by Sarah Wynde
“What about it?” Akira asked, as she caught up with him at the top of the stairs.
He looked down at her pale face and tried not to frown. Could she have multiple personalities? Really? She’d never behaved erratically, never acted like a different person. But to know Rose’s name, she would almost have to have researched it. “You could have that,” he offered. “Multiple personalities. It was in an article I found about ghosts.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Great,” she said. “Good to know.”
He sighed and gestured toward the door of Dillon’s bedroom.
But say she had multiple personalities, his thoughts continued. She would still have to be an incredibly gifted cold reader. She’d known such subtleties. How could she have found out Dillon’s musical taste? She couldn’t have, which meant that it had to be a guess, but a perfect guess. What could have clued her in?
Akira stepped forward. He was watching her intently, still trying to think through the implications of what she’d told him, still trying to analyze every experience of ghosts that they’d had together over the past several trusting months, so he saw the movement of her throat as she swallowed, and the seemingly involuntary shudder of her shoulders as she placed her hand on the door.
“Seizures, by the way?” she said, not looking at him. “Five continuous minutes will damage neurons. Thirty minutes has a decent chance of killing me.” She turned the knob, and pushed the door open, and stepped into the room, just as his thoughts crystallized around an idea: door, ghosts, North Carolina, bodies.
Hell.
Sure, some skillful guessing might have gotten her a lot of information about Dillon and some research might have provided her with Rose’s name. But she’d found two bodies in North Carolina that the local police and the FBI had spent days searching for. That wasn’t just a lucky guess.
“Let’s not do this,” he started, following her into Dillon’s bedroom. “At least let’s talk about it a little more.”
But it was too late.
Akira’s head arched back as if she’d just been hit in the face, and her whole body went stiff, then she crumbled forward, falling against the floorboard of the bed and then to the ground as if she was a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
“Akira!” He jumped to her side, just as the thought that had been pushing at the back of his mind jumped full-blown to the forefront: if she wasn’t insane, she wanted him to rescue her from ghostly possession by hurting her.
Hurting her badly enough to break her bones.
That’s what he should have been paying attention to. That’s what he should have been worrying about. Wondering whether she was crazy was just a way of avoiding thinking about what she wanted him to do.
He turned her over gently. She’d hit the bed exactly wrong. Blood was running from her nose, he realized, just as her muscles started to spasm.
Fuck.
The ghost would get stronger.
She wanted him to hurt her.
She needed him to hurt her.
And he didn’t think he could do it.
***
Every step up the stairs took an effort. It was like walking through a red-tinged blizzard only instead of heavy snowflakes pelting across her skin, tiny shocks of static were penetrating deeper and deeper as she got closer to the door. She felt as if she were being flayed, but knew no sign of it would show.
This was such a bad idea. What was she doing, braving a malevolent ghost? This wasn’t her—she was a coward! She couldn’t even tell Zane she loved him, but she thought she could face this?
Walking through the doorway and into Dillon’s room felt like moving from a snowstorm to an ice storm. She had time for a quick glimpse at a pleasant boy’s room: wide windows, blue walls, overstuffed bookshelves, a world map with pins in it above a neat desk. And a woman standing at the end of the bed, streaked blonde hair in a perfect chin-length bob, fair skin, laugh lines, a trim figure—she looked enough like Grace that Akira would have known her instantly anywhere—but her face was bereft with grief and the red energy surging around her lashed out at Akira like lightning striking.
Akira’s scream strangled in her throat. She felt herself falling, crashing, burning. The sharp physical pain of hitting her face almost broke through the agony of passing through the woman’s ghostly energy.
For a moment, the shock was almost relaxing. The stunning pain left her brain fuzzy. But then as Zane turned her over, she began resisting the energy, trying to absorb some of it while holding the rest at bay.
The convulsions started immediately.
Her back arched, her jaw clenched, her muscles spasmed.
She was drowning in spirit energy. It was pouring in on her, drenching her in power.
Akira was fighting for control of her body, but so was the ghost.
The pain was intense. But she could also feel Zane’s strong arms holding her, and a dull throbbing from her face and a warmth trickling down her chin. What was that?
She could hear Zane’s voice. He was swearing steadily as he shifted her. What was he doing?
But she could also hear the ghost. She was screaming in pain, despair, an agony of her own. “I can’t find you! Max? Dillon? Help me, help me!”
Akira tried to answer her, tried to open her mouth and form words, but a taste, a warm metallic flavor, distracted her. Shit. That was blood.
She opened her eyes, trying desperately to see even as Zane put something up to her face and her contracting muscles tried to pull her in three directions at once.
He was trying to stop the bleeding, she realized dimly. With something cotton. It smelled of him.
She could see his frantic face, hear the worry as he cursed, but most of her sight was taken up with the tornado of red energy surrounding his mother’s ghost. She was getting stronger, Akira realized. Oh, that was bad.
And now she could hear another voice, too.
Dillon.
Screaming her name.
And then he popped through the bedroom wall next to the window and Akira, desperately struggling to take in only the energy she could handle, realized he was caught in the vortex.
Oh, hell.
Akira stopped fighting. She let the energy pour through her, filling her body, enveloping her in spirit power.
But it still wasn’t enough.
So she let go.
***
Five minutes? That was what she’d said, five minutes until neurons died.
Zane had ripped off his t-shirt and was holding it to Akira’s face, trying desperately to stop the bleeding.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She’d taken a hammer and broken her hand.
She wanted him to do the same. Maybe not the hammer part, but the breaking part.
Could he do it?
But even as he thought the question, her body relaxed, her muscles loosened, and the seizure ended.
Thank God, he thought fervently, looking down at her as she blinked a few times and shook her head. That must not have been as bad as she expected.
“Zane? Honey?” she said, looking confused, and putting a hand up to her face to push his t-shirt away. “I just had the worst dream.”
Zane froze. The words were wrong. But so was the voice.
She was already pushing herself to a sitting position when he asked, “Mom?”
“Oh, honey.” Akira put her hand to her temple, squeezing her eyes closed, as if she had a pounding headache. “What are you doing here?”
“Mom?” Zane repeated himself, as he crouched next to her in the dim light of the bedroom. “Tell me something that only you would know.” He didn’t want to believe this. This couldn’t be his mom. It wasn’t possible. And it was more than impossible, it was flat-out creepy. Could his mom’s ghost really have just taken over his girlfriend’s body?
She shook her head and laughed faintly. “What?”
“Please, just tell me something that only you would know.”
She looked at him
and they were Akira’s eyes, the brown so dark it was almost black, nothing like his mother’s eyes. But the expression was wrong.
Just wrong.
“You’ve always been my favorite?” she offered.
His answer was a choked laugh. Now that was right. Not that he was his mom’s favorite, but that she’d say so, in just that way.
“You say that to all your kids,” he answered automatically. She did. Routinely. Sometimes even in front of one another.
But it wasn’t good enough. A good fake, a good cold reader, could have gone for just that soft spot. Every kid wanted to believe that he was his mother’s favorite. And if it was wrong, it would still make the mark happy.
“Try again. Something only you would know.”
She shook her head, and then brought up her other hand, so that she was pressing both temples, expression pained. “I don’t know, honey. I can’t . . . Shouldn’t you be off with Lucas? I thought you had that job in Paris this week.”
He stilled. His mother had been a sensitive subject between him and Akira. He’d never talked to Akira about his mom’s death after those first conversations. And who else would have? How would Akira have known that he and Lucas were in France when Dillon died?
Now that he had the truth, he didn’t want it.
“Oh, but . . .” she started and then she stopped. She looked at him for a second, face still, and then she curled in around herself, hands covering her face, shoulders hunching down, legs drawing up, as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible.
She hadn’t done that in life. He’d seen her two days after Dillon died and she’d been stoic. Upright, perfect posture, face composed, taking care of business. And death had a lot of business attached to it: funeral homes, newspapers, plans for a service, communications with friends and neighbors.
He touched her shoulder, feeling helpless. It was old pain to him. But her grief was throwing him back into that moment. Zane had missed the police investigation and the expedited autopsy, but he and Lucas had arrived in the middle of the planning stages, just barely in time to see their mother before the stroke that killed her, and then take over the planning for a joint memorial service.
Well, Lucas and Grace had taken over the planning, anyway. Zane had spent a lot of time playing foosball with his dad.
“What?” Her head shot up. “Dillon?”
Scrambling to her feet, she hurried over to the window, reaching out as if to embrace an invisible figure. And then she recoiled. “What the hell?”
She looked back at Zane, and then back and forth between the window and him as he stood, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“Dillon’s dead,” she said. It wasn’t quite a question.
“Yeah.” He answered her. Dillon wasn’t the only one who was dead, though. Should he tell her?
“What?” she said again, looking down at herself in shock.
Hmm. It looked as if Dillon was telling her for him.
“Oh, my God.” The horror in her voice was so like his mother’s tone when she got offended over something in the newspaper that Zane almost wanted to laugh. He could practically see her throwing the paper down by her bowl of breakfast cereal and swearing she’d never again vote for whatever local politician had annoyed her.
“This is not okay,” she snapped. “What were you thinking?”
“Me?” she continued, and then she looked puzzled. “Really? I suppose. Oh!” And then her eyes grew wide and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “I thought that was a dream.”
Zane glanced at the clock on Dillon’s bedside table. It was blinking. No one had bothered to reset the time after the last power outage. How long had it been already? And did this count as a seizure? Were Akira’s five minutes still ticking down?
“Mom,” he said. “You really need to go.”
But then he stopped.
This was his mom. He’d missed her so much. The whole family had grieved for her and still grieved. Every anniversary, every birthday, every holiday was as colored by her absence as it had been shaped by her presence in life.
But still, every minute might be putting Akira in more danger.
She looked confused. “I should talk to your father.”
“No.” Zane’s reaction was immediate and strong, but instinctive. He didn’t know where it came from, but he repeated himself. “Mom, no.”
“Why?” She touched her forehead again, pressing her fingertips against it.
Zane took a step closer to her, feeling helpless, unsure, but trying to find the words to say what he felt sure was true. A rumble of thunder sounded from outside.
“He misses you every day,” he finally said. “Every day. If you talk to him now, today, it’ll be the best day of his life. But then tomorrow, it’ll be the worst day of his life all over again. And you could be hurting Akira by being in her body like that. You can’t stay long enough to talk to him. You have to go. And really go this time. Look for a door or a passageway or something and go through it. And take Dillon with you.”
Her lips firmed and she frowned.
“Mom,” Zane said, feeling desperate. “Akira told me how to get you out. Ghosts don’t like pain, she said. If I hurt her badly enough, if I beat her, you’ll let go of her body. Don’t make me do that.” He didn’t even try to disguise his horror at the idea.
“Huh,” his mom said. “I gave birth to four children without painkillers. Nothing you could do is going to hurt more than that.” But then her gaze softened as she saw his expression. “And you couldn’t do it anyway, honey.”
“Probably not,” he admitted. If he closed his eyes and tried to pretend he was playing baseball, swinging a bat? But no. No amount of pretense would make a difference. “I can’t. So please don’t make me try, Mom. Please just let go of her.”
She sighed. She looked around the room, and then at the doorway, and she seemed to be listening. “I’m really very angry,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry, she sounded sad.
Zane glanced at the clock again. Two more minutes had passed.
“How could you?” His mom said, but it was clear that she wasn’t talking to him. Come on, Dillon, Zane thought fervently. Convince her to let go.
“All right.” She turned back to Zane and her smile—it was his mother’s smile, the wry half-amused, half-annoyed smile she showed when she signed his report cards, littered as they were with comments like, ‘Could be an A student if he ever turned in his homework’ and ‘A pleasure to have in class, but needs to apply himself.’
“Tell your father that if I’m moving on, he should, too,” she said briskly. “And tell your sisters that I still want more grandchildren, even though I’m not here to nag them about it. Tell Lucas . . .” She paused and Akira’s eyes filled with tears, but then she continued. “Tell Lucas I’m sorry I failed him.”
“Oh, Mom,” Zane’s words were a murmur. She probably didn’t hear them over whatever Dillon said, though, because her impatient wave didn’t look directed at him, as she added, “He trusted me to take care of you.”
A flash of lightning was followed by a quick crash of thunder, and the soft drumbeat of the skies opening.
“All right, already,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Moving on.”
She looked at Zane and her smile warmed. “I love you, baby. Be happy.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” he answered, the choke in his voice not enough to block the clear, strong words.
And then Akira’s face went blank, and her body swayed. Zane jumped forward, catching her before she fell again.
Thank God, he thought again. Thank God. His sisters and brother, his dad, they might be furious with him for not letting them have a chance to say good-bye, but he had to talk to Akira. He had to tell her he was sorry for doubting her, sorry for questioning.
Although he still wasn’t convinced about that pain thing. It wouldn’t have worked on his mom, he was sure of it.
But Akira didn’t push herself up and away fro
m him. She didn’t speak up in the cranky, annoyed tone that she used when she showed weakness. She didn’t do anything.
“Akira?”
Was she breathing?
Her body was a dead weight in his arms, her soft hair brushing his chin. “Akira?” he repeated, sharper this time. He tried to turn her, but she was sliding, her legs not holding her, her body limp and heavy. He side-stepped two steps trying to keep her upright, but her feet were slipping so he bent his knees, bringing her gently to the ground, supporting her head as she dropped to the carpet.
“Akira?” He tried for a third time, but there was no response, not even a flutter in her eyelids. He glanced at the clock again. How long had it been? But the light of the clock was gone. Damn. The power was out.
“Akira!” he snapped. And then he reached for her neck, for the soft crevices next to the strong tendons, feeling for the beat, for the steady thud of her working heart.
Nothing.
He took a deep breath and tried to still his own panic. Maybe he was touching the wrong spot. He shifted his fingers, and tried to calm himself, and tried to listen, and tried not to let his unruly thoughts take control. But . . .
Still nothing.
Her heart wasn’t beating.
She was dead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Whoa.
That ghost had been strong.
Akira found herself pulled out of her body and thrown into nothingness without a pause.
She looked around and knew, with a touch of wry humor to the thought, that she’d just screwed up big-time.
She understood why Henry had had a tough time describing this place.
It wasn’t really a place. It didn’t feel solid, not like she was used to solid. Not so much that she thought she’d fall, but more that if she tried, she thought she could move in any direction, down or up or sideways. And not that she was floating, at least not floating like a balloon, but maybe as if she was floating in something like water, safe and supported but not constrained. Enclosed but not limited.
And the white? It wasn’t really white. But maybe it was a very colorful white? Like white with glints of vibrancy that showed up at the corners of her vision so that it almost seemed that if she could turn in just the right way, she’d be inside a rainbow of color?