The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3) (47 page)

“You do what you have to do, and I will be here when you come back. You find me and tell me that you are done with all this, that you are serious about us now.”

“I can’t ask that of you. I can’t do this to you.” I was really taken by his forbearing attitude toward me. How did he manage to do that?

“Then don’t. I will do it because I want to. I want you to have closure. Leave me and go and look into his eyes. Then come back to me. I have waited so long for you to come into my life, I can wait a couple more weeks.”

So I left Mick sitting at the cliff. I gave him one last kiss before I flew back to the castle. I fell asleep feeling happy and peaceful inside. This would work out. Now all I had to do was to get this done. I had to face Jason and get the closure once and for all.

The other students at the school weren’t as forgiving and forbearing as Mick. The next day I was still the social outcast and only Abhik and the girls from my dorm would speak to me. But I didn’t care about everybody else anymore. Mick and I were good, he was still my friend, and even if he didn’t talk to me during the day, I hadn’t lost him. He just kept his distance and gave me the space I had requested. And when the delightful food suddenly came back after the night at the cliff, people became milder in their view of me. I was still the selfish, heartbreaking monster who had destroyed their possibility of ever entering the Phoenix Garden, but I could live with that. Mick wasn’t depressed any longer—slightly heartbroken, but still filled with hope. I hoped I wasn’t going to let him down again. 

When I met Mick in the Hall or in one of the corridors we smiled a secret smile like secret lovers and hoped that no one would notice. We still had something between us, something no one else would understand.

On Tuesday we had our first lesson in flying faster than light. Professor Grangé had screwed his head back on his shoulders as he always did when we were about to learn something new, something dangerous or wild. And according to him, flying faster than the speed of light was the wildest thing we would ever do. If we ever got this, then he wouldn’t be able to teach us anything more.

“But alas, there is still a long way for you. It is not something that is easily learned. Most of you will never get it.”

Nigel raised his hand in the air.

“
Oui
, Nigel?”

“Does that mean that those who never get it will not graduate?”

The professor shook his head. It looked at little shaky to me, but that was probably only because he wasn’t used to having the head sitting there.

“Of course not. Not to worry,
mon ami
. You have all learned enough by now to graduate from my class. Exams will be a piece of cake for you. This is extra. It is not something I teach all of my classes, so please enjoy it.”

He brought us outside into the yard. The fall colors had driven away those of summer and made the trees brown, yellow, and orange. Soon snow would arrive and the butterflies in the Butterfly Garden would go away and not return until spring. A herd of deer grazed near the forest. Every now and then, one of them would lift his head and stare at us to see if we came closer and would pose a possible threat to the herd. I had learned in Mrs. Ohayashi’s class about how we should be careful about animals on earth, because they could always sense us even when we made ourselves invisible to the human eye. A reaction from an animal could give us away or at least make the humans worry that there was something to fear. 

The professor made us all stand in line while he spoke. I turned my attention away from the deer and concentrated on what he said.

“There really isn’t much technique to it. If you want to go this fast, then it is all about speed. You need to be able to fly really, really fast.”

No surprise in that
, I thought to myself. I was curious though. I wanted to try this. Maybe I would be able to go back in the past.

“But remember, it is one thing to fly faster than the speed of light by a split second, but going back in time is a totally different thing. That is not easy. It is only the Angels who normally do that.”

Nigel raised his hand again. “Has a spirit ever done it?”

“It has happened, yes. But it has been many years since we last had a student who was actually able to go significantly back in time. A student four years ago went six seconds back in time. About twenty-five years ago we had a student who was able to go back fifteen minutes. And that is still the school record.”

I was a little disappointed I had to admit. In the first lesson the professor had put it like it was possible for all of us to go back in time. I raised my hand. “So it is, in fact
not
possible for us to go back in time, is that what you are saying?” I asked.

The professor lifted his forefinger and approached me. “Oh, but it is
possible
just not very
realistic
. There is a distinct difference between the two words.”

“I don’t see that.”

The professor cleared his throat before he spoke. “It is possible, because you have the power and the ability to fly this fast.”

“Then why doesn’t everybody do it all the time?” I asked.

“Ah, now that is the right question to ask. Why doesn’t everybody, every spirit—do this all the time? Well, remember when we had our first lesson out here in the yard and you were going to try to fly for the first time? I told you it was all in your head. Your body was suited and able to fly, but if you didn’t think you could, that it would never happen. On earth you can’t fly because of the weight of your body and gravity, but this body you have now only weighs 23 grams, so you can float in the air and even sit on the big clouds and balance on rainbows. But it is all about what is in your head. Now Nigel here didn’t think he could fly, so he stayed grounded while the rest of the class soared into the air in the first try. Now why was that? Because he didn’t think it was possible. His mother had told him to stay with both feet on the ground, his teacher in school had told him that flying as a human is impossible unless you sit in an airplane. And Nigel always listens to what people tell him, he is used to obeying his mother and his teacher, therefore it took him longer to believe in it. But now he does, and he is flying just as nicely as the rest of you. He will never be as bold as many of you, but we are all different. If he believed in it he would be able to fly as well as any of you, and maybe one day he will.”

“So it is all in our heads?” I asked. During my time here at the Academy I had heard that sentence a lot. It was like everything a little supernatural was all about what we believed we could do. So if I just believed in it enough could I go back in time?

“Yes. Everything is in the head: flying, going through walls, making yourself invisible to humans, and so on.”

“Does that mean that I can do anything if I believe it enough?”

“Yes, it actually does. We all have areas and abilities where we believe in ourselves more than others, and that is why we are good at different things, and have different talents, but in reality we can all do the same things. There are no boundaries to what you can do in the Spiritual Realm.”

It was like a huge revelation for me. I could do anything? Could I do what Mick did? Could I make food appear whenever I wanted to, just by rubbing my hands? My head reeled and I felt like the world whirled around me. I heard my own breath while everybody else became quiet for a long time. Could this be? I looked at the palms of my hands. They still looked the same, but they felt different. I started rubbing them against each other and closed my eyes. While everything was still spinning I felt my hands become hot, almost burning. I opened my eyes and saw smoke come out from them. Then I opened them. Between my hands I held a small bird. It was plain brown except for a reddish tail and a white breast. It opened its beak and started singing the most enchanting song I had ever heard: whistles, trills, and gurgles. The professor approached me with eyes wide open. The rest of the class got out of line and surrounded me while gasping.

 ”
Luscinia Megarhynchos
, also known as Rufous or Nightingale,” the professor said with astonishment in his voice. The bird kept singing until it suddenly lifted off and flew toward the forest. I was in shock. Had I done this? My classmates and the professor stared at me.

“You, Meghan, have a very strong faith,” the professor said. “It has been years since I last saw a student do something like that. That was a beautiful display of what I had just told you. It is possible for anyone of you to do incredible things, but not everybody has the faith in themselves.”

I shrugged and smiled insecurely at the staring faces.

“How did you do that?” asked Nigel.

“I … I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t tell them that I was in fact trying to make some food appear like Mick did it, but somehow that had produced a bird. I had no idea why that was.

“You are very strong,” said the professor. “A lot stronger than you think. Normally doing a thing like that, like flying really fast, drains all of your energy, but you seem like it was hardly anything—like you used no effort at all. It is very interesting … very interesting.”

I felt like a science experiment the way he looked at me with his hand on his chin. I didn’t feel faint at all from doing this and I didn’t when we began practicing fast flying on a track either. I was still in shock and didn’t put my best into my efforts. Still I managed to fly faster than any of my classmates without even breaking a sweat. I didn’t feel any different, but still I sensed that something was happening to me.

I was getting stronger.

C
HAPTER 14

T
HE NEWS OF MY
little magic trick in the school yard spread faster than the news of me breaking off the marriage. And it made everybody forget about what I had done. Suddenly I was the talk of the school again, this time in a positive manner. People looked at me with an impressed smile or stared at me in awe as if I would suddenly able to transform them into a frog or something. What they didn’t know was that I had no idea what this meant or what I was capable of doing. Even though I enjoyed this new discovery, it scared the heck out of me as well. Would I be able to control it? Would it give me more trouble than blessing? I didn’t even know what to do with this, or if I could do it again.

The only one I could talk to about it was Mick, since he had the same gift. So I slipped him a note during lunch break and asked him to meet me in the Butterfly Garden after classes. He was already there when I came. He stood with his back turned to me as I sneaked up on him from behind. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but hesitated. We weren’t in a relationship for now and I was in no place to be leading him on. I had to do this right and be careful not to hurt him again. So instead I just placed myself right next to him.

“Thanks for coming,” I said. I turned and looked around the garden, happy to see that we were alone.

Mick hushed me and pointed at something. I stretched my neck and looked in the direction he was pointing. I couldn’t see anything. “What are we looking at?” I whispered.

“Look, over there,” he said and pulled me closer while still pointing. I inhaled his scent while I was looking.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look closer.”

I tried again and this time I saw it. Far far in the distance I could see what looked like a long horn sticking out from the forest. There was a head too. It was moving. I held my breath. It was the unicorn! I had waited to see it. Adahy, our riding instructor, had told me once that it lived in the forest, but no one I knew had ever seen it. Now we were staring right at it.

“Is that what I think it is?” I said.

Mick hushed me again. Then he whispered. “It is rubbing its horn on one of the trees. They do that to remove insects from it.”

“Wow. That’s amazing,” I whispered.

Mick looked at me and smiled. “I know. It must have known that we were meeting here. They love romance, and seek to be near it. At least so I have heard.”

I kept staring at the unicorn’s head until it turned and went back into the forest. I felt lightheaded. A lot of magic for just one day, I thought.

“So you wanted to see me?” asked Mick as we sat down on a bench.

“Yeah. I have some unanswered questions.”

“I heard about your little trick today. Was it an eagle?”

I scoffed. People and their talking. Of course a small bird would quickly become an eagle. I corrected him. “A nightingale.”

“You made a nightingale appear between your hands?” He looked at me with a grin. “And it was alive?”

I nodded.

“Making things appear is my territory,” said Mick still grinning.

“I know. That’s why I came to you.”

 “I have to admit I was a little proud when I heard about it. I took it as a sign that we were meant to be with each other.”

I smiled but didn’t comment on that. I wasn’t there to talk about us. “The thing is I don’t know how I did this and I don’t know what it means.”

Mick laughed a light laughter. “I know how that feels. The first time I made something appear out of my hands it was a blueberry. But it was small and inedible.”

“I was actually trying to make some food appear, like you do, but instead I made a bird. Why do you think that is?”

Mick shrugged. “You are untrained. You haven’t figured out how to do it right yet—how to make things appear that are what you actually intended.”

“Have you always been able to do that?”

“No, in the beginning I made all kinds of things appear, even things I didn’t mean to.”

“Like what?”

“Once when I was still in school I wanted to make myself a new hat. I was tired of the old one, so I wanted something new to put on my head, but instead of a hat I made a lobster, cooked with butter and everything.” Mick laughed again.

“So it has always been food?”

“I guess so. Every time I tried to do something else, only food would appear, so I figured that was my gift. Salathiel heard about my talent and suggested that I stay at the school and became the chef here. It was nice to find a way of using it to make people happy.”