Blakeshire (Insight #9)(44)

With utter care, he pulled my hand from the stone. “You do see them.”

“Was that a test?” I said with a gasp, feeling even more lightheaded. It was almost like when my hand was against the stone, I had the power of all those lost lives within me, and now I was standing alone.

“A test that I was given by these people.”

“You see them, too?”

His stare grew grave. “All too well.”

He moved his gaze to the opposite wall as he nodded for me to follow him.

It was nearly solid. It looked like any other brick wall, but at the very top you could see an image of a man, but you could only see to the point of his chin. “This was his son,” Drake said so quietly that I barely heard him.

“Well, isn’t he over here, too?” I asked, pointing to one of the children on the eccentric wall.

“In some way. But that was his father’s story. His father gave him everything he needed to create inner peace, but the son refused to grasp it. He sought modern revolutions. He wanted to traverse the forest and bring sick souls here so they would be healed…he wanted to traverse the universe and find more places such as this, create more places such as this.”

“Seems valiant enough.”

“True, but before you can help others you have to discover your path.” He glanced down at me. “Great leaders are never perfect souls. They are imperfect souls who found balance with that resolution. This son was too outwardly focused, and because he was, he left his family traveled into the forest, and was never seen again. No matter how much it rains, the structure remains untouched.”

“Can I hear him?” I asked in a ghost of a whisper.

“One could only hope.”

He made no effort to pull my hand to the stone; he wanted it to be my choice.

For no reason, my hand trembled as I reached for the wall. The emotion of fear may not have been surfacing in my mind, but it was as if my soul could still comprehend that emotion and wanted to heed a warning.

Inches before my hand reached that stone, what looked like sand, a mix of black and golden sand, reached for me and pulled me closer.

My mind went haywire, hearing whispers of lovers, laughter of lovers, seeing stolen moments and lost dreams. There was a beginning here, a powerful one, but the end was unwritten, undiscovered, stopped before its time.

I could swear I could see the string itself, a dark world emerging, a mistaken identity. I could not see past that point, but I felt the heavy weight of loss. I felt the regret, the hope to return to the bliss of this foundation, swarm through me. It all felt so real, so familiar to me. I felt the urge to cry, even though I had no personal emotion to call that action forth.

“Lost lovers,” I whispered to myself.

I saw Drake tense from the corner of my eye. Disbelief absorbed him, then faded into what could only be hope.

“Lovers can never truly be lost,” he said as he reached for my hand. That energy that mocked black sand laced around our hands for a brief instant before it vanished, and nothing more than a silent wall stood before me.

“It’s a massive wall,” I murmured as I looked at the length of it.

“Sculptures this large are said to belong to old souls, ones that have or will live over the course of several eternities,” he said carefully as his eyes danced across my curious expression.

“All souls do, though.”

“That they do, but most complete one course of life and move on to another that is dramatically different, or so the people here believe they do; others, they are like an epic novel. Their adversity is one that must be conquered over chapters of lifetimes. They are destined to change the universe, to cause a shift in thinking.”

“Such a waste,” I said, almost to myself.

“In the minds of this town, this son will return, rise, and bring forth the change he was destined to create.”

“After all this time?”

He nodded once. “After all this time. They believe his heart was in the right place, but time and circumstance were misplaced.”

“It’s crazy how new this looks. I mean, if you told me it was built last month I would believe you, but I can feel a regal energy coming from it at the same time.”

“Some of it is new.” He nodded to the other end of the wall. “An extension was built almost twenty years ago.”

“That close? How old is this town?”

“The records I told you about are thousands of years old. The seers, on their deathbeds, are given a vision. Every hundred years, sometimes sooner, one of them sees something that has to do with this wall. They extend it but never reveal what is beneath the brick.”

“Now I really want to knock it down.”

“Patience,” he said as a silent laugh echoed from his broad chest. “Whoever this son is, he will find his soul.”

Something about his tone changed the entire mood of the moment. I glanced up at him to see him gazing into the strong profile of the young man.

“No one can take your soul,” I whispered to him.

“Not for the lack of trying,” he quipped dryly, putting his arm around me and leading me back onto the street. As we walked further, I noticed how everyone seemed to nod and smile at us. I assumed it was just a friendly dimension, but then I heard a few of them say, “Mr. Blakeshire.”