marble walls. After a passionate argument yesterday, they’d agreed to depart together today and return to the Imperia with convictions of coming back and trying again. The woods in Tunedyl were no longer haunted, after all, and only they knew it.
After her arm healed, she would come back, but right now she was unable to leave Kay and Jade to depart on their own.
“Ella,” Kay repeated, voice echoing through the pool chamber.
She followed him, sinking her shoes into the water, deeper as it filled her boots and waded up her pants.
Kay whispered something in Jade’s ear as if she were awake. Jade looked so peaceful now. She was clean and well taken care of. Ella couldn’t resist that she yearned to see her friend wake up again on the other side.
Kay nodded to Ella, doubtlessly sharing that longing, and then he walked into the water. Jade’s hair dipped and swam like paint strewn across a canvas before being swallowed beneath the surface.
Ella followed suit, repeating in her mind that she would return. The cool water enveloped her bandaged arm, her head, her hair.
Kay was already gone. She swam deeper, closer to the darkness at the bottom, knowing any moment she’d see the light streaming in from the surface of a different pool on the other side.
She would return.
She kept swimming, but the light did not appear. She felt her lungs strain for oxygen as she stared into a wall of dead blackness. For a moment, she thought she witnessed the faintest glint but something pulled her back and she struggled in limbo before pushing hard back up toward the surface.
She burst up through the water and gathered her breath. No one said anything behind her as she swam in place.
The silence lingered as Ella stared at the wall ahead, backing up to where she could find her footing. She dove down a second time, reaching for her other life.
The deeper she swam, the heavier and darker the pressure felt around her. It was stifling, like swimming into a wall. She burst back up to the surface, lungs grabbing at the air.
With a strange mixture of fear and relief in her chest, Ella looked back at Hollow and Paris and said, “I can’t go back.”
For the briefest moment Paris looked proud, Hollow glancing over at her as if he’d been waiting for her reaction before glancing down and smiling to himself.
Ella wondered what joke she was missing, standing by herself in the water as the answers sunk into her thoughts in an irretrievable way.
“Was this a test?” It sounded like a preposterous thing to say out loud, but Ella still said it, wondering if the next moment would make her feel like a fool.
