I grin. “That’s convenient.”
“Hopefully it will be,” Theo says. “Would you mind if I ask a few questions? I know you’re missing your memories, but sometimes the rapid-fire stuff can unearth information you don’t realize is buried.”
“Sure, chief. Anything to figure all this out. Some of the other students have been doing the same thing actually.” And throwing various and sundry sports balls at me, but I decide not to mention that.
For privacy, Theo and I walk the campus grounds. In spite of the cold, he doesn’t put on a jacket, and even pushes his sleeves up a little to reveal the bottom of a tattoo. It’s rude, but I stare a little at its sharp lines.
He pauses and turns his arm so I can see it better. “It’s a Nordic compass. I’d like to say it has some deep meaning, but to be honest, I got it when I turned 19 because I thought it looked cool.”
I burst into laughter, pressing a hand to my stomach until the giggles subside. “You are so not what I expected.”
Theo chuckles and starts back down the trail. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” I lift my shoulders, leaving them there for a few steps. “When they said you were a medium for some reason, I expected a peace, love, and harmony guy wearing tons of hemp or something.” I look down at my own clothes. To be fair, they don’t really scream hippy either.
“That’s a pretty common assumption,” Theo says, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. “But with the rise of the Xers, it’s been necessary to toughen up. They’ve militarized, so we’ve had to as well.”
I comb my hair out of my face. It doesn’t like to stay in place, constantly floating around me, giving a whole new meaning to fly aways. “Militant? Great. Like I wasn’t scared of those guys before.”
“How old are you?”
The question, which catches me completely off-guard sans preamble, totally works as the information dumps right out of my mouth. “Seventeen. My birthday is May 30.” I grin. “Hey, that’s pretty cool. Distracts from my newly developing Xer terror too.”
“It helps if you’re trying not to think too much,” Theo says. “Sometimes that just trips you up.”
I hop over a fallen tree branch, scaring the crap out of a squirrel. “I’ll do my best to shut my brain off.”
“What are your parents like?”
My brain stutters a little over this question. When I can’t answer fast enough, my thoughts stall out, refusing to come up with any information at all. “No dice, sorry.”
“No problem. A non-answer can tell us as much as anything else.” Theo waves a fly out of his face. “Where did you live?”
“Right outside of Dallas, Texas.”
“Nice, I have family in that area too.”
“Awesome food.” I give a little skip. A picture now forms in my mind of the life I’d once lived. At the moment it’s vague, but it’s more than I had before, so I’m pretty stoked. “Guacamole is the best. The spicier the better.”
Theo chuckles. “I’ll agree with that. When did you get your powers?”
“I saw my first ghost when I was seven.” I purse my lips. “She was this girl from my neighborhood who died in a car accident. All she wanted was to talk, and for me to tell her parents she loved them. Then...something happened, and I didn’t have my powers anymore.”
“Hmm. There was a lot of that going around over the last few years.” Theo furrows his brow but doesn’t dig into this for some reason. “Do you have any siblings?”
I pause, throat tight, grinding my knuckles into the bottom of my pockets as another life flash dances across the grass in front of me. A small bedroom with glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and toy trucks littering the floor. The little boy sitting in the middle of them smiles, revealing missing teeth. Freckles dust his entire face. He hops up and runs for me.
Tears sting my eyes as the memory of his hug collides with my spirit. “Two. A sister...but I can’t remember her name, and a little brother. Cody...he died too.”
“Before or after you died?”
My throat is clenching so tight I can barely speak, but it’s too important to stay quiet. “Before. I talked to him after it happened…but...” I press my fingers against my pounding temples. Pain pinches the back of my neck, and I grimace. “I can’t remember.”
It’s like there’s a wall between me and this particular memory. I try grasping for any hint, leaning into it the way Ms. Alvarez told me to, but it doesn’t budge, and all the straining just adds to my headache.
“It’s okay,” Theo says. “Don’t push too hard. That won’t help you remember.”
Easy for him to say. He knows right where his big shouldered body is. This thought makes me smile a little, relieving some of the pressure in my skull. “Why would some memories be harder for me to find than others?”
“There are lots of reasons why some are more resistant to come to you.” Theo crosses his arms, which just makes his biceps bulge even more. “Sometimes it’s for your protection. The memory is a difficult one and you may not be ready to deal with it yet.”
“Like,” I swallow, “a super violent death?”
Theo nods. “Other times there’s magic involved. Usually, that only happens if whatever spell they’re trying to use goes wrong. This makes things even trickier because only the witch involved can give you those memories back. Which stinks because again, it only happens if said witch bumbles what they were trying to do in the first place. It could be intentional, but most witches don’t have a reason to remove a ghost’s memories.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “Great, more complications.” Resisting a spiral, I twist my hair between two fingers until they hurt, then force a smile on Theo.
He crosses his arms. “It’s a garbage fate.”
“Thank you.” I throw my hands up and let them flop to my sides. “Everybody’s treating me with kid gloves but keeping the truth from me is just freaking me out more.”
“They mean well.” Theo runs a hand across the scruff of his jaw. “Their own fear holds them back from the truth. But I swear to always be honest with you. And because I know you’re going to worry, I also promise to do everything in my power to find out who you were.”
Chapter Ten
Theo makes no promises other than not to contact me until he has any legit news. Though my anticipation level starts off well past a ten, I try my darndest to concentrate the next time I have Discovering Your Unfinished Business. Unfortunately, my conversation with Theo about the possibility that a witch screwed with my memories escalates my worry to about a twelve. Not conducive to maintaining focus.
As I lay on the gray mat with my chin on my folded hands, I blow a raspberry and Ms. Alvarez chuckles. “What’s distracting you today, Ms. Martin?”
“You said you’ve dealt with ghosts who have amnesia before, right?”
“Yes.” She says the word slowly. Hesitant, maybe? I’m so sick of people creeping around me I want to glare at her. But being a jerk won’t get me any answers. Instead, I concentrate on my question.
“Had any of them lost their memories because of a spell gone wrong?”
Ms. Alvarez clears her throat, her fingers gliding along my spine. “Once.”
I count to ten, waiting for a response. When I don’t get one, I take five slow breaths before pushing her again. “Tell me about it.”
“If I do, will you promise to practice that mantra again?”
“Yes, and the truth might even help me chill out a bit. All this avoiding of scary information is just freaking me out more.”
“Very well.” Ms. Alvarez adjusts her position and runs her hand over the back of my head now. “It was a few years ago. A young man came in who also had amnesia. His case was a bit different than yours, short term only. He could remember his childhood, but nothing from the last five or six years of his life. Like you though, he’d also been missing for a little over a week, yet had no idea where he’d been.”
I swallow and mentall
y repeat the phrase “I’m okay,” on an inhale, and “I’m safe” on an exhale. “Did he get his memories back?”
Ms. Alvarez is quiet a moment, just stroking my hair. I fight the fear her delay creates with those words. It’s hard to keep my breathing even as my imagination makes up its own answers to this question, but I focus in on the Healer’s touch, on the feel of the mat underneath me.
“It took some time, but eventually we discovered that his memory was wiped in a summoning spell gone wrong,” Ms. Alvarez says. “Bits of his life came back to him after that. Though, I will be honest, he still struggled with short term memories until he passed on.”
“Peacefully?”
“Thankfully yes.”
I breathe out a sigh, but can’t quite release the tension in my jaw, not after all her hesitation in telling me that story. There could be a million reasons why Ms. Alvarez had a hard time sharing. Maybe she’d been close to this former student. Or maybe the memories he’d finally uncovered were super unpleasant. Either way, I work to reign in my speculations.
“Can you tell if my amnesia is related to magic gone wrong?”
“Not yet. At this point I can see that the damage came from some form of trauma and that trauma could be related to something of that nature, but I don’t want to make a guess just yet.” Ms. Alvarez brushes the hair away from my neck and rests her palm against it. “Give me a few more sessions. And don’t worry. All anxiety will do is slow down our progress.”
I’d really love not to worry, but with everything hanging over my head, it’s a little difficult.
Even worse, Ms. Troges’ statement from our first Corporeal Connections class drags along behind too. What in the realm of the dead did she mean by “crossing over planes” being a very “specific” phrase? I’ve got to ask her before I lose my ever-loving, and most tenuous, sanity.
As I head to lunch, her words swirl around in my brain along with the story Ms. Alvarez told.
“Have you asked her about it yet?” Haya asks as we load our trays with fruit and salad for her and a burger and chips for me.
“No. I’m always late to that class, and there’s no way I’m asking something like that in front of…” I swallow the name ‘Melissa’ and finish with, “everybody else.”
“Don’t blame you. But maybe you can get there before class tomorrow? If you snarf.”
I chuckle, plop into my seat, and take a massive bite of my burger. “You are a wise, wise woman,” I say around a mouthful. “I’m lucky to have you in my life, or afterlife rather.”
Haya nods magnanimously. “Yes, yes you are.”
The next morning, I obey her orders. Stuffed full of all good breakfast proteins, I dump my tray and sprint for Corporeal Contact before Rafe or Landon even enter the dining hall. The one I’m sad to miss, the other I couldn’t care less about. I skid to a stop in front of the door and knock until Ms. Troges answers.
I’m fighting for breath — still super weird since I’m dead — as she gives me a smile. “Ms. Martin. Eager to get to class on time?”
“What did you mean—” I gasp, “when you said crossing over planes was a specific phrase and that we needed to talk about it later? That’s not something you dump on somebody mic-drop style and then just leave.” I fling out a hand, quite positive I’d be sweating if I still had an actual body.
Ms. Troges smiles a little and tilts her head into the classroom. “Come on in. We’ll discuss.”
Still breathing hard, I follow her onto the mats. We both sink into seated positions. I cross my legs and rest my elbows onto my knees, leaning toward Ms. Troges. “Why was that phrase so...weird?”
Lifting her chin, Ms. Troges releases a sigh. “It isn’t so much weird as it is specific. To a certain point, all witches with medium abilities would understand the concept that ghosts exist on a different plane than the living. But your phraseology was very unique to a, or rather, to two specialized groups of mediums. One of these is what we generally call Ghost Guides. Like your new friend Theo, they aid ghosts in discovering their unfinished business.”
I sit up a little straighter. “So maybe I was involved with someone like them before I died, well, and before I lost my gift. Still, that could be good.” Very good actually. With the many possibilities of who I could have been in my life, this was definitely a positive one. Then again, Ms. Troges did say there was another group that also would have used this phrase, one which might not be quite so positive. My shoulders slump a little. “What, uh, what was the other group?”
Ms. Troges drops her gaze, then looks back up at me. “They are less than friendly, unfortunately.”
I swallow, but it gets stuck and I have to cough a little before I speak again. “Who, uh, who are they?”
Lips rolled together, Ms. Troges stares at me for way too long. So long my skin itches. Or, my not skin. I try not to wriggle, but find myself tucking my hair behind an ear, recrossing my legs, and overall wishing I had some place to hide. Instead, I push.
“I’d rather the truth than a comforting lie.”
Finally, Ms. Troges blinks and shakes her head. “The other group that uses this phrase, Ms. Martin, are the Xers.”
Chapter Eleven
That conversation does absolutely nothing to relieve my ever-growing anxiety. It hangs out behind me like a stubborn sibling intent on driving one to the very last inch of their patience. I can barely get control of my thoughts, especially at night. When I do actually fall asleep, my dreams are full of possibilities, both positive and negative. I see myself burning bones in some, while in others I throw myself into a grave to protect a ghost.
Every night for the next few weeks, I wake with a start right before I hit the flames, holding back screams, neck aching. Thankfully, Haya is an extremely deep sleeper and I never wake her up. These nightmares stick with me so strongly, I have to stay up reading long after they’ve ended.
At least our room is filled with books. This is what those closets are actually for since we don’t need storage for clothes. Yasmin’s elation over this discovery was contagious. I doubt I’ll be reading the complete works of Shakespeare or the unabridged version of Les Mis along with her, but there are some awesome science fiction pieces I’m totally down for.
Though I have a few more life flashes, each one is so minor they tell me almost nothing. Moments from school talent shows — apparently, I had mad drumming skills — cooking fried chicken with brown gravy — we were semi-southern after all — and day trips to look at bluebonnets. All great pieces of my personality and mundane family activities, but nothing that unravels the greater mystery of my life or how I died.
To keep the gray of depression at bay, I ask Mr. Qureshi about finding a drum of some kind. He digs up a djembe — a small goblet-shaped drum played with bare hands — that I promise not to use at ridiculous hours of the night. Apart from the rhythm calming my nerves, it also really helps to hit something in a non-destructive way.
At the very least, Rafe and I master the first unit of Corporeal Contact and start combat training, an absolute necessity before attempting to complete unfinished business.
Thank the powers that be for small favors. Any amount of progress is a welcome change. Plus, now I’ll have an excuse to hit something destructively.
I’m yawning as Rafe and I walk together toward the combat building, surrounded by falling snow we can’t fully feel. It coasts through our skin unless we concentrate and sends chills deep into our bodies that hint at yet another memory I can’t quite grab on to.
“It kind of feels like brain freeze,” Rafe says with a grin.
“Or a full body freeze?” I cock my head to the side and hold out a hand to catch a flurry in my palm.
Rafe laughs. It’s the all-consuming type, where he stops and leans back, one hand on his chest. “I’ll allow it.” He nudges me with a shoulder. “Any progress with Haya on finding out what happened to her ex-roommate?”
I kick the snow with a heel. “Not really. She did tell
me that Erin was a psych from New York and that she loved pancakes, but that obviously doesn’t tell me much about what happened to her. I’m treading lightly at the moment. Figure if I push too hard, she’ll clam up. What about you?”
Rafe pulls the door to combat open for me. “No new info from Quinn, but he’s not really the talkative type. It’s hard enough getting him to talk about himself. Though Yasmin does seem to get a little more out of him. Maybe we can make that her mission. I’ve been nudging Kaz a little though.” He drops his voice as we find some free space at the back of the mats. “Apparently, whatever happened to Erin is why Landon’s such a... pleasant person to hang out with. It kind of sounded like they were dating.”
“Weird thought considering we’re dead. Though I guess they do call it the after LIFE, right?” I elbow Rafe’s ribs as if my joke is actually funny and not totally stupid.
The idea of dead people dating shouldn’t actually sound that dumb, considering I’m a witch medium, but it is still a little weird. Then again, if we can sleep and eat then I guess we can do other things too.
My face burns and I repress a goofy grin at this inappropriate thought, glad we’ve been whispering when Landon and dimple piercing, I mean Melissa, both walk in at the same time. Great. My two favorite ghosties at Locklear. Thankfully, they park it on the other side of the gym. Hopefully they’ll both ignore me.
A moment later the instructor — a short man with deep set eyes — walks through the door. I’ve seen him around campus but didn’t realize he taught combat. Based on the taut muscles of his forearms, though, I should’ve figured it out.
He doesn’t say a word as he strides to the front, but everyone moves at once. Rafe and I follow, joining the silent line as quick as possible. The instructor paces from one end to the other, narrowing his eyes at anyone who doesn’t have their hands behind their backs, or who happens to be slouching. My muscles stand at perfect attention without any coaxing, almost like they’ve been trained to do so.
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