Seer's Hope (Book 1 of The Seer Trilogy)

Seer's Hope (Chapter 9)

Seer's Hope

By Maree Anderson

Chapter Nine

Good Lord she was starving. If Hope had known it was customary to fast until the evening meal on the day of a burial, she'd have eaten twice as much dinner the previous night. Her stomach rumbled. She sternly told it to hush and refocused on Dayamar.

Her comprehension of the intricacies of the Dayamaru language seemed to have expanded during his lecture—doubtless due to some magical tinkering on his part. She'd have been impressed by yet another demonstration of his supernatural abilities if she hadn't been so disturbed by the incredible things he was telling her.

Now he launched into finer details of how he'd brought her to Dayamaria. "There are two planes of existence, corporeal and incorporeal. The corporeal plane is the world that our bodies inhabit—this world, here and now. However, there is another plane of existence—an incorporeal, or spiritual plane, where the souls of each living being exist as pure energy."

A significant pause, that Hope suspected was to check her level of concentration, before he continued. "A very few souls shine with a pure white light because they have realized their full potential along the path of life. Others, having much yet to learn, are entwined with a myriad colored threads, each one representing a path taken during the course of their life thus far. Colors and brightness are indicators as to the spiritual growth, or the potential for growth, of each soul."

Puhlease. Planes of existence and spirit worlds and soul-lights? Pure fantasy. How could it be anything else?

But... what about her own "gifts"? Hope could no longer deny they were real.

No. It was too much. Magic was one thing, but this was a whole new level of suspending belief.

"Your light was a beautiful rich gold," Dayamar said. "Your potential was awe-inspiring. I had never before seen the like. It's how I knew you would be the one to heal our world."

"I do not want to burst your bubble, Dayamar, but have you considered that perhaps you were—" how to put it delicately? "—so fatigued from all this between-worlds traveling, you were mistaken?"

"I'm not mistaken. The gods would not be so cruel."

"Where I come from, the gods people believe in so fervently are often cruel." Only a cruel god would have left Hope virtually unscathed amidst the wreckage of the car while her parents and her brothers had been crushed and broken.

He continued on, undeterred by her outburst. "There are many different worlds. Each is surrounded by an energy veil, which serves to prevent the untutored from accidentally passing between worlds. Once one learns to travel the incorporeal plane, journeys are usually made in spirit-form. It's rare that a physical body is transported. That is a very arduous undertaking, requiring great strength. I feared if I tore the veil to journey to your world, the rent would heal behind me, and I would lack the strength to open it again while carrying you with me. So I begged assistance from our gods. They helped me spin a gate to insure the veil remained open."

Those gods again. Hope suppressed a sigh. She'd write him off as a religious fanatic if he wasn't so... so... convincing.

"I entered your world in spirit form, seeking your soul-light," Dayamar said. "And when I found you, my life-energy merged with yours. Your physical body became pure energy, too, allowing us to travel through the veil and reenter this world. At the end of the journey, my energy surrendered yours and rejoined its physical vessel. And your physical body was recreated, here, in this world. Do you understand what I'm saying, Hope?"