Of Delicate Pieces

by A. Lynden Rolland

  What’s the big deal?

  I’ve found myself wondering the same thing. If we have another prophet on our hands in the form of Alex Ash, so what? Isn’t it a good thing to know where our future might lead?

  What’s all the hype about? Well, let me tell you a little bit about Sephi Anovark. Her gift. She was the Joan of Arc of the 1800s, using her visions to aid the Union Army during the American Civil War. When she was living, she was a myth, already a ghost in a sense, but her tall tale was no fairy tale. Her ending was far from happy.

  She was a celebrity, a “Marilyn.” They call her captivating, a vixen who rolled with the likes of General Ulysses S. Grant and Walt Whitman in life, and in death, the politically dynamic DeLyre brothers; the fallen genius, Syrus Raive; and our very own hero, Ardor Westfall. People were infatuated with her then, as they remain now.

  What would the human masses do if a dead ringer (pun intended) for Marilyn Monroe waltzed into a coffee shop in Los Angeles? I’m willing to bet the reactions would be the same if Sephi Anovark strolled into Broderick Square. Pandemonium occurred the first time Alex Ash innocently tiptoed along the endless knot at the stoop of the tower. With the release of one portrait photo, Alex Ash became larger than (after) life.

  This is not necessarily a good thing. I, for one, would not choose to switch places with her if given the opportunity. For as many people who loved Sephi, an equal number despised her. During her short stint as an Ardor aide, she helped to imprison forty-seven spirits, half of who never sat before a jury. The world simply accepted Sephi’s accusations as the truth; the accused were indicted on her word alone. Scary. As a result, Sephi could not leave the city without an army of Patrollers flanking her side, led by Commander-turned-Professor Henry Van Hanlin.

  Note: No Van Hanlin updates to report. He is actively listed as missing.

  So what’s to fear? Well, let’s say Alex Ash claims you’re planning to blow up a frequency wave. Will you automatically be arrested? By nature, we feel the need to protect ourselves, and does a Sephi sequel stand in the way of our freedoms or our comforts?

  After all, Sephi part one sparked a change in our world to ignite a full-on restructuring in our way of living. Do we want another Restructuring? Is that what will happen? Will Alex be used to generate political fear? Societal fear? And if that’s the case, should she be dealt with now? These questions seem to be at the center of our issue. Are we happy with the way the afterlife is run now? Or worse, are we not?

  People fear the unknown.

  And that’s the big deal.

  Alex couldn’t fault Sigorny for bringing to light some important facts, but the girl enjoyed shining light in the darkest of places.

  “Is today’s article worse than yesterday’s?”

  Skye shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is the article about watching my back?”

  “You’re getting closer. She didn’t come right out and directly say that, but it’s sort of implied.”

  “I’m done guessing.”

  “Drumroll, please. The article is about—” Skye paused for dramatic effect “—tourism.”

  “Oh. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Before I read it, I thought the same thing,” Skye said. “You can probably guess why so many spirits are visiting the town.”

  “To see me.”

  “The gist of the article is that the city should prepare itself for even more tourism. Shop owners are ecstatic, townies are annoyed, and the visitors, yeah, they are here to catch a glimpse of you, and they aren’t afraid to say it. Fame comes at a price.”

  “Are visitors allowed on the school campus?”

  “Of course not, but are you planning to limit yourself to the Brigitta campus?”

  Alex hadn’t thought of this. As soon as she stepped foot through the alleyway leading to Lazuli Street and the city beyond, it was public domain. “Can anyone get into the city?”

  “Any spirit? Yes.”

  “How do they find it?”

  “Like the bodied would, genius. They follow a map. Supposedly, the sky shines brighter over our little city, and that helps, too.”

  “A map through frequency waves and following light. That’s hardly traveling like the bodied.”

  Skye tapped her fingers along the edge of the railing, giving Alex a forced smile.

  “What do you think? They won’t try to keep me confined to Brigitta, will they?”

  “Do you want to read the article?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay, then. I guess I’ll tell you. This year marks the centennial of the current civility laws.”

  “In plain English please.”

  “Seriously? We have brilliant minds.”

  “I just woke up. Give me the plain and simple facts.”

  “Fine. One hundred years ago, the spirited and the gifted came to a truce about how they would interact.”

  “I thought there was no interaction.”

  “Exactly. That was the truce. Sephi Anovark was really close to changing it, but she died at the wrong time. Her ambitions died with her, so the agreement became that we would live peacefully but separately.”

  Alex heard her name whispered multiple times among the conversations seven stories below in the vestibule. They flew upward and fused together in a wavy question mark of light.

  “It’s some big thing called the Centennial, and it’s going to bring in even more tourism.”

  “The gifted are going to come in to see the city?”

  Skye put a hand over her heart. “They’d never let the gifted in here.”

  Alex assumed that once the summer was over, her fifteen minutes of fame would end. She didn’t know whether to feel anticipation or dread, to know on which side the grass would be greener. The funny thing about being dead though was that these tourists had all the time in the world to tread on that grass. Especially tourists who wanted to sneak a peek at a newbury who was identical to one of Eidolon’s most tragic figures.

  Little did they know, she wasn’t related to Sephi Anovark, and, most importantly, she had no psychic abilities. She wasn’t special. “That’s all that the article said?”

  Skye nodded her head and then shook it. “There were a few quotes from witnesses who had already seen you. Freaking out. Are you aware that there’s a map of where you usually go in the city?”

  She didn’t know whether to be flattered or afraid. “What a way to start the new season.”

  Skye hopped into movement. “Not until tomorrow! Let’s get going. We have a lot to do today.”

  “We have nothing to do today.”

  “Don’t you have group therapy?”

  Alex followed Skye to the winding ramp leading down to the vestibule. “Like I said. Nothing.”

  She despised therapy. Wallowing in her feelings and whining about death was a waste of time.

  At the foot of the ramp, Skye turned. “Here. I almost forgot.” She plucked the flower from her ear, presenting it to Alex before descending down the stairs.

  “What’s this?”

  “Morning Glory. It should bring you some peace.”

  Alex examined the blue flower in her palm.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Skye was contradicting herself. If Alex truly had nothing to worry about, why would she need something to invoke peace?

  Chapter Two

  Alex’s definition for group therapy: a platform for complainers to do what they do best. She wished she could shove them from that platform one by one. She had plenty of compassion, a trait which often got her into trouble, but as someone who grew up with limitations, she’d never been able to stomach people who felt so sorry for themselves that they needed others to pity them, too.

  Whining sounded different to dead ears. It shrieked and squealed, scratching its nails across whatever part of her mind still gave her the ability to hear. She slouched in her s
eat, grimacing, as the blond girl seated next to her sobbed into her fist. Alex wondered for the umpteenth time if Ellington Reynes had sentenced her to group therapy in order to test whether or not she was still clinically insane. If she wasn’t already crazy, this would do the trick.

  The only deterrent was a pair of cold blue eyes that snared her attention. Chase flinched every time the girl sobbed but didn’t divert his gaze. Alex gladly fell into those icy pools, and he must have liked her thoughts because the corner of his wide mouth curled. The lights began to flicker and buzz like an impending power outage. The other newburies in the circle looked upward nervously, but Ellington sighed. He was familiar with the source of the surge. The energy between Alex and Chase caused electricity to go haywire. A few weeks ago, they caused a blackout all the way down Lazuli Street simply because Chase kissed her in the middle of the road.

  Ellington’s hair stood on end. He snapped his fingers at the lights, and they calmed. “Not to worry, my friends. Our emotions are difficult to control. After an event as traumatic as death, the intensity of our feelings makes the world around us react.”

  What a crock. He knew sorrow couldn’t produce such energy—it devoured it—while the more powerful emotions, like anger or passion, fueled it.

  “Moving on,” Ellington said, smoothing down his hair and straightening his bowtie. “Let’s continue where we left off last week.”

  Alex lowered her head, brushing the floor with her stare, hoping to be overlooked.

  “Behavior patterns. Physical reactions. Anything to share?”

  Swish, swish, swish. Alex swept the floor with her mind. She watched as the dust shifted under the strength of her concentration. She crisscrossed the pattern to make a tic-tac-toe board. Ellington really needed to clean his floors.

  “Chase? How have your physical reactions been?”

  Alex’s eyes snapped up, and the dust rose with them. What reactions? Her thoughts were louder than she intended because Chase looked at her and shrugged.

  “You aren’t alone, you know,” Ellington pressed. “Hardly anyone here died of natural causes. It is normal following a traumatic event to experience flashbacks. We are haunted by our pasts more than anything else. Chase, what usually happens to you?”

  Alex’s mind tingled as she felt Chase’s thoughts twirl nervously, like the race of a heartbeat. The memory of her pulse began to race.

  “May I share?” Gabe spoke up.

  Chase visibly relaxed.

  “I, um, we died in a car accident.” Gabe cleared his throat, and Alex felt a lump develop in hers. They never spoke much about their deaths. This was why she hated this “therapy.” She did not consider reliving pain to be a form of treatment.

  “I didn’t die right away.” Gabe waved his hand at the dust still rising into the air. “And sometimes if I’m bumped from the side or if I hear something shatter or crunch, it’s like I’m back there again. It’s intense, like being stuck in a nightmare.”

  Ellington nodded. “Memories define us and destroy us. Trauma victims in life experience the same sorts of flashbacks but to a much lesser degree. Your minds are powerful now, and it intensifies your memories.”

  Heads bobbed around the circle in agreement.

  “What do you see when it happens, Gabe?”

  He ran a hand through his blond curls. “I’m not sure, but when we crashed, I think the bottom half of my body was stuck under some part of the car. I could see everything. One of my brothers had been ejected. He was lying in the middle of the road, but I couldn’t tell who it was because he … whoever it was, they weren’t completely there. I think something else must have hit him after the initial crash.”

  Stills of their funeral flashed through Alex’s mind like a series of snapshots. Each of the Lasalles had a closed casket. She felt herself collapsing. She remembered the blinding hatred she felt toward death and yet how much she wanted to crawl into those caskets with them. She heard herself screaming, her voice echoing through the church as though several people were screaming along with her. Everyone had covered their ears. Her mind flashed to an image of the field outside of the Eskers. Again, she was screaming. Again, they covered their ears. This time, she made the world freeze with the power of her despair. Like a banshee.

  She studied the scars a banshee had lashed onto Gabe’s face. The half-moon along his cheek stretched as he spoke. “I remember letting go of my life. Part of me wonders if I could have fought harder, if I would have lived. I didn’t even try. And I feel guilty for that.”

  “How long does the flashback last?” Ellington asked.

  “A few seconds? A few minutes? When I snap out, I’m drained afterward.”

  “Headache?”

  Gabe nodded.

  “It takes time, but it will get better. And we certainly do have time here. Simply by sharing it, you may have accelerated your healing process.”

  “How does sharing it help?” Sobbing blond girl asked.

  “If the quake of a trauma fails to maul your spirit, the aftershocks might attempt to eat you alive. I recommend accepting it as a part of you instead of denying its existence.”

  “Will it ever go away?”

  “Depends. Some allow it to consume them.”

  “What happens then?”

  “Some of you have witnessed what happens to a lost-minded spirit.”

  A faint banshee wail shrieked from somewhere in the filing of Alex’s mind. Her own scream erupted along with it. They harmonized like a horror ballad.

  “Treatment centers exist for that purpose.”

  This got her attention. The screams ceased. “Treatment centers for banshees, too?”

  Ellington nodded. “There are spirits who believe that broken minds can be pieced back together and that we should help them. But that’s a subject for another day and another workshop. Anyone else have similar experiences, flashbacks, or reactions?”

  Alex saw Gabe’s comfort rise with the hands that rose into the air like flowers growing through the cracks of concrete. He wasn’t alone.

  Blond girl hiccupped. “I can’t believe so many of us experience the same things. I thought it was only my friends.”

  Friends? Alex mentally scolded herself for being so surprised that this crybaby had friends. Only the “chokers,” who wallowed over their deaths despite the inevitability of their situation, would allow someone so depressing into their circle.

  Half the seats in the room shifted from rickety folding chairs to cushy armchairs. Alex’s didn’t. She never felt comfortable in therapy.

  Ellington curled his feet under him, pleased. His chair was now a red, velvet loveseat with squishy arms and a throw blanket. “Once we accept that despite our differences we are all connected, weaved together in this blanket of civilization, we can truly be at peace.”

  “That’s never happened,” Carr Cadman said. He’d told the group he dreamed his whole life—all eighteen years—of being a marine. During his first deployment, he died within the week. Sometimes, a gaping hole would appear in his chest, right where his heart had been. Perhaps that explained his cynicism.

  Ellington shifted the pillow under his elbow. “Unfortunately, greed, selfishness, and stubbornness are also human traits. Think about how different your lives were, and yet you are all feeling the same things now. You would never have known it if you didn’t speak to one another.”

  Chase’s chair was still as stiff and uncomfortable as Alex’s. But when Ellington had asked who in the group experienced the flashbacks, he raised his hand. It hurt Alex’s heart to think the memories might pain him.

  She saw what he remembered: a lopsided world with shattered glass, yellow lines on the road, and a battered hand reaching forward. In a flash, it changed to the field at the Eskers, a sheer image like a hologram before her.

  Sometimes I’m back in the car. Other times, I’m in the field, and I can’t save you. Both times I can’t move. I hate it.

 
; She’d seen this before. She couldn’t distinguish whose memories were whose anymore. Alex could be sitting in class and suddenly she’d feel like she was flying. Then, she’d feel herself hit the ground. Her body would shake with the impact even though she hadn’t left her seat. She felt what Chase was feeling during a game at the ball fields, a jolting and difficult sensation to conceal without seeming crazy.

  Someone would discover their secret, eventually, if they hadn’t already. Every month since the attack, she and Chase were required to check in at Dianab Medical Center. Doctors stuck tubes to their heads and wrote on their clipboards, whispering to one another.

  What’s the matter? Chase asked. The strength of the invisible bridge between them reached across the circle and held her.

  Nothing’s the matter, she replied. Nothing at all.

  Chase made a lemon-sour face as though he could taste the lie.

  Chapter Three

  Sigorny Liechtenstein had always been nosy. Her father called her inquisitive. Her mother called her a busybody. Her teachers called her obtrusive which she thought was a compliment until she was old enough to use a dictionary.

  She was the eager girl who would tag along with the popular crowd even if they ridiculed her for it. Sure, she wanted to fit in, but her motivation was more so to appease her infatuation with the most intriguing people, to see what made these people tick. If she had discovered her love for journalism in life, she might have found an outlet. It might have saved her. She wouldn’t have been so willing to be cool, to drink so much of that pungent Southern Comfort before following the homecoming queen into the ocean for a late night swim. After Sigorny died, she used to dream every single night of drowning in those harsh, black waters. She would burn as the water filled her lungs. She hated the silence of her scream. The water became gentle far under the surface, rocking her to eternal sleep. That sleep turned out to be anything but restful.