72 Into the other.

II. Into The Other.

Killion came to a stop at the end of the clearing and his group panned out around him.

"What is it?" Calla asked and he pointed to the girl in a blue robe covered with blotched of red that could only be blood. Calla must have seen it too,for she growled ready to throw herself and accost the girl that had been responsible for her own mother's pain.

"No!" He pulled her back just in time for the trio to descend from the sky above them.

"Havillah?" Havillah turned around at the sound of her name, the voice so familiar but out of place in this world where she was in. "Havillah?" She heard the voice again.

"Havillah!" A cheerful choir of voices called out and she looked up too late to see the two forms that were hurtling down to crush her. The shock of their impact threw her down and she stared up into the sky shocked by the appearance of her two friends and her mother who was still hovering in that same sky.

"Mother?"she choked out under the weight of the two bodies that were still pressed around her in a fierce hug. "Moriella? Cjaira? What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you silly." Cjaira jabbed her shoulder as Moriella pulled up by her other hand.

"How? How could you?You will also be banished?"

"Do not worry your pretty little head about that. What is paradise without a friend to share it." Moriella smiled and Havillah hugged them again, this time with tears that were beginning to cloud her eyes.

"I am so glad to see you too. So glad but also worried." She sniffed too happy beyond words.

"Won't you come and greet your mother or aren't I deserving of the gesture." Her two friends stepped aside side and Havillah could now see that her mother waiting, hands open with a big smile on her face that usually did not have any business there.

"Mother?" she whispered, but her legs refused to move.

"Havillah..." the smile dropped from her mother's face as she took in her daughter's appearance. "I am so Havillah. My daughter, I have been so unfair to you." She wept as she drew nearer and grasped her. A part of Havillah wanted to push her away but she was too exhausted for that one day. So she stood there and allowed her mother to hug her something that had never happened in her entire teenagehood. "I am so sorry. I was not there, I did not protect you then, but I am here now and I am not leaving your side ever again." Tamaar whispered as her arms grew tighter around her daughter's form.

"Mother." Havillah finally croaked, her voice hoarse, tears falling as the events of the past few weeks came crushing down on her shoulders now that she did not have to appear strong.

"SSH... everything is alright now." Her mother told her and she cried even more.

From the shadows Killion and his group watched, not sure what to make of the exchange as they took on the tearful reunion of mother and daughter from the sidelines.  They had tracked Havillah up the hill and to a compound with a huge house that was unlike the ones that were down in town. The mayor's house, he had guessed and even now as he studied it through his visor, he noticed how dilapidated it looked. What was happening here? He wondered as he continued to take in the blood coating her robes that were no longer red but blue.

Blue? He seemed to realise at the same time her family did.

"Look at you pretty lady. Not only were you restored but you received a new glory as well?" Cjaira, the girl who had glared at him all the way here remarked as her mother pulled away to inspect her own daughter.

"So it's true." The woman said. "Havillah? Why is there blood on your robes?"

"It's along story." she said as she turned at the sound of the opening of the front doors. "Right now,I have something I must do." She said as she pointed to the woman who had just exited the mayor's house.

For a moment, the woman stood there and stared with her gaze being directed more at Havillah's mother than the rest of them.

"Timnah?" She drew closer and Tamaar's face grew harder.

"Who is asking?"

"I am Mima...well my name is Danika." The woman stumbled and Havillah frowned at seeing Mima looking so frazzled.

"Am I supposed to know you?" Tamaar replied taking in her appearance. The dark hair, the dark skin and even the grey eyes that looked so much like her own.

"Mum..." Havillah intervened, but her mother moved to quiet her with a look.

"Well...I believe that... that..." Mima stuttered before giving off a nervous smile.

"Speak up at once. What do you believe?" Havillah grimaced as her mother took on her elder tone.

"She wants to know if you are a father's sister or not and Havillah, are you coming in or not?" Jharey came behind Mima and interrupted before Mima could say more to Tamaar.

"Wait... Havillah! Where are you going?" Tamaar said as she saw her daughter moving forward and towards the man. Killion saw this as well and frowned at the scene that was happening before them. Should he intervene? And what should he say when he did not understand a thing about what was happening here?

"I am going with him." She said pointing to Jharey who was about to retreat into the confines of the house.

"No way,  you are not. I have just found you and I am not about to let you out of my sight."

"Mother..."

"I guess that's that." He turned back to pierce her with his gaze. "After everything you said you will not follow through with your word?" His eyes lifted to scan the ground behind her. "And I guess you brought your dogs as well. If you won't help then, leave. All of you get out of my town and my land."

"No." Havillah pushed aside her mother and ran to Jharey's side. "I will help. Please let me." She begged. He gaze her a hard look an nodded before allowing her to follow him into the house.

"Havillah!" Her mother called out after her, but Havillah ignored her. She followed Jharey into the corridor and he led her to a beautiful pink room that seemed off in that dilapidated bangalow. The room was bright unlike the one she had previously occupied and among the mattresses and the plush pink covers of the white canopy bed, Havillah could see the little form that was burried within it.

"Sophir." She rushed to the girl's side and took her hand. Without saying anything, she closed her eyes and sent out her crystals to scour out the problem. "I can't see anything." She directed the words to her Guide and prayed that this time, he would answer her.

"That is because her problem is not physical."

"What do you mean?" She thought back.

"The girl was attacked from the other realm, therefore her illness will not be something that will manifest physically."

"The bridge? But my wounds manifested physically?"

"They did." Her Guide told her. "But the two of you are not the same. Your bridge is active where hers is not." He told her and Havillah suddenly realised the difference between the Great and a normal human.

"So how do I help her?" She thought back frantically.

"For one you can ease her pain by trying to calm her emotions. I will help you today but next time you must work to figure it out on your own."

"Fine tell me!"

"Well, try concentrating the crystals on her head and all her vital organs and slowly ease the flow of endorphins to all the parts of her body."

Havillah did as she had been told and moved her hands to Sophir's head and chest region. Surprisingly, Jharey had not spoken a word to stop her and she wondered if that was how desperate he had gotten. Out of her consideration for him, Havillah had opened her eyes to explain it to him what it was that she was trying to do and was surprised to find that not just Mima, but Killion and her mother,  had joined in as well. What she did not know though, was that her mother had forced her way into the house and a confrontation had been about to start between her, Killion and Jharey, but a gust of wind had blown in their presence, silencing them just as Havillah began to glow.

"What is it?" Jharey questioned her and she noticed the sour look that her mother was now throwing him.

"I will try and calm her emotions first and then I will proceed on from there." She told him as she was not sure what else she would be required to do.

"Do you need the emollient?" Her mother asked her. Tamaar knew very well that that the banished were stripped off of all items apart from the Triban robes that hanged from their shoulders that would bear the sign of their exile.

"You are already past that. You won't need it." Havillah shook her head before closing her eyes again. Resting her palms on the head and chest, she sent out crystals that covered her brain and all her vital organs and for added measure, she willed them into her system hoping that they would bring light in the dreams of the little tormented girl.

"That should calm her and heal all her physical deficits, but still it won't wake her up."

"How then does one access the other?"

"Like you do with the healing, you need to delve into the other world but this time you will require a certain amount of certitude.  You will need to connect to your own bridge which means looking inwards and not outwards as that's where the door to the other realm is located."

Inwards and not outwards. To see into the physical your eyes look outwards but to see into the other meant looking inwards? The more she thought about it, tge more it sounded like a puzzle. Could the guy sound more cryptic than that? She mused. The door is within. Look inwards. She tried to decipher it, but however hard she tried to make out the words all she could see was darkness.

"Let your heart lead you,  do not let your mind interfere in the things you should see or not see. Find substance in nothingness."

Immediately her mind went back to his initial statements. Certitude. He had said. He wanted her to be sure of what her heart could see, but her mind could not process. It didn't need to, all she needed was to see, not to try and make sense of it. Her mother's words rang deep in her mind as well and she began to wonder. Was this the true foundation of the first virtue? Seeing the unseen? Calling into being what was in the other into the physical realm? The difference now was that she had to delve into the other itself and bring back a person that was being terrorised by the beings living there.

In theory one of the great foundations of the first virtue was creation and creation needed imagination. So, Havillah looked inwards and forced herself to see the figures that were hidden in that darkness. Slowly the darkness began to swirl and she could see the greyer areas and what could be figures swimming within them. When you are in darkness you need light,and suddenly it surrounded her. The darkness however remained lurking and she like a lighted boat on a dark see floated about without a purpose.

"You need to find her."

"How do I do it?" She forgot and spoke the words aloud.  Beside her, Tamaar, Mima, Killion and Jharey watched dumbfounded as the glow continued to envelope Havillah and Sophir wherever she touched her. Right, do it by myself. She remembered her guides words and what he had told her initially. In the other realm anything goes right? She thought thinking back to how they manipulated it to bend the laws of physics even in the physical. "Right." She said using her grip on Sophir's body as an anchor that would lead her to the girl even the other and suddenly she sensed a being in the darkness before.

Like she had sent out crystals in her body, she sent her light and immediately she could see the little curled up form on an island surrounded by dark mists that were tormented her. From afar she could see a bigger island but a huge chasm seperated her from it preventing her from escaping the mists that were noe tearing at her piece by piece.

"You have the light inside you Havillah. You are a light and you can bring light to a life that has been torn apart by darkness."

She did as she had been told and imagine a light like the one that had swallowed up the dragon. From her chest, her light like a little lamp glowed and grew bigger chasing away the shadows all the way to the very edges.

"Take their cover away." The cover where the terrors hid. She understood. That was the cover of darkness and with one blast of light, she pushed it all away to leave a scene that under different conditions would have actually scared her.

"Oh dear," a tear dropped down a cheek as she watched the wolves that were launching at the girl over and over again. Without thinking, Havillah rushed over to the girl's side and flung one away.

Strangely, the wolves in here seemed to have form.

"You can't save  herrr." They hissed as they circled them, looking for an opening to launch once more at the little girl.

"Says who?"

"Ophiria. Ophiria who sends us."

"To this particular girl?"

"Yessss..." They hissed as black saliva dripped from their tar coated lips.

"Then tell Ophiria this. She cannot have her. BEGONE!" With much anger Havillah thrust her hands out and the wolves fled crying as they dissipated into nothingness, now swallowed by the light.