I was surrounded by mist. Thick, white, shimmering mist. My eyes squinting, straining, striving to see my way past it, vaguely aware of some place I needed to be just on the other side of it.
Some important destination he urged me to reach.
I pushed forward, my hands sweeping before me, trying to clear the space by batting away all the haze. My first few attempts yielded no success whatsoever; in fact, if anything, they just seemed to make the fog grow thicker, but then, little by little, it began to fade away until I found myself standing before a simple, but still rather impressive, castle, like a fortress with a sturdy stone wall all around it.
“Is this it? Is this what you wanted me to see?” I glanced over my shoulder at Prince Kanta, seeing him nod in reply.
And there was something about the way he observed it, something about the way his eyes creased, the way his throat bobbed just a little—something about the way he held himself so silent and still—that told me that to him anyway, this was more than some random old palace we’d just stumbled upon.
His face wore an expression I knew all too well.
It was the same expression I sometimes wore when I snuck into the Viewing Room back in the Here & Now, where I hunkered down in one of those curtained off cubicles, sat on one of those hard metal stools, punched in my desired location, and watched the daily goings-on of my sister and friends back home on the earth plane.
It was the look of resolved longing.
The kind of look you get when you realize that the one thing you loved most in the world can never be yours.
“So, you really were a prince.” I looked at him with a renewed sense of awe along with a good dose of guilt. Feeling terrible for still having not learned my lesson about judging by appearances and choosing to doubt him based purely on his clothes and the hut he chose to live in. But still, it’s not like I could really be blamed for the verdict when all the evidence so clearly pointed against him.
“I was indeed.” He nodded, turning his back to the scene. “I was indeed.”
He waved at me then, started to lead us away, but after working so hard to get there, I wasn’t quite ready to ditch it so soon.
“That’s it?” My brow quirked as I tilted my head and threw my hands up by my sides. “You seriously went to all the trouble of drugging me with your special tea, only so you could give me a quick peek at some old castle then try to convince me to leave? Because excuse me for saying so, but it seems like the least you could do after putting me through all of that is to give me a tour, show me around a bit. At least get me past the big gate, I mean—sheesh!”
I started to shake my head, started to roll my eyes, not quite completing the loop before he said, “There is plenty more to see, trust me on that.” His large dark eyes bore down on mine. “But there is nothing more to see here. This place no longer exists. It’s been gone for many centuries now. You must understand, Riley, that everything on the earth plane is impermanent. Every. Thing. The only thing you can ever count on in the physical world is change. Change is the only constant there is.”
He raised his hand high and pointed to something just past my shoulder. And I turned to find the sky that just a moment ago had been hazy but clear, turned thick with smoke, while the place where the palace once stood was reduced to a pile of rubble and dust, as the ground just beneath ran red with blood.
“We were invaded,” he told me, his voice steady and sure. And when I looked at him again, I noticed that the tattered old rags had returned, replacing the elegant tunic he’d manifested earlier. “As a result, I ended up here.”
“On the island?” I scrunched up my nose, surprised to find myself suddenly returned to the beach once again. Only it was different. Different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
He nodded, wordlessly pointing toward a very large house on a hill. A big, looming plantation-style home—like the kind you see in movies or in textbooks—which while not near as big as the palace he’d just shown me, still held a fair amount of square footage from what I could tell.
I glanced between Prince Kanta and the house, knowing it was supposed to mean something, symbolize something, but not quite sure what that was. “So, basically you went from an African palace, to a Caribbean plantation house, to the thatched roof hut on the beach, where, for whatever reason, you choose to live in now.” I turned, my eyes traveling the long, tall length of him, but he just remained silent and still. “I mean, you do choose to live there, right? Because if not, if you’re really not all that happy with that kind of…” I paused, searching for just the right word that wouldn’t come off as overly judgmental or offensive, but unable to come up with anything quick, I went on to say, “Anyway, you do know that you can manifest a whole new place just as easily as you can manifest the clothes you wear?” I looked at him, trying to read his face, but didn’t get much of anything. “A stone, a castle, there’s no limit—all you have to do is envision it, see yourself having it, and it’s yours—easy-peasy!”
He turned away. Turned until his back was facing me. And I have to say, that really annoyed me since I wasn’t quite done with my pitch. If anything, I was just getting started, was just about to inform him of my position as a Soul Catcher, and offer to escort him to the bridge as soon as this was all over.
But just as I was about to launch into all that, he glanced over his shoulder, pressed his finger to his lips, and pointed straight ahead as he whispered, “You make too much noise, Miss Riley Bloom. And because of it, you miss the whole point. Just watch. Don’t speak. Allow the story to come to you.”
Okay, in all honesty, that about quadrupled my annoyance. I mean, here he’d led me away from my friends who were in desperate need of my help, only to distract me with some freaky tea and a random collection of not-so-impressive pieces of real estate he was determined to show me.
And now he was telling me that I talk too much and to basically shut up?
Or at least that’s how it sounded to me.
And yet, despite all that, for some reason I found my lips clamping together as my gaze followed the tip of his pointing finger all the way to where a man who looked exactly like Prince Kanta, a man who, after a few moments of observation, I realized was Prince Kanta, spent what must’ve been some major backbreaking days working the fields.
“I—I don’t get it,” I blurted, remembering too late how he didn’t want me to speak. But still, I was confused and in need of some answers, and he was the only one around who was able to give them. “I thought you were a prince? I thought you lived in that castle in Africa?” He looked at me, nodding in confirmation. “So why would you leave a cushy life like that only to come here to get beaten and whipped no matter how hard you work?”
But then it hit me.
Before he could answer, the reason became clear.
Prince Kanta may have moved to this island, but it wasn’t by choice.
Prince Kanta may have been a ruler in Africa, but in this place, he didn’t even rule his own life.
He’d gone from a luxurious life of nobility—to the horrid life of a slave.
Forced to work the plantation from sunup to sunset, and suffer terrible beatings whenever he was unfortunate enough to displease his master.
“Impermanence.” He nodded, tearing his eyes away from the bleak scene in order to look into mine. “It’s like I said earlier, nothing lasts forever, Riley. Where we begin is not always the same as where we end.”
I gulped—an old habit left over from my time on the earth plane—as I turned away from the prince and watched the horrible scene that unfolded before me. Watched a series of beatings, inhumane acts of torture, including one that was so unspeakable, so barbaric, so unimaginably cruel, I was sure it couldn’t be real. I was sure he was seriously pushing the truth just to make an impression on me.
But despite my best effort to look away, despite my turning my back, shutting my eyes, and placing my hands over my ears to drown out those awful, tormented, agonized cries—despite all of those avoidance techniques I employed—there was just no escaping it.
No matter how hard I tried to shield myself from it, the scene continued to play out before me—behind me—around me—inside me.
And since there was no way to stop it, no way to silence it, I was left with no choice but to allow it to run till its end.
So I watched.
Watched as a group of slaves were rounded up, ones who’d been deemed disobedient, troublesome, in a way that angered the plantation owner.
Watched as they were hauled over to a long, pristine expanse of beach where they were buried up to their necks in white sand.
Watched as a cruel and sadistic master, along with his friends, enjoyed a game of “bowling”—using the slave’s exposed heads as pins.
Watched as one slave after another succumbed to a tragically horrendous, untimely death.
It was hideous.
The true definition of gruesome.
And it was hard to imagine that anyone could enjoy something so cruel.
Yet, there it was, a revolting piece of history playing out before me. And thankfully, after a few moments of watching, Prince Kanta was kind enough to remove it from my view.
But even though I was no longer forced to watch, the images lingered, continuing to play in my head. Leaving me sickened, saddened, and so incredibly angry to think it went on for as long as it had, and that no one even once tried to stop it.
I was just about to express those very thoughts, just about to tell the prince how very sorry I was when a new scene appeared.
One in which the tables were turned.
One in which the oppressed rose up, gathered together, and systematically overcame their oppressors.
A revolt was in progress—the slaves versus the masters.
And if I’d still had a heart beating inside me, that would’ve been the moment when it lifted and skipped. Released from the weighty scene I’d watched only a moment earlier, I felt lighter, brighter, sure that I was about to see some much-needed justice.
The first one to go was that sadistic plantation owner. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t raise my fist in the air and pump it with joy.
But it wasn’t long before my joy turned to something else entirely, when Prince Kanta placed his hand over mine and slowly lowered it back to my side, silently nodding toward the scene that played next.
The one of the master’s daughter—who went just after her dad.
A girl I figured to be around the same age as me.
A girl with curly brown hair, deep hazel eyes, a long, elegant nose, an overly embellished dress with a big yellow bow that slashed across the middle, and a small black dog by her side.
A girl I immediately recognized as Rebecca.