Page 81 of Torn Ivy
The question hangs in the air like a noxious gas.
“Because,” Torin huffs. “We had to.”
I don’t push. They clearly don’t have a proper answer for me. “How long was I gone in your—in this—world?”
“About three and a half hours,” Cathy says.
My blood freezes. “What?” I ask, confusion flooding my already overloaded system, “Hours?”
Bram and Torin exchange a cautious stare before Bram shifts his gaze back to me. “How long was it for you?”
Lowering my gaze, I turn away. “An eternity.”
Silence follows that.
But then Bram asks, “Do you mean that literally, or it felt like?”
“I saw the dawn of empires. I watched them rise and eventually fall. I witnessed stars being born and then fading out, blinking their last when they died. I was everywhere and nowhere. It was one second. It was thousands of years.”
“Fuck,” Torin mutters, and I feel his presence right behind me. “Ivy.” The desperation and sorrow in his voice makes tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away.
I turn back to face them, my hand instinctively reaching up to stroke the snake coiled around my neck. Its presence grounds me and keeps the overwhelming flood of memories and sensations at bay.
“You don’t understand,” I say softly. “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine. Now I’m back here, in this body that feels too small, too fragile to contain everything I’ve experienced.”
Bram takes a hesitant step forward. “Ivy, we had no idea. If we’d known?—”
“You’d what?” I snap. “Have left me scattered across dimensions? Maybe that would have been better.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them. Hurt flashes across their faces. But I can’t bring myself to take it back. Part of me means it.
Torin runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every line of his body. “We did this to save you. We risked everything.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
Cathy sets down her hook, her expression softening. “No, you didn’t. But we couldn’t just leave you like that. We care about you, Ivy. You asked why did we do this. That’s why. We had no idea if you were suffering or being tortured or in pain. We made a decision, and now we all have to live it.”
The snake hisses softly, but it’s not angered by Cathy’s brutally truthful words. If anything, it wants me to accept them. “I need some air,” I croak eventually, turning towards the front door, opening it and slipping out. My feet sink into the snow drifts that are piling up, and it feels like something I should be excited about.
“Well, well, well. Look what your group of worshippers did.”
Scowling, I look over at the voice, and the recognition hits me like a Dragon in full flight. “Life,” I state, pursing my lips. “What do you want?”
She tilts her head, also pursing hers, as she stares at me with growing concern. “Have you forgotten your purpose?”
“What purpose?”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Okay, first things first. You need to get your perky arse back to the proper timeline, and then you need to remember everything time made you forget.”
“What are you talking about?”
Life sighs heavily, her ethereal form shimmering in the falling snow. “This isn’t your reality, Ivy. The ritual your friends performed to bring you back tore a hole in the fabric of existence. You’ve been shunted into a fractured timeline, a distorted reflection of your true world.”
I blink, trying to process her words. “So none of this is real?” Weirdly, this makes more sense than anything else I’ve experienced since being returned to my body.
“Yes and no,” Life says, waving a hand and showing me a vision in the snow.
I move closer, curiosity getting the better of me, and peer into the swirling snow, watching as images form and shift. I see flashes of another reality. This one is where I’ve been brought back but it is complete devastation. I rear back and shake my head.
