by Lucia Ashta
I felt my hold around the rope, and so long as I did, it seemed to be enough to maintain my grip.
I allowed myself to study the girl. She was shy and pretty, in an outdated dress and plaited reddish hair. The colors were faded since she was mostly see-through. I figured when she was alive she would have had flaming-red hair and a dress of the highest fashion. Blue was an expensive pigment, and her clothing suggested it was of the brightest hue.
What most drew my attention, however, were the girl’s eyes. They were big, soft, and helpless. My instincts drove me to help her however I could.
I breathed in and out as much as I could, and decided to start over. “Sorry. You startled me. I didn’t expect someone to approach me like that.”
She nodded timidly. “I saw you die. I was waiting for you.”
“So... you’re dead?” Not exactly the type of conversation I would have called ordinary before today.
“Yes.” That one word was leaden. “I’ve been dead for a long time.”
“But you’re still here?”
She nodded. “I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how. It took me a while to figure out I was dead. Once I did, there was nothing to take me from here.”
“Why are you here?”
She simply floated in front of me, her feet not quite touching the ground, eyes big and round and innocent.
“I mean, why here? Why Acquaine?”
She shrugged. Her eyes were a little unnerving, never leaving my face, never blinking. I tried hard not to allow myself to think her eerie. After all, I was dead too, wasn’t I?
“I died here,” she said.
“Oh? Did you live here then?”
“I did. I suppose I’m her great-great-aunt.” She pointed a willowy arm toward Clara.
I quickly did a rough mental calculation, assuming twenty years per generation. Clara looked to be in her early twenties. Which meant this girl had passed away approximately eighty-five or so years ago.
I swallowed a gasp. Had this girl been dead, alone, and confused all that time?
“So you died more than eighty years ago?” My voice was overflowing with sympathy. It sounded like a terrible fate, stuck here, unable to move on. And she was only a girl!
“No.” The girl pointed again. “I don’t mean Clara or Gertrude. I mean Arianne.”
I gasped aloud before I could stop myself. That meant she’d been dead for more than a hundred-and-twenty years! “I’m—I’m so sorry.” What else was there to say? No wonder the poor girl looked so sad.
The girl shrugged again, as if she wasn’t going to say anything, then spoke anyway. “It’s been difficult.”
“You—you’ve stayed here with the family then?” I wasn’t sure what to say. “You know Arianne and Clara and Gertrude. You must also be familiar with Gustave.”
She nodded. “There was nowhere else for me to go. Even though they’re unaware of me, at least here I’m with family.”
But she wasn’t, not really. She was all alone, and had been for a terribly long time.
My sense of hurry renewed with that thought. I wouldn’t allow myself to succumb to her same fate. I had to move on to finding Albacus.
But... now that I’d seen her, how could I leave her here?
As if she sensed what I was thinking, she asked, “Do you think you could help me move on to wherever I’m supposed to go?”
When I hesitated, she implored. “Please, I can’t stay here all by myself forever. It’s... awful.”
She misunderstood my reason for pause. I didn’t want to abandon her here. It was that I had no idea how to help her move on.
Her eyes pleaded with me, and so I spoke with feigned confidence. “I’ll help you. I won’t return to my body before helping you however I can. We’ll find the way for you to move on from here.”
“Really?” Her eyes nearly glittered, and they would have, had she not been dead.
I wondered if I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I already had. I took a moment to ensure I was still holding onto the lifeline to my body, then said, “I promise I’ll try.”
I couldn’t promise anything more. I was a novice in magic. And here I was, dealing with the spirit world,
Wait a minute. “Has your family practiced magic for very long?” I didn’t know for sure whether magic was inherited, but given how strong Arianne and Gustave’s was, and how easily they navigated the magical world, it seemed likely. Arianne had surely passed it on to Clara and Gertrude.
“My mother was a witch, as was my grandmother, and her mother before her.”
My imaginary pulse picked up. “And you? Did you have magic... before you passed?” I was trying to use delicate phrasing until I decided this girl would want her languishing to end more than have me tiptoeing around the fact that she was no longer living.
“I did. My magic wasn’t particularly strong, and I was still learning, but yes, I was a witch in training when I... died.”
“That’s good news. Not that you died, but that you knew some magic.”
“Why?”
“Because I have very little magic, and what I do have, isn’t inclined to help us.” I didn’t think the ability to portal would be of any help with her predicament.
“Oh.” Her earlier enthusiasm deflated. “I was hoping you might know what you’re doing.”
“No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out together. I’ve already managed to figure out how to untether my lifeline from my body so that I can look for Albacus and still return to life afterward.”
Her face revealed no reaction, so I moved to explain. “Albacus is—”
“I know. I have nothing to do but watch and listen. I heard everything. You have less than two hours to return to your body.”
“That’s right.” And how much of that two hours had already passed? At least half an hour, but I wasn’t good at measuring time when I wasn’t under pressure. I definitely wouldn’t rely on myself when it was this important.
A thought struck me. What would happen once the time was up? If I wasn’t around the magicians, then how would I know? If they called me, would I hear them if I was wandering the spirit world?
I worried. That would have been an important point to go over before I disconnected from my body.
“You don’t have time to help me,” the spirit said.
“It’s true, I don’t,” I blurted out. When her face drooped more than before, I hastened to add, “But if I hurry, I can make time. What’s your name?”
“Sibylle.”
“Sibylle, I’m Isa.”
“I know.”
“Right.” I kept forgetting, because it was highly strange to accept that she’d been watching us without our knowledge. “Do you have any ideas of how I can help you move on to, well, wherever spirits are supposed to go?”
“None. Don’t you think I’ve tried to figure it out during all this time?” She looked away, then back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be sharp with you. It’s just that I’ve been trying for so long, and nothing in my family’s magic prepared me for this. I have no idea whatsoever of what to do. Nobody came to get me to lead me away. No arrows lit up to direct me. No glowing bush spoke to me. I’m stuck.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
After another quick internal check to make sure I still had my lifeline in a vise-like grip, I looked to Nando. He was checking the face of the pocket watch Papá had given him the day he left us at his brother’s house.
Time was short.
“Here, take my hand.”
“What for?” she asked, but still took my translucent hand as best she could, considering that neither one of us was solid.
“To get you out of here.”
Sibylle nodded, looking cautiously optimistic. “What are you going to do?”
I have no idea. “I’ll come up with something. Staying here isn’t working, so let’s leave. It’s what I was planning
on doing anyway. I have to find Albacus. He might know, or something might happen that will show us the way.”
Those big eyes studied me.
“Would you rather stay here?”
“No!”
“Then are you ready?”
“Oh yes. Thank you.”
“Then let’s go.” I tugged on her hand, not sure whether I was actually touching it or not, closed my eyes again, and let my consciousness float away from my body.
My nearly impossible mission had just gotten more difficult. But now that there were two objectives I aimed to accomplish, chances were better I’d manage at least one of them. Even if I didn’t locate Albacus, I had faith that Mordecai would eventually find him. And even if I didn’t manage to give our side the advantage in the ongoing war, I was certain no one would be disappointed in me once I came back to life.
As new as some of us were to the academy, we were already a family of sorts—a very peculiar, mismatched one. The most important matter was my return to life. Everything else was just a bonus.
There was nothing lost in attempting to help Sibylle, and there was everything to gain for this poor girl, who’d long suffered a terrible fate.
I was already navigating a world of magic I was hardly qualified to navigate. What was the harm in expanding that world to include spirits?
“Come on, Sibylle. It’s time to set you free.”
I released my hold on my brother and my body entirely, and felt myself float away, like a blossom on an aimless breeze.
Chapter 4
The moment I felt it, I realized what it was.
Sibylle and I hadn’t been floating away for long when I sensed the opportunity for her to move on—to wherever one went after dying.
She sensed it too. Her timid, frightened features tightened, and I was able to read, upon her otherwise youthful face, every one of the years she’d drifted alone.
“I should stay with you until you find Albacus,” she offered, only it wasn’t a selfless offer, despite sounding like one.
“Thank you, but you should go. You’ve already waited too long, and you sense it too.” It wasn’t a question.
“What is it though?”
“I don’t know, Sibylle, nor am I sure I’m supposed to. I’m going to return to my body, you’re not. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know either.” She responded far too quickly. What was making this girl cower now, after having longed for nothing but this for more than a century?
I debated what to do, whether to push her or not. Then I remembered that I was in a hurry, and couldn’t afford to mess around. “I think you do know,” I pushed, and she didn’t like it.
“I said I don’t know.” She pouted, suddenly looking far too little like a tormented ghost and more like a teenage girl afraid of the unknown.
I opened my mouth to protest—or did I? I still wasn’t sure how this dead thing worked. Was I really here like I felt I was? Was Sibylle here? Was this all in my imagination? Was life anything more than a belief that we lived?
I shook the distracting questions away. I had to keep my thoughts focused and get done what I needed to do. People had been pondering death for as long as humans existed; it wasn’t likely that I’d figure it out in a few minutes, especially when under duress.
I decided on another approach. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with being afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” Again, she spoke far too quickly to be anything more than a knee-jerk defense.
“I don’t judge you for it. I’m afraid too.” And that was the honest-to-goodness truth. I was terrified, working hard not to let my fear drive my actions.
The nebulous sensation from before grew stronger, until it eventually concentrated into a soft, warm light. It was a lot like a patch of sunshine on a cool day. You just longed to bask within it. You knew it was going to feel amazing, nurturing, the kind of warmth filled with goodness.
The patch was golden, and it wasn’t for me. I sensed that it was for Sibylle alone. A wave of tangible relief spread through me. If I wasn’t ready to move on to the next step in my path, then there was a real chance that I could return to my body, and that Mordecai really did know what he was talking about.
There was a part of me that worried there was no coming back from death. After all, being dead was pretty final—or at least, it was supposed to be. You couldn’t get much more final than dead.
The closer we drew to the light, the warmer and more pleasant it felt. I almost wanted to go into it. Almost.
I’d nearly forgotten all about Sibylle in the pull of the glow when she said, “Are you really afraid?”
I smiled at her. “Of course I am. I just died. I’m more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.” The expression made me pause. I’d said it out of habit, but there was no more ‘in my life’ for me, not yet.
I also realized that what I’d said wasn’t entirely true. Yes, I was scared, but I was also unexpectedly calm, as if there was no point in fretting about my circumstances, so I’d just let the worry go. Hmmnh. That was interesting, but not what Sibylle needed to hear right then.
“This is what you’ve been waiting for all this time,” I said, as gently as I could.
She stared at the large patch of sunlight until she finally said, “I know. It’s just that I have no idea what will happen to me once I go into it.”
“I can’t tell you because I don’t know either. I don’t think anyone knows. We just have to trust. Have faith that everything will be well, and it will be.”
Where I was pulling the words of wisdom from, I had no idea. It was like Elwin was influencing me. Whatever the case, I was glad for my sudden maturity. Sibylle had to go. She’d be glad once she did, I had to believe that.
“And what if it’s not? What if I just... disappear?”
“Is that really what you think will happen?”
“No, but what if?”
“Well, what if? What if you go into the light and simply cease to exist? Would that be all that bad? It’d put an end to your loneliness.”
Here I was, floating along with a ghost, and debating the afterlife—an existential conundrum that had no answer until you faced it yourself.
Sibylle had to go, I could feel it in my nonexistent gut. It was the right step for her. I’d say whatever made sense to get her to continue on her path. “You can’t avoid it. You shouldn’t avoid it.”
“I shouldn’t?”
“No, Sibylle, you shouldn’t. You’ve already survived in this half state for more than a century. How much longer do you want to continue like this?”
“I don’t.”
“All right then. This is what you have to do.” And fast, I thought. I was starting to feel the pressure of getting back to Acquaine and my lifeless body.
But Sibylle didn’t move. If anything, she clung to my hand tighter, a pressure I didn’t feel, but recognized by sight.
I stopped floating or flying or whatever I was doing toward the glow to face her. I gripped both of her hands as much as a spirit could. “It’s the right step. Trust in goodness. You were a kind person in your life, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” She was back to being shy.
“Do you believe you deserve good things? Peace?”
She had to think about that for a moment, but finally nodded her plaited red hair. “I do.”
“Then trust that you’ll receive exactly that. There’s no reason for you not to.”
There was no change in her expression. She didn’t move to loosen her grip on my hands.
Just as I started to worry that this was taking far too long, she surprised me. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“You’re ready then?” I smiled encouragement. As much as I needed to rush, I sympathized with how intimidating this next step was. It was the greatest unknown of all. One we had to completely give ourselves over to, even as it held within it the potential to control us for all eternity.
“No, not even a littl
e bit. All the time I’ve waited hasn’t prepared me for this.” She went through the motions of inhaling deeply. “But I’ll do it.”
“I think you’ll be grateful you did.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I do too. I worked not to reveal how nervous for her I was. “I have the feeling that I am.”
I put us into motion again. All it took was a thought that I wanted us to continue our progress toward the light, and we were floating toward it again.
Once we were so close to the patch of glowing light that I could feel its warmth across my skin as if I were still alive and soaking in the sunshine, Sibylle started to pull on me to slow our progress.
I allowed it. We were almost there; her moment had nearly arrived. “You’ll do fine,” I said.
She simply nodded. I suspected it was because she was warring within herself not to back out.
I pictured us at the handoff point, and just like that, like magic, we arrived. Sibylle dragged me to a halt.
“There’s no point in delaying now,” I said. “It’ll just make you worry more. Go ahead. Rush right in there. Have faith.”
She nodded again, her eyes pinned on the bright glow directly in front of us, but she didn’t take a step. It looked like she was squeezing my hand.
Like a bird pushing her chick out of the nest, I disentangled my hand from hers and brought it pointedly to my side. “I have the feeling that once you go in there, you won’t feel alone anymore.”
“You think?” She turned hopeful eyes on me.
“I do. I believe everything will make sense, and every hardship will vanish all at once.” Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that’s what I believed, but when I spoke the words, I did. “Your suffering will be over.”
Still, she hesitated.
“Don’t delay that,” I continued softly.
She nodded yet again, this time to herself. She was talking herself into doing it, I could tell.
“I’m happy to have met you, though I’m sorry you were stuck at Acquaine for so long before I came along.”
“I think maybe I was stuck only because I thought I was.” She was sheepish as she said it, but it was a poignant realization.