“Are you okay?” I vaguely registered Carmen’s voice next to me.
Her bare feet became transparent as she turned languidly and drifted away. I contemplated going after her, but the grotesque sight of her back stopped me dead in my tracks. Her skull appeared caved in and her blonde hair was matted with dark blood. The back of her blue dress had been shredded; revealing long jagged gashes in her skin. A blood curdling scream began to fester in the pit of my stomach, but I clamped a hand over my mouth before it escaped.
“Stasia?”
As she disappeared amongst the trees, I deliberately turned my head towards Phoebe; not trusting my legs to remain where they were. They wanted nothing more than to run as fast as possible back to the yacht and back to Lorelei. I lowered my hand and took several deep breaths.
“Please tell me you guys saw that,” I managed; my tone deadpan.
“Saw what?” Phoebe glimpsed back and forth between the back yard and my still panicked expression.
“The girl.” I stared at them wide-eyed, and realized I was alone in my terror.
“What girl?” Carmen wrapped her arms around my shoulders and led me back into the house.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” Once inside, my phone began to ring in my pocket, so I found a quiet hallway and answered it. Shock still fresh in my system; I reminded myself I had to talk.
“Hello?”
“Hey girl, how are you?”
“Hey Kira!” I attempted to sound chipper.
“Are you okay?” Apparently I’m not a good actor.
“Um…yea, yea I’m alright,” I stumbled, “I just have a lot on my mind,”
“You didn’t go home for Fall break?”
“No, we actually decided to come to Cape Lookout with Finn and his friends to stay at their beach house for the weekend,” I explained.
“Really? I’ve heard it’s beautiful out there,” she gushed.
“I love it so far, but we kind of have an ulterior motive for coming somewhere so remote.” I went on to tell her our plan for the weekend and my attempt at contacting my mother.
“Do you think it will work?” she asked; her tone full of doubt.
“I don’t know. But Finn seems to think it will, so I’m going to give it a try.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
“I will, I promise,” I assured her. “I’ll come see you as soon as we get back to Lorelei.”
“I want to hear all about it and if you need me, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Thanks Kira.”
“Are you sure we can’t just Google it?” Phoebe threw out to the group. After stuffing ourselves with the delicious lasagna Willow had made for dinner, we were all hanging out in the living room discussing the unfortunate nuances of my ever-complicated life. Finn and I explained my most recent dilemma: not knowing my true birthday and its effect on when I would make the journey to the Underworld. Phoebe was completely convinced that we could figure it out using the internet, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better.
“Why can’t you just ask her?” Cage, who had been quiet for the entire conversation, asked Finn.
“You know that’s not how it works,” Finn retorted, his voice clipped. My memory sparked to life and I recalled a conversation that Finn and I had about my mom. He told me that she had been ecstatic that I had chosen the name Anastasia when I came to Lorelei. So…he obviously had a way of communicating with the dead.
“That’s right! You said you’d talked to her before. Why wouldn’t you be able to talk to her about this too?” I asked him, hopeful.
“I didn’t say I had talked to her, I just said she was happy about you choosing Anastasia.
Someone else had relayed that particular message to me.” As Willow, Carmen, Phoebe, and I stared at him in confusion, he sighed in defeat and continued.
“I can’t talk about anything that I see or hear in the Underworld. It’s not that I don’t want to.
I physically can’t.” He ran his hands through his hair, clearly uncomfortable.
“Oh my God!” Phoebe gasped, “You’ve actually been to the Underworld!?”
“Of course he has, he’s the-“ Ian started to explain before Finn shot him a steely look that instantly quieted him.
“I’m not getting into that tonight. Right now we need to concentrate on Stasia and figure out when she was born. Unfortunately, this is the only way.” Finn took my hand and squeezed it, but it did little to ease my anxiety surrounding his solution. The fact that I had been able to see my mother before that first fateful vision had given Finn an idea. He believed that I could contact her somehow during a reverie and communicate with her. Obviously, I wasn’t too optimistic about my chance of success, considering I didn’t even know how to control my reveries. I had no idea how to contact my mom and communicate with her. The only thing that gave me an ounce of confidence was Finn’s unfailing conviction. If he believed it would work, I would give it everything I had. Where that would get us, we’d just have to wait and see.
“The first thing we have to do is practice, so that’s what we’re going to do tonight. I’ll take her down near the lighthouse so that there aren’t any distractions,” Finn maintained.
“No way. We’re going. What if something happens?” Willow disputed.
“The less people around her, the better; and besides tonight will only be practice. I promise she’ll be fine. You have my word,” Finn declared. Willow sat back, but crossed her arms; not completely convinced.
“You guys, I’ll be fine, really. Chances are I won’t be able to do it anyway, so you’d just end up getting really bored watching me sleep,” I quipped, hoping to elicit some smiles, but my roommates weren’t finding the humor in the situation.
“Tomorrow night, when we try it for real, you all can be there. But tonight she needs to concentrate,” Finn attested. He stood abruptly and walked towards the kitchen, signaling there would be no further discussion.
“So, what are the rest of us going to do tonight?” Phoebe’s green eyes lit up as she surveying everyone else. I took the opportunity to go after Finn. The whole contacting-my-mom-thing didn’t damper the fact that I was going to spend time with him on the beach all night. I discovered him in the hall collecting blankets from the walk-in linen closet.
“You ready?” he smiled at me with obvious enthusiasm. I could tell he had no doubt I would be successful. I wished I felt the same way.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Chapter 6
“Control is all about awareness. You have to be cognizant of everything around you at all times; that means your body and especially your soul.” Finn and I had arrived at the Cape just after sunset. Traces of orange and pink still enveloped the sky, but the world around us had grown increasingly lurid. I made sure to inspect the beach for any signs of unwanted, bleeding ghosts. So far, so good. I really wanted to mention it to Finn, but I didn’t want him to think I was completely unstable. Ghosts weren’t real! I was probably just hallucinating. Maybe I’d had a mild sun stroke?
It could happen. I wiped her ghoulish face out of my mind and tried to focus on the task at hand.
The night air was heavy with moisture, with only a slight breeze blowing in from the ocean.
Brilliant stars sparkled down on us from above, silently observing my first of many lessons. We sat Indian-style; facing each other on a soft fleece blanket just below the sand dunes of the beach. The imposing Cape Lookout lighthouse stood to my left, hypnotizing me with the slow rhythm of its revolving light that methodically scanned the ocean. To understand exactly what I was about to attempt, Finn was in the process of telling me exactly how reveries work. He held my hand in his as the skull and crossbones trace on his forearm shimmered in the light of the stars.