NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 199: FOR THE FALL

The shuffling of feet announces Mag's return. I open my eyes to a new brightness. Dammit! I knew it was just a dream. I must have fallen asleep. This is the last time I'll fall for that foolishness. Ahhh! Mary-the-Great, my ass! As if I could ever be anything more than a pill-pushing wannabe. God, dammit, Mary! Why do you always fall for this kind of crap?

"Ma'am, it's time to wash the mud off," and she smiles, like the experience was my cure-for-all.

She removes the towels and plastic wrapping then points me towards the pool. I follow her in silence until a dark cloud darts to my right then left. All the hairs on my skin stand at attention.

"Wait!" I shout. "Something's there. I'm seeing it again."

"What?" She looks around, sees nothing then gives me a weird look. "There's nothing here."

The cloud blows itself out of the cave and disappears through the corridor to the ocean.

"It's the water," I mumble, like a fog has lifted from my mind.

"What on earth?"

"It's the water," I repeat, cupping my breasts and crotch in slow pursuit.

My feet start to go faster now. I can't see it but its presence surrounds me like excited bees. Sand meets water to remind me that once I cross this line there'll be no return. I dip one foot in but leave the other firmly planted on the shore. My goodness! What if this thing is calling me to my death? It must know that I fear the ocean. Surely, it must know. Am I about to die? The life I've lived, it would be fitting if I go out on my birthday. Wasn't that why I came in the first place; to be free of Lily and my mother? To erase their existence the best way I know how? I lift my other foot from the sand like an anchor is weighing it down. Inhale. Exhale. Well done, Mary. You're almost there. Then my belly feels a bit funny, but I ignore it and push on.

Both feet are in the water now. I walk forward slowly until it reaches my waist. This is as far as I ever go. One more step and it will be over. There are voices on the shore, calling to me, but I refuse to look back. Suddenly, the water turns red and the sands beneath my feet murky. I jump inside of myself like a butterfly reclaiming its cocoon, and am purged of all impurities.

The shadow appears with a golden key in its right hand and lifts it in a victory stance; then blows itself on me one last time. As it does, a black clouds forms overhead. I slowly drift away from reality and into a deep dark pit surrounded by water. Oh God, please don't let me feel a thing. It places a reassuring hand upon me. My goodness! Will this be the last thing I ever see? No. I won't allow it. So I look to the shoreline at the screaming onlookers and imagine that they care about me, Mary Pethiel, and not some person in a coffin they have never seen before.

That's when I see myself moving among the crowd. Not the image in the mirror that puts thoughts in my head; not even its image that does nothing but stare. I see me, Mary Pethiel. But as I turn back to the shadow to ask who I am, and which Mary is standing in the water with her; everything shifts. I look back to the shoreline for a serving of reality but it seems my mind grasps straws instead. Their greys no longer compete each with the other. These are races of people I do not know, standing side by side like makeup, from the lightest to the darkest skin tones, shades of a world on its last breath, the one I may never see again. I turn to the shadow in desperation, needing an answer before I go. But it simply points downward to a throne that has three mirrors and a rough ocean as its seat. Then as the water covers me I see the black cloud grow larger, transform to white and rain salt down on everything and everyone I'm leaving behind.

Kat appeared in the Feel Room with key in hand and joined her sisters at the centre of the etched triangle. She dropped it at their feet. It sank into the floor like a seed; then the ground trembled and activated the two rings that surrounded the nine thrones. Absolute silence followed for quite some time, until two brass planks arose from the shifting floor like stilts without feet attached. The nine extended their left arms and uttered the secret word in their minds. Each exhaled their colours; then they merged into muddy bliss for the plunge into the floor, and the golden key transformed into splinters. Seconds later, it slowly danced its way to the surface and formed the sixteenth rung of the ladder.