Ether

by Dana Michelle Belle

  Terrible, angry, accusatory comments threaten to burst out of me but Ephraim steps smoothly between us, filling my vision with his calm control. “This isn’t productive. He’s won’t be able to accept what you’re telling him and his doubt is upsetting you. Anything you say now will just make it worse.” Then he smiles a small teasing smile at me, “Besides wouldn’t you rather be cuddling with me than fighting with him?”

  I nod slowly. I really would. Justin’s skin has flushed and I can see tension in every muscle of his body. His emotions are all over the place, mixed up between worry and anger. Ephraim is right; he won’t be able to accept what’s happening. “I need to go,” I say woodenly to Justin, and start for the door.

  “Just like that?” Justin protests so loudly it’s almost a yell. “You drop this unbelievable story on me and then you’re just going to leave?”

  I half turn back to him, “It’s late. I’m tired and clearly, this was all a mistake.”

  For a second there’s pain on Justin’s face as he hears the hard note in my voice and realizes what I mean. “You’re really going to leave like this?”

  I don’t answer; I turn and flee down the stairs. There’s no answer I can give him really. I tried the truth and he thought I was crazy. I’m burning with anger but even in the middle of the emotion, I know it isn’t fair. How could I possibly expect him to believe me? I didn’t even really believe all this.

  I don’t go home. At least I don’t go to my mother’s home. I drive over to Dad’s. He buzzes me in, gets me a glass of water and a face cloth and leaves me alone. I close the bedroom door behind me and let myself sink onto the fluffy deep bed. Down the hall I can hear him on the phone with my mother. Even lost in my own troubles I cringe a little for him. It can’t be a pleasant conversation. I take a deep breath and then whisper to Ephraim, “Might as well manifest, I’m alone.”

  “That was intense.” He’s looking at me with concern, but right away I began to feel the warm, summer, sunlight feeling of calm and contentment that he brings with him.

  I let my breath out, blowing out my cheeks. “Which part?”

  He reaches out and brushes his fingertips across my cheek. I feel a slight pressure and a faint warmth, like a light breeze has played over my skin. “I’m glad to be with you again, and to see you safe and sound.” His eyes, always so calm, are coloured with worry and there’s a hint of something greater. Fear?

  “You don’t know how glad I am to see you!” I blurt out. I steady myself, trying to calm my voice and keep the flush from rising in my cheeks. The entire time he’s been gone I’ve been aware of a vague, indistinct ache and now that he’s back it feels like I can breathe deeply again at last. I’m finally beginning to understand what bonded together means. At least for me, it means that time away from him is painful. I feel empty, incomplete, and unsteady without him.

  Now that he’s here I can finally think clearly again. I try to focus my thoughts on the things I really need to say to him. “Seems like you left out a few important details on the ‘welcome to the ethereal world’ tour. You glossed over the bits about ethereal body snatchers in the neighbourhood and I don’t think I remember the rock slides, murder attempts, dead ravens or exploding glass being among the highlights of spending my life with you.” I mean to be angry with him, but the emotion is melting with the relief of being with him again.

  “I didn’t wish to frighten you. The Numina so rarely gain entrance to your world. It has been almost a thousand years since the last such incursion. I hoped I could offer you only the best of my world, without its horror.”

  “Well that’s not working out very well for us is it?” I say sarcastically, but I can’t hold on to the emotion with him all contrite before me. “Okay, new set of questions. What exactly is going on here? And this time let’s focus on the body snatching and murder attempts.”

  Ephraim sighs. “The Numina are unlike Ethereals. We share the same plane but our energies are incompatible in every way. We literally repel each other.” He sits next to me. “They’re obsessed with experiencing the human world. But that’s not the way the world is ordered. Humans have this world with its joys and perils; we have our own with its endless beauty but limited experiences. To exist here at all they have to breach the barriers between the worlds and occupy a human body; naturally the human resists this possession.” He reaches for my hand, laying his lightly on top of mine and the pressure is steady and almost solid.

  “But you don’t need to occupy a body to exist here?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, “No. Ethereals have the ability to persist in the human plane. But I do require a connection to your world, through you.”

  “Wait,” I say, struggling against the urge to just enjoy being with him, to let myself feel soothed and happy. Important things are happening here. “So the Numina have broken into my world for the first time in a thousand years? Why now?” A terrible guess forms in my mind, but I need to hear him say it.

  “Becks.” His hand tightens around mine.

  I take a deep breath but still when I speak my voice is small. “Because of me, isn’t it? Because you brought me back. That’s how they got through.” Ephraim nods slowly. He lets go of my hand and puts his arm around me, drawing me against him. I lean my head against his chest and I can feel the warmth of his body and his steady, slow heartbeat. I close my eyes, just for a minute, letting myself rest. And the next second, I’m dreaming.

  But the dream is very different from the ones I’ve experienced with Ephraim before. For one thing, we are just standing on a paved road. There is no fantastic, breath taking landscape and I don’t feel the dreamy tugging away of my mind. Ephraim steps into my line of sight, looking around him curiously. “Where are we Becks?” he asks, walking up to me. “Where did you bring us?”

  I start to tell him I don’t know, that this road looks just the same as any other to me, then I see it- a tree with huge scrapings of bark taken out of it, just off the side of the road. My eyes lock onto the pavement and even though I know what I’ll see there, I have to look. Walking forward, I kneel on the shoulder of the road where a dark stain has set into the pavement. I hold my fingers just above it, tracing the stain without really touching it. “Don’t you know?” I ask him softly, “this is where I died.”

  Ephraim kneels next to me. “But why are we here Becks? This isn’t a nightmare, why did you bring us here?” He stands, turning in a slow circle and scanning the dream place.

  “I didn’t realize I could bring us anywhere. I thought it was all you.” But I stand too, turning, looking for, something. Maybe there really is something here my mind needs to see. Unconsciously I step back so that I’m standing back to back with Ephraim. I feel his solid body press against mine and a little thrill goes through me. We turn together, like we’re fending off some invisible attack, and then something flashes in the shadows. “Ephraim,” I hiss.

  Something dark and glassy glints out from the leaves of the forest. The rest of the memory comes flooding back and the dream fills in all the horrifying details. The twisted metal crushed against the tree, the smoke billowing out from it, one door thrown open and the limp figure of a girl with brown hair fanned against the pavement, painted in the dark reds of blood. A thick pool of it outlines her body, a grimmer version of a chalk outline. Bile rises in my throat. This is the place my dreams always try to take me, the place they always would have without Ephraim’s gentle interference.

  But there’s something important missing here. With an effort I wrench my focus away from the blood, the strange position of the body, my body, and look around. Something is missing, another body. Where is Derrick? I run over and haul the car door open, nothing. There’s no body, no blood. I spin, and see it again; darkly shining eyes in the forest. “Ephraim!” My voice shakes with hysteria. “I want to be somewhere else. Take us somewhere else!”

  A cool mist surrounds my body and whiteness blots out the scene, erasing both the vision and the feelings. This place
is calm, soothing and yet, still part of the dream. Ephraim grips me firmly, turning my eyes towards his. “You’re safe with me Becks. Now and always. Breathe.”

  He smiles his slow, steady smile and the last of my terror melts away from me, becoming as insubstantial as the place we stand. “We’re between the worlds?”

  He nods. “We are. This is where you went next, after the accident. This is when we met, and when my life really began.” He takes my hand gently in his, holding my eyes, “I tried to apologize once before, and you told me that anything that happened was worth the price. You were just grateful to be alive, do you remember?” I nod. “I think the price is going to end up being steeper than we thought.”

  Chapter 8: Tangible

  Bolstered by my time with Ephraim in the ether, I’m together enough to face my mom so I drive home after breakfast. Mom is in full lecture mode when I get home, listing a variety of supposed sins, everything from not having the consideration to call her myself, to going to a wild party in the first place, to failing in my responsibilities to my friends… Her emotions fluctuate from moment to moment as she rants. The strange thing is that for the first time I feel like I’m really seeing her, Evelyn Wade-Pierce, the person. Under all her lecture and anger she’s worried and exhausted. A dark shadow rings her eyes; did she sleep at all last night?

  So I let her talk herself out, until she finally subsides into silence. I look her in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry I worried you. It was a bad night.” And then my bout of maturity ends and I rush up the stairs. I throw myself on my bed as a hot rush of tears come pouring down my cheeks. I’m crying about of lot of heavy things; my parents, Justin, the Numina, how complicated everything is. The life I’ve always known is over and I have no idea how to fix things.

  The quality of the air around me changes, lightening and growing warmer. I struggle to staunch the flow of tears. My nose is stuffed and my face is probably reddened with blotches. Crying always makes look sickening. The thought starts me crying again, but this time it’s pure self-pity. A hand tentatively, haltingly brushes across my back. “I’m sorry things are so difficult,” Ephraim murmurs.

  I push myself up from the bed and meet Ephraim’s sparkling eyes. The anguish lessens enough for me to smile at him weakly. “Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have told him. I know it all sounds crazy and he’s like, Mr. Rationality. I just thought he’d back me up, no matter what. He’s always been that guy for me.”

  Ephraim smiles his knee weakening smile, “Maybe, I could be that guy for you instead. What do you need; A shoulder to cry on? A confident? A boyfriend?” His voice is teasing but I can see the gleam of hope in his eyes, “I could be any or all of those things for you.”

  I look at him, so sincere and honest and shake my head, “See now I know you’re not real. No real guy says things like that and means it.”

  His smile disappears leaving only the deep intensity beneath his teasing words. “Maybe no human boy could say it and mean it, but I mean it. I’m yours. Anyway you need me to be, I’m completely, entirely yours.”

  A shiver runs up my arms and comes squeezing into my belly, which flutters in response. But I don’t know what I can possibly say. Maybe sixteen is too young to have someone pledge their whole existence to you. Maybe it would be overwhelming at any age. I laugh nervously, “I could probably use a tutor then. I think it’s not working out with my last one. Are you any good at math?”

  “I’m good at everything,” he says and winks at me.

  So I spend probably the weirdest day of my life doing something completely normal. I pull out my school books and Ephraim and I sit together trying to catch me up. It turns out he really is good at math, and history, and English. When I ask him about it he gives me one of his inscrutable answers about multifaceted awareness, whatever that meant.

  Mom pokes her head in a few times. Whatever lecture she’s planned on gives way when she sees me bent over a pile of books. Her eyes flicker over to the chair pulled up invitingly next to my books, where Ephraim is sitting quietly. I tense as she lingers but then a look of sympathy crosses her face and I realize she isn’t reacting to Ephraim but to the conspicuously empty chair. “He’ll call sweetheart,” she says, in her reassuring voice.

  My eyes shift to the chair, and sweep across Ephraim from his honey gold eyes to his pink lips and perfect body. “Honestly, I hope he doesn’t. I turned my phone off.”

  She shifts her weight on her feet, “Oh Rebecca. I thought I raised you better than that. It’s cruel to freeze someone out. You need to face your problems head on, not run away from them.”

  I sigh. I’m not about to listen to relationship advice from my mom of all people. I want to scream at her, ban her from my room, throw all the crap in her face that she’s done but how can I with Ephraim watching? So instead I let all the warmth drain from my voice as I say, “I really have a lot of work to do mom. If you don’t mind?”

  But just like every girl who claims she doesn’t want a boy to call, a part of me wants him to at least try. I want the option to freeze him out or maybe make up. And a big part of me feels disappointed and hurt that he doesn’t.

  Monday morning has never been my favourite but this morning a cool mist drifts in from the sea and was blankets the town. Even on ordinary days I hate the fog, the way it mutes the sounds around me and makes me feel both simultaneously claustrophobic and isolated. Today, the fog is so thick that I can only see a vague outline of the school from my parking spot on the far side of the lot. Chilly droplets cling to me as I open the car door and step onto the concrete. The one plus side of the fog is that Ephraim says it makes manifesting virtually effortless. He appears beside me on the concrete and looks so real and vivid that I can’t stop myself from reaching out. His arm is warm and steady under my fingers. He grins and winds his fingers around mine, leaning close to me. “I could walk you in,” he suggests softly. “In this weather, I can be tangible.”

  “Tangible?”

  He smiles his best, tantalizing smile, “Visible, solid, like a real human.”

  It’s a tempting offer. Appear on the arm of a stunning and mysterious stranger and wow the masses. There are a lot of reasons why not, but with him looking at me so intensely and offering me his arm with a flourish, I can’t help myself. I let my hand rest lightly on his left bicep, feeling the firmness of his arm beneath my fingers. He glances down at my hand and I feel a tingle run along his arm. “You feel so vibrant.” He cocks his head toward the school. “I suppose we should get you in there.”

  Just a week ago I slunk down the hallway, cringing as everyone turned to stare at me. Now? I almost strut through the doors with Ephraim at my side. On the fringes of my awareness I hear the murmurings, catch the astonished and impressed looks, but most of my attention is on Ephraim. He draws me aside in the threshold and bends his head, brushing his lips ever so slightly across my cheek. “I won’t go far,” he whispers in my ear and then he steps away and lets the door swing shut between us. I turn away from him reluctantly, and realize the entire hallway has stopped to watch us.

  A smug little smile paints itself on my face as I saunter toward class. I’m having a cool kid moment, getting a taste of what it would have been like to really be in the “it” crowd, rather than perpetually on the fringes. I can’t say I hate the envious looks.

  My moment of triumph doesn’t last long. At the end of the hall a knot of girls moves aside and I see Justin and Matt. I can’t tell exactly what Justin’s thinking but his emotions play somewhere between hurt, anger and confusion; the unholy trinity of betrayal. He meets my eyes for a minute and then stalks away from me. Which is bad enough, but far, far worse is the look on Matt’s face when he turns to me. His eyes are cold and glittering with malice. He smirks at me, “Look who’s all grown up and playing the field.” His voice is icy and hard.

  Dread races down my body, chilling me from the inside out. I step closer to Matt, scrutinizing him. His skin is a healthy, normal pi
nk and his eyes are their normal brown but the anger and the violence I sense in him are completely alien. He doesn’t look possessed but somehow, I know he is. I quiver of fear sneaks into my voice as I ask, “Matt?” He smiles; a broad, toothy smile that makes him look like a predator. I shake my head, “You’re not Matt. You’re one of them. Who are you?”

  The smirk contorts into something even uglier, naked hatred. “You rip me out of my body, almost drive me back into that eternal, ethereal hell and you just forget it, move on, and go back to dancing? Maybe you’d like to feel what it’s like to be peeled out of your body and sent screaming into the white void.”

  I gulp down the bile rising in my throat. There’s something familiar about his cold, hateful tone. I’ve heard it before, in the garden behind the party. And I saw the darkness in Mark’s eyes as he tried to possess me. “Inteus.” I stare into his eyes, trying for bravery, but also finding it difficult to look away at all. It’s like being asleep and trying to wake up.

  “That’s better. You’ll have to excuse the liberty I’ve taken, accosting you in the hallway but, in my defense, I’ve been trying to get you alone for quite a while. It’s going to be so much more enjoyable now.” His voice is a quiet purr that becomes softer and softer as he speaks. The world has narrowed down to his eyes. He takes a step to the side and indicates that I should follow him, “Shall we?”

  My foot jerks forward in one halting step. As I move the air behind him flickers wildly, like fireflies caught in a whirlwind. The light, fragmented but warm and bright dazzles my eyes. I blink furiously, eyes streaming. When they clear I can see Inteus standing close to me. Under Matt’s normal skin and brown, human eyes there is a blue sheen, like he’s standing in club lighting. It makes his skin look sick and distorted. I see it now, the signs of possession. And with that insight, the hold he has over me crumbles.