Stefan tried not to let despair overwhelm him. After crossing the castle gate, the guards took him across the courtyard, past the garden and greenhouses, and into the mansion at the far end. He couldn’t even look at the interior, because they quickly went down a flight of stairs and pushed him inside a narrow room in the cellar. It was empty, smelled of mold, and had a small dirty window with iron bars as only light source.

With no further explanation, the guards closed the door and locked it. He heard their footsteps fade in the distance, and everything became quiet.

The boy stood in silence for a moment, still reeling from the shock of something like this happening. After calming down enough, he carefully examined the heavy old wooden door, tightly closed and locked, and could see no way for him to open it. Next, he focused on the window, which was situated high enough to be out of his reach. Past the dirty glass were the iron bars and the shadows of leaves, which made him suspect the window was at ground level, perhaps behind some bushes. Even if he could open the window and cry for help, would anyone other than the guards hear him? Still, he had to try.

Since the window was too high up, Stefan jumped several times, trying to push the latch open when his fingers briefly reached it, and when he finally succeeded, the window stayed in place. Frustrated, he jumped again, and this time held on to the narrow sill with the intention of using his weight to swing the window open. But the dry old wood from the frame cracked around the hinges and Stefan, still holding onto the window, fell to the hard stone floor.

The glass shattered, but he covered his face to protect himself from the shards. Angry at his own incompetence, Stefan carefully brushed away the glass; at least he’d only gotten some scratches on his arms. But then, as he tried to get up, a sudden stab of pain shot through his head. His vision blurred, and dark spots flickered before his eyes. He tried to hold on to a wall but fell to his knees before he could react, and the throbbing became so severe he collapsed to the floor.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the terrible headache disappeared, but Stefan was too afraid to get up in case the movement caused the pain to come back. In the end, he lay down on the cold, flat stones that lined the floor, surrounded by fragments of wood and broken glass, and decided he would rest for a moment before trying to find an escape. Whether he liked it or not, he had time.

******

Rosario liked to think of herself as someone who wasn’t easily disturbed, or who could at least snap out of it fast enough. But after being thrown down a trapdoor into a cellar where a monster plant awaited, where two good people now lay dead, and then suddenly finding herself standing in some sort of lucid dream next to the person who caused all that misfortune, was too much and she felt dazed. Her eyes darted back and forth from the water-covered stone floor to the endlessly white sky that stretched in all directions. Her breathing became irregular. This couldn’t be real, yet somehow it felt beyond reality itself.

Some steps away from her, Bill Cornwell observed her behavior, and concern appeared on his otherwise neutral expression.

“I understand this is a lot to take in at once, so let me share some of my sight with you,” the mayor said as he extended a hand towards her. “I find an intermediate state of awakening to be easier on the mind.”

She felt a sharp pain in her head at the same time the water-covered stone floor and white sky were replaced by a dreamlike, almost ghostly version of a city. It took Rosario a moment to realize she was still in the cellar below the keep, but now all the physical barriers around her were transparent. She recognized the semi-translucent shapes of the walls of the keep, with their outlines traced as iridescent, thin lines. She noticed the plants from the garden in the courtyard, the greenhouses and the vegetation inside, the castle walls behind them, and the shapes of the many houses of the town of Spiez. However, the outlines she saw were not static. In addition to the shimmering colors, there was a constant movement; the lines gave the impression of being made of marching ants, while some larger shapes even moved around freely.

Not used to seeing so many elements overlapping at once, Rosario felt dizzy, and looked down at her feet.

“Is it better now?” Cornwell approached her. “You are now looking at the world through the presence of living beings,” he explained, using a softer tone for the first time. “You can imagine it as being half a step away from leaving the Convergence.”

She didn’t understand his words at first, and carefully looked up again at the outline of the wall closest to her; only in that moment did she realize that what gave the wall its shape was the moss, algae and small plants growing on it. The moving shapes in the distance then had to be the town’s people and animals. Rosario told herself this had to be some delirious state she was in, maybe because of the fall she experienced a moment ago. She turned around towards the monster plant and the two bodies below it. Unlike everything else, the creature seemed as solid as she and the mayor. Noah and Emilia were visible too, although they weren’t as clearly defined and looked transparent. Did that mean they were alive but dying?

The mayor noticed her distress. “Don’t worry, they’re both fine. Just taking a nap.”

“But they need help! Don’t let them die!”

He gave her a puzzled look, but quickly understood her confusion. “Oh no, just because you see them like that doesn’t mean their life is fading. That is their true aspect, as beings who can’t fully step into the Convergence,” he paused and looked at them. “It's such a shame for two talented individuals to be so limited.”

She looked at the smiths again, noticing they were also covered in the same disgusting critters she had found over her skin when waking up. The little creatures seemed as physical as she, the mayor, and the monster plant.

“Ms. González, I regret I have little time to chat. All I ask is for you to stay at the castle. I assure you that by the end of this day, you and your children will be free to go.”

She jolted. “Where are they?”

He gave her a friendly smile and pointed across the courtyard: the garden, the greenhouses, and the mansion at the opposite end all looked ghostly, except for one figure.

“Stefan!” Rosario tried to run, but Cornwell placed a hand on her shoulder.

“No need to. Just focus.”

Rosario stumbled, as if she had lost her balance when stepping off an escalator. In disbelief, she saw they were now standing in the hallway that led to the basement room where Stefan was being held. But before she could think about the impossibility of what just happened, Stefan fell heavily after trying to hold on to a window that broke under his weight. The shattered glass cut his arms, and Rosario ran past the transparent door and to his side.

“Are you okay?” she said, but the boy didn’t seem to hear her and was now trying to get up. “Can you see me? Stefan, it’s me!” Tripping over her words, she reached out for him, but her hand went right through, as if he were nothing but air. Stefan raised his hands to his temples and collapsed to the floor.

In this Convergence, whatever it was, she could hear no sound besides her own voice and the mayor’s, but there was no need to hear anything to know how much Stefan was hurting. Just looking at his expression as he curled over himself was enough, and she backed up in horror, not wanting to risk causing any more harm. After a moment, Stefan calmed down and lay on the floor. The mayor, who observed the scene from a few steps behind, went to stand closer.

“He will be fine. The pain will subside, and the contact was so brief there won’t be any permanent damage,” he explained. “But please don’t try this again. I don’t know why it happens, but we, beings of the Convergence, cannot touch each other. Doing so will only do harm, and it can be permanent or even lethal.” The crystal hunter found herself too overwhelmed to make sense of his words. How was such a thing even possible? “You probably understand it now,” the mayor continued. “I tried to contact you when you first arrived in the region two days ago. I saw you and your children in the Convergence, so I approached you to talk.” He shook his head. “It took me a moment to realize that you were completely unaware of my presence,” he sighed, disappointed. “And I couldn’t do anything about it. Even the slightest attempt I made to reach out to you caused you pain.”

Rosario unintentionally put a hand on her head; if she understood this correctly, that had been the cause of her headaches. Cornwell caught on to her realization and continued.

“I had to accept that, somehow, you have this incredible affinity with the Convergence, but are completely unaware of its existence. I hope you now understand that if I had met with you today and spoken about a world in which we can see what’s beyond, you would have disregarded it as insanity. Dragging you into the Convergence so you could see for yourself was the only alternative I found. I apologize for my crude methods.”

Rosario did her best to remain calm as two things were becoming clear: first, whatever this Convergence was, being able to access it was rare; and second, if he had wanted to harm her, he could have already done so. She wasn’t sure why, but perhaps if she found out why, she could use it to her advantage. She’d have to tread carefully.

*****