After the others left, something niggled at the back of Willow's brain. Something was bothering her, something other than the obvious, but she couldn't put her finger on what.
Terese came back from showing the others out. “Can I get you anything, Willow?”
“No, Terese, thank you. I'm fine. Is there something else wrong?” Willow asked, relegating the niggle to the 'not-right-now' part of her brain.
Terese shook her head. “I'm not sure. I wanted to know if your prayer to Mati-Syra-Zemlya yielded anything and to also let you know what I found in the spirit world.”
Willow was a little taken aback. “But . . . I thought . . . I mean . . .”
“No. There seems to be more happening than just the hallucinations. I take it, then, that Mati-Syra-Zemlya had information to impart to you?”
“Yeah,” Willow said softly, “I made the promise. I remember it now. I promised Tara I'd always find her. I just . . . I don't understand how this could be real. And if it is, is there anything I can do about it?”
Terese looked thoughtful and waited a moment before she answered. “I have been in touch with the spirit world and there is quite a bit of excited activity and it's focused around you and your friends. It's unclear what or who or why but something is most definitely facilitating Tara's meditations reaching you.”
“I don't understand,” Willow said, confusion overriding everything else in her brain.
“I'm not sure I do either. The unrest is over two spirits. I was told that Tara's spirit is being pulled toward another universe. It would seem her spirit is preparing to leave our spirit plane. Presumably, when you succeed in bringing her into this one from where she is her soul will, in effect, switch realities; the ensouled, alive Tara will cross into this plane and her spirit of this world will enter that spirit world.” Terese fell silent and seemed to be looking past Willow for a moment before continuing. “It's like the majick; nothing can be created or destroyed, just transferred. In the world where she is not dead, her soul is within her; here, because she is dead, her soul entered the spirit realm. Her ensouled body cannot enter this plane of existence while the soul that was Tara is in our spirit realm. That would create two Taras in one plane and the universe won't allow that. It demands balance. What will happen is, essentially, a trade; that Tara with her soul comes here, your Tara's soul goes there. There is a second spirit involved in the activity but I was unable to ascertain whose spirit it is.” Terese paused as if perplexed then abruptly asked, “What was the promise you made? What were the circumstances?”
Willow quickly filled Terese in about Glory and the promise. The older witch nodded thoughtfully before continuing, “What I think is happening is . . . there was a time ripple creating an alternate timeline. It is not unusual; different choices, different events causing different results.” Terese stopped for a moment as if considering how to proceed. “You have told me the story of how you and Tara met. At one point you were faced with proceeding with Tara or returning to your first love, correct?”
Willow nodded, remembering her indecision when Oz came back. It had been so hard letting go of him and what they had shared. Looking back now, she knew she had made the right choice; she wouldn’t trade the specialness of what she and Tara had shared for anything.
“Life is a journey,” Terese continued, “we each have our own path to follow. Paths cross and intersect, there are smaller paths off the main path. At the moment you chose between Tara and Oz you were, in essence, standing at a fork in your path. In this reality, you chose to walk with Tara. As the you and Tara of this reality started down the path together, several other realities were created from the other choices you could have made.” Terese stopped for a moment and looked directly into Willow's eyes. “All that had gone before, each choice in this reality led you to Tara. In one of the others, you may not have met Tara or you met her but your relationship did not develop as it did in this reality, leading you back to Oz. In yet others, there is a Willow who never learned majick; a Willow and Tara who were never separated; a Willow and Oz who are married with children. Each choice causes a ripple, smaller choices lead to path detours, not diverting you from your main path. Major life choices can divert you to another main path. Is this making any sense?” Terese asked.
Willow considered for a few moments. She had made a lot of big choices; staying in Sunnydale for college, pursuing majick, Tara, bringing Buffy back, Warren, Kennedy. If she had chosen to go to another school . . . what then? She suddenly remembered her vampiric doppleganger; that reality hadn't been created by any of her choices. It was because Buffy hadn't moved to Sunnydale. Which hadn't even been Buffy's choice; it would have been Joyce's. Willow's head began to hurt as she considered the implications; every choice resulting in a different reality, leading to a zillion realities. Were realities and dimensions interchangeable? Portals could be opened to other worlds; Angel came back, her doppleganger had crossed over, Giles and Anya visited the Beljoxa's Eye, Angel went to Pylea, Buffy went to see the Shadowmen. She considered what all of this might mean. All of the choices she had made “ they all had made “ had converged on this spot. Looking at Terese, she nodded. “It's like a big spider-web “ my choices can affect others just as theirs can affect me. We can walk together, choices can separate us and other choices can bring us back to each other.”
Terese nodded. “Exactly. And while alternate realities are common, it is quite uncommon, very nearly unheard of, for one timeline to cross over to another or for anyone to even be aware another exists.”
Willow again thought about her vampiric doppelganger “ that reality had certainly crossed over. Willow nodded slowly and felt a rush of hope and joy as she realized what this meant. It was possible.
“It would seem that someone or something wants you to receive Tara's message. Someone or something wants the timelines to somehow collide. The closer you get to that happening, the more activity there is in this realm's spirit world. It would seem, my friend, that fate has not written the ending of your love story.” Terese finished with a small smile.
Willow let that thought sit for a moment. She and Tara weren't done yet. There was more to be written. “But, how? How do I bring her back?” she asked, too stunned to feel or think beyond the moment.
“That, I do not know. What I do know is . . . when it is time, you will have what you need. For now, I think this demon is what you need to work on.” Terese leaned forward to look into her eyes. "Willow, I know there is an urgency in bringing an answer to your dreams of Tara. I also know that until the demon is sent away from this place, your friends will not understand that what you are seeing in your dreams is real, not an illusion borne of your desire to see her again." Terese took Willow's hands in her own. The thick calluses of work in the fields and gardens of the abbey's complex were hard but comforting against Willow's soft hands. "You must solve that problem before devoting your energies to keeping your promise to your beloved."
Willow nodded and stood up, again deposing the little striped cat, earning her an indignant meow from . . . “Terese, what did you name him?”
“Mr. Mouser,” Terese said with a wry grin, “not my choice but, as the mouse population seems to have dwindled, it apparently suits him.”
Willow giggled and hugged her friend goodbye. “I'll see you soon. Hopefully with answers to both problems.”
Terese walked her to the door. “The answers will come when they come “ for all things, the trick is knowing where to look. Take care my friend.”
Once again, Willow let her thoughts wander as she walked home from the coven. The niggling something was still bothering her but she still couldn't put her finger on what. 'Tara is out there. Dawn was right,' Willow thought again how scary smart Dawn was. 'She never forgets anything she learns. I hope Xander smartens up before he loses her.'
She thought more about Tara. She was determined even though she didn't know what that meant or what it would mean if . . . no, when . . . they were reunited. 'She's coming back. Somehow, we're getting her back. So much has happened,' she thought. 'Warren, Kennedy, the majicks. Can I regain her trust . . . her love?' She refused to think about the possibility that fate would be that cruel; to give Tara back to them and not allow Willow to reconnect with her. She sighed. 'First things first; demon hunting and catching. Then we figure out how to bring her home. Then I can work on reconciliation.'
'Okay, then. Demon. I wonder if the gang's figured anything else out,' Willow thought, frustrated over the situation. She knew it was going to be difficult to concentrate on anything but bringing Tara home. Wait . . . would she even want to move to England? Could this be her home? It never was for Kennedy. She shook her head. 'Later for those thoughts,' she told herself even as she continued wondering how she could convince Tara that she had changed. She was elated; it seemed inevitable that she would see Tara again. She worried about how she would convince Tara she wasn't addicted to the majicks, that she no longer used them as a way to bend the world to her liking. She now only used them to help. She shuddered as she remembered how she had first lost Tara, sickened at how blind she had been to her abuse of her power. Once again she promised herself she'd never again be that blind. It was a promise she made often, almost daily, to remind her of what she had to lose if she should start down that path again. She sighed as she walked through the front door. Checking her watch, she saw that it was lunch time and headed for the kitchen.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They arrived back from the coven and headed straight for the library.
Giles cleared his throat. “Well, I think given the information we’ve just received that we can narrow our list of suspects considerably. I think that we are dealing with either a misguided or unaware demon. Not a malicious or even mischievous one. Granted, it's causing some emotional distress, but the visions themselves aren't malicious. No one is seeing a loved one in pain or being harmed.” He quickly sorted through what they had compiled over the past three days. Discarding several books and a ream of notebooks and scrolls to an unused chair, he directed their attentions to the remaining three books on the table. He flipped through the books, adding place marks to what looked like random pages while he said, “Here. These five are our most likely culprits.” He slid a book to Xander. “Three are unlimited shape-shifters; that is, they can look like anything they want at any given time. That would mean that they are actually becoming the person that you’re seeing and taking part in the fantasy rather than projecting an image.”
Xander gave a disgusted grimace, a half-hearted salute and opened the book without comment.
Giles tapped the book in front of Dawn. “The demon described in this one is a telepath, meaning it would be projecting an image from somewhere nearby. It would have to be in close proximity to those it's affecting so our search parameters would be small.”
“But how would we find it?” asked Dawn.
“We'll have Willow perform a locater spell when she gets back to pinpoint demonic activity in the area.”
When Dawn nodded and started reading, Giles looked at Buffy and then to the book in front of her before saying, “The last one is also a combination of both but it's limited in its abilities. As a shape-shifter, whatever form it chose when the hallucinations began is the one it's stuck in until it's revealed. As a telepath, what it does, essentially, is pull people's regrets and sadness out of their psyche causing the victim to actually project his or her own hallucination. Once discovered, the demon simply dissipates into the ether. It will then reform sometime later, somewhere else. The, uh, recognition signs and proper spells to remove it are in here, somewhere.”
“Why can’t we just kill it so it can’t bother anyone else?” Buffy asked.
Giles looked down his nose, “It hasn’t really harmed anyone, has it?” When Buffy shook her head, Giles continued, “That's it. There are no others we looked at that are, for lack of a better word, innocent. It has to be one of these.”
“Okay, so we wait until Will gets back to do the locater spell. What do we do until then?” Buffy asked
“I propose lunch,” Giles answered, looking at his watch.
The other three immediately agreed and all four headed out to the kitchen.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*