by Alicia Rades
By the time we reached Divination, I had finished my sandwich. I balled up the wrapper and shoved it in my pocket. The bell on the door dinged when we walked in.
“Crystal. Derek. It’s great to see you,” Diane greeted when she noticed us.
I smiled and gave her a hug. When I pulled away, I noticed the expression on her face. It was almost a wince. “Are you okay, Diane?”
She shook her head slightly, as if trying to rid her mind of a strange feeling. “I’m fine. I just have a bit of a headache. Nothing to worry about.”
Her hands were still touching me, and although I wasn’t as good at assessing emotions recently as I should have been, something told me she was masking the severity of the situation.
“I’ve been getting headaches, too,” I told her. “I even have one now.”
She gave an encouraging smile. “See? Nothing to worry about.”
“Is Andrea around?” Derek asked.
Diane’s eyes finally met his. “No. She and Sophie went out to pick us up some lunch.”
Derek pressed his lips together. “Oh. We just came by for some chocolates.” He pushed his way into the store and past the costumes to eye the candy by the counter.
“Diane,” I whispered. “What’s going on? Your headache?”
She looked at me with concern in her eyes. Then she grabbed my arm and led me into the second room in the shop, the one that used to be another business until they’d expanded and punched a doorway in the wall.
My heart pounded against my chest in worry. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice came out as a low whisper. “I just suddenly got these flashes. It made me go kind of woozy.”
“Flashes?” I asked cautiously. “What do you mean?”
Diane could see into the past—that was her psychic superpower—but I’d never actually seen her powers in action. She fell silent like she didn’t want to tell me. Finally, as if realizing she couldn’t hide it from me, she spoke. “It was just flashes of memories, honestly. But it was like I was seeing them through someone else’s eyes.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
Diane shook her head.
“How does it work? Your gift?”
She pressed her lips together. “It’s like seeing memories, but I know they’re not my own.”
I had a good idea of what she meant. It was the sort of feeling I got when I tried to find things by touch. I just knew where to find them.
“And now?” I asked.
“It’s nothing really. I wouldn’t worry about it.” And she left it at that.
We returned to the main room. Derek’s face was still glued to the chocolates in front of him. It was like he hadn’t even noticed we’d left. I passed by the rows of costumes on my way to him, fingering a few as I went.
“Do you know what you’re going to be for Halloween?” Diane asked.
I shook my head. “I should get on that, though. The festival is only a week and a half away.”
“Do you know what you want to be, Derek?” she asked, finally getting him to look up from the chocolate.
He shrugged. “I don’t even know if I’ll go.”
“What?” I practically screeched. “How could you not?” Only a moment later did I realize it was probably because Emma would be there. If he was trying to avoid her, he wouldn’t really have anyone else to hang out with. “Never mind. What kind of chocolate are you thinking about getting?”
“Truffles sound good.”
Derek and I returned to the school, but I hadn’t managed to cheer him up or learn more about what was bothering him. I didn’t get another chance to talk to him, and he didn’t show up for our volleyball game.
“He just quit when we only had two games left?” Coach Kathy asked in disbelief before the game started.
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
A muscle popped in her jaw. “He should have come to me and told me.”
All I could do was apologize, not that I really had anything to apologize for, but I hated to see Coach Kathy so upset.
Chapter 12
That night after the game, I locked myself in my room and opened my laptop. I hoped to learn something more about the shadow ghost before we tried contacting him tomorrow. I started with an Internet search to find out more about recent deaths at SMU. The most recent death was of a young man, who was said to have died of natural causes, but his frame was too small to be my shadow ghost.
The second most recent death I found was of a young woman. I paused for a second, wondering if my shadow ghost could be female, but when I pictured the outline in my mind, I knew for sure it was a man. The shoulders were too broad and hips too narrow to be a woman.
I skipped over the following women’s deaths and focused on the males. The school seemed to average about two deaths per year—both faculty and students—which I didn’t think sounded too odd considering the thousands of people who attended the school.
After what felt like hours of searching, I came across at least two dozen articles about different male students’ deaths, but none of their photos seemed to match the outline of the ghost I saw.
How much further back do I go? I wondered. I’d never seen his clothing, and his hair seemed a timeless close cut, so I had no way of knowing if he had died within the past few years or if he’d been haunting the school for a century.
I noticed how most of the deaths I ran across hadn’t actually occurred on campus. Some, I assumed, were due to illnesses while others mentioned car accidents. The only one I found that mentioned an on-campus death was about a professor who’d had a heart attack in his office. Only, he didn’t seem to fit the profile, either.
Could the ghost I’d been seeing perhaps have died somewhere else? But then, what was he doing on campus? I only hoped that by some miracle I would learn more about him when we tried contacting him.
“So, tell us more about this ghost, Crystal,” Sophie said on Wednesday night after we’d situated ourselves around my kitchen table for the séance.
I glanced around at the four women at the table: my mom, Emma, Sophie, and Diane. Teddy was back at Roger’s working on the crib. Quickly realizing how nervous I must have appeared, I forced myself to relax.
“I don’t know that much,” I admitted. I knew so little about this ghost that I thought for sure this séance wouldn’t work. “I saw him on the SMU campus when we visited, and I thought I might be able to help.”
“What did he look like?” Diane asked.
I chewed the dry skin on my lip. “Does that matter? Will it help?”
She shrugged. “It might help us focus on him better.”
What could I say? “Um . . . He was kind of tall, short hair, an athletic build, I guess. He was pretty normal.” Except that he was just a shadow! I held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t ask any more questions about his appearance. Luckily, they didn’t. “Uh, this is probably going to be tough. I don’t know his name or what happened to him.”
“Well, we could all try focusing on the university,” my mom suggested. “If he’s attached to it, it might help create a more familiar atmosphere in the room for him.”
That sounded like our only option, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up too high. I mean, sure, I wanted to help him. I just didn’t think I could. We linked hands around the table, and I instructed everyone to relax.
“Um . . . ghost?” I called out. I didn’t know how else to address him. “We can help you.”
Nothing.
I forced uncertainty out of my mind and allowed the muscles in my neck to relax. I reminded everyone to do the same. This went on for quite some time. Deep breath in, and out. Relax. Think of the SMU campus. Remind everyone to do the same. Think of the ghost’s silhouette. Deep breath in, and out. Relax.
“We can help you,” I repeated again.
Again and again we went through this cycle. We can do this, I thought to myself. Deep breath in, and out. Relax.
A tingling sensation, thou
gh small, made its way into my body. It was hardly noticeable at first. Normally, my psychic feelings were much stronger, but I was relaxed enough that I recognized the sensation. I didn’t let myself get too excited just yet. I needed more energy.
Deep breath in, and out. Relax.
“What do you want? We can help,” I called out again. My eyes were closed to help me relax, but in my next deep breath, they shot open as a wave of energy coursed through me.
A man stood across the table from me. He had short dirty blond hair and striking blue eyes. His body was surrounded in a bright glow that illuminated his features. Now that I saw his eyes, they looked familiar. Only a split second later did I fully register where I knew him from, and suddenly, all my memories of this man came rushing back. My mouth fell open in shock, but I couldn’t manage to speak, to ask him what he was doing here.
“I don’t have much time, Crystal,” he said.
Tears began to well in my eyes.
“I’ve already crossed over, so it takes an incredible amount of energy to appear here tonight.”
Is that why I saw him as a shadow? I wondered. Because he wasn’t earth-bound?
“I need to warn you,” he continued. “It won’t be long before you have to make a choice. You are going to have to save three of the people you love most.”
My breath caught in my chest. What could he possibly mean?
His next words sent my world tumbling down.
“Soon, you’ll have to die to save the ones you love.”
My hands flew to my mouth, breaking the circle. I hadn’t been thinking. One moment he was there, and the next, he was gone. By breaking the circle, I’d weakened the energy in the room, and he instantly disappeared.
No! Come back! I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t get the words out.
“Uh, Crystal?” Emma’s voice seemed far off. “What happened?”
I blinked a few times and finally swallowed the lump in my throat. When I looked around the table, everyone’s eyes were fixed on me.
“You didn’t see him?” I asked.
They all shook their heads. Of course they didn’t. They never saw ghosts.
“I felt something,” my mother admitted. “There was some sort of energy, but I couldn’t hear him, and you didn’t talk to him. What happened?”
I have to die to save the people I love. That’s what he had said. My life for those of the three people I loved most. I didn’t have enough time to consider the concept as eight eyes stared back at me, waiting for an answer.
“I was so shocked when he showed up that I accidentally broke the circle,” I lied. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think he’d show.”
“We can try again,” Sophie suggested.
“I’m actually really tired. That took a lot out of me.” At least that wasn’t a lie.
“Maybe some other time,” Diane said. “You have had a rough couple of weeks.”
“Thanks,” I told her. I opened my mouth to speak again. I had to tell them who I’d just seen, only I couldn’t manage to find the right words. I fell silent.
After we’d given up, I found my way to my room as soon as I could. I pulled Luna down from her shelf and cuddled her closer to my chest than I ever had before. I pressed my nose into the stuffed owl’s head and inhaled her scent. It helped soothe my anxiety slightly so that when I raised my head, I was finally able to absorb what had just happened.
For the first time since the car accident that killed him a decade ago, I’d seen my father.
Chapter 13
Hours later, I still hadn’t fallen asleep. I couldn’t believe my father had spoken to me. All these months that I’d been talking to him—never knowing if he was there or not—he’d been listening.
Except, what could I possibly make out of the warning of my own death? When I got the warning about Sage’s death, it was because I was supposed to save her. Was that what I was supposed to do here? Only, if I survived, did that mean the three people I loved most would die? That’d be my mom, Emma, and Robin. What was supposed to happen to them? When? How? If only I hadn’t broken the circle, I may have gotten my answers to those questions.
My chest compressed, and my head grew increasingly sore from the tension I couldn’t hold back. I’d already cried out all the tears I could manage. Now, my sobs only came in dry heaves. I buried my head into my pillow so no one would hear me.
“Daddy, come back. Please, I need answers.” I called out to him again and again, but he never appeared. I’m not sure he could. He told me it wasn’t easy for him to show himself. If he could hardly manage it with a room full of psychics, then he wasn’t going to show when it was just me—and a broken me at that.
Even though he couldn’t appear to me, I suspected he could somehow hear me. That brought me a slight sense of comfort until I realized I didn’t know what to say to him except beg for answers I was unlikely to get. I broke out into sobs again. This time, a single tear traveled down my cheek. I watched it fall to my pillow and soak into the fabric.
“Daddy,” I whispered again to the darkness. “I don’t want to die.”
My last words drifted off, and finally, exhaustion overtook me.
The next morning, a sense of dread hit me when I woke. All I wanted to do was crawl back under the covers and forget about the warning my father sent me, but it had already consumed me. I could think of nothing else as I pulled myself out of bed and headed to the shower. Even in the soothing hot water, I couldn’t escape my worry. The simple math wasn’t lost on me. My life for the lives of the three people I loved most. It seemed like a fair trade. Besides, it’s not like dying would be all that bad. My father would be there, and I knew that once I crossed into the light, I’d find peace.
So why did it seem so difficult to accept?
A knock at my bathroom door startled me out of my thoughts. My heart skipped a beat at the unexpected noise. Mom and Teddy had their own bathroom; they never knocked on mine.
“Yeah?” I shouted over the sound of the running water.
“Crystal, do you have any idea what time it is?” my mother’s voice called through the door.
“No,” I told her honestly. It was only in that moment that I realized how lukewarm my shower water had become.
“You have less than 10 minutes before you have to leave for school. Didn’t your alarm go off?”
It had. “Sorry. I’ll be quick!”
I quickly rinsed off and hurried to my room, where I threw on the first pair of jeans and a t-shirt I found at the top of the mound of clean clothes in front of my dresser. There wasn’t time to dry my hair, so I threw the wet strands into a messy bun and rushed out of my bedroom.
My mom caught up with me in the living room. “Crystal?”
I paused and turned to her, forcing my face into a placated expression. “Yeah?”
“Is something wrong?” She drew me into a hug, and I melted into it.
For a second, I didn’t say anything, but then I realized she might interpret my silence as an answer. “No, Mom,” I lied. “Everything’s fine. I’ll see you tonight. Love you. Bye.” I placed a kiss on her cheek before heading out the door.
On my walk to meet up with Emma, I questioned why I hadn’t mentioned the warning to my mom or told her I’d seen my father. Surely she would help me make sense of it. Fear settled in my gut at that thought. If I told her, she’d want to take my place. That would mean I’d lose my loved ones. It was either me or them, and they’d all willingly die for me. I couldn’t let them do that, which meant they couldn’t know.
In that moment, I knew I would sacrifice myself for them. Pain knotted in my chest, but I didn’t have any other choice. I took a long, deep breath, accepting this as my reality. Now the only thing I could do was make the most out of the time I had left.
Chapter 14
I played my hardest at our volleyball game on Thursday, not just because it was our last game of the season, but because I knew it was the last game I’d ever play. I killed
three jump serves in a row before the opposing team sent it back over the net and my teammate Betsy returned it but it landed out of bounds.
“You were awesome tonight, Crystal,” Emma raved after the game in the locker room.
I wanted to smile, but it wasn’t genuine. I did well, yes, but my heart broke a little knowing it was all over. Assuming my father’s warning meant my death was just around the corner, I’d never play volleyball again.
“Just think about how awesome we’ll be next year,” she said.
I couldn’t help it. Something broke inside of me, and I pulled her into a tight hug right there in the locker room.
She tensed in surprise. “Whoa. Calm down, Crystal. You okay?”
I pasted a fake smile on my face and drew away from her. “I’m just glad we won,” I lied, something I’d become increasingly good at over the past year. She didn’t notice my dishonesty.
“Me, too.”
“Want to stay the night?” I practically begged. I needed more time with her. I didn’t want to leave her just yet.
“On a Thursday night?” she asked.
“Why not?” I shrugged.
Emma agreed, but my mother didn’t approve when I called to ask permission. “Emma can stay the night tomorrow, but you have school in the morning. I don’t want you staying up all night,” she’d said.
“Fine.” I gritted my teeth and hung up angrily before turning back to Emma. “Tomorrow night, okay?”
She nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
Friday after school was our annual pizza party to celebrate the end of volleyball season. It also doubled as our “turn in equipment” day. Derek wasn’t there like he should have been if he hadn’t quit. My heart dropped thinking about him. I hadn’t talked to him in the last couple of days. In fact, I hadn’t even seen him in school. But I felt a need to help him through whatever he was going through. I had a feeling he’d never told me the whole truth about what was bothering him, but at the very least, I had to say goodbye.