I lowered my eyes as the memory of my mother being whipped flooded me. I could feel the shadow fall over me. I’d seen her body as it fell to the ground. How could I live with her death? A knot filled my throat and I tried to fight my emotion, but the more I did, the more I sank.

“I have nothing left in this world,” I whispered.

“That’s a perfect place to start,” Eli said. “You were born into the world of shadows to rise past those shadows, just like everyone. To find the light in the darkness. Nothing else matters.”

I looked past him to the dark hallway beyond the bars. Dark, cold, so very real now. How could I have gone from such wonder to such worry in the space of just a few minutes?

“Because you’re still clinging to who you thought you were,” he said.

“But my mother . . .”

“Isn’t who you thought she was either. She’s alive and well.”

A gentle breeze brushed across my shoulders there in that basement cell, and my heart leaped. The draft caressed my face, warm and easy, smelling of lilacs and roses, wrapping itself around me in a loving embrace.

Daughter.

I recognized my mother’s voice immediately, and tears sprang to my eyes. “Mother?”

Do not be afraid, Grace. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

My spirit soared in response to her voice, because I knew then that the boy was right. My mother had not died. In a strange way I couldn’t put my finger on, my concern for her vanished. I wasn’t thinking of her anymore.

I was thinking of the waterfall and the voice I’d heard there as my Father’s love thundered through me. My body started to shake again from my shoulders to my ankles. It could hardly contain the power the memory of his voice brought.

Light of the world, there is nothing to fear.

As I knelt there on the cold floor, lost in his presence, I suddenly wanted to weep and dance at the same time.

Drink of my love. Remember who you are, daughter.

“I will,” I breathed, barely able to speak. “I will.” And I thought, Not my will but yours, because I’m one with you in truth.

My last resolve to cling to the way I had known myself—as Grace in Haven Valley—broke with that thought. As though I was once more by the crystal lake, my Father’s love crashed through me. There were no words to describe the unity I felt with my Father in that moment. Perhaps it was more profound here than in the white place, because I was experiencing truth while in a dark cell.