Page 119 of Ex Somnis

“Trust where the universe has guided you.” Her gaze moves, briefly, past my shoulder, and I glance back. Paul is leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, watching. “Trust the company it has given you.”

I turn back to her, and the next words come out before I can even decide to say them out loud. “What if I fuck this up?”

She squeezes my hand. “You won’t, my earthborn tether. Don’t let fear keep you from what’s meant for you. What you want and what the universe wants for you are aligned. That is rare. That is a blessing not everyone gets.”

Earthborn tether.

I’ve heard those two words a thousand times. I used to think it meant I was the one who stayed on the ground while she traveled planes. I thought it was her way of saying you’re the dependable one, the one who keeps things running, which was fine. I was fine with being that.

I never thought to ask what a tether was for.

Paul uncrosses his arms and steps closer. “You called him your earthborn tether. Why?”

Seraphine looks up. “What?”

“Nevan. You called him…”

“Who is Nevan?”

My stomach drops. Not suddenly. It never is sudden. It’s always this slow, gutting slide that I’ve had years to recognize and have still never learned to brace for.

“Me, Mom. I’m Nevan. Your oldest son.”

She looks at me with a bright, interested expression. “You’re my son?”

“Yeah.”

“You are handsome.” She tilts her head. “Isn’t he handsome, Mabel?”

“Sure is,” Mabel agrees.

I press my teeth together, breathe through my nose, and let it pass. “Mom.” I wait until she looks at me again. “What is a tether? Can you explain it?”

“Of course, but you know that already. A tether is like an anchor. It is the thing that pulls a soul back. Not a rope but more like gravity. You don’t feel it until you try to drift.” She takes her hand back and smooths it over the cards. “Your tether is the person who makes the waking world feel worth returning to.”

“And if someone has more than one?”

“That’s healthy. A heart doesn’t divide. It expands. The more it loves, the more room there is.” She looks over at Mabel. “Like a room where the walls keep growing.”

Paul speaks from behind me, “So when you said the soul has to remember there’s something to return to, and that you cannot pull someone back who no longer reaches toward you, you were talking about tethers?”

Seraphine nods. “People can get stuck in their dreams when they have a tether here and there. The tethers are what guide you. If you have more, you’re free to go anywhere, but at a price. Being tethered has its price too.”

“But what can we do?” Paul’s voice is careful. “When one tether is in 5D, and one is…”

“Right here,” I say quietly.

He nods once.

Mom turns back from the window. Her gaze finds the cards again, then settles somewhere between them.

“A tether in elsewhere is more potent than one in waking life, because elsewhere is a shared place, consciousness without a container. It is heavier.” She turns a card over absently with one finger. “The pull from there is stronger. To hold against it, to keep a soul oriented toward waking, there would need to be more than one tether in the waking world. The pull has to be stronger here than there.” She looks up, suddenly clear-eyed. “The soul goes where the love is strongest.”

Lemon.

I turn to look at Paul, but his gaze is already on me.

And I do the math I’ve been avoiding, and it comes out uglier than I want it to, because I think about what’s actually holding Lennon to this side of things. The people tethering her here.