Witness: See Series (Volume 1)(47)
“By Silas?” she asked in her innocent voice.
I glanced to my side, surprised, that I managed to get her to speak once again. “Yeah.”
She nodded as if she knew that.
“How do you know him?” I asked. The fact that she had seen him – that he knew her name – forced me to conceive the idea that he was real, that everything about him was real - and that terrified me. I felt so guilty for being alone with him, for witnessing those memories, for feeling his gentle lips against mine.
“He saved me,” Monroe whispered.
“From what?” I asked tenderly.
She looked down as her hair hid her innocent face from me. “From my dad…from the darkness.”
I felt an ache in my chest, and it took all I had to look strong and calm. “Is your dad alive…?”
Her head moved slowly from side to side, and I felt the air leave my lungs. What was she saying – that Silas killed him? Killed him because he was dark?
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, trying to fight the nausea that was climbing up my throat. I knew I had just spent the afternoon with someone who apparently not only had reason, but the power to place a final division between me and Draven.
“Why?” she asked, looking up at me.
“There had to be another way – ending someone is not the way.”
“He – he was never alive…he never stepped into this realm.”
“What?” I asked. As I felt my heart began to race, I gripped her arm tighter.
“He lives in the dream world…Silas brought my mother to this reality – to this realm of life...my father will not come here…he will not give up his power to find us.”
“Where is your mom?” I asked as I tried to fathom what she was saying.
“With him.”
“In the dream world?” I clarified.
“Yeah.”
“Against her will?” I asked, feeling a desire like no other to go to this place.
“No…she went there to tell him to leave Grayson and Winston alone…but when she saw him, she couldn’t help herself…she could not leave his side – she loved him too much.”
“What was he doing to your brothers? What do you mean, ‘calling them’?”
“My mother is not as balanced as you – or your mom…we have more of our father than our mother within us…the desire to walk his path is unyielding, and it was calling them to that life…invading their dreams, then surfacing with the slightest negative emotion.”
“Like what’s happening with Draven,” I mumbled.
The placid look in her eyes told me I was wrong. “My brothers are young souls…Draven is not…he submitted to this calling long ago…then you managed to make him change his mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“In another life, you asked him not to be the person he was, to give up this power - and when he listened to you, he was thrust into this life…he was blinded to his past deeds, and forced to begin again, only to be tested, put through hell later in life.”
“Draven’s mom was not dark; his dad can’t see. Who told you this? How do you know this?”
Monroe stared into my eyes with utter compassion. “Draven was placed into the brightest, most tempting place that could be imagined....when I listen...I hear some say he came home, back to his beginning....I hear others say it was a punishment....that neither you or him belong in this life....I ignore them both, you’re here now, and fate, no matter how twisted the path is...will find its way. Every action sets a sea of reactions in place…”
“Wh – what are you saying?” I said as I stared disbelievingly at her. Step into a life? Thrown into a life? Was she saying this was my fault?
“Your innocent act to protect Draven’s soul – to step into this world – brought balance - it brought the darkness to its knees.”
I broke my gaze with her and stared out at the stones in the now dark graveyard. “Are you saying that if I hadn’t asked Draven to step away from the life he had…if I had not chosen to follow him…that my father would be alive? That Aden would be an only child, and this battle never would have come to this world?”
Monroe moved closer to me. “You’re seeing this the way the darkness would want you to. Say it another way; say that you stopped Draven’s soul from pulling the life from the dammed to gain power, that you showed him how powerful love was – the light was. That when you saw his punishment, the darkness push him into this world, that you followed him to protect him from forgetting all that you showed him. Say that because of you, Aden has a brother, that your father was the given the chance to have a normal life – to have a part of him live on in you. Say that your mother was finally able to grasp her power and not hide from it when you took your first breath.”
I let out a tense sigh. “She hides from it...she hides in grief – grief that I caused.”
Silence took over for countless minutes as I tried to fathom a past that I couldn’t recall. I told myself that I had to have really loved Draven to have taken risks that were so steep. That idea wasn’t foreign to me; I’d always loved him, but the memories Silas gave me showed me that in another realm of time, I loved another.