The Sound of Seas by Jeff Rovin, Gillian Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

perished with Galderkhaan, what would happen to her soul?
    They spoke, Caitlin gathering her thoughts, not remembering what she said after she said it—she was still trying to find the tiles, to feel comfortable in this body. She continued to breathe slowly. There was a pool of water to her left. She extended two fingers toward the ground near it. She closed her eyes and, through the pool, tried to connect to any of the waters around New York. She did not feel her soul reaching outward as she had when she was on the rooftop and used the harbor to find Yokane, the descended Priest living in the city. She pushed her fingers hard, curled them, tried to pull something, anything , from the water. She heard the sound of the sea nearby, but could not feel it. She pictured her body lying in Washington Square Park—just that—and attempted to return to it, to the moment she fell. There had been firefighters, flame, water from hoses.
    Caitlin felt nothing. She sought the bodies that had been buried centuries before in the potter’s field under the park. Again, nothing.
    Of course , she thought with rising horror . I can’t reach them because those bodies have not yet lived and died. Manhattan and its waters—perhaps they’re somewhere else on the globe in this era, nearer to the equator as they once were. There was no way of knowing.
    My body has not yet been created , she thought with true horror. But then how did her soul exist? And not just her soul, but her memories. She thought about her son and tried to use that to get home. She imagined Jacob in their apartment. He was not born yet in this time, but his spirit lived strong inside Caitlin. That should help . . . it had to help.
    It didn’t. Once again, there was no vibration, no sense of anything beyond her fingertips other than the unfamiliar Antarctic air, the distant cries of seabirds, the receding sound of leathery flaps from the airship not far, the crashing of waves.
    â€œYou seem better now,” the other woman said.
    Caitlin nodded tightly. They spoke some more, she gestured as they spoke, she confirmed whose body she had . . . “borrowed.” Caitlin definitely was not better but she had to find a way to appear so. She did that for her patients sometimes, when she had problems of her own and was not quite ready to hear those of others: she compartmentalized, and she had to do so now. She allowed herself to submit to the present . . . this present, not her own present, millennia hence. She relaxed her fingers.
    Caitlin knew she would have to learn more about her surroundings . . . and, most importantly, what was holding her here. Had she flashed here from the tower where she had faced Pao and Rensat? Or was that in the future? Or the past? Were the tiles of that structure binding her to this place?
    If so, why can’t I feel them?
    It was a struggle to remain focused, to try and prioritize.
    They were talking about Caitlin’s home, about her having come from the north. The psychiatrist found herself doing what she alwaysdid, what challenged Ben, concerned Barbara, occasionally shocked Anita: she was telling the truth, regardless of the consequences. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.
    Meanwhile, the woman in leather and silver regarded her quizzically. She returned to Caitlin’s name, which she had provided just moments before.
    â€œCai-tah-lin Oh-ha-rayaah,” the woman said thoughtfully. “The name and inflection are unfamiliar to me.”
    I am not surprised , Caitlin thought. The language will not be created for tens of thousands of years.
    â€œAs I said, I am not from around here,” Caitlin replied.
    â€œThe bracelet,” Lasha said accusingly. “Perhaps it is stolen?”
    â€œNo,” Caitlin replied. “I—I would never do that. Maybe I am Bayarma.”
    â€œAh, so now you are two people!” Lasha said, holding up a pair of