Alyson Noël - Shimmer

I glanced at the prince, embarrassed to be bickering in front of him like this. Still, I had every intention to stand my ground. I’d had an idea. A good one if I might say so myself. And I was sure it would work, if Bodhi would just give it half a chance.

“No one’s forcing anyone to do anything,” I said, making it a point to roll my eyes and shake my head. “I mean, sheesh, whaddaya take me for? Some kind of amateur?” I screwed my lips to the side.

“Then what?” he asked, voice still full of the fight. “You can see she’s not cooperating, so short of forcing her to do what you want, how are you possibly going to convince her?”

I clutched my hips and gazed all around; just because he was in charge of guiding me, didn’t mean he knew squat when it came to the depths of my imagination. “I’m not going to force her, and I seriously doubt I’ll be able to convince her—though I do know something that will.”

Bodhi squinted, taking his annoyance out on the straw he mangled hard between his teeth.

“The bridge will convince her.”

He sighed. One of those big, loud, exasperated kind of sighs that was soon followed by, “Excuse me, but did I not just tell you that—” But his words were cut short by the flash of my hand.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, gazing between him and the prince. “Maybe I can’t force her to cross it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t lead her to it.”

They looked at me.

“And once she sees the promise it holds, well, there’s no way she can resist.”

“Yeah? And what if she does?” Bodhi asked, stubbornly refusing to see the absolute genius of my plan.

But I just shrugged. “Well, then I guess we’ll cross it, and leave her to stare at it for the rest of eternity. But there’s no way it’ll come to that,” I said, my voice bearing far more conviction than I actually felt.

“So how do you propose we get her there, to this … bridge ?” the prince asked, still dressed in the rags he wore when we first met.

I dropped my hands to my sides and squinted at her—at the world she’d created, the one that once seemed so large and overwhelming, only to be reduced to the size of an average thirteen-year-old girl.

She glared at us, all of us. Her fists raised in anger, shouting every type of threat she could think of. And she was so furious to see her little dog Shucky (back to being the tiny version of himself) sitting right alongside Buttercup that she even included him in those threats.

To be honest, if you’d asked me at that moment how I planned to get her anywhere even close to that bridge, well, I really couldn’t have said. I mean, it’s not like the journey was all that long, since all we had to do was make the soft golden veil of light and slip through it to the other side, but still, how would we get her through it?

How would we lead her first to Summerland, and then, hopefully, to the Here & Now just beyond?

Then it hit me—why not just roll her there?

After all, the bubble was perfectly round, which should make it easy enough. And though I knew she wouldn’t like it, by that point, I admit, I wasn’t really all that concerned about that.

I approached the globe, placed my hands on either side of the space where her eyes glowed and her cheeks flamed bright red, and I started to push. Rolling her slowly at first, seeing her tumble and fall and totally freak as her whole world was sent upside down and a crazy swirl of ash sprayed all over the place.

And just as I was about to deem it a somewhat awkward, but still overall, success, one of Prince Kanta’s brothers, a former slave whom I recognized from that sadistic bowling game of Rebecca’s father’s, placed his hand on my arm, and when our eyes met, what I saw practically brought me to my knees.

And I watched in amazement as he took my place, knelt down to the ground, and attempted to lift the bubble right onto his back.

At first I didn’t understand the gesture. Didn’t understand why he’d chose to burden himself like that. But then, when all of the other slaves joined in, it suddenly began to make sense.

They had forgiven her.

They had released themselves not just from her manifested world but also from their centuries-long connection to her.

By holding on to their anger, hatred, and calls for revenge, they’d remained enslaved well past the time of their deaths.

Their true liberation, their true path to freedom, lay in their ability to forgive.

A forgiveness that didn’t absolve Rebecca or her father of the horrible things they had done, but rather freed the slaves of their connection to those horrible things, as well as their connection to those who’d committed them, allowing them to finally move on.

Then, just when I was sure I’d seen it all, Prince Kanta shocked me even more when he said, “Allow me.”

And a moment later, he’d manifested a beautiful, luxurious litter—like the kind Cleopatra rode—and together, they placed the globe upon it, immune to the sight of Rebecca kicking and screaming and sending great plumes of ash all around. As a whole group of former slaves stepped forward to grab hold of the shiny, golden rail that ran along its sides, as Bodhi and I joined hands, closed our eyes, and manifested that soft, golden light that leads to Summerland.

The two of us standing back in awe, watching as the very people who were enslaved by Rebecca and her father carried her right through that veil in what I will forever carry in my head as the ultimate picture of forgiveness .

When we got to Summerland, they lowered the litter onto that vibrant, buoyant grass. Each of the slaves taking a moment to place their hands on the glass and leave her with a blessing of peace, before Prince Kanta stepped forward to say, “You have liberated my brothers and sisters. Because of you, Miss Riley Bloom, they are now freed not only from their physical enslavement but, more importantly, from the enslavement of their own minds. I speak on behalf of all of us when I say that we are eternally grateful to you for showing the way.”

I quickly shook my head, fought to work past that choked-up feeling in my throat, and glanced down the long line of them as I said, “I only introduced them to that glimmer of silence. They grew it from there.”

Even though I meant it, even though I knew they’d truly done the hardest work of all—quieting their minds of all the anger and hatred and judging and chaos, along with their very justified rage regarding their own horrific pasts—I still couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud of myself.

I also couldn’t wait to get in front of a mirror to see how an act like that might’ve affected my glow.

But that would have to wait till later. Much later. At that point, I still had a whole lot of souls to cross over.

So when Prince Kanta peered from me to the bridge—a rather ancient, rickety-looking, splintered-wood-and-rope contraption—I just nodded and said, “Yep, that’s it. Paradise awaits you on the other side. Only they don’t call it paradise, they call it the Here & Now—but, anyway, you’ll learn about all that soon enough.”

“And Rebecca?” he asked, turning back toward the globe. “Will she ever find the peace to free herself?”

But I just shrugged. I had no answer for that. It was pretty much anyone’s guess.

He motioned for the group to go before him, and after shaking my and Bodhi’s hands, after kneeling down to pat Buttercup and Shucky on their heads, they squared their shoulders, lifted their chins, straightened their backs, and made for the bridge in what looked to be a seemingly endless procession.