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My eyes were so blurry from my tears I could barely see him, but I blinked them away. I never wanted to forget this moment. I wanted to burn this memory into my mind so I could revisit it whenever I thought of them. To remind myself when they died they weren’t sad, lonely, or scared, they were thinking only of the love for each other. “Love you, too, kiddo.”
The moment the words left my lips, a wave of intense energy blasted across my skin and the bodies beneath my arms became less and less dense. I shut my eyes, unable to watch them vanish, unable to say goodbye, but knowing I had no choice.
Only a split second passed before my arms lowered, since no solid bodies held them up any longer. I gasped on a sob, forced my eyes open, and dropped to my knees. “I love you…”
With a loud gasp, I yanked myself out of the memory, and tears rushed down my cheeks. My entire body trembled. I clasped my hands, trying to control my hard shaking. It’d been so long since I thought of my family. It hurt too much to think of them.
It always ripped me apart to remember what I missed, but perhaps, I should’ve tried to think of them more. As I had in the memory—happy and safe. Maybe I shouldn’t have focused on their absence. I should’ve remembered how their faces looked, their smiles, and the love that we all shared in the moment they accepted their deaths.
A little part of my soul that had been so damaged by their deaths—an empty part that I stayed well away from so I could live each day and not lose myself in grief—felt f
uller now. A sense of closure I hadn’t realized I needed slid over me. I no longer had to fake strength because of their absence.
After I wiped at my tears, I focused on Nettie, who stood silently in front of me. With the memory, something else now made a lot of sense. “My decision to help my parents cross over, and not worry about me, is why I gained my gifts, isn’t it? It was because I helped ghosts here, right?”
Nettie smiled and nodded. “You cannot lie in the Netherworld, even if it’s for good intentions. Your desire to help your family cross in peace sealed your destiny because you showed an interest to take on the task.” At the scrunch of my nose that spoke to my confusion, she added with a soft laugh, “meaning, you showed you deserved to become a Spirit Guide.”
My eyes widened, as I was in total shock at what she had implied. “You are not suggesting I’m like an angel?”
“Well, no.” She chuckled, brushing her boot up against the fallen branch again. “More like a guide to help spirits come into the Netherworld. Just as my destiny was to guide from the Netherworld—yours is to save those lost souls needing saved on Earth.”
I considered all this, watching her break off pieces of wood with the tip of her boot, and a thought quickly formed. “You know, I thought Dane’s explanation of my gifts was crazy, but this…” I couldn’t believe what was about to come from my mouth, “seems right.”
When I looked at her, she inclined her head. “So then, you have the choice now to finally end this, if that’s what you want. Your gifts as a Spirit Guide shouldn’t be a burden.” She glanced at the dark sky and heaved a long sigh. Then she looked to me with a sparkle in her eyes. “Those who have gifted you wouldn’t want that. You can choose to deny this calling.”
While part of me wanted to lose my supernatural powers, the other part of me paused. Did that mean someone thought I was worthy of such gifts? Was I doing something for the greater good, and for something that was bigger than me?
Up until this very moment, I had never looked at it like that. I always thought it’d been an annoyance more than something I had been destined to do.
Looking at Nettie now, who continued to peel off the bark with her boot, I had the feeling it didn’t much matter to her either way, only that I needed to decide. I wondered what life would be like without my gifts.
Peaceful, I thought.
At the same time, how could I turn my back on the gifts that led me to Kipp? Without them, I wouldn’t have met him, and I wouldn’t have seen so many wrongs made right.
What did I want?
Kipp.
Now that he had been saved—of course, that still hadn’t been confirmed—did I want to continue helping ghosts that seemed to always put me in danger? Or did I want a normal life with Kipp, ghost-free?
I glanced down the long street of such a strange world and pondered, but I instantly realized I was already decided. As I knew when I first came to the Netherworld with my family what the right decision was, I knew now equally as intense in my soul.
What kind of selfish bitch would that make me to find the love of my life because of my gifts, only to refuse the reason for why I discovered him in the first place? Besides, with all the new understanding of my powers, plus Gretchen’s magical spells, I had a lot more control around ghosts.
It turned out being eternally devoted to ghosts wasn’t such a bad thing after all. “You know, I kinda like me just the way I am.”
Her smiled beamed as she waved. “Goodbye for now, Tess.”
Before I had a chance to say anything more, my soul was being pulled and tugged at in no way I’d ever experienced before. This wasn’t like my last trip to the Netherworld—now it hurt. The very core of my soul ripped apart, yanked between worlds, and it seemed like every fiber of my body exploded to bring me back to reality and the danger that soon awaited me.
Bringing me back to Wayde…
Chapter Nine
A hum filled my ears right before I snapped my eyes open and sat up on a loud gasp. My head pounded like elephants ran through it, instantly forcing my eyes shut again. “Oh, god...”
I rubbed my temples, begging the headache to go away, especially since I had no clue what caused these damn headaches. If it wasn’t due from my travels to the Netherworld, since I couldn’t become trapped there, and from all appearances, Kipp had been saved, which meant they weren’t linked to my emotions, then why was I continuing to get such brutal headaches? More so, since right now it seemed worse than ever.
