“Everyone, listen,” he said standing up. “We’re still going in, but I wanted to give you a head’s up. Someone from the staff called me all spooked out.”
“Say what?” some guy asked.
“The lady just called to tell me, and this is word for word, that we should consider cancelling because for the past couple of days, the conservatory has been haunted.”
There were some who snickered, and some who were silent.
“They probably heard the wind through the cracks or something. Nothing to worry about. Jesus, people will be spooked about anything. Well, let’s go on in, shall we?”
So, we exited the bus, not exactly in a rush, not sure what to think. It was mostly silent except for the stones under our shoes.
A lady let us in, although reluctantly and barely even looked at us as she propped the door open.
“The conservatory is this way,” she said, smiling weakly as we shuffled along. I noticed there were some other workers there wearing galoshes and wading in some marshy areas. It seemed as though they were less looking for something and more trying to hide from something else. One man pretended to give something plant food as he ducked behind a leaf as thick as his head.
The greenhouse we walked into smelled like rain. It seemed nice and didn’t creep us out at all. It was a quarter to ten in the morning and instead of going back to bed, I wanted to take a hammock and set it up between the two sausage fruit trees.
All right, so we were supposed to draw pictures of different kinds of plants and label the different parts. My drawing skills were far from majestic, so I saw a challenge. The rest of the class scattered throughout the greenhouse. One small group huddled with the lady who let us in. She was shaking her head and speaking in hushed whispers. Mr. Egle just shrugged and walked over to another area. I decided to get closer.
“So, you really saw a ghost?” asked a guy near the front.
“Yes,” the lady said seriously. “It’s been wandering around here and in the fountain room. Never talks, just walks around and then always disappears in thin air. I’ve seen it!”
“It doesn’t speak it all?”
“No, and I’m too afraid to talk to it! Everyone is, too.”
I edged a bit closer.
“What does it look like?” someone asked.
“It’s the ghost of a girl,” the lady answered.
Then suddenly, she shrieked. Everyone, including the teacher, jumped and looked around. The lady stared behind us with all of the white in her eyes.
“What? Do you see it?”
“Where is it?”
The lady took a small step backwards and pointed with a trembling hand. We all looked behind us, but we saw nothing. I sort of sidestepped away from the opening, feeling more than a little terrified.
“There!” she cried. “She’s right there!”
It took everyone a minute, but it took less for me. My blood froze in acknowledgement. She was pointing and staring directly at me.
***
“Her!” she cried again. “There she is!”
Everyone—all my classmates, the teacher, the greenhouse workers, even the butterflies on the plants—stared at me with confusion.
“Skyler?” Mr. Egle said. “Now that is ridiculous. She’s a student.”
“I’m telling you, it’s her!” the woman cried again, clearly not wanting to be within ten feet of me. “I’ve seen her before wandering around here. Same hair, same eyes, same face!”
“Um…” I said lamely. “I’m not a ghost.”
“Well…maybe you were sleepwalking or something!” The woman stated, and she went from being only scared to scared and angry. “You probably have a sleepwalking condition that makes you wander to places. I don’t know. But no doubt in my mind it is you.”
Everyone still stared at me, and it wasn’t long before the other staff members decided to leave the room. My classmates, of course, couldn’t go anywhere and that made all the staring worse. I didn’t know what to say or do.
“I don’t sleepwalk! And I’ve never even been here before!”
My awkward eyes darting everywhere I looked down at my feet, anywhere but up, and I almost couldn’t believe what I saw. The ground, the pathway, was covered and made up of hundreds of pennies.
***
That was the most uncomfortable and tense bus ride I’d ever been on, much worse than the time I threw up in the second grade and had to ride home up front with a bucket between my legs. I would take that day again instead of this.
All right, so I was shocked beyond belief to see the penny-graved pathway, and to just know where the fountain in the greenhouse was. Of course I was. I was so scared I froze up and only kept denying it, which made them even more afraid of me. My class ended up being kicked out of the conservatory because of the “stunt I pulled.” I was given heavy advice to get on strong mediation and see a shrink.
How, everyone wanted to know, did I not only manage to sleepwalk all the way over here by foot but how did I get into the building without anyone seeing me? I just shook my head. I told them of course I didn’t sleepwalk and the woman just spooked herself and blamed it on me. They didn’t know what to believe. I kept thinking back to my meditations. What did this mean? How was it possible that I saw this place in a dream, only to visit the exact place in person? All I knew was my dreams, my meditations, had been getting stronger and this was the biggest indicator. The last place I wanted to go was my dorm, especially after this field trip. No doubt Katie already told them all about the newest freaky thing that I did.
I went to The Manor with my backpack full of books, not exactly wanting to dive into studying. To my surprise it was relatively empty sans a few people hanging out outside.
I helped myself to a glass of lemonade and sat down at the counter, taking a few gulps. As soon as I put the glass down I almost choked it back up seeing Iris five feet away from me in the kitchen. I didn’t even hear her come in.
“Jesus, you scared me,” I stated.
“Sorry,” she replied, starting to come around the counter. I ran my fingers through my hair and exhaled while she helped herself to a glass.
“Rough day?”
I shrugged. “Well, not exactly rough. Weird, more like. And…I don’t really know what just happened and what’s going on anymore.”
“Maybe I can help,” Iris said. She sat down at one of the stools next to me.
“Actually, I think you could,” I said looking at her. “This seems like the sort of thing only a GOL member would be able to understand and explain.”
She leaned in, clearly interested. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah… this is going to sound really weird and I don’t know how to explain this to you so it doesn’t.”
I had the chills and it might have been from the lemonade. Might have been.
“Okay, so you know our meditation sessions? Well, mine have been really strong lately, and I guess I didn’t know just how strong because…they became more of a reality. I’ve been doing sessions where I’m walking through this greenhouse, and I hear and see all the details, right down to the pennies that are glued down on the pathway. My class takes a field trip to this conservatory and lo and behold it is the exact one from my vision, right down to those pennies and the sausage fruit! It gets better; the lady there at first said we couldn’t go because it was haunted and then she freaks out when she sees me because she says that I am the ghost that everyone saw!”
Iris studied me without the reaction of horror I was expecting, or even confusion or disbelief.
“That is amazing.”
“Amazing?” I looked at her. “That’s freaky as hell. The lady then said that I must have been sleepwalking, after I, you know, told her that I wasn’t a ghost. How the hell could I have sleepwalked from my dorm, on foot, all the way out to somewhere I’ve never even been before? It just doesn’t make sense!”
I took a sip to cool my running mouth off.
“Sky,” Iris
said. “You didn’t sleepwalk.”
It was how she said it, so simply, something that I knew all along but could not begin to believe.
“You just had a wonderful experience that only people with true spiritual strength have. This is what makes a true Guardian of Light. You know your spirit is a living thing inside of you, and your body is just the shell that protects it. You can now leave your body.”
The sip did nothing. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls and I couldn’t form the right words.
“I can?”
“It’s true,” she said, forming a coy smile on her face. “Everyone here can do it.”
“They can?”
“Mostly everyone. Upperclassmen who are advanced members. 7th graders and new people are just awkward and haven’t found themselves yet, but you. Mitchell is going to be so impressed.”
“So wait a minute…I was a ghost?”
“Well, in a way. It was your spirit. You have seen those of the other members before, right?”
“The others?” I asked. Then, the penny dropped. “I have! Wandering campus. I did think they were ghosts. They would just come and go in the blink of an eye—
“That’s right,” Iris said smiling.
“So...that’s what that was.” I said. What else could I say?
“You just relax,” Iris replied. “Stick around here, gather your thoughts. The first time is hard for everyone. Soon, it will be like second nature.”
I nodded, and drank some more.
“Iris.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not always the other students is it?”
She smiled. “Of course not. If you sense something, but do not see it, then it is the spirits that guard the woods and our house. But those you can’t see.”
“They made themselves seen one time,” I blurted out.
Iris nodded. “So they have. They say all spirits make themselves seen on All Hallow’s Eve, that is what it is for. The rest of the time, they make themselves known in other ways. They are kindred spirits, ambassadors of The White Light, so to speak.”
Right. I understood. I decided that was all I needed to know. I took long chugs of my lemonade, and noticed the whole time Iris had not touched hers.
“Just you wait and see,” she continued. “Things are going to be better for you now.”
“How so?”
“You’re stronger now.”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
“Good,” she said, still smiling.
***
I didn’t get back to my dorm until after a small dinner at the food court. Of course, I put it off as long as I could. The aftermath of my field trip fiasco still greeted me as soon as I turned the doorknob and barely stuck a foot inside.
“Sky, holy crap! What happened?”
I sighed and tried not to look at Deanna.
“It was really weird, I honestly don’t know.”
Deanna just stood there with her arms crossed.
“You were sleepwalking? I have never seen you sleepwalk.”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, I don’t know what that lady was talking about. I was there, just for something else. That lady is just crazy.”
“Um okay, that’s not what Katie said.”
“Well, what did Katie say?” My voice rose without my meaning it to. “Do you always listen to everything she says or what?”
“No…she said that she believes it because…because Kristen said she saw you sleepwalking.”
“What?” I stammered. “When?”
“This one night Kristen said she was lying in bed, and you just appeared out of nowhere. It looked like you were in a daze or trance so you had to have been sleepwalking. You went right in her room and walked right up to her bed like you were going to do something to her, and she yelled at you to go away and you wouldn’t listen and you just kept coming closer—
I turned away from Deanna to act like I was disgusted, when in reality I didn’t want her to see the recognition in my face.
“I was there when Kristen and Katie were talking about that and then Katie brought up the field trip and now the whole floor is afraid of you.”
I still said nothing and put together a poker face.
“Sky…I think you have a problem.”
“I don’t,” I said. “It was an accident; that never happens to me. I must have been really stressed out or something, or I don’t know, maybe I actually got drunk!” I laughed a little, hoping to turn it into a joke. “Just…I don’t know, don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to freak Katie out, I just wanted to see if she was awake to ask her something. Not important.”
“Ooo-kay,” Deanna said in that annoyingly stupid sing-songy voice. I hate that voice. It’s so patronizing. “Everyone is just freaked out by you.”
“Great, thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Just what I needed.”
“I just thought you should know. I mean, if you have a serious problem you should get help.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “Geez, if anyone needs help it’s the delinquent kids who do nothing but party and mess around with alcohol. If they weren’t here they’d be in jail.”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. Deanna’s eyes were so wide she could have been in Anime.
“What?”
“Dee, sorry.”
“Look, that was an accident! Excuse me for being human, and excuse me for being normal and wanting to experience life! That’s what you do! Lighten up.”
“Lighten up?” My voice got higher and louder and I didn’t care anymore how mad I was. “Lighten up? Me? I’m the only person in this dorm who actually has any sense. I am the only person who is a part of something that actually means something.”
“Oh, sure!” Deanna chuckled which infuriated me even more. “You do weird cult rituals and brainwash people. You are so brainwashed!”
“That is not true!”
“Yes you are, Sky. Everyone always talks about how you try to shove your newfound holier-than-thou beliefs down everyone’s throats. No one cares, okay?”
“You’re just being negative,” I stated. “You’re in a negative environment, so you’re just blinded to the truth.”
“Oh gimme a break.”
I was about to retort when I heard something outside our room, and realized I didn’t shut the door all the way.
“Skyler’s really losing it,” came a hushed voice.
“Oh my God,” came another.
Oh, they thought I was losing it?
Before Deanna could say or do anything I stormed over and pulled the door open to reveal none other than the gossiping clique itself.
“You got something to say to me? Say it.” I stared them down, challenging their shocked faces, and realized even I was a little bit shocked at my confrontation. I was too fired up to care.
They just stood there looking awkward. Finally, Kristen spoke up.
“Um, just think that maybe you have some problems. And we think you need help.”
“And we don’t care or believe in your cult stuff.”
“Well, maybe I believe in my ‘cult stuff’ “I declared, actually making the finger quotes for dramatic effect. “Because it actually promotes good morals and spirituality, and you just passed judgment before even knowing what it was.”
“Whatever, Skyler. Whatever.”
They walked away to their rooms, and I actually questioned whether or not I should follow them out and yell at them some more, but even in my anger I held myself back. I turned to Deanna, which just lifted her hands to me in defense and went to her computer in silence. I felt the steam come out of my ears as I grabbed my hoodie off the door coat rack and hastily made my way out of the dorm. The evening sky was dimming, the sun almost already gone took more of the heat away, but my own burning insides kept me warm. I power walked down the sidewalks, passed the buildings and away from the populous parts of campus. I approached the wooded area and with it, the completed twilight. The solar lanterns lig
hting up The Manor pathway greeted me as they always did. I charged right between them wondering why I even took a hoodie in a warm jog. I walked up this Manor pathway and for some reason, I didn’t care or pay too much attention to the solar lamps going out two by two as I passed them all up to the house and to the door.
Chapter 14
I didn’t even know what I was going to say or do as soon as I got inside. It was funny, with all of the rage I had, it seemed to drain from me with every inch I took in that house. It was only a few hours ago I was at that same counter talking to Iris, and little did I know I would be back here again still feeling distraught. I seemed to freeze a bit as I walked in and saw a group of people hanging out in the lounge. Much to my surprise, Damien was in there too.
“Hey, Sky,” he said waving me over to the couches.
I sat down, just giving everyone a general greeting. Iris sat in one of the armchairs with Ad Astra, and both of them were looking at me with interest.
Damien pushed some of his homework out of the way on the couch to make room for me. “What’s up?” he asked.
And that was the point when I didn’t know where to begin. Damien didn’t say anything, but Holly, Becky, Iris, Seth, and others had funny looks on their faces. Iris put a book on the coffee table. Ad Astra seemed like she wanted to come and sit on my lap, but Iris’s very light hold on the small of her back said she would not. Her eyes closed as Iris pet her and finally said something.
“Something’s up with you again.”
So, as though it were the cue I was waiting for, I blurted out the whole story. I started with just feeling ostracized by the dorm in general and ended with the sleepwalking incidents.
“There’s more on that, actually. It was something I talked to Iris about today.”
Iris held up a finger. “Hold that thought. Mitchell! He’s here, Sky. I told him. Mitchell can you come in here? Skyler just got here.”
Lo and behold Mitchell came out of nowhere. He approached me immediately, looking like he wanted to hand me a major award or something.
“Skyler, I heard all about it,” he said sitting on the edge of the coffee table so he could be right in front of me. The instant he did Ad Astra leapt off of Iris and sat between his legs. He smiled at me, like his own flesh and blood did something he was so proud of. “You’ve been having out-of-body experiences.”
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