Spirit (17 page)

“Yes,” he said,
“I told him. Shayna tried to get my attention in front of him. I thought she
was a poltergeist, so I banished her, then I started talking to Anthony. He
thought I sounded crazy to believe in ghosts, so I told him about us. I even
lit a candle for him.”

“And?” Jodi
breathed, captivated in spite of her anger.

“And he thought
it was a stupid parlor trick and still called me crazy. So, please, if you’re
gonna call me crazy too, just don’t. You can just go if that’s what you think,
and I’ll figure this out on my own.”

Jodi relaxed her
hands, her fingers white from blood loss, and just stared at him for a few
moments. She had to know how much it took for Steven to tell Anthony about our
powers. She couldn’t share that with any boyfriend she’d had yet. She had dated
Jay for years and never told him what she could do. I watched her eyes flick
around the room as if she was looking for something, maybe even for a sign of
me, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Fine,” she
finally said. “How do you know it’s Shay?”

“She answered
me.”

“What? Like you
could hear her?” she asked, her voice pitching in excitement.

“Sort of,” he
said. “When I banished her, she screamed my name, my whole name. Even Anthony
heard it.”

“Anthony heard
it and he still said you were crazy?” Jodi asked.

Steven went on
to tell her about the television flicking on and off and finally moving. Then
he told her, in detail, about the fight he and Anthony had even after they
heard me calling out Steven’s name.

“That doesn’t
tell me it’s Shay,” Jodi said. “That just tells me you have an intelligent
haunting or maybe even a faerie playing tricks on you. They could be giggling
right now.”

“No,” Steven
said slowly, his brow pinched as he thought about Jodi’s words.

“All right, if
you thought it was Shay, then why did you banish her from Anthony’s apartment?”
Jodi asked.

“I didn’t
realize it was her right away,” he said. His shoulders slumped as his head
dropped forward. “I thought it was a poltergeist, like I said, but when she
screamed my name, I realized my mistake.”

 
“Look, this proves nothing. We need to find a
way to talk to her or it or whatever,” Jodi said, waving her hand in the air.

“Right!” Steven
rushed to his nightstand and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.

“Dude, how is
she gonna hold a pen?” Jodi asked.

“Automatic
writing,” Steven said. My stomach knotted up against my spine. He was planning
to open himself up to me, for me to guide his hand and control him. I wasn’t
even a little bit okay with that; since I wasn’t there, anything could possess
him.

Steven sat
cross-legged on the floor with the pad of paper in front of him and closed his
eyes when he set the pen to paper. He swirled the pen on the page over and over
again, waiting for me to do something. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to
do a mini-circle or a banishing on the room to make sure I wasn’t the only
thing in there. I was gone for a couple of days, and that was what they did
without me? Seriously?

“Steven!” Jodi
dropped to her knees in front of him, making the tear in her tights stretch. She
reached out and placed her hands on his, stopping him. “Steven, stop.”

“Why? Do you
have a better idea?”

“You didn’t even
clean the room! You just opened yourself up just like that.” She snapped her
fingers for emphasis. She pulled the pen out of his hand as if afraid he would
start again if she didn’t.

“Oh, right,” he
said a little lamely, his shoulders slumping. “I guess I forgot.”

“Good job, Fae,”
I said gently.

“Besides, I
don’t think Shay would want to invade you to do this. We have to think of something
else,” Jodi said, practically reading my earlier thoughts and making me want to
reach out and hug her.

“Invade,” Steven
rolled the word around in his mouth. “Like possess?”

“Well, I’ve
never done it before, but yeah, I think that’s the general idea,” she said.
Steven shifted his weight from side to side as he thought about that. A sour
look crossed his face as he considered the implications of letting a spirit,
even a trusted one, possess him.

“What about an
Ouija board?” Steven asked.

“Shay would
never talk to us on one of those; she hated them, remember? Said they made you
an open door for any entity to possess you. It’s unprotected channeling.”

“Right,” Steven
said, looking defeated.

“I think we need
help.” Jodi looked up into Steven’s face.

“What’ve you got
there?” Jacob asked, startling me so badly I yelped in surprise and almost
dropped the looking glass.

“Sunnovabitch!”
I swore, closing my eyes for a second to compose myself. Balor lifted his head
and gave Jacob a bored look. He’d probably heard Jacob coming but didn’t smell
a threat in him, so he’d just ignored his approach.

“Sorry, didn’t
mean to scare you,” he replied, chuckling.

“Yeah, very
funny.” I lowered the looking glass to my lap, placing my hands over it as if I
could hide it. Balor sniffed the air and his ears perked up as he shifted to
place his feet under him. A moment later, I smelled what he did.

“Hungry?” Jacob
asked, pulling his hand out from behind his back to show a wrapped bundle. He
unfolded the cloth and revealed a few legs of roasted meat and torn pieces of
brown bread. I almost told him no, not wanting any favors from him, but then my
stomach rumbled, betraying me. With a grin, Jacob sat down cross-legged in
front of me and held the food out.

Balor whined
pitifully when I hesitated. With a huff of defeat, I took a piece of bread and two
legs, tossing one to the dog, who tore into it greedily. I started at the leg
suspiciously. It looked a lot like a turkey leg, but I definitely hadn’t seen
any turkeys around here.

“I have no idea
what it is,” Jacob said, reading my face. “But I’ve had one already and it
tastes just fine.” He smiled to make light of it, but I didn’t have it in me to
smile back. I sniffed the meat; it was charred, reminding me of campfire smoke
and vaguely of Steven.

He nodded when I
glanced up at him before he bit the remaining leg to show me it was in fact
fine. That thin broth hadn’t been enough after so long a day, so with a shrug,
I bit into the strange meat. It was salty and chewy, scorched from being too
close to the fire, but I was hungry enough it didn’t matter.

“Thanks,” I said
awkwardly, and Jacob nodded. We ate in silence for a time. I tore the bread
into bite size pieces, sharing them with Balor. That at least tasted totally
normal: a little sweet and salty, like honey oat bread.

I picked up the looking
glass when I was done and brushed the crumbs off of it, polishing the black
glass with the hem of my sweater, removing my fingerprints.

“What is that?”
Jacob asked again.

“Just a mirror,”
I said, hesitating a moment. I didn’t really want to tell him because I didn’t
want to share its precious secret.

“Doesn’t look
like a mirror,” Jacob replied. He stared at me, his eyes boring into mine,
daring me to lie to him. The food sat like a rock in my stomach.

“It, ah, it
shows you your home.” I held it out to him. Jacob reached for it and had to
yank it out of my hand.

“Home?” he
asked.

“Well, I’m not
really sure,” I said. “It’s been showing me my family. Mab said to think about
what you wanted to see, and then it will show you. So I guess it shows you home
if that’s what you want to see.”

“Ah,” Jacob said
with a nod. He gazed into the black glass, but it didn’t change. He turned it
over in his hands, admiring the silver handle and the stones before he handed
it back.

“You don’t want
to look?” I asked, feeling my eyebrows contract.

“Why would I?”

“Why
wouldn’t
you?”

“Because it
would be too painful, of course,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed,
clutching the cool silver handle. “But I don’t think I could bear the torment
of not knowing.”

“Because you
won’t move on,” he said.

“There’s nothing
to move on from,” I said, feeling my temper begin to boil again. “I wasn’t
supposed to die, okay? And I’m definitely not supposed to be here.” I waved one
hand around me. “It was an accident.”

“Most deaths
are,” he said.

“Ugh! Do you
just come around to argue with me? Because I get enough of that from Gwyn,
thank you.” I crossed my arms over my chest, holding the looking glass close
before shifting down to rest my head on Balor’s side. His breathing was slow
and measured, rumbling through his body and into mine. I closed my eyes, not
wanting to look at Jacob anymore; I had had enough of arguing and anger. I
wasn’t even sure why he kept coming around me now. The only reason I could
possibly think of was that he was sorry the only other human around here was
planning to leave. But that didn’t matter; I needed to focus. I could take
peace in knowing Steven wasn’t giving up on me and Jodi might be willing to
help. I needed to do what I could to get out of there. Maybe if I made it to
the edge of the Outlands, I could get back to my world and back to Jodi and
Steven. Once home, I would reach out to them, tell them to go find Iris or Liam,
someone with more power and experience in death to help us.

Jacob sat there
staring at me for more than a few moments, but I refused to open my eyes. He
could just sit there and stare until they broke camp if he wanted to; I would
not open my eyes. I curled my fingers around the edges of the looking glass,
clinging desperately to it, wondering what Jodi and Steven had said after I
stopped watching, wondering if they were making plans or still trying parlor
tricks to reach out to me. Damn that Jacob for interrupting me!

Finally I heard
his feet scrape the ground as he got to his feet. He took a loud breath as if
bracing himself to say something, but he must’ve thought better of it because
he never said a word. He just walked away. I cracked one eye open to watch him
go and felt a pang in my chest. When he disappeared between two tents and I was
sure he wasn’t coming back, I sat up.

Unable to help
myself, I lifted the looking glass again, gazing into it, holding onto the
image of Steven and Jodi together in his room. The black glass rippled as I
watched, clearing slowly until I looked down into Steven’s room. Before I could
hear what they said, Steven walked out of the room, leaving Jodi sitting on the
bed alone. Her eyes shifted right and then left and back again. She took a
breath as if to steel herself and then she spoke.

“Listen,” she
said quietly, and I knew she was talking to me. “If you aren’t Shay and you’re
just messing with Steven, with us, I’m gonna find a way to summon you and I
will destroy you. So think long and hard before he gets back here and decide if
your little fun and games are worth it.” As she spoke, and her anger rose, I
could see her wind building in the room. Her hair floated away from her face
and the curtains over the window billowed out, away from the wall.

I smiled down at
her and said, “I promise, Fae, it’s me.” Her head twitched to the side and her
eyes narrowed suspiciously, but before she could say anything else, we both
heard Steven’s footsteps coming back down the hall. In another moment, he stepped
into the room. Jodi’s wind didn’t die away immediately, like it should have
with the amount of power she had now – or at least had when I had died – but
rather it swirled around the room again and flew out the door when Steven came
through.

When the wind
blew past him, Steven sensed tension in the room. He stopped and glanced down
at Jodi, the tired smile on his face melting away.

“Everything
okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine,”
she replied. “Everything okay out there?”

“Oh, yeah, just my
little brother. He had to pee.” Steven shrugged.

“All right,”
Jodi said, exhaling loudly as she stood up. “So tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,”
Steven agreed with a nod. He reached out and took her hand to pull her into a
hug. Jodi stiffened, her arms at her side, but when Steven didn’t let go, she
finally lifted her arms and returned his hug. I bit the side of my cheek,
trying to distract myself from the pain in my chest as I watched them embrace.
If I ever got back to my world, I would grab hold of them and never let go.

“I don’t know if
I can contact him, you know,” Jodi said, turning her face to the side to be
heard, her cheek pressed into Steven’s chest.

“Maybe together
we can raise enough power and he’ll be able to hear you,” Steven said.

“What makes you
think Tegan can help?” Jodi took a half step back to look up into his face
while staying in the circle of his arms.

“I don’t know if
Tegan can help, specifically, but he can get our message to someone more
powerful,” Steven explained, making my stomach flip. Had they figured it out?
Were they going to contact Iris and make her help me? I gripped the looking
glass so tightly the edges nearly cut into my fingers.