54. Ghost Dream (Vaye)¶
The mountain fell sideways toward her, its face arising from the valley like a lump of ore sheared in half. She wasn’t moving—the mountain was. Icefalls hung from either side of the peak, glittering like fangs, while its hunched back sloped down into a long, glacial tail. She was pinned in place, unable to run, unable to even look away as her doom bore down upon her, growing and growing until it finally obliterated her.
Afterward, she floated in a white haze. She was unsure what she was, knowing only that she was no longer what she had been. Two figures slowly resolved from the haze, and their names came to her: Gadarien and Adranaya. They stood with their backs to her and to each other, arms outstretched, clothes fluttering in a wind she couldn’t feel. She called out, but they didn’t respond.
She looked down. In her hands was a scrap of parchment, Anashic letters wavering on the page like tall grass. A pattern emerged in their movement, the connections between the shapes suddenly as obvious as the letters themselves. She wondered how she’d ever missed it.
From behind her, a voice called her name, and she turned to face it. The presence was far away, a tiny speck in the swirling whiteness, but the voice had sounded as close and familiar as her own skin. It called to her again and she recognized it as her mother’s.
She looked down again. The page was gone, but emerging from her navel was a long, thin thread. It glistened and shone, flickering in and out of sight like a spiderweb. She couldn’t see the far end, but she knew it stretched all the way to the distant figure, connecting their ethereal bodies.
The ghost called out once more, but Vaye couldn’t understand what she was saying. The words were just shapes on the wind, devoid of sound or meaning. She needed to get closer, so she began to pull on the thread. There were no anchors, no frame of reference, so she didn’t know if she was pulling the ghost or herself, but the two of them drew closer nonetheless, gliding through the white emptiness.
As she pulled, their movement slowed, the filament beginning to stretch and narrow like a drip of honey. She pulled and pulled, but each motion got her only half as far as the one before. The thread pooled up in her hands, growing thinner and thinner until it was only visible because it reflected the light.
The thread vanished. A moment later, so did the world.
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