Dust to Dust

by Melissa Walker

  And then, as quickly as it happened, I’m free. My knee flies up under the pressure I’ve been exerting to lift it, and I immediately slam down the brake, tires screeching in protest as we skid to a stop just before we reach the next intersection. Carson and I are thrown forward by the sudden move—I feel my seat belt tighten around me, digging into my shoulder sharply.

  My breath is coming in rapid bursts, and I look over at my best friend. Her face is white.

  “Carson.” I reach out my hand to her.

  “Let’s pull over,” she says, taking it and squeezing. “I’m okay. I’ll drive.”

  I carefully get us into the closest strip mall parking lot and we pull up in front of a floral shop. I look at the display of hydrangeas and peonies, all blue and pink and white in the window.

  We open our doors and switch seats, shaking as we walk.

  Once Carson’s behind the wheel, she starts the car. But then she cuts off the engine and turns to me, her eyes watering a little.

  “What the hell was that?” shouts my best friend, who never swears.

  “I don’t know,” I say, but a half second later I realize that of course I do.

  This is it. The moment when Carson finds out, and it all becomes real.

  “I haven’t told you everything,” I say.

  She frowns. “Okay, so tell me now.”

  “It was the poltergeists.” When I say the p word, I know she understands what I mean: evil ghosts.

  “They exist too,” she says, nodding like it makes sense.

  “Yes. And I’ve really pissed them off.”

  She looks at me, trying to read my face in the way she’s done since we were little. As usual, she’s good at it. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in danger?”

  “I guess I didn’t want to freak you out,” I tell her. “You’re so into the afterlife and there’s so much that’s beautiful about it. I just didn’t want you to see the dark side.”

  “You thought I couldn’t handle it,” she says, looking away.

  “That’s not it,” I say to her, putting my hand on her arm and making her turn back to me. “I wanted to protect you from it. As long as I could.”

  “Well, the whole speeding-through-stoplights thing has got me involved now,” she says. “So tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” I tell her. “But I do know that just now they were here; they were using energy to somehow hold my foot down on the accelerator. I felt it.”

  “Ghosts can do things like that?”

  “Not ghosts,” I say. “Poltergeists. Carson, you don’t know what they’re capable of.” I bite my lip and stare out the windshield. Sunlight reflects off the glass of the flower shop and I lower my sunglasses to avoid the glare. I sit back against my seat and tell her all about my relationship with Reena and Leo, how they tried to lure me into their group and turn me against Thatcher. It was all part of their plan. “When I was in the Prism, they . . . they tried to use possession as a way to live again.”

  “Possession?”

  “Taking bodies. They get inside a body and force out the soul that was there—”

  “I know what it means,” she says, a bit flustered. “But how do they take the bodies?”

  “Through me.” I explain that my energy was unique in the Prism, that I had extra to spare and it was so much that when other ghosts shared it they obtained powers beyond the normal realm. “I think it was because I was in the coma, caught between two worlds.”

  “But you’re not anymore . . . ,” says Carson.

  “It doesn’t matter; they’re still after me for some reason,” I tell her.

  “So that thing in the hallway yesterday?”

  “It was them,” I admit. “Look, I’m not safe, and it’s pretty clear neither is anyone around me. So maybe you should stay away—”

  “Callie, if you think I’m going to ditch you just because some poltergeists are messing with you, you’re wrong,” says Carson defiantly. She smiles. “But I’ll drive from now on.”

  I try to smile back. I appreciate her bravado. But there’s more I have to tell her.

  “Oh no, what else?” she asks, reading my face again.

  “You’ve been taken,” I say, my voice wavering a little. I lock eyes with my best friend. It hurts so much to tell her this, but at the same time it’s also a little bit of a relief, being totally honest with her finally. “Reena targeted you.”

  Her mouth opens slightly in surprise, but I see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out when and where.

  “It was at Tim McCann’s party this summer,” I say.

  Carson’s face goes blank for a moment, but then realization dawns in her eyes. “That was the night I—” She stops, looking at me to see if I know.

  “The night you kissed Nick,” I say, filling in the blank so we can move past this awkward point.

  “I—” Carson starts.

  “It was Reena.” I say it loudly and clearly. “I know that.”

  Carson’s face blanches anyway, but I barrel ahead. “The point is that you’re vulnerable—you’ve been possessed once already, and Reena only has to take you two more times in order to get permanent control over you.”

  The car goes silent as this information sinks in. I can hear the bang of someone shutting a car door near us and the echo of someone’s footsteps in the parking lot.

  “So you’re telling me Reena was inside my body,” says Carson, whose face color is returning to normal. She seems way more rational than I thought she’d be right now.

  I nod.

  “Where was I?”

  “In the peach room,” I say, remembering Tim’s parents’ prettily decorated guest quarters.

  “I know that!” she says. “I mean where did my soul go? And what happened while I was gone . . . I mean besides . . .”

  She grins sheepishly.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her.

  “But there’s not, like, a piece of me missing?” asks Carson.

  “I don’t think so. But another possession could be more severe. And a third . . .” I try to finish this horrifying sentence but I can’t. Actually, I don’t have to.

  Carson’s eyes widen. “The rule of three.”

  “How do you know about that?” I ask.

  “It’s always three on Hallowed Hauntings,” she says, like that’s so obvious. “Three is a mystical number.”

  “Well, you’re right.” I’m amazed that there is something real on that “reality” show. And I clarify how if a poltergeist can possess a body three times, it will own the body and extinguish the soul that was there before.

  She’s silent again, staring down at her hands like she’s inspecting them for flaws.

  “Thatcher says they shouldn’t be able to use me for possession anymore,” I tell her, trying to ease her worries. “They can screw with my energy but they shouldn’t have the ability to . . . take you. They haven’t been back to the Prism and that means they should have less and less power as time goes on.”

  “That’s a lot of shoulds.” Carson looks up. “He’s not entirely sure what’s going on, is he?”

  My stomach clenches. She’s right, he isn’t entirely sure. Again, I find myself struggling to find words, but Carson doesn’t miss a beat.

  “Okay, so what do we do now?” she asks. “I’ve got a ton of sage at home. That might protect us for a little while at least.”

  “Actually, there might be something better than that,” I say.

  “What is it?”

  And that’s when I tell her about the ring.

  Facing my father when we get home is not fun. As I walk toward our house, I see him rocking back and forth on the porch swing in a raging silence. Even from far away, I can see by the line of his mouth that I’m in for it.

  I head slowly up our driveway—Carson went straight to her house because she has her own parents to deal with—and when I sit next to my father on the swing, when I look at his eyes up close, I
notice that it’s not quite anger. Maybe it’s hurt.

  “Daddy, I—”

  He silences me with a hand in the air. “Lord, give me strength,” he whispers. Then he turns to look at me. “I shouldn’t have let you go back to school so soon after the accident.” His voice is quiet, thoughtful. “Perhaps you need some more time to handle the pressures of an academic day.”

  I shake my head no. “That’s not it, Daddy. There was just . . . something I had to do.”

  He puts his arm over my side of the swing. “Anything you have to do, you need to tell me about. It’s only fair, Callie May. I don’t even know where you were today. Can you imagine how scary that was?”

  “I’m so sorry.” And I am. I see now that I’ve frightened him, that I’ve hurt my military-tough father.

  “I can’t risk losing you again,” he says. I notice his shoulders are slumped, his face more lined than I remember, and it makes me tear up a little.

  “You won’t lose me.”

  He stands and leans against the porch rail, facing me. “Where were you?”

  I can’t tell him anything near the truth. My father was reluctant for me to go off my meds; if I give him any reason to think I’m unstable, I might be back in the doctor’s office, undergoing treatment that would prevent me from helping Thatcher and keeping the poltergeists at bay. I can’t let that happen.

  “Daddy, did you see the blue of the heavens today?” I gesture toward the open sky, where the blazing sun shines through a few perfectly cottony clouds.

  “Callie, I don’t know what the sky has to do with—”

  “‘This is the day that the Lord hath made!’” I’m quoting a song we used to sing in Sunday school. “‘Let us rejoice and be glad in it.’”

  My father looks confused.

  “I’m so happy to be alive,” I say to him. “I felt that so strongly this morning. I just couldn’t be cooped up inside a classroom. I felt called to spend the day outside. It was me who convinced Carson. She and I . . . we took a drive. We sat out in the sun, ate snacks. I just needed a day to be grateful for my life.”

  It may be a sin to lie about this and use my father’s renewed faith in God against him, but I can see it working. And I need it to work—for both our sakes.

  He can’t lose me again, so I have to fight the poltergeists with all I have.

  His face softens. “That’s what Saturdays are for,” he says. And then: “Don’t do it again.”

  “I won’t. I’m sorry.”

  He walks inside, and I marvel at the fact that I got off easy. But later that night, at dinner, he tells me I’m grounded for three days. I’m to go straight to school and come straight home. No Carson, no Nick—which shouldn’t be too much of a problem, given the fact that he and I haven’t seen or heard from each other in while.

  I nod and head up to bed. I understand that Dad’s doing what he needs to do. I just hope he understands that I have to do the same.

  Carson had no issues with her parents because I told her it was okay to play the “Callie needed me and she’s having a hard time” card. The next day at school, she tells me she was up all night trying to find a phone number for Wendy, but she only got a school email address. We sneak away at lunch and craft a message to send:

  Wendy,

  Please call me. I can explain everything, and we need to talk.

  Thanks,

  Callie

  “Short and sweet so she can’t misinterpret things,” says Carson. We leave my cell number in the PS and cross our fingers. Then I try to act normal for the rest of the week, which isn’t easy when I’m looking over my shoulder all the time, either waiting for another attack or hoping that I’ll feel Thatcher near me. When I don’t sense anything—like a threat of searing pain or his warm, inviting comfort—there’s a part of me that’s frightened that he’s found the poltergeists and they’ve discovered a way to capture and hurt him somehow.

  But on Saturday night, the fear subsides. My dreams come again, hazy and muted, like they’re happening underwater. I hear Thatcher’s voice, but it’s muffled and unclear. What is he trying to tell me? Then my world sharpens, and I’m in more of a memory than a dream. It’s the night we left the Prism and stood on the edge of the water, next to a carnival, watching fireworks pop in the distance.

  And he’s there, gazing at me. I take in the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his stance, and I try to memorize every detail down to the arch of his top lip.

  I smile, so happy he’s okay.

  The fireworks night was a gift, a small transgression. And even though I can sense that he came to me in this dream state because he knew I was worried about him, there’s something in his eyes that lets me know he’s here for himself too. Which is very much against the Guides’ ethics.

  But maybe, hopefully, true to his heart.

  “I’ve done a lot of rule breaking since I met you,” he says.

  My hands want to reach out to Thatcher, to hold him. But as always, he’s out of reach—a whisper, a shadow.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t,” he replies. “Don’t ever be sorry.”

  I want to ask him what that means. If he’s giving me absolution for the whole spirit world falling apart, or if he doesn’t want me to have any regrets about us.

  Ding-ding!

  My eyes open with a start and I see a glow coming from my nightstand as my phone lights up with a text message.

  The clock reads 3:19 a.m., and the text is from a number I don’t know.

  It says, “I’m outside.”

  Thatcher.

  I race to the window and open it, staring out into the tree and down at the grass below, but finding no one. I pad gently downstairs, careful not to wake my father. In the entryway, I can see someone trying to peer in through the glass that frames the front door. When I open it, I’m face-to-face with Thatcher’s lips, his blue eyes, his strong gaze . . . and lots of piercings. My heart thuds.

  Wendy.

  “Hi,” she says, as if it isn’t three in the morning. As if she’s here for afternoon tea and cookies. “Can I come in?”

  She perches cautiously on the arm of my mother’s overstuffed floral chair in the corner of our formal living room, which is on the opposite end of the house from Dad’s bedroom—he shouldn’t wake up. I offered Wendy juice or water, but she shook her head and went straight to the chair. Her boots are up on the fabric, but I’m afraid to ask her to put them on the floor. She makes me nervous.

  I sit across the coffee table from her, on our stiff-backed blue sofa.

  “Sorry if I was rude before,” she says.

  “It’s okay.”

  Leaning forward so I can see her eyes, which have remained downcast, I ask her, “How did you find my house?”

  “How many Callie McPhees in Charleston do you think there are? It wasn’t hard.”

  “But why?” I ask her. “What made you believe?”

  She reaches into the pocket of her cargo shorts and brings out a small green figurine, one of those little toy soldiers that kids play with. He’s holding a big gun over his head, like he’s wading through water. She fingers it carefully.

  “‘The treasure is in the tree,’” says Wendy. “I know Thatcher told you that.”

  It’s almost like she enters a trance when she explains how they used to play a game, she and Thatcher. He had his favorite army guy, this one, and when she was a toddler she used to think it was funny to hide it from him. Eventually, that became their game, finding it and hiding it, finding it and hiding it. “We called it ‘the treasure’ so our parents wouldn’t know what we were talking about,” Wendy says. “When Thatcher died, I looked for it for weeks. I was desperate, sure I’d never find the last place where Thatcher put it. But I did. A few years later, I remembered a knot in one of the trees out back, and I stuck my hand inside. There it was: the treasure.”

  Her eyes fill up with tears, but no wetness falls on her cheeks. They just create pools that her pupil
s seem to swim in when she says, “No one in the world would know that except for me. Us.”

  Us. It’s such a little word, just two letters, but the way Wendy says it is so filled with such pain and loss. I understand. Completely.

  “I don’t know if—” I start.

  “Wait.” Wendy puts her hand forward to stop me. “I have more to say.”

  I sit back against the sofa.

  “This week has been strange,” she says, furrowing her brow. “I’ve been having weird dreams, which is your fault.” She narrows her eyes at me. “And today, I had this urge to drive home, to hold the treasure in my hand again.” Her fingers move over the toy. “When I did, I felt a sense of calm, of peace almost. It was like . . . my brother was near.”

  Of course. Thatcher has been spending time with Wendy, trying to help her see that I was telling the truth.

  “He is near,” I say to her, and as I do, I see a ripple in the curtains by the front window. I wonder if Wendy does too.

  She frowns. “I know you know that when I was little, I was sick,” she says. “Having a little sister with cancer wasn’t easy for Thatcher, but he was patient and loyal. He never complained about our parents missing his football games, never mentioned the fact that I got twice as many gifts at Christmas for a while.”

  She smiles, her face shedding some of its tired angst, and I see even more of Thatcher in her now. “He was the perfect big brother.”

  “That’s not hard to imagine,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the afterlife . . .” I pause, wondering if she’s really understood what I’ve told her about how Thatcher and I know each other. It sounds so strange, so unbelievable. But she nods with acceptance, and so I continue. “He was a guide for me, always taking care of me and never thinking about himself or his own needs. He protected me, too.” As I tell her this, I realize it’s true. I was like a petulant child who chafed under what I thought of as his rules, but really he was guiding me toward Solus, the closest thing to Heaven there is.

  “He was always that way,” she says. “When the doctors told us my cancer was in remission, Thatcher was the first person there to hug me and hold my hand. He had tears streaming down his face. An eleven-year-old boy with so much love for his sister that he cried in front of the whole hospital staff.”