Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  I get off the forest floor and walk toward my house—how long ago had I started my run? I feel drained and dizzy but continue onward. No, this isn’t important. I’m dead now; my parents can’t see me. But I need to be sure they’re okay.

  When my house comes within view, I stop. I can hear my parents yelling inside, and I’m brought back into the real world.

  I stay hidden within the trees that line my backyard. Through the largest window of our house—the one that lines the entire wall of our dining room—I can see my mom pacing, my dad sitting at the table, head in hands.

  “Emma’s going to be fine,” I hear my dad say. It sounds more like he is trying to convince himself than my mom.

  “There’s no note. Where is she?” It sounds like my mom is crying. I move a bit closer to see better. A branch blocks my view, but as my mom makes her rounds, pacing back and forth across the dining room, I see her face, flushed and red. She holds her hair back and out of her face as she speaks into the phone.

  “It’s going to be fine. She must be out with friends or something.” My dad sounds unsure of himself.

  “Yes, thank you,” my mom says into the phone, hanging up. “Sadie’s parents said they haven’t seen her.” Her voice is frustrated, and you can hear the panic that lines the back of her throat.

  “Try calling Emma again,” my dad says. He doesn’t look up and remains seated at the table.

  “She left her phone here! Something’s not right, and you know it!” My mom is screaming now, and my dad turns his face to reveal his tear-stained, red-rimmed, and irritated eyes. He rubs the wetness away, standing up to retrieve his own phone.

  He leans against the counter. “Has it been twenty-four hours yet?” my dad asks, his voice quiet as he begins to dial the three numbers.

  My mom can’t even make herself say the words. Instead, she just nods her head as my dad punches in the numbers, slowly as if it’s a trick of the mind. Nine. One. One.

  I had no idea. I’ve been gone for an entire day? Trying to think back, I remember the mist coming to my room right before lunch, but it’s dark now. My parents must have come home late when they realized I was missing and were forced to start their count of twenty-four hours. My parents are approaching the second night they will spend alone, not knowing where I am or if I’m okay.

  “I need to file a missing child report,” my dad speaks monotone into the phone. The word “child” makes me picture myself featured on an old-fashioned milk carton, how they used the packaging to advertise the missing and neglected.

  He tells the police what I look like. Name: Amelia Clarice Barton—responds to Emma—young female, age fifteen, brown hair, blue eyes, last seen Saturday morning. I left no trace or clues as to where I had gone. I’ve never run away from home before and showed no signs of wanting to.

  “She’s my daughter,” I hear my dad say. Hidden in the woods, I slump to the ground, feeling completely useless. Far away in the house I see my mom step out of her pace, going in the kitchen where my dad holds the phone. She takes it from him.

  “Sir?” she speaks into the phone, her voice fleeting. “Please bring her home. We love her.” She stops, taking a moment to gain a breath. “We’re not going to stop until we find her.” Her voice is stronger, more powerful and determined than the last time. “We’re a family. I need her. Please, just bring my Emma home.”

  I’m missing and cannot be found.

  I wish it were that simple. That all it will take is a small search party. But it’s more than that. Even if I’m standing in front of them, I won’t be seen. I want this to end, so they don’t have to suffer while they wait for their daughter to come home.

  “The police are on their way,” my mom whispers, her voice just a quiver, as she returns to the dining room to sit in the chair. She looks up, out the window. I follow her gaze to the setting sun, colors of pink and orange fill the sky like a watercolor painting. She cries alone, staring at the beauty of nature.

  Even as I stand feet from the window, I can clearly see the tears running down her face as my dad tries to comfort her while they wait for the police to arrive. I can’t handle this. I want to walk through the door and give my mom a hug so much, but I can’t—I’ll never be able to give her a hug again. I’ll never be able to finish my life. I’m stuck here forever in a land of spirits—a ghost, not an Essence.

  The police arrive. They ask my parents countless questions: when they had last seen me, if I had been upset recently. They even call Sadie again, and ask if she had seen or heard from me lately.

  “Were there any family problems going on that might have caused her to run away?” one of the policemen asks, writing down notes.

  “No, we just came back from a camping trip, and she seemed so happy. She was at my side the entire time,” my mom tells them, now wiping away tears with a tissue, as my dad sits with her at the table.

  “She did seem to be a little on edge though,” my dad adds quietly, almost afraid to say the words and admit there is something going on; something that he might’ve been able to give attention to and change. But there was nothing he could have done.

  The entire time the police continue to take notes, carefully paying attention to what my parents say and how they react. The officers are automatons, showing no sign of emotion.

  I stand near my house for a while, sometimes walking closer when it becomes hard to hear the whispers coming from my mother’s mouth. Eventually I sit on the ground, leaning against the house, listening to the events going on inside. The sun sinks lower in the sky, the orange turning to a purple hue. My stone feels different as I run my hand over it. Looking closely, I see it’s grown translucent. My soul is fading away. I can feel some sort of pain starting to form in my spine, spreading to other parts of my body, making it hard to think and figure out what is happening.

  My breathing grows louder as I get up from the ground and start running to Phantom Lagoon, hoping that’s what it will take to get my stone normal again. I want to look back at my house to where my parents are inside, being questioned about my life, but the sharp bite that starts in my spine tells me to continue forward until I reach the lagoon.

  I near the fence of trees and break through them, hearing branches snap in my wake. The rock wall is the first thing I see, a horrific welcome into this world. Moss coats the rock like this lagoon has been here longer than anyone can possibly remember. Everyone who had been here earlier today is back and beginning to settle down for the night. All eyes look to me as I come to a stop, trying to gain my bearings. Eliza runs to my side and looks relieved to see that I’m okay.

  “Are you all right?”

  I nod to her, still gasping for breath from the run. With relief, I hold out my hand. In my palm is my stone, fully there—solid. The ache in my back is gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. “What was that?” I ask.

  “If you don’t come back to Phantom Lagoon nightly, your stone will start to fade. It was created here. That’s where it craves to be,” Eliza tells me as I follow her to the edge of the lagoon. Her eyes stare into the water. The silver-mirrored rocks lay inside, unclaimed by any Essence or human, waiting to be chosen.

  “So we don’t live forever?” I ask, running my fingers over the smooth side of my stone. “I thought we would, because we’re not alive anymore.” I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

  “We do live forever, but sometimes things happen.” Eliza pauses for a minute—I can tell there is something she isn’t comfortable saying—but she continues after looking toward the cave of the lagoon. “People forget to come back, or they lose their stone. Sometimes people just disappear, and that’s it. Never to be seen again.”

  “They just disappear?” I ask.

  “Yes, they were the ones that would come back to Phantom Lagoon every day. They’d never stray too far from it. Then, out of nowhere, they disappear.”

  _________________

  I wake up lying across the bed of fern I had made the n
ight before. I miss my real bed, my home, my parents—everything. Everyone else is still sound asleep on their own homemade beds—some better than others. I can tell who puts an effort into their living quarters. It’s hard to live with so many people in one spot. We only have to deal with each other at night, but that’s when people have the least patience.

  I stretch out and see that my hand is still in a fist, clutching my stone. I uncurl my fingers and see the stone is the same: dark purple, dented in places, but remaining unchanged. I don’t know why, but I expected it to look different. It’s warm against my hand now, and I feel safe. I lay the stone on the sand near the lagoon, as I stare into the unending depth held in the simple piece of silvery stone. This is my soul, but it holds something more. When I went to my house, it turned ice-cold; then I had forgotten why I needed to see my parents. Here I pick up the stone again and feel it in my hands; rolling it over and over, memorizing it. It holds no secrets to be found—just a stone.

  I look around me at the faces of strangers; some dating back centuries, to the time period they were born. Under a tree a few feet away, Eliza is asleep. I feel no belonging in this strange new world. These people hold no bonds, not like families do. Everyone keeps their distance from each other. There is at least three feet between everybody, even though space cannot be spared with such a large community. There is no love here; the feeling of friendship is distant and slight. I know it will stay this way, maybe even worsen as time moves along. I don’t want to be here where there is no compassion.

  I move along quietly, being sure I make no contact with anyone sprawled across the ground. I slide between the fence of trees and leave Phantom Lagoon.

  It’s early morning, and there’s still dew on the ground to be dried by the sun’s morning light. I close my eyes and take note of all the sounds: the singing of birds, the movement of the river, and most of all the quiet whisper of the wind. It reminds me of my mom: the cries she had made when she discovered that I was missing, the intake of breath she took before surrendering into my dad’s arms.

  I know I will hear her cries again soon, but I continue toward my house to be sure my parents are okay. Everything seems to go slowly today. No matter how hard I try to keep walking forward, I find myself stopping to look at the nature around me, my mind in a haze, easily distracted.

  By the time I reach my house, the sun is in the middle of the sky; I spent the entire morning trying to get here. It never took me that long to get back to my house when I was human. Part of me wants to discover what’s stopping me, but something in me just wants to push away the curiosity and move along—so that’s what I do. At my house there are even more police cars. I go to the window and see posters all over the table that read Missing with my picture pasted underneath. There are people I know arriving to help search. Sadie and her parents are here too. She looks like she has been crying, as she clutches to her mom’s side. Almost everyone from town is at my house to look for me and to put up posters. The sad part is that this is a common occurrence. Hikers go missing all the time in the forest—most of the time they are found alive, starving, but alive—others aren’t as lucky.

  My mom is at the table making calls, only to get the answer that I haven’t been seen. My dad talks to the officers before they go out again to continue looking. Some search the woods while others go door-to-door. My parents are always at home waiting for the phone to ring—for me to call—but I can’t. Maybe they are even waiting for me to walk straight through the door to welcome me with open arms.

  The rest of the day feels unending. Things happen over and over like a movie is set on Replay as I watch. Friends comfort my parents, and police officers search. The cycle of pain that surrounds me now feels as if it will engulf me and take no pity. But of course it doesn’t; that would mean dying, that would mean the end. There is no end; I’ll go on forever so I can see my family suffer.

  I wish there was a way to show them my body, so they know I’m no longer alive. That way they can stop searching and waiting for me. Is there even a body to show them? I set off to find Eliza as the sun begins to set in the sky, bringing with it nothing but cold for me and my family.

  Everyone is gathered in Phantom Lagoon, walking around, finding a spot to sleep. Some lay on large boulders near the water, while others abandon the rocky beach for the soft sand that lines the trees. The water is still and silent as the sun glistens over the surface. Eliza is sitting on a large rock near the edge of the trees, while she stares up at the moon like it’s a loved one.

  “Eliza?” I ask.

  “Yes?” she says, looking at me now, erasing any emotions that had been on her face a few seconds before.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say, walking toward her, stepping over smaller rocks and tree roots sticking out of the ground.

  “Of course.” She motions me to sit next to her as she slides to the side, giving me room.

  As I sit, I look into the large lagoon holding the mirror rocks that wait to claim another soul. “What happened to my body when I died?”

  She tries to look at me, but I refuse to make eye contact. “Emma, if you were dead, you wouldn’t be on Earth anymore,” Eliza tells me. “Your body is here. It’s in the cave. That’s just where they end up. We don’t put them there. They seem to send themselves,” she says, pointing toward the mouth of the cave.

  The entrance is still covered with leaves; nobody has disturbed its presence. It makes sense to have it covered—almost out of respect.

  “Can I have it?” I ask quietly, looking at Eliza again. “My parents think I ran away, and they’re waiting for me to come home. The police think I’m dead—or at least dying, lost in the forest somewhere—I don’t want my parents to suffer anymore.”

  She thinks for a moment. “How will they find it?”

  I didn’t think of this. I can always make it look like an accident. Like I was in the woods hiking and fell. I’d be forced to take my body and throw it down a waterfall, but it will still need to be found somehow.

  “What about haunting?” I suggest. “I could show them where to find my body, and put it in the woods or something.”

  Eliza thinks about it for a minute before answering. “That could work, but I think you should be the one to show them where your body is.”

  “How do I haunt someone?”

  Eliza stays quiet for a while, thinking of the skill and technique involved. “It takes some concentration, but everyone can learn. I can show you, if you’d like.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, feeling lighter, knowing my parents won’t have to keep searching for me much longer.

  “We’ll start tomorrow. We can use animals to train with, in case you mess up. No need to scare the humans,” she says, hopping off the rock and back to the tree where she slept the night before.

  Chapter 9

  Lost Soul

  I find a way to climb to the top of the cave in the lagoon that makes up the rock wall which overlooks the pool of water. It’s higher than I thought but provides privacy. Looking down, I feel as though I can see everyone. Names still unknown, but some faces are familiar. Everyone has found slumber, curled into sleeping forms on the ground. As a human, sleeping this way would be painful. One man is sprawled across a boulder, but I know he won’t wake up sore. The only physical pain we can experience now is when the sun sets, if we are outside of Phantom Lagoon.

  Through the darkness I can barely make out the water that rests below. The moon glows on it, illuminating a small sliver of the water.

  It’s my second night here, and the new information Eliza has told me still buzzes around my head, waiting to be processed. I’m hoping, once my parents know about my death, it will be easier for everyone.

  I want to cry—no, I need to cry. Everything I’ve ever known has been ripped away from me. I’m no longer part of my family. I can feel the emotions building up inside my being, begging to release, but something’s holding them in check. Maybe I’m stronger now, but there’s always t
his calm, serene state that I reach at points during the day that tell me to lie down and breathe. My stubborn side wants to argue with it and resist, but eventually, when I feel my emotions and memories of what I used to have pile inside me, I fall to the calm, dazed state of mind. It bothered me at first—I feel as if I’m being tranquilized—now I let it take me as need be.

  When the sun went down, it took all the day’s warmth with it, leaving me curled up on the ground, as if I’m a small child. Being an Essence means you don’t have a sense of touch in the physical world—I can’t feel the cold air, but out of habit I squeeze myself into a tight ball as the darkness approaches.

  I hear the sounds of the forest all around me—right now just the quiet rustles of leaves here and there. There are hushed whispers below from others who are still awake, having quiet conversations. I close my eyes in an attempt to sleep.

  Memories of my family filter through, reminding me of all the times my parents had tucked me in on the nights I claimed the monsters in my closet wouldn’t leave. My dad always liked to humor me, opening the door and displaying the piles of clothes I had left on the floor, even though they had told me to clean it up. Sometimes my mom would even sing me to sleep, telling me to lie on my stomach while she rubbed my back. It always started the same: Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. That was as far as I would hear; by the time she was on the next line, I was always fast asleep.

  I feel my body tremble as a sobbing sound escapes my throat. I miss my parents—I miss home. I take a moment to breathe, knowing that, if I let myself slip into my emotions, it will be hard to stop. Somehow I manage to squeeze myself even tighter, until my muscles protest in pain. I feel a warm sensation from my hand and realize it’s my stone. I hold it to my cheek while I concentrate on its warmth.

  I drift but am never fully asleep. I stare straight in front of me; my eyes fixed open, looking incomprehensibly at the darkness that surrounds me. My stone feels warm as it comforts me. But not the comfort of a hug; no this feels forced—like a drug, pulling me into a sleep.