Forgiveness is healing—everything is energy—thoughts create—we are all connected—what you resist persists—true love never dies—the soul’s immortality is the only true immortality—
Repeating the words again and again, until it becomes like a mantra, until the words begin to take shape, begin to take hold.
Until my breath begins to steady, my body begins to stil , and my heart is able to unload this burden of fear.
Forgiveness is healing—I send a silent thought of forgiveness to Misa, Marco, and Rafe for being so misguided and untrusting they wouldn’t even try another way.
What you resist persists—I stop resisting the fact that I’m fal ing, and start concentrating on a solution instead.
Thoughts create—Even when instant manifestation won’t work, our thoughts are stil creating on our behalf.
I free my backpack from one shoulder, slide it around to my front, yank the zipper down, and plunge my hand inside. Making sure I’ve got a good grip on the light jacket I manifested earlier—the one that got me through an excess of repetitive seasons by shielding me from heat, rain, wind, and snow—before I drop the bag, listening as it whizzes down below. I grasp the jacket by either sleeve and lift my arms up high over my head, cutting the wind along with my trajectory, while thrusting my body toward what I can only hope is the side of the cliff. Knowing I’ve succeeded when I’m left momentarily stunned by the sudden impact of my body bashing into a bed of sharp rocks.
My flesh cutting, scraping, as the jagged edges serrate my clothes, grating smal chunks of me, as my body continues to fal .
My eyes sear with agony, as my teeth gnash from the excruciating pain of being flayed. Assuring myself that if it won’t heal now, it eventual y wil . Just as soon as I can locate an outcropping of rock, something tangible to hang onto, something to stop this downward descent. Just as soon as I can get to the fruit and make my way back to a better part of Summerland.
My body a toboggan of blood, flesh, and bone that continues to careen down the cliff, and just as I’m sure I can’t take another second, something catches—something that juts hard against my foot, stabs me in the knee, and pummels me so hard in the gut it robs me of breath before puncturing me right in the base of my neck where at the very last moment, I reach up, grab ahold of it, stop it from removing my head.
Knowing it’s my one and only chance—knowing I can’t possibly hold on to both my makeshift parachute and this strange outcropping of sorts—I close my eyes and let go.
My jacket instantly claimed by the airstream as my hands grasp in the dark, putting al of my faith in this odd and pointy protrusion I can’t even see.
My fingers circling, curling around it in a death grip, my palms scraped ragged and raw as my weight rappels me down the length of it.
Down.
Down farther stil .
Down so far and so fast I can only pray it’l end soon. Knowing that if I lose my grip I’l be right back where I started—free-fal ing through black, empty space, only this time without my bag, without any tools to help me. Doing al that I can to clear such thoughts from my mind, my body jumps to a stop and I find myself dangling from this strange thing’s end.
Caught in midair, my legs flailing crazily beneath me, I grip tighter, reposition myself, using my raw and skinned knees along with this unknown thing, to pul myself up.
At first I go slowly. Very, very slowly. Reminding me of the time I had to climb up a rope in my freshman-year gym class. Back when I was just another mortal. Back when, other than being a cheerleader, I had no athletic prowess to speak of. Every inch feeling like a lesson in overcoming unbearable pain in order to put my faith in something I can’t even see. My progress measured in inches, not feet, eventual y creeping close enough to the summit that I’m rewarded with a tiny spot of light—just enough to reveal exactly what it is that has saved me.
It’s a root.
A long and spindly tree root.
A long and spindly tree root that belongs to the tree—the one I’ve been searching for. I know it instinctively.
The Tree of Life has saved me.
thirty-two
The moment after I reach the top—the moment after I heave myself over the ledge and lie facedown, gasping in the dirt—I bolt upright and run like the wind.
Ignoring the searing pain that shoots through my battered legs and feet, I cal upon every immortal power I have to help me find my way along the root with some semblance of speed. Sometimes stumbling, sometimes fal ing, but always picking myself right back up and forging ahead, knowing I need to get there before it’s too late, that I’m so far behind I’ve no time to waste.
Making do without the aid of my flashlight, figuring it’s stil free-fal ing in the crevice along with my bag, I push my way through the fog until the trail becomes less treacherous, easier to navigate, until final y, it’s just a matter of surviving the climb, pul ing myself along, and al owing my body to adjust to the ever-increasing altitude.
An ever-increasing altitude, the kind of which I’ve never experienced before.
An ever-increasing altitude that leaves me dizzy, short of breath, and that would surely require unlimited use of an oxygen tank if I were back home on the earth plane.
And before I can actual y see it, I know that I’m near.
It’s in the way the darkened sky begins to glisten and glow.