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“So I should be able to hear her.” Somehow, the realization deflates me, makes me feel inadequate, like this is a skill that should come as easy as breathing, and yet I can’t grasp the basics. It sours my whole mood.
Teizel grasps my chin between his thumb and index. “You’ve had no time to train your skills. In fact, you spent the past twenty-some years hiding them. Don’t be frustrated at what you can’t do yet — it’s muscle memory.”
Anger for everything that was taken from me bubbles in my gut like hot lava, and I can’t extinguish it no matter how hard I try. I’m disgusted I can feel this way toward the women who raised me, who loved me despite everything, except… except there should’ve never been a despite. The years I’ve spent feeling wrong for the things I could do weigh on me like Sisyphus’s rock, but none of it feels wrong right now.
“Can you teach me how to listen?”
Behind me on the stool, Mei squirms, jumping up and down. Whatever she’s trying to communicate, I can’t understand, but I have a sneaking suspicion Teizel can. He looks from her to me, and sighs with a nod.
Teizel comes behind me, placing his hands on my waist. On instinct, I pull away, ready to rebuke him, but he holds me steady. “Relax. I’m teaching. Close your eyes.”
I force myself to ignore the literal heat of his touch, even through my clothes, and do as I’m told.
“Ghosts don’t exist in this plane the way you, or even I, do. They’re stuck in a land in between, perpetually non-corporeal, resisting the pull that’s trying to suck them into the Beyond. You can’t perceive them with the senses you use to experience the rest of the world around you.”
But I can see ghosts. Sure, they look different from humans, but they’re visible nonetheless. I can also smell them, and feel their chill. I try to argue that, but Teizel shushes me and presses a finger to the back of my skull, in the tender spot where my neck connects to my head.
“You have a special sense, something that allows you a connection to the Beyond. Because it doesn’t have its own representation, you experience it through your most dominant senses. Sight first, then scent, touch.”
He moves that finger from my skull to my ear, curving it around the shell. Shivers travel down my spine at the contact. “Hearing isn’t your most dominant sense. It needs a bit of a push to sync up with the others.”
Judging by the way I can get lost in things, absorbed by the words on a page and the scent of the paper until I’ve shut off all the noise around me, I’m not surprised hearing is not my dominant sense. In a way, what Teizel is saying is completely logical while still being fully absurd.
“So how do I do that? How do I make it sync?”
“First off, you shut up.”
I purse my lips in a thin line to keep myself from arguing.
Teizel speaks against my ear. “Good girl. I know you wanted to fight me on that one.”
I want to say something snappy back, but I clench my fists to keep quiet, fingernails digging half-moons into my palm, and drink in his praise, which soothes something deep in my core.
His finger is back on my skull. “Focus on this pressure. Does it feel different from other parts of your body?”
It has a distinct effect, like a tingle down my spine I can’t quite explain. I mumble in agreement.
“Good. Focus on the scent of death. Take a deep breath in. Separate it from the other scents in the room, feel where they differ.”
This is a harder task, because the smell of rot and decay is more pungent than the others, but as I breathe it in, I realize it’s registering in a different part of my head, less behind my eyes and closer to where Teizel’s finger is pressing. “Yeah, I feel it.”
“Open your eyes.”
I do. Mei stands in front of me, still as a slab of marble. She looks as ghosts do — less colorful than a human being, as if both reflecting and absorbing the light around them.
“Separate Mei from the surrounding.”
I try the same way I did with scent, squinting and tilting my head this and that way, but nothing changes. “I can’t…”
“Yes, you can. This is your primary sense, so it’s harder to pull it apart. But you can do it, little one.”
The encouragement spurs me on. I lean into the pressure in my head and let my gaze go hazy. Suddenly, the room around us disappears, and all I can see is Mei, shining with color of her own. Her skin is peachy, her eyes more brown than black. I gasp at the sight, and with it lose my focus, returning the space to its normal state. But I felt it. I grasped the difference.
“Just like that. Now you just need to find that same place in your body where you can hear.”
His finger presses harder. “Send the noises here.” To Mei, he adds, “speak.”
I close my eyes to focus on the sounds around me. The crystals on the chandelier clink softly with the draft. The wood planks under my feet creak when I shift my weight. I press myself against Teizel’s hand and focus on that spot. A new buzzing takes hold. I grasp at it with both hands and refuse to let it go. It gets louder, clearer, deeper, until…
