Ascended (13 page)

Carter pulled out a white envelope with his name written on the front of it. He had no idea how it
had gotten into his pocket but he opened the envelope, curious. There was a single piece of paper inside with a poem written on it. He read:

It’s not over; for this I know

Look for me where violets grow

Though your heart is heavy; for this I know

Look for me where violets grow

The darkness shall pass; for this I know

Look for me where violets grow

Our souls are bound; for this I know

Look for me where violets grow

I will return to you Carter; for this I know

If you look for me where the violets grow

The poem was unsigned, and Carter had no memory of anyone
having given it to him. It seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere, and oddly enough, its message seemed to be directed specifically to Carter.

H
e remembered Nurse Ivy embracing him when she had come into Vivian’s room.
It must have been Ivy who placed the envelope in my pocket
, he thought. It was the only thing that made sense.
But why?
he wondered. There was only one way to find out. He needed to find Ivy and ask her if she had written the poem and what it all was supposed to mean.

Carter headed back to the hospital to find Ivy and get some answers. He arrived at the third floor nurses’ station and asked to speak with
Nurse Ivy. The girl at the desk seemed to draw a blank when he said Ivy’s name.

“I’m sorry
, sir. You must be mistaken. We don’t have anyone named Ivy on our nursing staff here. Are you sure her name was Ivy?” she asked politely.

“Yes, I’m sure. She was about so tall, light brown hair, blue eyes, really nice
,” he described Ivy to a tee.

The girl just shook her head and apologized to Carter.
“Would you like to speak with the head nurse?”

“N
o…but thank you anyway.” He left, utterly confused by what he’d just been told.

He got back in his
Jeep and headed down the road, trying to think of who else might have seen Ivy. Henry came to mind. Surely, with all the hours Henry had spent at Vivian’s bedside, he would have seen her.

He drove to the Thorne residence and
saw quite a few cars outside the house; many of Henry’s parishioners had come to pay their respects already. He sat in his vehicle and waited for them to leave. Katherine was the last to exit Henry’s house, and after she had driven off, Carter went to the door.

Henry
looked happy to see him and immediately asked Carter if he had come up with a plan to get his daughter back. Clearly, Henry was not going to let go of what he believed he saw that night at the hospital. It would be difficult to try and explain everything right now about what he’d seen, and Carter felt as though time was of the essence. Explaining his super hero abilities would have to wait until later. Right now he just wanted to know who Ivy was and why no one at the hospital seemed to know her.

“Henry, do you remember
Ivy, one of the nurses who took care of Vivian?” Carter asked.

Henry thought about it for a minute and then said
, “I don’t recall anyone by that name.”

“Are you sure? She was about this tall,” he held his hand up to his shoulders to show her height.

“She had light brown hair and beautiful blue eyes,” he went on with his vivid description of the person he knew as Ivy.  

Henry
listened with increasing interest and then responded by saying that the woman Carter had described sounded exactly like Vivian’s deceased mother, Lily.

“May I see a photo of your wife?”
Carter asked, curious about what Henry had suggested.

He
nry walked over to his fireplace and removed a framed photo from the mantle. He stared at it lovingly for a moment and then showed it to him.

Carter stumbled back, stunned by what he saw in the photo
. He remembered the unmistakable eyes of the woman he knew as Ivy, and there they were, staring out at him from the photo he held. “This is her, Henry. This is Ivy. I’m sure of it!” he said.

Henry’s face lit up
with joy. This bit of information was just what he’d needed to hear. The mere thought of Lily comforted Henry and gave him some much-needed peace about the safety of Vivian’s soul. Carter may not know what to think of all of it, but Henry did. He believed Lily had come to watch over their daughter and to take her to heaven; in fact, he was sure of it.

Carter had so much to figure out. He wasn’t convinced that Ivy, aka Lily, had the power to protect Vivian from
Lucian, but he was glad that the mere thought of it offered Henry solace. He told Henry, “I have to go, but will you be all right here by yourself for a little while?”

Still holding the photo, Henry replied with a smile
, “I’ll be fine now that I know Vivian and my Lily are together.”

Carter took great pleasure in Henry’s comfort for the moment
, and left with a temporary sense of calm. As he headed back to his Jeep, he thought about Lily. At first, he wondered why he hadn’t noticed the resemblance before, but the truth was, he hadn’t seen Lily since he was a very young boy. His family saw her at church on Sundays but Carter had never attended the services because of his phobia, so he really wasn’t close at all with Vivian or her family. In fact, all he had known about Vivian Thorne before now was that she was the reverend’s daughter.

He pulled out the poem and read it again, trying to make some sense out of the beautiful words written on the paper.
There was one thing that stood out to him: the lines that read, ‘Look for me where violets grow.’

“Where…the…violets…grow?”
Carter slowly repeated the line out loud.

Suddenly he felt galvanized by the words he had repeated. “It’s a message from Vie!” he said
, suddenly feeling enlivened by his thoughts. “Where the violets grow? Where the violets grow? THE MEADOW!” he shouted out, and sped off back to the ranch.

No sooner did he
stop the Jeep than Carter jumped out and began running toward the meadow. It was the same place where he and Vie explored the first time she’d visited the ranch. The first time he’d seen the violet in her eyes had been right there in the meadow. “I’m coming, Vie,” he exclaimed as he darted off to the spot where he was sure he would find her.

When he arrived
there, he was shattered by what he saw. All of the violets were crimped and wilted because the cold temperatures had set in. Even worse, Vie was nowhere in sight. He looked frantically around, cutting through the tall grasses and brush with his hands, searching desperately for the girl he loved. It was useless. She wasn’t there—and he feared she wasn’t coming, either.

Carter was crushed by the realization that Vie
hadn’t written the poem; it had been wishful thinking on his part. He missed her so much that it was easy for him to believe that Vie was trying to communicate with him. He needed her now more than ever before to help him get her sister’s soul back. Feeling completely defeated in that moment, Carter collapsed in the field filled with the wilted violets, trying to conjure up distant memories of Vie and their time spent in the meadow. “Vie, where are you?” he said, broken.

“Get up
,
Waka
!” a strong voice spoke to him.

Carter turned
, surprised by the familiar sound of the voice that had startled him. The Chief was standing behind him with his arms folded, dressed in full Indian garb, knee deep in the meadow. The Chief only wore the ceremonial dress during special celebrations and, back in the day, during times of war.

More surprising than
his clothing was the fact that he was standing in the meadow at all. The Chief did not leave the reservation, not for any reason that Carter was aware of in all the time he had known him. Carter stood up, knowing that whatever the Chief was doing there, it must be important.

Carter felt relieved
, if he were honest with himself, to have his friend standing there, strong and brave. He felt defeated and knew he could benefit from the endless wisdom of the man who was like a father to him.

The
Chief had always been able to redirect Carter’s attention to a place where everything fit; a place of harmony. He had the ability to put things into perspective. It was exactly the way Gabriel was, and Carter sometimes thought the two of them were kindred spirits, both with keen insight. Gabriel and the Chief knew things; they could see things in the universe that others could not see.

“It is time
,
Waka
,” the Chief said. “Come, follow me.” Carter stood up and followed behind the brave warrior he called Chief.

Again, Carter found himself back on the reservation
, sitting on the plateau, looking out to the Tower. The Chief spoke. “You are a great warrior,
Waka
, and it is time again for you to go to battle. But hear me,
Waka
: you must not walk alone. You have been given great powers from the Ruler of the Skies, but they are not enough to fight against the evil that awaits you. I have watched you for many, many moons, my son. You embrace the rules of the land, protecting all the gifts of nature we have been given. Summon these gifts,
Waka
. Use them to return what you need, so you can battle with the Dark Ones and take back what has been lost.”

Carter was completely confused by what the
Chief was trying to convey to him. He was speaking in riddles again and Carter was frustrated by his inability to receive whatever message the Chief needed him to comprehend. “I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me,” he said to the Chief. “What do I need to return to help me?”

“Not what
,
Waka
, whom,” he responded. “Close your eyes.” When Carter just stared at him, the Chief gave him a disapproving look.

Carter
realized he needed to obey the request, and they both closed their eyes to meditate as one. As they locked in together, Carter could feel the wind pick up.

The
Chief spoke again: “Have you ever felt an angel’s breath in the gentle breeze?”

Before he could
even respond, Carter felt Vie’s sweet breath blow through his body. It was exactly as he remembered, and exactly what his soul ached to feel again.

“A teardrop in the falling rain?”
the Chief said, and in an instant Carter felt tiny drops of water trickling from above. He could taste the salt from her tears in the water that fell from the sky on to his lips. He wept inside for her.

“A whisper amongst the rustle of the leaves?”

Carter was completely in tune now
, waiting to feel what was to come next—waiting to feel Vie again. He listened to the crackling leaves that fell from the trees in the distance. The wind picked up the leaves and carried with them Vie’s sweet tender voice in a whisper to his ear; they spoke his name.
Carter.

He was overjoyed
at the sound, and his heart began to beat faster and faster. He was alive again just hearing her voice.

“Or been kissed by a lone snowflake?” the
Chief called out.

Just then
, Carter felt a rush of ice cold air nip at his skin, and a single snowflake landed on his mouth. As it landed, he could feel the unmistakable softness of Vie’s lips gently kissing him. It warmed his body and ignited his soul. The kiss that Vie had blown across the rainbow and into the wind had found its way to Carter after all.

“Open your eyes and look at me.”

Carter didn’t want to stop the experience but he obeyed what was asked of him.

The
Chief continued speaking. “Nature is an angel’s favorite hiding place. All kinds of unexpected things grow in the most unexpected places,
Waka.
It is up to you to find where they hide and then bring them home. I have seen the vibrant violets which grow under the rimrock, high upon the top of the Tower. Remember,
Waka
, what I told you the last time we were here? If you follow, you will find what you need to conquer the evil.”

Carter thought about the riddle the
Chief had given him the last time they’d sat together on the plateau. He repeated it back to himself, “The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.” Then he thought about what the Chief had said about the violets under the rimrock on the Tower.

Everything made sense to Carter now. It all fit. He understood, without a doubt, what the
Chief was trying to tell him and he knew exactly what he had to do. Carter jumped up, thanked the Chief and raced off toward the massive rock towering in the distance.

The poem
about the violets wasn’t referring to the meadow; it was speaking of the top of Devils Tower. The riddle told by the Chief was leading Carter to the place where it had all ended with Vie, a place he had not revisited.