by Alicia Rades
“Crystal,” Robin said when he saw me. He spoke in a near whisper so that only the two of us could hear. “I don’t mean to freak you out, but I haven’t seen Sage yet.”
“What?” I nearly shouted.
Robin’s dad gave me a stern look as if to tell me to be quiet.
My heart nearly fell out of my chest. The ceremony was about to start. Sage should be here by now.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Robin nodded nervously. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for her, and I tried to text and call her, but she isn’t answering anymore.”
My face grew hot as I thought about the possibilities. This can’t be happening. I had to put on the damn dress.
I stepped around the corner and peeked into the ceremony room.
“Crystal,” Diane scolded. “What are you doing?”
Robin quietly explained to her as my eyes scanned the crowd. With Sage’s auburn hair, it should be easy to pick her out of such a small crowd, but not a single strand of red hair stuck out. Robin was right. Sage was missing.
21
“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked Robin.
“Yeah.” He handed it to me.
His father gave another look of disapproval.
“It’s on silent,” Robin explained, like that would make his dad approve of him having it during the ceremony.
I found Sage’s number in Robin’s contacts and pressed the call button. My pulse increased with every ring. Pick up, Sage, I thought. When it went to voicemail, I felt like my entire world was collapsing around me. This was it. My worst nightmare. I’d failed her.
I froze so still that the phone dropped from my hand. I didn’t even remember to breathe until Robin gripped my shoulders. I was sure it was the only thing keeping me from sinking to my knees.
“Crystal.” Robin’s voice made me feel stable again.
When the wooziness in my head finally cleared, I knew I had no other choice. I grabbed Robin’s hand.
“Crystal, what’s going on?” Sophie asked.
I turned back without slowing my step. “It’s Sage.”
“Crystal,” Sophie stopped me. She quickly closed the distance between us and grabbed my wrist. “You can’t go by yourself. We should come with you.”
“No,” I insisted without really thinking about it. “You guys told me this was my mission.”
“That doesn’t mean you should go alone.”
My gaze shifted between Sophie’s eyes. “Everyone keeps saying that I need to put more faith in my abilities. If you believe in my abilities, you’ll let me do this myself, and you won’t worry about me.”
Sophie’s eyes softened in defeat. “We do believe in you.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
She finally released her grip on my wrist.
My mom was still hiding around the corner with my grandpa so that no one would see her before the ceremony. I called back to Sophie. “When Mom asks, tell her that she promised, okay?”
“Promised what?” Sophie raised her voice as I distanced myself from her.
“She’ll know. Don’t wait around or worry about me. Have fun.”
Robin and I escaped into the sunlight and raced toward his car. He didn’t waste a second and already had his keys out and the door unlocked before my hand even touched the handle.
“Where to?” Robin asked quickly with a wavering tone.
“I have no idea,” I admitted. Robin was already pulling out of the parking lot. “Last she told me, she was headed out the door. What if she never made it that far?”
“You think something happened while she was at home?”
“I don’t know, but that’s my best bet right now. Do you know where she lives?”
“Luckily, yes. I had to drop off a homework assignment one time when she was sick from school. It’s not far.”
I couldn’t sit still on the short ride to her house. Robin was right. It wasn’t far, but the slow traffic made it feel like the car ride stretched into eternity.
“I could walk faster than this,” I complained nervously, but when I looked out the window at the people on the sidewalk, it was clear we were traveling faster than any other method. The seconds ticked by, and my mind raced with the possibilities.
What happened to her? Is she still okay? Why did I have to put on the dress? I was right. It sealed in her fate. It was self-fulfilling. How could I have been so wrong about this? Is it her uncle? Has he come for revenge? No. That doesn’t even make sense. He was caught this morning, and even if he did escape custody somehow, he couldn’t have made it here in time.
We finally pulled up to Sage’s house. Robin was driving so fast that when he slammed on the brakes, I had to brace myself against the dashboard. I was already out of the car before he shut off the engine.
I raced up the walkway and pounded on the door. Sage’s aunt—I assumed—answered the door. “Sage,” I said breathlessly because that was all I could manage to spit out. I took a deep breath. “Is she here?”
The woman’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “She left quite a while ago. She told us she was spending time with Robin again.” Her eyes moved past me and locked on Robin. “Robin,” she said in surprise. “Isn’t Sage with you? We wouldn’t have let her go out if she was going somewhere else.”
Robin reached the door and stood next to me. “That’s why we’re here, Anna. Sage was supposed to meet up with us at my uncle’s wedding, but she’s not there. We were worried and came to check on her.”
A man came up behind Anna. “I knew she was up to no good,” he mumbled. This must have been Sage’s uncle Brian. I remembered her telling me he had a “suck-it-up” attitude.
“Hey,” I defended. I was surprised when my voice came out loud, but I was too scared for Sage to lower my tone. “Sage isn’t trouble. She’s in trouble. She’s staying with you so that she feels safe, and now she’s not. She’s not safe.” I covered my face with my hands because it was all just too much. A wary breath escaped my lips. Everyone else was too stunned to say anything. “Oh, god, Robin. It’s my fault.” I dropped my hands and looked up at him.
“What are you talking about?” Sage’s uncle asked. He stepped forward in a defensive stance. “Did you get Sage into trouble?”
“No,” I answered honestly. “I—I think—I mean—I couldn’t get her out of it.”
“Crystal,” Robin said in a tone I knew was supposed to soothe my nerves but didn’t work. “Calm down.” He turned to Anna. His voice was surprisingly even, something I couldn’t imagine doing with the rate my heart was racing and my fingers were trembling. “Can you give us a minute?”
Anna and her husband eyed us.
“I’m sure Sage is okay,” Robin told them. “It’s just a stressful day for Crystal, and she’s overreacting. Sage is probably already there and we just didn’t see her.” I could hear the lie in Robin’s tone.
“Should we call the police?” Anna asked warily.
“She should be fine,” Robin assured her. “Can you just give us a moment?”
Anna let the door fall shut as I turned and sank down onto the steps. I buried my face in my hands. Robin sat down next to me and pulled me into his arms. Tears were already falling down my cheeks.
“I’ve failed her,” I managed to whisper.
“It’s not over yet,” Robin promised. “Let’s think rationally for a minute.”
I nearly laughed at the thought that I would be able to think rationally at a time like this.
“Thanks to your abilities, we knew Sage was in danger. What if we can use them now to find her?”
“How?” I asked hopelessly.
“Well, let’s see. What can you do? You can see ghosts.”
“I can’t control who I see or when.”
“Okay. You can see the past.”
“I don’t know how that’s going to help us.” I finally pulled away from Robin and wiped the tears from my eyes with a sniffle. “I can see the fu
ture, too. Maybe if I could concentrate hard enough, I could see something about the future and hopefully change it.”
Robin nodded. “That’s a good idea, but do you know how to control those visions?”
I dropped my shoulders and shook my head. “I can also feel people’s emotions, but I have to touch them. I guess I could feel Hope while she was in trouble even though she was far away, but I’ve never felt Sage like that. I don’t think that will help us find her.”
“Wait,” Robin said excitedly. “Finding her.” He looked at me like I should know exactly what he was talking about. “You can find things.”
I gave him a look of disbelief. “Yeah, I find things like CDs and old books and socks and stuffed animals. I’ve never found a person.”
“You found Sage’s uncle,” Robin pointed out.
I thought about this for a moment. “That could have just been a vision of the past or future.”
“And you found Hope.”
“That’s because a ghost told me where to find her.”
“But it worked. Both times.”
I pressed my lips together in thought. “I usually need something to touch. Like, when Emma and I practice, I have to touch her hand to know where she hid the object.”
“Okay, then we’ll do that.” Robin stood up.
“What do you mean?” I asked, but he was already knocking on the door again.
I could hear the voices behind it stop abruptly. No doubt they were discussing whether or not to call the cops. Anna answered after a few moments.
“Can we see Sage’s room?” Robin asked.
Anna and her husband both looked at each other warily. “Brian?” she addressed him.
“Why do you need to see her room?” he asked.
“To see if there’s something that could tell us if she was headed somewhere else.” Everyone went silent for a few moments until Robin spoke again. “Look, I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I’ve probably spent more time with Sage than anyone else here. I know her best. If there’s something wrong, I should be able to find it in her room.”
After another long silence, Brian finally nodded. I knew Robin hadn’t talked to Sage often, but as Anna opened the door wider to invite us in, I felt it was an indication of how little her aunt and uncle knew about her.
Robin and I stepped into Sage’s bedroom. It was small with an untidy twin bed against one wall and a dresser against another. The walls were bare as if the owner had only come to stay the night.
“We’ll let you know if we find anything,” Robin told Anna and Brian. His tone was one that asked for privacy once again.
“They seem to trust you,” I said, but my heart sped up with the feeling that we were wasting time.
“I think I’m the only one of Sage’s friends they’ve ever met,” Robin admitted. “It was just that one time when I came to drop off her science homework, but I don’t think she gets a lot of visitors. I thought they were her parents, though. She never mentioned her family’s death to me.”
I took a few deep breaths to calm my heartrate. I pushed farther into the room, hoping something would call out to me.
Robin was already opening and closing drawers. “What type of thing do you think you need?”
“It has to be something she touched recently and was probably special to her.” I opened the top drawer of her dresser but found nothing except clothes.
Robin flipped through the dresses in her closet.
“A few weeks ago, Emma and I were practicing, and I did better when she hid something that was really special to me.”
“Luna?” Robin guessed. He closed the closet door and headed toward the bed.
I blushed because the idea of still sleeping with a stuffed animal sounded childish. “Yeah,” I admitted as I pulled the third drawer open. Nothing.
“So, do you think something like this would work?”
I turned around to face Robin, who was holding up a teddy bear.
“It was under the covers,” he explained.
I shrugged. “I don’t know if this is going to work at all, but I don’t see anything else very personal lying around. We might as well try this.” I grabbed the bear from his hands.
I again took one of my calming breaths as I situated myself on the bed and leaned my head against the wall. I closed my eyes and stroked the bear’s soft fur. The bed shifted when Robin sat down, but he didn’t say anything.
No expectations, I reminded myself. Just breathe, stay calm.
The task proved quite difficult, but I managed to slow my breathing enough that my hands stopped trembling. After what felt like a few minutes, I pulled the teddy bear to my face and inhaled its scent. It was weird that I recognized the fragrance, but it smelled like Sage. As soon as the aroma hit my nose, an image flashed behind my lids—a bloody image.
I sucked in a sharp breath and opened my eyes.
“What?” Robin asked. “What did you see?”
I shook my head. “Nothing useful yet, but I think this might work. Give me another minute.” I closed my eyes again and brought the bear back up to my face. In that moment, I took everything I’d learned in practice sessions with Emma and applied it to relaxing my body, relieving my anxiety, and letting go of expectations. I became so relaxed to the point where every nerve in my body went numb.
A floating sensation overcame me, and I had to open my eyes to make sure I was still in Sage’s room. Oh, I was in her room alright, but it was all different. When I opened my eyes, I was looking down on my own body that sat on Sage’s bed and clutched her teddy bear.
22
I gave myself a mere moment to take in the scene. I knew if I reacted badly, I’d be instantly snapped back into my body. Instead, I filled my mind with thoughts of Sage. I thought back to the first time I saw her at Special Day Bridal. I pictured us singing together with Emma in Asher’s basement. I let her genuine smile and freckled nose fill my mind, and I pictured her pulling at her sleeves in the nervous manner she always did. And then I pulled up the memory of her playing saxophone.
I let the melody and the memory of her gorgeous tone play in my head. As the song continued, I began floating high above the house until I was taken above rooftops and guided over office buildings.
After the last notes of her solo played in my head, I restarted the memory, and it kept me pushing forward. A forest of trees up ahead looked awkward butted up against man-made structures, but the melody pulled me closer, like what I sought was hidden in the trees. The tune grew louder, and the melody slowed as I descended toward a path.
In an instant, all the scenes I’d just passed whirled by me in a blur. My eyes shot open.
“What?” Robin asked, rushing to reach for my hand. “Did you find her?”
I stared wide-eyed at Robin because I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Did I astral travel?
“I—I . . .” I stammered. “I don’t know if she’s alright, but I think she’s in the trees. They’re just that way.” I pointed. “It’s in the city. Not far.”
Robin and I both sprang up from the bed. I let the teddy bear fall to the floor, and we rushed out of the room.
“What is it?” Anna called as we hurried to the car.
“It’s fine,” Robin assured her. “We’ll let you know what happens. Sage is going to be alright.”
“Are you sure?” I asked as soon as Robin drove off.
“What?” He glanced at me.
“Are you sure she’s going to be alright?”
He squeezed my hand and nodded. “I told you that weeks ago. She has you on her side, remember?”
Anxiety built inside me. Were we too late? Robin turned a corner onto a busy street, slowing us down. I eyed the scene. Something about it seemed strangely familiar. Tall buildings lined the street, and groups of people milled along the sidewalk. A bus up ahead pulled to a stop, and people piled out.
I caught my breath, and I knew where I’d seen this street before. “Stop!”
�
�What?” Robin looked around and slowed the vehicle. “Do you see her?”
“No, but this is it!”
“What do you mean? I thought you said the park. That’s where I’m going.”
“She was running.” I closed my eyes. Behind them, a scene played through my mind, and I found myself in Sage’s body, as if I was her.
I climbed onto the bus and kept my head low. I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as I took my seat and adjusted the strap on my purse nervously. I tugged at my cardigan’s long sleeves and balled them into my fists. Hairs rose on the back of my neck. I swallowed, forcing down the lump rising in my throat. I situated closer to the window and angled myself toward it. Hopefully no one would want to sit by me.
The feeling that someone was watching me grew stronger as the bus ride grew longer. I glanced around nervously to the man in the seat next to me. He was fiddling with his phone and didn’t even notice me. I subtly glanced to the back of the bus. Soft brown eyes met mine. I quickly turned away from him. Fear knotted in my chest.
That’s not him, I told myself. But what if it is?
I stole another glance toward the back of the bus. His head was down now and hidden behind the chair in front of him, but the hair was the same shade of brown that had haunted my dreams for years. I trapped my lip in my teeth to bite back the bile rising in my throat. How did he find me? How long had he been following me? What would happen when he finally caught me?
I can’t do it, I told myself. He can’t catch me.
The bus pulled to a halt at the next stop. I couldn’t waste another second. I slipped off the bus as quickly as I could and took off running. I glanced behind me to make sure he wasn’t following. For a second, I was sure I saw his brown eyes through the crowd. I pushed forward harder, dodging people as I went.
When I rounded a corner, I broke free from the crowd. Up ahead stood a wall of trees offering me a hiding place.
He can’t get to me. I can’t face my nightmare in person. He’s haunted me for too long. I won’t give him that satisfaction.
I sprinted as fast as I could. Even as I found cover in the canopy, I still pushed forward.
