Authors: Lani Woodland
“Fawning over me,” Brent repeated with a full-on smirk. “That would’ve been nice.”
I laced our fingers together, turned to face him. My fear receded in the imaginary scenario, spending the summer with him at the beach. I started enjoying the idea. “I could have gotten you to give me mouth-to-mouth by pretending to drown.”
I blanched as soon as those stupid, thoughtless words left my mouth. The flirty glint in Brent’s eyes faded. I snatched my hand from his and started to move away. With a gentle touch he turned me toward him.
“I would have hated that particular fantasy, since I’ve already watched you drown.” Brent noticed my crestfallen expression and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “The mouth-to-mouth would’ve been nice, though,” he whispered. “I can do that anytime you want; all you have to do is ask.”
He traced the contours of my cheek with the pad of his index finger before finally closing the distance between us, bringing his lips to mine. Then we were kissing and I forgot about chlorine and drowning and thoughtless words I shouldn’t have said. There was only Brent. He pulled away too soon for my taste.
“So did you fawn over any lifeguards in Brazil?” he asked, twisting a piece of my hair around his index finger.
“Oh you know, one or two.” I gnawed the inside of my cheek before admitting, “Actually, I didn’t get a chance to swim.”
He frowned at me, and I hastily lied, “I was too busy training.”
He didn’t believe me—his expression said as much. My shoulders curled in under his scrutiny. He often had the ability to sniff out my lies like a bloodhound on the hunt.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” he finally said.
“Yeah, sort of.” I paused. “And by sort of I mean utterly and completely.”
I chanced a glance up in his eyes, expecting to see some sort of twinkle that would let me know he had a joke he was waiting to spring on me. To my surprise, his face showed complete understanding.
“I would be too. Getting in the water was hard for me too. It was bad enough having to watch you drown; I can only imagine what it must have been like for you to experience it.”
“It’s bad. I mean, it was bad. But it’s over.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, maybe we can do this together,” Brent said, his voice full of understanding.
He took hold of my hand and walked slowly toward the open door. I could already smell the chlorine, the fumes sneaking up my nose. The chemical smell made my gorge rise. My heart bucked and my feet ground to a halt. Tears gathered behind my eyes. The itchy feeling from the lawn under my feet traveled up my legs, crawling all over my skin, but I knew it wasn’t the grass.
I couldn’t meet Brent’s eyes. “I can’t.”
“That’s alright.” He nodded, water dripping from his wet locks. “Let me get my stuff and we can get out of here. Sound good?”
“Thank you.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Yara. It’s not a problem I—” His words cut off.
I glanced at Brent, or at least I meant to but my body was immobilized. Then I noticed the whole campus was hushed, no birds tweeting, no laughter coming from the pool house. It only took a second to understand that someone had projected. Just as that realization dawned on me a strong surge of electric static traveled through me, and a blue spark ignited before my eyes. My body was able to move again, I lifted my head and found Brent’s questioning glance.
“You felt that too right?” Brent asked.
“Yep.” I stepped closer to Brent and lowered my voice. “Someone just projected,”
His fingers hovered near his mouth, ready to be chewed. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“But I thought no one else besides us could project.”
Brent lifted and dropped his shoulders. “That’s what I was led to believe.”
I pressed my towel closer to my chest. “So is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Brent’s lips pursed as he raked his fingers through his hair. “I really don’t know.”
I didn’t either, but based on Pendrell’s previous surprises, I’d place my money on bad.
Chapter Seven
That night, studying alone in my room, I kept having to shake out my tingling hand. With every movement, my hand felt heavy, like Sophia’s spirit weighed it down. My mind conjured a mental image of Sophia attached to my wrist. It was enough to keep me up at night. It already had.
I was still staring at my horror-flick hand when Cherie came back to our room.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “Do you maybe want to sneak off campus for gourmet chocolates?”
She dumped her stack of books on her desk and collapsed into her chair. “I can’t.”
“Did you just turn down chocolate?”
She nodded and picked up a pencil from her desk, twirling it between her fingers. “I need to study. My parents are riding me hard. My GPA needs to be perfect to impress Stanford.”
With a sigh, she opened the top book on her large stack and sunk into her chair to study. I turned the page in my Chemistry book, trying to redirect my thoughts, when I froze.
Was Brent projecting? He hadn’t mentioned getting together tonight. We’d been meeting weekly for training sessions, but we usually planned those in advance. Maybe he wanted to see me and had projected for us to have a romantic rendezvous.
Another thought crept into my mind. Maybe it was the person we had felt earlier in the day. Either way, I decided to check it out.
My spirit slipped from my body. I loved the familiar rush of freedom that filled me. My spirit surged with anticipation, unfurling like a constricted rosebud to full bloom. I inhaled the comforting smells of our room: Cherie’s perfume, my collection of essential herbs arranged on my desk, even the residue of lingering laundry detergent and the lemon fresh scent of our cleanser.
Cherie sat at her desk, hunched over a magazine, her hand resting on her cheek, her gum blown to a perfect bubble. Not for the first time, I wished that she could project too.
Eager to find Brent, I turned my attention to leaving the room. Disembodied spirits couldn’t normally move objects, unless they were skilled like Brent. He had been training me to develop this talent too, but I didn’t have half his ability.
I concentrated on the closed window in our room, knowing it led to the fire escape and freedom. Brent’s abilities allowed him to move some things with a flick of his wrist, or even just a look. Mine was a full-bodied process.
“Please open. Please open,” I mumbled. I waved my arms toward the window, swinging them clear across my body, repeatedly, until it finally slid open. A sigh of relief left my lips and I stepped through the opening, heading down the stairs.
Brent came bounding up to meet me before I had taken even a few steps. “You got the window open. Good job.”
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “Hey, did we plan this and I forgot?”
“No, I only projected because you did.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t me.” I twisted the edge of my frayed gray sweater. “I thought you were either practicing or hoping for a make-out session.”
Even in the waning moonlight Brent’s eyes flickered with interest. “So you came running? I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
Even though we had been dating for almost a year, I still blushed at his comment, glad for the cover of darkness. A weird sort of zing, like a really strong case of static electricity, passed over us both, complete with a blue spark. I recognized it from earlier in the day.
“I think whoever was projecting just finished.” Brent rocked back on his heels. “That didn’t last very long. If it’s the same for them as it is for us, then their bodies must be frozen now. I’m assuming they won’t be able to move until we reconnect. Which means they’ll know there are others out there who can project. I’m not sure I want them to know that.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We better go.”
Brent nodded, gave me a quick kiss, and vanished. My spirit jumped back to my body too, and I gasped at the shock of cold that always drenched me after projecting, leaving me shivering.
Cherie looked up from her books. “You okay over there?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you just project?”
“Y—yes,” I stuttered. I pulled my comforter around my quaking body and closed my eyes against the sudden harshness of the light. It always took a few minutes for the cold to fade. “I was sitting here studying when time stopped, so I checked to see if Brent was projecting, but it wasn’t him.”
“You mean there are others out there who can do it?” Her voice was soft, knowing that my senses became overwhelmed after projecting. Even her whispered words assaulted my eardrums as if she had screamed.
“It looks like it.”
“How did they learn?” She asked with a hopeful grin. “Maybe they can teach me.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know who it is yet,” I said once my teeth stopped chattering.
“It doesn’t matter.” Cherie’s smile crumbled. “I probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out anyway.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to comfort Cherie but she was probably right. If she hadn’t been able to project after trying all last year, she most likely wouldn’t pick it up now.
After a few moments Cherie asked, “Is it a good thing or a bad thing that other people can project?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “And I’m a little afraid to find out. Yet another mystery.”
Cherie perked up. “I don’t project, but I’m good at mysteries. I’ll solve it for you.”
v
I was called to the headmaster’s office a few days later. His secretary was out so I knocked on his door without being announced. Being summoned to his office was more than a little scary. I wiped my palms on my uniform before knocking. Headmaster Farnsworth opened the door and to my surprise, detectives Velasco and Roberts were there waiting for me.
Roberts acknowledged me with a nod. “We came to talk to about your case. Your headmaster insisted on being present.”
“Please sit down Ms. Silva,” the headmaster said.
I wiggled into an uncomfortable leather chair as he addressed the detectives. “Has there been any progress made on the investigation?”
“No, we’re going to put it aside.” Velasco leaned back in her chair. “We interviewed witnesses and watched the security footage. We’ve come up with nothing but dead ends. It looks like the only thing in your building that anyone noticed was the maintenance staff responding to a water leak. But all the statements agree that they did their work and then left. The pictures you gave us were printed on a standard laser printer—could have been done anywhere. We just have no further leads to pursue at this time.”
“Did you ever discover if anything else was stolen?” Roberts asked, pulling a pen from out of his suit coat.
I shook my head. “No, the only things missing were the pages from my journal.”
Headmaster Farnsworth stroked his white beard and leaned back in his seat. “While we do wish that the culprits had been found, our school appreciates your efforts. Our students’ safety is very important to us.”
I swallowed my disappointment, too. Knowing the police had found the perps would have brought me some measure of peace. I studied a painting hanging on his wall. It depicted a tree, but there was something odd about it. I squinted at it but before I could make out more, Roberts asked me a question.
“Has anything else strange happened?” He crossed his ankle over his knee.
I doubted he wanted to hear about my dream and shook my head.
Velasco chimed in. “We never were able to find the DJ you mentioned. Have you seen him since?”
“No.”
“Are you sure he’s a student here?” she asked.
I shook my head again, afraid I was wasting their time.
The headmaster leaned forward in his seat, his expensive chair squeaking in protest. “So what should the school do, at this point? What should Ms. Silva do?”
“With nothing else to go on, we’re going to assume this was just a one-time incident, but in case it isn’t, please be careful.” Roberts tapped his pen against the pocket-sized notebook he held. “You still have our number?”
“I do.”
“Call if something else happens.” He gave me a warm grin. “But I’m really hoping you’ll never have to make that call.”
v
After my classes and internship were over, I headed back to my dorm. It was going to be a lonely night because Brent, Cherie, and Steve all had a cross country meet at a rival school, and wouldn’t be back till late. I had an enormous amount of homework and not even my friends to distract me from doing it. I hoisted my overstuffed backpack onto my shoulders, the zipper groaning in protest at the weight of books and assignments.
When I got back to my room, the phone was ringing. I ran and picked it up with a breathless, “Hello.”
“Yara?” My vovó’s friendly voice greeted me.
“Hi, Vovó.” I let my backpack clunk to the floor
“I’m going to be out delivering some of my orders. Do you have time to see me if I stop by?”
“Yes, please. You can save me from homework.
I could hear the grin in her voice. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Don’t forget a visitor’s pass this time.”
She hung up, and I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me, but I figured it wouldn’t matter anyway. Vovó always did things her own way. I flung myself on my bed and stared at my ceiling, trying to find shapes in the popcorn texturing, until my eyes grew heavy. Eventually I gave into my desire to nap.
I was drinking from a well of fresh water. I tried to swallow the liquid but it caught in my throat and refused to go down. The water leaked past my lips, dribbling down my chin. Clearing my throat didn’t help. It only made me aware I couldn’t breathe. I brought my hand reflexively to my neck and my body convulsed, struggling for air.
I startled awake, gulping for air I still couldn’t get. My eyes popped open. Sophia was bent over me, her hand at my throat, her auburn hair trailing past her shoulders, tickling my cheek. The genuine delight in her smile and eyes while she squeezed my neck, choking me, made everything that much more sick, more wrong. My right hand flew to my neck, clawing at her hand, trying to dislodge her icy fingers. But it was my own hand, as numb as if it were dead, that was squeezing the life out of me. Sophia controlled it, squeezing my throat, denying me oxygen. I bucked on the bed, my nails slicing into my own skin. I tried to scream but I couldn’t gather enough air. My free arm left my throat to flail in the air, trying to connect with her. She dodged my fists and laughed, sounding just as malevolent as any movie villain, sending chills down my body.