Adam was tired. He didn't know how souls worked, exactly, but apparently they could wear themselves out. The body he inhabited didn't physically exist in the real world, but it was physical enough in this place to operate accordingly, and he'd been walking for what felt like, as Ronan would call it, for-fucking-ever.
And all he saw were trees. The cottage had been the one difference. Adam imagined a road sign stuck outside the clearing: LAST EXIT FOR ∞ MILES.
He wondered if, as he thought it, it had come into existence. Not that he was going back to find out.
Cabeswater, though, was often slow to react to thoughts and wishes. You usually had to concentrate, focus, ask outright. Every now and then, however, it picked up something from the subconscious and pulled it forward into view. Adam still didn't completely comprehend what made the difference. It was one of the reasons he'd chosen to take psychology; he wanted to understand how people worked, how he worked, and maybe by extension places like Cabeswater.
Though at the moment, Cabeswater didn't seem to be working at all. It had provided the path as requested, but he felt like he was getting literally nowhere. Yet Adam kept walking because he couldn't think of a better option. Or any other option, for that matter.
How much time had passed? Had he missed his Latin quiz? How long before someone came looking for him and found his body? Adam had been made an RA—he was reliable like that—and one of the perks was a single room to yourself, so he couldn't count on a roommate tripping over him. But Ronan would notice when he didn't call, though that would be almost an entire day...
What if my body is already beyond saving?
He'd know, though, wouldn't he? He'd be able to tell?
He trudged on, and finally the trees began to thin, the line of them pulling back from the trail, which now looked more like an actual road. When had that happened? It didn't matter; it was a change, it was something. Adam pushed his legs to move a little faster.
Then a couple things happened at once: music and numbers.
He felt the music before he heard it, something that had become commonplace for him since losing the hearing in his left ear. The thudding vibrations ran through him like tiny waves. He couldn't tell where it came from, but based on the beat it was one of Ronan's loud and angry electronica songs. A good sign.
At about the same time as he noticed the music, Adam started seeing the numbers on the trees. Faint at first but clearer as he continued down the road. They were scratched into the bark, on the last few trees deeply enough to cause sap to weep from the wounds. Sixes on some trees and the number 20 on others.
Adam's mind immediately flew to tarot. Six was the Lovers. Twenty was Judgement. Together they meant... what? A clear choice, perhaps. Coming to an understanding about something. The revival of a relationship. He needed more information to know for sure, and he didn't have his cards so asking Cabeswater directly was impossible.
The road began to climb, and suddenly Adam knew exactly where he was.
But I'm not really here.
His soul had not been transported hundreds of miles. He was not walking in the physical world. He kept telling himself this like a litany, else he'd forget because it looked so real. It even smelled right—the scent of the grass and the trees and the cows.
The gray, plasticky sky overhead broke into something weathermen would call "partly cloudy." The still air began to move in a cooling, comfortable breeze. From somewhere overhead a raven cried out.
Adam crested the rise in the road and took a deep breath of the brisk air. The music was louder now and clearly originated from the open door of one of the many barns that dotted the yawn of grass. Islands of flowering clover nodded sleepily in the scudding light as the sun played peek-a-boo behind the clouds. Definitely spring here.
Home.
But not really, and not only because this was Cabeswater and not the Barns. The Barns was Ronan's home, not his, even if he used it like one. Ronan would disagree, which was why Adam never said it aloud. But he still longed for things that were his.
Something borrowed, something...
His gaze snagged on something not right. His subconscious caught it before his conscious did, so it took him a minute to understand why he was staring, fixed, at the house. His eyes didn't want to let it go. His mind insisted he look, see, discern. It was like one of those games in kiddie magazines: What's Wrong with This Picture?
The numbers again. On the house this time in big, tarnished metal figures. 620.
Adam didn't think the Barns had a street address, but even if it did, he knew that wasn't it. Those numbers didn't belong on the house.
Somehow, it came as a relief. Proof that he wasn't truly at the Barns, that this wasn't real. A touchstone, like a pinch when you were dreaming.
He started down toward the open barn and the pounding music. Ronan would be there. All would be well.
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