by JL Bryan
My eyes closed.
Soon I found myself in Michael's hospital room, just as I'd seen it on my visits. He lay there in the narrow bed, breathing on his own but otherwise unresponsive. The room was very dark, with the shades pulled tight. It felt like nighttime, but it could have been mid-afternoon with those shades down. My vision wasn't great, anyway. The room seemed blurry around the edges, as though I were peering at it through some sort of looking glass.
Then I realized I was looking down on Michael, not like I was standing over the bed, but...more like I was floating with my back against the ceiling.
Dreaming, I thought. I waved my hand in front of my face, half-expecting it to look like a furry paw, alien tentacle, or some other weird dream-creature appendage.
Instead, I saw nothing at all.
I waved my arm frantically, but there was nothing to see. I had a general sense of where my arm should have been, but that was it.
This is a dream, I reminded myself, but I still felt freaked out when I looked for my other arm and it wasn't there, either. I tried to look down at the rest of my body, but saw only the ceiling above me, the fluorescent bar switched off and dark.
It was like I was transparent. Actually, it was sort of like I wasn't really there at all.
I focused on Michael instead, and soon found myself drifting down like an invisible cloud. I looked into his face. He'd usually appeared calm and solid on the surface, but underneath I knew he'd begun to feel restless. He wanted to get out of the city where he'd grown up, where all his bad memories still haunted him. He had talked about moving away as soon as Melissa left for college in the fall. And he'd wanted me to come.
My rush of emotions felt uncontrollable, like I was drowning in a river rapid. Affection for him. Guilt for harming him. Fear for his future.
I imagined reaching out, caressing his face. Whispering his name. Telling him to come back.
Michael's eyes flew open. The movement shocked me so much that I retreated back to the ceiling, again looking down at him from somewhere near the light fixture.
The scene suddenly seemed much realer than it had a moment earlier.
This isn't a dream, I thought. This is real. I slipped out of my body again. Kara really broke me loose.
His eyes seemed to look right up at me in the gloom. Though I couldn't even see myself, he acted like he could see me, or at least sense me hovering at the ceiling, looking down at him.
"Ellie?" he murmured. "Eleanor? What are you doing up there?"
I felt panicked, and the emotion sent me rushing out the window. Woods flickered past, then the streets of Savannah. It felt like I'd reached the end of a rubber band, and now I was snapping backwards.
I landed back inside my body with a smack that I could definitely feel, even if it made no sound. My eyes opened.
My whole body was shaking with fear.
"Bandit, what just happened?" I asked.
The black cat ignored me, leisurely bathing his face, while I ran around and got ready to see Michael at the hospital. I knew that had been no dream. He was awake, and that had to be good news. I felt relief as I changed into fresh clothes, grabbed my keys, and ran out door. The daylight outside was blinding. For the moment, there didn't seem to be a bit of darkness left in the world.
From the author
Thanks so much for continuing to read this series. I am currently writing book eight, which looks like it will involve a haunted lighthouse, so I'll hope you'll come back for that one. I'm really enjoy it so far!
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Thanks for reading!
Also by J.L. Bryan:
The Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper series
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper
Cold Shadows
The Crawling Darkness
Terminal
House of Whispers
Maze of Souls
Lullaby
The eighth book in the Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper series should be available in October or November 2016. Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss it!
The Jenny Pox series (supernatural/horror)
Jenny Pox
Tommy Nightmare
Alexander Death
Jenny Plague-Bringer
Urban Fantasy/Horror
The Unseen
Inferno Park
Science Fiction Novels
Nomad
Helix
The Songs of Magic Series (YA/Fantasy)
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairy Blues
Fairystruck
Fairyland
Fairyvision