Indelible (20 page)

“Mrs. Hewett is going to shoot you,” I said.

“Nah, she loves me. All teachers do.” Cherie closed her laptop. “I figure after all the fighting Sophia’s been doing, she’s going to need to re-charge her batteries so we won’t know for awhile how effective the new decorations are, but it should help. Like I said it’s Vovó-approved.”

“Thank you Cherie.” I gave her a hug.

Cherie pulled back, crinkling her nose. “This wasn’t a pure act of service. I have to share a room with you and if you stink then I’m the one who suffers.” She pulled out my bathroom bucket from behind her back and shoved it at me.

“I can take a hint,” I said before heading toward the shower.

v

When I entered the cafeteria the next day, DJ was waiting for me with a smile on his face and a new and improved flour baby. He had assembled her into a much cuter specimen than my own creation had been. “Here’s the changeling.”

“Thanks.”

“And I have this too.” He looked both ways and leaned a little closer “The remains of our first child. I thought we should be together for the funeral.” He took the bag back and dumped it in the trash. “Any last words?”

I laughed. “Thank you for the replacement.”

“No problem. It’s the least I could do.” He rocked back on his heels. “I sort of blame myself for that whole incident.”

“I do too. I’ll see you in class,” I said, slipping past him and walking over to where Steve and Cherie were waiting in line to get food. DJ watched for a minute before leaving.

“What were you guys talking about?” Cherie asked.

“My failed attempt at child care.”

After we got out our food. I plunked my battered tray down and slid in between Audrey and Brent.

“I have to know,” Audrey said. “How did you get that bruise on your neck earlier this month? I’ve heard all the rumors but I want to know the truth.”

Audrey must have noticed something strange in our expressions. Audrey had been the most reluctant in our group to delve into the paranormal, but was starting to get used to our shop talk.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s a ghost thing right?”

“Yep.” Cherie took a bite of her waffles. “Sophia, the ghost from the internship party has been stalking her.”

Audrey’s brown eyes widened.

“Yeah,” I joked, “despite the rumors, Brent isn’t beating me.”

“What?” Brent choked on his potatoes. “People are really saying that?”

“That’s the most popular rumor.” Audrey spread jam on her toast. “But I also heard you and Kelsey got into it after she posted the video of you punching the mirror on the internet.”

“Oh man, someone did get it on video?” I dropped my head to my hands.

“Yeah, it went viral,” Steve said. “You’ve had 6,000 hits.”

“You all knew? About the video online, and the rumor that Kelsey beat me up?”

Everyone nodded.

“Like she’d have been able to beat me up that bad and walk away without so much as a scratch.” The sudden silence at the table made me frown. “What, you don’t think I could take her? I’ve got a couple of moves.”

Again silence, except for Brent, who was snickering.

“Fine. I know she’s tough, but I am too. I could have schooled her. Well, I could have thrown a calculus book at her. Then ran and hid.”

Brent laughed outright. “She does have some mad book-throwing skills.” He rubbed his temple where my calculus book had given him a killer bruise last year. “So I was thinking, we should do some training tomorrow. We need to get you in peak shape so you can stand up to Sophia.”

“Good idea.” I was tired of being the victim, especially after this last incident in the pool house. I was up for anything to make me stronger.

Chapter Ten

That evening Vovó called. She was going to be running errands and wanted to know if I had time for a visit. I told her sure and that I’d meet her in the commons building at eight. I wandered down there early and decided to study while I waited for her. But instead of reading or making flash cards for an upcoming quiz, I found myself eavesdropping on conversations.

The room was filled with gossip about the pool house and its shattered windows. From the rumor-mill, it sounded like we were home free. The rumors were outlandish, from a terrorist bomb to a science experiment gone wrong. Others thought of something more mundane, like sabotage from a rival swim team. Fortunately, the truth would have been even harder to believe, and no one mentioned DJ or me being seen anywhere near there.

Vovó arrived just after eight. She walked with purpose, a pink shoebox tucked under her arm. I waved her over and she sat down across from me. She wore a big, white, visitor’s sticker on her floral shirt. She pulled a container of homemade cookies out of her purse and slid them across the table to me.

I took one out and bit into the chocolate chip goodness. The sweet flavor melted on my tongue and made everything in the world seem better. I had already filled her in on everything that had been happening, and I wanted to ask what she thought of it all, but I knew how easy it was to eavesdrop on conversations here.

So instead I asked her, “What’s up, Vovó?”

She pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Querida, last summer wasn’t enough training. I think you need more.”

The chocolate in my mouth suddenly tasted bitter. I made sure my voice was too quiet to travel to the next table. “What I need is to get rid of Sophia permanently. How is your plan coming? It’s been almost a month since you agreed to help me. She should be gone by now. If we can’t get her to move on peacefully, then we need to banish her. She needs to go.”

“Again with the talk of banishing. Don’t you remember you decided she needed your help?”

“Yes.”

“You are missing the point of what we do. It takes time.” Vovó rested her elbows on the table and took my hand. “Helping a ghost isn’t always easy or convenient but it’s worth it.”

“I don’t have time.”

“You must make the time. Not only with helping ghosts but with your Waker studies. You need another summer, and at least one more year of training with me. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

“I’m not sure if I’ll even survive the rest of this year.” I folded my arms and rested them on the table. “Vovó, I can’t spend another year with you in Brazil. I have to go to college in the fall.”

“Your parents and I have talked about this. We all agree that you should put off college for a year and spend that time with me in Brazil, training.”

It felt like my world had fallen out from beneath my feet. “What?”

“Your parents and I agree it might be in your best interest to defer school for a year and train.”

I shook my head. “No. There is no way mom would agree to this.”

“It was her idea. She saw your stitches, your bruised wrist, your strangled throat. You drowned last year. Your mom wants to protect you, and she knows that avoiding it isn’t going to help you. We all want you safe, Yara.”

I slammed my hand down on the table and Vovó startled a bit. “I don’t want to do this. I’m going to Columbia. I’m going to be a journalist. You don’t get to make those decisions for me. I don’t want this to be my life. I don’t want to—”

“To be like me. I know.” Vovó’s bottom lip quivered. She ran her hand along her forehead. “You don’t have a choice about being a Waker, Yara. I’m sorry. This is your life. You have much to learn. There is still much you don’t know about herbs, about our legends, about other techniques to help ghosts. It will take months, possibly years to study. You have to have a strong foundation to build upon. Yara, your powers are strong. But you need to learn how to use them. You can do things no woman in our family could do before. You need to be trained to protect yourself. I won’t always be here and I need to pass on everything I can to you.”

Despite my anger, her words softened my heart. “Vovó, you are an amazing woman, but. . . ”

“Just think about it, Yara. We aren’t forcing you to do this. It is your choice. Completely.”

“You never asked Melanie to make this choice. She was able to go to college.”

“She had been training with me her whole life. And she has never run into murderous ghosts before. But even if she had, she’d have been more prepared.”

Of course it would all come back to my years of hoping I’d never become a Waker and avoiding the lessons my grandma had tried to teach me. If that were true, then this year off from school would be my own fault. I didn’t want to think about that.

I picked up another cookie and tried to think of something else to talk about. “I think I saw a Waker in the store a while ago.”

“You probably did.”

“Really?” I took a bite. “You knew about them?”

“Of course. The term ‘Waker’ is American.”

“Why haven’t you ever told me about them?”

She shrugged. “You never asked.”

“But if they exist, I can study here and still go to school.”

“The training, even here in the United States is usually done by the matriarch of the family. But I suppose you could ask.” Her lips drooped into a frown. She slid the pink box across the table to me. Inside were several different colored capsules. They looked like vitamins.

“What are these?”

“I knew the idea of you giving up your next year for training wouldn’t be easy for you, so I brought a peace offering.”

I picked up gel-cap filled with blue powder. “What do they do?”

“They’re kind of a . . . time slip pill. When you told me about time freezing for you when other people were projecting, it made me consider what I know about astral projecting. It seems to you like time freezes, right?”

I nodded.

“Time doesn’t really stop, it just slows down. A lot. Anyway, it creates a small area of time . . .
distorção
?”

“Distortion,” I translated.

“Yes, distortion. It bends time in that little spot, like the dip when you stand on a trampoline. Then it bounces back when the body and spirit reconnect. Your body shaking with cold is from that bounce. With the barrier up, anytime anyone projects on campus, everyone is affected. But outside it is a much smaller area, maybe like a small city block.”

She reached out and grabbed a cookie for herself. “It’s a lot more complicated to explain about what happens to people who move into the dip when it’s in progress. But that doesn’t really matter. This concoction will let your body keep up with the spirit, and help you move while others are projecting.”

“In my body?”

She nodded.

“Wow. Will it work for everyone?”

“Yes. Even those without the ability to project.”

“Cherie is going to love this. How do you know all this?”

She gave me a sad smile. “Years of study and continued research. What I do, it isn’t easy. It’s a full time calling.”

I swallowed hard and tears swam in front of my eyes. “I know Vovó. I’m just not sure I want it to be mine.”

“I know, Querida, but it has chosen you. Will you at least consider what I’ve said?”

“I will, Vovó.”

v

The next afternoon, Lesley had Brent and me drive to the original Alumni House to pick up some boxes that hadn’t been brought over yet. We knocked on the door, and a very small, wrinkled, gray-haired lady opened it.

“Are you here for the boxes?” She shouted above the sounds of power drills, saws and other construction equipment at work.

“Yes!” I shouted back.

She opened the door. The interior of the house was totally different. It was a construction zone disaster. The furniture had all been removed. Wooden walls had strips missing, parts of the floor had been torn up.

“Sorry it’s so loud. We had to fix some code violations, and it’s a mess.” she said. “These boxes here are for you. Thank Lesley for picking them up for me.”

“Sure thing.” Brent managed to pick up the three heavy boxes himself. They were all labeled ‘yearbooks.’ I took the long rolls of blueprints and tucked them under my arms before opening the door for him.

When we got back to campus, Lesley thanked us profusely and let us go early for the day.

True to his word, Brent hauled me out to the tennis courts to practice my telekinesis. We decided to train in astral form today. A light breeze stirred the air, providing relief for the still-warm afternoon. I looked up at the cloudless sky and grinned.

Training was really helping me work out some the current frustrations of my life. It felt good to stretch myself and see what I could do.

“So did you get hold of your dad yet?”

“No, but I’ve talked to his secretary. His voicemail and I are fostering an intimate relationship, and his inbox is full of messages from me. If he knew how to text message, I’d be doing that too.”

“How long until he’s home?”

“I don’t know. This is the time of year he travels the most for work. He could be gone for more than a month.” Brent tossed a ball at me. “Try and move this back to me.”

“So we don’t know anything new then?”

“Nope. Except that my dad really doesn’t care about me. Oh, wait. I already knew that.”

I pointed my finger at the ball and it moved a few inches.

“Not bad,” Brent said, “but try again. I know you can move it farther.”

I squinted at the tennis ball that I was trying to move from one side of the court to the other. It gave a feeble wiggle and rolled a few inches before stopping.

“DJ must have been wrong. There is no way I could have moved the entire pool of water. I can’t even move a ball while projecting, when I’m more powerful.”

Brent shrugged. “People have been known to pick up an entire car under extreme amounts of stress.”

“And you think the pool thing was the Waker equivalent?”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

I frowned. “Fine, but I’d prefer to be able to use telekinesis when my life isn’t in danger.”

“Well,” Brent said, staring at the tennis ball, which had started rolling again, “at least you have the comfort of knowing that you can do it when you really need to.”

“I guess that’s something.” I put my hand out over the ball, concentrating. It levitated for a few second before dropping and bouncing away. “Being a Waker is ruining my life.”

“You thought you’d just live your normal life and help ghosts on the side?”