All That Soars (*On Hold*)

1 A Sacrifice

The edges of my pain burned away until I felt nothing. Darkness swarmed in, encompassing me in its familiarity, soothing my mind with blissful nothingness. But it, too, blinked away a moment later, leaving me standing in a strange foyer that I had never seen before.

I blinked, staring around at my surroundings. Vibrant purple damask wallpaper clung to the outer edges of my vision and flowed into a beautiful cherry wood floor beneath my feet. Paintings and little pieces of art were scattered about almost haphazardly as if they'd just been moved into the area and the occupant of the home hadn't yet decided where to put them. A set of stairs bordered the far wall and led up to rooms that I could not see. But it was the door that drew my attention, the one leading, presumably, outside of the home. It was made entirely of pure silver. I stared at it for a moment and then took a step forward.

My head snapped sideways in the direction of the approaching footsteps that emanated suddenly from somewhere off to the right. I hesitated, eyes flicking to that silver door, calculating an escape route should my mother appear in this strange place. But the person who finally emerged in the threshold of the foyer was not my mother at all.

"Uncle," I breathed in awe.

"I have to say I'm surprised about the choice of meeting place," he replied, striding forward and pacing about the foyer in that familiar studious way of his, hands clasped behind his back, polished shoes glinting in the light of the silver chandelier hung far above us. "I thought for sure you would have chosen Hadley."

"How are you here?" I asked him, my brow furrowed in confusion because I had realized something. This wasn't just my uncle. This was my uncle as I remembered him. Young and vibrant, full of life and vigor. He was in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, at the prime of his professional career and raising me into my adulthood. He wasn't him. He was a memory of him. So where was I?

I backed away suddenly, pressing myself against the wall as my eyes shot rapidly about my surroundings once more, this time, assessing for threats rather than observing out of mere curiosity.

"You need not worry," he called out, raising a hand in a gesture of goodwill. "Nothing happens here unless you want it to."

I frowned, brow furrowing again in even more confusion.

"You-you're not my uncle," I accused.

"I am not," he agreed, picking up a little statue of a goldfinch and examining it. "I am the projection of his consciousness into your own. I'm a conversational piece. I'm not him but I am of him. I know everything about him. I have his motivations, his memories."

His eyes flicked to mine and my heart pounded against my ribs.

"What are you?" I gasped.

"I have no name," he replied with a shrug, setting the figure back on the shelf and pacing again. "I am the elixir. Or, rather, the magic within the elixir. And I'm here to help you understand."

"Understand what?"

"Your father's choice of setting made far more sense. His childhood home where he grew up with your uncle. That, I understood, but this. Tell me, where are we?"

He turned his gaze onto me and I leaned off of the wall, examining him anew. It wasn't my uncle, I knew that, but the likeness was uncanny. Everything was the same. Everything.

"Seren," he said my name and I blinked at him.

"I-I don't know," I confessed, glancing around at our surroundings myself. "Where are we supposed to be?"

"Home. Wherever you believe your true home to be, that's where we go. For your father, it was his childhood home, the place where he lived his most pleasant memories. But you don't know where we are?"