The cry grew stronger, calling to Tobi. She placed her left hand over her heart and reached her right hand to her forehead, gently touching her index and middle finger to the spot just above and between her eyebrows. Had she been in her physical body she would have explained what she felt radiating from that spot as heat, but that was the most simplistic of answers. That explanation was the way one introduces a child to the truth, gently and in one-dimensional ways so as not to confuse them with concepts that they cannot grasp. It was the way you tell them about things that cannot be learned, but only known. What came from that spot was much more than heat, it was the very essence of knowing, the radiance of the sun of the morning.

She had long ago abandoned the fear that had once prompted her to check her chord as she now knew that this reality was as concrete as any other; that it was impossible to get lost as everything amounted to the same prison: existence. She felt herself begin to float. The ecstasy was immeasurable. She began to tumble slowly, not far above the ground, in the clearing and she concentrated every ounce of her will into the void. She aimed it toward the cry of the Elk and waited for the Spired City to come into view, to absorb her into its boundaries.

Her spirit cried out to Vawndila, willing her to meet Tobi in their secret place. Tobi had come to the city time and time again during her stay at Crown’s Plank in search of Vawndila. Each time, Tobi had roamed the streets alone, searching every nook and cranny for her sweet little girl and finding nothing. It was the purest of agonies. Before her capture by the Umlakka, she had always been able to find the girl in the Spired City. Her heart suffered splinters, irreparable cracks due to her inability to know of the girl’s safety. Soon, she feared, her heart might simply fail inside her chest.

To be continued…