Greywalker - Kat Richardson [34]
Ben answered.
“I know I’m calling pretty late, but I have a question.”
“It’s not too late yet. What do you need to know?” His voice moved away from the phone. “Hang on.” I heard him call for Mara. I heard another phone click and clatter.
“Well . . . tonight a car tried to run me down. I jumped out of the way and fell pretty hard. I was OK, but there is no way the car could have missed me. The space was too narrow and the car was moving too fast for me to clear the area. It was drizzling. But when I was trying to get out of the car’s way, I was in mist. That Grey mist. And then I was in the rain again. And the car hadn’t clipped me. So, what the hell happened?”
Ben’s voice sounded excited. “Wow . . . for a second, you must have seemed to flicker or even disappear, I think. Oh, that must have scared the driver!”
The ferret scrambled into my lap and tried to steal the phone. I put her on the floor. “I can only hope. You’re saying I disappeared?”
“Not completely. You’re a physical being and the Grey is an overlap zone, remember? For a moment, you were basically in both places, switching energy states.”
I barked over his enthusiasm. “But how? I don’t understand how I can be in two places at once or how I get there. I didn’t do anything but try to run away!”
Ben fell silent. Mara slipped into the hole in the conversation. “It’s the nature of Greywalkers to move through the Grey, which, as I said, is a bit here and a bit there. But as to how you did it without meaning to, I’m thinking that your mind whizzed through the possibilities and latched on to this one.”
“You opened a door and went through it. You’ve done it before, but you never did it voluntarily until now. Now that you know you can do it, you did,” Ben added.
Mara resumed. “True. But it worries me that it wasn’t conscious. This time it was a good choice, but it might not be so safe next time. You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Only where I hit the gravel. And why didn’t I get hurt worse?”
“I’m not quite certain. You got off lightly, though. You’ll need to be controlling it. You can’t go blindly popping in and out of the Grey, or being dragged in and out higgledy-piggledy. Something worse than a car might be on the other side.”
I didn’t respond. I picked up Chaos and teased her with my fingers.
Ben broke first. “Harper, even if you can’t quite buy it, at least try to play along, just in case.”
Chaos scampered away to wreak havoc elsewhere. My fingers weren’t interesting when they stopped fluttering. “What if you’re wrong?”
“If we’re wrong, you’re no worse off. If we’re right, then things get better. It’s not surgery. And if you didn’t think we might be right, why did you call?”
I loosened my shoulders. “What do you suggest that I do?”
“Let Mara help you. I’ll get off the phone so you two can work it out.”
I could hear Mara hesitating. “It isn’t all that hard, really. . . .”
“Yeah. Well. Let’s try it.”
“All right. You’ll need to recognize the barriers of the Grey first. We can try a concentration exercise to narrow your focus. Ever done any yoga?”
I felt a little silly admitting to it. “A little meditation breathing.”
“Then you’ll be having no problem. It’s a bit like mindful breathing. So sit and breathe like that, then remember the sensations you had just before you crossed to the Grey. They’re the clues. When you can recognize the barrier and re-create the sensations at will, you should be able to open a doorway and just step across. Or not. As you wish. Shall we give it a whirl?”
“Hang on.” I got comfortable, taking off my shoes and sitting on the couch with a pillow in the small of my back. “OK. Now what?”
“Just breathe and feel. When you have the balance of it, then try re-creating the sensations of the Grey. Then open your eyes and try to spot it. Then close them and push the barrier away again. I’ll be right here, on the phone, until you’re done.”
It had been a while. I put the phone on the couch beside me. I closed my eyes and tried to narrow my concentration to