Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  Next we took turns introducing ourselves to the class. The disheveled boy from the lunchroom was Jean Paul, who had grown up on the outskirts of Paris. His French accent and broken English were irritatingly endearing.

  The girl next to him was Malina, a Romanian immigrant who, until recently, lived in London and worked in a department store on Oxford Street. She was serious and dramatic and when, during her remarks, we'd made eye contact, her eyes traveled up and down me disapprovingly. I sensed her attraction to Jean Paul — felt it, really — and knew she considered me a threat. Her aloof affectation made me squirm.

  Nigel, Sara's little friend, was from Bexley, a suburb south of London. Then there was Ravi, a young man from India; Johanna, a sable-skinned girl from South Africa; Mindy, an Asian woman from Hong Kong whose real first name, she explained, was usually mangled by western tongues. Next was Pedro, a swarthy youth in his twenties from Argentina whose thick mustache seemed to operate independently from his face; Liza, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede; and finally Arika, the oldest of our class, maybe in her late forties. Dark-skinned and dark-eyed, with tattoos dotting her sun-baked face, she was an Australian aborigine who revealed cryptically that she was a Dream Walker.

  In all, a fascinating crew. I looked forward to getting to know them all better, with the exception maybe of Malina.

  Sir Alex, who'd been seated on the arm of a reading chair, his cane propped in front of him, made his way into the center of the room, where he waited until the various quiet conversations petered out.

  "Many think of the afterlife as a place one travels to after we die," he said. "But it isn't a place. The afterlife is all around is. Bits and pieces of it are flitting about, invisibly, every moment of every day, like radio broadcasts. All of you are like very sensitive radio receivers, with the ability to tune into these broadcasts. What we teach here is how to function with these abilities, not so that you can control them but so you can direct them, for healing, for growth, to help others. None of us is here as a result of chance. Always remember, the gifts themselves are unimportant. It's what you do with them that counts."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cali

  South Parlor, Waltham Manor

  Orientation

  There it was again. That feeling of overwhelming familiarity.

  All morning Waltham had been tripping off déjà vu after déjà vu in my head. Eerie corkscrews of energy would wind up my back and send tingles shivering down my arms. But when Sir Alex started to give his speech, it hit me with a solid electric jolt, memories from my out-of-body experiences, me lounging with a group of strangers of different races and ages, listening to a lecture in a setting exactly like this. That's why everything had felt so familiar. I had done it all before!

  The realization choked off my ability to speak, to swallow, to breathe. I wanted to shout everything I knew and was experiencing but was paralyzed by the flood of information, and pure knowing, coming at me too fast to take in, let alone talk about. I put my hand to my chest, trying to take in air. This is what suffocating is like!

  Nicole looked at me with sudden concern, sensing I was in trouble. Just when it seemed I was going to pass out, I took a deep breath, then a second, then a third. Whatever had been clogging the pipes had cleared. All systems were equalizing. I caught Sir Alex's eye. He seemed to know what was happening but only nodded, as if to say I'd be all right.

  "Ooh-kay, everybody, we are gonna lairn our first energy exercise," Mrs. Apple said, standing without a change to the elevation of her head. "We're gonna lairn to ground."

  "What?" I heard someone whisper. "What did she say?"

  "We're going to learn to ground," someone answered.

  Mrs. Apple paired us up. She put Becky together with Ravi, a dark-skinned, panda-shaped Indian man in his mid-twenties, with a round head and large ears that stuck out from his face like the handles of an urn. Sara grasped Nigel's hand, as if knowing already who she belonged to. Still slightly dazed, I moved unthinking toward Nicole, sure we'd be put together.

  "Noo, Cali." Mrs. Apple held up her hand. "You are with Arika."

  Before I knew it I was standing face to face with the butt-ugly Australian aborigine woman. Her mug was so gruesome she was making me tear up. We were exactly the same height, so that I was looking directly into her wild, slightly maniacal black eyes. Her nose was broad and flat and she had tiny square tattoos fanning out over the backs of her hands and across her tanned, leathery face. Tribal custom or personal statement? Arika had told everyone she was a Dream Walker. I wanted to ask her what that meant but something in her eyes flipping creeped me out.

  Mrs. Apple told everyone to take turns giving our partner a playful shove. Next to me, Nigel pushed Sara hard enough to make her stumble back. Something about the crinkle in her forehead and the hurt look in her eyes made me chuckle. When Sara shoved him back, it was with equal force. I thought for a minute that they were going to tangle.

  I was turning my attention back to Arika when I felt two small, hard hands drive into my breasts with tremendous force. I fell back, knocked off my feet and back onto my butt. The crash was spectacular, shaking end tables and toppling knickknacks. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I felt my face flush hot enough to produce a second-degree burn.

  "A wee, gentle push," Mrs. Apple told everyone, but I wasn't thinking wee, gentle, when I shoved Arika back. But she was ready for me and merely smiled a big, toothy grin and took a step or two back, still on her feet.

  Next Mrs. Apple asked us to visualize what she called a "grounding cord." She wanted us to imagine a pipe growing from the base of our spines and stretching all the way to the center of the Earth. I immediately felt different as the make-believe pipe drilled into the planet's core. Some of my anger seemed to ease up just then, as if swallowed by Earth's gravity. It was like a soft pull downward, like I was growing roots.

  After that we took turns pushing each other again. Arika seemed intent on knocking me on the floor a second time, but like all my classmates, I only swayed in place. My feet never left the floor. Very strange.

  "When a lot of energy is comin' at ya," Mrs. Apple said, "groundin' is one way to keep your head on straight."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cali

  Waltham Manor

  January 29

  I stumbled through the dimly lit hallway, my arms folded against the predawn cold. I was following a member of the waitstaff, a girl who walked ahead of me with a flashlight. Spidery shadows crawled across the walls on account of the constantly moving light. It, combined with the hollow feeling in my stomach, brought on by sleep deprivation, insomnia, and hunger, made me feel empty and insubstantial, like I was a ghost moving through an endless tunnel. I shivered.

  "Five o'clock in the morning!" I'd exclaimed the night before, when I first checked out my class schedule. "Okay, wait a minute. This can't be right."

  It hadn't been a misprint: Astral Projection Basics, North Recess, 5:00 a.m.

  I peeked at the other girls' schedules. They all had early sessions, too: a shared meditation class before breakfast at seven-thirty every morning. But only I would have to get up at 4:45 a.m. in time to get to the North Recess. Then I read the margin notes: Avoid food and beverages before class.

  "Are you flippin' kidding me? Not even coffee?"

  The flashlight girl, her starched white pinafore outlining her black uniform, paused at a closed door, knocked twice, then opened it without waiting for an answer. The room on the other side was softly lit, warmed by a crackling fire from an ornately tiled fireplace. Like most rooms at Waltham, it was furnished with antiques, in this case by a glut of chaise lounges.

  Flashlight Girl curtsied and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone, blinking sleepily. Three dimly lit figures stood near the fireplace, two tall men and a squat matronly figure whose shape was unmistakable. This can't be happening.

  "Mornin' there!" Arika all but yelled, bounding across the room with a bow-legg
ed step that was more waddle than walk. "You ready for class?"

  "Shhh, quiet," I said, wincing. "I can hear you without all the shouting."

  "What's this?" Arika asked, grasping my lip ring and tugging on it like a fisherman hooking a fish. "You ain't got any use for this. It'll just bog you down."

  I jerked back, running my tongue along the inside of my mouth. "It's too flippin' early for this."

  "Ah, Cali, so good of you to come," said one of the figures by the fire. Sir Alex stepped out of the shadows to the familiar tap of his cane. "I must apologize for the earliness of the hour, but this is the best time for this sort of thing. Let me introduce you to your instructor. This fine chap is Robert, an advanced student here at Waltham Academy. He will be leading you through the basics of astral projection these next many months."

  Robert, a tall, wiry man with wavy blond hair and a close-cropped beard, stepped forward and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you. Cali, is it?"

  "You're American."

  "Canadian, actually. From Ottawa."

  "Canadian. Really." I thought about Derek and my aborted attempt to run away to Vancouver. "I was almost Canadian once." I yawned musically. "I'm sorry. It's jetlag and noisy neighbors banging around upstairs at all hours. My body doesn't know what time it is. Why's this class so early, anyway? No way to move it to a time when I might actually be awake?"

  "Well, we don't want you awake, necessarily," Robert answered. "Not too awake, anyway. Not for this class. The ideal state for learning astral projection is a mind awake, body asleep state. But, we'll get to all that soon enough."

  From behind, Arika began singing in a mumbly, incoherent language. I glanced back at her, unable to suppress a sneer. "Where are all the other students? We can't be the only ones, can we?"

  "You are the only two in your class with this particular talent," Sir Alex said.

  "We have a group of more advanced students," Robert explained, "who meet a few doors down every morning and project into the astral planes. Once you two master the basics, you'll join them."

  "I already know how to have an out-of-body experience," I told him.

  "Having spontaneous out-of-body experiences and learning how to make it happen on purpose are two completely different things, even for someone with the talent for it, like yourself."

  "Listen, here's the thing," I said, "I'm not really all that sure I want to learn to go out of my body. I flippin' hate it, actually."

  "Really?" Robert replied. "Why's that?"

  It was Arika who answered. "Losing control." She smiled widely, revealing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. "You're resistin' it, ain't cha? That's what it is. You resist and it makes it 'arder."

  "Why don't we get started then," Robert said. "We've got a lot to cover in these first class sessions. The key to facing your fear is to get started without thinking too much about it. You don't have to change the way you feel about something to affect it, if you can change what you're doing."

  I plopped down on the nearest chaise lounge. For a few dreamy seconds I closed my eyes and felt the delicious abyss of sleep yawn open.

  Robert cleared his throat behind me. "For our first lessons we'll be practicing on these," he pointed to two wooden chairs sitting nearby. "Nothing like a hard backrest digging into your shoulders for staying awake."

  Arika sat in one of the chairs. I grabbed the second, dragged it a couple of feet to the side and slid between the armrests. Sir Alex had discreetly eased back into the shadows near the fireplace, as if to watch without butting in.

  Ever since my déjà vu experience the day before, I'd been needing to talk with him. He had vanished before Orientation was over and when he didn't make an appearance for the rest of the day, I promised myself that the next time I saw him I wouldn't let him get away without answering my questions. But now that I had the chance, I was intimidated and too exhausted to think coherently.

  "Up 'til now," Robert said, "your out-of-body experiences have happened on their own," he looked at me meaningfully, "something seemingly out of your control. Now, you're going to learn to make it happen on purpose, an ability that can be altogether more difficult. Learning conscious exit astral projection requires the mastery of a few basic skills: relaxation, a quiet mind, a mental projection technique, and, perhaps most importantly, a strong enough memory muscle to return to your body with full recall of your out-of-body experiences.

  "Everyone, without exception, projects out-of-body when they sleep. We are all in essence spirits, after all, in need of regular spiritual nourishment. But even though sleep projection is routine, people rarely consciously remember what happens to them. If they do, the experience is usually jumbled up with dream imagery. What you'll be learning in this class is essentially how to replicate the natural sleep projection process with one key difference: you'll be learning to stay conscious while it happens. Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? Especially for people like you, who do it all the time when you don't even want to. But it can nonetheless be a little tricky.

  "That's why we meet for class so early. You've just woken up, so your body's already pretty relaxed. Usually, you've had enough rest for your mind to be clear and awake while your body still craves more sleep. And that's the ideal state to practice conscious exit projection. When the body is tired and the mind is awake and alert.

  "Now, some rules for class. Wear comfortable clothes. Nothing restricting. Sweat clothes, like you're wearing now, Cali, are ideal. But no jewelry. Leave the rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets back in your room or put them in your pocket before we start. Jewelry can complicate the out-of-body exit."

  I felt Arika's eyes on me. My lip ring still throbbed from her tugging.

  "No eating or drinking before class, either," Robert went on, "and, most importantly, be sure to empty your bladder before we start."

  "Right!" Arika laughed brutishly. "There's nothin' worse than just gettin' outta your body and then havin' to leak."

  I heard the thud of Sir Alex's cane moving away in the shadows and I turned to see him retreating toward the hallway door. I popped up out of my chair and stopped him before he could make a quiet exit, leaving Arika and Robert behind discussing how biological functions complicate projections.

  "Sir Alex," I said, tugging on his coat sleeve before he could disappear into the dim corridor, "I gotta talk to you."

  "Yes, Cali, of course. And this would be about your experience yesterday during Orientation, would it not?"

  "Yeah. I gotta know what's goin' on. I've been here before, haven't I? It's like I've done this already and I'm just repeating it all over again. You were there, during my out-of-body experiences. You know what's goin' on."

  He smiled gently. "You were there, too. Why don't you tell me?"

  "’Cause I don't remember."

  "Well, that's what this class is all about."

  "Wait, Sir Alex. Don't go yet. I gotta know. Why am I here? Why did you contact me in the spirit world? There's got to be a reason."

  "Why, Cali, I didn't contact you. It was you who contacted me."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Becky

  Waltham Manor

  Later That Morning

  Sara led Nicole and me into the meditation room, the first space in Waltham Academy that looked something like an actual classroom. Here a circle of hard-backed chairs formed a crescent facing an immense fireplace. It glowed with a cheerful fire, throwing flickering orange light over the room's finely carved paneling. There were still the built-in bookcases, aging oil paintings, and antique furniture, but Waltham's typical soft reading chairs, sofas, and tables were absent.

  My sleepy gaze panned across the room. Colorful auras bloomed around my classmates. They seemed brighter than usual, fuller, more intense, layered with multiple shades of interesting and varying hues. Was I getting better at seeing them or were my classmate's auras just more brilliant than average?

  A particularly attractive light surrounded a figure leaning near the fireplace. I
t was a gorgeous sky-blue surrounded by a band of deep violet and bordered by streamers of yellow and gold, as if the person was somehow reflecting the brightest parts of the fire. I looked again and realized the aura belonged to Jean Paul, the cute French boy I'd first seen yesterday morning in the luncheon hall. He'd been studying me all this time and now I realized that I was staring back at him. I smiled awkwardly, expecting some reaction, but he only stared at me, his deep green eyes thoughtful and unreadable.

  "Becky's got a boyfriend! Becky's got a boyfriend!" Jenny sang invisibly at my shoulder. The fragrance of freshly cut wood filled the air, exactly the way my sweaters smelled after a summer in the cedar chest.

  "Shhh, Jenny, shush," I said through gritted teeth, worried that Jean Paul's abilities might allow him to hear her as well.

  I edged over to the wall of windows, where Nicole and Sara were trying to peer into the black, January morning. My eyes felt raw. It was hard to focus, which might account for why the auras were coming in so strong this morning. They often seemed clearer on days when I was overtired. The random thuds and thumps from upstairs had kept me awake all night. I repressed a yawn. For the first time since the car accident, I found myself pining for the lattes that had once been my early morning staple.

  Cali pushed through the door like a zombie, hair askew, clothes in disarray, her characteristic dark eye makeup faded to a shadow of what it had been when I saw her go to bed the night before. She threw her arms around Nicole, resting her head on Nicole's shoulder and closed her eyes. "It's true. Every morning at five o'clock. It's like I'm on flippin' death row."