Pressing my lips tightly, I do as she asks. My awareness expands outward, focusing on the sensations of the room, and I involuntarily shudder. “There’s an energy to the room I guess I haven’t really taken notice of before. It’s like walking into a walk-in freezer, only I’m not really cold.”
“Ah, now your senses are beginning to swell,” she grins. “Press onward. What else?”
Shaking my head, I turn to Abigail. “There isn’t a whole lot more in this room. I’m not sure what else you’re—”
“Close your eyes. Forego sight in the typical fashion and tell me what you witness,” Abigail says, her face lighting up from some kind of excitement, or maybe amusement at my attempts.
“I don’t—”
She raises a ghostly hand. “Humor me and do as I request, Autumn. Please.”
Stretching my neck and relaxing my shoulders, I close my eyes. I feel somewhat ridiculous standing in the middle of the room with my eyes shut, but after a moment, the feeling dissipates. Instead, it’s replaced with a strange sense of calm. The anxiety and high-voltage energy washes away, as if I were suddenly plunged into a cool spring. I can’t help but hold my breath, curious to whatever may come next.
“You have been grievously tainted by the sights of your modern era. I have found it to be a most dreadful affliction at times. Instead of residing in your gifts, allowing them to become a part of you, you lose your ability to be drawn into the eternal laws of magic. I suspect this is through much conditioning outside our inner sanctum, but regardless…” Her voice drifts off. When she speaks again, she is closer. “Keeping your eyes closed, cast a wider ken. Tell me, what feelings arise in you first?”
“A sense of calm, for starters,” I say, raising my eyebrows, but keeping my eyes shut.
“That is but a side effect of turning inward, calming the mind to embark into stillness. Being what we are requires a certain amount of strength and concentration. It also demands our intentional efforts to be but one with our gifts. Necromancy is not simply the resurrection of another. It is about immersion beyond the veil—to the heart from where all energy springs. We cannot do this properly without learning how to calm the storm raging within our own minds,” she says, circling around me. “You will be your own worst enemy if you cannot quell its beckoning. You must not allow yourself to be tormented by it.”
I shift awkwardly, unsure what to say to something like that.
“Move beyond the serenity. What senses entice you forth?”
Inhaling slowly, I allow the stillness to overcome me until everything else is completely tuned out. The room falls deafeningly silent and it’s as if the whole world falls completely away. Then, almost like a single candle was lit inside the darkness, behind my eyelids, I can make out the entire room. Only, rather than seeing it in three dimensions, it’s more like looking through thermal imaging or an infrared camera. Some areas around the room are a cool blue, all the way up to a deeper cyan. Then there are areas around the room that are red, orange, and even yellow. Turning my head to face the ground, the salt glows a bright, crystal white, but the blood splatter shows up as an intense, fluorescent yellow.
Curious, keeping my eyes closed, I bend down and touch it.
“Speak your truths. What observations do you witness?” Abigail says softly.
“Colors—everything is bright,” I say, standing back up.
“Exemplary.” There’s a hint of satisfaction hidden in the tone of her voice. “Your gifts have returned with haste. Manifold objects require that you must be in alignment with their essence before they reveal themselves. I am quite sure you can appreciate there is much in this world that hath not yet shown themselves unto you.”
I open my eyes, glancing over at Abigail. After realizing I can see spirits who are trapped, it’s definitely occurred to me once or twice that there are many levels to reality.
“I do,” I say, nodding.
Abigail clasps her hands in front of her body and smiles. “Dimensions overlap each other repeatedly. Sometimes, the only way to detect a rift is by honing our abilities. Other times, we require tools to be one with the universal energies. I am certain you have calculated that you have been miraculously gifted with both my ability for resurrection and Warren’s ability to behold the unseen. I believed this to be true from very early on, but I had no way of being certain. It was not a proven theory until your successful reinsertion of the Gilbert girl’s soul.”
“That’s a good thing, though. Right?” I say, quirking an eyebrow.
Abigail tilts her head to the side, considering. “It may have its benefits.”
“Well, super,” I say, making a face.
“Direct your attention inward yet again and tell me what it is you sense about this chamber. From whence did it arise?”
“Why?” I ask, wondering what she’s trying to get at.
“We shall see,” she says, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
“Fine,” I mutter under my breath. Again, I close my eyes and turn inward. I shut down all of my other senses until the calm returns and the strange colors flicker to life inside my inner sight.
“Have you regained the clarity of sight?” Abigail says from somewhere behind me.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, turn widdershins very slowly with a watchful eye. Tell me what impressions you get of this chamber from this sacred level.”
“Widdershins? What does that even mean?” I say, shaking my head.
“Anti-clockwise.”
“You mean counter-clockwise,” I mumble.
Swallowing hard, I use my internal sight to look around the room. The stones on the wall vibrate in varying degrees of colors, some brighter than others. As I rotate a little more to my left, I can make out the stairwell and the dimming light from the window. It appears as a greyish radiance, bursting out from the edge of the stone wall. Continuing counter-clockwise, I view the back wall and the myriad
