Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
Please don't leave, was what she wanted to say but only nodded.
The door shut with a ripple of blue around the edges that stayed, sparkling
against her fingers like static when she checked. Locked? She tried the latch and
it didn't move. A couple more jiggles to be sure and she heard a rustle of
movement from outside. She froze. Breathing? Leather rubbing on wood? Either
footsteps or her imagination, she decided, but moved away from the door
anyway, flattening her back against the wall. Nothing happened and she let
herself breath again. Bolda had said someone would be out there, she felt stupid
for being afraid but she was.
Home for now, he had also said. A prison with a locked door. It was a square
room, tall with a domed ceiling. White walls but with designs cut into the plaster:
a large triple spiral design on each, close to where the wall sloped to become
ceiling, other, smaller spirals trailed off to form a border that defined the corners.
As she walked, she watched the other walls and how the shadows cast by the
glow globes changed what was seen as she moved. Going to the center, she
turned around again but very slowly. White on white, even the deepest shadows
were very pale grays and blues. The floor had the only bright colors in the room.
Patterned rugs in blood red and sky-blue, several greens and a clear yellow. The
deep pile caught at the calluses on her feet. Besides the bed, there were
wardrobe chests with drawers in the sides, a low table close to the screen, an
altar opposite but no firebox or joss sticks in the Zimmer fashion. No design on
the table but the natural grain of the wood, she expected more spirals to appear
somehow, but under her fingers the surface was as smooth as glass.
Warm at first from the bath, she sat on the bed until she was shivering but
didn't pull the blankets over her; it was just one more thing that wasn't worth
bothering with. Besides being hungry, she was tired and her head ached. I'm
dreaming, she thought, starting with this morning. I don't need a body to dream
in.
Except she couldn't wake up. Or sleep. Every time she found herself drifting
off, the vision of Lin came back to her. Dreams and visions, it was just one more,
she should be used to them by now but wasn't. All that was constant was the
wrenched-gut feeling and the slow coming back until the things she touched were
real again.
Rows of cloth banners moved over her head, suspended from the support
beams. Am I dreaming this too, she wondered? She might have fallen asleep,
didn't remember leaving her room at any rate. Reaching up, she touched one of
the banners. Silk, very dark, black, she guessed. Except for the short fringe, they
were probably the same as the ones throughout the city, a larger version along
the river, flying from the marker cairns. The triple spiral of Alisim Temple in the
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca