Holy War: Two Worlds and an In- Between

Chapter 10.5: Are You Coming?

Thank you ferocities

"Visualize yourself talking to him in your mind's eye," Jack instructed much to my annoyance, "try to think back to where and when you first saw him."

I couldn't help but glare at him, "I thought that you said this was a world without magic," I argued as he paced around the bench I was seated on, "if I wanted to talk to him we could just go through the wardrobe."

It had been days since we had our intruder incident. From that night, I wouldn't be able to sleep unless Jack snuck in at night and stayed with me. We would rationalize ways to communicate with Allioni without going to the in-between because Jack didn't want to go. It was tricky dealing with Jack, but I was confident I knew how to handle him and had little to no problems when it came to being scared of him or at least showing him how scared I was.

That day, Jack was going through one of those moods where he was more in touch with the part of him from Saros than earth. It seemed that he was stuck between those two pieces of the puzzle some days, but he seemed like he was leaning more on the Arlow at the moment. That day, he was a bit more jittery than usual as he never seemed to sit still. His dark eyes would dart around as he seemed to be searching for something.

We sat on the bench under the large tree Michael and I would sit in to chat. I was seated on the ground with my legs crossed yoga style trying to meditate per Jack's instruction. It was a little stressful trying to be calm while Jack acted as though there was some unnoticeable threat lurking around every corner. While I was being tormented by Jack's need for me to get back to the in-between without physically going, I paid little to no attention to my brother as he jumped around by with Scarlett a few feet away.

Still, whenever I would sneak a glance at Scarlett, I would see that she was a lot less than pleased to see Jack. In fact, it seemed as though he wasn't too thrilled to see her either. He often turned up his nose as though he smelt something foul whenever he saw her. Scarlett, on the other hand, seemed borderline frightened whenever she saw Jack. It was as though she felt threatened by the mere fact of his existence.

"Oh, I've already told you, I've already told you, I've already told you," he hissed holding his head in his hands as he continued to pace.

"I know, I know. You're not ready to go through, but why can't you just tell me the reason?" I groaned.

His mannerisms when he was in Arlow mode, as I liked to call it, were always quite stressful to handle. He was frantic and impatient speaking in short repetitive phrases when he wasn't yelling at me. I was never truly scared of him even though he would act as though he wanted to stab me. His appearance would often falter between a homeless person or the most well-dressed guy in town with no indication of why. I began to grow accustomed to him though, but I never really accepted the part of him that was Lord Arlow.

"Just do it," he seethed with each word coming out more strained and breathy than the one before.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I sunk into myself letting my mind be a blank canvas and my body be as stiff as a board. There wasn't a sound blowing through my ears nor out of my lips as I made a very honest attempt to summon Allioni. Well, at least that was what I told myself.

I visualized Allioni, remembering his voice and the way he adjusted his glasses when he was pointing out a fact. I thought of him in every way that I could remember him and tried to call out to him from the in-between. Though my efforts were constant, there were no results, and Allioni was not showing himself to us.