Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

“Who are you?” I call, taking one step.

He turns his face, slow…slow…slow…. and just when I think I’ll see it, I’ll see his face, he stops. His identity is just out of sight, just like he wants it to be.

He wants to play a game.

He turns, hurrying down the path.

But when I fall behind, he waits.

He wants me to follow him.

He takes a step, and so do I. Then we take another, then another.

I’m with a magnificent curiosity, bigger than I’ve ever felt, and I’m compelled to follow him even against my logical judgment, to play this game and see where it leads me.

Mist floats across the path, hiding his legs, but then he’s inside the house, disappearing into hallways. I call out to him to stop, but he doesn’t.

He turns down a hallway.

I follow.

He turns again, then again.

Finally, he stands in front of Sabine’s bedroom door. He faces it, his forehead almost resting on the wood.

And then just as I reach him, he’s gone.

I stand bewildered and confused, alone in front of Sabine’s door.

The man was as real as I am, but yet he’s just simply not here.

I’m crazycrazycrazy.

I take a deep breath, because one thing is sure in my crazy mind. Real or not real, he wanted to draw me to Sabine’s door.

But why?

I knock, intent on finding out.

“Come in,” the old lady calls.

I’m hesitant and scared. But my need to know outweighs my fear.

I enter her living quarters to find Sabine hunched over a table. She’s concentrating, absorbed, something in her hands.

Sabine straightens now, and I see what she’s holding.

Tarot cards.

“He won’t hurt you,” she says, unconcerned with my ire. “At least not right now. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

She saw him, too?

“I don’t trust you,” I reply. “I don’t know you.”

My mother trusted her. And that’s the difference. She clucks, but doesn’t answer.

“Who was he?” I ask, stepping further into the room.