Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  “You will walk into the trees now!” my voice yells to me again, becoming frustrated.

  This time I can’t stop when the commands come; lurching ahead, I almost fall into the trees with the force of energy that expels from the mist. Hearing branches snap, my body bursts through the wall of trees and into an open area, a pool of water laid out in front of me.

  It is beautiful; a perfect, clear pool. At first it’s sand, but then there is water. In the water are small smooth rocks; they look almost silver. Behind them is a wall of rock. It’s rough and coated in moss—I recognize it from my dream. It’s all the same. The rock wall, the pool of water—I had been standing in it after the beach had disappeared from my dream. The voice—my voice—is also the same voice that told me to pick up the rock in my dream. I didn’t recognize it in the haze of the dream at the time, but now it rings loud and clear. It’s me.

  “Go in the water now, Amelia!” my voice shouts with both fear and excitement lingering, waiting for me to follow the orders.

  A stabbing pain erupts in my spine, and I jolt forward as if I have been electrocuted. I can’t fight anymore; it’s too hard. I’ve always known myself to never give up, but now I feel this is the end. The pull has won. I do what my voice says, standing in the water, waiting for the final commands. The cold water doesn’t register in my brain; I can’t even feel the wet clothing that presses against my skin in the natural pool.

  “Do you see those rocks, Amelia?” my voice asks, sounding calmer now, but excitement still evident.

  I nod. The stones are settled and untouched at the bottom of the pool, waiting for picking. They mirror me, and I see my reflection in the water.

  “Do you want one?” my voice says kindly, coaxing me to pick one.

  “No,” I whisper aloud, my voice hoarse, feeling as if my throat may close in on itself. I look around at the area, surrounded by trees, with only this large open area and the natural pool of water.

  “Yes, you do. Pick one out, Amelia.”

  I start to bend down but then stop. I suddenly feel scared of what might happen. I pray this is all just a dream; that I will wake up in the safety of my bed, maybe even crying, until my parents come in to make sure I’m okay. They will tell me this is all just a dream, and then they will make me some hot cocoa that will lull me back to sleep.

  “Amelia, pick out a rock now and look into it!” the voice growls, growing impatient. Something feels as if it’s bound around my throat, and I can’t breathe. In that same instant my vision blurs once more, as it always seems to do when the pull is in control of me. My body is hot and bound; I can feel my heart beat inside my chest. I cough, gag, and soon I’m released. With full vision again I let the tears fall down my face more freely.

  “Why?” I whisper, shivering in the water, even though all my sense has left me, wishing for nothing but home.

  “Pick up a stone and look into it!”

  My hand plunges into the water without my consent, and my fingers linger on a rock, curling around a stone. It’s extremely smooth; it doesn’t seem possible for a rock to be that smooth.

  “Now, Amelia, look into the stone,” my voice coaxes, as if it’s making a deal with me.

  I look down into my hand as my fingers open, revealing the small rock. It has a flawless silver surface—no, not silver; it’s a mirror. I look into the rock and see myself looking back, eyes stunned.

  “Finally.” My voice sighs, sounding exactly like myself, and I’m not even sure if it was me who said the words.

  Everything shifts. It seems like people are walking past me, looking at me, observing something near me. They stare at me like I’m a fish in a tank. I don’t remember how I got here. I’m inside a pristine hospital, surrounded by a sort of plastic that acts as a magnifying glass to my eyes. Most distinct is the sound of beeping—a monitor. A man I don’t know wearing navy blue scrubs stops in front of me, looks to my left, writes something down, and leaves again.

  The sound of blood pulsing through my body grows louder. The forest comes into view again, but this time it arrives like a movie. I see myself standing in the water, stone in hand, as my body collapses into the natural pool, drowning.

  Then everything disappears.

  Chapter 7

  Explaining

  I hear voices around me—most of which I don’t recognize. They are all talking about meaningless things: what they did today, what they are doing tomorrow. Then I hear someone talking about me.

  “Emma’s going to be fine. Don’t blame yourself, Eliza. Once her soul found her, there was no stopping it.” It’s a female voice; one I don’t recognize.

  “I know. It just feels like Emma was my responsibility. How long until she wakes up?”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  I try to open my eyes to see who is talking about me, but I can’t. I can’t feel anything; I have a sensation of weightlessness. I try to move my fingers—nothing.

  “I think she’s waking up. Her hands are moving.”

  I’m moving my hands? I can’t feel them. I try to open my eyes again and objects come into focus—a blue sky above me, the tops of trees, buds sprouting at the edges.

  I look around, and there are at least forty people, ranging from seven to late sixties in age. I don’t recognize anyone, but they are all staring at me. I look at who’s standing closest to me. The girl from school—Eliza—is staring at me, but she looks upset about something.

  “Are you okay, Emma? I’m so sorry. I should have kept a better eye on you,” she says, letting the apology stream out in a single breath.

  Why is she sorry? Nothing happened. The last thing I remember is holding the silver rock and passing out. The mist is gone now, leaving me in a peaceful state, where I finally feel free.

  The familiarity of Eliza strikes again, like it had the first day I met her; she still looks exactly the same. It isn’t the hair or eyes that are familiar; it’s her voice.

  Everyone is staring, waiting for me to say something. They all have the same type of tired face, like they never get enough sleep, but now their eyes are wide as they gaze upon me—I realize I’m laying down. I try to speak to them, but when I open my mouth my mind goes blank. Oddly, I don’t feel scared but numb.

  “Emma, I have to tell you something, well…more than something. It’s a big thing,” Eliza says, eyes pleading. For the first time I’m able to really look at her. Her face is small, her short ruby-red hair falling in curls. She’s tucked her hair back, no longer obscuring her face from view.

  “What happened?” I ask, moving my arms and legs to see if I have broken anything. When did I fall? All my clothes are wet, clinging to my skin, but they’re drying fast in the sun. My only guess is that I’ve been in this position for a long time.

  “It’s complicated. Can you get up yet? I have to show you something,” Eliza tells me, looking around at people to signal them to give me space to move.

  I struggle to get off the ground, rolling my knees under my frame to scoop myself up. There is no point of contact between my knees to the ground—like when your feet fall asleep and they’ve gone numb, only aware of the sense of pricking needles, blood flow restricted—but I’m able to gain my footing and stand. Swaying a bit from side to side, I feel an unfamiliar sense of vertigo.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Eliza says with a small smile, trying to comfort me, as I struggle with not being able to feel the contact of the ground beneath my feet.

  Everything around me is beautiful. Like in my dream, there is the large rock wall surrounding the pool that holds the mirrored stones. Along the farthest side of the wall is a hole big enough for a person to walk into—a cave maybe—but it’s covered by foliage. I’m encircled by the fence of trees and everything is green, covered by layers of moss and leaves, giving everything the same texture as a fairy tale.

  Maybe it is just a dream. I take comfort in this possibility as Eliza takes my hand and guides me out of the water, a crunch
of rock and gravel confirming that my feet are making contact with the ground. When we get onto land, Eliza looks at everyone standing around and nods. All of them understand at once and walk away.

  Once they’re out of sight, Eliza puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me. There’s great sincerity in her eyes as she speaks.

  “Emma.” She takes a deep breath, looking to the pool of water behind me before returning her gaze back to me. “You are no longer alive.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “It’s a long story…so I’ll start from the beginning. After you were born, your body died, but your soul didn’t. When your heart stopped beating…part of your soul had to leave the body. It was so you could live, in case the doctors were able to get your heart beating again—and they did. But by then, half of your soul had left you and came here—a safe haven for souls.” Eliza motions toward the pool of water in front of us.

  For a moment I remember a story my mom had told me. My umbilical cord had been wrapped around my neck, cutting off the oxygen supply my lungs needed. My frail body showed no signs of life, and even after they cut the cord from my throat, it was discovered that I had fluid in my lungs. My father showed me pictures from when I had first been born. My body had turned blue from the lack of oxygen—life exiting me—but I was kept alive by an incubator. In the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit my body was surrounded by tubes and wires while my parents anxiously awaited the news of whether or not I’d survive. Exactly a week later they were able to take me home from the hospital.

  “Was it because I couldn’t breathe?” I whisper the words, not even bothering to look up at Eliza, but instead staring at the gravel that coats the open area of the pool.

  “Yes,” Eliza said, seeming to understand that it’s something I had no control over. “By the time you could breathe again, half your soul had already left because your body couldn’t support it. Once a soul leaves its host, the results are irreversible.”

  “And the other half came here?” All my life I had lived with only half myself. I wanted to imagine all the limits I had faced, but I never knew.

  “This is Phantom Lagoon,” she answers. “When someone dies and only part of the soul leaves the body, it comes here where it can thrive and live apart from its other half. Your soul came here, unaware it was missing part of itself. When your family moved to New Hampshire, your soul craved to be whole, feeling the immediate organic connection you held with it. This is why, whenever you went into the forest, you felt a pull—a longing to be whole. You were being ‘called’ by your soul.”

  “That’s what the magnetic pull was? My soul calling me?”

  “Yes. Your soul was stuck here at Phantom Lagoon, so it tried to lure you here. Do you remember the purple mist?”

  “There was an orange one too,” I add.

  “The orange mist was me. I was trying to protect you. But the purple mist was your soul. Souls that aren’t whole can’t go far from Phantom Lagoon and can only appear to their other half as a mist. That’s why, when you were in the forest, the mist was going slow—it was fighting to move just as hard as you were.”

  “Why orange?” I ask, curious. “What I mean to say is, you have dark red hair. Wouldn’t it be that color?”

  Eliza laughs quietly to herself. “It’s not my real hair color. Maybe I’ll explain later,” she says, stopping the discussion of this subject, as if some hidden emotion might appear that she doesn’t want to reveal. “But the mist shows as your soul color…or ‘aura,’ as some call it.”

  “You said you were protecting me. What do you mean?”

  “I was in your dreams, warning you not to go into the forest.”

  “Is that why you never talked to me in school? So I wouldn’t recognize your voice?”

  She smiles, seeming to appreciate the fact that I’m understanding what’s happened. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. It must have seemed like I hated you.”

  “And the faces? Why would you look at me like that?”

  “I didn’t know how you would do overnight alone. I was surprised to see you acting so normal. I wasn’t sure if your soul would find a way to get to you somehow. We have to come back to Phantom Lagoon at night. This place is what keeps us…alive, if that’s how you want to put it.”

  “Why didn’t the pull come when I was in the forest camping? Was it because I was with my mom the entire time?” I ask.

  “The pull comes when you’re least expecting it, but your mother has saved your life before. Well…it was me in your mother’s body. You see, when you’re under the influence of the pull, the only thing that can stop you is a loved one. So when you were being called by your soul, I would find your mom, take over her body, and call you. I would numb her, so she wouldn’t know what had happened.”

  “Can everyone do that? Take over bodies?”

  “Yes, it’s called ‘haunting.’ It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she assures me, before I make any false assumptions.

  “So why couldn’t you just haunt me, so the pull would stop?”

  “When you’re born without part of your soul, only that soul can haunt the body,” Eliza states, disappointed. She looks down at the ground, as if this is something she’s tried to do—maybe she has; maybe it was me.

  “Today? I thought you said my soul had to stay near Phantom Lagoon because it wasn’t whole.”

  “There are always ways around that,” she says with a simple shake of the head.

  “So what did happen?” I feel like I still don’t understand. There’s something I’m missing, and I know it’s probably something that will crack my brittle shell of emotion. Right now I don’t know how to feel, but with one more piece of information, I feel as if I could burst.

  “Like I said, there are always ways around it, and that’s exactly what your soul did, so it could find you. Your soul haunted you and took you to the forest. It brought you to Phantom Lagoon and had you pick up a stone. The stones are what make Phantom Lagoon magical. When you look into one of them, it uses the mirror to capture your soul. That stone then becomes the color of your soul or aura. If you lose your stone—your soul—you’re gone. We don’t know what happens, whether we finally get to go to Heaven—we just don’t know.”

  I look down into my hand. The stone is no longer silver but a deep purple—the kind that adorns flowers in the spring. One side is smooth like silk, while the other has small dents that can barely be felt when I run my fingers across it, but they’re visible to the eye when compared to the flawless side.

  “Protect that, Emma. It’s your life now,” Eliza tells me.

  “How?”

  Eliza holds out a necklace and at the end is an orange stone. Like mine, it’s smooth with small dents speckled across the surface. Her stone is smaller than mine, but brighter, more brilliant in color.

  “I found that this is the easiest way. It never leaves my side.”

  “What about my mom and dad? What will I tell them?” I ask, now occupied by memorizing the facets of my stone.

  “You can’t, Emma. They can’t see you. You’re not alive anymore.”

  I look up at Eliza to make sure what I heard was true. If I still had a beating heart, it would have stopped.

  “I’ll never see them again?” The idea seems so foreign. I’ve always known I’d move out someday, go to college, begin my own life; but never see my parents again?

  “You can see them anytime. They just can’t see you.”

  “So what now?” I say the words harshly, like I’m fighting with my mom, and end up using more venom than intended. “I’m a ghost, to haunt the Earth for all eternity?” I can feel a mass of emotions well up inside me—anger, pain, and devastation all at once—deciding now is its time to be expressed.

  “No, not a ghost. We like to think of ourselves as an Essence,” Eliza tells me, not even bothering to look me in the eyes. She stares at her own stone, caressing it.

  “An Essence? What does that even mean?” I can hear my voice risin
g in volume the more I speak; a round of hysteria audible. My throat grows tight, like it always does when I cry—still, no tears.

  “Something that exists spiritually, not physically,” Eliza says quietly, eyes down, looking ashamed as she drops her stone, letting it fall to her neck once again.

  We’re in limbo; a cruel place between life and death. Life means living a normal day-to-day consistency with your family—whether it is a happy existence is up to you. Death means everything is over. All the hard times you’ve been through can be forgotten. But being an Essence means you’re always here. It means seeing everyone die in front of your eyes. You can watch all you want, but can’t interfere. It’s a sadistic torture.

  Chapter 8

  Missing

  I start my run through the forest, blindly falling again and again. A hope begins to grow in me, not sure what is real—whether my parents can see me, whether I’m still alive. For some reason none of this fazes me though. As I run, I forget: who I am, where I’m going, why it’s so important to get there—what is it that matters? My pace slows, and I slump against a tree, sliding toward the ground, exhausted.

  I clutch the stone in my hand and realize how ice-cold it has become. I clasp it in both hands and bring it close to my mouth, blowing my breath onto both the stone and my hands. It does not get warmer. Instead it grows colder, as it suddenly occurs to me.

  Keep my soul safe. Phantom Lagoon is my home; my safe harbor. I no longer belong to a family; I am a loner. I feel no pain here, because it does not exist; nor will I let it exist. My soul is concealed in this stone; it is my life. I must let go, forget, and never look back. The blame shall be none but my own, for I was born of only half, to be reunited later in life. I am an Essence.

  The words repeat. For hours maybe, until the thoughts become my own, and I believe the words. They are not mine, but they become brainwashed into my being, until I become them; and the panic, fear, and sadness leave the core of my soul.