The Morgan Effect: Life's Chronicles of a New Era

Guardians

Chapter Nineteen

"How is any of that possible?"

"No one has their children on that side of the Barrier. There isn't a recording of a child ever being born there or of anyone conceiving for that matter."

"Where were you born?"

"My mother didn't keep such records. After my dad knocked her up she moved around a lot to avoid him. That didn't help."

"I am sorry."

"It was a long time ago. I don't dream about it anymore. Actually I don't dream about much of anything these days."

"How do you mean?"

"I get mostly nightmares when I close my eyes. My best nights are when I don't sleep at all. I've woken up engulfed in flames once or twice. My energy reacted badly and...."

A long moment stretched between them and Cosette thought that if he were a different person, she'd be more than compelled to save him. She was getting a complex and his sad pauses didn't help her mushy, over-read side from wanting him to find his love interest before his heart fully broke and he became a real villain.

"Is it possible, for you to pause what you're doing? If you could, maybe, give me two months and at the end, if I haven't come up with something, then you can... continue."

"So you'll come?"

"On the condition that you wait."

"Hold on—"

"No, I've decided. I'll go with you and look for the solution as long as you promise to wait for it, at least two months."

"Will that be your only condition?"

"I can't think of anything else I'll need to put in a contract, can you?"

"What about if a Barrier becomes a Fade?"

"Then you can post a damn guard."

It was such a dry statement, that he almost laughed. But he felt that the dryness of it all called for a more collected response: "I'll sleep on it."

"OK. That's all I ask."

"In the interim, I'll show you to this library."

He stood and took her hand. For a second she stared at it. Then in one swift motion she grabbed it and hoisted herself to stand beside him. With her one step behind him, he walked to the door underneath the stairwell and opened it.

"Oh my...."

Under the stairs was a place so large it could have been a home in and of itself. There were more stairs and at the base of this set, was a split leading to a diversion of two new sets. One left, and one right; she ran down the left side. Further inside the ground was compacted-dirt and the walls were rock. Above her head were stalactite, sharp and clean. The room was large and some of the walls were relieved with a sort of cut stone. There were a hundred tents of faded brown.

In the center of the room stood the tallest bookshelves she'd ever seen. The disappointment was that they were mostly empty.

"Why in the world is your library barren of books."

"Most of the books that were here are at the new place, but we didn't have very many here to begin with."

"Why'd you leave these?"

"I wanted to keep them here. Some of them are my mother's and some of them have nothing to do with Barriers and still some have only to do with Pragmata."