Of Delicate Pieces

by A. Lynden Rolland

  Kaleb grinned. “Esker Havilah would be proud. He hated all this, what’s the word, Gabe?”

  “Sin?”

  “No! The fun one.”

  “Frivolity.”

  Kaleb snapped his fingers. “That’s it. I like that one. Chase and Alex will be lookouts.”

  Chase, always the brave one, spoke up. “Are we looking out for ghosts or drunks?”

  “Both,” Kaleb replied with satisfaction. “Although I doubt a drunk will stumble out so far from the watering hole if you know what I mean.” He outlined Main Street. “We should have free reign of the area. It will be a ghost town.”

  And it was. They met no opposition. Every living soul in Parrish traveled downtown by early evening. The town was theirs for the taking! And take, they did. Kaleb climbed up to the termite-ridden pedestal on which Esker Havilah himself used to preach to his congregation of avid followers. Kaleb’s voice came out low and eerie.

  “We must rid this town from impending doom. We will mark windows with shades of blue.”

  “Clever.” Gabe examined a book at the altar. “You’re a poet, and you don’t know it.”

  Jonas frowned. “That really didn’t rhyme.”

  “Shut up, Jonas,” Kaleb and Gabe said simultaneously. Jonas made a face and disappeared into a confessional.

  Gabe leaped onto the podium, intoxicated by the moment. “No dancing after dark!” he preached in a booming voice. “No unannounced gatherings!”

  “No joking,” Kaleb added. “No gaming. No drinking and no merriment. No fun allowed here in the town of Parrish!”

  Alex and Chase used their elbows to army-crawl on their bellies under the dusty pews, but guilt caused Alex to pause. She plucked a spider web from her forehead and wondered if Esker Havilah was rolling over in his grave right now. The very essence of this day was the complete opposite of the ideals on which he had founded this town. And here she was, his descendant in his church, mocking it.

  “On to our mission!” Kaleb leaped from pew to pew with deer-like agility. “We have to expose those who have broken the laws of the land.”

  “That’s the whole town,” Gabe pointed out.

  “Then we will mark every house in town tonight!”

  Gabe looked doubtful. This was a task of epic proportions, as likely as Santa visiting every house in the world in one night. Alex watched as Gabe bit his tongue and allowed his big brother to maintain his glory.

  “Lookouts.” Kaleb turned to Chase and Alex, speaking in a deepened voice of authority. “Establish yourselves out front. As much as it pains you, divide to cover more ground. We won’t be gone long.”

  Kaleb snatched Jonas from the confessional and followed Gabe around to the back of the church en route to the Esker woods. Chase reached for Alex’s hand.

  “We can stay together if you want.”

  As if she had any other intention.

  They sat thigh to thigh in the overgrown grass by the warped, wooden steps of the church, leaning on one another for support. In the woods, the day aged more quickly, carrying an air of dirt, graves, and death. It cheated the children of time and daylight. The three eldest Lasalles returned from their expedition unsuccessful and empty-handed, their spirits murky like disposed watercolor, as gray as the day. Only Alex and Chase were pleased that there was no cause for punishment from the other world. They had never wanted to steal the indigo in the first place.

  Gabe suggested they use chalk to carry out their plan, but thunder rumbled in the distance, and chalk painted windowsills would not withstand the rain. The skies opened before they even reached Parrish Park, soaking them from head to toe. Alex and Chase parted ways at their side-by-side mailboxes, and Alex stumbled into her house and fell into bed, exhausted from the day.

  When she woke in the morning, she tried to convince herself that the marks on her face were battle wounds. She tripped several times running home in the rain, and she bruised like a rotten banana. She couldn’t deny that the blue marks on her face bore resemblance to the same striking blue as the prints she found on her windowsill that morning. An indigo handprint, palm across her chin, fingers framing her cheekbone, as though someone had been cradling her face with stained hands.

  Chapter Nine

  Whenever Alex had a high fever during life, the size of the world around her became distorted. Usually, she became larger. Or the world became smaller. Either way, she felt off-balance and out of place. Her doctor called it Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and claimed it was only a disruption of perception.

  That was how she felt now. She was taking up too much space even though her projection was the size of a ten-year-old. It might have been her imagination, but it seemed like the newburies in the hallway cleared the way when they saw her coming, scurrying away from the big, fat feet of a giant. Her footsteps clunked as she reached the staircase, and she could have sworn she heard the banister creak under her weight.

  The staircase arched and curled like waves, which made her feel like she was floating in a tide. It didn’t help her current mindset, and to top things off, she remembered halfway down the steps that there was a new addition to her schedule.

  Thank goodness Chase was waiting for her, saving her a seat at the middle tier of stadium rows, all the way off to the side where she wouldn’t be noticed. He rested against the wall with his feet propped up on the chair next to him. When he spotted her, a dimple appeared on the right side of his cheek, and that alone was enough to make Alex feel better.

  She dodged the hovering books, ducked under floating papers and hurried to him. Chase removed his shoes from her seat. “Who would’ve guessed the Havilahs would be a household name here, too?”

  Alex dropped her belongings and collapsed down next to them. “You were eavesdropping, huh?”

  “Do you blame me?” He kissed her hello. Pulses of orange energy brightened her mind. “No wonder you have super powers. You’re old blood.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  What’s your kryptonite, Supergirl?

  She lifted her palms to the ceiling. You.

  That doesn’t sound very appealing. He reached for one of her outstretched hands and took it in his.

  Her mind still remembered what it felt like for skin to prickle in an anticipatory way; her senses knew he was going to kiss her again before he did it. When he pulled back, she could see waviness in the small space between them like heat rising above the asphalt in the dead of summer. Her brain conjured images of cooking grills and the term refraction before she shook the slideshow from her head. The information rattled around. She had to be tired because she wasn’t controlling her aching mind very well. The moment she thought about her fatigue, Chase grasped her hand, and she felt a small surge of energy as though he sacrificed some of his own, literally handed it to her.

  Alex wasn’t sure she needed energy for a course entitled “Meditari.” She assumed meditation meant sleeping, but within the first few minutes of their new workshop, Dr. Banyan Philo argued that it was the very opposite.

  “Focused attention,” he called it, holding a vat of Ex nearly as tall as his small frame. He didn’t drink it but instead hunched over every few seconds to inhale the mist. Between sighing amid the after effects of his Ex, he discussed the various ways for a spirit to train its mind in order to control its mental processes.

  Alex felt neither calm nor focused. Her knee bounced and her hands shook. The fact that she descended from a founding family set her mind in motion on whirlwind speed. After seeing the name, Havilah, her brain shuffled through images like faces in the windows of a speeding train, and she couldn’t keep up. No wonder she felt exhausted. She’d always been well aware of her family background in life; she never figured that history would follow her here in death. The loose ends of her life were going to strangle her sooner or later.

  “Chase,” she whispered. “Did I ever tell you what happened the night the Jester chased us away from the Esker woods?”

/>   “You mean the night we’ve been reliving in your dreams every other night? What else is there to know?”

  “Back then I thought you’d think I was crazy if I said anything. That night when we got home, I got in the shower.”

  “I like where this is going.”

  “Shut up. I’m serious. Anyway, I was in the shower and I got this feeling that I wasn’t alone. I remember I was shaking because I was sure someone was there, but the bathroom was empty.”

  “Great story.”

  Madison turned around and gave them a look of reprimand. Chase made a face at her.

  I’m not done, Alex continued in Chase’s mind. The feeling didn’t go away so finally I said aloud, “Why are you here? Couldn’t you wait until I was out of the shower?” I actually said that to the empty room like a crazy person. I almost fainted when a boy’s voice said, “You came to visit me without knocking. So I came to visit you without knocking.”

  Chase leaned on his hand. Are you serious right now?

  She lifted her palms. I might have imagined it, but he kept talking. He told me that he came to see my face in the light and that they were going to find me eventually.

  Who are “they?”

  He didn’t specify. All he did after that was sing the rhyme about the Havilahs.

  You think he was talking about the Havilahs finding you? They’re dead.

  Chase, I told you about the tree. They’re a spirit family. This afterworld is probably crawling with them. But why would he be worried about them finding me? I lived a mile away from the woods. If Havilah spirits really lived in town, I’m sure they would have seen me before then.

  Chase sighed. I don’t know.

  Alex shifted her attention to Dr. Philo, who waved his hand and an image of a face in the clouds appeared above him. “Recognize this man?”

  Tousled bedhead. Wide chin. Bored face.

  “Is that you, Doctor?” Madison asked.

  “You may call me Banyan, and yes it is.”

  “How did you do that?”

  Banyan stooped forward to snort up another whiff of Ex.

  Alex elbowed Chase, who curled his nose at the man.

  Banyan wiped his nose and raised his arms above his head in the direction of the photograph. “I think you’ll be ever more impressed to know that as this was taken from the window of an airplane at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, I was in an auditorium, mid-lecture much like I am now. Hundreds witnessed the feat.”

  “That’s all possible through meditation?” Jack Bond’s voice intruded in the discussion.

  A few newburies took the opportunity to turn and stare at Jack. Chase’s hand balled into a fist.

  “Yes, focused attention is a powerful thing.” Banyan blinked upward, and the projection changed. In place of the clouds sat the outlined silhouette of a red person against a red wooden door. “It can take years to master, and before the mind is trained, our powerful minds often travel by accident. Usually, the mind will take the person back home since that’s where it is most at peace.”

  His soft words crept to the corner of the lecture hall and nudged Alex, awakening her attention. The mind will take a person back home.

  “Usually when humans see apparitions, it’s only spirits traveling in their minds. That’s why many of the bodied believe spirits to be translucent. If their minds are open enough to see us like this,” he circled his arm around the room, “we become visible like any other living person. Such is not the case with meditation.”

  Alex remembered Professor Massin during their first sociology introduction—her translucence wasn’t due to her age but because she was in two places at once that day.

  Alex elbowed Chase. Do you think this is why my dreams are back in Parrish?

  Those are dreams. You aren’t concentrating on anything when you’re unconscious.

  That’s what I mean. If I’m a Havilah, it makes sense, right? They built the whole town. It might be natural for my subconscious to take me back there.

  Chase’s head shifted back and forth with Banyan, who began to pace on the podium. I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think that has to do with meditation. I think that has to do with your mind being the director of your dreams.

  Alex twirled a finger through one of her tangled curls. She felt fairly certain she would regret sharing this. I think it’s more than a dream.

  Why would you think that?

  I think Liv Frank can see us.

  Right. You told me she could see spirits. It’s not surprising at all, knowing her. He circled his finger around his ear to indicate Liv’s craziness.

  No, I mean she can see us in the dream.

  Chase placed an elbow on the table and shifted in his seat to look at her.

  Humor me. In my last dream, when we were walking along the beach she was staring right at us.

  Oh, yeah?

  She could tell he didn’t believe her at all. Fine. Next time it happens. Next time we’re there, watch her. Okay?

  All right, Chase agreed. I think you’re forgetting that Banyan isn’t talking about dreams. He is talking about real life.

  What if Liv did really see us that day, and we never knew it?

  You mean when we were actually alive and sitting right next to her, you think she saw us walking on the beach as ghosts?

  Could happen, right?

  That’s a whole new level of psychedelics.

  Not if I’m projecting us there.

  Back at the podium, Banyan stood stiff as a statue, his eyes shut, and his short arms dangling lifelessly at his sides.

  What is he doing now?

  The room was so silent they could hear Madison scribbling notes with her pencil.

  I bet he passed out from all the Ex sniffing, Chase murmured in her thoughts. Anyway, do you remember what we were taught about the Havilahs?

  Of course she remembered. There was an entire day dedicated to them every year in Parrish.

  Do you remember why they built the town? Why they built the Eskers?

  Yes, she knew. Esker Havilah’s name was chiseled so flawlessly on that family tree. No mistakes. Disciplined, like him. He molded the town to obey and furthermore preach the behavior he thought was necessary.

  Who would have thought those Havilah ghost rumors were real? When Pax Simone showed me my family tree, she said that it was one of the first ones. It was as old as Brigitta and Broderick Cinatri’s tree. The Havilahs were friends with the founders of Eidolon.

  SNAP.

  Alex yelped as Banyan’s face appeared in the space between her and Chase. She gawked at the luminous image, separating their conversation.

  “What the … ?” Chase shot back in his chair.

  At the front of the room, the actual Banyan stood lifeless. The specter of the doctor grinned. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”

  Several newburies began to clap. Others had their hands over their mouths in shock as the fake doctor disappeared, and the actual Banyan awoke at the podium. He bowed. “One day we may not need to physically travel at all if we can figure out how to make it last. We could use meditation and abolish those burdensome wormholes. But that opens a whole new can of debatable worms.”

  Madison took her pencil from her mouth. “Is it safer to exist that way?”

  “Our projections are nothing but memories. We meditate with our minds, but we exist in our minds as memories, and those can be stolen, captured, manipulated, destroyed. So no, it’s not safer.” Banyan tossed stacks of cards onto their tables. “On to the interactive part!”

  He ordered the class to break into pairs with their cards. Alex saw this activity last year. One person held up the card with a picture facing away from the partner. The partner guessed the image by trying to envision themselves using the other person’s eyes. It was a watered down version of meditation, but the hall buzzed with excitement.

  Alex and Chase finished in two minutes. With
access to each other’s thoughts, the activity was ridiculously simple.

  Chase reverted back to their conversation. All the rules the Havilahs made. You remember, right?

  No drinking, dancing, any sort of fun. I know, I know, Alex thought to him. It was all banned. She also knew it was a scapegoat for what the Havilahs really hated. Back then, they called it devil worship.

  Witches.

  The gifted, Alex corrected. If they were such good friends with Broderick and Brigitta, I wonder if they had anything to do with the way the dead treat the gifted.

  She didn’t need to open the door between their minds to know he shared the same thought as she did. If the Havilahs created a town dedicated to impeding any action related to witchery, it only became all the more strange that Alex, their last living relative, was the spitting image of the sort of person they hated.

  ***

  Alex regretted her neglect for the ghost girl. The day felt so long that it was difficult to believe it had only been a few hours since they found her. Alex rushed across the courtyard and into Brigitta Hall, walking too quickly for anyone to have a chance to stop her.

  Rae did not seem to have missed her. Alex found her on the floor, sprawled on her stomach. Surrounding her were no less than twenty sketches and several pencils dulled down to the erasers. Rae sure did have a talent for the arts because with standard number two pencils she’d created several masterpieces of extensive dimension and depth, making the pictures seem real, like black and white photographs. Alex stood transfixed among the stepping-stones of papers littering her room.

  Not knowing what exactly to do, she crisscrossed her ankles and wilted to the floor. With so many smudges on her arms and face, Rae looked as though she’d been rolling through soot, but she glanced over at Alex with a knowing smirk.

  “You know you’re good at this, huh?”

  Rae lifted a finger to her lips and scanned her work. She selected one from the middle. She’d drawn a tunnel with chipped, gray edges, but anger emanated through the dark shading. Alex could feel red through the cloudiness. Rae didn’t like this place. She examined Alex’s reaction through the threads of her fine hair, and Alex stared back, wondering what Rae was trying to tell her. After a few minutes, Rae shook her head, selecting another sketch. This one was a mess of scribbles, but when Alex held it in her hands, the picture filled her with warmth and comfort. It told a story of safety. Love. And the strength of it overwhelmed her.