✦ Chapter 3 — The First Lesson
Orin didn’t move for a long moment after he spoke.
He stood in the quiet glow of Mara’s shop like a statue carved from dusk and starlight, utterly still yet radiating unmistakable presence. The shadows around him thinned and settled, as though even they were listening.
Heidi felt her breath, shallow and quick, settle into something steadier. It wasn’t calm—not yet—but it was focus. A gathering of attention. A tightening of the thread.
“What does training even mean?” she asked finally. “Meditation? Visualization? Some kind of ritual?”
Orin stepped toward her. His movements were deliberate, smooth, as if gravity bent differently for him. “Training,” he said, “begins with understanding what you are made of.”
He stopped a few feet away, his luminous gray eyes sweeping over her with a quiet attentiveness that was neither judgment nor appraisal, but something closer to assessment of resonance.
“You are not purely physical,” he continued. “Nor purely astral. You walk the line between matter and signal. And that line requires balance.”
Heidi swallowed. “And if I’m not balanced?”
Orin’s expression didn’t change. “Then the planes will pull you in directions you cannot survive.”
Mara placed a gentle hand on Heidi’s shoulder. “He’s not trying to frighten you. The astral doesn’t respond to fear—it magnifies it.”
“I’m not frightened,” Heidi said, though her pulse wasn’t convinced. “Just… aware.”
Orin nodded once. “Good. Awareness is the doorway. Come.”
He turned toward the back of the shop—the part where Mara stored her oldest books and artifacts, a place Heidi had never been invited to enter.
But Mara nodded. “Go with him. It’s time.”
Heidi hesitated only a moment before following the Guardian.
The shadows grew deeper toward the back, not ominous but weighty—thick with the kind of history that accumulates in sacred corners. The shelves here were narrower, the aisles tighter. The air smelled faintly of cedar and old ink.
Orin stopped beside a tall mirror framed in dark wood. Heidi had always assumed it was just decorative, another antique in Mara’s eccentric collection. But now she saw sigils etched into the wood—shallow grooves that hummed with energy.
“This,” Orin said, “is a threshold mirror. Not a portal, but a surface between states.”
Heidi felt the temperature drop as she stepped closer.
“Your first lesson is simple,” Orin continued. “Learn what your energy looks like.”
“My… energy?” Heidi asked.
He gestured to the mirror. “Approach. Breathe. Do not attempt to cross. Only observe.”
Heidi stepped forward until she stood inches from the glass. At first, it showed only her regular reflection—her face, her wavy dark hair, her slightly anxious eyes. Nothing unusual.
“Breathe,” Orin said again.
She did.
At the third breath, the mirror rippled.
Her reflection flickered, then returned—except her eyes glowed faintly, and thin filaments of light trailed from her shoulders like soft currents of mist.
“What—what is that?” she whispered.
“Your astral field,” Orin replied. “Untrained. Sensitive. Wild.”
The ripples intensified. The glow around her reflection brightened, swirling into soft blues and violets.
She watched, mesmerized.
Then her reflection blinked—out of sync with her real body.
Heidi jerked back, heart slamming.
Orin lifted a hand. “Do not fear. It is not another self. Only your field reacting to imbalance.”
“My imbalance?”
“Yes. Your heart and mind are in conflict.”
She stared at the mirror, breath shaking. “I don’t know how to fix that.”
“That,” Orin said, “is why we start with observation.”
He stepped closer, extending his hand toward the mirror without touching it. The glass calmed instantly, the ripples smoothing into stillness.
“You must learn to do this,” he said. “To steady your own reflection. To bring your field into coherence. Or the planes will pull you apart along every fragmentation.”
Heidi swallowed. “Teach me.”
Orin held her gaze for a moment—searching, or recognizing something—and then nodded.
“Step forward again.”
She did.
“Let your breath become the anchor,” he instructed. “In. Hold. Out. Slow.”
Heidi breathed. The violet shimmer around her reflection pulsed, then steadied.
“Good,” Orin murmured. “Now place your hand on the glass.”
She hesitated, remembering the Mirror Field. “Will it… pull me in?”
“No. The Field pulls when you are unanchored and your intention is scattered. Here, you are held.”
Heidi placed her palm on the glass.
The surface rippled—but did not open. Instead, the glow around her reflection intensified, spiraling out from her chest like a blooming star.
Her heart felt warm.
Her mind felt clear.
The reflection’s eyes stabilized.
The glow softened.
Her pulse synchronized with the mirror’s faint hum.
Orin spoke softly. “This is coherence. This is balance. This is your true signal.”
Heidi felt tears press at the corners of her eyes—not from sadness, but from the strange relief of seeing herself whole.
She whispered, “I didn’t know I could look like that.”
“Most do not,” Orin said. “Not until they are ready.”
She breathed again, steady and full, feeling the energy in her chest radiate outward like warmth from a candle.
Mara appeared behind them quietly, as if she too had been holding her breath.
“She’s a natural,” Mara said softly. “But she needs grounding.”
Orin nodded. “You are correct.”
He turned to Heidi.
“Heidi Gray. Your energy is luminous. But you stand too easily between worlds. Your field needs an anchor. Something that belongs to you and only you.”
Heidi frowned. “Like a talisman?”
“Not an object.” Orin shook his head. “A truth. A choice. A core understanding of yourself so strong that the astral cannot sway you.”
Heidi blinked. That felt… enormous.
“How am I supposed to find that?”
Orin stepped aside, gesturing to the mirror. “Begin by asking.”
Heidi looked at her reflection—her coherent reflection, glowing softly with astral light.
What truth anchored her?
What choice defined her?
What core understanding did she trust?
She closed her eyes, letting the questions swirl, until one rose above the others like a clear bell:
I want to learn who I really am.
Her breath caught.
The mirror pulsed in recognition.
Orin exhaled, satisfied.
“That,” he said, “is enough.”
The mirror dimmed, returning to ordinary glass.
Her reflection blinked in perfect sync again.
Her heart felt strangely light.
✦ From The Astral Diaries
Entry #50 — later that night
Orin showed me my astral field today. It glowed. It flickered. It reacted to every fear and every breath.
When I found coherence, something inside me opened—like a lens focusing.
He said I need an anchor. I thought that meant a crystal or a charm. But he meant something deeper: a truth that holds me steady.
My truth is simple: I want to know myself. Entirely. Honestly. Fearlessly.
For the first time, I’m not walking into the astral to escape.
I’m walking to discover.
