Auracle

by Gina Rosati

  I have?

  “You have.”

  I don’t remember that.

  “What are we, then, just like neighbors?”

  Rei is still smiling. Obviously the concept of us dating is extremely amusing to him. “And we’ve been friends forever.” He stops smiling and groans. “This isn’t funny.”

  “No,” she agrees as she hugs her knees to her chest. “Not at all.”

  “So Seth never showed up at school today either, and I doubt he got his phone back. I wonder where he went.”

  Taylor freezes for a second, then turns slowly toward Rei. “You mean after he killed Taylor Gleason?”

  Rei stares. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw him kill her.” Taylor sits straight up, and her voice is serrated. “I went to the waterfall, and I saw your friend Seth push Taylor right off the ledge into the waterfall. He just threw her off. She’s dead now. Did you know that?” She’s staring daggers at Rei now.

  Rei’s mouth is hanging open. “What? Anna, you’re not making any sense. Seth would never…”

  “Never what … commit first-degree murder? I saw the whole thing.” She’s talking more to herself now than to Rei. “I need to call the police! I need to talk to my parents. I’m an eyewitness.”

  “Anna! Listen to yourself,” Rei puts one hand on her shoulder and turns her to face him. “You told me yourself your memory is all messed up. No offense, but you can’t even remember your own name.”

  Her aura turns the color of dirty bricks as she slaps his hand away.

  “This I remember!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Rei’s voice is carefully controlled when he says goodbye to my mom, but he sprints the entire way home, trying to stomp the anger out through his feet. He kicks off his sneakers before disappearing into his house, and the front door closes with a little more force than usual. I’m not used to seeing Rei angry, especially at me.

  I really wanted to fix this myself. Maybe it’s my own stubbornness or maybe it’s because I’m the cause of this mess, but I did not want Rei to have to worry about this. Now I know that not only is Taylor planning to blame her accidental death on Seth, but she’s using me as the star witness. If I can get my body back, I can exonerate Seth, but how do I get her out? I tried to force my way back in. I even asked her politely to leave, but it’s done me no good. It’s time to swallow my pride, admit I screwed up, and ask for help.

  The garage door grinds open, and Rei comes out, wearing only a pair of torn, faded blue jeans and dirt-caked work boots, a shovel slung over his bare shoulder. He walks right by me, so I must be invisible to him at the moment, which is a good thing because I’m kinda sorta staring right now. Off to the side in the front yard there’s a small crabapple tree that Yumi got for Mother’s Day waiting to be planted.

  I suppose I could materialize now and try to tell Rei what’s happening, but he looks kind of busy at the moment. He starts to dig, stepping all of his weight on the shovel until it sinks through the thick turf. The grass is very much alive, and the thick clumps of sod won’t let go of the earth without an angry hiss. The sound of ripping grass seems to calm him, though, and by the time he’s cleared a sizable circle of grass, he’s breathing slower and his expression is neutral. He pays no attention to me, so I must still be invisible to him. I float near the porch swing and watch him scoop shovelful after shovelful of dirt and rocks into a pile on a tarp, prying loose the bigger rocks with the tip of the shovel and throwing them overhand into the woods between our houses. It takes him a good five minutes to wrestle one particularly large rock out, and he heaves that into the woods with a satisfied look on his face. By the time he’s planted the tree and replaced the soil, he’s streaked with sweat and soil, and … okay! So maybe I am checking him out. A little.

  He shoulders the shovel and the rolled hose, then heads back to the garage with his usual calm face restored until he passes the porch. He stops cold and looks directly at me. Uh-oh. He looks mad again.

  “Anna!” he says sharply.

  My first reaction is to dart into the spruce tree so fast, it appears I’ve vanished into thin air. Rei continues to talk to the swing in the same steely tone. “I know you’re there.” He waits a few seconds for me to materialize, and when I don’t, he lowers his voice. “I don’t know what you think happened, but I would appreciate it if you would think this through before you talk to anyone about Seth.” He stares at the swing expectantly. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  His colors are wavering between red and green, like Christmas but not at all joyful. It’s the aura of conflict, of someone who is trying really hard to keep an open mind and make sense of this. I glide out of the spruce and settle on the steps to the left of him. I latch onto the small bit of positive energy that’s radiating from him and recharge from that. He catches sight of me in his peripheral vision and jumps slightly.

  “Don’t DO that!”

  Of course I know where Seth is, but I don’t know how to tell him. Through the years, Rei and I have learned to silently communicate a lot to each other through our eyes and gestures. Little things, like hey, do you have an extra pencil or I’m freezing; can I wear your hoodie? are easy to figure out. But even if I didn’t suck at charades, how would I communicate he’s on a back road about fifteen miles south of the Canadian border?

  Rei sits down next to me and rests his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists. His eyes are assessing me again, trying to fit together the pieces of my puzzle. “Are you really going to the police?”

  I shake my head.

  He relaxes a little. “Then why did you say you would?”

  I shake my head again.

  “Yes, you did. I heard you. Oh, right, you don’t remember, do you?” His tone is uncharacteristically condescending.

  I shake my head, and point to my house. I mouth the word that’s.

  Rei rolls his eyes. He sucks even worse than I do at charades. “Great. Now I have to guess what you’re trying to say, right?”

  Right.

  He watches carefully as I mouth the word again. “This,” he guesses.

  I shake my head and try again.

  “Uh, that.”

  Close enough. I nod. I mouth the word not and shake my head.

  “Not?” he guesses. Good, he’s doing better than usual.

  I nod again, and point to my chest, mouthing the word me.

  “Me,” he says softly. “‘That’s not me.’ That’s not you? Well, then, who is it?” He looks more confused than ever. Over at my house, the front door opens. Taylor comes out barefoot and walks slowly up the driveway toward the mailbox. She doesn’t look over, but Rei sees her, and he knows I can’t be here and there at the same time.

  I mouth the word very slowly. “Taylor.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “So what you’re telling me is that’s Taylor inside your body,” he says quietly.

  I nod. Taylor’s still at the mailbox, pulling out a wad of catalogs and bills, but she’s too far away to hear him. I scoot to the side so if she looks over, she can’t see me.

  “Why isn’t she inside her own body?”

  I run my index finger across my throat.

  “She’s really dead?” he whispers.

  I nod.

  Rei lets out a slow deep breath and rubs his temples with his dirt-caked hands. “That’s bad. She said Seth pushed her.”

  I shake my head hard.

  “No, I didn’t think so. Do you know how to find Seth?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, good. Let’s go inside before she sees us,” he says. Once he’s inside, he looks at his grungy hands apologetically. “I need five minutes to shower.”

  I wait downstairs and imagine every possible reaction Rei might have when he realizes all that’s happened. He’s so good at hiding his emotions from the world, but how can he not be feeling, disbelief, anger, fear, and worst of all disappointment.

  As soon as Rei is all clean and dressed in sh
orts and a T-shirt, he calls me upstairs, motioning for me to follow him to his room. The sight of the swing chair sparks his memory.

  “So last night,” he says, “you weren’t here because you were dreaming, were you?”

  I shake my head.

  “And by that time, Taylor was already dead, wasn’t she?”

  I nod.

  “So, why didn’t you tell me?”

  I didn’t tell him because I wanted to get my body back first, because I didn’t want him to worry, because I am so profoundly embarrassed that I am locked out of my body, of all things. And the number one reason I didn’t tell him? Because while I’m stuck in this dimension, I have no voice, no words, no way to tell him all the complicated details of this debacle.

  I must look very contrite because Rei’s voice softens. “I’m sorry,” he says as he sits on his bed, “you must have been pretty shocked to come home and find someone else in your body.”

  I open my eyes wide to show him “shocked” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  “So have you tried to get her out?”

  Big emphatic nod.

  “So … what’s the problem? It’s your body. Can’t you just pull her out?”

  I shake my head. This lack of a voice is starting to drive me nuts. I look around for something I can use to communicate with him besides head shakes and nods. Rei’s room is always immaculate, which sucks because a little dust would be handy to write in. There’s a pencil on the desk, but even though I can pick it up, it flops around when I try to write, producing nothing more than a few illegible squiggles. I let it fall back onto the desk and look around in desperation.

  “It’s okay, Anna,” he consoles me, “we’ll figure this out. So you can lift the pencil, but you can’t control it.…”

  Rei turns the power strip on with his foot, and while he waits for the computer to power up, he gives me menial tasks to perform. Can I move that book? No, I can’t. Can I move this piece of paper? Yes, I can. He seems to be looking for a magical weight limit I can lift metaphysically, and I hate to burst his bubble, but I don’t think it’s consistent. I can manipulate these objects around him just because I’m fueling off his energy. Rei seems to vibrate at a much higher frequency than most people I know, probably because of all the meditation he does in his secret lair. At my house, my parents and Taylor have such a negative effect on me, it’s like draining juice through a straw. I don’t think I could lift that pen at my house.

  The computer is up, and Rei selects the word processing icon. The screen comes up as a blank document. “Can you type?”

  He starts wheeling his chair back to give me access to the keyboard, but then he stops and looks at me curiously. “Can you just move right through me?”

  Who knows? I reach my hand toward his to see if he feels solid like Taylor, or if he’s like an inanimate object I can slide right through if I choose to. He reaches out to meet me halfway, and when our hands touch, he feels solid and secure, like an anchor to keep me from drifting away.

  “That is so cool! It’s like you’re vibrating.” I watch him stare in childlike fascination at my hand resting in his. As his fingers curl naturally around mine, they sink right through my hand into a loose fist. “That’s weird.” He sounds disappointed. “But you can’t put your hand through mine.”

  I shake my head.

  “Weird. So,” Rei leans back in his chair, “back to the big question. Can you type?”

  I stoke myself up on Rei’s energy before I move my fingers helter-skelter on the keyboard … lkdjg oerufj

  Yes, I can type.

  “Good! That’ll make things easier. Now start at the beginning and tell me everything that happened from the time I dropped you off yesterday afternoon.”

  I tap into quite a bit of Rei’s energy in order to type the entire story, but he doesn’t seem to miss it. He leans forward, reading as I type, interrupting me with questions. When I’m done, he sits back with that worried look on his face.

  “I should have been there with him. At least I could vouch he’s innocent.”

  If I can just get back into my body, I can vouch for him.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the next topic up for discussion. How do you get her out?”

  I have no idea. I keep trying to push her out, but as you can see, I can’t travel through people. If I can’t get into her, I can’t push her out.

  “Well, how’d she get in there, then?”

  It must be because I wasn’t in there. Maybe she saw me at the falls with Seth and figured she could sneak in while I wasn’t there.

  Rei is quiet, thinking. “So you’re in some other dimension?” he finally asks.

  I think so. It’s the same place I always go.

  “And Taylor has taken possession of your body.”

  I nod solemnly. I don’t think you should tell her you know she isn’t me.

  “No, you’re right, I won’t.”

  I don’t know how she thinks she can pull this off. Do people with concussions really have such drastic memory issues? She didn’t even know my full name.

  “They can. And she knows your name now. I told her.”

  I have a feeling she’ll be pestering you.

  “That’s okay. You know,” he says quietly, “I thought there was something odd about you. Your eyes. They just looked … unfamiliar.”

  I wonder if my mother will notice a difference in my eyes, too, or if Rei is the one person in this world who knows me best.

  Rei presses the spot between his eyebrows hard for a minute, and the red and green layers surrounding him seem to roll into each other and become an indigo blue.

  “Okay, so let’s look at this logically. If she hadn’t come into you, what would she have done?”

  She should have gone into the light, but I didn’t see one. I don’t know if I wasn’t paying attention or if the sun was too bright. Or maybe there just wasn’t a light for her.

  “Okay, so for whatever reason, she didn’t go into the light. So she’s a spirit that’s taken possession of a living body.”

  Now that he puts it that way, it sounds so sinister. I nod.

  “So can you search ‘spirit possession’? See what the internet has to say.”

  I type in the magic words, hit the enter key, and voilà … nine million hits.

  I make a wow face at him, and he smiles for the first time in a while. Not a big smile, but enough to charge me up for a few more minutes.

  “So why don’t I look these over and see what I come up with while you go find Seth.”

  I flip back to the word processing screen. What do you want me to do with him once I find him? Surely he doesn’t want Seth to see me.

  “Just find him; make sure he’s safe. Let me know where he is.”

  Okay, I’ll be right back.

  Seth is a little farther south now. I trace him to a wooded area not more than twenty miles away, and he’s still moving at a steady pace. I would love to know where he’s going. What he’s doing for food and water. What thoughts are swimming around behind that blank expression on his face. As bad as he might think this is, he cannot imagine how bad it could get unless I get back into my body.

  I bounce back to Rei’s bedroom before he’s finished reading the first article on spirit possession. As soon as he sees me, he pushes his chair back so I can use the keyboard.

  He’s fine. He’s walking through some woods between St. Albans and Milton.

  “So he’s not too far away. Let’s go get him.”

  It takes me all of a second and a half to determine this is a dangerous idea for Rei.

  What are you going to do with him once you find him?

  “I’ll talk him into going to the police and they’ll straighten this whole thing out,” he says. “You said it yourself: he didn’t do anything wrong.”

  It doesn’t matter what I say—nobody can hear me. The police will be listening to the Anna Rogan who tells them Seth pushed Taylor.

  “Well, the law says he’s
innocent until proven guilty.”

  The school already has him coded with behavior issues. And all of Taylor’s friends have told the police Seth was there with her, and they didn’t exactly portray Seth in a very positive manner.

  “How do you know that?”

  I went to the school today. I heard them talk to the police.

  “Okay,” Rei sits back and spins his desk chair in little quarter circles while he digests this latest bit of bad news. “How can I help Seth, then? I can’t just leave him out there.”

  He seems to have something planned. Let him do what he’s doing. He’s done plenty of camping; he knows how to fend for himself. If he doesn’t get in touch with you by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll bring you to him.

  “Fair enough,” he turns back to the computer with his poker face in place, but his aura tells me differently. He’s not happy with this compromise, and his blues give way to layers of dismay.

  The air feels heavier, like a wave of negativity has rolled into the room. I’m sure it’s Rei’s energy reacting to my reluctance to lead him to Seth until I hear a car door slam, then another. I fly to the window just as the doorbell rings.

  CHAPTER 13

  I give Rei a warning look while the sound of the doorbell echoes through the house.

  As soon as he sees who is here, he mutters one of those Japanese words he won’t translate for me.

  “Wait here,” he tells me.

  Not a chance. I hover at the top of the stairs, out of sight. The police look in expectantly when Rei opens the door.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Are you Rye Ellis?” asks the same short, bald police officer I saw at school.

  “Rei Ellis,” he corrects them.

  “Okay, Rei. I’m Officer Daigle; this is Officer Mooney. We’d like to ask you a few questions about Seth Murphy.”

  Even if Taylor called the police right after Rei left, they wouldn’t be here asking questions so soon, unless …

  I zip over to the river where I last saw Taylor’s body bobbing in the current. The birch branch now cuts freely through the water, and the mud along the shore has been trampled and stamped with dozens of heavy boot prints.