We drifted, weightless, deep into her psyche, down to a place where nothing grew. We were headed to a place of suppression, a place where she hides things from herself, from the world. It doesn't matter why. It only matters that she wants to pull something from her Shadow Lands, and reintegrate a part of herself that she has long forgotten.

I traveled similar paths in my own psyche a few times before, visiting my own inner hinterlands. Some of the journeys were quite difficult, when I traveled from the hinterlands into the shadows beyond. I bear the scars of those journeys to find lost pieces of my soul. She is not as foolish as I am, so she asked me for help, she recruited me to be her guide. I do not know her mind, but I know the tricks that the inner beyond can play.

I could feel the beginning of the journey approaching there in the darkness and depth.

I broke through the surface of the water, falling onto a heap of sand, and rolling, tumbling to the hard, stone floor. I was flat on my back, staring upwards at a dark rippling pool on the ceiling of the cave, when she fell from the water. The pool spit her out and dumped her on the sand, as it had done with me, then it splashed back upwards into itself on the ceiling. She rolled down another side of the sand hill.

Neither of us was wet and the sand didn't seem to stick. It was like the cave was doing its best to ignore us.

I sat up and looked around. We were in a cave with watermarks on the walls. It seems the water goes up from here. I took that to mean that we were very deep, beneath much of what she was familiar with. I stood, brushed at my long leather jacket, more out of habit than necessity, and breathed in the dry, warm air. I could smell nothing, not the dust, not the water, not even myself. I bent over and grabbed my black leather hat and made a mental note as I walked around the sand hill.

She was sprawled out on the sandy floor, staring at the waterlines on the ceiling. Her eyes were wide with curiosity and anxiety.

"Welcome to your world," I said in a friendly voice. I stuck out my hand and helped her to her feet.

"What is this place?" She asked.

"Probably one of the few gateways into this Shadow Realm." I casually looked around. There was an ambient light, softly coating the sandstone walls. The light was no brighter in any direction, and we did not have any shadows.

"How do we get out of here?" She asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." I saw her confidence in me stumble slightly. I shrugged, pulled my hat on tightly, and pointed to one of the three tunnels that led away from us. "Let's go that way."

"No, let's go this way," she said, facing another tunnel. "It feels better." There was uncertainty in her voice, but she was following her intuition.

The tunnel spiraled upward and outward. The light faded and we walked in darkness for a short while, running our hands along the walls. The tunnel was getting smaller, tighter, until we had to crawl, but soon we came to a chimney of rough, broken rock. An ominous twilight drifted into the tunnel from above. I was barely able to squeeze my shoulders through. After a short climb, I could see dark clouds rolling and twisting, flashing with lightning.

When my face rose above the ground, I was slapped by the wind that threatening to take my hat off. I scraped my hand as I pulled it out of the ground to hold my hat on. That made it difficult to get out of the chimney, but once I was standing firmly on the ground, resisting the rough winds, I reached down with my free hand and helped my companion out of the ground.

We stood on a hilltop, watching the landscape below and the turmoil above. Lightning flashes lit the world almost constantly, sometimes distant, sometimes right overhead, never hitting the ground, but filling the air with the smell of static and ozone. The wind carried the scent of dirt and occasionally something else, not quite identifiable, and not always unpleasant.

"Where do we go from here?" She asked.

"Close your eyes," I said to her. She looked at me for a moment. Then, after a shrug and a sigh, she closed her eyes. "Turn around a few times," I said to her. She turned. "Now, point in any direction."

"Can I open my eyes?" She asked, her arm extended, her finger reaching for the horizon.

"Yes," I said.

"Is that the direction we will be going?" She asked.

"As a matter of fact, it is," I said smiling.

"So we just wander off in a random direction?" She knitted her brow together.

"It isn't random at all," I said. "If you truly desire to complete this journey, that will be the direction we need to travel. Remember, this is your own world, your own mind we are journeying through, so I asked your subconscious which way to go. Shall we start walking?"

She didn't look satisfied with the answer I had given her as we walked in the direction she had pointed. I waited for more questions to arise.

"If this really is my world, why don't I know anything about it? Why do I need you?" She asked. She was not unkind, just unknowing.

"We are creatures of consciousness. What we forget is that it takes quite a bit of internal workings to support what is on the surface. Think about what you have to learn about your body, even though it goes on functioning with or without your expertise. Your heartbeats, your lungs breathe, your stomach digests. Your mind is just the same, but with less tangible parts.

"We don't consciously put each foot in front of the other when we walk, and we don't construct sentences word by word when we talk. The subconscious does that. The subconscious is more efficient because it can dedicate parts of itself to specific tasks, without worrying about what the neighbors think. The deeper you go into the subconscious, the more primitive the tasks, but essentially, most of our mind works in the background while we interact with the world."

She seemed to accept what I said and she paused as we walked, absorbing and processing the implications.

"But what about this place?"

"This?" I said, gesturing to the barren landscape around us. "This is a place where parts of you are hidden and isolated from the rest of you. You either stow things here because of outside pressures, or internal fears. From what you have told me, there is a part of you that you put away many years ago because you felt it wasn't appropriate anymore, that it would only complicate your life."

She nodded.

"In this place," I continued, "nothing grows. Nothing lives, except what you put here. As you can see, it isn't a very happy place, but your subconscious mind doesn't like its resources squandered. Everything here is a part of you, and, while you may have had reason to lock unwanted things here, there is resentment and anger. That is why you brought along a guide."

"You can protect me from the hostility?"

"Maybe. Sometimes we can recognize danger in others before we can see it in ourselves."

As we walked and talked, the wind became stronger, buffeting us, slowing us. My armed grew tired from holding my hat to my head and I started thinking of ways to tie it down. Suddenly, she stopped and pointed to the horizon. I hadn't noticed, buried in my own musings, but a mesa had appeared on the horizon. It was a dark fist rising from the barren floor, flat topped with broken sides.

"Yes," I said, "I believe, that is where we are going."

We walked in silence until we reached the base of the mesa, where we found a path that spiraled upwards around the rock cliffs. There we stopped and rested. The walk wasn't difficult over the hard dry ground, but the wind was beating us from all directions, sometimes taking our breath away, sometimes nearly forcing it down our throats.

As we sat in the shelter of some large boulders, she asked, "How many other people have you guided?"

"Just a few."

She looked at me, wanting more information. "Can you tell me about your first time?" She asked.

"The first few Shadow Lands I walked through were my own." I shifted uncomfortably. "Then, I found someone who needed my help, someone who showed me how to walk the shadows of other peoples minds. After that, I came into contact with a couple of people who recruited me for my talents."

"Did you ever fail?"

Her question hung in the air between us. I was unwilling to respond, unwilling to acknowledge that the question was even asked. But, to deny my past would deceitful, especially to myself. I learned in one of my own early journeys that self-deception only leads to pain. I sighed deeply and answered her.

"Yes. The second time I guided someone was a disaster. I was overconfident because the first time was relatively easy. There were some obstacles to overcome, but the person I was with had done it before, just as I had, on her own. That second time was my first experience guiding a novice."

She could see that I was uncomfortable with this subject, but she wanted answers. After a moment, she asked, "Are you better with novices now?" She attempted a soft smile.

I smiled back. "Yes. I have only had one failure, so far. I am much more cautious. I am also more discriminating when it comes to whom I guide. It is much safer that way."

"Thank you for considering me worthy," she said, mocking me lightly.

"Okay, now you are being a brat," I said with a smile. "Time to hike."

I helped her to her feet and we moved up the path.

The top of the small mesa was very flat. The surface was dry, cracked rock that crumbled at the edges. The wind whipped wickedly, pushing us around, pounding us relentlessly. We dared not get close to the edge for fear of being blown away. We found a small, shallow crevasse and hid from the wind.

"Now what?" She asked.

"We wait." I wasn't sure how events would proceed from that point, but unless something is an immediate threat, waiting never seems to be dangerous. "I think we need a rest, anyway."

We waited for what seemed like hours, sitting under the wind, with our backs to hard rock. Then a noise dropped out of the wind, faint and distant. She heard it, also, cocking her head to one side to discern what it could be.

I placed my hand upon my hat and pushed my glasses on tight. Then I rose to a crouch, edging my sight over the lip of the crack we were hiding in. She did the same in the opposite direction. I felt her hand on my back and as I turned, I saw a black, black horse standing on the edge of the mesa, careless of the winds that tugged at its main and tail and ears, outlined by bolts of electricity across the sky.

On the horses back was a woman in a red, hooded cloak, riding bareback. The horse whinnied and shook its head. The woman looked directly at us, unmoving, as if to hide her acknowledgement of us from the horse. In a flash of light, I saw that her face was identical to my companion's. The woman in red was what we had come for.

The cloaked woman slid off the horse and patted its flank. The horse trotted then galloped around the small tabletop. The woman watched the horse and walked towards it when it was circling around behind us. She was coming to us.

Her eyes never left the horse as it played along the edge of the mesa, played in the powerful winds. She stood at the lip of our hiding place until the horse looked away, then she dropped down next to us. I stared at the twins as they stared at each other.

"Are you willing to come with us?" I asked.

Wide-eyed, the newcomer gaped in awe. "You will take me with you?"

"Your not angry?" Asked my companion.

"No! I am freedom and recklessness, I am daring and mischief, but I am not angry. Take me with you!"

A shadow fell over us and the horse's utterings held nothing but anger. It reached down with its head and bit the air only inches from us. We scattered. The women went one way down the crack. I went the other, losing my hat behind. The horse followed me. It couldn't strike without slowing, but it was keeping up with me just fine.

The crack became narrow and shallow, bringing me closer to the horse's teeth. I leapt upwards and rolled away from the crack, coming to my feet just as the horse crossed the crack with a long step and came at me. I bolted for the edge, fighting the wind that threatened to bowl me over. The horse was right behind me, ignoring the buffets and blows from the wild air.

I stumbled and fell, sliding along the broken ledge, my glasses bouncing ahead of me. The horse never stopped charging and I rolled out of reach, over the edge and into the arms of the wind. For an instant I hung in the air, with my coat stretching out behind me, and a great darkness passing over me. The horse had followed in its fury to its doom. As that instant lengthened, turning into long moments, I realized my coat was caught between the cracks on the ledge and I was dangling in the wind.

I had only fallen a few feet, cushioned by the wind. I had been out of reach of the horse as it fell by me, kicking, screaming in terror and rage, until it hit the rocks below. It bounced once, then became wedged between two boulders, the very two that had sheltered me and my companion not too long ago.

I hung there, pulled by the wind away from the wall by tremendous gusts. I felt my coat shift, but instead of falling, I was pulled upwards, towards safety. The twins pulled me back onto the tabletop. We retreated to the safety of the crack once again.

Out of the wind, I said, "We have to find a way to reunite the two of you."

"Reunite?" they said in unison.

"You are one person," I explained. "There is only one body. If you don't unite into one presence, it could lead to some kind of disturbing pathology. I'll need to think about this, unless either of you have any ideas." I rubbed my eyes. My glasses aren't strong, but looking out into the distant blurred plains strained my eyes. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the hooded one holding my glasses. The other was holding my hat.

"Thank you very much," I said, taking my belongings back. I slid my glasses back on my face and pulled my hat down around my head. Then an idea struck me.

"Okay, everybody stand up." I took my hat off and rolled the beaten leather, then I stuffed it into my inner coat pocket. I reached out my hands to them and they each grabbed one. "Close your eyes and listen to my voice," I said, "and think only of my voice." I closed my eyes with them. "There is only you and me on this mesa, only you and me here and now. Focus on my voice, on the touch of my hands, on my presence in front of you . . ." I pulled them closer to me, closer to each other. ". . . Let the wind drowned out all other thoughts and step closer to me, right in front of me, there is only you and me . . ." With that last comment, I drew their hands together, palm to palm, as if to pray. I opened my eyes and saw only one woman standing there with her eyes closed. In the flash of lightning, I saw a red hooded cloak over her shoulders. In the dark twilight in between, I saw an oversized leather jacket. I stared intently and instructed her to open her eyes. I still held her hands together and I could feel her tremble as she realized that she had become one with a lost part of her psyche, her soul.

"What . . .? How . . .?"

"I thought if you could forget, even for a moment, that there were two of you, then, you could move into the same space. At that point, you would become one." I drew her close and hugged her. "Now, we get out of here and get on with our lives," I said.

I looked up at the dark skies above the mesa and sighed. The ends of my hair stung my cheeks as the wind whipped them across my skin. I made a futile attempt to brush the hair out of my face as I put on my black leather hat, crumpled with misadventure. The hat held some of my hair, but a few locks escaped to flap and twist in the air.

I had to hold my hat on with my left hand, or lose it to the gusts that buffeted us here in the badlands. I dropped my gaze to the horse lying on the ground, dark and ominous, much like the overhanging blanket of clouds, and I pushed my glasses closer to my face. If I were not careful, I would lose them to the winds sooner than my hat.

"Is it dead?" She said, her voice barely audible over the rushing wind. She stood wrapped in her large leather jacket, trying to hold onto herself. Her eyes were wide and blue in the twilight. She did not seemed bothered by what the wind was doing with her short blonde hair. Only answers would bring her comfort, would help her keep the pieces together.

I met her eyes as the lightning flashed and for an instant, I saw a red hooded cloak draped over her shoulders in place of her jacket. The bolt across the sky reflected deviously in her eyes. I shivered. Her other half was always present, even in the brightest light. Here in the darkness, that wild presence was so near the surface. It was no wonder why she struggled to keep herself together.

"I don't know. Even if it is dead, that doesn't mean we are safe from it." The horse was lying unmoving, broken, lifeless, but I could feel the menace still. It could not stand on its own and strike out at us, but its presence had tainted us both. We were wiser, but all wisdom has its price. Only the passing of time would reveal what we paid.

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