18 Thoughts (My So-Called Afterlife Book 3) (35 page)

My hand turned the knob.

Mom rubbed her temple. “What’s going on? You come home early from your date with Nate acting all weird, now he’s here, with Conner. And Conner says he’s back to his old self. Do his folks even know he’s in town again? Isn’t there a warrant out for his arrest?”

“I’m not sure.” It was my voice, but the sound pushed from my lips seemed foreign. “He date crashed us earlier, and we had a fight, so I left and came home. I didn’t want to talk about it, still don’t.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You just left Nate alone with him? On his birthday no less! Olga, at the very least, you need to come out of this bathroom and apologize to Nate.”

“Okay.” Again, the voice belonged to me, but I had no control over the words.

“Good. Your father and I will be in our room phoning Conner’s parents. We’ll leave the door open, so yell if you need anything.” She angled her body away from the door so I could walk past her.

Conner and Nate stood side by side in my living room. Nate leaned toward me, studying my eyes.
Nate, I’m here! I can’t control my body, but I’m still here. Please hear me! Sam is gonna try to hide in me so nobody thinks I’m possessed.

Nate took my hand. “Are you okay, Olga?”

I nodded, feeling buzzed like I had after those two drinks at Kyle’s house party in September. “I was too strong for Sam to hold on. He didn’t come back to Conner?”

Don’t listen to him, Nate! I’m here! I’m here!

Conner’s arms were tight over his chest. “I’m just fine and dandy. Why don’t we move this conversation to your back porch?”

I let Nate lead me outside, my ability to move my legs without my brain’s command a mystery. The three of us sat on the lush bank of the pond behind my building, our shoes dangling above the motionless water. A deer briefly lifted its head near a patch of duckweed across the way, eying us curiously before disappearing into the night. Ever since I’d moved into this apartment when I was eleven, Conner and I would come out here to talk, knowing our conversations could remain hidden here among the tall cedars.

Conner gently took my left hand while Nate still held my right one on the other side of me. Conner’s rough fingers felt warm against mine, dainty by comparison. An obvious vibration hummed inside me at his touch, something I didn’t feel when Nate touched me. It made me feel free, even though I wasn’t. Conner’s wrinkled brow, his flushed cheeks, and his concerned smile made me love him all over again.

“What do we do now that Sam is gone? Did he give you any clues as to where he was going?”

He’s right here in me!
Every cell in my body cried the truth, but there was no way to force the words to my lips. I thought maybe they’d at least see something different in my eyes, though I hadn’t always seen the change in Conner’s eyes… only when Sam got really angry. And for now, he was playing it cool.

“A spirit came to my aid. Said Sam was condemned back to hell forever. He won’t bother us again.”

Liar!

Conner nodded, smiling.

“Well, that’s extremely lucky for all of us,” Nate said.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. Olga is strong, too strong and too pure to be possessed.” Conner’s words gushed like tears. “And although what you did for me was brave, it was incredibly stupid. I thought I’d lost you.”

He brought his arms around me, holding me, but Nate refused to let go of my hand.

“Conner.” Mom’s voice reached through the darkness from the porch. “Your parents are here to take you home.”

“Crap. I’ll call you later, okay?” Conner’s whispered promise in my ear made me greedy for more of him.

I didn’t know if my personal demon’s lust made me crave his touch or if a stronger connection to his soul existed when I was really only in spirit form now. Or maybe there was a stronger connection because we shared the same demon.
Ugh.

Conner patted my leg, kissing my forehead before standing. “Take care of
my
girl tonight,” he told Nate. “And thanks for your help,” he added in a low rumble that sounded sexy as hell.

Nate and I sat in silence for a while. A breeze winnowed along the water’s edge and through trees, filling the air with the scent of wood smoke. Soon, I heard a car start and back out of the lot, and I figured that was Conner leaving with his parents. I watched my fingers skim the surface like water striders, creating ripples that carried my touch across the pond. I just wished my thoughts could still carry to Nate’s mind. I’d tell him all about the conversation I had with that young girl in my room, and about the one I overheard in Dr. Judy’s office yesterday with the angel. Wait, what was his name? That was weird; I could barely keep myself from thinking about him all day, and now the name eluded me. Riel! Yes, that was it. I wondered if he could help me. If only I would’ve told Nate about it earlier. Oh well. I might as well have some fun while I could. I lifted my wet hand and trailed it down Nate’s cheek, neck, and underneath the collar of his shirt to his shoulder.

His eyes lit up, but he gently took my hand away and held it firmly in his. “There will be time for that later. It’s been a busy day. I think you should rest, don’t you?”

I nodded, the need to shout any more thoughts at him disappearing as he began to hum—a soft, smooth tune mingling with the flutter of a sole bird overhead. A smile on my lips, I closed my eyes and let the rolling lullaby sing me to sleep, the invisible force keeping me trapped inside my own skin.

“Not until we are lost
do we begin to understand ourselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau

Nate

hen my alarm clock went off Tuesday morning, I tried not to panic. Since Friday night, I’d slept a total of six hours at best. School was the last place I wanted to be today. I needed to conduct more research. I’d had an extra day of investigating with President’s Day giving us a long weekend, but my research was turning up nothing but dead ends, and I needed to go to school to keep an eye on Olga.

My iPod lay on top of my sticker-encrusted desk, and I grabbed it, along with my laptop, and cleared away a pile of twisted blankets from my black futon before sitting. My ear buds blared “Hopeless Wanderer” by Mumford & Sons, fittingly singing about a heavy heart and clouded mind as I brought up the Internet. At the Google prompt, I typed more searches, trying different combinations in hope of some answers. Juvie. Camp Fusion. Leo. Dr. Judith Newton. Limbo. Real.

I laughed when the definition popped up for that last word: actually existing or happening, not imaginary. Because none of this could really be happening.

After Olga fell asleep Friday night, I carried her to her room and took the files she’d stolen from Sean’s cabin. She’d told me she hid them in her underwear drawer, figuring nobody ever looked there. I debated telling her parents about the possession before I left, but I didn’t want them to start acting differently and tip Sam off. The last thing I wanted was for him to disappear like he did with Conner. If Sam knew about my mind-reading trick, it was clear he didn’t think I could still hear Olga’s thoughts now that he’d taken over, but I could. The thoughts were faint, like an echo you hear far away, but still there.

All weekend, I devoured every article I could find on demon possession, searching for a way to get Olga back. When I returned from my day trip back home last Friday, I could tell she kept something from me, something having to do with Dr. Judy and somebody named Grace and another person named Real. But I could also tell she was keeping it from me because she wanted me to have a normal birthday, so I left the subject alone, figuring she’d tell me later that night or the next day at the very least.

Yeah, well, the best-laid plans.

But for whatever reason, Sam seemed bent on acting normal inside Olga. She showed up for work on Saturday, then spent that evening catching Conner up on some schoolwork. I guess even possessed Olga preferred his presence to mine if he was around, but I wasn’t giving up. All day and night, I scoured websites, looking for anything that would help me rectify the situation. I even went to the hospital, hoping to speak to Dr. Judy, only to learn she’d left town for another position. Another dead end. At this point, I came to expect those.

On Sunday, I made Conner go see Father Jamie with me. He prayed over Conner and gave the all clear that Conner was free from evil spirits. Then I told both of them about hearing Olga’s thoughts within her possessed body.

“You can’t cast a demon out of someone who has invited the evil spirit into them freely,” Father Jamie had explained.

“So there’s nothing we can do to help?” Conner asked. To his credit, he actually puked when I told him I could hear her trapped thoughts. The guy was as sick over this as me.

“I’m afraid that even as a man of the cloth, I’m ill-prepared to offer any answers in this particular area.”

Still, I went on to tell him about the files we discovered in Sean’s cabin, figuring he was our best chance at receiving any help, but he didn’t know how to interpret those, either.

“Stick to what you do know to help you. We know from Conner that demons can read the minds of the ones they possess, can acquire the knowledge and manors of their hosts. Imitate them. We know that the holy water and baptism only made the demon recede a little, not fully leave Conner. It didn’t leave until he had another place to go. In this instance, Olga’s body. Not all demons have a body, and that’s what we seem to be dealing with. In the Bible, Jesus once cast a demonic spirit into a herd of pigs.”

“But you said we can’t cast the demon out of Olga if she willingly invited it in,” I reminded Father Jamie.

“That’s correct. So use what else you know. You know you can read her mind. You know you shared waking visions with her when you meditated, which she once explained to me seemed like memories. Maybe those memories happened in a spirit realm you were together in called Limbo. Maybe Conner spent time in a realm called Camp Fusion. Could Leo and Real be the angels or demons in charge of the realms? Could they work with angels that walk among us? Dr. Judy, perhaps?”

That was forty hours ago. And forty hours after leaving Father Jamie’s office, the one thing I knew was I knew nothing. I stared at the computer screen, wondering what I’d missed, wondering if Father Jamie had been right about Real being an angel. For a good hour after I got home yesterday, I contemplated meditation to call upon him or Leo, but not knowing for sure what I was dealing with stopped me. No way was I willingly calling what could very well be demon spirits into my home.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts.

“Nate?” Mom’s voice. “Are you going to get ready for school?”

With nothing else left to do, I shut my laptop and hopped off my futon. “Be right out.”

A half hour later, the bell blared. My Adidas scuffed against the hard floor of the classroom as I made my way to an empty chair. I sighed heavily, slumping into the cold seat, then stashed my book bag between my feet as someone approached and passed me a handout. Looked like we had a substitute today. Awesome. Maybe I could get away with sleeping through class.

The sub clapped his hands together twice, calling the class to attention. “Good morning! Your teacher is running a little late today, so I’m filling in until she arrives. My name is Riel Taanach.” He pointed to the board behind him. “That’s spelled R-i-e-l, but pronounced Real as in, can this professor possibly be so freakishly young and good looking? To which the answer is, for real, which is my cheap trick of making you laugh by using an idiom that will hopefully make me seem younger than I am.”