The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  They keep telling me I was dead. And I dreamed something like that…there was grass, so soft…I shake my head. “I don’t remember.”

  Leesel mostly keeps her eyes averted from my face. Chastity is the only one who can look at me steadily. She does it despite her unblinking eyes.

  But Leesel is crying.

  “Don’t cry, baby, please,” I say. I don’t hold out my arms to her. My appearance frightens her. I understand. She doesn’t want to be touched by me.

  She turns to Poe. He holds her and sobs, but not just for me. He keens for his Annabel Lee.

  67

  the fall

  Chastity is as cryptic as ever. She says it’s only beginning, there is a shift to come, but I need time to heal. Sleep.

  I’m dreaming, sleeping like she wants, letting go my body. I wish I could let it go forever. Ava is dead and I can’t bear it. I couldn’t save her.

  The grass is soft beneath my hands. Lush, thick. Every blade is exquisite. Perfect. I see clearly, because there’s no dirt in my eyes. No ghostly threads. No ghost.

  I’m always home. Here.

  Emmy is laughing in the Hereafter. I go to her.

  She dances among the crystals, pointing at this one, then that one. Tree branches dip with the weight of the fruit. A gentle breeze blows, fresh against my face. I feel content. My feet are bare, like Emmy’s, and the grass is cool against my feet as I walk to her.

  “I think this one,” she says thoughtfully. She looks at me with raised eyebrows, as if wondering my opinion. There is Presence in her eyes, so we don’t talk about everything that happened. It was only a story.

  “Dogs are sooo sweet. I could be with this one.” She waves me closer to look at the crystal budding from a limb.

  I see an image of a young woman huddled on the street, a wet dog lying at her feet and gnawing a bone.

  “Or this one,” Emmy says, pointing at a crystal showing a man in a white lab coat examining a dog’s teeth. “I could be a…vet-uh-nar-eee-on.”

  I explore the crystal balls. This is their true purpose. Different people fill each one. I understand. “Grave to cradle?” I ask my little sister. This makes her clap her hands. She bends to gaze in another crystal.

  “The ghosting of gods,” she says.

  She skips from crystal to crystal, peering in each one. “Something wants to happen,” she whispers. “And every tear will be wiped away.”

  “Will we all be mediums?”

  Presence sparkles in her eyes again. She laughs.

  Something tugs at my memory, something I can’t quite grasp. I struggle for it, then sigh, wait for it to come to me when it will. I turn my attention back to my beloved sister.

  She’s not quite the same Emmy I knew. I suspect she’s playing a part for me right now, making me more comfortable. Who is she, really, if she’s choosing a new life to live, one that isn’t the mentally disabled little sister I’ve known? I keep catching something deep within her eyes, something not Emmy, yet something I know. Something I’m connected to. That I can’t lose. That’s real.

  Is Ava not lost to me, either?

  We walk through the crystals, and I notice the one replaying Emmy’s death. I pause over it, confused at why it no longer gives me pain, but Emmy pulls me along to one crystal after another until she finds one that intrigues her.

  “Oh, look, Jesse.” She giggles when she says my name.

  I look in the crystal. I recognize myself, another me, rocking a baby wrapped in a blanket. Light illuminates the scene so that I clearly see every eyelash on the closed eyes of the sleeping child. The crystal is small and expansive at once, without edges so that I feel a part of the scene, even though I stand outside it.

  “Daddy,” Emmy says to me, and kisses me tenderly on the cheek.

  At first I can’t speak. Emotion overwhelms me. I find my voice, because this is important, she needs to choose carefully. Maybe this isn’t the right one. I want her to choose it, I want it so much, but I don’t want her hurt by me again. I question her. “Is it a good life this time, Emmy? Is there anything bad? I’m afraid for you.”

  “Good? Bad? I am all these lives. But I’ll choose one.”

  I gaze in the crystal ball.

  “Emmy, how do you do it? Go from grave to cradle, I mean?”

  “I fall.” She yawns, her eyes flutter, and she falls asleep, falls into the baby’s body. Emmy is born again. Yet my sister’s doppel-ganger, the Holy Spirit, stays present where we are, and watches what happens with the baby. It’s only an aspect of Emmy that goes.

  I stroll in the Eden until it’s time to fall back into my body. I remain aware of Emmy. Her Higher Spirit stays with me awhile, or forever. Time is meaningless standing outside the crystals.

  It’s not possession. It’s Presence.

  Not faith. Knowledge.

  68

  telling poe

  Poe is there when I wake.

  “Hey, you’re up,” he says. He brings me a glass of water, moving stiffly. I figure he’s been sitting in the chair a long time, watching over me. We’re the only two in the room.

  “I remember, Poe.”

  “Remember what? Here, drink.”

  “I remember that I died.”

  He takes back the glass. Sits. “What was it like, Jesse?”

  It’s hard to explain. Hard to put into words. “I know there was grass. This really soft grass. And Emmy was there. But before Emmy, there was just me. I mean this other me. And I realized that he’s with me all the time. No, wait. I’m with him all the time. Because there’s not really two of us. There’s One. Do you understand?”

  Poe shakes his head, smiles sadly. “It’s okay, Jesse. You were dreaming. And one day you’ll be with Emmy again, in heaven.”

  No. I’m with her already. There’s a reason they call it the Hereafter. I’m home already. I’m always home.

  If only I could be aware of it…could the veil be torn? Is that possible? Is it beginning to be possible?

  I keep thinking about Elspeth.

  Closing my eyes, I think of Emmy in my dream, choosing from among the crystal balls, choosing another life to live. Yet it’s not really my baby sister who is born again. It’s me.

  Why did I ever think heaven is a place you go when you die? The kingdom of heaven is within you. Blessed are the poor in ghost, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The truth shall make you free.

  Dying is incidental…the world is not escaped by death.

  Poe touches my hand. “What is it, Jesse?”

  “Something wants to happen.”

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