Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  The warmth radiates through my being and that’s when I realize something. We aren’t supposed to feel anything—hot, warm; cold, cool—nothing. So how can I?

  I take the stone away from my face but don’t put it down—I’m scared it won’t be there in the morning. Instead I put my arms around my stomach, clinging to my sides, trying to keep control of myself. I feel my eyes shut as I mumble, “It’s going to be okay,” in a faint whisper. I don’t believe the words, but I continue to repeat them anyway.

  _________________

  At first everything is fuzzy, but once the blackness of the images clears to only the edges, I can see the rough outlines of what looks like my room. My parents are clearing everything out without giving it a second thought. They take all my belongings and put them in boxes before bringing them outside where there is a yard sale—mostly consisting of my things. I see strange, unfamiliar faces pick through everything I own before paying my parents and walking off. They smile as the cash is handed to them and soon all my things are gone forever.

  My dad goes to the store to buy paint while my mom continues to clean out my room. She stumbles across my drawings and looks them over quickly before tossing them into a pile of trash. When my dad comes home, my room is completely cleared of anything that resembles my former life except the blue walls. My dad opens a can of paint and soon my room is consumed by the dark abyss of the walls, as they threaten to seal me off from the world I used to live in.

  _________________

  “They forgot about me,” I whisper over and over to myself in the dead of night. “I thought you loved me.” So badly I want to feel those tears fall down my face, but they never come. It occurs to me that an Essence cannot cry—feel emotion, yes—but no tears. This disturbs me and makes the reality of not being human even clearer. I lift myself from the ground, no longer wanting to stay in one place, and walk off into another part of Phantom Lagoon.

  My chest is heaving as I trip over a root and fall to the ground with a slight thud. I try to stumble to my feet but continue tripping. It’s hard to see where I am in the still dark night. Every time I fall to the ground, the only thing I can picture is my parents, offering their hand out to lift me up. When I do gain my feet again, I’m only filled with disappointment to learn I’m alone in the forest. Finally I collapse to the ground, my muscles tired, where I kneel, hugging my sides in an effort to try to keep myself together. I’m alone. It’s what I wanted back in Phantom Lagoon, but now that I have it, it stings like a leather whip.

  A ghost of a tear runs down my face as my sobs continue. I’m not supposed to cry—it’s not possible for an Essence.

  “What’s wrong with me?” The aggravation I expect from myself is replaced by grief, and I grow more upset with myself as time passes. I want to scream, but when I open my eyes, I see it’s raining. I wasn’t crying—it’s just the rain. My hands drop to my sides, and I slide to the ground. I again surrender into unconsciousness. My hands lock into fists, seeking my stone to act as a drug as it has before. With a tired mind, panic consumes me as I come up empty-handed, and paw through the leaves and grass of the forest floor. Frantically I think of the last time I remembered holding it. Definitely not while I thought I was crying.

  I follow the instinct that tells me to retrace my steps. My gaze darts side to side, hoping to catch the purple hue of my stone out of the corner of my eye. Suddenly I trip and, out of some unknown miracle, there lays my stone—my soul that I must guard—unharmed and untouched by anyone. It sits, perched on top of a pile of leaves in the dim forest.

  In one quick, fluid motion, I pick it up and run back to the lagoon. The trees no longer offer their protection from the rain, so everyone is awake and mumbling about not being able to sleep. We may not be able to really feel the rain, but in a way we can. It passes through our bodies, causing an odd sensation that feels like bugs are crawling across our skin. I hadn’t noticed this before, because I had been distracted, but now I can’t stop flinching, hoping to avoid the rain. Others are itching themselves, even though it doesn’t help. I catch myself doing the same, but soon I’m able to block it all out. I’m back to where I had tried to sleep before, on top of the cave. Everyone else has gone into the trees, where there is a little more shelter. Not in the cave though—not where they have to look at their pale, lifeless bodies.

  I take the alone time gratefully. I hope that no one noticed I had wandered off for a moment, but before Eliza goes into the trees, she looks at me like she’s worried. I ignore her, sitting alone with my arms around my legs, while I look to the sky as it releases the rain.

  Keep my soul safe. The unknown thought passes through my head as I finger my stone. 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 into 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.

  I’m not dripping wet. I’m not cold. I’m truly dead.

  …Not human.

  Chapter 10

  Training

  To my dismay I don’t wake up sore. I feel no need to stretch, like I did when I was human, so I just roll onto my back to look toward the sky. I can breathe easier now that I am no longer curled into a ball, so I take long, deep breaths as the birds sing their morning melody. The air is crisp, and the rivers are fierce from the water they received overnight. As the sun reaches its way across the horizon, I pull out my stone.

  What had once been a deep purple now has a violet glow as I hold it to the sun. It’s slightly transparent against the morning sky, letting me see through the depths of the soul that lies within. The violet surface looks like marble with different shades of purple swirled into the stone. I can see the flaws more clearly now. It is covered in small nicks, making it appear almost spotted. But on the back is a large dent and the color of the rock is different. It’s a lighter purple—lavender. In the deepest section of the dent is a pale brown—it’s small and hard to notice, but it is there. The flaws in my stone have grown in number and severity since I last looked at it.

  This stone is my soul. The nicks on the surface, those are my flaws—visible to everyone. Of course there is the large dent. It’s easy for everyone to see. What you can’t see is the pale brown spot in the center—only if you look close enough. So, in a sense, this stone is just like me. If you look close enough, you can see my deepest flaws. They have grown in both size and number, but there is beauty in this. In the sun, it appears to be marble, reminding me that no matter how many flaws I have, there will always be beauty.

  I am not perfect. I don’t want to be. To know there is not one stone like my own is a blessing.

  As the sun’s rays stretch high, I think of my family, where they lie, still asleep. I’m so close to them, but they are forever out of my reach. Seeing the sun rise only makes me feel worse, because I can no longer share this moment with my family. I imagine it though; I try to conjure up the last things I said to my mom and dad, but to my shock I can’t. I had never valued my life. I realize that now.

  Eliza peeks to where I am stretched across the rock, still looking at the sky. She doesn’t come over right away, and I don’t look at her.

  “Rough night?” she asks, climbing the rock to slide next to me. I sit up and look at her before looking down to where the edge of the cave ends with a drop. I can feel her gaze on me, but I just lock my arms around my knees. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her hand reach out to me, but she thinks better of it and lets it drop to her side again.

  “I heard you last night,” she says.

  I look at her, expecting her to laugh at me, but instead it looks like she understands. Eliza doesn’t pity me; she realizes what I’m going through.

  I rest my chin on my knee, while we sit in silence. I hear Eliza adjust herself, but she doesn’t leave. In fact, she sits there next to me
, while I soak in my silence. I watch everyone leave Phantom Lagoon as they go about their daily activities. Eliza stays. Finally when we are alone, I turn to her, thinking she must have fallen asleep. She is looking at the lagoon with the most intense stare.

  “You’ll get used to it, you know. It’s not that bad…as long as you have friends.” She must feel my stare, because she looks over and smiles. “So do you still want to learn how to haunt?” she asks, jumping up and offering her hand.

  I grip her outstretched fingers and can’t help but smile as she leads me into another part of the forest.

  We finally reach a large field full of wildflowers and animals feasting on the green grass that covers the area. Eliza runs to the middle of the open greens and turns in circles to get a full view of the area.

  “Come on, Emma,” she says, waving me over.

  I walk past a herd of deer, calculating each step, and I’m surprised when they don’t flinch when I come near—in fact, they come closer.

  Eliza starts laughing as I approach her. “You should see your face. Have you already forgotten you are not human?”

  I look at her, confused, until she finally answers.

  “Animals have an extra sense, I guess you could say. They can see an Essence’s spirit, but they aren’t afraid of us, because they know we can’t hurt them. They call us Fairies, I think. We appear to them as our soul color, but that’s it—just a vague outline. They only know the general spot where we stand.”

  When I reach the middle of the field where Eliza stands, everything takes on a new mood. I forget about my problems and focus on this one event, which, as Eliza seems to be displaying, is going to be fun.

  “First, I’ll give you the basics,” she says, turning to me, the field behind her. “We pass through the living—anything with a heartbeat. Flesh doesn’t exist in our world. A human or animal can simply walk through us, completely unaware we occupy the same space as them. However, if you concentrate, you can become one with them—momentarily share the same body. Objects that aren’t living are just as real to us as they are to humans…but there are exceptions. Like a ghost, you can walk through walls. It’s not always the most enjoyable sensation. You can’t merely walk through a wall. You have to force yourself and concentrate on where you want to go.” Eliza looks over at the deer in the field.

  “Today I will show you how to haunt. I’ll show you how it’s done,” Eliza says, smiling.

  She walks over to the largest deer and stands beside him. He looks at her for a moment before turning his attention back to the food in front of him. She holds out her hand, like she is going to pet him, but instead she vanishes.

  The deer stops eating and looks up in all directions. It starts walking toward a small family of birds and jumps up in an unnatural way, its legs bucking out like an untamed horse kicking off its rider. The birds fly away from the deer, and Eliza shows up again next to the deer. At ease, the deer begins to turn around to eat in peace again.

  “What did you think?” she asks, walking back to where I stand.

  “You did that?” I say, pointing toward the deer, now completely immersed in eating again.

  “Well, yeah. Have you ever seen a deer do that before?” Eliza starts laughing. The large deer lifts his head to us for a moment, as if he can hear our voices and then turns to the grass once more.

  “I have now,” I say, joining her in the thrill of laughter.

  “Okay,” Eliza says, hands on hips, standing beside me. “All you really have to do is think about the person or animal you are trying to haunt, then you just touch them. Once you’re inside, you’re back in the real world. You can’t see another Essence or hear them. You become that entity.”

  “I thought you said animals could see us?”

  “Vaguely. So when I haunted that deer, I knew you were here, because there was a purple spot in the field, but that’s all.”

  I nod, encouraging her to continue.

  “Anyway, if you want them to do something, all you have to do is think it. And when I say think it, I mean you really have to try hard and focus. Shout it in your head. When I wanted the deer to jump, I just shouted ‘Jump!’ almost as if I was saying it out loud.”

  I remember when my soul had haunted me and how it would command me to do its bidding. Walk into the trees, now! No matter how much I wanted to stop, I couldn’t. Haunting is just as bad as it sounds, no matter how fun Eliza makes it appear. When I was being haunted, I had no control over my body, but I have to show my parents the truth. I have to release them. It will be cruel and heartbreaking for my parents to see my lifeless body, but it has to be done.

  “That’s it? That’s all it takes?” I ask. It sounds too easy.

  “It may sound simple, but it’s not. If you don’t have a good soul, you can’t haunt people.” Eliza bends down to pick some wildflowers and stands up again, still mesmerized by the simple piece of nature she holds.

  “What do you mean, good soul?” I ask, looking at the small purple flower with a spot of yellow in the center, while she spins it between her fingers.

  “Basically if you use your powers to hurt other people, you can’t haunt. It’s for the sake of the humans. Would you want some psycho haunting you?”

  I shake my head, agreeing with her, while she tosses the flower to the side and waits, looking at me.

  “I’m not sure how that works really. I’ve seen it happen before. Some group wanted to use human bodies to play a prank, but when they tried to haunt them, they couldn’t do it. Try and try again, they just couldn’t gain access to a body.”

  “So how do I start?” I ask, looking around at all the animals that scatter the field, all of them eating.

  “Well, what animal do you want to haunt?” she asks, trying to find where my gaze is searching.

  Around the field there are mostly deer eating and small birds hopping around. I decide on the deer, because the birds will be too hard to catch. I point toward the smallest doe, seeing if Eliza approves.

  “Okay, now just walk up to it and think about it. You will know when it’s working,” she says, finding a spot to sit on the grass, crisscrossing her legs, preparing to watch me haunt for the first time.

  At first I just stand there, a mere foot from the doe. I concentrate. I feel foolish thinking to myself, “I’m a deer.” Then, slowly…I reach out my hand to touch the doe, like Eliza had said. There is an underlying caution in me as I expect the animal to run at my contact, but she doesn’t.

  All at once warmth goes through me. Suddenly I can feel the fast heartbeat of the young deer, the grass underneath its feet, the sun on its back. With each beat of the heart, I feel a jolt of blood racing through the body I now occupy. I’m alive again.

  Must eat fast, must stay safe.

  I hear the deer think inside my own mind. Her thoughts are frantic, never resting or taking comfort in the fact of having fresh greens in front of her to survive. The only thing she seems to concentrate on is staying alive.

  I can’t figure out why the deer is so nervous, but when I feel a stabbing pain in my back leg, I realize I’m injured.

  “Walk,” I order, trying to test the leg and assess what happened. When the small doe tries to obey me, I can only hear an eerie cry escape from its mouth as it follows my orders.

  “Look at your leg,” I tell the doe.

  When the small back leg comes into view, I can see that it’s bloody and mangled. The doe isn’t putting any weight on it, balancing on just three legs, her mind still preoccupied with thoughts of eating and trying to stay alive.

  “What happened?” I ask myself.

  Bears. Bears everywhere. One big, others small; laughing at us. Wants to eat us. Momma’s gone. Papa left us; he left a’runnin’. Don’t care about us. Only his safety. Big black bear took Momma and gave her to little bears. Saw it meself—bloody. Big bear went after me, but I gots away. Leg hurts. Tummy hungry…always hungry.

  I didn’t even realize the doe had heard me ask the qu
estion, but I can play out the event in my head so clear now, as if she was replaying the entire thing before me.

  Chepi—the small doe—was looking for food with her parents, when they encountered a family of bears; one large mother protecting her two cubs. The mother bear went after the nearest target for food—Chepi’s mother. Her father fled the scene at first sign of distress, and Chepi sat by as she watched her mother eaten alive. Only after the mother bear began to target Chepi, did she leave.

  She’s lucky to leave with only a broken leg. They must have strayed from the herd at one point, but it seems Chepi has found her way back.

  “Chepi,” I say. “What does your name mean?”

  I be named after Fairies. I sees them. Two were here today. One be purple—that one was nexts to me. Other be orange—that Fairy be overs there. Orange glow spot. Don’t know where’s purple gone. Here it was though. They comes to see me herd. Said to keep the monsters aways from us. Theys keeps us safe.

  “What monsters?”

  We ’uns have a legends about them monsters. We lived here first, then they comes to kill us. They be dark color, walk on two feet like bears. Wore our families on them—showing pride mes think. Theyed have big sticks and throw them through ours bodies. They eat as like the bears did with my momma. Then more did come. These monster different color. They said they weres ‘American’ and killed ‘Natives’. Theys haves ‘slaves.’ They be brown, but theys calls them ‘black.’ They be whipping them. These monsters be worse. They have things that make big bang and kills us—‘guns’ they called it. They kills their own kin too. They kills many. They make lines—theys call it war. We gots in middle of alls it. Whiles monsters kills themselves, we gots killed too. Nows they have more things that make bang and biggest thing kills home. They calls it ‘dozer.’ They be taking our forest. They be laughing at us. But we gots Fairies. They comes here, and they be nice. They knows monster, and they will stops them someday. Then we be safe.