The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3) (56 page)

“Yes, I mean, my assignment is to bring her here, to the Academy, so I guess you will see her.”

Mandy smiled widely, then she leaned over and gave me a huge hug. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I had almost given up ever seeing her again.”

My heart was beating fast now. Somehow I had made this possible. It felt strange, but when I added it all up, it was because I went back in time and changed her destiny that I made it possible for her family to be with her soon. It almost gave me a headache to think of it, but it seemed like someone had planned this all along. But what I didn’t understand was what had changed in Rosey from the last time her daughter had visited her until now. Why was I suddenly able to reach her spirit if they weren’t able to do that before? Rahmiel had told me that only the Se’irims would have been able to take her if she had died eight years ago in that fight. Why was it different now?

I wasn’t sure it even mattered any more. I was just happy to make someone else happy.

“So what did you need us to do?” Mandy asked.

“I want you to help me with something. I want to bring some peace into your mother’s mind during her last days on earth. She deserves it. She is so tormented and has been for years.”

They looked at each other and nodded. “That sounds like something we could do.”

“I believe something is happening to her, in her, since she is able to go with me when she dies, and she is constantly looking at this picture of you and talking to you, telling you that she is certain you will see each other again. So I was thinking that we should give her a little peek, so to speak. Let her see you two for a short period of time and let her know that you are all right. She worries about where you are and if you are well.”

John nodded pensively. “We have thought about it several times, but she hasn’t been in any state where she was able to see us.”

“I think she is doing better.”

“It sounds like a great idea. But how?” asked Mandy

“I want you to come to her in a dream. Tell her that you are doing great, that you love her. She needs to hear that.”

Mandy sighed. “I have tried it once, but both my dad and I are horrible at catching dreams.”

“Well I am good at it,” I said. “I will do it for you.”

C
HAPTER 24

 “
A
RE YOU SURE THAT
you don’t want me to come with you?” Mick asked as we were about to leave the kitchen. He pulled me aside. “I have done this a lot of times before.”

I looked at him and sighed. “I don’t think that is such a great idea.”

“You have been out of class for more than a week. You are out of training. You weren’t even there when they were shown how to open a dream. All you know is to catch it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked to Abhik yesterday. I asked him about it because I was concerned that you might be in over your head.”

“So you have been talking to others about me, but not to me?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to see me again.”

I swallowed hard. He was right. I had no idea what to do after I had caught the dream. I hadn’t thought it through at all. I felt confused. I really didn’t want to spend any time with Mick. Not when I hadn’t told him. How could I? He would be so angry afterwards when I finally told him—angry that I kept it a secret from him. But I couldn’t tell him now. Not standing in the kitchen on our way out through the door with two people present whom we hardly knew. It just wasn’t the right time. I wanted to get this dream thing done as soon as possible. Rosey needed it, and so did I.

“Mick… ” I sighed. “I really don’t think … It’s just not a good idea.”

Mick grabbed my arm and held on to it. I was suddenly scared that he knew already. Did Rahmiel tell him? Could he maybe tell by the size of my abdomen?

“Meghan. I know you are still upset about what happened. So am I. And I am sorry. But don’t let it out on Rosey or her family. I really think you should let me go with you and help you with the dream. I am very good at it.”

I sighed deeply. I couldn’t see any way out of this. I really needed him there. “All right,” I said. “I guess we are all going.”

The silence hung awkwardly between Mick and me as the four of us flew toward the psychiatric hospital. I felt nauseous and couldn’t quite figure out if maybe morning sickness had arrived or if this whole situation made me sick to my stomach. Maybe it was flying again after my accident. I wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to be flying this far so close to getting out of the hospital. The doctor had told me to stay calm and get enough rest. This wasn’t exactly obeying doctor’s orders.

“So how have you been?” Mick asked after a while.

Is he trying to break the silence or is he really interested?
I asked myself. Should I tell him how I had been? Should I just tell him everything?

“I heard you were in the hospital”

“Oh, so you
do
know about that?” I asked sarcastically.

“I couldn’t help but hear about it. Everyone was talking about the girl who went back eight years in time. You broke all records. You know that, right? Not to mention all laws of physics.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “I guess people have been talking about that.”

“Oh yes, they have.”

I avoided looking at him but focused on my flying. I didn’t want him to see how disappointed I was that he hadn’t visited me at the hospital. But even though he didn’t see it, he knew me too well.

“So I guess I should have visited you while you were in there,” he said with humility.

I shrugged while still not looking at him. “I didn’t need you. We are no longer together. You have no obligations to me whatsoever.”

“Wow. Now I know I really should have come,” he said. “I am sorry. I just thought you needed the space. You have no idea how worried I was for you, but I honestly thought you didn’t want to see me again. Ever.”

Now I turned my head and looked at him. “Well I don’t. I don’t need you.”

“I hate myself for what happened that night. You must know that. I loathe myself. If I could go back and change it, I would.” He looked at me like he wanted my forgiveness. I wasn’t ready to give him that yet.

I sighed indifferently. His remark was ironic, given the latest events in my life, but I wasn’t going to go back in time and change what happened. We had created a life and even though the circumstances weren’t at all like I wanted them to be, I was pregnant and that child shouldn’t suffer the fate of not being born just because we were idiots. This whole situation was a mess, but at least something good would come out of it.

“What’s done is done,” I said and turned my head to focus on what was ahead of us. I hadn’t come any closer to figuring out how to tell Mick, but I wasn’t going to do it now. I didn’t feel ready for it. Some part of me didn’t want to see him happy. This baby was all he wanted. He wanted a family so badly. And now I was about to give it to him because he had acted like that. It was about to drive me crazy.

Soon the white buildings of the psychiatric hospital were beneath us. I saw Mandy stop and hesitate in the air. I grabbed her hand. “It will be all right,” I said as reassuringly as I could.

“I know,” she said and smiled at me. “It has just been so long …”

“She still thinks of you every moment of the day.”

“So do I … think of her, that is.”

“Have you prepared what you will say to her?”

Amanda’s dad came to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded. “I’m actually looking forward to seeing her. I just hope we will succeed.”

“I was just telling Amanda that it’s important you prepare what you are going to tell her when you go to her.”

“How long do we have?”

“To her it will seem like a long time, but in reality it will only be a few seconds, so think about what’s important for you to tell her and prepare a few lines,” Mick interrupted us.

John and Amanda looked at each other and smiled. “I think we are ready,” John said.

“Then let’s do it,” I said and started descending toward the roof of the hospital.

Rosey was already asleep as we entered her room through the roof. The family picture was still in her hand. She had fallen asleep while thinking of them. That was perfect. That way she would wake up thinking she had dreamed about them because she was thinking about them just before she went to bed.

“So what do we do now?” whispered John.

“You just get ready. Meghan will catch the dream and I will open it for you so you can jump in,” Mick said.

I flew toward Rosey lying in her bed. Quickly I spotted her dream. It was hiding next to Rosey’s right ear. “It is so small,” I whispered.

“That’s probably because she has just fallen asleep,” Mick said. “But size doesn’t matter. Just try to catch it.”

Remembering my childhood lizards again, I reached out and grabbed the dream before it managed to realize what was happening. It started moving around in my hands and it tickled, but I managed to hold on to it. It was yellow and very bright.

“It is a good one,” Mick said when I showed it to him. “Shouldn’t give us much trouble. Nice catch by the way.”

“So what do you do now?” I asked and looked at the small bubble. In it I spotted Rosey walking in a yard. She seemed happy. That was good.

“I need you to hold onto it, while I poke a hole into it with this.” Mick took out a thin sewing needle from his pocket. “Once I have done that, the two of you jump into the hole as fast as you can. We cannot have it open too long or other things will enter it too and it will go bad, filling Rosey with bad emotions and make her state of mind even worse. This is a hole into her mind and soul. We have to be careful what we let in.”

Mick lifted the needle high in the air and with great speed poked it straight through the bubble. A hissing sound filled the room, like air running out of a balloon. “Hurry up,” he said.

John and Amanda jumped toward the hole and soon their bodies oozed into the bubble. When they were inside, Mick closed the hole temporarily by putting his hand over it.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we wait.”

We watched the bubble and soon we saw Amanda and John appear in the yard as well. Rosey stopped and stared at them. Then she ran toward them with her arms wide open. All three hugged and cried. We couldn’t hear anything, other than a mumbling far away, as if people were talking in a room next door. 

A beautiful scene filled the bubble. They were talking, hugging and kissing each other, and by the look on Rosey’s face in the bed, she really enjoyed it. She was smiling and crying, but for once they were tears of happiness. I felt warm and had tears in my eyes as well from the love being shown here. This was really touching.

“When do we have to get them out?” I whispered to Mick.

He looked at the bubble for a moment, then back at me. “We have to get them out soon. The color has started to change.”

I looked closely at the bubble and realized he was right. It was beginning to have an orange color to it.

“If it gets red we have to pull them out immediately,” he continued.

 “Like put your hand in and take them out?”

Mick nodded. “It could get messy.”

“It is beginning to get a little muggy now,” I said.

“That’s bad,” he said and studied it closer.

A sort of fog inside the bubble made it unclear and hard for us to see what was going on.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“I need to get them out,” Mick said. He lifted his hand from the hole and put it inside. It was a little unclear what went on, but as far as I could see he grabbed John and pulled him out, then he went back and grabbed Amanda. As he pulled her out, the bubble turned dark red and strange noises came out of the hole in the top.

“How do we close it?” I yelled.

Mick took out the needle again and started closing the hole by sewing it back together with straight, neat stitches. I was shaking as I saw how Rosey’s face became anguished. She moaned and tossed in her bed. The fog slowly became lighter but the bubble was still dark red.

“Hurry up,” I said to Mick.

While he was sewing I suddenly saw something inside of Rosey’s dream. Something that made time stand still and caused me to drop the bubble. Apparently Rosey was now having a nightmare. In the dream she was bent over a dead body. She was crying and screaming. But it wasn’t her daughter or her husband’s body she was leaning over.

It was mine.

C
HAPTER 25

A
LL
I
COULD HEAR
was my own breath. Heavy and fast at once. As the bubble started falling toward the ground I heard screaming and yelling in the distance as well. But it seemed so far away. Like had it been a movie that had nothing to do with me. In slow motion I saw Mick throw himself toward the floor and catch the bubble before it landed.

“Meghan!” I heard him yell when he had carefully put the dream bubble back by Rosey’s ear. But it was like he was in a bubble himself. Or maybe I was. I couldn’t tell. I lifted my head and saw him move in front of me. His face was angry. “What were you thinking?” he yelled. But I never answered. I had completely withdrawn into my own world. I no longer cared about Rosey or her dream.

“Meghan!” Mick grabbed my shoulder and shook me. Finally I looked at him. “What is wrong with you?” he said.

I stood motionless for a long time, before I looked at Mandy and John who were standing behind him. “I … I … I,” I stuttered. Then I stopped. I couldn’t tell them what I had just seen. How could I?

“She has been under a lot of stress lately,” Mick said to Amanda and John. “She just got out of the hospital a few days ago. Maybe this was just too much for her.”

“Let’s help her get back,” John said.

I felt John and Mick grab my arms and lift me into the air. After a while I told them I was fine and able to fly on my own, so they let go of me, but Mick kept close. I felt him staring at me all the way back to the castle, but I didn’t pay any attention. Right now I didn’t care about him, the baby, Jason, or anything.