Break Away (Away, Book 1) (24 page)

“Yes, she likes reading,” he said, taking in
my silent message. “From what I can see, that's her personal
escape. Something must've pushed her to grab that book and made her
fervently wish to stay in that world she was holding between her
hands. Have you any idea of what might've inflamed that
desire?”

My throat tightened, as if big, invisible
hands were squeezing my wind pipe. “Maybe,” I finally said, with a
fierce pang of pain in my chest.

He nodded in understanding. “You don't need
to tell me the reason, she-fledgling. I can see regret and sorrow
swirling in your eyes. But you should know one thing.” I looked at
him. “You're the only one who can bring her back.”

“Bring her back? From where?”

“Chimera.”

“What?” Was this some kind of joke? I'd been
expecting something like 'bring her back from her slumber' or
something along those lines, but never bring her back from a place
that, until now, sounded completely unreal. A place that only
he
seemed to know.

“All these comatose people that are believed
to be unresponsive in this world are, in fact, very much responsive
in Chimera. I don't know the reason behind this mass departure of
humans into Chimera, but I know that they are indeed there.”

“How can you be so sure?” Even if all this
sounded like something straight out from a sci-fi movie, I had to
ask.

“Smooch,” he gave me as an answer. “He told
me the citizens of Chimera have never seen the Garden of Wandering
Souls as multicolored and in full bloom as it is now.”

“What does the
Garden of Wandering
Souls
have to do with this?” I said, unable to rub out the
sarcastic shade coloring my voice.

“You see, my dear,” he began to explain, “The
garden belongs to Intork, the great crystalline tower in Chimera
that serves as a conductor. It distributes the collected energy in
the garden throughout the four lands of Chimera—Tacca, Sakura,
Calypso, and Salix. Each land—”

“Hold on.” I held up my hands to stop him.
“What do you mean by collected energy?”

He licked his lollipop with a deep sucking
sound. “The Garden of Wandering Souls is where all humans go while
sleeping, is where all the pristine energy of a human dream flows.”
He paused to take a big sip of his pop, and then, whirled it around
his mouth like a washing machine. He swallowed it with a sigh. “The
garden has crystals that absorb this energy and steer it into the
tower for distribution. It's this energy that is collected that
keeps Chimera going.”

“So…you're saying that this place, Chimera,
feeds off of human dreams to be alive?”

“Not only dreams, but our imagination as
well.”

“Okay, that's it,” Ian snapped and stood up.
“This man is nuts. Don't tell me you believe all this Hollywood
crap!” he said, staring at me with incredulity and pleading in his
face. “I wanted to give him some time to explain but—I mean, come
on! The Garden of Wandering Souls? Intork, the crystalline tower of
conducting energy? Oh! And Tacca, Calypso, Salix and…whatever the
other name was?
Really
? The last thing we need is him saying
you must travel through time to save Buffy.”

Comus gave a small cough. “Not exactly travel
through time but through dimensions.”

“Big, freaking difference,” Ian said, fixing
his eyes above, as if exasperated and looking for an escape.

“You mean Chimera is in another dimension?” I
asked Comus, intrigued. I could feel my eyes wide open, like two
saucers.

He nodded and directed his stare at Ian. “You
might believe all what I've said is hogwash, but it is not. Astral
projection is widely known—your etheric body does leave your
physical body while sleeping. Several have experienced it
consciously; it's what we call an out-of-body experience,” he said.
“Common belief is that your spiritual body leaves to travel in
another plane, but what people don't know is that plane has a
name.”

“Chimera,” I said, taking a good guess.

“Learn from her, he-fledgling,” he told him,
waving his finger at me. “You're too quick to judge.”

“My name is Ian,” he shot Comus an annoyed
look. “And I'm not quick to judge. I'm just being reasonable,
and
logical.”

“Your mind is filled with too many potholes,
he-fledgling. You better listen to what's within your chest.”

“I said
my name
is Ian—and how can you
accuse me of having potholes in my head when you're the one who's
all—”

“Comus,” I cut Ian off, wanting to stop a
discussion that was navigating into tumultuous waters. Besides,
knowing Ian as I did, I knew Comus was fighting a lost cause. “You
said my sister wanted to break away from this world, and that she
used the book to do so. Was that the case for the others, too?”

“Most certainly,” he said, turning to look at
me and releasing Ian from his stare. “Though others have not only
used books as their vehicle. From what I saw in the news, several
were watching movies or listening to music—a couple of them were in
museums and art galleries studying paintings and sculptures, as
well.” He untangled his legs from the sofa and brought his feet to
the floor. An aura of seriousness bordered his entire body as he
placed his elbow on his knee and propped his chin on his raised
fist.

“It all comes back to what we talked about
before, she-fledgling. All these means of entertainment are being
used to escape a world that feels no longer a place of merriment
and gathering, a world where power has substituted humbleness and
empathy, a world where money has switched places with love and
family, a world where people are defined by labels and not their
heart. A world,” he sighed, “that cages people's soul with every
new technological invention. We humans don't know what
true
freedom really is, and whether consciously or subconsciously, a
part of us is always seeking for that winged ecstasy—especially
when this world spins a bit more out of control each day.” He
turned to look at me with a sad sparkle in his eyes, reminding me
of two dying stars. “Do you still wonder why people seek to escape
this reality?”

A whisper of a clutch threatened to dig its
fingers around my heart. Dad always had said it was a pity that a
world as beautiful and blue as ours was being treated so poorly.
That we humans had so much potential to evolve into something
bigger and greater, but we were messing up our chance with
trivialities that only made us go two steps back. “Be conscious of
what surrounds you,” he'd often said to me. “And if you always keep
an open mind to everything, there won't be a holding you back.”

Keep an open mind
. Perhaps that's what
I needed to do with Comus, listen with no judgments crowding my
head.

“Okay so…let's say Chimera is real,” I said,
directing my piercing stare at Ian, trying to shut him from further
criticism. “Why is the Garden of Wandering Souls so full of human
energy right now? Why are people falling into a coma all of a
sudden? We know the situation is pretty bad here, but this sudden
mass departure…it looks like something major triggered it. There's
something more behind all of this.”

“Yes, it's what Smooch thinks.” He took
another sip of his pop and did the same whirling thing with his
mouth. Had anyone shown Comus some simple etiquette in his entire
life? “But like I told you before,” he continued, “we don't know
the reason.”

I frowned, deep in thought. Images of Buffy
and I flashed through my mind—both joking about each others' Batman
and Bat Chick costumes, both laughing at the top of our lungs after
a chocolate ice cream fight, both smiling as we made snow angels in
Gran's yard, both screaming when we found a fat cockroach in that
old hotel room in Kentucky, both running away from that crazed
turkey in a Maryland farm, both holding hands after promising we
would always stay together…

Buffy.

“How can I bring my sister back?” I asked
him, feeling as if a horn was stabbing my heart.

Comus smiled a wicked smile. “That, my dear
she-fledgling, I know.”

“Now this is the part where he says he'll
kill you so you can go into Chimera's dimension,” Ian said
cynically, touching something above the fireplace. Something that
looked like some kind of eerie troll holding a spear.

Comus looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “He
doesn't have your delightful sense of humor, I see.”

“Tell me about it,” I held back a small
smile.

“Yeah, just go ahead”—Ian made a motion with
his arm, as if willing me to carry on—“and conspire against me with
the king of weirdos.”

I rolled my eyes.

Comus paid no heed to his words and said, “I
will tell you how to get your sister back after dinner, and if my
biological clock isn't wrong, that time has come already. So if you
please follow me.” He brought himself to his feet and waltzed out
of the room with the half grace of a ballerina.

We followed him with no questions, Ian
walking close to me. After passing the vast foyer, two torch-lit
hallways and several stone columns, he bent to the side and
whispered in my ear, “I wonder where Comus and that teeny butler
got that idea.”

“What idea?”

“Of you and me being together.”

My stomach clenched. I wasn't expecting that
and didn't have an answer, so I decided to change the subject as
fast as I could. “What was up with you wanting to have a beer, huh?
You're not legal yet.”

“I'm nineteen
and
a guy,” he said,
pointing his thumbs at him. “To my standards, I'm legal.”

I scoffed. “Whatever, you shouldn't be
drinking this early in life.”

“
Yes, Mom
.”

I
t turned out dinner
wasn't ready. So it ended up with Comus excusing his biological
clock dysfunction and Midlo asking us for more time to set up the
table and finish cooking food. A swift look of reprimand might've
crossed his face, but it went away as fast as it came, not giving
me time to see if he was, indeed, as frustrated with his boss as I
thought he was.

Personally, I didn't know how Midlo handled
living with Comus tewnty-four hours a day, especially in a house
where darkness crushed down on you like a big, black octopus. It
must've been exhausting and suffocating. And we still hadn't seen
his schizophrenic side pop up, something I truly wasn't eager to
see.

Our rooms were the next step. Comus decided
to take us there so we could get acquainted with our
chambers
—I swear I would never grow used to his old
fashioned way of speaking. He was a joy to look at while walking
through those torch-lit hallways, and I felt grateful for having
him there to make me think of something other than vapory, floating
bodies. The colorful outfit he was sporting and the grim
surroundings clashed hilariously, the contrast too broad and deep
to not light up a warm, flapping feeling inside of me. I didn't
know whether to join him along with his loud, cheery humming or to
crack a laugh. Seriously. This house and Comus couldn't have been
on more opposite sides of the spectrum.

“Here it is,” he announced, opening a thick,
carved door that led to a spacious room. “Your very private haven
of peace and relaxation for this night, she-fledgling.”

I had to admit it wasn't that bad with all
those tall windows offering a glimpse into the night. Above the
dense coat of fog, a strip of dark velvet with diamond-bright stars
embellished the view. Inside, clear colors permeated the room,
which was good because it pushed away some of the darkness
threatening to cross the threshold. But the center piece had to be
the beautiful four poster bed with the sheer canopy. Drapes of a
whispery cream ivory fell down to the sides, inviting one's hands
to touch and feel as one imagined them wrapping around one's body
while a salty, Saharan breeze brushed by. The solid bed posts
guarding the golden-clad mattress had silver twirling around them,
ending in an intricate spray of flowers at the top. Romanticism
dripped from this bed. It was something a princess would've slept
in.

“It's beautiful, thank you,” I told him,
staring all around me.

Comus smiled with a satisfied nod and turned
to Ian. “You, he-fledgling, will be staying next to this room.” He
slid out of the room and into the hallway to show him where exactly
he would be staying.

Ian followed him and I didn't stay behind. I
was dying to see if his room was as cool as mine or just not cool
at all. Honestly, a wicked, little voice inside of me whispered
pleas that it would be the latter. I restrained myself from
drumming my fingers together and saying in a low, deep voice
Mwuahahaha
.

Comus was about to open the door to Ian's
room when a low and deep, growling roar split the air.

I turned. “What the hell was—” My breath
stuck in my throat with the pressure of a thousand silent screams.
I tried to move but my body seemed to be on the same unresponsive
track as my voice was. And I needed to run, fast, because the four
hundred pound beast climbing up the grand staircase had surely
nothing more in mind than to eat me whole.

Without thinking, Ian jumped in front of me
and splayed his arms out to the sides, as if to shield me from the
razor-fanged danger moving toward us. It moved with the languid
pace of something that savored fear.

“Get that thing away from us!” Ian snapped,
stepping back to close the distance between my body and his back—a
back that had never felt so sturdy and big, making me feel like a
wee-thing.

At the sound of Ian's alarmed voice, the
beast’s ears perked up and it veered its massive body toward the
cowering heap of shaky limbs and legs that we were. I fisted Ian's
shirt and pulled him closer in a desperate attempt for protection,
but there was nothing we could do against an animal that size.
Nothing. It was one of those moments where words like “it was nice
to meet you” or “I'm sorry for everything I've done” sounded right.
But there were none. My throat was too busy dealing with the lump
of dread blocking the air passage.