The Awakening

by Marley Gibson

"I'm glad I was available to help out your daughter," Loreen says.

  "Well, thank you for bringing her home," Mom says to Loreen in the foyer of our house. While I'd love to talk to Loreen about what happened, I don't exactly want her and Mom to bond over coffee and cookies in the living room.

  "Anytime. Kendall has a very special gift, Mrs. Moorehead." Not waiting to see if Mom asks her to, Loreen moves deeper into the hallway and takes a seat on the piano bench that's just inside and to the right. "Because Kendall is still learning to hone her abilities, she needs to be especially careful when dealing with the spirit realm. She must protect herself at all times, and in fact, she shouldn't try to connect further with those on the other side until she's more fully trained."

  Mom's lips flatten and her cheeks go ashen. "I appreciate your concern, Ms. Woods, but let me assure you, she won't require further training at all because she is forbidden to do this kind of thing anymore."

  "Why's that?" Loreen asks, her hands folded in her lap. "Kendall has a gift."

  "I don't believe so."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. You must realize she needs to—"

  Mom cuts her off. "I believe I know what's best for my daughter."

  Loreen frowns. "And that is?"

  "She's been told she's not allowed to dabble in these dark arts any further. And I've told her she's not to see you or to be taught by you."

  "Oh."

  "Mom, Loreen was only trying to—"

  Mom's livid gaze slices over to me, and I immediately clamp my mouth shut. Kaitlin might not know when to stop talking, but I do. "I think you've had enough excitement for one day," Mom says. "Kendall. Go to bed. Now. We'll talk about this in the morning with your father."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Holding the front door open, Mom says, "Thank you again for your trouble, Ms. Woods."

  Talk about not letting the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Poor Loreen.

  I grab her arm and then hug her tightly, whispering my thanks. She pulls back and takes my hand. Then she reaches over to my mother, joins our hands together, and lays hers on top. "Be good to each other," she says.

  I see Mom suppress a faint smile. However, I also sense a change in the energies around the three of us. My first thought is that Emily is here and might try to harm either Mom or Loreen. But then I hear Loreen take a deep, deep breath. She's almost trancelike as she stands there gripping our hands.

  Mom appears taken aback. "What's she doing? Some sort of voodoo? I will not have that in my house."

  "It's okay," I say softly.

  Loreen breaks the contact and faces me. She knows something. Information of some sort was transmitted when we were all connected like that. I know she won't tell me though.

  Loreen faces my mother and whispers a quick prayer. "I wish you nothing but the best, Sarah Moorehead. I know you've taken a huge responsibility on your shoulders with Kendall's life, and she will need all the support that any mother could give a daughter. Your secret is safe with me."

  "That's just about enough! Leave!"

  And with that, my mother, the polite Christian woman, shoves Loreen out of the house and slams the door.

  "Why did you do that?"

  Mom is shaking. "That woman is trouble. And she needs professional help."

  "No, she's not, and no, she doesn't. She's a little odd because she's not like you and your friends back home. But Loreen understands me."

  "Not anymore, she doesn't. I said it once and I mean it this time, Kendall. You are forbidden to ever speak to that woman again. She'll just confuse you and tell you lies. I've had enough of your back talk and disobedience for one night. I didn't raise you to act like this."

  I thrust my hands into my hair. "How am I acting?" This is all so confusing to me. All of it that I've been experiencing and trying to deal with.

  "Telling me you're psychic and then—what were you doing?—ghost hunting."

  "Ghost hunting is a natural way to use my abilities to help people, Mom."

  "You don't have any abilities, Kendall. You're making it all up just to get attention. Well, you've got my attention. Are you happy?"

  Tears well up in my eyes. Why won't my own mother believe me? Celia and Taylor believe me. Loreen does too. Jason probably thinks there's some truth to my claims. Mom won't accept it, though.

  "I'm not trying to cause trouble, I swear. I'm just trying to understand everything that's happening to me. And on top of that, I'm trying to make new friends and fit in."

  Mom's voice is shaky too. "You're certainly going about it in an odd way."

  I'm so physically and mentally exhausted, it's not even funny. I slump down onto the piano bench and let a wayward tear trickle down my face.

  "When your father gets home, I'll discuss things with him. Until then, consider yourself grounded, Kendall. Until you're at least in your thirties." Mom leaves me sitting there as she heads off into the kitchen. I hear her banging pots, pans, and plates—her only real way of dealing with anger is to clean.

  Fine.

  I'm too tired to fight anymore.

  I slink up the stairs and collapse on my bed, fully dressed. It's only ten o'clock, but I don't care. The bed shakes and I hear the rrrrrarrrr of a cat. Two, actually. Eleanor and Natalie pad their way up the mattress to me and then both nestle down in the small of my back. They begin purring and bathing each other, which sends the emotional ball right over the fence for me. The tears of overtiredness brim over the edge, and I bury my head in my pillow for a good cry. It's times like this that I want nothing more than for my mom to hug me and tell me everything's going to be all right. Only, I'm the last person she wants to hug right now, and I don't blame her. Who'd want a screwed-up kid with psychic abilities who almost gets taken over by crazed spirits in a cemetery? Yeah, that's what she signed up for in her Parenting 101 classes.

  As my tears begin to retreat, I reach over and turn on my white-noise machine. Natalie finishes up licking her back leg and then moves to my hand. The sandpapery scrape of her tongue against my fingers is oddly soothing.

  Several moments later, I hear a whisper. So soft. So sweet. So caring.

  "I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeere..."

  "Emily? Is that you?"

  "Yesssssssssssssssss..."

  Lovely. Just what I need. Another ghost mucking around with me tonight.

  Then I hear her distinct words through the white-noise maker.

  "I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere ... for yooooooooooooou."

  Yeah, whatever, ghost. "Not tonight, Emily. I've had a shitty day."

  I roll over and pull my knees up to my chest. Eleanor meows and walks around to plop herself down around my head like some sort of live mouton. As her motorboat of a purr begins to lull me into a stupor, the tears begin to trickle again, warm and sticky on my pillow and leaving a wet spot. I don't care though.

  I close my eyes tight, willing the fears, trepidation, and anxiety into a small corner pocket in the bottom of my stomach. There will surely be a nice ulcery hole there soon, in that place where all the pain goes.

  I sigh.

  I don't know what Emily the ghost wants from me. How can I help her when I can't even help myself?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  YOU KNOW HOW in all those teen movies, there's a point when the hero or heroine walks down the hall at school and all eyes seem to be on him or her? I always thought it was a device to have the audience focus on the character's accomplishment or achievement in the overall journey.

  But shit like that really does happen in real life.

  I'm not even kidding.

  Celia and I are walking together to our lockers Monday on the way to lunch period, and I swear, it's like every pair of eyes at RHS is looking at us. Not in an outcast "oh my God what were you thinking wearing those jeans with that top" sort of way. They're checking us out in a kind of amazed awe.

  "What's going on?" I whisper to Celia.

  "Everyone knows," she says, barely moving her lips.

&nbs
p; "Knows what?"

  Sean "Okra" Carmickle limps down the hallway in front of us and stops. "Y'all got balls," he says.

  Is this a good thing? "We do?"

  "Yeah, I heard all about y'all going to the cemetery last night and ghost hunting like they do on those TV shows. Wow," he continues. "Never thought a bunch of girls would do something like that. Y'all a'ight."

  Okra fist-bumps Celia, then me, and hobbles off to his next class.

  "How did he know? How does everyone know?" I ask, looking about.

  "Welcome to small-town living," Celia says. "You think in a city where people chase the fire truck that folks wouldn't find out about a bunch of teenagers sneaking into the cemetery to ghost hunt?"

  "Hmmm, I never thought about it," I say.

  Girls I don't even know nod as we pass. Guys I've never seen check us out and smile.

  I hear the padding of sneakers on the floor approaching us and have a feeling who it is.

  "Hey, Celia!"

  "Hey, Clay," she mutters without looking up.

  "You're Kendall, right? I'm Clay Price," he says, extending his hand to me in a polite way.

  "Yeah, Kendall Moorehead. Nice to meet you."

  "I know all about you," he says with a wide, perfect smile. "I heard y'all scaled the fence at the cemetery last night and had a'séance right there in the middle until the police showed up."

  "Not exactly!" Celia snaps. "We were just ghost hunting and Kendall made contact with a spirit."

  "Several," I correct.

  "That's awesome," he says. "Can I go next time?"

  Celia's cheeks stain and she starts getting flustered. "Things aren't really set in stone for our team yet, you know, and we're still trying to get all of the aspects of a proper ghost-hunting unit together. Right now, it's an all-female team and we may not have anything for you to do and—"

  Clay laughs. "A simple no would suffice, Celia." He winks and then heads off. "Catch ya later."

  My mouth falls open. "Why'd you do that?"

  "We don't need him tagging along."

  "Celia! It's obvious he's crazy about you."

  "Which is exactly why I don't want him ghost hunting with us. Guys will just distract us from our investigations."

  I chuckle deep in my throat. "Whatever you say, Cap'n."

  Taylor rushes up, nearly out of breath. Her high ponytail swings vigorously as she weaves through the throng of students.

  "Watch it!" a guy shouts out. "You'll put someone's eye out with that thing!"

  "Sorry!" she sings. "Celia! Kendall! I'm so glad I found you. We're all anyone can talk about today. Isn't it the most exciting thing ever?"

  "It's something, all right," I say.

  "Look," she says. "I got this text message last period."

  We gather around Taylor's pink Razr phone: Cum c me @ lunch.

  "Who's it from?" I ask.

  Taylor snaps her phone shut. "Rebecca. Asiaf."

  "No way!"

  "Way!"

  "What does she want?" Celia grimaces. "Didn't we get enough from Bulldozer Becca already?"

  I pop my head back and belly laugh. "Bulldozer Becca? Oh, yeah, I see that."

  Nearly sparkling, Taylor says, "She may be coming around."

  So we stash our books in our respective lockers and head toward the caf. My stomach is growling something fierce from missing breakfast this morning. I was too hung over from crying myself to sleep. And I didn't want to face my parents. I was grounded. What else was there to say or do? Barely in my new town for a full month and I am forbidden to do anything. My whole life in Chicago, I never had any problems. Then I move here, and all hell busts loose. It's not like I can hone my skills if I can't talk to Loreen. I bet if I try Googling ghost hunting or psychics, a red light and alarm will go off somewhere in the house, alerting my mother to my further "dabbling." This is no way to live. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

  At the lunch counter, I pile fried chicken, green beans, mac 'n' cheese, and something called pear salad—a pear half with a dollop of mayonnaise and shredded cheddar on top of it—on my tray and follow Taylor and Celia to our table over by the window. The lunchtime music mix is playing out, so I know Rebecca Asiaf is around.

  I'm halfway through my finger-licking chicken breast (and totally through with the ridiculously yummy pear salad) when I sense someone approaching our table. Instead of turning around, I return the forkful of chicken to my plate and wait for Rebecca to speak.

  "Yo, Tillson. I told you to come see me when you got here."

  "Oh, hey, Rebecca," Taylor says, all nice and friendly. "We were just eating first. Music sounds great today, as per usual."

  Rebecca swings a booted foot over the bench and sits next to Taylor. She peers out at me through her dark, black-lined eyes and purses her blood-red lips. Most people going for the Goth look seem a little silly to me, like they're playing dress-up. Not Rebecca. The fashion suits her and makes it hard for me to believe that she used to do beauty pageants only a couple of years ago.

  "Thanks," she says. "It's a Dirty South mix."

  Celia pipes up bravely, and I want to give her props for being so assertive."What did you want to see us about, Rebecca?"

  I focus on the hoop in Rebecca's lower lip and how the silver shimmers in the afternoon sunlight that's streaming in the window. She lifts her eyes and leans back a bit.

  "Well, I felt compelled to tell you that I'm impressed."

  Celia's brow shoots up. "You are? With us?"

  "Us Barbies?" Taylor says a bit sarcastically.

  I take another bite of my chicken to have something to do. (And to keep from saying something I shouldn't to this girl. Like, I know her home life is total crap.)

  "What can I say? I was wrong, okay? When I'm wrong, I say it." Rebecca nods her head. "I'm completely blown away that you did what you did last night. Barbies don't put themselves out there for what they believe in like you did."

  Wow.

  I swallow the dry chicken. "Geez, thanks, Rebecca."

  "Becca," she says. "To my friends, that is." She extends her hand, nails painted black and a skull-and-crossbones ring on her middle finger. The better to flip you off, my dear. "I'd like to be friends. 'Kay?"

  I put out my own hand and shake. "I'd like that."

  "And I'd like to join your group. You know, in your ghost hunting. It sounds pretty intense."

  "All right!" Celia shouts out. She and Taylor high-five and then Taylor leans over and awkwardly squeezes Becca to her.

  "This will be so awesome!" Taylor says.

  I get the feeling Becca hasn't really belonged to anything in a while, so this may be a good thing for her. At least, my instincts tell me so. "Thanks, Becca. You won't regret this."

  Celia pulls out her notebook and starts explaining. "See, Kendall has a ghost in her house that we think might be a threat to her family. There's also something going on at Mr. Moorehead's office and we don't know if it's the same entity following him to work or if there's something else there. We've taken a lot of pictures and have gotten some ectoplasm mist to show up in the digitals, but what we really want to concentrate on is the EVP work because the voice is not only coming through the white-noise machine in Kendall's bedroom, it's also in some digital recordings."

  I can see Becca's dark green eyes begin to enlarge with the information overload. Celia must pick up on it too, because she says, "Don't worry, I'll teach you what all the acronyms stand for. Basically, what you'll be doing is heading up our EVP—electronic voice phenomenon—branch of the group. For that we really need someone who specializes in recording equipment and someone who can manipulate the sound data using the software I've got on my—"

  A realization rushes in hard to my brain and I slam my fist to the table. "Damn it!"

  Jumping at the sound, Celia says, "What? Did I tell too much?"

  "No, I'm sorry, Celia. It's not you." I let out a long sigh and feel my psychic headache starting to come on. Or maybe it'
s just the residual pounding from last night's cry-fest. "It's just that now that everything's falling into place, I can't do anything because I'm grounded."

  "You're grounded? For what? Last night?" Celia asks.

  "Yeah. Busted."

  "That's jank," Celia says with a strong sigh.

  Becca frowns. "So you're not ghost hunting anymore?"

  I bite my bottom lip. "I'm not allowed out of the house other than for school activities. I can't go over to Celia's or Taylor's, and I'm forbidden to see Loreen."

  Taylor reaches over and pats the top of my hand. "We'll all go over and talk to your mom, sweetie. It'll be okay."

  I shake my head.

  Becca clicks her tongue. "I gotta get back over to the boards. Look, keep me posted. If you're hunting and need me on the team, I'm there. Just let me know."

  "Thanks, Becca, you're the best," Taylor says, ever happy and jovial, no matter the challenge.

  "We'll do all we can until your parents come around," Celia assures me. "Maybe we can show them some of the evidence we've collected?"

  Head in hands, I say, "That'll only make things worse. Mom's kind of religious and none of this sits right with her. She's not going to let me off the hook from last night. She thinks we were careless and acting in a dangerous manner. It doesn't help that she holds Loreen responsible for what happened to me. Mom thinks she's bewitched me or something."

  Celia fingers her bangs while she thinks. "Well, I'm still testing out equipment and getting our notes and stuff organized. Taylor and I can archive the photos and tag them, and then when your folks let you out again..." She trails off. Then she glances over my shoulder and quickly moves her eyes to her food.

  "Hey, y'all," I hear next to me.

  Taylor's perkiness fades and she glowers. "Jason." I watch her toy with a bite of her green beans. She pops in a mouthful and then says through clenched teeth, "What have I done wrong now? I'm eating vegetables. One of the essential food groups. I don't see how that can cause you to come over and correct me."

  He drops his head down and then reaches up with his hand to scruff at his short gold hair. "Taylor, I told you last night I was sorry. We'll talk later, okay?"

  "Whatever, Mr. Bossy McBosserton."