With no other ideas about what to do next, I get back to cleaning the house. As I'm putting the tin of herbal tea back in the cupboard, I realize my face is tingling. I check in the mirror at the back of Gran's china cabinet. In amongst her tea pots and porcelain figures of fancy ladies in big dresses, floats a blemish-free face. I could have sworn I had at least two angry zits yesterday, but now, they're gone. They're gone like snow in June.
Sure, the tea may have made me black out and barf my guts out, but a cure for acne is worth a little pain. Besides, it's not like I have anything better to do today.
I pull the canister of tea back out of the cupboard and a leaflet falls out. There are some symbols I can't read, and then in English: Skin-so-clear Tea. For Spirit Walk, take with mint. Do not blend with alcohol.
Spirit Walk. Is that some sort of gourmet tea blend experience, or does it mean what I think it does? I had two cups of the tea last night with Peppermint Schnapps, so I did take it with mint, but also with alcohol. Was the alcohol the reason I don't remember much? There's no store name on the paper, and I can't remember the name of the herbalist, if there even was an English name.
Bank card—I paid by bank card.
I race to my room, scaring poor Mibs into having a puffy tail. Poor guy only just ventured out after hiding from the big, scary vacuum cleaner.
I turn on my computer, pull up my bank statement, and there it is—the most recent purchase. Right in front of me, the name, albeit written in squiggles and dashes and little boxes. I'm going to have to go down to Chinatown and walk around until I find the store, to find out more about this Spirit Walk thing.
Or do I?
The idea is floating in my head, formless—more of a feeling than a plan. I dare not put the words together, for fear of my plan blowing apart under the weight of its own ridiculousness, but I have to. If I could astral project—Spirit Walk—again, for real, I could visit Austin in her coma state. Assuming souls are real, of course. And she's still alive. And she actually wants to see me, and was only pushing me away for my own good the last time I saw her.
For Spirit Walk, take with mint.
I'm going to blend the tea with mint and drink it! I feel as sure of this as I've ever felt about anything. I'm not even going to do a web search about astral projection, that's how sure I am. My hand reaches across to click off my monitor, and I'm on my feet, on a tea-making mission. A thought nags at the back of my head: why do I feel so sure about what I'm doing?
Also, why are there so many crows sitting on the branches outside my window?
They circle around the house and follow me to the kitchen, but I don't care. They can watch me with their beady little eyes all they want. I'm on a mission.
I dig through Gran's drawer of teas. She keeps every flavor so she can be a good hostess. People ask her what kind she has, and her eyes twinkle as she invites them to name their favorite tea, because she's psychic and she bought it special, just for them. Gran's not really psychic, as far as I know, and this is her little joke, but now that I think about it, she could be hiding behind the truth too. Oh, Gran. I do love you so much. You've been good to me. Why do I feel like I'll never see you again? You're coming back from your cruise tomorrow.
I check the calendar on the fridge to make sure. Yes, Gran's returning tomorrow. This calendar has scenes from Italy for each month. The image of a Hello Kitty calendar pops into my head. Where have I seen that? At the Chinese herbalist? At Heidi's cottage?
My mind goes blank.
What was I just thinking about?
The crows outside the window squawk at me. Tea. I'm making tea.
I pull out boxes of tea labeled peppermint, spearmint, and mint. Are they all the same? Mibs jumps on the counter, very interested in the tea. He swipes one of the mint tea bags and runs off. “One for Mibs, one for Zan,” I say as I drop a bag into a mug.
I move swiftly through the kitchen, preparing the Spirit Walk tea. I am guided by forces outside myself. More crows appear in the tree outside the window, staring in at me. I sip my hot tea and give them the finger.
Drowsy, so drowsy.
I make my way to my grandfather's old recliner and settle in.
My body feels happy. I've never felt so comfortable before.
* * *
Why do I have such an idiotic look on my face? Look at me there, with my hand tucked into my waistband like some out-of-shape sitcom dad.
Wait. If I'm there, how can I be here? I'm floating. Why is my head in the attic now? Hey, my comic books! Gran said she sold them at a garage sale, but here they are. Hello, Spiderman. Don't worry, comic books, I know where you are now.
Roof.
Chimney.
Sky.
I'm naked, but I'm not cold. Why am I in the sky? Right, astral projection. Or Spirit Walking. I wish I had some clothes.
Something shimmers, and now I'm wearing boxer shorts. I try to will myself into something more presentable, but nothing's coming to mind. I guess boxers are better than nothing.
A big, black crow flies through me, and then another. This is like a violation of my person, even without a body, so I steer myself out of the path of the others. Where are they going in such a hurry?
Austin. I need to find her. She probably has a specific energy, and if I focus on it, I'll be drawn to her. I concentrate as hard as I can. A pair of jeans appear in front of me. Not exactly what I wanted, but I'm learning. I grab the floating jeans and put them on, both legs at the same time, because I can.
I picture Austin's face, and how she looked up at me from her magazines on the floor, with paper cutouts of her impossible future spread out in all directions. I wish I'd paid more attention to the dresses she was cutting out.
A wedding dress appears in front of me. “No,” I say, and the dress dematerializes.
“Toaster.”
A four-slice bagel toaster appears in front of me.
“Austin.”
Nothing happens.
I suppose I could float around the sky all day, or I could go to the biggest hospital in the city—the one most likely to do brain surgeries.
I picture the hospital in my mind. Something tugs gently on my left shoulder, so I turn that way and will myself to move. Faster and faster I go, until I'm flying.
I wave below me, wondering if I'm invisible, or if people see a boy, naked except for a pair of jeans, soaring through the sky like the world's worst-dressed and least-prepared superhero.
* * *
Nobody notices me walking around in the hospital, except for a few people who, by the looks of them, are not the most reliable witnesses.
“Jonah,” wheezes an old man in a hospital bed. He must be talking to me, because there's no one else around. He says, “I thought you were acting out, trying to get attention. We shouldn't have left you there. I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“I forgive you,” I say, checking his chart. Nothing on this chart makes any sense, except for the old guy's name. “Carl. I forgive you, Carl. Say, do you know where the recovery ward would be for brain surgery patients?”
“Hang on,” he says. His mortal body sinks into the bed, and he sits up out of himself—that is, the non-mortal, shimmery part of him sits up. “I'll take you there,” he says, and he floats in front of me, naked as a newborn baby.
“I know you're not really Jonah,” the old guy, Carl, says. “But I still wanted to apologize, and I meant it. Certain combinations of words act as keys for the soul. Did you know that?”
“Makes sense, sure. The word love makes me feel funny. So, um, how are you?”
“Can't complain.” He twirls up and straightens out about level with my waist, stroking his arms through the air as though swimming through water.
“You're taking death rather well,” I say.
“Life is all about the attitude. So's death.” He begins to sing, “I gotta be me!”
All the people in the waiting room we're passing through begin to cough and sneeze, seemingly in rea
ction to his off-key singing.
“Hospitals,” he says. “If you weren't sick when you came in ... am-i-right?”
“Carl, do you want me to order you up some pants?”
“Pants are for suckers,” he says, scissor-kicking his way up a hallway.
I apologize on his behalf to the nurses and doctors going about their business, but they can't hear or see us, which is almost a shame, because covered in white hair the way he is, Carl looks not unlike a yeti, or abominable snowman.
“I always thought your ghost would be the young version of yourself,” I say.
Carl rolls onto his back and floats ahead of me, the back of his head resting on his forearms. “I never considered such a thing,” he says, and just like that, his white furry coat turns back to brown. “Will wonders never cease.”
I avert my eyes—this is a bit too much like the sauna room at the swimming pool, where the older guys wander around without their swim trunks.
“Here's your stop,” Carl says.
We're at a door, presumably Austin's room. The door's open, and it's a private room, which means Popeye-arms, David the pretend husband, must have good insurance.
“Are you going to be all right on your own here, son?” Carl asks. “There's somewhere I have to be.” He's fading around the edges.
“You go,” I say, though I wish he would stay. Without my body, Carl and I are nothing but energy, and I like the feel of his energy.
“I was, I am, I will be,” Carl says as he disappears into nothing.
* * *
Austin. I can feel her energy too.
I drift into the room, my feet no longer touching the floor, assuming they ever were.
Her head is covered in bandages, but I don't have to look to know they've shaved off all her hair. She had such beautiful hair, but without it, I'm noticing her eyebrows and eyelashes for the first time. They're neither gold nor brown, but both, at once.
“Austin,” I say. Of course I have no physical vocal chords, so I can't be making any noise. With no body, I have no physical presence. I don't know how I can see, without having physical eyeballs to refract and reflect light and send messages to a brain that's not here either, but this is not the time or place to question physics. I'm here.
I reach for Austin's hand, but my fingers pass through. “Hey, wake up. I came for you, Austin. I traveled here outside of my freaking body to see you. Don't you dare ignore me, or I'll ... I'll come in there with you.”
The pulsating line on one of the machines changes, or at least I think it does—I don't know what any of this stuff means. As I'm attempting to hold her hand, even though mine keeps slipping through, I feel something I don't expect: the sensation of my own arms and legs being held, as though someone is picking me up and carrying me.
How can I be getting carried by my arms and legs?
“Carl? Are you pranking me?” I look around the hospital room, but there's only me, Austin, and some bunches of flowers and cards. Three cheery silver balloons bob in the corner, but no Carl.
I check my arms and legs, but I don't see anything unusual, considering I'm a spirit in a pair of pretend jeans. My hip stings, as though I was dropped on it. New voices float around my mind, like the tail end of echoes in a big canyon, when they turn back in on themselves and stop having meaning.
“I'm not that strong, you'll have to help,” says a man's voice. “Get a good grip.”
Newt?
Pulling. My body—my real, mortal body—is pulling me back toward it, like the moon pulling the sea, and I am washing away, trickling out of this hospital room, away from Austin.
Did her eyelash flutter? I struggle to get closer, but I'm being pulled back, and ... folded. Folded? My consciousness expands in a brief flash of light and I know I'm being loaded into the trunk of a car. My body is being loaded into the trunk of a car.
“This is all working so well,” says the man's voice. It is Newt, Heidi's friend. Newt continues, “The best part is he actually thought the tea was his idea. Susan did a wonderful job, I'd say. We're really coming together as a team.”
“Stop complimenting your half-done handiwork,” Heidi snaps at Newt. “You're one of those people who quits halfway through painting a room to admire it, aren't you?”
I sense my physical eyelids cracking open, and for a second I see what's happening, as though watching picture-in-picture on a TV. It's night time now, and Heidi is dressed in black, like a widow or a ninja. The picture disappears just as quickly, but I'm still getting sound.
The lid of the trunk bangs shut, muffling their voices. In the hospital room, where I also am, simultaneously, I'm floating up against the ceiling, like one of Austin's get-well-soon balloons would if the ribbon were snapped. I hope Austin doesn't open her eyes and catch me like this, floating over her like some creepy ghost.
The sounds and images from my physical body are gone, and I'm cut off again, to my relief.
My ghostly head passes through fluorescent light ballasts and insulation, and my face is mopped by a janitor. Ptooie. How can I be tasting mop water if I have no mouth here?
I focus all my thoughts, all my energy on Austin. Go to her. Be with her. Never mind whatever Heidi and Newt are doing with your body.
I wave my arms and swim myself back down to her room, and not having any better ideas, I push down so I'm on top of her body. “Sorry,” I say, because what I'm about to do seems terribly rude. I dive into her, through her belly button.
Chapter 17
I'm no longer inside the hospital room, and yet I am … albeit inside Austin, like one of those Russian dolls inside another doll.
It's dark here, in this place. Someone forgot to pay the electric bill. I trip over a pile of things and realize I'm standing not on a floor, but on stuff. Tupperware bins, shoe boxes, stacks of clothing, old typewriters, cans of food, papers, and more, all tower around me. I squeeze between two columns that look like molding cheese but smell like maple syrup, as I edge toward a window that is the only source of light. Is this place inside Austin? I didn't expect her mind to be so cluttered.
At the window, I pull up the old wooden frame, looking for a quick exit from this room of forgotten things. I stick my head out, and I'm assaulted by a fire-hose spray of something that isn't water, but … tiny circles of colored paper. Confetti. The confetti stings my eyes, even though I know I don't have eyes.
“Austin, are you out there?” I lean further out the window, peering into the storm. Deep within the swirling confetti, white dresses are dancing, swirling. There are thousands, and they're as different as snowflakes, but they don't have any people in them.
There's no ground below this window, just miles of brick, so I haul myself back inside and shut the window.
The room's as clean as a whistle now, magically cleared out. I walk across the beautiful hardwood floor to a doorway.
Out in the hallway, I find a myriad of of doors. Now this is more in line with what I was expecting! I run down the hall, hoping to find one door that's different from the rest, but they're all different. I see tall doors, short doors, metal ones both old and new, and one dripping with what appears to be mucous. I keep running, past a door made from patchwork quilts, and one of decapitated Barbie dolls. Those are probably childhood memories, right? I crack open a door that is a giant whole wheat cracker, and find a restaurant full of stuffed animals eating soup while penguins waddle between the tables, offering freshly-ground pepper.
I close the door quietly.
If this place has some system of organization, it's nothing I've heard of. I run down the hall for miles without tiring, past thousands of doors. I trip over my own foot and go sprawling to the floor. The door beside me comes into focus.
This one is green and covered in layers of paint, just like the door at The Bean, except it's round, like doors in spaceships and fairy tales. I get up from the floor and look left and right, noting the other doors seem blurry and less real by comparison, while this one is in perfect f
ocus. This must be the one that leads to Austin.
I turn the handle, and the circular door swings away powerfully, pulling me along.
My feet dangle over nothingness while I cling to the knob with both hands. My heart is pounding now, even though it can't be, and I'm struck with the fear I'll die in here and nobody will even know. My mortal body will rot away, soulless, and the media will blame video games.
I try to swing my body so I can get my feet back on solid ground in the hall, but the door won't budge. What's beneath me isn't nothingness at all. It's a swirling mass, brown and sickly sweet, like a compost pile full of coffee grounds, banana peels, and earthworms. I can't let the darkness touch me. My hands are slipping off the door knob.
“That's where the tumor was,” says a voice. Austin's face appears in front of mine. “Hang on.” She turns and commands, “Now, settle! Play nice.”
The brown turns to sparkling blue.
Before I can thank her, my head whirls, and we're on a sailboat. Together, me and Austin. “I'm on a boat,” I note with satisfaction.
“You're not wearing a shirt,” she says.
I explain that I left the house in a hurry. She's wearing sweatpants and a shirt speckled with smears of paint. She leans in to kiss me on the cheek, and when she leans back, she's dressed like the princess of a fairy world, complete with one of those sparkly head things.
“Too much?” she asks as she takes off the head thing—a tiara, I guess—and throws it to the water. A rainbow springs up from where the sparkling tiara landed.
“I'm not a wild animal,” I say. “You shouldn't have pushed me away. I ... care about you.”
She puts her hand on my cheek. Like the cure that takes away the pain, her cool palm draws away all my fears. “I'm not coming back from here,” she says.
“Then I'm not leaving.”
“You have to go,” she says.
“What, are you going to make me? I don't see any bodyguards.” I cross my arms.
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