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29
Lena
No one can hear me. They’re all staring at me like they’re waiting for a signal or something. Ruby yawns so huge her jaw cracks. I’m pretty sure that they can’t see anything but me sitting in the middle of the circle.
When did I sit down?
I try to take a deep breath, only to realize I’m not breathing at all. I slap a hand on my chest in the hopes of feeling it rise and fall, but there’s nothing solid. Standing up, nearly in the grips of panic, I croak out a cry when my body stays behind.
“Mother of all that is holy, did I actually die? It was the damn tea, wasn’t it?”
“You’re not dead, but you are on the astral plane. A meeting place between our world and the Shadow Realm.”
Another embarrassing squeak comes out of my mouth. I spin around toward the voice, spotting someone in the woods. Her voice is familiar, but I can’t see her. She’s beneath the heavy bow of a pine tree, her face obscured.
“Are you a ghost?”
“Ghosts can’t speak.” She speaks softly, even though I’m pretty sure no one else but me can hear her.
“If ghosts can’t talk, then what are you?” I take a step, well a phantom step, closer to her, but she shrinks back into the woods. Since I have no idea what to do now that I'm in this place, I don’t want to chase away the one being that seems to know something about it.
“Why are you visiting the astral plane? This can be a dangerous place if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She sounds worried.
I would absolutely fall into that camp. “I need to find someone who has passed on.”
There’s a moment of silence before she speaks. “You’ll need to hold their image in your mind and call them to you.”
“Why are you helping me? I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t even know who you are.”
“That’s not important now. You don’t want to stay here longer than you have to. Call on your ghost.”
I gnaw on the corner of my lip and nod, building a picture of my mother in my mind. It should be difficult because it’s been so long since I saw her. My dad got rid of nearly all evidence that she ever existed shortly after she left. I found a few photographs of her hidden in the back of a drawer when I was nine. I’ve stared at them so many times over the years that I can recreate the image with near precision.
“Holly Marsten, I summon you.” My eyes have been open this entire time because, kind of like the breathing thing, it appears I don’t need to blink in this place. There’s a pit in my stomach and my heart aches as the seconds tick by. It’s been at least two minutes when I call out for her again. More time passes with no change.
Disappointment sinks into me, a heavy weight pressing down on my incorporeal body. I didn’t even know that was possible, but apparently it is because everything feels sluggish and too much to bear just then.
A flash of white flickers in the corner of my vision, and I whip my head toward it. It happens again on the other side of the clearing, and I snap my eyes around, trying to track the motion. It’s the oddest sensation, but I swear a chill moves down my spine, even though I can’t feel a damn thing. That saying, someone just walked over your grave, that’s exactly what’s happening right now.
Another flash of white appears directly in front of me. I realize it’s not a specter playing with me or trying to scare the shit out of me. It’s someone struggling to hold a shape. Mist rolls into the clearing in both this shadow world and the real one because my friends are looking increasingly agitated and worried. Fear and excitement share a starring role in my current feelings as the mist rises. The fog flickers as if it contains lightning, and then the shape of a woman forms in front of me. Not just any woman. My mother.
I gasp, my hand flying up to my face out of reflex. “Mom?”
She looks somehow both eerily similar to how I remember her and completely different. Not just because she’s a ghost, but because my memory of her was so reliant on those pictures that I’d forgotten what she truly looked like. It hits me a second later, the reason I’m seeing her. It can only mean one thing.
“You’re dead?” Wow, that’s probably the worst thing I could say, but I don’t currently have any control over my thoughts. They’re tumbling over one another like a roiling river cascading over a waterfall.
The woman, my mother, smiles at me, her eyes full of sadness. She lifts her hand to touch my cheek, but we’re not real in this place. Just imitations of our bodies, which exist somewhere else. At least, mine does. Hers is gone. Who the hell knows where?
“Why is she crying?” Archer’s voice lashes through the night, and I turn to look at him. He’s a barely bridled ball of tension, his body practically humming with the need to burst into action. I didn’t realize it before, but in this in between place, their auras are so much clearer. Each of them has a thin layer of gold that hugs tightly to their bodies. The rest of their auras are a rainbow of colors. Right now, Archer’s is a bright blue. Instinctively, I know he’s feeling fear.
Who’s crying? Who is he talking about? The insubstantial form of my mother doesn’t have tears on her face. I lift my hand to the cheek my mother isn’t touching but stop when her eyes drift down to the ground where my body is sitting. I’m crying. Well, my body is. This spirit form can’t do that apparently. It’s disconcerting to say the least.
“You can’t go in there. She told us we can’t touch her when she’s like this,” Miri reminds them, but I can tell Archer and Rhys are both having a hard time following that direction. Shit. I don’t know how much longer before they go into full on freakout mode. I turn back to my mother, who’s smiling over at Rhys, and it’s a cruel reminder of what we’ve all missed out on.
“What happened to you?” I whisper, needing to know, but not sure I really want to find out. I don’t even know how she’ll tell me because, if that woman in the woods is right, ghosts can’t speak.
My mother parts her lips as if she wants to speak, but then closes her eyes, a pained look crossing her face. Instead, she reaches out her hand, holding it out as if she wants me to place mine on top of it. I hesitate for a second, not inclined to offer up my trust so easily to anyone. Even the spirit of my dead mother. But what did I come here for, if it wasn’t to find answers?
