Soul Symmetry

by J. L. Weil

  While TJ was absorbed in his video game, I was engrossed in creating, and neither of us noticed the temperature change in the room. The windows frosted, and the cold sucked the color right out of the room. It was what finally alerted me there was something wrong.

  My pencil hovered just over the page. I blinked. And blinked again. “What the—” All the bright colors on my drawing seeped off the paper.

  Ooo-kay. My dreams had always been messed up and bizarre. I never gave them a second thought. Why would I? But now, I was scared they meant something more. And that thought proved to be frightening.

  I set the pad aside and moved to the edge of the couch. The air in my lungs went stale. I wasn’t sure where they came from, and it didn’t really matter. What did was they were in my home. I recognized the white figures floating from the dark corners of the room weren’t from this realm. They didn’t belong here.

  My two worlds slammed together. The girl I used to be and the banshee I was now.

  I knew what they were, and the knowledge was like ice in my veins. Hallows.

  This is only a dream, I told myself, but no matter how many times I recited the phrase, the ghosts swarming the room made me question my reality.

  “TJ,” I murmured, careful not to make any sudden movements.

  “Not now,” he responded, clueless.

  I wanted to rip the controller out of his hands and tell him to open his eyes. “I’m serious. We need to get out of here.”

  He finally tore his gaze from the TV to glare at me, but his expression went through an array of emotions, starting from annoyance, turning to shock, and ending in confusion with a touch of apprehension. “Piper?”

  “There’s no escaping,” the entire gang of hallows spoke. Their mouths never moved, but their eerie voices chorused in unison.

  “You can’t hurt us here,” I responded.

  “Are you so sure? Dreams are just another realm. We’ve already breeched the veil between the living and the dead, why not the dream world as well?”

  They had a point, unfortunately. But I wasn’t willing to risk my life or TJ’s to test the theory. I closed my eyes, clenching my fists and willed myself to wake up.

  The laugh of a thousand hallows erupted.

  Shit on a sandwich. My eyes popped open, wide with dread. I reached for TJ’s hand and tugged him to his feet, squaring off. I didn’t really have a plan, not a solid one. It was pretty simple—don’t die.

  I summoned my core power, prepared to fry these imbeciles, except, nothing happened. Zippo. No glowing veins. No radiant swords. Nada. I stared down at my hands horrified. “Just great.” My only weapon was my mouth and my wits. We were so screwed.

  “What were you expecting?” TJ asked, giving me a funny look. “You’re not one of those kickass girls you’re always drawing.”

  “That’s what you think,” I mumbled.

  The dream was so vivid, as was my fear. I backed us up to the edge of the couch, but that was as far as I got. The hallows closed in ranks, stalking toward us as their outlines flickered like a faulty lightbulb. “We’re coming for him,” they all echoed at the same time.

  “No!” I yelled. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “You’re not safe. Not anywhere. Not anyone,” they warned.

  No shit, Einstein.

  I was just about to tell TJ to make a run for it when they decided to attack, all at once, in a unified assault. There was only a nanosecond to make a decision, so I shoved TJ to the side, taking the full brunt of the hit. Thwack. I landed on the coffee table with a crash. My head hit the wood, splintering and causing me to bite my lip. My mouth filled with the metallic taste of my own blood.

  Groaning like an eighty year-old woman, I stared up. The ceiling was littered with the ghosts of the dead. Ugh, that went well. As I stared into their see-through pale faces and hollow black eyes, there was no way I was getting out of here. Fear ricocheted inside me.

  I quickly lifted my head, searching the floor for TJ to make sure he was okay and order him to get out. Horror hit me in the gut.

  My head shook back and forth. “No, no, no,” I kept repeating, over and over again. I refused to believe what I was seeing, and I’d completely forgotten this was supposed to be a dream. It was hard to remember what was real and what wasn’t, especially at the sight before me.

  Much like the video games he loved, his blood splattered over the couch, spraying the legs of the coffee table and soaking into the carpet fibers. I hadn’t even heard him make a peep. My brother lay motionless on the floor, eyes open but lifeless, and his mouth agape in a silent cry. He was dead. I knew death. And my baby brother was no longer a part of the living.

  “A warning,” the hallows chorused.

  “TJ!” I screamed.

  The entire room burst into a blinding white light.

  Chapter 8

  I woke sitting straight up, covered in a cold sweat, and bellowing. The sound stretched, moving over the island, traveling with the wind. I didn’t know the extent of my voice, how far it journeyed, how it moved, only that it held power. I could do things with my voice, unimaginable things. So when I woke up screaming, the entire reaper race knew something was wrong.

  Zane was beside me, his hands framing my face, until my eyes finally focused on him. My gaze moved around the room as I slowly put together where I was and what happened. The dream? TJ? Alarm raced through me, my eyes going wild. I wanted to jump out of the bed and run down the hall to his room, but then I remembered I was naked.

  “Piper?” Zane spoke my name gently. “Is everything okay?”

  I blinked. It was mid-day. The sun was beaming through the windows, and there was a relaxing breeze, bringing in the scent of flowers and sea. “I-I’m not sure.” My hand went to my scratchy throat. It was raw and hoarse after the screaming. “I had a dream.”

  Worry leapt into his dark eyes. “You’re bleeding,” he stated, swiping a finger across my lip.

  I licked the edge of my mouth. Pain seared at the open wound. “I’m fine.” Or so I hoped. I didn’t need him to tell me it wasn’t normal for a dream to draw blood. I could still taste it. The horror. The blood. The sheer fear. “God, what was that?”

  His brows furrowed. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Tell me.”

  I relayed the events of the dream, from being back in my old apartment to being surrounded by hallows and getting choked up when I told him what happened to TJ.

  “Your banshee abilities are coming in hot,” he said when I finished. “It won’t be long until they’re at full force.”

  “Joy. Don’t tell me my dreams might actually mean something? Am I suddenly going to levitate and be able to spin my head around like an owl?”

  His lips curved. “Not entirely. It could be the dream was nothing more than a caution. Or it could be someone was sending you a warning.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, feeling anything but confident.

  He shrugged. “At this point I am only sure of one thing.”

  “And what may that be?” I prompted.

  “How I feel about you,” he murmured, pressing his lips softly to mine.

  I sighed. Zane wasn’t a hearts and flowers guy, so when something sweet left his lips, it meant that much more.

  He fingers pulled slightly at the ends of my hair. “Your abilities are ingrained inside of you, even in your dreams. They’re tied to your soul. It doesn’t matter what realm you find yourself.”

  “And therefore tied to you,” I added, and he nodded. “But that doesn’t explain why I couldn’t use my powers then.”

  “It could have been fear,” he suggested.

  I pinched him under the arm. “That wasn’t it. I could feel my powers, but nothing happened. It was like I was shooting blanks.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “Even when you’re alone, you’re not. If you had called for me, even in your dream, I would have been able to help. You’re a banshee. The laws of nature don’t apply to you. Don’t be skept
ical of your own abilities.”

  Wrapping a sheet around my body, I scooted out of bed. It was silly. Zane had already seen me naked, but I couldn’t repress the modesty. Things between us were still so new and fresh. “I need to see him.”

  “Who?” Zane asked.

  I rolled my eyes. He needed to keep up. “TJ,” I replied. “If my dreams are as prophetic as you imply, I need to make sure he’s okay, that he’s safe. I need to tell him the truth about me.”

  He tossed me a shirt. “Put this on first. I don’t want your brother hurting himself by trying to give me a black eye.”

  He was right— not about the black eye, that was laughable—I couldn’t go traipsing through the house in nothing but a flimsy sheet. Slipping his oversized t-shirt down over my head, I was swathed in his scent. tugged on a pair of cotton shorts I found tossed over the desk lamp and combed my fingers through my tousled hair.

  Shirtless, Zane stood in a pair of dark denim. “You ready for this?”

  “To tell my brother I’m a banshee? I don’t think I’ll ever be prepared, but I need to tell him. Keeping him in the dark could put him in more danger. As much as I’m dreading this conversation, everything inside me is pushing me to do it. Immediately.”

  Zane followed me into the hall as I went to find my brother. It wasn’t a difficult task. Just follow the sounds of whooping and hollering and the smell of week-old food. TJ whipped open the door a moment after I knocked, a cookie dangling between his teeth. His light brown hair was too long, but to my surprise it looked clean. “Did you just wake up?” he asked, cookie bits crumbling to the floor as he bit down.

  I was so relieved and happy to see him looking unharmed that my worry turned to irritation. “You know, you’re going to get ants.” I plucked the other half of his uneaten cookie and plopped it into my mouth.

  He frowned. “Did you come to eat all my snacks or yell at me?”

  Zane leaned in the doorway behind me, snickering.

  I put an elbow into his gut, only making his smirk stretch. Someone was feeling pretty damn pleased with himself. “Neither,” I replied, moving past TJ into his room. Parker was there, sitting on one of the beanbag like chairs, a game controller in his hand.

  Parker pushed up his glasses. “Hey, Pipes.”

  “Hey,” I automatically responded, and then turned around to face TJ.

  He had his arms crossed. “Come right in,” he mumbled. TJ glanced between Zane and me and back to me. “Is he just going to stand there and keep guard?” he asked, being a smartass.

  “Yep.”

  “Did you two…” He made an obscene gesture with his finger and hand.

  Parker cleared his throat, turning an adorable shade of crimson.

  I hadn’t come here to talk about my sex life. “That’s none of your business, and not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  He let out a whoosh of air. “Thank God, because I never want to think about you doing the nasty with anyone. Ever.”

  “Glad we got that cleared up.” I wrung my hands together and began pacing the room. This was a lot harder in person than it had been in my head. I opened my mouth and then quickly snapped it shut.

  “Oh, boy. Here comes the lecture,” TJ said, flatly.

  “Yep,” Parker agreed. “She’s definitely got something on her mind.”

  I paused in my aimless circles. “Will the two of you stop talking about me as if I’m not in the room? This is kind of important, and I need to find the right words to tell you.”

  “Does this have anything to do with what I told you? About what I saw?” His voice got quieter.

  “Yes,” I exhaled.

  Now it was his turn to fidget uncomfortably. “Are you sure we should be talking about this with an audience?”

  “It’s fine. Parker and Zane already know.”

  “You told them?” he blurted, looking like a wounded puppy. His brown eyes were big and filled with accusation, as if I’d broken a sacred sisterly vow.

  The expression on my face softened. “It’s not that I told them. Both Parker and Zane have seen them, too.” I didn’t want him to think he was alone in any of this craziness.

  His eyes narrowed in skepticism. But he had no reason to believe I was lying. If there was one thing TJ knew, it was that I wasn’t a liar. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on now?”

  I crossed my arms. “That’s the plan.”

  “Good, because I’m tired of everyone acting so weird. What was it?”

  “A hallow,” Zane supplied, shifting so he was no longer at an angle, but was facing us, his back pressed into the wall.

  Parker perked up, understanding dawning in his amber eyes. He set aside his controller and spun around in the chair, giving me a nod of support. He would back me up.

  “And that means what?” TJ asked.

  Having Parker’s approval gave me a boost of confidence. I had people who cared and supported me. “It’s essentially a restless spirit who has unfinished business here on Earth.”

  “A ghost,” he deduced. “So I was right?”

  “There’s a first for everything,” I mumbled, falling back into old habits.

  “I’m going to ignore your snide comments, only because I want to know more about the ghosts. How can we see them?”

  His enthusiasm worried me. “Normally, we can’t, but because our life has been touched by death, it weakens the glamour that hides them from human eyes.”

  “Mom,” he mouthed.

  He was taking this far too well, but I guess deep down he’d had his suspicions and I was confirming he wasn’t going crazy. I knew the feeling. “It’s complex. She wasn’t killed by gang members, that’s for sure.”

  Tossing the controller aside on the bed, he said, “Piper, this is seriously messed up. Okay, I don’t understand. Why would a ghost kill mom?”

  “It’s complex.”

  “Is this why you wouldn’t let me stay in Raven Hallow?”

  The questions kept coming. TJ had a young, curious mind. “I had to. Things weren’t safe for you here and only got worse when Rose died.”

  His eyes darted around the room. “How do you guys know so much about this stuff, anyway?”

  I tugged at the hem of Zane’s shirt, and my gaze habitually moved to Zane. He gave me a winked that said, you can do this, Piper. My gaze returned to TJ who was anxiously waiting for an answer. “This isn’t easy for me to tell you,” I started. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right words, but there aren’t any.”

  TJ’s eyes narrowed. He could see how jittery I was. “You’ve never had a problem speaking your mind before.”

  “There’s more. Ghosts aren’t the only thing in our world. There are reapers who are essential for death to occur, and they hunt the hallows.” I tried to put it in simple terms without going into too much detail.

  “Reapers,” he echoed. “Let me guess, your boyfriend is one of these so called reapers.” He was being sarcastic, but he was dead on.

  “A death reaper to be exact,” Zane interjected.

  TJ threw his hands in the air. “I’m glad you guys think this is a joke.”

  Parker leaned his elbows on his knees, giving TJ a straightforward look. “It’s true, man. Zane is a reaper. I’ve seen what he can do.”

  Zane drew to his full height. “Do you require proof?”

  TJ turned to Zane, his brows drawn. “What could you possibly do to make me think you’re anything beyond the guy macking on my sister?”

  Zane stepped into the room and did his thing. First, the dark veins webbed around his eyes, spreading down his jaw before covering his chest and disappearing beneath his jeans. Then the shadows gathered. From the dark corners of the room, from underneath the bed, and beneath the doorways, darkness responded to Zane, congregating at his feet. He held out his hand, and on call, the shadows morphed into a weapon—a scythe. As always, I was fascinated by him, my soul called to him.

  “Holy shit,” TJ gasped, bug-eyed
.

  Zane twirled the scythe in a complete circle. “And so were clear, I’m not macking on your sister. I love her.”

  My heart skipped. Hearing Zane express his feelings never got old. Actually, he didn’t say it enough. I wanted to hear him say those three little words hourly. I’d settle for daily.

  “Wow.” TJ shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure you being a reaper makes dating my sister any better.” He eyed Zane leeringly. “How did you do that?”

  Zane’s face twisted into a serious scowl. “You’re still not entirely convinced I’m a harbinger of death.” He wasn’t used to not being taken serious.

  “It’s a lot to process. Ghosts. Reapers,” TJ reasoned.

  “It is,” I agreed. “Trust me, I get it, but I need you to take this serious. Things are about to get…hairy.”

  Hairy, Zane mouthed.

  I shrugged. It was all that I could come up with at the spur of the moment. It wasn’t like I had a speech rehearsed.

  TJ was watching me curiously. “Piper, you’re glowing. Like glow-worm glowing.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, gazing at the ground. “Um, about that. There’s something else I need to tell you.” I choked up a moment before finding the courage to look at him. “I’m a reaper, a banshee.”

  “You’re a banshee?” he echoed. Then he did the most annoying brotherly thing. He burst out laughing. “Yeah, right. And I’m Superman.”

  “TJ, this isn’t a laughing matter, you little twerp.” I flicked him in the ear. “I’m trying to be open and honest with you. You’re in danger. We’re all in very real danger.”

  Since no one else in the room saw any humor in the situation, TJ’s condescending smirk vanished. The silence made him rethink the possibilities. “What kind of danger?”

  “The kind that will put you six feet under and me in the very crushing position of having to release your soul. You’re the only family I have left, TJ. I’m telling you all of this, because I can’t lose you.” The lines on his face changed. It was the same expression I’d seen when he’d been younger and there’d been a thunderstorm. Fear. “I’m not trying to scare, but caution you. I came to the conclusion that your ignorance was no longer bliss, but a hindrance, a crutch. If we are going to survive this apocalypse, you need to take your blinders off and see the real world.”