I search through my recent memories. “We were with Carson . . . she was chanting. Nick was there . . . and then . . .”
Reena’s eyes are glowing with a golden tinge, with a heated excitement.
“Go on,” she says, her voice eager. “What happened?’
“I don’t know,” I say. “I felt weird—like my body was shaking. And then there was a lot of pain.”
Reena looks at me, her eyes widening.
“What is it?” I ask. “You don’t think that what Carson was doing . . . the chanting . . . you don’t think that it actually started working . . . do you?”
She stares back at me and her expression flickers for a moment between knowledge and disbelief. But then she says, “Séances don’t work on ghosts.”
“Okay.” The idea that Carson’s woo-woo words could have called me back wasn’t one I was expecting to buy into, but . . . “It was scary,” I admit. “I felt an intense pull inside me.”
“How do you feel now?” she asks.
“Now?” I take stock of my energy, my being. “Normal. It’s like nothing happened.”
Reena nods. “You’re okay. You’re not as breakable as Thatcher thinks you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that he’s overly protective, and he doesn’t need to be. You’re strong.”
I grin, proud that Reena views me that way.
“Where is Thatcher?” I ask, surprised that he wasn’t waiting here for me. He must have completely freaked out when he returned to my prism and discovered I wasn’t there. Or maybe he just figured that I needed some space.
“There’s a merging ceremony tonight,” says Reena. “The Guides always have to attend, so I guess he’s been . . . distracted.”
“A merging ceremony . . . can anyone go?”
“Well, we don’t usually attend,” says Reena. “I mean, they’re weird and scary and generally kind of insane.”
“I’m curious,” I say, because I am. Part of me wants to stay in this in-between world with Reena and her friends, who remind me so much of life and who’ve promised that I can stay with the people I love if I choose to. But Thatcher . . . he does care about me, and this ceremony, merging with Solus, this is what he believes in. It’s what my mother believed in.
“I want to go,” I say.
Reena smiles. “Okay. I’ll tell the others. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Seventeen
WHEN WE STEP OUT of my prism, we’re in the middle of a clearing in a giant rain forest. At least, I think it’s what a rain forest would be like—I’ve never seen one. There are lush green leaves all around us, and they have drops of dew hanging on them, dripping slowly to the soft ground. I hear birds chirping all around us and sprinkling water sounds in the distance, but there are no clouds. Still, the tinkling melody sounds like raindrops on a windowpane.
“What’s the music?” I ask.
“Mbiras,” says a ghost who’s standing near us. She smiles at me, and her eyes are pleasant, friendly. “They’re instruments from Africa that are wooden boards with metal keys. People on Earth use them to speak to the dead—and the Guides play them up here to usher ghosts toward Solus.”
She pronounces it the way Thatcher does—Solace—and I smile at her.
Reena takes my arm and leads me away from the other ghost before I can thank her, and we stand apart from the others. “There’s a good view from here,” she says.
A part of me wonders if she’s trying to isolate me—keep me to herself.
With Norris and Delia in tow, Leo walks up behind us, and I tense.
“Hey,” I say.
“Sorry about before at the train tracks,” says Leo, and he does appear contrite. “I was really just trying to have some fun.”
But he keeps doing it at my expense, like in the coffee shop. Reena’s told me he takes his death harder than the rest of them. What was it she said? He’s “troubled.” I understand. “Just discuss it with me in advance next time? Give me a choice.”
“You got it.”
My shoulders relax.
“I can’t believe you want to see this, Callie,” says Delia.
“Yeah,” says Norris. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and I wonder if I should be more nervous. But I want to know what happens, what merging is like.
Reena is by my side. “I think after you see it, you’ll understand why we want to stay in the Prism.”
We’re on the edge of a pathway lined with smooth white stones. The ghosts stand alongside the border of the walk, and I look around to see if Thatcher is here. Will he be angry if he sees me with Reena and Leo?
As I’m searching the crowd, everyone turns at once with a collective breath, like when a bride enters the church for her wedding. All eyes are on Ella Hartley, who’s coming down the path wearing a shining silver gown that hangs around her lithe form in soft, floating waves. I realize as she passes us that the dress isn’t really there—it’s an illusion, an impression, but it looks very real. It ripples along the ground as she steps forward, and it seems to shimmer with every movement.
“What’s happening?” I whisper to Reena.
“It’s her ceremony,” she says.
A prick of panic skitters through me. “Ella’s? I didn’t know the ceremony was for her. . . .” A current of sadness sweeps through me—this is someone I knew on Earth, someone I grew up with. We weren’t close, but still.
“How does it work?” I ask.
Reena turns and looks at me. “She’ll vanish. Right before our eyes.”
I gulp down saliva I know isn’t really there. Just another phantom sensation.
“The Guides and most of the ghosts believe she’s moving on to something wonderful,” whispers Reena.
“And what do you believe?” I ask.
Reena holds my gaze, utter conviction in hers. “We think that she truly dies now.”
My phantom heart lodges itself in my throat as Ella walks through the crowd of ghosts. Is everyone watching this happen like it’s okay? The ghosts around me look at Ella without expression, and when I take in their faces, I see a sea of strangers, dead strangers. I shake off a chill.
When Ella gets to the front, she steps onto a podium, turns, and smiles at everyone. I look for fear in her gaze, but I don’t see any. She lifts her face up to the sky; she’s beaming with radiant energy.
But I’m terrified. I have a strong urge to run.
Then a bright light shines down on Ella and the podium, and the rainlike music speeds up, its gentle rhythm getting faster and faster.
Leo, Reena, Norris, and Delia look pensive, worried, afraid. But when I glance around, it doesn’t seem like anyone else is showing any fear. The other ghosts’ faces are placid, smiling. Their peaceful expressions are perfectly still. The image of a cicada shell comes to my mind. They’re these bugs that are like a plague some summers—making a loud buzzing sound in the evening and clinging to all the trees, everywhere. At some point, they shed their skin and just leave it hanging on to whatever surface they’ve chosen. The skin looks like it was in life, but it’s just the shell of the being that was once inside it. It’s hollow, emptied of life. Is that what ghosts are? Am I a cicada shell, my life force gone completely?
Ella’s form starts to flicker, and the light around her grows even brighter. It’s like she’s a hologram or a website that won’t quite load. The mbiras are at full speed now, plinking out a thunderstorm rhythm.
My heart races in time with the music. Ella Hartley. I’m about to witness her disappearance.
“Is she—” I start.
“I told you, Callie,” interrupts Reena, her voice serious in a way I’ve never heard it. “She’s going to die now.”