SACRED VOW – CHAPTER 9

He expected Katerina to become aware of his presence. She always had been when he had visited in her home before.

This was indeed the very Katerina with whom he had become so familiar during the tea visits, unless his memory was playing another cruel trick. And, this was the room in her home that he had visited many times. Just as Ian remembered, her desk was in front of the window to the right of the exterior door. On either side of the desk were bookcases. He had watched her laugh, read, and write here many times before.

Katerina slid to the back edge of her stool, looked upward, and was silent for a time, perhaps in some prayer or meditation of her own. Ian felt close enough to lay a hand on her shoulder. With all the power of focus he possessed, he tried to reach forward and touch her shoulder. No hand obeyed. No touch occurred. Clearly, Ian had no body for this visit to her home.

Lost in the midst of this frustrating perception, Ian heard Katerina speak. After a moment of pleasant surprise, he noticed that her voice had a sad tone.

“Are you listening to me? Can you hear me, dear one?” she said.

“Yes!” he said. But his response made no sound. Katerina evidently did not hear him either. She did not reply.

Was that truly Katerina’s voice? he wondered. Her sadness troubled him. Though he had not been able to hear what she said during his previous visits into this life, Ian had never observed anything before to indicate that she was leading less than the most fulfilled of lives. His belief that she was happy had made the separation between their existences acceptable, at least until he could find a way to be with her. The melancholy rhythm of her words caused him sorrow.

After a moment of silence, she lowered her attention to the tome on her desk. “Where have you gone to, my friend?” she asked in that same sorrowful voice.

“I am here, Katerina,” Ian replied.

Katerina continued to talk to herself as she flipped slowly through the pages of the book. She appeared to be searching for something in particular. Ian was looking over her shoulder. The pages of her book had detailed scrollwork painted around the edges. The paper was thick enough to be vellum. The book seemed handmade. The text was not written in English, and the formatting of the lines in most places implied that it was more like poetry than prose. Most pages had a variety of images in the text area, more like hand-drawn or painted artwork than printed pictures.