Dust to Dust

by Melissa Walker

  Oh no. It’s Leo.

  His mouth doesn’t move, but still I hear his voice, echoing inside my head: Don’t bother calling for him. He won’t be able to save you.

  My mind reels as I comprehend what’s happening, but I have no time to wonder why—my body moves on its own, on instinct, and in a split second, I lunge at him, my feet moving faster than they should be able to and my arms shooting out to push him, to propel Leo’s spirit from Eli’s body.

  Like a trained fighter, he turns and is ready for my assault. When I collide sideways with Leo-Eli, we both crash into the glass of the case behind us, and the shattering sound echoes through the hallway, drawing even more of an audience. I see Nurse K rushing over to us, and I realize that there’s a piece of glass stuck in my shoulder, shallow but bleeding, I note, as I turn to look at it and pluck it out.

  Despite the crowd around me, and even Nurse K trying to hold me back, I am focused as I stare at Eli—trying to see if it’s worked, if I’ve expelled Leo’s soul. His legs are taut and ready, his arms open for a fight. I didn’t hit him head-on.

  Not quite, Callie . . . , his inner voice taunts me. Leo is still possessing Eli.

  Nurse K gasps, dropping her hold on me, and I rush at him again, full speed, and he jumps aside so my body clatters into the lockers. I can feel a bruise blooming on my hip, which took the brunt of the impact. My muscles feel beaten, tired, but my mind is screaming with panic. Leo can’t be possessing Eli. He can’t! Thatcher said it shouldn’t be possible.

  I feel the gold ring, heavy and solid around my neck, but before I can reach for it, before I can call for help, I see Eli-Leo coming for me and I move on instinct again, hurling myself at him. This time, I hit him squarely in the chest, pushing him back into the brick wall next to the mangled glass case. I see Eli’s limbs jolt up as the back of his head hits the bricks, and then he slides to the floor in a lump.

  I back away from him slowly, not sure if I’ve done it. Not sure if Leo has been expelled. A few moments later, though, Eli shakes his head slowly and looks around. “What happened?” he asks. “Did that freshman cheerleader finally jump my bones like I know she’s been dying to?”

  And I know it’s pure Eli. He has no idea that we fought and he’s trying to play off his confusion.

  My legs weaken in relief and I drop down beside him.

  “I’m sorry.” I may have hurt him. I reach around to feel the back of his head when suddenly my other arm is being pulled away.

  “We need to get out of here,” says Carson. “Don’t worry, he’s obviously fine.”

  She grabs my elbow and pulls me through the gathered crowd of students, dodging a couple of shocked teachers who surround Eli. Carson takes me straight into the girls’ bathroom and opens the handicapped-stall door, bolting it behind us.

  “What on the good green earth was that?” she shout-whispers.

  I sink to the floor and Carson notices my injury. “Hold on,” she says, rushing to the faucet to wet some paper towels. She comes back and starts to clean up my shoulder.

  “It doesn’t hurt much,” I tell her. Though the bruise on my hip is starting to emit a dull throb.

  “So, are you going to explain this to me?”

  “Leo just possessed Eli’s body.” I pause and breathe deeply. “This was the second time he’s taken Eli.”

  “What?”

  I nod. “It’s true. You weren’t the only one they took this summer. Eli was the other victim.”

  “But I thought Thatcher said they couldn’t achieve possession anymore, now that your spirit is here.”

  “He did say that.” I look down at my hands. “But he was wrong. I know that Leo used me again today. I felt him take my energy.”

  “That’s why you stopped short in the hallway,” she says, putting it all together.

  “Yes.”

  “But you were able to fight him—you got Leo out of Eli’s body.”

  “It was instinct, something I guess I remember from being in the Prism,” I tell her. “But if he achieves possession again, it’ll be the third time, and Eli’s soul will be lost. I don’t know if I can even attempt an expulsion after that.”

  “Callie, if there’s ever an emergency, I think this is it,” says Carson.

  “You’re right.” I reach up to finger the ring, but I don’t feel it right away, and I look down, undoing the top buttons of my shirt frantically now.

  “What is it?” asks Carson.

  It’s not there. “It’s gone!”

  We’re interrupted by the booming voice of Vice Principal Hutch.

  “Miss McPhee, Miss Jenkins, kindly come out of there.”

  We move quickly, as her tone commands, and when I get out into the hallway I look around, trying to spot the ring—it must have fallen off in the fight. Students are still gathered there, buzzing about what they saw a few minutes ago. Two janitors are shooing everyone away from the broken glass as they sweep up, and I bend down, trying to see what’s in their dustpans.

  “Miss Jenkins, head home,” says Vice Principal Hutch, dismissing Carson. “Miss McPhee, come with me.”

  I’m still looking—where is it? But Vice Principal Hutch’s voice reaches me again. “Now.”

  After getting patched up by Nurse K, who still seems shaken from witnessing the fight, I wait alone on a green couch just inside the main office for a few minutes, trying to formulate an excuse, some sort of story to explain this all away. It must have looked insane. Like I attacked Eli without provocation.

  And the ring. I lost it.

  I’m thinking about trying to sneak out of here, go search the hallway again, but there are teachers by the door. And then I hear the distinct sound of my father’s footsteps on the linoleum outside. His face does not look calm when he walks in, but Vice Principal Hutch is at his side, so he can’t start shouting yet.

  “Come with me, Captain McPhee, Callie,” she says, and she leads us into Principal Faulkland’s office, where Eli is sitting next to his mom with an ice pack up to his face.

  “Mr. Winston is going to have one heck of a headache for a while thanks to you,” says Principal Faulkland.

  “He may have a concussion!” Eli’s mother chimes in.

  “I’m fine,” Eli spits out angrily. “There’s no way that Callie gave me a freaking concussion.”

  He glares at me, and I realize that now that he knows what happened, he’s embarrassed that he got beat up by a girl. It would amuse me if the vibe weren’t so serious in here. I know I’m in big trouble.

  “I’m sorry, Eli,” I say to him earnestly. Then I turn to Principal Faulkland. “Since the accident, I haven’t felt like myself,” I tell him. “I don’t know what came over me today. I think it was a flashback, because I hardly remember anything.”

  “Same here,” I hear Eli whisper under his breath.

  I face my father, whose expression isn’t giving anything away.

  I turn back to Principal Faulkland. “I can’t explain what happened. All I can say is that it won’t happen again.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Callie,” says Principal Faulkland. “But I’m afraid that for the rest of this week, your time here will be spent in ISS.”

  In-School Suspension.

  I nod. This is good. If I’m not near Eli, no one can take my energy and try to possess him. “I understand.”

  Eli’s mother snorts in disapproval. “One week for an unwarranted and vicious attack?” she huffs.

  Principal Faulkland looks her in the eye. “Yes. This is a first-time incident from a student who has been through a lot recently. One week will suffice.”

  Eli stands up. “Can we go?” he whines.

  “I really am sorry,” I tell him. And then I lean in to whisper, “Eli, I lost a ring. It’s important—it’s a family thing, it’s—”

  “Get away from me.” He pushes past, walking in front of his mother as they leave.

  Some thanks I get for saving his life.

  On the way home
, my father seems more contemplative than angry. The car ride is silent. And all the while I’m trying to figure out how I can find the ring. Eli must have it and not even know.

  When we walk in the door, my father drops his keys in the bowl by the entryway and says, “Callie May, is there something going on that you’re not telling me?”

  So much.

  “No.” I kick off my shoes and go into the kitchen, washing my hands and then taking things out of the fridge to busy myself with making dinner so I won’t have to look my father in the eyes while I lie to him.

  Romaine, red onion, feta, walnuts, apples, and a little vinegar and oil for the dressing. I spread salad ingredients on the cutting board as Dad sighs loudly and sits on one of the stools at our island.

  I chop up the walnuts and spread them on a baking sheet to toast in the oven, setting the timer for ten minutes.

  “I’m trying hard to be understanding, you know,” he says.

  I slice into a big red onion. “I know, Daddy. What happened today wasn’t . . . it wasn’t me. I’m sorry.”

  “What was it, then? Was it really an unprovoked attack like Eli says? Did he say something that set you off?”

  “Not exactly . . .” I pause with the knife in my hand, thinking of all the secrets I have from my father now. It doesn’t seem fair, but I know if I tell him, he’s going to take me straight to the doctor to get me checked out, and I can’t afford what might happen after that.

  “Callie, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you speak to God?”

  “What?”

  “When you were in the coma, did you go to Heaven? Did you speak to God?”

  “No.” I shake my head.

  “I did,” says my father. “And he was listening.” He has the tone he gets when he’s absolutely sure of something. “I prayed harder than I have in my entire life, and he heard. I’ve always known that you’re a very special person, from the day you were born to when we lost your mama to when you woke up from that coma.”

  “Daddy, every father thinks his daughter is special.”

  “Not like you!” He bangs his fist on the counter, and I jump a little, startled. “I’m sorry, Callie, but it just makes me so upset to see you doing things like skipping school last week and now getting into a fight over something that was surely trivial.”

  I raise my eyebrows and think, Not exactly trivial, but I don’t respond, and Dad goes quiet again.

  The water runs loudly as I wash the lettuce, but when I turn it off and start to dry the leaves on a paper towel, he says, “You know you were the only one who could release your mama from the pain she was in.”

  “Daddy, I was six years old,” I say, trying to push down the sadness that’s rising in me. First our strange conversation at the restaurant and now this. Why is he bringing up Mama again? “I didn’t release her. She just died. She was sick and she died.”

  “No,” says my father, shaking his head. His face is full of emotion now, and I wonder how we went from making salad and discussing Eli to rehashing my mother’s death. “You need to know something so you’ll recognize how extraordinary you are. I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I tried to at dinner the other night, but I—I lost my nerve.”

  “Tell me what?” I’ve moved on to the feta, and I’m crumbling it over the salad bowl with sticky fingers.

  “She died in your arms.”

  My sticky fingers freeze.

  “Mama died in the hospital,” I say slowly.

  “Yes,” says my father. “In the bed. In your arms.”

  I dump the rest of the feta in the bowl and reach for a towel to wipe my hands, turning away from my father so he doesn’t see the tears that fill my eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I whisper to the cabinets.

  “On the afternoon she died, I went to get more coffee,” he says gently. “The nurse stepped out to check another patient. You were holding your mama’s hand, refusing to leave her side. You must have decided to crawl into bed with her.”

  I clench my eyes shut and I’m back in that hospital room. The blue-gray walls, the harsh lighting, the flimsy cotton gown that my mom wore in those final days. I remember climbing up on the side of the bed, asking her if it was okay. She couldn’t speak much toward the end, but I saw the yes in her eyes and I lay down next to her, with my face tucked into the crook of her neck like always when we’d cuddle. Her hair was still long and soft on my cheek. Her skin still smelled like honeysuckle. I wrapped one arm across her chest, the other over her head.

  “You fell asleep,” says my father, standing behind me now. He puts his hand on my arm as I start to cry. “When I came back, you were asleep with your arms around your mama . . . she was gone.”

  I turn to him quickly so he’ll catch my sobs in his chest, and he wraps me up in his arms, big and strong, and holds me tightly as I let out what feels like ten years of tears. I’m lost for a few minutes, and then the timer goes off.

  Dad squeezes me closer and he whispers, “Oh, Callie May, you gave your mama such a beautiful gift that afternoon.”

  I sniffle and back up, turning off the oven before I look into his eyes. I hardly recognize him, this man who’s opening up to me so much right now. “A gift?”

  “You helped her to let go,” he says. “She’d been staying past her time. For me, for you, for everyone who loved her. But she was tired. I didn’t realize that I was holding on so tightly that I wasn’t giving her permission to leave. But you, my miracle girl, you crawled up to her, you held her close, and you relaxed into sleep. You released her.”

  I tilt my head, marveling at what my father has just said to me. I think this is the most he’s ever spoken about my mother’s death, and I wonder how long these words have been in his heart.

  “Why didn’t I remember that?” I ask.

  “I picked you up when I got back to her bedside. I looked to the nurse, and she nodded to confirm that your mama had passed.” He pauses, steadying his voice. “In that moment of ultimate pain, I had you in my arms, a heavy bundle of sleeping child whose presence helped soften the most heartbreaking event in my life. I let you rest. I let you have a few more minutes of not knowing she was gone. It seemed only right. When you woke up, well . . . I told you that you and Mama had both had a nap, and Mama wasn’t going to wake up anymore. That she was in her eternal sleep.”

  I lean against my father again to steady myself, tears still falling. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Callie May?”

  “Thank you for telling me this. But why now? After all this time?”

  “Because I want you to know and understand that you are my very special child. You are God’s own wonder. You had the strength at six years old to let your mama leave this earth for Heaven’s gates. And now, you’ve returned from a horrible accident that it would take a miracle to awaken from. That’s why you’ve got to take care of yourself more. I don’t know what happened today at school, but you’re better than that. You have a higher calling. There’s a reason you’re on this earth, and it’s not so you can fight with people like Eli Winston.”

  It’s the most words my father’s said at once in years. He reaches over to the island counter and hands me a tissue. I blow my nose and dry my eyes.

  He’s right. And I know he’s thinking that my higher purpose is something like starting a nonprofit or being a strong female commander. He’s always hoped I’d follow his footsteps into the military. But I’m thinking about the poltergeists. How they’re here. How they can possess bodies. How they may kill someone soon. And how if the Guides can’t find a way to stop them, then I have to.

  I’m washing dishes after dinner when the text comes in. It’s from a number I don’t know, and it says, “I really need to talk to you about what you’re experiencing. Please call.”

  Dammit, Carson. Again? I fire off an angry text to her.

  DID YOU GIVE MY NUMBER TO ANOTHER REPORTER?

  Two seconds later, my p
hone rings.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just got a text from someone I’m sure is a reporter. It says, ‘I really need to talk to you about what you’re experiencing.’ Who else would send a text like that?”

  “Callie, I haven’t talked to anyone in the press since that day you got mad at me. I swear. I—”

  There’s a pause as she gets a text beep, and then I get one, too. I hold the phone away from my ear to look. Same number, but this time the text says, “I know where the ring is.”

  I slowly put the phone back to my ear. “Cars, someone just—”

  At the same time, Carson’s saying, “Dylan has the ring!”

  “Wait—I think we just got the same text,” I say.

  Another beep on my phone, and this time the text reads, “This is Dylan Dixon, btw.”

  “Carson?” I ask. “Who the hell is Dylan Dixon?”

  Fifteen

  DYLAN DIXON IS THE guy from the first day, the one who was staring at me in the hallway just this afternoon. Carson seems to know him a little bit, enough to have him in her phone anyway. “I’ve been to his family’s bookstore,” she told me. He gave us instructions to meet him on Rainbow Row at midnight, and while I am not in the habit of meeting with strangers late at night, I do need that ring back.

  So when I sneak out of my window at 11:45 to go to Carson’s down the street, I feel guilty, but not enough to stay home.

  “How’s your shoulder?” Carson asks when I slip into the VW Bug and close the door softly behind me.

  “Fine. Expertly patched by Nurse K.”

  “Love her.”

  “Me, too. She seemed more than a little upset by the fight, I have to say.”

  “She always has that faraway sad feeling about her, right?” says Carson, who’s always so in tune with people.

  “Yeah, but this was different. She kept talking to herself, mumbling something like, ‘It couldn’t be him.’”

  “Well, it’s not every day that a girl-guy fight breaks out on the honors hallway,” says Carson. “I’m sure it was shocking for everyone.”