My pulse sped up. I opened my eyes to sneak a look at Xiomara. She was frowning intently, her head cocked to one side, like she was trying to identify a distant sound. As I watched her, she muttered, “She’s confused. I’m not sure why. She’s got a direct connection to you, and yet she doesn’t seem to know it’s you.”
“What am I doing wrong?” I whispered. The other thoughts rattled away against the confines of my mental box, but I keptthem at bay. I was doing what Xiomara had asked, and yet something still wasn’t right.
“You aren’t doing anything wrong,” Xiomara insisted. “It’s Asteria. She’s… something is off.”
“What do we do?”
“You speak to her this time. Perhaps my guidance is interfering. I’ll try to observe without inserting myself,” Xiomara said. “Try again,mija, try again.”
I shoved my fear and doubt aside, and focused all my energy on the Asteria standing in my mental space. I moved myself closer to her, mentally walking toward her so that I could have touched her if I tried. “Asteria, it’s me. It’s Wren.”
I need to talk to Wren. My little bird.
“It’s me, Asteria. I’m Wren Vesper. Your granddaughter.”
Something flashed across Asteria’s face, a blip of recognition, followed by confusion again. But she was looking at me now. It was startling, like an actor breaking the fourth wall unexpectedly, and speaking directly to an audience member. Xiomara reacted to it as well; I heard her stifled gasp, and felt her hand tighten again around my cold, numb fingers.
Wren?
“Yes! It’s me!”
She still seemed unsure, but at least she felt the direct connection. She shook her head, her eyebrows knitting together like she had a sudden terrible headache. I felt a wave of something unpleasant—not quite nausea, but something akin to it.
She has to know. I have to tell her.
“Tell me! I’m Wren, and I’m listening!”
The girl. The girl will bring the book.
“What girl? What book?”
She understands the source. You must trust her. Everything depends on it.
“Asteria, who are you talking about? What girl?”
The source. She’s connected to the source. She will bring the book. Trust her, little bird.
The spotlight was fading on my little mental stage. Asteria’s voice was fading, slipping out of my hearing. I tried to reach for her, but my hands closed around the absence of her instead. When I opened my eyes, I found that my hands were reaching out into the empty air in front of me, that Xiomara had let go of my hand, and that the connection was broken.
I looked at Xiomara, and she looked back at me, her expression inscrutable.
“Did you break the connection?” I asked her, lowering my hands.
“No. Asteria did,” she said. Her brow was still furrowed. “It was not a clean break; she couldn’t hold on any longer.”
“Couldn’t hold on to what?”
“To you.”
Tears were pricking the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them back. “Could you hear what she was saying?”
“Yes.”
“And?” I asked. There was an impatient snap in my voice, but Xiomara didn’t seem to mind. She shook her head slowly, grinding her teeth together in her frustration. “I have no idea. I was hoping her message would make sense to you.”
My heart sank like a stone in my chest. “You don’t know what girl she’s talking about?”
“I do not. Nor do I know what book she’s talking about. Is this not something you and Asteria have discussed before?”
