Dust to Dust

by Melissa Walker

  I can feel something inside him opening, a tiny door in his mind that I’ve unlocked. Because he does remember that day, and he did feel my presence here, even though I was just a ghost in that moment. It’s all I need, and I rush in.

  For the next hour, my voice is a soft and steady sound on East Bay Street, laying everything out before him: the Prism, my haunting mission, the poltergeists and the danger they posed and are still posing. I tell him about Eli, how he has a ring that I need to keep us safe. About Dylan, how he and Carson are the only other people on Earth who know about what’s happening here in Charleston—the vortexes, the possessions.

  The only piece I leave out is Thatcher, because I just can’t bring myself to explain to my sort-of boyfriend that I fell for someone else on the other side.

  Nick’s eyes flicker with doubt, but I keep talking to convince him with details, things I couldn’t have known unless my spirit was with him.

  “I saw you with the bottle of Jack Daniels in your room. I saw you drinking in the woods before Tim McCann’s party. I was with you when you crashed your car in Mr. Dodson’s field. And you remember this bench. I know you do—you remember feeling my presence here.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you . . . ,” he starts. “Carson knows about some of those things, too, and maybe you’re good at guessing the details. Maybe somewhere in your mind you even believe yourself . . . but none of this sounds real. You’ve been through so much.”

  “You seriously don’t believe me.”

  “It’s a lot to take in, Callie,” says Nick.

  I’m realizing how Carson must have felt whenever I dismissed her beliefs, about connecting with my mother, about her intuition.

  I take my hand away from his. “I know other things, too,” I say, ready to get everything out in the open. “I know you were texting Holly Whitman while I was in the coma. I know you were planning to break up with me, Nick.”

  Nick’s face falls. “She told you?”

  “She didn’t have to. I saw the texts when I was in the coma, hovering over you as a ghost. I saw the texts to ‘H’ in your phone.”

  He winces. “You went through my phone?”

  “I was a ghost! I saw you texting her!” I rake my hand through my hair in frustration. “I know you don’t believe me, but that’s the truth.”

  Nick looks down at his hands and I feel the frustration drain from me as quickly as it came. In its place is sadness. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I say softly. “This isn’t how I want us to be.”

  “Me neither,” he says.

  “Holly is a nice girl,” I say. And it actually feels good to admit that to him.

  “She is.”

  I take in a deep breath.

  “Things are so different, aren’t they?” asks Nick. He looks into my face and I meet his eyes. “Is it because of the coma? What you think you saw?”

  I frown. He still doesn’t believe me.

  “No,” I say to Nick. “You were over me before I even got into the accident.”

  “I know,” he says. “I just didn’t feel the same. . . . I thought we needed to break up.” He pauses and I can feel him searching my face. “But afterward it felt like we had a second chance. Didn’t it?”

  “After . . .” I shake my head. “It did, for a little while.”

  I think about all the nights he’s spent helping me fall asleep, cradling me in the nook of his shoulder and keeping me calm, safe, and warm.

  “I wish things were different,” I say to him.

  “So do I.” He drops his head and looks at his hands.

  “Callie?” His voice sounds like a prayer in the darkness. “I’m not going to deny that Holly is . . . well, that I like her. But in a way, I’ll always love you, you know.”

  “Nick,” I say softly, his name on my tongue like a remembered sweetness. “It’s okay to let go of what we were.”

  He nods, acknowledging what we both know, and when I let a tear fall, Nick wipes it away.

  We sit there for a few minutes, the night wholly silent around us. There are three porch lights on, and even from across the street I can hear the bugs smacking into them—it’s that quiet.

  I stare at the narrow alleyway that leads to the bookstore, and to Dylan. I think about his family, their history here and their connection with the other side. I watch the wind rustle through the palmettos and hear the distant sound of a barking dog. A streetlight flickers on and off down the street. Charleston feels like such a haunted city. I used to think that was all superstition and made-up stories; I hated hearing about the ghost legends. Now I realize that there are advantages to such a spiritual presence—there is otherworldly wisdom here, and it seems like a lot of it lies inside Dixon’s Bookstore.

  Nick’s profile is serious and sad. I wish he’d believe me. I wish he’d help us. He’s always been so good with people—he could talk to Eli for me, maybe even get the ring back. And besides, he’s been a friend for so long. . . . I don’t want him out of my life completely.

  I look down at my scuffed flats and scrape them along the sidewalk. When the left one hits the ground, I feel a wash of sensation rush through my body—tingles and sparks and crackles that put me on edge. They’re here.

  Of course—this bench is a vortex. How else could I have connected with Nick on that day, even before I really knew how to haunt? My energy must be stronger in this spot.

  I turn to Nick, suddenly frantic. I don’t want to put him in danger. “We have to go.”

  “I know. It’s late and—”

  I don’t hear the rest of his sentence, because the tingles disappear, and then I realize that it’s not the pain of a poltergeist approach that I’m feeling. It’s the gentle warmth, the soft comfort, of Thatcher’s presence.

  He’s with us. I’m sure of it. He told me after the Wando that he’d come back as soon as he could. I just never expected it would be in another moment with Nick, given how torn up he was about all the rules he broke that day at the river.

  “You’re here,” I whisper, and my voice is full of surprise and longing.

  There’s no response. He’s hasn’t come to interact with me—he intends to stand in the background, to guard and guide me. But that’s not enough right now.

  Actually, it’s never going to be enough.

  “Callie?”

  I turn suddenly at the sound of Nick’s voice, remembering that he’s still beside me. “Who are you talking to?”

  I bite my lip and look around, trying to pinpoint Thatcher’s location, but the feeling of his presence is almost everywhere and nowhere at once. “Can you help me explain to him?” I ask the quiet night sky. “Can you help me make him believe?”

  The air is thick with Thatcher’s hesitation—I can sense it, a nervous quivering in my stomach.

  “Please,” I say, standing up and spinning in all directions. “Thatcher, I need Nick by my side in this.”

  I see a ripple in the air then, and a hint of Thatcher’s face. Am I imagining it, or is there a dark web of pain in the dim profile I’m able to catch? Then, in a smooth and deliberate movement, I see the shadow of Thatcher’s hand reach out to graze Nick’s shoulder.

  Nick jumps off the bench and backs away from me. “What the hell was that?”

  “That was Thatcher,” I say. I don’t know how else to describe him right now so I just add, “A good friend of mine. From the Prism.” I almost wince when I reduce him to that; what Nick needs to know is that I was close to someone on the other side.

  “A ghost? You’re telling me that I was just touched by a ghost?”

  I have to smile at his words, and at the relief that comes with the promise of Nick believing me. “Yes,” I say. “You were.”

  I don’t know if it’s the combination of everything I’ve just told him and Thatcher’s little trick, but Nick’s eyes light up, and I see some of his doubt disappear. He runs his hand over his mouth as if to rethink what’s happened tonight.

&n
bsp; “You believe now, don’t you?”

  He shakes his head. “I . . . I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  Nick pulls out his phone. “It’s really late. Let’s get you home.”

  I hesitate for a moment, turning my back to Nick as I stand and gaze into the darkness where I think Thatcher must be. I reach out my hand, low, but deliberate. I’m trying to give Thatcher a sign that I have to see him, that we have to talk. As much as he wants me to turn away from the spirit world, there’s no way that I can. Then I let my hand fall to my side and follow Nick to his car.

  We drive back to my neighborhood in silence and he pulls up quietly a few houses down from mine. He drops me off with a confused half smile. “Get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk more tomorrow,” he says.

  I nod. He needs time.

  I climb the tree Nick is famous for scaling and slip into my bedroom window so I don’t have to open the front door and worry about making noise inside the house. My body, now almost fully healed, feels strong and able, energized in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I think some of it stems from the fact that I truly let people in tonight. I shared my story, and it didn’t make me more vulnerable like I thought it would. Talking about what happened to me, about the truth, is doing the opposite actually. I’m sturdier, more centered even.

  But when my head hits the pillow and I drift off to sleep, all of these thoughts fall away.

  In my dream, I’m walking down Union Pier in the historic district and the air is cooling a bit. I smile to myself as I remember that our first moment on Earth together was here, mine and Thatcher’s.

  I’m so grateful he’s coming to me this way.

  “Did you choose this location, or did I?” My question echoes in the darkness. At first there are only the sounds of the waves and the wind in response, breaking the night’s silence.

  But then I feel the light breeze swirling around me, and I hear a familiar chuckle. “The setting is all you,” he says.

  I spin around, looking for Thatcher, and there is his face. His yellow-blond hair, hanging in front of his indigo eyes. The sharp line of his cheekbones. His lovely mouth is inches away. But that’s all I can see. His body is completely hidden—invisible except for a faint outline.

  Even here I can’t seem to have all of him.

  “You asked me to turn away, but I can’t,” I say. “I’ve tried.”

  “I know you have. I’ve tried, too.” He moves closer to me and all of a sudden I feel like I’m being wrapped in layers of silk. “But now that I’ve held and kissed you, I . . .”

  His voice falters, like he’s getting choked up.

  “You what?” I ask, after a moment.

  “Sometimes it’s just harder to do what’s right,” he says, and the softness I feel around me quickly turns hard and cool. “Callie, I shouldn’t break into your dreams when I can sense you want me to. Or reveal myself to other people on Earth.”

  “I’m glad you did though,” I say, daring to reach out and stroke his face, if I can. I don’t feel his skin on mine; there’s only air. But his body begins to come into view more, taking a solid shape that makes him seem more real. “Sometimes I don’t feel like me when I can’t feel you.”

  “It’s like that for me, too. That’s why it’s so hard to stay away,” he says. “It’s just . . . I feel everything so much more now that you’re gone from the Prism. Happiness. Fear. Guilt. Everything. And the closer I am to you, the more intense it all gets. I don’t know, it’s like . . .”

  “You’re alive again,” I say in a whisper.

  “Something like that.”

  My throat tightens and the world around us bleeds out into a vast plain of whiteness, like we’re stuck inside a blank sheet of paper. Thatcher glances down at my hands and concern floods his eyes.

  “Where’s the ring, Callie?”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” I say.

  His mouth tenses instantly and then he blows out a deep breath, like he knows what I’m about to say. “What have they done now?”

  I start with the car story, knowing that Thatcher was nowhere near me when the poltergeists pressed on the brake pedal. He would have stopped them.

  “How the hell are they doing this?” he says, his voice sharp. “They haven’t been back to the Prism, and yet they still have enough power to hide on Earth and torture you? What are they trying to prove? What could they possibly have to gain by—”

  “Thatcher,” I interrupt. “Leo took Eli again, too. At school.”

  As I tell him about the confrontation in the hallway, how I managed to expel Leo from Eli’s body, how I know they were using my energy . . . and how Leo took the ring, Thatcher’s face reddens and the bright whiteness around us turns black as ink. “They’ll try again, I know they will.”

  He turns around, his back to me as his shoulders tense. “Damn it,” he murmurs into the darkness.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Are you kidding me? Of course it is!” Thatcher shouts. “The Guides are completely clueless as to how Reena and Leo are evading us. The Prism is in total upheaval over this and there’s so much infighting about what to do that we’re almost at a stalemate.”

  Thatcher begins to pace, like he’s been waiting to unload all this pressure but hasn’t had anyone to confide in. If I were still a part of his world, I know I could be that person, someone he could lean on. Maybe I could still be, even if we’re separated. If he would just let me.

  “And the Wando River possession. I was recharging my energy in my prism for much longer than I would have if I had just . . . resisted. Don’t you see, Callie? I was weak, and because of that, no one was watching over you.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” I say. “Don’t take all the blame. A lot of this is out of your control.”

  “It’s out of your control, too, Callie. You may have fought off Leo this time, but it’s clear they have some kind of secret energy source that they’re latching on to. It’s the only way they could achieve possession now that you’re no longer in the Prism.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with the vortexes.”

  He lets out an exasperated sigh, which is an all-too-familiar sound. “How did you find out about vortexes?”

  “From Dixon’s Bookstore.”

  “Really? You’ve been to Dixon’s?” He sounds impressed.

  I nod. “This kid Dylan at school seems to have a crush on Carson. I guess his grandfather is the owner?”

  “Charles Dixon,” says Thatcher. “He’s not a fan of ghosts, you know.”

  “I do,” I say. “I guess now I know where to go if I want to get away from you.”

  I’m joking to lighten the mood a little, get Thatcher to stop punishing himself for what’s happening, but he’s not exactly in the mood to play along.

  “It’s a safe zone, Callie. One of the only places in Charleston that’s truly spirit-free.”

  “So there have been other poltergeists? In the past?”

  “Yes. There’s a long history of ghosts going rogue, not accepting their deaths,” he says. “I don’t know it all, but there are a lot of answers in that bookstore. Maybe it’s good that you found it.”

  “Well, could the vortexes be it? Could they be what makes my energy so high?”

  Thatcher shakes his head. “Plenty of people walk through vortexes all the time without being used for energy, even former coma victims like you. No, there’s something more.”

  I take a deep breath, thinking about the question that Dylan asked me just before I left the bookstore: “Have you ever been close to anyone who died?” I’m starting to realize what he might have been suggesting, and a ray of sunlight cuts through the darkness, landing right on Thatcher’s chest, where his heart would be, if it were still beating.

  “Thatcher,” I say softly. When he looks up at me, his face brimming with concern, I know that I need to be completely open with him. We’re in this together, and a
nything that might help us understand the poltergeists’ movements is essential information. So I tell him, “My mother died in my arms.”

  He blinks at me, confused. “What?”

  “In the hospital bed,” I tell him. “I didn’t remember it, really. But my father just told me that she took her last breath with my arms wrapped around her, while I was sleeping.”

  Thatcher’s face cracks with emotion—he looks as if he might cry. But somehow I feel incredibly strong in this moment, baring my truth for him. Like with Carson, Dylan, and Nick, it feels good to speak the truth. It feels good to trust.

  “Oh, Callie,” he says. And I know that if he could, he’d put his arms around me and hold me.

  “Is that important?” I ask him.

  Thatcher nods, composing himself. Then he looks me straight in the eyes and says, very slowly and very clearly, “Yes. It means that you’re a death spot.”

  Eighteen

  THE RAY OF SUNLIGHT becomes a radiant beacon as Thatcher explains that my being a death spot, plus the fact that I was in the Prism while still attached to my living body through the coma, must be the unique combination that makes my energy so strong—and so coveted.

  “I’ve never heard of these situations coming together before,” he says. “I’ve Guided souls who were death spots; dying in someone’s arms isn’t as rare as you might think. EMTs, hospice nurses . . . it happens. But that plus the coma and a living body—it must have sent your energy into the stratosphere.”

  And that’s why the poltergeists can use me. Only me.

  “But how did they know I’d still have the high levels of energy?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure that they did,” says Thatcher. “Maybe they’ve been testing your energy—in the hallway, and in the car —and they found it strong. Callie, they’re experimenting with you whenever you’re in a vortex, and somehow it’s allowing them enough power to stay hidden from the Guides and to keep possessing people.”

  “So what now?”

  “We can’t underestimate their focus. You’re their only key to living again, which means you have to be very, very careful in the days to come.”