My Soul To Keep

by Jackie Sonnenberg

  “Um, bring that downstairs when you’re done!” she said. “I’m sure others would want a turn with it!”

  She shut my door all the way and Damien and I sighed.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  I looked down at the board. “Look.”

  The hand piece, all on its own, already moved down and parked on Goodbye.

  Chapter 26

  Now, our new goal was impossible. How were we going to sneak into Mitchell’s office? The idea itself was insane. I was actually afraid to find out what was in there. Damien and I struggled with this idea and how to find an opening—any opening—but this opportunity didn’t show itself. Everyone was out and about until very late that night—blame Harry Potter. Still, we sat together keeping our eyes and ears peeled. At one point Damien suggested to check it out when everyone went to bed. I instantly axed that, knowing that was an even greater risk. Mitchell’s office was right next to, or even directly attached to the room he slept in. I had never been in there before, but it seemed likely. We had no choice but to wait this one out, and it was killing us.

  The following day we woke up, and were pleasantly surprised to see that it was a laid-back morning. Some made coffee and were watching something on TV when I came down stairs, Damien trailing right behind me. It became our habit to poke our heads in the residential floors to see who was up first. Damien spotted me just as I came out of the bathroom, and we traveled downstairs together to see what the day would bring us.

  We had ourselves a modest breakfast of orange juice and toast, and didn’t do much else until Mitchell himself came into the room, waking both Damien and I out of our post-slumber.

  “Carol and I are going to run some errands,” he announced, shaking the Manor Food Fund can. “Get some groceries for you lot, and as well as kitty food and treats for my baby. Be back soon.”

  Both Mitchell and Carol put on their coats and went out the door, leaving Damien and I stared at each other from across cup rims. We didn’t say anything, we both just got up.

  Mitchell’s office and room was down another hallway, near the bathroom but of course, further in the back.

  “Wait,” I whispered as soon as we were in the hallway. “One of us is going to have to keep watch. What if Iris or Kimberly comes down here and asks us what we’re doing?”

  “Right,” Damien agreed. “How about I keep watch?”

  I didn’t argue. “Okay. Just keep anyone from going in his office, which I don’t think anyone does anyway. But give me a signal if someone tries to or is coming too close.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but it has to be loud enough for me to hear it and be able to hide or something.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll let you know when I want to come out.”

  “Got it.”

  We walked down the hallway like we were going to uncover a secret lair, but in a way it was true. We had absolutely no idea what was in Mitchell’s office, and it honestly scared us. I put my hand on the doorknob, nodded to Damien, and turned it. Once the inside was big enough I slid into the room and shut the door, leaving Damien in the hallway.

  I didn’t know what I was expecting to see, but it was an office. It had a cherry mahogany desk, leather swivel chair and a desktop computer, silver white picture frames lined up right next to it. I knew I was going to have to do more searching, and I didn’t know how much time I had until Mitchell got back.

  I peered to my left, a closet with two jackets in it and a couple of pairs of shoes in piles as though they were always just kicked off. I peered to my right, an adjoining bedroom which looked like it also had its own bath. Of course Mitchell would have a master suite. I didn’t dare go in the bedroom anyway. I walked closer to the desk and opened file cabinets, desk drawers, looked inside notebooks and looked in boxes. A thought occurred to me that something was in the computer itself, but I immediately crossed that off my list. What in the world was I supposed to be looking for, anyway? Files on séances and how to brainwash a bunch of kids? That actually didn’t sound too far off.

  Class notes, lecture notes, pamphlets, blah blah blah. Old GOL flyers, a book of games and activities for large groups. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I looked on the desk and saw that the silver picture frames were not full of a wife and kids on vacation or during Christmas. No, these were all full of Mitchell with Ad Astra. The one on the end was just her sitting on a window sill on a sunny day. The biggest picture in the middle had Mitchell decked out in his most formal of prep school teacher wear, complete with sweater vest and pipe in one hand, the other petting the cat on his lap. I choked back a laugh. At first it reminded me of the Austin Powers villain Dr. Evil. I couldn’t laugh at all, because it was one of the creepiest photos I’d ever seen. It had to be the look on the teacher’s face. All the light was gone except for his eyes. They were yellowish, almost like the photographer messed up the lighting and made him look weird. He looked possessed. I had to look away.

  I heard a voice in the hallway, and I froze under Mitchell’s photographic eye.

  Shit.

  I immediately ducked under the desk and brought my knees to my chest as I heard the mumblings of Damien and someone else, some girl.

  “No no, actually, Mitchell went to the store!” Damien was saying, or rather, yelling. “Yeah, he’ll be back soon, he told everyone to go do journaling, or something.”

  “Why are you shouting?” asked some girl.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was playing my iPod really loud today.”

  They stopped talking and I heard nothing else.

  Good Damien.

  I slowly started to climb out from under the desk, wondering what to do next, and then I felt it. I jumped about a foot in the air and bumped my head on the desk, but wasn’t really caring about my head. Something tugged on my ear.

  No, it wasn’t an itch, I didn’t brush up against something, something actually tugged on my fricken ear. I almost lost my balance crawling out from under the desk, but I stayed still, trying not to look next to me even though I knew nothing was there. My ear tugged again, and this time it didn’t scare me as much.

  “What?” I said to whatever was there.

  It was like it was tugging downward, trying to get my attention to something below me. I put my hands on the bottom right desk drawer and it stopped. I pulled open that drawer and found a folder of newspaper clippings. They were so old the edges were pale yellow and the paper was soft enough to be toilet paper. The headline at the top of one of them made my arms break out in goose bumps:

  Six Found Dead in Local Wood

  The picture underneath it was the very same circle of trees Damien and I found. I shoved those clipping back into the folder and shut the desk drawer. As soon as I stood up I froze dead in my tracks and clamped my hand over my mouth. I didn’t even hear voices outside, I didn’t hear the door open, but he was standing there, and he was staring right at me.

  Or, he was just staring, because he couldn’t see.

  But still, Seth’s eyes were dead set on me anyway like he could see me. I kept my hand over my mouth, nervous that he could probably hear my breathing. I made no other moment. Seth kept his hands on the door frame and started to make his way into the office, feeling out in front of him zombie-like.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  I sidestepped, once. Maybe if I could duck into the bedroom or something…where the hell was Damien?

  Seth came further into the room, feeling around for the desk until he found it. I barely breathed, knowing that one wrong movement could really screw me up. I sidestepped again, careful not to crash into the desk chair that I pushed back.

  “Is someone there?” Seth asked again. His hands moved around the desk and I jumped when they accidentally knocked over Mitchell’s picture frames. I could get past the desk chair and make a run for it, but Seth was close. Very close. He could hear me or reach out and touch me.

  “Hey! Seth, what are you doing?”

&n
bsp; I could have killed him.

  Seth turned his head. “Hi Damien.”

  My trusty watchman came into the room and put his hands on Seth’s shoulders, careful to not look at me and keep his face towards him when he talked.

  “Er, did you mean to come into Mitchell’s office?”

  “What? Oh, no,” said Seth acting embarrassed. “Is that where I am? I was looking for that other storage room.”

  “Well, all right, let’s get you out of here, shall we? Mitchell will be back soon and you know he wouldn’t want anyone in his office.”

  “Right, of course.”

  Damien and Seth left, leaving me clutching the folder so tightly I could feel my pulse in my fingertips. I counted to ten before I made my way out myself, shutting the door carefully behind me.

  I had the folder in my sweatshirt as I crept through the hallway like a criminal, but what else was I to do? Damien obviously got Seth out of the way, but now I had to find him and get out of sight.

  Damien waited by the bathroom.

  “All right did…did you find something?” he asked eyeing my sweatshirt. “Okay, yeah, that was close, let’s go.”

  He put his arm around me and we went to my room since it was closer, surprised we didn’t bump into anyone on the way there. We shut the door and I pulled that folder out to let it breathe.

  “I’m sorry!” he said right away. “He seriously came out of nowhere. He’s like a ninja the way he sneaks around and I didn’t see him!”

  “Well, it’s a good thing it was him and no one else.”

  I knew we could have argued on but I still had that folder and Damien was burning a hole through it.

  “What is that?”

  I pulled out the newspaper clippings carefully so they wouldn’t spill out.

  “I found these in one of the desk drawers…and not by accident. I was under there hiding and…I felt something tug on my ear. I swear to God. It tugged me towards the bottom drawer where I found this. It was like someone wanted me to find it.”

  “Whoa,” he exhaled.

  I sorted through the articles, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

  “Look,” I said. “Six Found Dead. It’s the spot!”

  We both read over articles, and scanned some more similar headlines. This much was clear; they all had the same pictures.

  “They were not that much older than us,” I said.

  “Look at the date,” Damien said. “1992. Damn. This is all before Applewhite even became a school.”

  “Yeah, but you’d think it wouldn’t be a detail they’d miss when looking for a spot to build!”

  “Not to mention building The Manor right next to the death site!”

  “Why the hell does Mitchell have all of this?”

  I picked up another article with a picture that made me stare at it the longest. It only took me a minute to get it.

  “Oh my God, Damien…”

  “What.”

  I showed him the picture of the girl. Her curls were springy here and full of life, not like they were last time I saw her in person. If he reacted the same way I did, then my thoughts were confirmed. He picked up the paper and looked from the picture to me.

  “Does she look familiar to you?”

  “I don’t know, who is she?”

  “Damien, let me just ask you something. On Halloween night, when we did ritual in the dark, did you see some creepy-looking students you never saw before?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “The ghosts of these people never left,” I stated. “We saw them. That’s why Mitchell has these. They’re here.”

  Chapter 27

  First thing we did was go back downstairs to find that Ouija board.

  We tried not to look too frantic going into the kitchen and lower lounge area, as many people were there. I spotted Kimberly right away.

  “Hey, Kim. Where was that Ouija board we had the other day?”

  “Oh,” she poked her head over the couch at me and thought about it. “I’m sorry, I have no clue. Did you ask Carol? She probably put it away somewhere.”

  Before we could say or do anything else Mitchell came back into the lounge. Who knew just how long he had been back, as we didn’t even know how much time we spent upstairs.

  “Hello my Lights!” he called. “Come come, we’re going to have a meditation session before dinner and our games tonight. We’ve got to keep those spirits strong, now don’t we?”

  Iris got up and brought Seth with her like a puppy on a leash to the lower lounge. The angel statue’s head stared at us as we walked down.

  I found that for some reason, we were getting less and less freedom with even the meditation sessions. It was like our spirits were being blocked off from roaming too far. I took that to mean that they wanted us to be more focused. Not that I complained about the lush, purple paradise we were all in. There must have been blueberry trees/plants somewhere because I could almost taste them. Still, the roam in paradise once again did its job. I was relaxed, a limp wet noodle, like how you’d feel after hours in the hot tub.

  Mitchell smiled at us at the front of the lounge, bent in a pretzel yoga position.

  “We are all calm and focused now.”

  ***

  We ate dinner, still feeling sluggish and wondering how we could have the energy for another game tonight. I certainly wasn’t feeling it. I wanted to find that Ouija board again, figure out if I was in fact talking to a dead former member of the Guardians of Light, and if they had answers for me. It drove me crazy that it was missing. I only thought about it once, and then somehow forgot about it for the rest of the evening.

  For our downtime, we all just watched TV after dinner, waiting for Mitchell to give us an itinerary. Once he came in, we knew something had changed. He just came from his office, and there was a dark shadow cast over his face.

  “Everyone. Lounge time. There is something the time has come for me to discuss with you.”

  We went down and sat before Mitchell as he slowly paced in front of the fireplace, which was turned on and heating up against the November chill.

  “Firstly, it has come to my attention,” he started. “That some of you are…curious. I don’t blame you, of course. Everyone has doubts from time to time and are in dire state of desperation, of wanting to have faith and have all their questions answered. But that does not give anyone the permission to snoop around in my office.”

  Something stabbed my stomach. I tried very hard not to look at Damien and not let Mitchell see the shock in my face. I swallowed and waited.

  “I was looking for something when I noticed I had a folder missing in one of my drawers. This folder had important newspaper clippings in it that I hold dear. Now, it is gone. I am not going to ask who took it, and for what reason, but I would like it returned. I will leave my office door open tonight and look the other way. I don’t care who took it, really. But the more I think about it the more I know that whoever took it has questions…so… I guess that means I must provide some answers.”

  I sat up straight while Mitchell paced.

  “In the early 90s, before Applewhite Prep was established, this area used to be an apartment complex where I would go and visit a small group of young adults. They came to one of my motivational speeches panels once and I stayed in touch with them. We would meet frequently. They were very sad. They were not strong. They had no faith. Their spirits were weak. What happened was they became weakened by life on Earth. They knew, in their hearts, that there was a better place for them. What they did was decide to end their time on Earth sooner. They decided it as a group, and their Guardian bodies were found in the woods days later.”

  I barely breathed.

  “They were weak,” he continued. “The White Light must have inspired them, but they did not have enough faith and they did not hone their souls. They were not ready. They were unable to pass on to the Next Life because of this.”

  Everyone had their attention on Mitchell, bar
ely shuffling in their seats.

  “Now, my Lights,” he continued. “You know that these spirits are here with us now in this very house, near the very place where they ended their lives. We can all find the right path to paradise together. They need our help. As you all know, The White Light appeared to me in a dream. We need to spread The White Light’s message and help guide all the lost souls of this world. Our time is short. We must continue to ready ourselves for this time, and since it is sooner than we think, I am glad to have this discussion with you. Do not be afraid.”

  Chapter 28

  You could hear nothing except for the occasional shuffle of legs, crack of candle flames, or steps Mitchell took as he paced the room. The energy that he had directed at the room was not an inspiring one it usually was, but rather like a strong grasp on all of us to keep our attention. It was working. The very presence of the spirits always held us, learning their origin was another, but nothing compared to the next bit of news our leader bestowed upon us.

  “I am proud of all of you, the progress you’ve made and how strong you have all become. You are an inspiration, and you are ready to become leaders in the Next Life, which may come sooner than we think.”

  My entire body was numb and I could not move it, I did not even try.

  “There has been talk about a Mayan prophecy which I am sure you have all heard of: The prophecy that the world will come to an end on December 21st, 2012. Of course, many people are skeptical about this and do not believe it. But why not believe it? This is a sign, and we should treat it as one. We do not know exactly what will happen, but if Earth is indeed going to end, are you ready to go?”

  He paused, scanning our faces.

  “The White Light appeared in my dream to warn me of this prophecy. It reminded me of this, over and over, and I knew that it was my duty to not only prepare you but inform you as soon as I felt ready. The time has come to tell you. It is November, and this time is upon us. That is why we need to use this time crucially. Treat these days as your last vacation…and know that soon we will be going home.”