Lamiyah, we need to meet.
Then I went out like a light.
I’m told that when most people go to hang out with their spirit guides, the place where they meet is a lush green garden that’s full of flowers and shrubbery, or a beautiful meadow with a crystal-clear and sparkling stream running through the middle. Clear blue skies, birds chirping and singing… you know, that sort of thing.
Not me, though. I’m a card-carrying nerd, remember?
I “woke up” in my spirit body on a sandy desert plain, standing next to a domed homestead which was sunk partially below the ground. Two suns burned in the sky above the far horizon. Two parallel trails crisscrossed through the sand on their way to and from the moisture vaporators; one was a set of footprints, the other a pair of tramlines with a third, fainter line in between them. Droid tracks.
“Really, Daniel?” The voice that carried faintly on the dry, sultry air was that of a fairly young girl, but it sounded as if it had been educated at a British boarding school. Every syllable was crisp and sharply delivered, as though etched from finely-cut glass. “This planet again?”
“Thanks for coming, Lamiyah,” I grinned, raising my voice. “It’s really great to see you again. You’re looking…awesome.”
And she was. Trekking towards me across the sand dunes was a very familiar and comforting figure, willowy and graceful. The soles of her gold-braided sandals weren’t leaving even the slightest trace upon the unblemished sand; for all intents and purposes, Lamiyah seemed to be gliding across the desert surface, rather than walking. Her slender frame was wrapped in a colorful red and purple ankle-length sari, and her ponytail of lustrous black hair was held in place by a decorative tiara of fine gold, inset with a sparkling sapphire which sat squarely in the center of her forehead like a third eye.
Overjoyed to see her, I enfolded Lamiyah in a tight brotherly hug. Even though she was a spirit, she smelled good – faintly of lilacs. She always did.
“How are you keeping, dearest boy?”
“Hey, not so bad. Life’s…interesting.” I sounded a little awkward, even to my own ears. Lamiyah knew me well enough by now to pick up on it, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Want to take a walk?”
“Certainly.”
We fell into step together, strolling slowly towards the twin suns in a peaceful, companionable silence. This place wasn’t actually real, of course – it was a purely mental construct, a temporary part of the spirit realm built from components of my subconscious, just like any other dreamscape. Your lucid dreams are made of exactly the same stuff. Our two spirits were both real, but my physical body was snoring the night away, back in my bed on the physical plane.
Ever had one of those dreams where you’re talking to somebody you loved a lot, somebody who has since died? You know, one of those dreams that is just so vivid, so real when you’re in the middle of it; the colors are vibrant and rich, the sounds all perfectly clear and sharp in your ears?
Sometimes you can even feel the sunlight shining on your face, warm and golden, even though there isn’t always a sun up there in the sky when you look for it. The intensity on everything is dialed up to eleven.
But once you wake up afterward from that type of dream, those memories fade like a gray mist with the arrival of morning. You open your eyes and find yourself back in your own bed, expecting so see that person perhaps sitting next to you in the room – after all, they were right there just a second ago, and it felt exactly like it did when they were alive and still with you; but your room is empty, not even the echoes of that loved one’s voice left to comfort you. Suddenly you feel lonelier than you did before you went to sleep.
You know, one of those dreams?
I’ve got news for you. You aren’t actually dreaming. I mean, sometimes your dreams are just simply dreams – your brain needs to process some of the crap it’s been accumulating over the course of the day, which explains why some of them are so frickin’ weird; but not the really lucid ones. When your conscious mind shuts down and you drift off into the arms of Morpheus (yeah, I read Sandman, so sue me) your spirit, soul, call it whatever you want, is free to go off for a little wander. Every once in a while, when you really, really long to see somebody special who has been lost to you, your subconscious mind sends out a message to them: meet me here, in the world between worlds. I’d love to see you. If time and circumstances permit, you could get lucky and have your reunion.
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and try it. But a word to the wise: be patient. This sort of thing happens more often than you’d think, but not nearly as often as you’d wish for.
We chatted for a while, Lamiyah and I. Just the usual pleasantries, two friends catching up. She hadn’t been looking in on me all that much lately, she told me, simply because my life was pretty much on track (so far as she was aware), and there were others who really needed her attention.
“Something seems to be troubling you, dearest boy.” We had stopped on top of the crest of a dune, and now turned to face each other. Her clear green eyes, the emerald color such a stark contrast to her coffee-colored skin, searched mine. “What is it that troubles you so?” she asked softly.
I looked down for a moment, searching for the right words, then looked back up and held her gaze for a long moment. Finally I said, “My dad, Lamiyah... why hasn’t he ever come back to visit me?”
My guide drew in a breath, which wasn’t too shabby for somebody who didn’t actually have lungs, and let it out slowly. “I understand your disappointment, Daniel. Truly, I do. You must miss him so terribly.” When I didn’t respond to the obvious, she went on. “I can’t say that I have spoken with him. Neither do I know anything of his present whereabouts, other than to tell you the certainty that he would have passed over into the Summerland after what you would think of as his death.” The word death was spoken with just the slightest trace of disdain, something which I’ve noticed is pretty common among spirit people when they talk about the single greatest thing that frightens those of us still living in the physical body.
“It’s been so long, Lamiyah. If he…I mean, if he really—“
“He loves you, Daniel – just as I do, my dearest boy.” Lamiyah cupped my face in her hands, making the gold bangles which encircled her wrists clink gently together. “That is what fathers do. You must not mistake his absence from your life at the present time for a lack of interest, and most certainly not for a lack of love. It may simply be that he is finding his feet, adjusting to his new environment — or in one of the many houses of healing.”
“For two freaking years?” I rasped harshly.
“Time does not work in the same way for we who are of the spirit as it does for you in the flesh,” she chided me gently. “You know this full well.”
I nodded miserably. Yes, I did know that. But he was my father – surely he could find just a minute to drop in and let me know that he was doing alright…and that he missed me?
It felt a lot like I had been abandoned.
We walked hand in hand along the dune, just two old friends catching up. As Lamiyah told me of her recent high adventures and escapades across the span of multiple worlds, dimensions, and even totally different planes of existence, I started to feel myself calming down a little. Being in spirit form for even a short while tended to have that effect on you, soothing the troubled mind and centering the ethereal body. Without consciously thinking about it, I was beginning to enjoy the warmth of the double-sunlight on my face, and to appreciate the cool breeze that stirred up a light dusting of sand around our feet and ankles.
“But enough of my stories,” Lamiyah finally said, choosing her words carefully. You always got the feeling that she knew more than she was letting on. “Did you call upon me to talk about your father, Daniel, or is there something more?”
“I need to ask you about someplace; an old hospital, named Long Brook Sanatorium. I need to know if it’s haunted…” I trailed off awkwardly. Lamiyah gave me a sidelong glance.
“Uh, yeah. And if there are, how dangerous are they likely to be? The place is pretty run down. It’s been abandoned for years.”
Lamiyah crouched and scooped up a handful of sand, which she let run slowly through her fingers while she contemplated my question. I had seen her do this before with both soil and water, in other spirit realms that we had visited together. It seemed to help her think, or at least to concentrate.
“The name of this place is not familiar to me,” she finally admitted. “Which is not to say that there are not earthbound spirits to be found there; it simply means that I have heard of nothing along those lines. I can check with my fellow guides, the next time there is a conclave, and perhaps conduct a little research of my own.”
“I’d really appreciate it.”
Lamiyah gave me a sideways look. “Daniel, I must admit that you have piqued my curiosity. Why is a fourteen year-old boy so interested in an old medical facility, when the world is full of so many wonders?” Her eyes widened, and a broad grin spread across her face. “Is there, by any chance…a girl involved?”
I blushed, something that ought to have been impossible in an etheric body. Yay, me.
“There is!” Lamiyah crowed, clapping her hands together in delight. “Will this be…what do young people call them these days…not an appointment. A date?”
“Kind of, Lamiyah. I really like this girl, and she’s so hooked on all this paranormal stuff. She wants me to take her up to Long Brook tomorrow night to check the place out for ghosts — you know, like on those TV shows everybody else seems to love so much these days . The place is supposed to be haunted.” I coughed apologetically. “Full of earthbound spirits, whatever.”
For someone with the form of a nine year-old girl, Lamiyah slung me a look that belied her age. It was the sort of look that Mom had gotten down to a fine art, seeming to say: make sure to behave yourself, young man. Or maybe it was distaste about looking for earthbound spirits. Whatever. I already felt guilty about having to sneak around under Mom’s nose about this one, I didn’t want to have my spirit guide asking too many awkward questions about it.
“How romantic,” she said drily. “A dinner date with the dead?”
I snorted, embarrassed. Fortunately, Lamiyah’s a good sort. Just like that, she let me off the hook — way too easily, I thought.
“I can make no promises, but I shall see what I can find out, Daniel.” We exchanged one last hug before her child-like form began to disappear into the desert air like a mirage. “Sleep peacefully, dear boy; and please, do not fret over the subject of your father. Do we have an accord?”
“Deal.”
She smiled, and I returned it; and with that, she was gone, fading completely as though she were a mirage.
I felt a little better after our talk.
Now, with our psychic connection broken, I expected to fall into a deeper level of true sleep almost immediately.
What happened instead was unexpected, to say the least.
You could also go with ‘terrifying.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Chances are, you’re a lot like me in the way that you dream; and by that, I don’t mean that your dreams feature Slave Leia way too often, or the latest companion from Doctor Who. What I meant was that sometimes you remember them (especially the really vivid ones) but more often than not, you just don’t.
That’s because there are different types of dreams. Sometimes you’re not actually dreaming at all; what’s happening is that your spirit body is really floating free of your physical body, wandering around through the many worlds of spirit and pretty much roaming where it pleases. You might recall that type of experience as a half-remembered dream of flying, your body soaring above strange and exotic landscapes under alien skies. Pretty cool, huh?
The dead can also speak to you through the dream state.
Like I said earlier, think back to that dream where somebody close to you – usually somebody you’ve loved a whole lot – came back to see you. These meetings tend to happen in really peaceful places, like gardens, meadows, glades, places like that. How do you know that your loved one really did come to visit you, that it wasn’t just a product of your over-active imagination? Simple. When you wake up afterwards, the sense of loss and separation is absolutely gut-wrenching . There are tears running down your face and making a wet spot on the pillow. You just know, deep down in your core, that you had a visitation from that person. Your heart is half-filled with joy that they came back to talk to you, and the other half is filled with the pain of losing them all over again.
That sort of dream is a real rarity. When you get one, hang onto that sucker and cherish it. It’s a genuine gift, and most people don’t recognize them for what they are — a true, honest-to-God, accept-no-substitutes miracle. They get out of bed, hit the shower, and wash away everything but the smallest lingering traces as they go about their day. The mundane wins out over the spirit world every single time.
There are lots of books out there that promise to tell you the meaning of your dreams, as though they can somehow divine your future for you based upon the random firings of electricity in your neurons. Now, I’m not saying that dreams don’t have meaning; sometimes, they’re the only way for your always-watching subconscious to tap your conscious mind on the shoulder, give a discreet cough, and say: “Hey, dumbass – are you paying attention to any of this stuff?”
Far more often though, dreams are simply your brain’s way of taking a dump, if you’ll pardon the expression. I mean, think about it. Your mind takes in a lot of information each and every day. A lot. And every last bit of it either needs to be processed, discarded, or both. When do you think that happens? That’s right, usually when you’re tucked up in bed at night, snoring up a storm, when your mind is finally free to start working on the mental housekeeping chores.
Even the nastiest, most terrifying brain-bender of a nightmare can usually be put down to nothing more than your body processing and dumping a lot of excess garbage imagery.
Usually.
When I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by nothing but darkness, I assumed at first that I had just woken up in my bedroom. It didn’t take long to realize that all of the familiar, comforting stuff was missing, though. There wasn’t a Marvel or Lucasfilm product in sight.
I was in bed, and this did look like a bedroom, but that’s about as far as the similarity went.
As my eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, I could just about make out the dimensions of the room. It was actually slightly larger than my own, with two ways out – one being a doorway right behind the bed, and the other a huge opening at the end of my feet, which seemed to lead out onto some sort of brick balcony. There was no door or window of any kind between me and the great outdoors. I could hear the sound of crickets chirruping from somewhere out beyond the edge of that balcony, and as my hearing began to settle down and adjust, I could hear other nocturnal critters moving about and calling out to one another out there.
The next thing I heard was the coughing, coming through the wall on my right. This was not the light cough of somebody who’d picked up a dose of the seasonal lung-crud; this sounded more like the poor unfortunate cougher was trying to hack up a lung. The cough had a harsh, rasping quality to it that set my teeth on edge. It echoed from the balcony walls outside. Whoever it was, they surely weren’t long for the world if this was what their lungs sounded like.
As if on cue, there came another cough, but this time much fainter and further away along the balcony. It sounded a lot like the first one had, though, cruel and grating on my nerves, that sort of nails-on-a-chalkboard sound t
hat made you want to wince in sympathy for the owner.
I sat up slowly. My legs were covered by crisp white bedsheets, which actually felt as though they might have been starched. The mattress seemed like it was old and lumpy, much worse than the one on my own bed. I could see what looked like an iron bedframe at the foot of the mattress, and confirmed it when my toes brushed up against it as I shifted position.
Where the hell was I?
Well, I wasn’t going to find that out by laying in bed. Swinging my legs around, I got a bit of a jolt when my bare feet came into contact with the cold, hard floor. Hobbling slightly as I found my footing, I wandered outside onto the balcony, which stretched off into the distance to the left and right of me. At regular intervals, there were rooms that looked like they were exact duplicates of mine. The balcony had a waist-high parapet made of brick. Beyond that, I could see a landscape composed of trees and rolling hills for as far as my eye could see. A tiny sliver of moon was riding high in the sky, casting a small amount of light down onto a lawn formed mostly of weeds and overgrown, out-of-control wild grass.
The night was warm, and I could see that the stars were out, the speckled band of the Milky Way arching high above the treetops. Now that was a Colorado mountain sky, I’d know it anywhere. From somewhere up above me there came another barking cough, and then several more in various different directions. Taking a firm grip on the brick parapet with both hands, I leaned out and craned my neck to look upwards. There were five or six floors reaching up into the night, and from the look of them, all of their rooms were similar (if not identical) to the one I’d just woken up in. Reversing my position and looking downward, I could see one ground floor beneath me, but the construction was different to the others – it contained several sets of double doors, for starters, lots of glazed windows, and what looked like a main entrance, complete with a porch and two support pillars.
For a moment, I wondered just exactly what this place was. I mean, it was obvious that it was a healthcare facility of some kind, but it was like nothing I was used to seeing around here. I’d been to Boulder Community Hospital to get my tonsils taken out when I was a lot younger, but that had been all plexiglass and steel, with a warm and friendly interior that made you feel just a little bit comfortable and secure. Not this place, though. I hadn’t been here that long, but this place felt cold and impersonal to me, the brick and stone and concrete generating a forbidding vibe that I really didn’t like.
Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1) Page 5