Page 56 of The Illuminated
“Goddess, grant Áine the truth,” they chanted in unison.
The sand settled, and we now stood before a huge building that resembled a kind of Ivy League library. It was light gray with Greek styling consisting of grand, white columns and rows of granite steps leading to the entrance. It was the most massive building I’d ever seen.
“Can you come with me?”
They shook their heads.
“Will you be here when I return?”
Jane smiled sadly. “We need to say our goodbyes here.”
“But I have so much to say. So much to ask.”
“Everything you need is already inside you, Áine,” Celeste said. “Have faith. You are made up of everything good in the world. The witches who lost their lives to the Order and to Lucius have all poured their hope and power into you. We’ve all been guiding you, helping you along this arduous path. You are never alone, even when you feel like you are.”
“We will love you for all of eternity. This is not really a goodbye,” Jane said. “We are so grateful you’ve had someone to protect you when we could not,” she added, smiling softly.
They each kissed my forehead, and I still had so much to say and didn’t know how to say it, so I just whispered, “I love you.”
And they were gone.
Chapter18
The whole world stood still and quiet as I approached the tall white marble doors, jumping when two gladiator-looking guards appeared, blocking the entrance to the building.
“Do you have keys for the knowledge you seek?”
I nodded. A small pouch manifested in the palm of my hand, and it held three literal, golden keys. I frowned at the contents as I realized one key was from Katherine, another was from Willow, but I didn’t recall receiving the third.
“Welcome,” one of the guards said. “May you find the knowledge you seek.” The door behind him swung open, revealing a short woman with a thin frame waiting for me just inside. Dark brown hair fell to her shoulders, and wide-rimmed glasses framed her amber eyes.
“Dr. Bordo?” I asked, confused. Of all the things I expected the Akashic Records to be, a university library with gladiator guards and one of my college anthropology professors wasnot it.
“Come in,” she said, and her voice was exactly as I remembered it back on Earth—high-pitched and cheery, like she woke up on the right side of the bed every day, effortlessly.
“Alrighty then.” I stepped into the grandest library I’d ever seen. Books were arranged on spiral bookshelves, row after row from floor to ceiling. Some of them were flying about, shifting positions with each other. The architecture barely made sense, like a strange kind of dream.
“Keys, please,” she said, outstretching her hand.
I handed her the pouch. “So, um, you’re not really Dr. Bordo, right? Because I don’t understand.”
“The Akashic Records takes different forms for all who enter,” she explained, heading toward a circular help desk in the center of the space. “The particular form doesn’t matter, but it must take some structure in order to make sense to humans and witches. It would seem thatthisAkashic Records fashioned itself from your experience with academia.”
Finally, someone in the universe who answered my questions succinctly and completely, without riddles and mystical fluff. Thank the heavens.
It was still very, very weird.
“Why do I need keys?”
“So you don’t get lost, of course.” She ushered me over to the desk, where she busied herself pulling out drawers and lifting out what appeared to be VHS videotapes. Why was my subconscious stuck in the wrong century?
“A videotape for each key,” she explained further. “Let me show you what it would be like without any keys at all. Maybe that will help you understand.”
I entered the space at the circular desk’s center, and she pressed the power button of an equally old computer with the Windows logo on the screen.Nice touch.Images flooded the interface, but as soon as they appeared, I was sucked into them, and the library fell away.
Similar to the visions I saw in my ocean of magick, all of humanity and Aradia appeared before me. There was a man in a church, kneeling before a crucifix; a woman in a tall wheat field; a mother holding a child; all mothers holding all children; every country and every coven, at all points of time; depictions of every deity ever worshipped; atrocities of war, famine, and destruction; every act of abuse and exploitation; every philosophical, scientific, and religious realization and discovery; and every single being to ever walk any realm, to ever suffer, love, and breathe. All of these things were recorded here forever. Nothing was lost. It was all witnessed. It was too much information, making it impossible to focus.
Even thinking about myself produced a slew of visions that had nothing to do with me and my life. I saw a flash of my mothers and my coven, but then I saw witches whispering in a city street, humans meditating, a man punching another, people screaming and fighting, people chanting and celebrating. I felt hope, I felt suffering, and I felt every other emotion that had ever been felt.
