Elena spotted the flaw. “But, Mrs. Flowers, we don’t have a map of the Dark Dimension. I mean, that’s what we would need, isn’t it? Souls that don’t go to the Celestial Court usually wind up there, don’t they?”
“Yes, my dear—although very wicked souls go much, much farther down, I’m sorry to say. However, I don’t believe that we need to worry about that possibility with Damon.”
“But a map—”
“I’m afraid that my artistic skills leave something to be desired, but I’ve been working on something since the wee hours of the morning,” Mrs. Flowers said complacently.
On the half of the kitchen table that was empty of tea cups sat a rolled-up scroll of what looked like paper. Bonnie and Elena reached it from opposite directions at the same time. Elena held her breath as together they carefully unrolled what turned out to be thin, creamy-colored vellum.
When Bonnie saw the full extent of the map, she dropped her end with a squeak. Elena held it partially unrolled, but she could tell that her own eyes were wide.
There seemed to be more ink than white space on the scroll. Mrs. Flowers had seemingly drawn in microscopic detail the entirety of the Dark Dimension: no labels on anything, but thousands of tiny polygons that might be buildings, and hundreds of sinuous lines that might be roads. There was even a river, crossed by dozens of different bridges.
“But how—even if you’ve been drawing since last night—how did you manage to get this finished? Bonnie, it won’t bite you; hold out the other side of it,” Elena added, so that she could admire the masterpiece all at once.
“Of course I wasn’t conscious while I did it,” Mrs. Flowers said matter-of-factly. “Dear Grandmama took over my mind and I wasn’t aware of doing anything until the entire process was over. Rather like automatic writing, you see.” Mrs. Flowers coughed delicately. “I . . . er, was just a little alarmed at how familiar Grandmama seemed to be with the place. I hope she herself is not a resident.”
“We met some very nice people there,” Elena said truthfully. “And here! This is Lady Ulma’s house. I’m sure of it. Do you see, Bonnie?”
“Ye-es, if you say so,” Bonnie agreed doubtfully. “But . . . well, what am I supposed to do with it, exactly?”
Mrs. Flowers explained and Bonnie’s brown eyes got bigger and bigger. She was desperate enough, though, Elena knew, to be willing to try anything.
After they had put four heavy weights at the corners of the map to hold it open, Bonnie solemnly took the translucent white quartz crystal on a thin gold necklace chain that Mrs. Flowers gave her. She held the necklace by the chain over the center of the map, and the crystal swung slightly from the motion of her shaking fingers.
“When you hold it over the right spot, it should make a circle,” Mrs. Flowers explained.
While Elena watched through narrow eyes, Bonnie made the attempt. She started at the top left of the map, and, keeping the crystal about an inch above the map, she moved slowly all the way to the top right. Then, as if she were mowing a lawn, she moved her hand down a bit and covered the area from the extreme right of the map to the far left. Back and forth she went, although twice she was forced to rest her arm, the trembling of which had caused the crystal pendulum to shimmy.
But nowhere on the entire sheet of vellum did the quartz make anything like a circle.
“It’s no good,” she said at last, tears spilling over her cheeks. “The crystal doesn’t react anywhere. I don’t sense anything, either.”
Elena felt as tired as she knew that Bonnie was. Her nerves were stretched like harpsichord strings about to snap.
“Why? Why doesn’t it work?” she wondered aloud. “Unless”—blinking away tears of her own—“he’s been reincarnated already like you said, Mrs. Flowers.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “or he’s just disappeared,” but the words were in her mind.
I’m not there! I’m still here, Damon thought helplessly, knowing that she couldn’t hear him, that not even Bonnie could hear him through the barrier of worlds. I’m exactly where you left me!
“If,” Mrs. Flowers said thoughtfully, “he has already been reincarnated to some woman on earth, then we would need a globe.”
“To some woman?” Elena and Bonnie said almost in unison.
“Some pregnant woman,” Mrs. Flowers continued mildly. “That is how reincarnation works, I believe.”
Elena looked sideways at Bonnie, but Bonnie was just staring at Mrs. Flowers with brown eyes that seemed enormous in her small heart-shaped face.
Damon-as-a-baby-born-to-some-stranger didn’t sound right to Elena. It would be eighteen years and some odd months before they could even approach him. And would he be a vampire? How could he be, in a new life? He wouldn’t remember Elena or Bonnie or Stefan.
It didn’t sound like a very good proposition. But . . .
“Stefan has a globe in his room,” Elena said. “I’ll get it.”
Forget the globe! Damon thought at her fiercely. I’m not in some woman’s womb! I’m here, buried under the ash! I’m exactly where you left me!
Elena slowly climbed the rickety staircase to Stefan’s room. It was a familiar route and she would normally have no hesitation about entering his room unasked. It had been their room for so long; for all the time that she had to hide from the people of Fell’s Church because they thought she was dead.
Still, she paused a moment and then knocked before opening the door. Stefan had other ways of entering his room than via Mrs. Flowers’s front door. If he had enough Power he could fly on the wings of a falcon through the window.