I look away from his intense face with growing discomfort. The few times I had talked to him in the past I never thought of him as a violent person, until today.
“Is there something that you need from me, Ms. Crowson?”
I can hear his underlying tone of impatience.
“You know, you can call me Juliana, or Jules. Ms. Crowson is my mom.”
“Hmmph.”
The sound he makes is somewhere between a grunt and a snort. I go on thinking the distraction might help to diffuse his anger before I ask for the favor. I make my best attempt to keep my voice light and casual. “So, can I call you Chris or do you prefer Mr. Abeyta?”
“Chris will suffice. Mr. Abeyta is my father.” He is sour faced and dour but outside in the evening light I really get a good look at him. He’s not as old as he acts and I estimate again that he must only be in his twenties. Why does he act so serious?
His hard eyes turn on me, making him look like a blood thirsty dragon and I try not to picture smoke and flames shooting out of his nostrils. I ignore his dig on my choice of words and give him an innocent smile instead of scowling back at him, which is what I really want to do.
This seems to increase his irritation and I think I do see tendrils of smoke. “Spit it out. What do you want?”
He looks to the western sky then back to me.
I look down at the gray stone of the parking lot, thinking fast. Should I beg for a ride or not? I don’t know him very well and he’s so grouchy. Is getting away from here worth the risk? I can’t even look toward the garage, and regardless of Lance’s promise to speak to Mason, I can’t handle another encounter with him, ever.
I look up, tucking my hair behind my ear and try for another smile. “Can I catch a ride with you? Just back to town. My car is at Native Naturals. Are you headed that way?” I’m babbling. It’s something I can’t control when I’m nervous, and I hate that I feel like an idiot when I’m unable to stop myself from doing it.
The look in Chris’s dark brown eyes confirms that he thinks I sound like an idiot too. There is something else in his look as well. Amusement? Pity? I set my jaw and wait for the “no.”
“No,” he says, straightforward and simple.
It’s what I expected. He turns to his truck and reaches into the back of the bed and grabs his furry bag. With it tucked under an arm he walks away.
“Please,” I say to his back.
His steps slow down but he doesn’t turn.
“I need to get away from here,” I say so low I’m not sure if he hears.
Now he does turn. He gives me a thorough once over. I feel like an animal in a cage as he stares at me.
“You look like your grandmother,” he tells me.
I didn’t know what to expect, but that certainly wasn’t it.
“Why?” he asks.
Why? That’s what I want to ask him. Why had he brought up Grandma? I just want a ride, not a family comparison. I must be too slow for him because he spells it out for me more clearly.
“You said, you need to get away from here, and I asked why?”
“This place, it’s dangerous for me,” I answer, low voiced.
“It is,” he agrees. “My answer is still no. I’m not leaving yet. It is almost dark, so if you will excuse me, I have work to do.” He starts walking away again.
“Oh, right.” Duh, he still has to finish up. “I saw something that’ll probably need your attention. It’s by the carriage house.”
He stops again. “Go on.”
“My grandmother called it an energy signature. I thought it was a ghost. Actually, I thought it was real, at first.” I admit the truth and gooseflesh breaks out on my arms.
“When did you see it?”
“Yesterday. My grandma has seen it too.”
He looks me up and down again, giving me the specimen under the microscope feeling again.
He rubs his forehead with his free hand as if his brain hurts. I can relate. Then he says, “If it is what you want, you can come with me while I finish. It will not take long and then I will give you a ride back to town.”
I return the inspection. He’s many degrees calmer now, and I don’t get any bad vibes in my gut from him. I hesitate as I stare at the black fur under his arm.
“You are safer with me than anyone else around here. I can guarantee you that much.”
He has a point. He’s the only ghost hunter I’ve ever met and that has to be some protection, in a supernatural way. But I haven’t forgotten his verbal threat about using poison. Surely he was speaking out of frustration or anger. I look from the fur under his arm to Ralph in the front seat of his truck and then back at the bag. It didn’t really look like dog hair. It looks more like bear fur, but what do I know.
“You wouldn’t really poison a dog, would you?” I try to make the question sound playful, like I’m joking, but in truth I’m actually asking.
“Not today. Couldn’t find anywhere to buy the poison.” He steps onto the short retaining wall and walks away, heading straight west.
The stage door opens on the other side of the parking area and I get an ear-full of Mostly Mayhem rocking out inside. Ashley, Carrie, Eric, Mason, and Fredrick step outside with lit cigarettes in hand. I take one look at Mason’s nasty face and I make my escape, jogging after Chris.
Chapter Thirteen: Open Doors
I catch up with him on the trail leading away from Castle Hill. Through a gap in the trees, I see the last of the setting sun blaze shades of pumpkin orange and magenta across the sky. The woods are dead quiet. The animals are done foraging for the day and even the wind is at rest. It’s the in-between time. When the creatures of light are settled down and before the nocturnal ones come out to play. My footsteps seem raucously loud.
I watch Chris for a moment. He knows I’m here but hasn’t acknowledged me. He’s a quiet guy — except when he’s pissed off, I amend. His steps make no sound even though he’s wearing hiking boots. I lighten my own steps and try to be as quiet as he is, but I’m painfully aware of each crunch underfoot. His black shorts are long, leaving just three or four inches of calf showing between the hem and the top of his leather boots. His white T-shirt and vest are a little dusty, no doubt from the work he has been doing today. His ears are small, and like the rest of him, a dark red-brown color. My father’s skin would turn the same color in the summer. Jared’s too if he spent more time outside, I thought. Not me, I might tan eventually but the pain of multiple sunburns isn’t worth a hint of bronze. I have my mother to thank for that.
I shake off my distraction and begin to pay attention to where I’m going. We’re not far from the castle but as I look over my shoulder I can’t see any sign of it. Only the wide path lined with trees is behind us. Up ahead our trail curves around a rock outcropping. As soon as we’re past the boulders I hear water.
“There’s a stream back here?”
I watch Chris’s expressionless face. He meets my gaze and then shifts his eyes to the side of the mountain. Even in the dimming light I can see where the water has cut into the mountain creating deep grooves in some places and flowing over rock faces in others. The effect created a series of small water cascades.
“Wow! That’s really nice,” I say in a hushed tone.
“There’s more,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate as he keeps up a steady pace.
Why is the trail so wide? It must have taken an entire crew to build it. My curiosity about the small road, for that’s what it is, and for the scenery grows every few feet. The view of the western sky opens up as the evergreen trees can’t grow on the rocks we just walked over. We stop on a platform of sorts. Iron railing borders the edge of the flat rock we stand on. The colors in the sky continue to transform into layers of melted candy, all grape, orange, and cherry. It’s a perfect spot to take it all in. The mountain looms to our left, exposing greenery mixed with stone and streaming water. The sunset and the distant white caps add to the majesty and I decide I can stay right here
forever. I breathe deep, trying to take in the beauty with more than my eyes.
“Ha-chooo,” I sneeze, and then wrinkle up my nose at a familiar and unpleasant odor. I had been so preoccupied with looking up that I forgot to look down.
“Hot springs?” I ask Chris.
He nods once, keeping silent.
The man of few words’ mouth twitches as he watches me contort my face and rub at my nose. It feels as if the sulfur is stuck to the insides of my nostrils. It’s no use. Now that I’ve noticed the rotten egg smell there is no getting rid of it, only getting used to it.
“Juliana?” he pauses, looking even more serious, if that’s possible. It must be the intent behind his black glare. “You said that you saw place memories by the carriage house. Have you seen other things like that before?”
I bite the side of my lower lip, thinking. I don’t want to sound crazy and I don’t want to lie but I’m not sure if I can explain either. I watch the drifting raspberry clouds as I answer.
“The truth is, I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything that clearly before. I believed that boy had really been attacked.” Emotion rises into a hard lump in my throat and I have to swallow hard. “And then something else happened today, at work. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
“The boy was attacked. Only not yesterday. The incident was traumatic enough to leave the memory of it behind,” Chris explains.
“Before yesterday, I would sometimes feel like there were spirits around, and I think I’ve seen them move too. They were always vague shapes though. But then today, I saw this lady. She spoke to me. I didn’t even know she wasn’t real. It’s so confusing.”
“She was real, but in a different form.”
His eyes pinch as he watches me. Then he continues, “I thought you had some abilities.”
“You did? Why?” I turn to look at him, surprised he would say that.
“I can see it around you. Did you hear me tell you that you look like your grandmother? I wasn’t sure if you were aware of your gifts or not. Some people that have our talent have it turned off.”
“Turned off? Does that mean you can turn it on?” My voice sounds more horrified than I mean it to, but Chris smiles. It transforms his face. He looks years younger and like he might be a fun person, even a little mischievous.
“Sort of. Some people are unconscious of their abilities and some refuse to acknowledge them for so long that they have mastered denial. If you are open to the gifts, then yes, you can work on turning it on. Like acquiring any skill, it takes practice.” He gives me a noncommittal shrug, as if what he has told me doesn’t mean very much. “Sometimes an event, or a place, triggers a response. Opens the door to the other worlds. I suspect this is what has happened to you.”
I listen hard and in horror. What I saw yesterday and today can change everything. I thought a boy was dragged off by a mountain lion and today I had a conversation with a dead lady. I can’t go around sounding nuts just because I am. Not nuts, just different. Right? “How do I close the door and how do you lock it? And what do you mean by ‘see it around me’? Is it my aura or something? Grandma Charlotte likes to tell me about my aura, but I don’t have a clue what she’s seeing.”
“How come you do not ask your grandmother these questions?”
“I don’t know. All this is happening so fast, and truthfully, I don’t want to,” I say. “This is crazy. I don’t want to see ghosts. They’re freaky.”
Chris thinks over what I have said for a moment. He looks over at the horizon and I can feel his brain working, like standing next to a grandfather clock, the gears were turning. “Once you see the ghost world there is no closing the door.”
This isn’t the answer I was hoping for. I can’t even speak, I’m so stunned. I want to go hide in a corner somewhere and forget what he just said.
I think Chris has some pity for me because his tone softens slightly as he goes on. “As for seeing auras, it is not hard,” he says without any egotism. “Here, I can show you.” He puts his bag down on the ground and then steps in front of me so I am facing the sunset and his back is to the railing. “Now walk three steps backward.”
I do, moving mechanically and making an attempt to not let this realization change anything. I am still Juliana Crowson, not some weirdo.
Next he says, “Look at me and try to let your eyes relax.”
Easier said than done. Being told to stare at someone is disconcerting, not relaxing.
“Don’t worry. I know I have an ugly mug,” he jokes. “Try to relax your whole body. Then, when you are ready, look at the space around me. An inch or two from my outline.”
I put away my tension, like throwing out the trash. With it, I throw out his comments about the ghost world. Denial can work for me, can’t it? Then I shift my gaze away from his mouth to just above and to the right of his ear. I frown in concentration.
“You are trying too hard,” he informs me.
I frown deeper.
He gives me a kind of smile. “Relax, this is not a test. It can be a useful tool for you, but it is not imperative.”
“Useful huh?” I hear myself ask. At least my voice is working again.
“Yes. A person’s aura can reflect their emotions, their state of mind, their level of energy, and sometimes you can see sickness around them. Those types of things can be useful.”
“That sounds like a burden.”
“It is all in how you see your world then.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Perspective can change everything, I know that, but I don’t want to know more about people than I can already feel from them.
“Do you want to know what else I see around you?”
“Not really, but go ahead.”
“What I see is more than just your aura. It is the way you carry yourself and the expression on your face. I think you are sensitive to other people’s thoughts and emotions. You are already tuned into people’s energy, so there has never been much need to see it because you feel it.”
His direct observation makes me want to curl up like a hedgehog with my quills sticking out for protection. I take a deep breath, accept his spot-on truth, but don’t acknowledge it aloud.
“Umm, all right… let me try again.”
He stands still for me. I stare as if I’m looking at one of those 3D pictures and try to see what is hidden between his black hair and the sky.
“Are you hot?” I ask with uncertainty.
“No.”
“It looks like your head is radiating a heat wave.” My words are full of doubt.
“That’s it. You are seeing my ethereal body. It is part of my aura. Now keep looking but farther away from my body.” He holds a hand up by his head about six inches away.
I expand my gaze, encompassing all the air around the side of his head and above his shoulder.
“What are you seeing?” Chris asks. His voice is low and focused.
“I… well….” It’s hard to find the words. “You’re glowing. There are shades of orange, maybe some greens. It’s dynamic, like washing paint out of a paintbrush. The colors are dense in some places and washed out in others.”
“Watch this,” he instructs.
Chris closes his eyes. My fascination grows as I watch his aura widen all around him. Close to his body the color and the vibration is denser and it becomes more translucent the farther away it gets. I blink twice, refreshing my drying eyes, and notice a sparkle just above his head and another one to his left. They look like shiny pieces of glitter floating around him. The glitter is surprising but not nearly as much as what I see next.
His ethereal body, the space closest to his skin, starts to vibrate with more intensity. It begins to shimmer, moving faster and faster and then all his earthy colors turn a brilliant gold. The bright glow expands, completely encompassing him about sixteen inches all around. I stare in disbelief at the radiating light. He doesn’t light up the darkening woods around us as if he’s a human lantern. It’s more su
btle than that. The yellow white light comes from within him and stays with him, without visibly affecting the physical objects around us.
As I stare in amazement, I see another sparkle. This one is above his right shoulder and if the other two are pieces of glitter then this one is a supergiant star.
Chris opens his eyes and looks peaceful and calm. It is quite the opposite of only a short while before, by his truck.
“You’re glowing. And you’re not pissed off anymore,” I whisper, feeling shy about my observations. “Did I just open another door?” I ask, realizing that’s probably exactly what I’ve just done.
“I thought you would be able to see it, and yes. But it is okay. This one is more like opening a window shade to let the light in,” he seems pleased as he tells me. “Can I have your permission to try something?”
“Okay?”
“Keep watching.”
A finger of glowing light extends from him and reaches in my direction. As it nears me it seems to melt into my own sphere of energy and then I’m surrounded in gold, almost white light. I look at myself and hold an arm up. I’m encircled, as if I’m in my own private cloud of shining iridescence. I do a self-check. I don’t think I feel any different. I close my eyes and see the bubble around me with my mind’s eye and then try to feel it. Yes, it’s there. It’s like a feather light blanket around me. I’m fascinated beyond description. I am so much bigger than I ever realized, and not just me, everyone is bigger. I wonder what Jared looks like.
I open my eyes thinking I need to go see him right now. It’s as if I was just given a pair of magic goggles and I have to go figure out exactly what they’re capable of.
Chris observes me silently.
“Does everyone have sparkles around them?” I ask as I watch the tiny flashes twinkle on and off by his shoulder.
His eyebrows rise, causing creases in his forehead. “No. What else do you see?” he asks with a note of caution. “Exactly,” he amends.
“Little twinkling lights. Two of them look like glitter, but that one,” I say, pointing above his right shoulder, “looks like a star.”
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