Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Twenty Nine - Resurrection

It surprised me that when I opened my eyes I found myself right on the edge of the Sannah town boarder. It was beginning to get rather dark and I might not have recognized the area if it weren’t for the fact that we were in the same fields that I had imagined myself fleeing from over a thousand times. I’d always hoped that sometime in the next few years I actually would have the ability to leave Sannah as a result of heading off to college. It had dawned on me now, the irony that as the current situation stood I might not ever make it out of the small town that I called home.

Rebecca dragged me by the arm and into the middle of the field. I tried to tell her that I would willingly walk at her side, but she would not listen to my protests. She shoved me towards the grass, making me fall on my knees, the grass tugging at my knees and burning them.

“Five minutes.” Rebecca announced nervously looking up at the darkened sky, bringing her hands to rest upon her chest while I struggled to pull myself from the ground. “Five minutes till show time.”

She inhaled very slowly and reached within the pockets of her outfit. When she pulled her hands back out she had a handful of glittering white salt which she slowly let slip free from her fingers as she paced around me in a circular motion, leaving me the center of a circle of salt. Rebecca raised her hand over the top of the salt and uttered a small phrase that, like most spells, I did not understand.

“Good.” She said when she was finished. “Now you can’t move. It’s time for me to get the others.”

Before I had a chance to clarify just whom the ‘others’ were she shot me a wicked smile, disappearing into a new cloud of porting smoke, leaving me stranded on my own in the middle of the dark field, unable to move from the strange salt circle.

As always, being alone allowed my mind to fill itself with dangerous thoughts, painful ones. I wondered what it would be like to have my father back. How could someone just readjust to normal life after being gone ten years? Rebecca had been gone even longer than that and she was waltzing around like it was no problem. Rebecca did have one advantage over my dad. She’d been dead for the past ninety years. No one knew her, or remembered her face. When my dad came back he would have a lot of explaining to do. But that was dad’s area of expertise. Stories. I was sure he could come up with a cover story in a heartbeat. Despite everything, a small smile managed to escape my lips at the thought of seeing my dad once more. Being able to touch him, to hug him. Just the thought of it warmed my heart. There was only one thing that was holding me back from fully enjoying the possibility of my father returning to life. That one thing was Ren. I could not shake the hurt and confused look he gave me as I agreed with Rebecca’s wishes to help her out. As much as the thought of my father warmed my heart, the thought of Ren twisted it around in a painful knot.

But even as painful as my thoughts were, they couldn’t prepare me for the next pain that hit me.

It was a crushing blow starting in my face, like someone’s fist had taken to it. The force knocked me to the ground, though still carefully encased in the salt. The motion from the fall shook my brain and made my head turn blurry and when I touched my hand to my face I found that my nose was bleeding. I groaned as the pounding began in my head, my eyes darting all around me to find the culprit.

Yet… I was still all alone.

When the second blow to my face occurred I yelped out in pain, the throbbing growing while my face numbed. It felt so raw and vulnerable. Whatever was happening to me, they certainly felt like definite punches filled with malice and cruel intentions.

I lay against the grass, curled in a ball, holding my cheek in my hands and holding back the tears that were starting to break through. My initial thought was that Rebecca had managed to turn herself invisible and was messing around with me.