The Medium's Possession

by Elle Beauregard

  Okay, now she needed to stop thinking about that or she was liable to wake Scott up in a very suggestive way—which he probably wouldn’t object to, but he needed the sleep more than the sex at this point.

  The house was quiet. Nobody else seemed to be awake.

  So she sat and watched him breathe some more.

  He was breathing. Here with her.

  She wasn’t living in a nightmare. Again.

  His soft lips pulled into a small, private smile as he stretched beneath the blankets.

  “Hey.” His voice was low with sleep and under-blankets-quiet when he found her looking at him. “How long have you been awake?”

  Looking at his brown eyes made her chest warm. “Not long.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine,” she replied. “We slept in a while.”

  He rolled onto his back. “We must have needed it,” he said through another stretch, longer this time. “Should we get up?”

  “Probably,” she replied with a smirk, at once reluctant to leave their cocoon and eager to do the very same so she could go see her sister. “Zander should be awake by now.” Or, she assumed she would be, at least.

  “Probably gotta come clean to everybody.” Scott gave her a wink, still lying on his back.

  “I think that ship sailed as far as Callum’s concerned.” Cecily grinned. “But yeah. I gotta tell Zander, regardless.”

  “Is she gonna want to kick my ass?” Scott asked, smiling as he found her hand beneath the blankets and laced his fingers through hers.

  “No. Mine, maybe. Not yours.” She laughed. “But, hey, I’m telling her before it’s been, like, years, so that’s an improvement, right?”

  Now it was Scott’s turn to laugh. “You’d have told her sooner but things were a little crazy for a while there.”

  Crazy was an understatement.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” she asked him. “About... everything.”

  “Everything, you and me? Or everything, meeting Trevor?”

  “Uhh...” she thought for a second then shrugged. “All of it, I guess.”

  “Meeting Trevor: I think I’m solid.” He smirked and brought a hand to the side of her neck as he slid himself closer to her. “You helped me work out some tension over that.”

  She found herself breathless with the way he studied her mouth. “If that’s how you work out tension, sign me up to be your stress ball.” She bit her lips and he groaned.

  “You and me: I’m more than solid. This is perfect.”

  “Completely perfect,” she mumbled as she brought her lips to his.

  An hour long slow-and-deep bed session later, they were dressed and bumping into one another playfully as they made their way down the hall.

  This was perfect, Cecily thought. The Shadow was gone—and now Zander, Callum, and Scott would move to Seattle where she and Scott could start this... incredible thing happening between the two of them...for real.

  Yes, her life was nuts—but it was equally great. More amazing now than it had been before she’d known all this spirit/medium/Shadow stuff had been real. So, she supposed, overall, she wouldn’t change any of it. Not if changing things would mean she wouldn’t end up where she was now.

  She could see Callum standing by the sofa as she and Scott neared the end of the hall. They came around the corner, and Wren came into view. But it wasn’t until Cecily stepped into the room in earnest that she caught the energy in the space and saw the scene fully.

  Callum was standing near the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest, his head hanging forward. He’d showered, his hair wet, but that was the only evidence of today being different than yesterday. His stress hummed in the air like nothing had changed, like Zander was still in the Shadow’s grasp, like he hadn’t had a night sleeping peacefully beside her.

  “What happened?” Cecily heard herself ask as if from some distance. Like the happy in her was forced far away from the scene in front of her. “Where’s Zander?”

  Callum looked up. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “She’s still sleeping,” Wren said from where she was perched on the edge of the ugly green chair near the window, her arms braced across her knees.

  “She’s not sleeping,” Callum cut in, throwing a look at Wren before turning back to Cecily. “She’s still unconscious. She hasn’t woken up yet.”

  And just like that, every ounce of buoyant glee sank into worry and fear in Cecily’s chest. “Shouldn’t her meds have worn off by now?”

  “Hours ago,” Wren replied. “They would have worn off hours ago.”

  “So what’s wrong?” Scott asked. “Have you tried to wake her up?”

  Cecily felt his hand on her back like he knew what she needed right then was his steadying touch.

  Callum’s expression turned hard. “Yes, we’ve tried to wake her up,” he shot back at Scott. “You think I’d be crawling out of my skin if I hadn’t been trying to wake her for the last hour?” He coughed a sigh and shook his head, running his hand through his undercut hair. “Sorry. I just—I thought we were done with this, ya know? Anyway, Wren thinks it’s not as bad as it seems.”

  Cecily looked to Wren who shook her head with a shrug. “If she has been dealing with the Shadow since you all fought it last year, then it could be that she’s hiding.”

  Cecily’s brows furrowed in question. “Hiding?”

  “Her psyche—her soul,” Wren explained. “When the Shadow got trapped in the cloak, it didn’t have immediate access to her. She wasn’t possessed, it wasn’t an intrusion like what happened to you and to Callum last fall. It stayed with her, but it didn’t have access to her for the most part. Something changed that gave it access, but even then, from what Callum described to me last night, it was a gradual process. So her spirit had time to find refuge, even while her body wasn’t under her control.”

  “Her spirit, like... like what we see when people pass?” Cecily asked, throwing a look at Callum.

  “Basically, yeah,” Wren replied with a shrug. “I think she’s gone into herself for protection—she may not even fully realize the Shadow is gone.”

  “Okay, so how do we fix that?” Scott asked. He gave Cecily’s shoulder a squeeze. How did he always know what she needed?

  “We can wait,” Wren explained. “I don’t know how long it will take, but she’ll come around eventually. Or, one of you can go in to get her.” She looked to Callum, then to Cecily. “It should be one of the two of you. She’s closest to you both.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cecily said without pause.

  “Hell no,” Callum shot back. “I already told Wren it had to be me. You’re not doing this.”

  Excuse me?

  “She’s my sister,” Cecily countered, trying like hell not to let her hackles rise. Callum was only trying to protect her, after all. She knew he was—he always had.

  “Exactly,” he replied. “You’re her sister, so I’m not risking your safety—”

  “What kind of risk are we talking about?” Scott cut in. He looked to Wren. “What do you mean one of them can ‘go in and get her’?”

  Wren shot a glance at Callum, but it was so quick Cecily wasn’t even sure she’d seen it. “Whoever does it will have to be sedated.”

  “So sedate me!” Cecily exclaimed.

  Was this really a question? So she’d take some pills and sleep for a while—not too risky, in her opinion. She’d taken sedatives before. For a few days after having her wisdom teeth out—and once or twice when she and Trey had wanted to mellow out and have some fun with some pills he’d found in the trash after one of his parents had surgery.

  She saw Callum’s eyes flick to Scott before they landed on her again. “You don’t want to do this,” he said, his voice lower and more serious than it had been before. “Let me do it.”

  “I’m doing it,” Cecily replied, matching his tone. “Don’t you want to be there when she wakes up? It should be you who’s there when she opens her eyes.”

&nb
sp; “Cecily, heads or tails?”

  Cecily looked to Wren in time to see her pull a coin from her pocket and flip it into the air.

  “Uh, tails!” Cecily exclaimed, then cursed. Heads were fractionally more likely than tails.

  They all held their breath as the coin hit the floor with a clang, bounced, and landed.

  “It’s tails,” Wren confirmed at the same time Callum shouted a groan and threw his hands up in the air.

  Cecily suppressed her own shout of triumph, instead watching Callum pace away, turn back and breathe a heavy sigh.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this, then.”

  “Comfortable?”

  Cecily sat in the bed beside Zander, who was prone and breathing peacefully, tucked under the covers. Cecily had changed into her favorite sweats and Scott’s lucky tee. She’d pulled her hair up into a messy knot on the top of her head so she was ready for sleepy time. Again. Having only woken up a couple of hours ago.

  She looked up at Wren who was working on something at the window, using the sill for a workspace. “Comfortable, yeah.”

  Scott was standing at the edge of the bed, beside her.

  Callum had planted himself against the far wall across from the foot of the bed. His arms were crossed over his chest, but he didn’t look mad—he looked seriously stressed. His eyes kept flicking to Scott, then landing back on Zander lying in the bed.

  Wren turned from the window, holding something white and slender between her fingers. “You ready?”

  Cecily nodded. “Yeah—”

  “What is that?”

  Cecily looked to Scott, spurred by the tension in his voice. His eyes were glued to Wren, suspicion in their mahogany depths. When she looked back to Wren, she found caution in her expression.

  “What’s in the blunt?” Scott pried when Wren didn’t answer.

  “It’s tobacco cut with opium.”

  Cecily watched as Scott froze for a second, glued in place. Then his eyes found hers and the moment of freeze thawed. He drew a breath and Cecily saw his jaw flex.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay,” he said, taking one step backward. “Yeah, okay.”

  Cecily was surprised to find fear—genuine fear—in Scott’s eyes when he looked to her again. He was suddenly like a caged animal in his own house, stuck in this room.

  Cecily leaned toward him, her fingers sliding across the bed to him though he was steps away and she couldn’t touch him even if she stretched. “Scott, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” she said. She wasn’t sure why he needed to leave so badly, but it was obvious he did.

  He dismissed his caged-animal-stress by obvious force of will and a quick shake of his head. “Nah, it’s no big deal.”

  Cecily wasn’t sure she bought that, but she also wasn’t sure it was right of her to push him on it—not in front of the others when he was obviously so damned determined not to let his stress show. So she nodded and drew her hand back to her lap. He gave her a smile that barely reached his eyes in return.

  “Okay,” Cecily said then, turning her attention to Wren once again. “So what do we do next?”

  Wren fished a lighter from her back pocket, tucked the joint between her lips and spoke around it, “You smoke.”

  The lighter sparked with a rasp, then she brought the flame to the rolled paper and Cecily watched as she inhaled, the tip flaring orange as she extinguished the lighter’s flame. She turned her face away and blew the smoke out the window. Then she passed the joint to Cecily with a shrug and a here-we-go kind of smile, “It’s all yours. It’s not as strong as what I made for Zander, but it should do the trick. The opium will make your energy malleable so I can guide you if I need to. It will let you slip into the inbetween so you can find Zander.”

  “The inbetween?” Cecily asked as she took the blunt from Wren’s slender fingers.

  Wren shrugged. “The space between aware and unconscious. Between awake and asleep.”

  Oh. Okay, that made sense. Cecily brought the joint to her lips with a nod.

  “Inhale deep and hold it in for a spell if you can.”

  Inhale and hold it in, another something she had experience with, courtesy of experiments she and Trey had embarked upon together.

  “I can’t do this.”

  Cecily hadn’t yet inhaled when she turned to find Scott beelining for the door.

  Callum followed, throwing a glance at Cecily as he went. “He’s okay. I got it.”

  Cecily sat for a moment. She thought about following Callum, following Scott. She wanted to know what was going on—but then, hadn’t Callum just said he would handle it?

  She looked down at Zander lying beside her. She needed to handle this for Zander, the way Callum was handling whatever was going on with Scott. Zander wasn’t waking up until somebody went in and got her—and Cecily had fought to draw that straw.

  She brought the joint to her lips, breathed in deep, and fought the spasm when her lungs tried to expel the smoke. When she released it, grey-white smoke billowed from her mouth with the smell of cigarettes and flowers.

  “Damn,” Wren remarked. She looked impressed. “You do this a lot?”

  Cecily shook her head. “Not at all.” Then she took another hit. “So what do I do when this kicks in?” she asked as she exhaled her next breath.

  “You ever stretch your senses to find a spirit before?” Wren asked. “Like, finding someone specific?”

  Cecily nodded and brought the joint to her lips again, but she didn’t inhale until after she responded, “Yeah, some.”

  Wren looked surprised. “Wait, really?”

  Cecily paused. “Yeah. Why?” It wasn’t hard to do, per se. It just took some effort, but in her experience, spirits wanted to come forward. At least the couple of them she’d found had.

  But Wren just shook her head like clearing her thoughts. “Nothing, sorry. Stretching to find Zander should feel similar. The high will be a thick mellow, like being stoned but different. When it starts, think of her—stretch your senses like you’re looking for Zander. I’ll work on this side to get the two of you on the same wavelength. When you fall asleep, you should find her.”

  Okay, that made sense, Cecily thought. She could handle that.

  “There’s a chance she won’t look the same, though. Just FYI.”

  Cecily looked to Wren again and her head swam. “What do you mean?”

  Wren gave a shrug. “You’re communicating with inner-Zander. You might not be able to see her at all—or maybe you will, but she’ll look however Zander thinks of herself. The her that’s the most her, if that makes sense.”

  “Okay, yeah. That’s good to know.” Not that it assuaged her nerves at all. What was she getting herself into here? The room spun when Cecily looked at the lit end of the hand-rolled between her fingers. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah, it comes on quick,” Wren chuckled.

  Cecily blinked hard. When she looked to Wren, it was like the world has slowed. There was dust dancing in the sunlight streaming through the window, the bed was soft and pliant beneath her suddenly heavy body.

  “One more for good measure?” she said as she brought the smoke back to her mouth, her lips numb and slow.

  Wren gave a shrug and a nod. “Seems right.”

  Cecily took a breath, then handed the joint to Wren, breathing out and lying back onto the bed as soon as it was safely into Wren’s hands.

  As darkness rushed in, her body sinking into the mattress, Cecily reached for Zander. Her fingers bumped into Zander’s hand in the same moment her senses bumped into her soul.

  Cecily knew exactly where she was—and had no clue whatsoever what that meant. Still, she knew she was with Zander, because Zander was everywhere. Not visibly, she couldn’t see her, but the feeling of her was the only thing in this white, featureless space.

  Cecily turned in place, or maybe she stood still—it was hard to know. What she did know was that Zander came into view from right to left, as tho
ugh the room had spun so that Cecily could see where Zander was standing. She was facing away, her head turning from side to side like she was looking for something. Her short-cut hair was disheveled in that perfectly Zander way, exactly as she’d looked the last time she’d seen her. Her long legs were topped with black shorts that fit close to her skin, and her thin torso was clad in a black tank to match.

  Cecily wanted to cry with relief. It was Zander—though she couldn’t see her face, she knew it was her sister standing there. And it was only then she realized how absent Zander had been the last days. It felt like she hadn’t seen her in months.

  “Zani?” Cecily took a step toward her.

  Zander spun around and her hazel eyes landed on Cecily, lit with surprise. At first, her smile was warm and welcoming with relief. Then it faded, the joy leaving her eyes like sand through fingers.

  “Cecily.” She came forward but stopped before embracing her, the warm welcome in her eyes bleeding into sadness and question. “I died, didn’t I,” she said. “That’s why I can see you—”

  “No, no you’re not dead,” Cecily rushed to correct her, desperate to make sure she knew she was alive. “You’re sleeping, that’s all. You’re fine.”

  Zander paused for a moment, her eyes flicking away, brow furrowing like she was thinking. She was smiling when she looked to Cecily again. “Okay. This is a dream, then?”

  “Not exactly,” Cecily replied. “We’re—” but she didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “We’re wherever the soul lives, I guess. I’m really here with you—sleeping beside you on your and Callum’s bed, in the real world, actually.”

  Zander drew a breath and let it out in a rush, her shoulders bowing like something hurt. She wrapped her arms across her chest and paced away. She didn’t stray far, like she thought she might lose Cecily in this empty white space, turning back after only a few steps.