The Awakening

by Marley Gibson

  I doze off from around ten until after midnight, but the continuing vivid dream of Jason and his killer eyes knocks me out of my deep REM. Man, the vision of me in his arms is so... real. Then again, so is he.

  I've been tossing, turning, and flipping around so much that Eleanor and Natalie both gave me an "eat shit" look—as much as cats can—and left to prowl the house. When I first heard the voice in the white-noise machine the other night, it freaked me out. Now, I'm dying to hear it again! And it won't come to me.

  Finally, around two a.m., I get up and go to the bathroom.

  When I return to my room, I grab one of Celia's recorders and sit by the white-noise machine. It's tzujzhing along—yes, I know that's a very dated Carson Kressley Queer Eye reference, but it's the onomatopoeia that works here—like a washing machine on the spin cycle.

  I lean close and whisper, "Is anyone here?"

  Tzujzh. Tzujzh. Tzujzh.

  "Are there any spirits here?"

  Tzujzh. Tzujzh. Tzujzh.

  "Are there any spirits here with anything to say?"

  Tzujzh. Tzujzh. Tzujzh.

  "Oh, come on!" Why am I not hearing anything now like I did before? This ghost is totally mucking with me and it's starting to annoy me. Consistency, please!

  My fingers start getting tingly. Loreen told me this is connected to my psychic senses, so this time, I pay attention to the sensation instead of thinking that I'm having a myocardial infarction. (Celia's not the only smart one!) A buzz hums in my ears and I try to breathe through it, hoping to hear something in the midst of the mental junk.

  Tzujzh. Tzujzh. Tzujzh.

  The noise machine continues steadily next to me as the tingling awareness recedes. I wiggle my fingers and shake out my hand. Whatever the moment was seems to have passed.

  I press Rewind on the recorder. Then I hit Play and listen closely.

  I hear the white-noise machine and my feet padding out of the room and then back again. There's some banging around as I not so delicately picked up the recorder.

  My voice whispers out, "Is anyone here?"

  Silence. And then I hear a hissed "Yessssssssssssss..."

  Awesome! I stop, rewind, and play it back.

  I hear myself again. "Are there any spirits here?"

  Three or four seconds pass. "Yessssssssssss..."

  Holy freaking cow! Just like the other night. Only this time, I've got proof!

  Okay. I've got to be calm. I can't lose my cool every time I encounter a spirit—or a suspected spirit. I am Kendall Moorehead. Psychic. Intuitive. Sensitive. Ghost huntress. No more wigging out.

  Next is my "Are there any spirits here with anything to say" question.

  I press the recorder close to my ear because I damn sure want to hear this.

  Four or five seconds pass with nothing. I'm about to give up when I hear "Reeeruuuun taaahh meeeeeeeee."

  I don't know exactly what it's saying, but it is saying something. Huh? I rewind and play again. And again, until it finally hits me what the voice is truly saying: "Return to meeeeee..."

  What?

  You're kidding.

  Stop. Rewind. Play.

  "Return to meeeeeeeee."

  "Unbelievable!" I pretty much shout out and then clamp my hand over my mouth. People are sleeping. But how uber-amazing is this? Return. To. Me. To who me? What does it mean? Ignoring the reference to the forgettable Minnie Driver/ David Duchovny movie of the same title, I decide I need to take a stab at really connecting with this spirit.

  I crawl over to my discarded jeans and dig out the velvet bag that holds my dowsing pendulum. I climb back up onto the bed and get in a comfy sitting position. I grip the silver chain just like Loreen showed me—clutching it with my thumb and index finger, and letting the pink quartz dangle. Not moving my arm or hand at all, I say, "When I ask a question, what is a yes ?"

  In the moonlight that's spilling into my room between the crack in the curtains, I watch as the pendulum begins to move slightly in a clockwise direction.

  "Thanks. Now, please show me what the movement is for no."

  Immediately, the pendulum stops spinning around and begins swaying back and forth from right to left. Just like it had done at Divining Woman this afternoon. Loreen said after a few sessions like this, the pendulum and I will be used to each other and I won't have to always ask the direction or motion of an answer.

  "Good. Thanks again. Now, please show me what the answer is for maybe."

  At that, the pendulum stops moving altogether and points down, quivering again.

  "Well, what do you know about that?"

  A cold breeze dances up my left arm and gives me immediate chills. On all the paranormal TV shows I've been watching, the experts say that a cold spot represents the presence of a possible spirit. Does that mean the floaty woman is here with me? I close my eyes and open my mind to accept whatever I hear or see. I also say a quick prayer, asking God to protect me from anything evil, like Loreen advised. You never know what you're up against.

  In my mind, I see a vision of a pretty woman with soft brown hair flowing around her shoulders. She's dressed in white, but I can't make out the details of her features or her body. This is definitely my floaty woman, though. I just know it.

  I concentrate on my pendulum and try to tamp down the overanxious pulse-thump under my skin. "Is there a spirit present?" I ask. I almost feel like there should be a pendulum motion for duh.

  The quartz begins to spin clockwise, indicating that I'm not alone.

  "Are you a female?"

  Yes again.

  "Did you die in this house?"

  The pendulum changes direction and bobbles back and forth. "Hmm ... no." Weird. If she didn't die in this house, then what's she doing here?

  "Did you die in the Civil War?"

  Another no.

  "Were you killed by a soldier from the Civil War?"

  No.

  Out of the blue, my chest tightens on me. Not so much out of fear or trepidation. It's more like she's trying to tell me something. Tightness in the chest. I felt that in the cemetery, but it was a different type of pain. That was a sense that I couldn't breathe properly, which led me to believe the spirit I was feeling had died of asthma. This sensation is more of an ache, like someone's got a fist around my heart. Is this really happening to me? Or is it that empathic stuff Loreen was telling me about and I'm just feeling what the floaty lady experienced? How can I even tell? What if this is serious and I need to go to the emergency room? (Can I possibly ask myself more questions?) I don't think I need medical attention, though. This isn't about me. It's about her, whoever she is. The awareness of her suffering permeates my whole body, and I double over a bit. I'm definitely feeling the ghost's pain. I take some deep breaths and expel them slowly.

  "Your torment is awful," I say, hoping she can hear me. "What did this to you?"

  I shake off the numbness and continue dowsing.

  "Did you have a heart condition?"

  The answer is in a clockwise spin.

  "Oh, man ... that's horrible. You poor thing. Was it back in the days when they didn't have the good medical treatment we have today?"

  Back and forth the pendulum goes. No, huh?

  "So, you're not like a hundred and fifty years old?"

  I get a very active no response, the quartz swaying vigorously.

  "Okay, okay! Sorry. I wasn't trying to offend you," I say with a laugh. "I'm trying to find out how I can help you. I've got this gift, you know, and I need to see if there's anything you need from me." I pause for a moment as the pendulum slows down. "Do you know that you are not alive?"

  A "Yessssssssss..." murmurs from the white-noise machine instead of the recorder this time. "Whoa!" Again, this ghost is playing with me, but I'm stoked! I've got another audio confirmation. We're totally getting somewhere. "Oh, wow. Thanks. That's you, huh?"

  The pendulum indicates a yes.

  Man, I'm champing at the bit here. I wish the floaty lady wou
ld just appear and talk to me, like how Patrick Swayze blabbers with Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. I know this isn't a movie, but I wish it were.

  Excitement skitters through my bloodstream, powering me. I wonder if I should call Celia and tell her. Nah, drunk dialing is one thing, but spook dialing is another. I'll wait until I see her at school and then tell her everything. Hopefully, we can repeat all of this tomorrow when she and Taylor are here.

  "Are you happy?" I ask.

  The pendulum begins to almost vibrate as it moves, not giving a clear response. Loreen said that some things out there in the universe just aren't any of my business, so I wonder if I've offended the ghostly spirit.

  "I'm sorry," I say. "That may have been inappropriate. Is it okay for me to ask you about your happiness?"

  As I'm watching to see what the pendulum will do next, the door to my bedroom opens up with a squeak and a groan.

  "Kendall, what are you doing up this late?" Mom snaps on the light and squints at me.

  I curl the pendulum into the palm of my hand. "Umm ... nothing."

  She scowls and walks toward me, gripping the neck of her bathrobe. "It's after two in the morning and you're in here making enough racket to rouse the neighborhood."

  "I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to wake you up. I couldn't sleep."

  "I understand that. Isn't the noise machine helping?"

  I smirk at her. "In more ways than you could know."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nothing. Sorry." I crawl across the bed and tuck myself back under the covers. "I'm going to sleep right now."

  I can tell she's not buying any of this. She's got that concerned-mother glower going—the one that gives her that vertical wrinkle right between her eyebrows.

  "Kendall, your father and I are very concerned about you. You can't go on not sleeping like this. It's not normal."

  "I know, Mom—"

  "I'm going to make an appointment with the doctor and we're going to get you a prescription for Rozerem. You know, it's been proven to help people with sleeping ailments."

  Oh my God. "You sound like one of those TV commercials, Mom."

  She quotes the marketing campaign. "'Your dreams miss you.'"

  Not the ones starring Jason Tillson. "You had pharm reps in your office today, didn't you?" From what she tells us at the dinner table after a long day, there's nothing more aggressive in a doctor's office than the pharm reps coming in with their pamphlets, samples, and gimmicks. Thing is, Mom always falls for them.

  "Now, Kendall. Don't get sarcastic."

  She's always like this—trying to cure any ailment Kaitlin and I could possibly have after she gets the hard sell from the reps who make the rounds of medical offices offering free packets of trial pills. I swear, if there's a pen in this house that doesn't have the brand name of a drug on it, I'll eat it for breakfast.

  "I don't need medication, Mom." Honestly! I'm not getting hooked on something that's going to screw with my memory and my newfound psychic abilities. Besides, I'm sure the side effects are things like drowsiness, fatigue, dizziness, paralysis, bloody stools, diverticulitis, smoking ears, constant burping and farting, shakes, tremors, severed nerves, loss of eyelashes, teeth falling out, tongue swelling to twice its size, toenails turning black, goiters—you name it. I don't think so. "It's not something that needs medicating."

  "What isn't?" she asks, her irritation now turning to parental worry.

  I burrow into the covers and pull the sheet up close to my chin. "Nothing," I mutter. My heart slams against my rib cage and I wonder if I've said too much. It's not that I don't want to talk to Mom; it's that I honestly don't think she'll take it well. I don't think any of the sample pills in her medicine cabinet are capable of "fixing me" this time.

  But Mom can't take my evasive maneuver. "Kendall! I'm your mother and I'm worried sick about you." She stops and plunges her hands into her hair. "Talk to me! It's bad enough we uprooted you from the only home you've known, but we did it in your high school years." She pauses and then sits down on the bed and reaches out to me. "My father was in the army and we moved around my whole life—Texas, Colorado, Georgia, Alabama, back to Texas, Germany, and finally Illinois. I never had any kind of settled life and friends, but I also never had sleep disruptions like you're experiencing. I know what you must be going through. But you've got to give Radisson a chance. Your father's an integral part of this community now, and you'll make new friends. Trust me, sweetie."

  I cover my head for a second and groan. Then I peek at Mom. She's really concerned about me. "Mom, I've made friends. In fact, they're coming over and spending the night tomorrow, or rather, later today."

  There's that Mom smile I love. "Oh, well, that's nice. Certainly. Just promise to tell me what's going on with you." She pats the bed and then gets up to leave. "I'm your mother, but I'm also your friend. You can trust me with anything."

  My heartbeat accelerates even more and this time I know it's nothing to do with the paranormal. I need to come clean. Mom says she'll understand. My psychic intuition clearly tells me "trust your mother" and "tell the truth." I've always been forthright with her in the past, but I've never had to tell my very religious mother that I'm talking with spirits from beyond. Can she really handle it? The sheen of love radiating from her troubled eyes tells me that she can.

  I sit up. "Mom?"

  "Yes, sweetie?"

  I bite my bottom lip and glance down at the pendulum in my fist. "I can really tell you anything?"

  "Always, Kendall."

  "And you won't, like, fly off the handle and freak out?"

  She takes a deep breath. "I'm going to freak out if you don't tell me what's going on."

  Okay ... here we go.

  "You're not going to believe this, but ... but..."

  "But what, Kendall?"

  "It's just that this whole sleep problem is because I'm having this, er, awakening of sorts."

  "I don't understand, sweetie."

  I sigh big-time. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. Can't I keep this secret just a little bit longer until I fully understand what's happening to me? Mom's concern is at an all-time peak, and I have to believe that she'll listen and let me work this out.

  "I think I'm ... psychic."

  She stares at me as if I've just committed the most heinous crime ever. The look of love is replaced with disbelief. "It's extremely late to play games, Kendall."

  "I'm serious, Mom. I think I'm psychic."

  "You're what?"

  My trepidation and anxiety is replaced with nervous chatter. Everything spills out of me like water overflowing the edge of the bath. I can't stop myself.

  "I know it's hard to believe," I explain. "I didn't understand it myself at first. I'm apparently going through this psychic awakening and that's why I can't sleep. I'm on pins and needles with every sound and light that I hear and see. I'm feeling all these things and I know what people are thinking and I get these physical pains that match theirs. Oh, and I met this woman who's also an intuitive and she's been helping me through this and teaching me how to concentrate and breathe and how to use this pendulum to talk to spirits." I hold up the pink quartz pendulum for good measure.

  Mom blinks hard. Then does it again. "You t-t-talk to spirits?" she asks in a hoarse voice.

  "Yeah, Mom. You're not going to believe this, but I see dead people."

  After what feels like two decades of silence, Mom lurches forward and snatches the charm out of my hand. Incredulity crosses her features while sheer horror and shock reverb off her like invisible microwaves. I absorb it straight into my psychic energies and sense a blackness coating me. Uh-oh. This confession was not such a good idea.

  So much for that motherly understanding.

  As Grandma Ethel used to say when she was playing hearts and losing badly to her gang of geriatric girlfriends: I am totally up shit's creek without a paddle.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OKAY, I SHOULD HA
VE KEPT The Sixth Sense reference to myself.

  "Yes, Father Ludwig," Mom says into the cordless. "I'll tell her. Bless you for your time so early this morning. Goodbye."

  Mom places the phone back into its base as Dad walks into the living room, finishing up the Windsor knot in his tie. "Sarah, you didn't call Father Ludwig in Chicago and wake him at this hour, did you?"

  "Of course I did, David." Her lips are flat. Like nothing I've ever seen. The woman is très upset with me. All I can do is sit quietly in the middle of the couch—where I'd been directed to perch after I finished getting ready for school—and await the parental verdict. Although, since Mom brought in our Episcopal priest from back home, there may be a more theological judgment coming my way.

  Mom paces. I bite my bottom lip. Dad retreats to the kitchen for coffee.

  "David, we have to talk about this now."

  "I'm coming, I'm coming."

  Kaitlin tromps down the stairs and barges in. She rubs her eyes and assesses the players in the room. "Why is everyone up so early?"

  "Go eat your cereal, Kaitlin," Mom directs, shooing my sister toward the kitchen.

  "But Mom! Why is Kendall—"

  "Do as I say, Kaitlin, or else you'll be in trouble too."

  "Oh, man! She's in trouble? Cool!"

  "Cereal. Now!"

  Kaitlin doesn't even try to hide her wide-ass smile as she heads off to the kitchen. Dad returns with a steaming cup of java—I wish he'd just hand it over to me to help jolt me out of this unfortunate reality—and sits next to me on the couch. Calmly, he crosses his left leg over his knee and takes a sip from his WGN Weather mug. I know what's coming. I mean, I don't have to be psychic to see how this is going to play out.

  "Sarah, sit down and let's talk this out."

  "What's to talk about?" she nearly shrieks. "Our daughter was up in her room in the middle of the night practicing voodoo."

  I can't help but laugh, which is so not the right reaction. "I was not practicing voodoo."

  Mom plows her hands into her sleep-disturbed hair. "Look at her, David. She thinks it's funny."

  My eyes connect with my dad's, begging him to believe me. "I don't, Dad. Seriously. She's making way too much out of this."