Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  "It'll be all right, sweetie," Nicole said soothingly. "I feel like milk toast, myself. I don't think any of us are gettin' any sleep with all that racket upstairs."

  "If you want," Sara offered, "I can tell Uncle Alex about the row the neighbors are making up there."

  "You mean tattle on 'em?" said Nicole, aghast. "I don't think we have to do that. But they do need a good talkin' to."

  Cali opened her eyes and backed away in time to see Arika walk into the room. Cali grimaced. "I swear, another class with that nut job and I'll have to kill her and put her out of my misery."

  I risked another glance at Jean Paul. Malina, the Romanian immigrant who had sat next to him the day before in Orientation, had joined him. Jean Paul seemed oblivious to my attention but Malina detected it right away and glared back at me. If looks could kill! Strangely, Jean Paul seemed unaware of this, or at least chose to ignore it.

  "Good mornin', everyone," Mrs. Apple said in her by now familiar Scottish brogue, walking into the room in her tall red pumps, "Ooh-kay, noo. Are we ready for our first meditation? Please, be seated in the circle next to the partner ya had yesterday."

  Cali closed her left eye, growling lowly.

  "If you want, I'll trade partners so you don't have to be with Arika," I offered.

  Cali hadn't seemed to notice me standing there until now. "Yeah, thanks. That'd be cool."

  "Noo tradin' partners," Mrs. Apple announced to the room at large, as if intuiting what we were up to. "You've been paired up for a'purpose."

  Sara ran excitedly over to Nigel, who wore the same expression as Cali but managed a smile before Sara reached him. Nicole joined the heavily mustached Pedro, who took her hand and pretended to kiss it.

  "I am thinking we are to be partners for this first season," said Ravi, the dark-skinned East Indian young man who'd been my partner the day before. He flashed a pleasant smile. "You are not unhappy for this?"

  I cast a backward glance at Cali, who stood reluctantly before Arika. "I couldn't imagine anyone better," I said.

  At Mrs. Apple's prompting, I took one of the seats in the half-circle with the others, closed my eyes, and placed my hands, palms up, in my lap. I could hear Ravi taking deep, meditative breaths beside me. A musky odor wafted off him like exotic spices. Even yesterday I'd liked his energy. He was as nonthreatening as a teddy bear.

  "Take time to go into the center of yar head," Mrs. Apple instructed. "Construct yar groundin' cord, like ya did yesterday, and focus completely on yar breathin' as it comes in through yar nose and out yar slightly parted lips."

  I saw Mom in my mind's eye and, immediately, a sense of sadness filled me. If it wasn't homesickness, it was a deep longing and emptiness. Tears squeezed out the corners of my eyes.

  "We're goona start by runnin' Earth and Cosmic energy through yar bodies," Mrs. Apple said. "The idea is that any energy that's in yar body that isn't you is bad. It suppresses the immune system, prevents healin', and in the extreme can cause injury or illness. The purpose of runnin' energy is to release and let go of that energy. The very best, most effective way to use yar extrasensory powers is when the only energy inside ya is yars, when all of yar attention is focused in the here and now."

  Mrs. Apple's voice had become soft and comforting. The feeling of being in the center of my head combined with the subtle pull from my grounding cord made me feel extremely relaxed, very much in the here and now. Yet the inner picture of Mom was still there, as well as a deep throbbing in my chest.

  "What are ya feelin'?" Mrs. Apple asked the class. "What do ya see? Are these yar feelin's or somebody else's?"

  I was homesick. I missed Mom and Gwen. But I was also excited about Waltham and my new friends. I was homesick, yeah, but I wasn't that homesick.

  "Does it feel good or bad? Is this somethin' ya want to hold on to or are ya simply holdin' on to somebody else's energy?"

  This isn't my energy. It's Mom's. She misses me and I can feel it. I'm picking up on it.

  "If the energy is somebody else's, there's noo point keepin' it. It doesn't serve ya nor the parson whose energy yar hangin' on to. Just as ya can't heal with somebody else's energy in yar space, so too can they not heal until their energy is back in their space. Let it go now, whatever 'tis yar feelin'. Feel that energy go down yar groundin' cord and become neutralized at the center of the Earth."

  I felt different immediately. The moment I'd shed Mom's sadness, I felt lighter, more at ease. The chair no longer felt uncomfortable. I didn't fidget. We continued to follow Mrs. Apple's instructions, releasing any aches and unpleasantness that we felt in our bodies, gathering our energy from wherever and whenever we'd left it. I felt more vital and alert. The muddy feeling I'd experienced all morning had all but disappeared.

  ****

  "I'm so pleased that we have so many classes together," Sara said to Nigel as the three of us walked along together. Nigel started to reply but she went on, "I mean, really, when you think about it, it's very like destiny, like in the movies when the boy and girl are together all their lives, so close and yet not touching, and then one day they find each other and all the pieces fall into place, just like you and me. Don't you think?" She took his hand in hers.

  Nigel, who'd been scratching the big brown freckles on his nose, opened his mouth to speak when she continued. "There's no way to know how many times in London that we just missed one another. In the park for a walk. In the shops on a Saturday. At the zoo, perhaps. I mean, our parents alone must have been invited to the same parties, attended the same functions. I am certain of it." Sara and Nigel's fathers were both in the garment industry and had indirect connections. "That would have to be the case, wouldn't you think? Sebastian!"

  This last was aimed at a rumpled orange tabby, who sat on a leather sofa cleaning himself. Besides the cat, the room was filled with dogs — two English foxhounds, three beagles, and a basset hound. All sat attentively near a circle of lounges and reading chairs. The dogs' tails wagged in unison when Sara approached. The basset hound, a gentle animal named Shirley that Sara had introduced me to the day before, woofed happily.

  About fifteen students had assembled for Animal Communications, our last class before lunch. After Meditation that morning, I'd attended a course on aura reading with Nicole and another on dreams and intuition with Sara and Nigel. But after lunch the young pair would have to join the handful of school age kids here at Waltham Academy to continue their conventional education. What a drag. Despite feeling like a third wheel, I enjoyed hanging out with them.

  Sebastian looked up in response to Sara's call, his tongue outstretched in mid-lick. Crouching next to him, she whispered sweetly in his ear. As she spoke, Sebastian rubbed against her shoulder. When she sat next to him on the sofa, he hopped on her lap, turned three circles, and fell sleep.

  With a total of fifteen students, Animal Communications was my largest class. Like our other courses, Sara and Nigel were by far the youngest. Usually our fellow classmates were in their twenties, but the majority of those in Animal Communications were in their late thirties or early forties. Most were women, but three men — not counting Nigel — were huddled together along one side of the circle of chairs, as if for mutual protection.

  "Ladies, gentlemen, dogs and cat, good morning and welcome!" Our instructor, a cheerful, portly old man with silver hair and a full Santa Claus beard, walked in. "I am Mr. Chalmers, stable boy here at Waltham these many years. Normally, I can be found overseein' Sir Alexander Bray's fine stable of horses. But for one hour a day I teach AC; Animal Communications, a particular talent that I've found indispensable for my line of work.

  "Miss Sara Barrett!" he cried with delight, "I always knew you had the talent! Why, when you were just a kitten visitin' Waltham with your sisters, you used to walk up to the ponies and chat with 'em as if you were one of 'em. Did the same with Sir Alex's hounds, too. I daresay you'll be teachin' this class before long."

  I took a seat next to Sara. As we had in our other classe
s, we began with introductions. Most of the students seemed to know each other already, but everyone took time to tell a little about themselves. By now I was tired of retelling my story, but I always loved hearing the others'.

  "I grew up in Bexley, a borough south of London," Nigel squeaked, blushing scarlet beneath his thatch of snowy blond hair. "It all started when I was five. Me grandmother came to me in a dream with a message for me mum. Of course, I was too young to know at the time but Gran had passed away a few months before. The message was about a ring that had belonged to me grandmother that had gone missing after she died. Sure enough, Mum discovered it straight away in an old bureau drawer, just where Gran said it would be. After that, Mum started giving me questions to ask, if I should run into Gran in me dreams. I did, in fact, and pretty soon Mum and me gran were having conversations through me."

  After Nigel's grandmother, more deceased relatives began appearing in his dreams with dispatches for family and friends, what Nigel referred to as "d-mail." Before long, he'd become a message center between the living and the dead. When he was a little older, he also noticed that he could hold an object, like a watch or a pair of reading glasses, and know its personal history, give a physical description of its owner, and tell about the owner's life. Nigel wasn't sure why he'd been placed in Animal Communications, but he guessed it was because many of the d-mail messages he'd passed along were from living neighborhood pets, which started when a next door neighbor's cat warned him of a dangerous gas leak that was gradually poisoning her owner.

  "Shall we start then?" said old Mr. Chalmers once everyone had become acquainted. "Communicatin' with animals is much like receiving information when doin' other forms of intuitive work. The only difference is how you get it. With animals you might receive all your information from images. Or you might pick up feelin's or emotions. You might feel pain in a certain part of your body by way of the animal tellin' you that it has an injury. Or you might feel anxious, happy, or sad, and realize that the feelin' ain't comin' from you. It's somethin’ from the animal. You might even hear the animal speakin', not unlike the way you hear my voice now. Why I myself have heard such voices clear as a bell, even with accents, if the animal usually speaks foreign. When I was in Venice once, I heard a rat speakin' flawless eye-talian.

  "That's why it's so important to clear yourself, mind and body, of other people's energy when you're bondin' with an animal, especially if it’s a pet. You want to sort out and separate what's comin' in from the animal versus what's comin' from the animal's guardian. By that I mean the pet's owner." He looked at me. "You learned to ground yet?"

  "Yes. Mrs. Apple showed us yesterday."

  "Good. That's the best way to start. You'll learn all kinds of protection and spiritual cleansin' techniques. Best listen and learn."

  Old Mr. Chalmers discussed the mechanics of animal communication and the most effective ways to connect with the creature we were trying to speak to. There were subtle nuances when communicating with animals depending on their species and a particular animal's past history with humans. He told us about special techniques for conversing with people's lost pets, explaining how a pet owner's intense fear could interfere with getting a clean connection. He also hinted at methods for talking to, hearing, and even seeing animals who had crossed over to the Other Side. It made me think of Sara's story about Sid, her neighbor's cat who'd appeared to her several days after he'd died.

  Toward the second half of class, we broke up into small groups to begin our first animal communication practice. Sara and I had been grouped together near the room's far corner while Nigel, to Sara's distress, had been shanghaied with the other boys in class.

  Penny, a woman in our group, was at the moment trying to get in touch with a foxhound named Rex. Rex sat in front of Penny, looking keenly up at her biscuit-shaped nose while she took deep breath after deep breath. The other teams had gotten underway already. Old Mr. Chalmers moved from group to group as we relayed the information we were getting from the dogs. Across the room, Nigel's team was having great success with Shirley the basset hound. Sebastian, Sir Alex's orange tabby, had long since made his exit, apparently having grown irritated with all the noise.

  "Becky," Sara whispered, gazing dreamily into the room's far corner. "Do you see that?"

  I looked over to where Sara was pointing. There stood a brass radiator, a standing lamp, and a dark wooden plant stand holding a potted fern. Nothing out of the ordinary. I shook my head.

  "There," she whispered, "near the fern."

  I looked again. Shrugged.

  She looked exasperated but not enough to disturb the others in our group. "There's a little grey bunny standing over there on its hind legs. You see it, don't you? Nibbling on one of the fern's long fronds."

  I looked toward where she was looking, then back again at her, not knowing what to say.

  "There. Its nose just twitched."

  I cringed. "Don't see anything. Sorry."

  Sara took my hand and slowly stood up. "Come with me. Careful, or you'll startle it."

  Sara claimed to have crossed paths with this little grey bunny before, two nights ago, not long after I arrived. Seeing her hunting for it again now in her hairband, flats, and tights made me think of Alice in Wonderland. Here at Waltham I could almost imagine there really was a rabbit hole leading to other dimensions.

  Everyone in our group had their eyes closed and no one seemed to notice when we moved off. As we approached the corner where Sara insisted her bunny was having a snack, my eyes darted over to the beagles, basset, and fox hounds — all hunting dogs — where they were lying around the room. No way a rabbit was sneaking in here without these dogs getting wind of it and making a ruckus.

  "I still don't see anything," I whispered. "Are you sure?"

  "I don't see it anymore. No, wait. There, near that chair. Don't move or you'll scare him."

  She was looking now in the direction of a tweed-covered reading chair. I wanted to believe her — she could, after all, see things I couldn't — but if something was there, it didn't show itself to me.

  "There, it's just gone under the chair. Did you see? Did you see?"

  I didn't see a bunny, but just for a second I was sure I'd seen the chair skirt move just a hair, as if ruffled by a faint breeze. Now my heart was thumping hard.

  Sara squeezed my hand like a pair of pliers. I thought my fingers were going to snap off. She stepped forward, tugging me reluctantly behind her. None of the Animal Communication's groups had noticed what we were doing. Even Old Mr. Chalmers, who was seated with a group on the far side of the room, was laughing heartily, completely focused on the group exercise.

  Finally, we stopped behind the chair. Sara got on her knees and yanked me down beside her. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I was so keyed up I could hardly breathe.

  "You look," she rasped.

  "Me? I'm not gonna look. It's your bunny. You saw it. You look."

  "We'll both look together."

  She squeezed my hand as hard as she had before but this time I hardly felt it. We both bent on our hands and knees. She grasped the very edge of the chair skirt. "On a count of three: One... two... three—"

  Quickly, she lifted the wool curtain and we both put our head to the floor. The only bunnies under that chair were dust bunnies.

  ****

  I shut my eyes and waited. The room beyond my closed eyelids was silent but not empty. I could hear the quiet breathing of my classmates, the wind pressing into the windows, the afternoon rain tapping against the glass. I tried to keep my mind clear, but I felt self-conscious. The half-dozen students in my mediumship class weren't staring at me. Everyone's eyes were closed, too, but I still felt their attention on me.

  I smelled cedar, as vague and directionless as a whiff of perfume, before it faded into the ever-present Waltham scent of furniture polish and old wood. This couldn't be a coincidence. Jenny wouldn't be far away. I just hoped that it was Jenny that came through and not one of
the other spirits that I'd been hearing the past several months. The others freaked me out. The thought of actually inviting them to contact me felt like playing Blind Man's Bluff, stretching out my hand, groping in the dark; but inviting them to speak was exactly what I was doing.

  Mediumship was my last class of the day. It was made up solely of students from the new class: Liza, Mindy, Johanna, and Nicole. With the exception of Nicole, who'd had the ability to see spirits all her life, the other girls' powers had come about relatively recently. Like me, the other newbies found themselves harassed at all hours of the day and night by spirits desperate to be acknowledged and talked to. Like me, the other girls were suffering from degrees of acute stress disorder. By intentionally inviting the spirits to communicate with us under safe conditions, our instructors hoped to put an end to the around-the-clock badgering. The idea was that if the spirits had an appointed time and place when they could talk to us, they wouldn't need to pester us the other twenty-three hours of the day.

  I felt the presence of others in the room, the presence of more than just the girls in my class. Because I could only hear spirits and in some cases sense their odors (most of the others could see them) their sudden appearance usually scared the cheese out of me. I didn't think I'd ever get used to the moments of quiet alone-time suddenly shattered by a full-throated voice speaking directly in my ear. It's true, I had seen a spirit once — on the drive home from Gwen's house that night — but all my other encounters had just been voices.

  Yet now I perceived fuzzy movement beyond the blackness of my closed eyes, human-like silhouettes approaching from the front and to the sides. Gooseflesh rose on my arms. My hands trembled. Had it just gotten colder in here or was it my imagination? I gripped my armrests, trying to keep myself from bolting out of my chair.