Page 67 of Bargain with Fate
I climbed into the double bed and curled beside Ronald, placing my hand on his chest, over his heart. Skin-to-skin was the fastest method. Conductive.
Entering someone’s subconscious wasn’t astral projection. There was no dramatic fainting, no glowing silhouettes peeling out of my body. It was closer to tuning an old radio—finding the right frequency where there’s a song instead of static. It should be easier, knowing a pathway had already been forged by someone else. It meant his mind was pliant and willing.
The light above us hummed.
The first step was grounding. I breathed in through my nose, counted to four, and imagined roots unfurling from my spine, threading down through chair legs, floorboards, concrete, into soil. At first, I met resistance. Eventually, I felt the hum beneath everything: water in pipes, whirling fans, electricity zipping through copper veins.
That hum was the edge of the collective unconscious. The ocean.
Ronald was a tributary.
I tilted my awareness toward him.
There was a texture to supernatural minds. Human thoughts sparked and jittered like faulty wiring; elves were older, slower burning. His subconscious felt like a forest at dusk—layers of shadow, the scent of rain-soaked leaves, something luminous flickering far off between the trees.
His heartbeat stuttered. The forest shifted.
The trick wasn’t forcing entry. Subconscious minds had teeth. If I pushed, I could regret it—nosebleeds if I was lucky, seizures if I wasn’t. Instead, I mirrored Ronald.
I let my breathing sync to his. Let my heartbeat match the rhythm under his papery skin. When his shoulders loosened, mine loosened.
Then I saw the gate.
It was only a construct, of course. An image my power shaped out of shared psychic material. Tonight it was wrought iron, tangled with ivy, half sunk in loam. It stood at the edge of his forest, where the trees thinned.
I didn’t create whatever lay beyond the gate. That belonged to Ronald.
I pressed against the gate. It resisted, cold and rusted shut.
Fear.
Subconscious barriers were emotional alloys—shame welded to grief, regret riveted to pride. To open them, I had to supply the missing element.
“Ronald,” I said softly, eyes closed. “It’s Maya. I’m here to help you.”
The forest wind rose.
“Dr. Adam sent me. He’s watching over us both, to keep us safe.”
The gate warmed under my palm. The rust flaked away. The hinges groaned as they swung the gate open.
I spotted Ronald seated on the stump of a fallen tree. He wasn’t alone.
Unsurprisingly, the woman looked nothing like her picture. She was, in fact, stunning. A thick head of strawberry blonde hair cascaded past her shoulders. Luscious lips that didn’t appear pumped full of chemicals. Eyes that sparkled like the sea in sunlight. Small wonder Ronald was under her spell.
Those sparkling eyes turned to slits at the sight of me. “Who are you?”
“A friend of Ronald’s.”
“Leanne, this is Maya,” Ronald said, sounding stronger and healthier than his physical form suggested.
“Can I ask what you’re doing in Ronald’s mind, Leanne?”
She raised her chin a smidge. “I should ask you the same.”
“Ronald is my friend and he’s unwell. I’m trying to figure out how to help him. You?”
Hesitation rippled across her beauty-pageant-queen features. “He is my one true love.”
