Remember Me (7 page)

Jeff was getting awfully heavy awfully fast. "But are certain things in our lives destined?"

he asked.

"Yes," Jo said. "It's very clear this time."

"Is the force that we understand as God directly answering these questions?"

Jeff asked.

"No," Jo said, and she seemed disappointed.

"Is there a God?" Jeff asked.

"Yes," Jo said.

"Is he as we imagine him?" Jeff asked.

"No," Jo said.

"Is there life after death?" Jeff asked.

Jo paused. "Of course there must be life after death if there's a God, Jeff."

"Ask," he insisted.

Jo asked. "Yes," she said. "I told you."

Then he asked the question that on the surface started me on my long fall to my death. He definitely must have had Peter on his mind. "Is someone who was once alive but is now dead using this leg reflex to try to communicate with us?"

he asked.

"Yes," Jo said.

"Did we know this person when he was alive?" Jeff asked, sitting forward.

"Yes," Jo said.

"Is this person anxious to talk to us?" Jeff asked.

"Yes," Jo said, letting go of Beth's feet and looking at him. It was then I noticed that Beth had fallen asleep. She wasn't snoring or anything, but I could tell by the way she was breathing that she was out of it. Jeff had lowered his head and was thinking. Amanda was doing much the same, her expression lost behind a curtain of hair. Daniel shifted uneasily.

"This is creepy," he said.

Actually, that was an astute observation. The atmosphere in the room had definitely changed. It was no longer simply tense. It was distorted, as if the room we were in had somehow been overlapped with another room, a place almost the same but not quite. The room felt heavy.

"Beth's gone to sleep," I said. "Let's call it a night."

"No," Jo said suddenly, firmly. She shook Beth's feet.

Beth opened her eyes.

"I'm floating," she whispered.

"We have to find out who we're talking to," Jo said.

"Right, Jeff?"

Was Jo trying to win Jeffs favor by giving him a last chat with his brother? The idea struck me as so perverse I almost screamed. But screaming's not supposed to be cool. There are times, though, when it can save your reputation. Oh, yes, indeed.

Jeff touched Jo on the shoulder. I could practically see the thrill go through Jo's body. It has been said that nothing is as powerful an aphrodisiac as a brush with the supernatural.Well, maybe I'm the one who said it. But Jo was primed. She wasn't going to deny Jeff anything. Beth had closed her eyes again.

"Did you bring your Ouija board?" he asked.

"No," Jo said.

"I need more than these yes-or-no answers," Jeff said, his hand still on her shoulder. "I want whole words."

Spirits were fine, but this was real male flesh that had a hold of Jo. She nodded quickly.

"We can do it without a board."

"How?" he asked.

She swallowed. "One of us can channel this entity."

"Not me," Daniel said and giggled foolishly.

"How?" Jeff asked.

"I can put one of us in a hypnotic trance," Jo said.

"Who?" Jeff asked.

"Shari," Jo said.

"No way," I said.

"Why Shari?" Jeff asked.

"It has to be someone I've known all my life."

Now, Jo was Amanda's first cousin and had known Amanda all her life, but I didn't bring that up. I imagined Amanda would be too shy to invite an entity into her body.

Also, I suddenly had a change of heart. I decided I wouldn't mind channeling.

My reasoning was simple: it would put me in a perfect position to stop all the nonsense.

Once Jo thought she had me hypnotized, I was going to say all us entities were exhausted and wanted to go home to sleep.

"AH right," I said. "What do I do?"

Before we could proceed, we had to wake Beth up once more—no small feat.

We got her eyes open, but before she could climb into a vertical position, she passed out again.

It was almost as if having the magnet testing at the back of her head had drained her.

When she finally was sitting up, I noticed that her eyes looked glazed.

Jo made me lie on my back on the floor in the spot Beth had just vacated.

Surprisingly, the spot was not warm. Jo told Daniel to bring a blanket from the bedroom, and he covered me to my chin. Then Jo turned off all the lights and lit a red Christmas candle, which she set on the glass coffee table, off to my right. It was pretty dark, but I could still see everyone clearly enough to identify them. Jo positioned herself just behind my head and had the others kneel around me. Amanda was on my right near the candle, Daniel and Jeff were to my left, and Beth was hanging out near my feet. I thought the whole setup typically New Age.

The candle flame caught my eye. I had always been fond of fires—those of the safe and sane variety—and I found the steadiness of the burning orange wick oddly comforting. I wished, though, without knowing why, that the candle had been any color but red.

"We're going to start the same way as we did when we played that 'dead girl'

game at Tricia's party," Jo said.

"Does everyone remember? We'll pretend that Shari is lying here about to be buried.

We'll talk about her as if she's dead.

Just as important, we'll try to feel as if she's dead. We should get sad. But unlike the other game, we won't start to talk about how light she's getting. We won't try to lift her into the air with our fingertips. When we have her in a deep trance, we'll start to ask her questions, just as we asked the magnet.

Only Shari should be able to answer us out loud. All right?"

Everyone nodded. "Close your eyes, Shari, and just listen to my suggestions.

You don't have to worry about anything. We'll take care of everything."

I closed my eyes and thought back to the last time we had played the "dead girl" game. I hadn't been one of the subjects, but the two girls we used, Tricia Summers and Leona Woods, did get amazingly light after we went through the whole burial ritual. In fact, it had taken only one finger each from Jo and myself to lift Tricia all the way to the ceiling. She had seemed as light as a feather. Amazing, I had thought at the time, yet I was glad they weren't going to be floating me into the air. I was afraid of heights.

"Take a deep breath, Shari," Jo said, her voice soft but firm. "And let it out slowly. Feel the air leaving your lungs.

Feel the life leaving your body. That's good, that's fine.

Now, take another breath, and again let it out very slowly.

And this time, feel your heart slowing down, becoming faint.

Listen to me, Shari, and don't be afraid. You're going to be all right. It is only your body you're leaving behind, not your soul."

It may have been because I was tired, but the suggestions had a profound effect on me. I started to relax immediately.

The tension in my shoulders and neck began to dissolve, and I could feel the pulse of my headache diminishing. It was almost like Jo had said—my actual heartbeat was slowing down.

The muscles of my back eased deeper into the carpet.

I began to feel as Beth said she had, as if I were floating.

Jo continued her suggestions for a while—I'm not sure exactly how long—and then there seemed to be a long period of silence. I was still conscious of my body, of where I was, and yet at the same time, I felt removed from the situation. I didn't even feel like thinking. I just wanted to drift, like a balloon on the wind. But even though I was relaxed, I didn't feel content. The wind was pulling me along, but I wasn't sure if I liked the direction it was taking me. I was afraid, however, to try to move, to stop what was about to happen.

That was it right there. I was a tiny bit afraid. Despite what Jo had said about my being safe, I felt as if I were about to lose something precious to me, that I had, in fact, already lost it.

The idea of Daniel kissing Beth in the Jacuzzi flashed across my brain, and with it came a stab of pain. Then it was my brother's face that I saw swim by and fade away, drowning in the darkness inside. Daniel's voice came to me from far off.

"She was a good friend of mine. We had a lot of good times together, and I'm going to miss her."

That was all I heard him say. Two lines about his poor dead girlfriend and not one word about how much he had loved her. My sorrow deepened and, with it, the darkness. It was suddenly so dark inside that it seemed as if I were about to be devoured, soul and all.

I was no longer floating. I was sinking, and fast. I don't believe I could have opened my eyes if I had tried. It was Jeff Nichols's turn to remember Shari Cooper.

"I really didn't know her that well, not as well as my brother did. I suppose if I had known her better, I would have liked her more. We never talked that much. It's too bad she's dead, though. It's a real shame."

None of them sounded sad. It was almost as if they were remembering someone they had murdered. Amanda spoke next.

"I didn't know her very well, either. I knew her brother better. But she loved her brother—Jim. She was crazy about him."

She sounded like a record that had already been played.

Beth went to speak next. She was a broken record. I remembered that was what I had gotten her for her birthday, a Beatles album from the discount bin.

I could remember the party. I knew I was still at it; I hadn't disappeared into the ozone. I knew everything that was happening and that it was only a game.

Yet a portion of me, a huge portion, continued to fall, deeper and deeper, down through the earth to where it hid its most terrible secrets. They could have already lowered me into my grave and covered me over with dirt.

Beth couldn't speak. Some kind of entity must have crawled inside her and bit her tongue while she lay on the cold floor. Jo spoke instead. She sounded sad.

"She was my best friend. She was more important to me than anything. I used to tell her everything, and now she's gone. I can't believe it."

Jo had to pause to collect herself. Yet she, too, seemed far away. I felt that if I were to reach out to touch her, I would snatch only thin air.

"But she's still alive to me, because I won't forget her,' Jo continued, her voice gaining strength. "None of those who have died is really gone. They're always near, speaking to us in whispers we don't ordinarily hear. But occasionally we can hear them, if they find someone to speak through."

Jo paused again. She might have cleared her throat. Or I might have cleared my own. I couldn't tell what was happening. I had stopped falling finally, but I doubted if I would be coming up for air soon. Something strange was happening, stranger than all that had previously transpired.

Maybe it was a delayed reaction to discovering I was now an ex-girlfriend.

Perhaps it had something to do with Jo's suggestions.

Then again, it could have been one final omen.

When Jo spoke next, a weight of sorrow heavy enough to crush the world descended on me from nowhere and everywhere at once. I felt it on top of my chest, crunching my ribs, my heart.

"Who are you?" Jo asked.

My voice sounded. But it was not mine. It was not me.

"Most people would probably call me a ghost," the voice said. "I am, after all, dead. But I don't think of myself that way. It wasn't so long ago that I was alive, you see. I was only eighteen. I had my whole life in front of me...."

Someone gasped. Someone else cried out a name—Peter.

More cries followed. Everyone was talking at once. The candle had been knocked over.

There was a danger of fire.

I snapped out of my trance. At last my body was my own again. For a moment.

I threw off my blanket and jumped up.

At first, I couldn't see a thing. I wasn't even sure if I had my eyes open. The room was pitch black. Then Jeff turned on the lamp near the sofa, and the glare hit me like a hot flare. Jeff was mad at me. They all were.

"Why did you stop?" he demanded.

"You shouldn't have jumped up," Jo said.

"You were faking that," Daniel said.

I wasn't a fake, I wanted to shout at them. But I couldn't get out a word. I was too choked up. When I looked around at their faces, I couldn't find a trace of a thing I had assumed had been with me all the days of my life to one degree or another. There was no love. Daniel just wanted to be back in the tub with Beth.

Jo just wanted to be alone with Jeff. I hung my head low, smelling smoke.

Amanda was on the floor at my knees, turning the toppled candle upright. The red wax on the carpet was blood red and still hot. But my body was cold; I was shivering. I felt so overcome with loneliness right then that I thought I would be consumed and die of it.

"What is it?" Amanda asked, her clear, cold gray eyes holding mine.

"Nothing," I whispered. "It's nothing."

I ran from the room then, through the kitchen and out onto the balcony and into the night.

I remember standing by the rail, feeling the smooth wood beneath my shaking fingers. I remember seeing the flat black ocean and thinking how nice it would be if I could only exercise my magical powers and fly over to it and disappear beneath its surface for ages to come.

I remember time passing.

Then things went bad.

I felt a sensation. It was not one of being pushed; it was, rather, a feeling of rising up.

Then of spinning, of being disoriented. I saw the edge of the condominium roof, the stars. There were only a few of the latter, and they weren't very bright. Not compared to the lamppost standing beside the cement walkway, which suddenly began to rush toward me at incredible speed. It was only in the last instant that I realized I had gone over the edge of the balcony.

That I was falling headfirst toward the ground.

I didn't feel the blow of the impact. But I do remember rolling over and looking up. Now there were millions of stars in the sky. Orange ones and green ones and blue ones. There were also red ones. Big fat red ones, whose number rapidly grew as I watched, blotting out all the others in the heavens, until soon they were all that remained, part of a colossal wave of smothering hot wax.