Eyes to the Soul (16 page)

He smiled and walked closer. “As I said, in a lucid dream you can make things happen the way you want them to happen.”

“But I didn’t make the sun come out. You did.”

“Because that’s what you wanted. I couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

She shook her head. “Who are you that you can do this?”

“I’m the man in your dreams,” he said, his voice just short of amused.

And it clicked. “You’re the police consultant.”

And she woke up.

Dry-eyed, she stared at the ceiling mulling the impossibility of her dream. Resolutely she rolled over, determined to go back to sleep.

T
he next morning
Celina woke up slowly. It took a moment to realize the pain was gone and her body lay relaxed and at peace. She’d actually gotten some sleep – thanks to the knockout pills she’d taken. She checked out her body and realized that all in all, she felt pretty decent. Not sure why, but she’d take the gift. As she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her muscles moved smoothly and freely. No aches or stiffness from the horrible accident.

The thought reminded her that she hadn’t checked in on Jacob. Maybe she could visit him at the hospital today. Eagerly she stood and headed to the bathroom. The closer she went, the slower her footsteps. She lifted her head and wrinkled her nose. It smelled sweet. Normal. She stepped inside. It felt right again. She cocked her head and wondered. For some reason her apartment had that old homey feeling to it again. It no longer felt like her space had been violated.

Happily she headed to the shower. It was an odd feeling being in there, but there was no scent of anything wrong. Still…she made a quick job of it. When drying off she thought she heard a noise. Her towel moved slower over her wet body, head cocked to one side as she listened carefully. Nothing. Briskly she wrapped a towel around her wet hair, grabbed her robe, and returned to her bedroom. Halfway there she saw Mimi. She smiled. “Hey, was that you making that noise?”

Mimi snickered. “Not likely, but I wish I could. Just think of all the fun I could have.”

Celina shook her head and continued into the closet to pull out clothes for the day. She stood and stared blankly, wondering what color she wanted to wear. And realized black jeans and her favorite long red sweater would be perfect. It took her just a moment to find the items in her extremely well-organized closet. It was the only way she’d know to be able to find the right clothes when she needed them. When it came to spring cleaning, yes, she enlisted friends to help her go through her closet and find the clothes that were too worn to be good, or the ones that had slipped to the back of the closet where she’d forgotten about them.

“That color looks lovely on you.”

Besides, Mimi’s taste was excellent.

“For a ghost you’re very observant,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice. She had instinctively dressed in her walk-in closet outside of her room. She’d been seeing and talking to ghosts for a long time and it was natural, familiar, but there were just some things that didn’t feel quite right. Walking around nude in front of them was one of those things. Mimi was forever commenting on her clothes, having been a clotheshorse in her lifetime. For that reason Celina often used Mimi’s eyes for picking out clothes. Even in her case Celina didn’t completely undress. Ghost or not, she preferred her privacy, and some ghosts didn’t appear to understand that.

She placed a quick call to the hospital and found out that Jacob still wasn’t faring well and only family would be allowed to visit. With tears in her eyes she put on coffee, wondering if there was anything she could do for him. He’d loved music. She wished she’d be allowed to go to the hospital with her small harp and play for him. Maybe it would make him sleep easier.

She stared in the direction of her musical instruments and realized that was something she could do regardless.

She ate a simple breakfast, mulling over the vagaries of life and decided that she’d sit inside this afternoon and work on that score she’d been trying to write. Jacob had been the one to challenge her to put it on paper. She smiled. Maybe he had the right of it after all. She didn’t want to leave this earth without leaving behind something that expressed her years here on the planet. Something to justify her usage of the food she ate and the air she breathed. It was a different concept, but it felt right to her. In fact, as she washed up the few dishes she’d used, she had to wonder if that wasn’t a gift she could give to Jacob when he woke up.

Writing that score would require a little bit more of herself than she’d given so far. Jacob would appreciate her making that effort.

Empowered, she walked into the living room and sat down with a notebook at her side. A habit she’d yet to break. She’d never learned Braille – another bit of defiance on her part. She’d turned to audio books when her sight had disappeared.

She turned on her laptop then opened her file. She loved that she was still connected to the world digitally. She took notes through her voice-recognition program and always recorded her music on her laptop as well. She had a special keyboard and software all donated by the Society for the Blind. Accepting it had been difficult, but she hadn’t wanted to be completely cut off from the world to the extent of not having a computer.

The speakers didn’t offer the best sound, but hearing her music playing back meant she had the ability to tweak the notes to make it perfect. She listened to the recording of what she’d written so far and had to admit that it wasn’t half bad. Now if only she could finish it.

She picked up her harp and drew her fingers across the strings, a smile lighting up inside, the graceful, haunting notes filling the room. In her mind’s eye she could see the purple notes rippling through the room. She deliberately added a red, then a turquoise, and followed it by several white strands, watching as the colors rippled and played as her music lifted and fell with their actions. She knew the colors were the music and the music was the colors, but sometimes it seemed they had a life of their own. She couldn’t always tell which came first. She just knew together they created something special. She struggled to work on the composition the way she had it, but her mind wouldn’t let go of the colors.

Finally, she put down the harp and thought about it. “Maybe it
is
better to let the colors come first and see what I can design, ignoring the music, then listen to the playback and see how bad it is.”

With that decision, feeling a little silly she let her fingers ripple across the strings, pulling the combinations she already knew would bring forward the specific colors she wanted and let them dance and play in the air in front of her. She gave herself over to the joy of creation and let the colors slip, move, and dance as they seemed to need to do.

Eyes closed, relishing the joy of color, she lost herself in her art.

A long time later, her arms aching, her lower back sore and grumbling from being in the same position for too long, she pulled back and let her fingers slow. The same haunting refrain she’d started with drifted across the room, a ghostly accompaniment to her music. A fitting end. She bowed her head and a shudder rippled down to her toes.

Straightening, she stretched her arms over her head. “Now let’s see how that sounded.”

She lowered her arms and her fingers danced across the keyboard, sending the recording to the beginning. She hit the play button and sat back to listen.

The same haunting refrain filled the room as the first part of the tune played from her laptop’s poor speakers. “Not half bad. Not brilliant, but…”

Then it shifted. The tempo became lively, energized, then skipping faster and faster into a crescendo of joy. In her mind she could see the same colors as she’d originally played them with her music. She sat in wonder for the first time, really being able to focus on the colors, and realized the shades were beautiful, but the music that had created them…was absolutely brilliant.

“Oh my,” she laughed, clapping her hands together. “What would Jacob say?”

“He’d say it was perfect,” said the weird pale ghost she’d seen yesterday. His features were indistinct yet glowing.

She was surprised he was still there. “What’s perfect?” she asked, wondering just what he saw, if anything.

“Both,” he said. “The music and the painting.”

He looked at her in a way that made her think he understood. “And I’d have to agree with Jacob.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. How can you see the colors?”

“Why shouldn’t I be able to?”

“Huh? Because you’re dead?”

He hesitated, then murmured in a gentle voice, “Am I?”

And just like that he winked out.

She stared where he’d been in shock. She’d had similar conversations with many ghosts.

Please let that not be Jacob.
Her hand instinctively went to the phone in her pocket. She almost didn’t want to call in case he had died. She sat back, her phone in her hand, and remembered she’d had that conversation with Caslo several times as well. But he’d been dead for decades.

Just to be sure she called the hospital. And smiled. Jacob was still fighting the good fight.

Determinedly, she picked up her laptop to listen to the music again when the phone rang. It was her eye doctor. A few minutes later she hung up, wondering if this was good news or bad news. The specialist wanted to see her again. In her office. That part Celina didn’t like as it meant travelling to a new place, and she wasn’t sure what to think about seeing the specialist again. She remembered both the wonderful inner sensation she’d experienced – if that had been Dr. Maddy’s work – but she also remembered the horrific pain.

If the pain had been the result of something the specialist did Celina wanted nothing to do with her. Neither could she forget the threat from her nasty voice in her head. He could make things very ugly for her. She had to get rid of him. But how?

*

Stefan dropped into
bed. He’d been grabbing two-hour stints of shut-eye for days now. He needed so much more. Celina was a pressing issue that dominated his thoughts. He was desperate to have her safe and healthy again. Hell, he was just desperate to have her in his life.

Just as he closed his eyes his phone rang.

He glared at the ceiling then realized who was calling. He picked up the phone. “What’s up, Maddy?”

“I have Celina coming for a second appointment tomorrow morning at nine. I think you should be here to see what I see.”

Bolting upright, he hopped off the bed and paced his room. “Is that a good idea? She only knows me as the consultant for the police.”

“And whose fault is that? Do you really want to avoid her or do you want to be able to get to know her on a different level? She needs your help, Stefan.”

He winced. “I’m not sure I’m the person to help her,” he said honestly.

“If you aren’t, I’m not sure who else could. There is a blockage in her head that’s causing her great pain.”

“Is the blockage hers? I’ve seen her walls. She has an impressive self-defense system.”

“Yes and no. There is a foreign feel to it, but I don’t sense another person in there.”

“Hmmm.” He waited but realized there was no other option. Besides, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to see her again. “I’ll be there.” And he hung up.

He lay back down and slowly worked the stress out of his system. His mind relaxed. He yawned once, then twice, and rolled over.

And was dropped into a vision. A young mother worked in a kitchen prepping food. Two toddlers ran around her kitchen. One was screaming and one chasing. Within seconds the screams turned to laughter and the two boys reversed roles to run back through the kitchen in reverse.

Stefan studied the image, trying to see his purpose into this window. The woman eased a hand down to rub her lower back. She stood still for a long moment, her head bowed. She appeared to be focusing on her breathing.

The light into the kitchen vision had a dim look as if faded. He’d often understood that to mean a past vision rather than the bright clarity of something happening currently. As he tried to make sense of it the woman reached for a cloth and ran it under the cold water. Wringing it out, she folded it into a square and placed the cloth against her lower back. She gasped several times and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead. She collapsed against the sink, the noise of the boys completely dominating the sad, desperate scene. There was black surrounding the region of her liver.