I swat her arm. “Um, thanks for reducing my life to a bad sitcom, Cars.”
“You’re right. Not a sitcom. Totally an hour-long paranormal drama with a few funny parts. And your show won’t make it to season two if you don’t test out that ring and make sure we’re safe.” She smiles at me. “Now’s your chance.”
“I will; I just need a minute.”
I sit back and fold my knees under my arms as I gaze out over the water. It’s a sunny day, the sky is clear and blue, and the trees are the vibrant green of summer, hanging into the river’s soft, marshy edge. I hear my friends’ laughter across the beach, but suddenly they all sound very far away.
When a cloud covers the sun for a moment, the palette of the day changes. The water . . . it looks black to me. It looks like death.
The story that Thatcher once told is before me. I can almost hear his voice. “It was homecoming night, after the dance, and we went out to the upper Wando River for a bonfire.” He was with Reena, his date—actually, his girlfriend—and Leo, and another girl named Hayley. They found a boat, and climbed in. His words echo in my mind again. “We’d had a lot to drink. In the rowboat, Leo and I were standing up and being stupid. It had just rained for three days straight and the river was higher than usual, rougher. We shouldn’t have been out on the water.”
When the rowboat tipped far out in the river, they were too drunk to swim to shore. Hayley hung on to the boat—she made it. The rest of them never came back. Three bodies in the water, one girl who escaped.
I shiver, despite the warm sun on my arms, the image of Thatcher’s lifeless body filling my thoughts. My breathing is becoming labored, too, like my lungs are filling up with fluid. It’s crazy, but it’s almost as though I’m in the river, ten years ago, drowning alongside him.
I close my eyes and tell myself it’s not a dark night where people are going to die. I tell myself what I’m feeling isn’t because Reena or Leo are somehow forcing themselves on me, trying to cause me pain and scare me. It’s a bright late-summer day with my friends. I have Thatcher’s ring, and that’s all I need to feel safe. That’s all I need to make the thought of him drowning go away, and then I won’t be hyperventilating like this.
I finger the ring again, smooth and powerful. But it’s not enough.
I have to get away from this picnic and be with Thatcher.
“I’m going to take a little swim,” I tell Carson.
She eyes me carefully. “Want me to come with?”
“No,” I say, flashing a smile as I pull off my cotton sundress and stand up, still holding on to the ring. “I’m just gonna cool down for a minute.”
I kick off my shoes and walk right in, diving under the water, warm from a summer of the hot Charleston sun. It feels like a relaxing bath, and now that I’m here, up close, I see that it’s not black. It’s just the Wando—green and blue and sparkling in the bright day. My breathing is starting to return to normal, my lungs filling with clean air. Maybe I was just working myself up before. Maybe all those physical symptoms were just me channeling genuine empathy and not the evil hand of the poltergeists.
Jessica and Gina are lying on the floating dock and they wave at me as I go past doing the breaststroke. Everything seems to be okay, but still part of me won’t accept that.
I swim out farther and farther, trying to still my thoughts and enjoy the feeling of the water moving gently over my skin. I bob my head under and up, under and up.
When I get out far enough, I tread water as I open my hand just above the small waves. The gold class ring is wet and sparkling in my palm. I look back toward the shore. Laughter, lunch, friends, games. Life.
And in my hand? Longing. An impossible love. Death.
I turn to face the stretch of water in front of me, and I close my eyes at the same time that I wrap my fingers around the ring.
Thatcher. I don’t call with my voice, but I call with my mind, my heart, and my soul. I feel desire rush over my entire body like the whoosh of a sudden kicked-up wind.
Then I hear a small splashing behind me. When I turn, I see Nick. He saw me come out here and followed me.
For a second I’m annoyed, because it seems like he still thinks I need monitoring, but then something in the water changes. It’s like there’s an energy field connecting us—me and Nick—and as he comes closer, I see his eyes. His brown eyes. But they’re blue.
A stormy blue with wind and rain and lightning in them.
He swims right up to me, and I put my feet down to touch the bottom, suddenly feeling weak. My toes just barely reach the soft mud below.
“Callie,” he whispers. “There’s no danger?”
I shake my head no, but I’m not sorry I called to him.
Thatcher’s eyes flash angrily for a second, but just a second.
And then he’s kissing me, his arms pulling my bare waist toward his bare torso, his hands running up my back with a fever. I feel a flash of heat tear through my body, and it’s painful for a moment—agonizing—but then the hurt is gone and I melt into the kiss. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had with Nick; it’s not so much a kiss as a force of nature rushing through me, and I wrap one of my legs around his waist as I tilt my head back for more and put my arms around his neck and close my eyes so that I can see him with my other senses.
His lips taste like sugar, his arms feel strong and sure around me, the sound of his kiss is quiet but insistent, his skin smells like morning rain. He spins me around in the water, lifting my toes off the ground and burying his head in my neck, kissing me gently and breathing in deeply with a sigh that sounds happy and sad all at once.
“I knew it would be like this,” he whispers.
In Nick’s voice.
When we part, I keep my eyes closed, knowing it’s Thatcher I’m with and wanting to feel that truth. But then he speaks again and his voice reminds me that even though what’s happening is real, at the same time it’s the farthest thing from it.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know whether he’s apologizing to me, or to his fellow Guides, but he’s right—he has crossed a line. We both know it’s wrong, and I’m feeling guilty, too. But still I put my finger up to his mouth. “Shhhh.”
I press my lips to his again, wanting more and more of him, needing to taste the softness of his tongue. It feels like I have no control of my body; I’m overcome, overwhelmed, overspent, and moving automatically to bring him close, closer, as close as we can get. I feel his chest against mine and I run my hands over his shoulders as we kiss, touching him in a way I never could in the Prism.
When I come up for air, I open my eyes. They’re blurry from the water dripping off them, and I can almost see him—his blond hair, his angled cheekbones, and his perfectly crooked smile.
“I’m glad we did this . . . ,” Thatcher says. “Just once.”
He pulls me tighter to him, holding me in the water, and I can feel the energy pulsing around us, through us. This is real. This was meant to be.
“You can use my energy any time,” I say to him, half meaning it, but knowing that we can’t do this—he can’t do this.
“I didn’t,” he says. “That’s over—you don’t have the same energy anymore.”
“But I felt the rush—that crack of energy inside of me.”
He grins. “You felt our chemistry,” he says. Then he lifts my chin to make me look up at him, at his face, and it’s his face. Thatcher’s. My heart swells.
“The Guides have the power of possession—but we don’t use it unless there’s a crisis,” he explains. “When I heard your call I thought . . . well, I guess I used it as an excuse to justify this.”
He looks down at his body, which is not his body, and an even stronger surge of guilt hits me.
“I’m sorry, I . . . ,” I start. I’m about to apologize for calling to him, but I’m struck by the desire to reach my hand up to touch the stubble on his cheek. It feels so real. He must be
here. He must be alive. This can’t be anyone but Thatcher.
“I thought you were in trouble,” he says. “But now I have a reason to do this.” He leans in again with a soft, slow kiss that seems to touch every inch of my soul.
When he pulls away this time, though, his gaze darkens. “Callie, you can’t possibly know how much I’ve wanted to come to you this way. But the longer I’m here, the more I’m compromising the host.”
The host.
He can’t bring himself to say Nick’s name. And I can’t say that I blame him. I lower my eyes, the dreamy part of this moment fading as I start to feel ashamed. Like what we’re doing is the most selfish thing in the world, and maybe it is.
“Will he be okay?” I ask.
“Yes. One possession won’t hurt him. But another . . . it can’t happen again.”
“Is there some other way for me to hold you?” I ask him. All my inhibitions, my coy notions, are stripped bare now that he’s here with me, in the flesh. Almost.
He shakes his head sadly. “I wish there was. But . . . you have someone else. Someone who cares about you, just as much as I do.”
“We’re not . . . like that anymore. And besides . . . it’s you I love.”
His lips crash into mine again and it feels like I’m being carried into the wind, flying up into the sky.
Too soon, our kiss is over, and he backs away.
He turns his head toward the shore, and I can see the green moon glowing on his neck—the symbol that indicates he’s on the path to Solus. For the poltergeists, that area is black and charred, a dark mark. The features of Thatcher’s face start to ripple and fade. I know he’s going to leave me soon.
I straighten up and square off with him, willing myself not to go weak at the sight of him in front of me. I hold the shape of his profile in my mind to burn a memory I’ll turn to again and again. After.
After the poltergeist threat is gone.
After Wendy heals.
After I help him merge.
I’ll need to do that.
“Thatcher,” I say, afraid he’s going to disappear before I get to say this. “I know you interrupted Wendy’s story last night. Whatever happened, you can tell me. I know she’s wrong about you, that she’s confused. I can help her . . . let go.”
He sighs but doesn’t respond.
“You could merge,” I say. “Solus . . . it’s all you’ve wanted.”
Thatcher turns back to me. He traces my neck, his fingers moving up to my cheek as he cups my face in both hands and looks into my eyes. “It’s no longer all I want,” he says, and the pain in his voice makes me think of slipping under the water and leaving this world, joining him in the Prism and being with him again.
“Don’t ever think that,” he says, reading my eyes. “Knowing that you’ll grow old and live a beautiful life—that will keep me going for an eternity.”
I wrap my arms more tightly around his neck, refusing to look anywhere outside of the two of us. But I feel him pulling away.
“No,” I whisper, and I look at him.
His eyes flicker for a moment and then his full lips set into a grim line.
“You can’t call me again this way,” he repeats. “Not unless there’s something really wrong.”
“I know.” I resolve to be strong.
“My energy will be low after this; I’ll be away for a little while. Callie, please be careful. Keep the ring close. The Guides . . . we still haven’t found them.”
Leo and Reena. They’re still out there, invisible hate floating around in the atmosphere, waiting to strike.
I nod, my lower lip starting to quiver.
He leans down to my ear and whispers, “I love you.” And then, “Always.”
“Hey, Fisher, get a room!” Eli’s voice hits me like a bomb, and the water around me immediately goes cold. My body feels like it’s shed a skin, and I back away from Thatcher. Only it’s not Thatcher anymore, it’s Nick. He’s confused and weakened as he looks at me, his eyes full of questions.
I fight to keep the devastation out of my face. Fight to remember how to breathe and speak.
Eli and Gina swim over. “You guys were getting pretty hot and heavy,” teases Eli. He dead-arms Nick, who smiles back at him.
“Making up for lost time,” he says, but I can tell he’s not sure what happened. I wonder what he remembers, how his body feels. Mine is vibrating with sadness, but I plant myself in the sand at my feet to stop the shaking from showing.
I look at Nick, examining his face. He looks okay. Bewildered, but okay. After we all get back to the shore and dig into the leftover sandwiches, he lies on a blanket and pulls me down beside him.
“We were swimming?” he asks, his voice quiet.
I nod.
“I must have spaced out,” he says, but then his eyes flutter shut. “Man, I’m so tired.”
“Me, too,” says Carson. She’s lying a few feet over, her eyes closed as she works on a tan. “The sun is getting strong. I feel like I just ran a marathon.”
I sit up and glance at both of them, the same look of drained energy in their faces. At least Nick might believe it was just a long day at the beach, like Carson’s feeling. I doubt he’ll admit to completely blacking out or not remembering kissing me in the water.
“I’m exhausted, too,” I say, reclining in the crook of Nick’s shoulder, wondering if I can capture any essence of Thatcher there. It’s an act of pure desperation, of me wanting to cling to something that’s already disappeared. But when I breathe him in, it’s all Nick—Old Spice and wintergreen Tic Tacs. Comforting, familiar, sweet.
But nothing like what I felt in the water.
A tear trickles down my face as I realize what I’ll lose as soon as the poltergeists are found and forced back into the Prism.
I’ll lose my love, my soul mate, the boy who should be my forever.
Fourteen
I HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING that night—I toss and turn in my bed until finally I give up and go downstairs, where I fall into uneasy dreams on the couch in front of the TV. I wake up in the early morning and wander back to my room to get dressed for school, but I end up just staring out the window. I’m replaying the kisses, the touches, the holding. All of the magic of a moment I know I’ll remember as long as I live, and maybe beyond.
Lost in my thoughts, I barely have time to put on clothes before I hear Carson honk from the driveway. She was so tired last night driving home that she didn’t ask any questions, but today she’ll want to know what happened out on the water. I take off the amber pendant from Nick that I’ve been wearing, and I slip the gold class ring onto a chain that I can loop around my neck and into my shirt. Then I run out the door, grabbing a piece of bread for breakfast.
In the car, I tell Carson that we’re safe for now, that the ring worked and Thatcher spoke to me when I called. But I play down the full story, because it feels private, like it’s just for me and Thatcher. Amazingly, she doesn’t push me—she still seems a little zonked from the sun.
I spend the day in something like a trance. At least I can use my “coma all summer” status as a way to avoid too much pressure from my teachers.
Since the water went cold yesterday, I’ve felt Thatcher’s absence more profoundly. A warmth is missing, like when someone has their hand on your back and then they take it away and that spot feels even colder than the rest of you. It makes me ache inside. Only the ring brings me comfort today.
When I walk out of physics at the end of the afternoon, I feel a slight tingle, a pull, inside of me. I look around nervously, and I see that there’s someone staring at me from the doorway across the hall. That guy, the one Carson waved to, the one I saw on the first day. His black-framed glasses catch the fluorescent lights and his face looks open, friendly. But the way he’s eyeing me—it’s so intense. I glance down at myself to see if I have some big ketchup stain from lunch on me or something, and I notice that Thatcher’s grandfather’s ring is visible outside of my cotton but
ton-down. Is that what he’s looking at?
I tuck the ring back underneath my shirt and turn away, walking toward my locker as the humming inside me starts to build. Carson is waiting for me a few feet down the hall. “It’s time to wake you up,” she says, as everyone else streams by us. “You’ve been dragging all day. Ice cream?”
I nod and give her a half smile for trying. If anyone can get me through this, it’s Carson. We don’t even take two steps before she starts in on me. “I’ve been thinking—we should try to see Wendy again. I think if you let me talk to her, I can—”
Suddenly I’m doubled over, falling to the floor. A lightning bolt of energy tears through me, and my eyes go blurry as I try to hold on to my books. But there’s no holding on to them. It feels like I’m being ripped apart by the electricity that surges through my body, and the books fall to the floor as I gasp in pain. All the cells in my body are screaming for relief, like they’re being squeezed by a giant hand in a death grip.
Then, as quickly as it hit me, the excruciating instant is gone. My eyes clear and I take a deep breath.
When I look up into the hallway, a few people are gathered around me, wondering if I’m okay . . . again. Mr. Hawes is asking me something, but I can hardly hear him. And I realize I’m in the same place where this happened before—right in front of the display case with sports trophies and Ella Hartley’s memorial photo. I stare at her face for a moment, and my eyes refocus. Not on her photo, but on the glass itself. I see a reflection there. Everyone in the hallway is looking at me, except for him. His back is turned, and I can see the image of his face in the case.
Eli Winston.
But his smile . . . something about his smile isn’t right. I’ve known Eli since preschool. He has a cocky, close-mouthed grin. But right now his mouth is cracked open, showing a full row of gleaming white teeth as he marvels at his own reflection. His arms are crossed over his chest, his back straight and puffed up, like he’s celebrating a victory.
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