The Violet Hour (20 page)

HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA

We stepped out of the decrepit Jeep belonging to our Cambodian guide as the long summer day slipped toward night. We’d come to the end of the road. According to the Jeep’s GPS, we were about ten miles away from the latitude/longitude coordinates inked on Adam’s wrist. Ten miles of densely packed jungle, which we now stood on the edge of.

The foliage was a bit of a relief, after several days traveling the barren, dusty side roads of the Cambodian countryside. Where Vietnam was built in shades of green, Cambodia was a spectrum of sun-beat browns. The dirt-smudged faces of the hungry, sweet children who chased after our car as it ambled through tiny village after tiny village, smiling and waving at the foreign sight of strangers, haunted me.

This was a place beyond the self-indulgence of religion. I told myself that someday, when all of this was over, I was going to come back here and use the money and power of VisionCrest to make something good in this world for these kids, instead of worrying so much about the next world.

The air was soporific, draping across my neck like a yoke. A wall of green, thirty feet high, surrounded us; there wasn’t a hint of civilization except for the Jeep idling in the weeds. The air smelled like vegetative rot and the sky was bleeding from pink to purple. As if the odds weren’t already stacked against us, Adam and I were going to be making this trek in the dark. I shuddered.

“Too bad I left that vintage Dead Kennedys T-shirt at home,” I said weakly.

“‘Holiday in Cambodia’ used to be my favorite song,” Adam said wryly. “I’m thinking it’s time to re-evaluate my top-ten list.”

The jeep fired up its engine. The driver rolled down his window and gave us a strange look. He clearly thought we were several cards short of a full deck, asking to be dropped off in this remote jungle without a ride out. And, since the clothes we’d left Vietnam in were in tatters, we were back in our VisionCrest uniforms. Luckily, we were so far off the grid that people here didn’t have time to worry about some first-world religion—they were too busy trying to survive.

As the droning noise of the Jeep receded into the distance, a buzz of another kind began. I knew exactly what that meant. I looked at Adam.

“Isiris is close by.”

We made slow, silent progress over the mucky ground. Water soaked through my Mary Janes, my feet sliding in my socks and the bright burn of blisters following my every step. I tried not to think about the heat, which was sucking moisture out of my every pore. Or about the leeches, which the driver said lurked in the thick tangle of leaves and vines that rose past my knees, tickling the exposed skin of my thighs in my ridiculous VisionCrest uniform.

Our chauffeur had gifted us a beat-up and potentially faulty compass, pointing us in the direction we supposedly needed to go. Adam had a little LED pocketlight that he pressed every once in a while to make sure we stayed on course. The driver had also given us a little rucksack with a few bottles of water in it, handing it to us apologetically, as if to say it was enough to get us there but not to bring us back.

We’d been trudging for hours without a break when I heard the scraping of leaves against Adam’s clothes stop short. I bumped into him, unable to see in the dark.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Shhh … ” he said, very softly.

I strained my ears. There was the stealthy but unmistakable swish of something moving through the foliage.

My heart hammered inside my chest.

The hush of parting foliage grew closer. I grabbed onto Adam’s arm. There was nothing to do but stay still.

The thing exhaled softly. All movement ceased. I could almost feel whatever predator it was testing the air. Zeroing in on us. Adam’s muscles tensed. I held my breath.

The thing began to slink closer, its approach nearly soundless, like silk scarves sliding over the underbrush. It was the sound of stalking.

Then a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, dangerously close, drowning out all other sounds. My stomach clenched. The smell of ozone filled the air. A spectacular crack rang out ahead of us, and the entire jungle lit up with an
electric-white glow.

Now I could see what was standing there. A black panther, frozen mid-stride less than ten feet in front of us. Its yellow eyes glowed, and then we were plunged back into darkness. It began a hollow growling, which sounded like a saw running back and forth over an aluminum can.

Purity
.

The word whispered through the trees. Another burst of light split the air in two, and I saw that the panther was crouched as if to strike. The thunder crack was nearly simultaneous, practically lifting me off the ground. The heavens opened up and the downpour began.

Come to me.

“Not now,” I hissed. Isiris had impeccable timing.

“What?” Adam yelled.

The panther let out a long, extended roar. If we ran, he would chase us; it wouldn’t be a long pursuit.

“What should we do?” Adam asked.

From outer blindness, inner sight.

Isiris’s voice in my head was more insistent. Maybe she was guiding me.

“Follow my lead,” I said, taking his hand.

I took a step toward the panther, imagining where it stood and trying to go around it. The veil of rain obscured all sight and sound. I had to go entirely on instinct. Adam tugged at my arm as if to hold me back, but I simply held his hand tighter and pulled us forward.

We took five shaky steps, then ten, before something bristled against my thigh. Fur, slick with rain. It was hard and immovable as stone, but it did not jump to attack.

I forged ahead, quickening my step. We moved on silently for five minutes through the rain. I held my breath, waiting to be pounced on or bitten at any moment. Another flash of lightning lit up the canopy a bit more dimly; the thunder was farther away now. The rain began to subside. But in that moment I saw the panther. He was prowling alongside us, only inches away, as if he were our escort. I suspected that might be exactly what he was—Isiris asserting her ownership over this space. Reminding me that I was in her territory now.

“I think he’s gone,” Adam said. “Guess he wasn’t hungry.” Apparently, he hadn’t seen what I had.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I didn’t let go of Adam’s hand the rest of the night, knowing our silent sentinel was with us.

THE VIOLET HOUR

Most religions have a complex mythology that everyone assumes is simply an allegory and only the crazies take literally. An angel appeared or a bush caught on fire, and the mysteries of the universe were somehow revealed. Until the events of this trip, I’d thought the same was true for VisionCrest. I’d assumed that my father was only posturing, cultivating a mystique to package and sell his self-help mumbo jumbo when he claimed to have happened upon an ancient temple in the middle of the Cambodian jungle. But as the Violet Hour bathed the temple in shades of purple, I could see with my own eyes that the Fellowship wasn’t built on allegory. It was absolutely real.

Honeycomb spires like tongues of flame twisted against the near-dawn sky. They were lit by a flickering glow, emanating from behind the hulking sprawl of the colonnade. Columns guarded the silence like sentinels. A hivelike hum from within the temple’s depths radiated across the ground and tore its way through my chest. There was a pair of crumbling staircases, worn into non-existence until they blended into one another. To the casual observer, this would look like another lost temple of the Khmer empire melting into the Cambodian underbrush. I knew it for what it was: the gateway to Isiris’s world.

Adam and I gave one another a sidelong glance that transmitted uncertainty and fear. There was nothing that could save us out here, except each other.

“You can trust me,” he said, as if reading my mind.

“A promise is only words,” I answered.

“Time passes differently in there,” he said. “I thought I was gone days, but it was months.”

We looked back at the temple. It was made of sandstone and its edges had been eroded by the passage of time, as if some alien civilization had heralded the All Seeing Eye millions of years ago. In the center, an enormous carved eye sat in an upside-down triangle, just like the VisionCrest logo. Bursting out on all sides were massive trees the size of office buildings. Exposed root systems spilled down like Medusa’s tangled, ropy tendrils. It was as if the temple was an organic being, thrust out of the womb of the ancient forest.

Isiris’s voice had been suspiciously silent since we first encountered the panther.

“It’s the Violet Hour,” I said. “Seems appropriate that we’d arrive now.”

Adam’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Maybe it’s not a coincidence.”

“There’s our friend,” I said as the panther slid out of the jungle and rubbed up against the base of the eye. “He’s been with us all night.”

“You knew?” Adam said, surprised.

“Did you?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Yeah. I just didn’t want to freak you out.”

“I kind of started to get the feeling he was protecting us,” I said.

Adam sighed as the reality of our situation settled back in. Nobody was going to protect us.

The sky got lighter by inches, and the temple seemed to fade into the greenery as if it might disappear with the sunrise. I remembered what my father had said about the temple seemingly materializing out of nowhere, just before dawn.

“It’s time,” I said.

We approached the structure, picking our way through treacherous brambles that raked across my skin. The temple loomed larger and larger as we approached, as if it was growing and expanding. Finally we were right in front of the eye. From this vantage point, I could see a patchwork of symbols etched across the stone. They were the same as Adam’s tattoos.

His face had gone bone-white, and I knew he was thinking about his parents. Wondering what he would find on the other side.

Right at eye level, there was the imprint of a palm. I didn’t know how, but I knew exactly what I had to do. I grabbed Adam’s hand and then raised my other hand, placing it over the slimy stone. My palm print fit perfectly inside. I swore I could feel a hand pressing back from the other side.

“
Isiris fi ainek
,” I said, not knowing where the words came from.

A feeling of complete contentment flooded me. Every care, every fear, every desire drained away from me. Something dark within me stirred, as if it had been sleeping all this time.

There was the sound of scraping stones, as if the rocks were hinging in on themselves and becoming something new, forming themselves around my words. I had a sense of becoming insubstantial, of falling through the stone itself. It smelled musty, like wet woolen socks left to rot in a basement. My sight became blurry, faded, like at the onset of a vision. Only this time it was real. The only point on my body that I could still feel was Adam’s hand in mine. Wherever I was going, he was coming with me.

When things came back into focus, we were facing three arched doors. Adam and I looked first at each other and then behind us—there was just smooth stone there, no sign of an entryway. The room we were in was small and circular.

“Is this the same as last time?” I asked, letting go of his hand.

“I wasn’t conscious when I was brought here, or when I was taken out. The only thing I ever saw was the room where I was held. Maybe it’s some kind of test,” he said.

Choose.
Isiris’s voice whistled around the perimeter of the tiny room.

“This is Isiris’s way of showing us she has the upper hand. She wants us to choose,” I said.

I examined the three doors and walked up to the one on the left. I put my hand on the brass knob, wondering how such a thing could even be inside this place. I turned and pulled it open.

There was a tremendous sucking sound. On the other side of the door was an expansive landscape of swirling funnel clouds, black as death. In the far distance, I could see what looked like enormous pyramids, like the ones in Egypt only dark as midnight. My body responded viscerally, fear hollowing out my insides. A crushing sadness crept up from my toes, turning my legs to lead.

“Close it!” Adam yelled over the suction sound.

His voice snapped me out of it and I pushed the door, the wind pulling it shut with a crack.

I bent over, breathing hard. “What … was … that?”

“The wrong choice,” he said.

“It was like … another world or something.”

“Or something.”

I stood up and pushed my hair back from my face. “Door number two?” I asked.

“This one’s gotta be the one hiding the cash and prizes.” Adam moved right up behind me and put his hand on my arm.

“Here goes nothing,” I said.

The second door opened with an anemic creak. Before us stretched a long, dark hallway with doors lining both sides. Its depths dissolved into darkness, so it was impossible to tell what else it might contain. There was a chill radiating from within that made me feel even more afraid than the first door.

“This is it,” I said.

“Should we open the last door, just to be sure this is the one we want?” Adam asked.

Harlow …

“No,” I said.

“I’m really wishing we had some freakin’ bread crumbs right about now,” he said.

“No kidding,” I answered.

I took a tentative step inside, Adam following behind. The hallway seemed to tighten around us; I wasn’t entirely convinced it was only in my mind. A second after we crossed the threshold, the door slammed behind us, shutting us in and smothering us in blackness. The chill deepened.

Adam looked over his shoulder. “Harlow, the door isn’t here anymore.”

Somehow I wasn’t surprised. It was like we’d crawled inside the recesses of a madman’s dream, and in a way we had. This place was Isiris’s in-between, and I had a feeling that it bent to her will.

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” I said. After a moment, Adam’s hand found me.

I walked slowly forward, trailing my hand along the walls on either side of us, which were undeniably getting closer. When I felt another door, I stopped.

“Let’s open it,” I said. Adam remained silent, as afraid as I was of what might be lurking within.

I pulled. It was a small room, dimly illuminated, with a dingy mattress on the concrete floor, covered by a thin gray blanket. There were eight tick-marks carved into the stone wall by the makeshift bed. Empty shackles hung from the wall; a deep brown bloodstain covered the floor. Adam’s inhale was sharp.

“This is it. This is my room,” he said, his voice lifting like it was some kind of positive sign.

“The room you were kept in? How do you know?” Of all the doors we could choose to open, it seemed impossible that this could be the same one.

“Those are my tick-marks. That means my mother is right around here,” he said excitedly.

He fumbled along the wall of the hallway for the next door. I followed the sound of his eager footsteps. He pulled open the next door, and a salty tang filled the air. As I came up behind him, we were looking through the ruined depths of a blue-green ocean, the remnants of a great city of twisted metal on its sandy floor. It looked just like New York, as if the city existed in some parallel present where the world had been flooded. I could almost feel the water sliding against my skin. It cast a soft blue light into the hall. I reached up, curious to touch it. My hand bounced back, repelled by the unseen barrier.

“She’s not here.” Adam’s voice cracked. “Isiris must have her somewhere else. We’ve got to hurry.”

I just watched the buildings, unable to look away.

“Harlow, come on. We have to go.”

Adam had to physically pull me back and close the door. He took my hand, moving us quickly down the hall as I shook off the fog that had come over me while watching the submerged cityscape. Something was piecing itself together in my mind, some idea of what the landscapes beyond the doors meant, but it wasn’t completely clear yet.

We walked on, passing an endless stream of identical doors in near-total darkness. Suddenly there was a wan light in the far-off distance. We both saw it at the same time.

Adam stopped short. “Do you see that?” he whispered.

“It’s coming toward us,” I said.

My heart clenched. This wasn’t the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It was some
thing
, taking a more and more human-looking shape as it drew close to us, illuminating the doors on either side of itself as it skimmed over the floor without actually touching it.

“What should we do?” Adam asked.

I considered the doors to the left and right of us. Maybe one would lead to another hallway, but that wouldn’t buy us much. It would only serve to make us more lost. The fleeting thought that we might be doomed to wander an endless labyrinth of hallways and doorways leading nowhere seized me; I pushed it away, forcing myself to focus on the present danger of whatever was heading straight toward us.

The thing was close enough now that I could make out its form. It looked like a woman, her limp posture like a wet rag suspended by a hook, except she was semi-transparent. The tops of her feet dragged across the floor as she skimmed toward us, the sunken shadows where her eyes should be not fixing on anything. She seemed to be looking right through us.

“Move out of the way.” I tugged at Adam’s shirt and we both squeezed against the wall as she passed by. As she passed, it felt as though I’d plunged into a frozen pond. We watched her light recede, the way we’d come, then wink out as blackness subsumed us once again.

I buried my face in Adam’s chest. “Was that a wraith? The followers of Isiris you told me about?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice raspy.

“Maybe we should follow it,” I said. “Otherwise we might never find Isiris.”

“If she’s here, we’ll find her.” Adam hugged me tighter. My eyes stung with the threat of tears; it felt punishingly good to be inside his embrace.

He kissed the top of my head. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

I grabbed his hand, and this time I didn’t intend on letting go.

Several hours later we finally came to the end of the hallway. There was a door directly in front of us. I closed my eyes and concentrated, willing Isiris’s presence into my head. There was only silence.

“Ready?” Adam asked.

“I should go first,” I said.

“Zero chance,” he replied.

I knew that tone. There was no use trying to argue. An electric wave of foreboding shot down my arms to the tips of my fingers.

“Okay. Let’s get it over with,” I said.

He turned the knob. Sunlight flooded the hallway, and I shielded my eyes as I stepped into an immense round room. It was made of small stones, with a narrow ramp ribboning its way around the inside edge—up, up, up, as far as the eye could see, until the blinding glare of what looked like the sun blotted out the rest. It was like staring up from the bottom of a wishing well. For all I knew, it went on forever. In the center of the floor, a series of black stones formed a symbol. Another replica of the All Seeing Eye.

“This is the place my father described to me—a cylinder that goes up as far as the eye can see, with doors everywhere. This is the room where Isiris gave me to the General,” I said.

Glancing behind me, I saw that the door we’d come through was no longer there. “Our door is gone.”

“I don’t think it was ever really there to begin with,” Adam said.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s toying with us.” Adam tilted his chin up to the false sun and closed his eyes. He looked defeated.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. It was a stupid question—what wasn’t wrong?

Adam let out a ragged breath. Nothing had ever sounded more hopeless to me.

“I thought I was going to walk in here and kill Isiris. Rescue my mother. Set us all free. I’m an idiot,” he said.

Purity
, Isiris’s voice whispered in my ear. Adam didn’t flinch. I squinted, looking up at the doors cascading down the stone walls, but no one was there.

“You’re not an idiot,” I said.

“Maybe we should go through one of these doors. See what’s on the other side,” he murmured.

It was an odd thing to say.

He opened his eyes and saw the narrow-eyed way I was looking at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, putting his hands up.

Death.

I blinked at the floor and put my hands up to my temple as a skull-crushing migraine ripped through my head. There was a ring of fire behind my eyelids. My mind glowed red with VisionCrest’s All Seeing Eye.