I have a feeling she’ll be pestering you.
“That’s okay. You know,” he says quietly, “I thought there was something odd about you. Your eyes. They just looked … unfamiliar.”
I wonder if my mother will notice a difference in my eyes, too, or if Rei is the one person in this world who knows me best.
Rei presses the spot between his eyebrows hard for a minute, and the red and green layers surrounding him seem to roll into each other and become an indigo blue.
“Okay, so let’s look at this logically. If she hadn’t come into you, what would she have done?”
She should have gone into the light, but I didn’t see one. I don’t know if I wasn’t paying attention or if the sun was too bright. Or maybe there just wasn’t a light for her.
“Okay, so for whatever reason, she didn’t go into the light. So she’s a spirit that’s taken possession of a living body.”
Now that he puts it that way, it sounds so sinister. I nod.
“So can you search ‘spirit possession’? See what the internet has to say.”
I type in the magic words, hit the enter key, and voilà … nine million hits.
I make a
wow
face at him, and he smiles for the first time in a while. Not a big smile, but enough to charge me up for a few more minutes.
“So why don’t I look these over and see what I come up with while you go find Seth.”
I flip back to the word processing screen.
What do you want me to do with him once I find him?
Surely he doesn’t want Seth to see me.
“Just find him; make sure he’s safe. Let me know where he is.”
Okay, I’ll be right back.
Seth is a little farther south now. I trace him to a wooded area not more than twenty miles away, and he’s still moving at a steady pace. I would love to know where he’s going. What he’s doing for food and water. What thoughts are swimming around behind that blank expression on his face. As bad as he might think this is, he cannot imagine how bad it could get unless I get back into my body.
I bounce back to Rei’s bedroom before he’s finished reading the first article on spirit possession. As soon as he sees me, he pushes his chair back so I can use the keyboard.
He’s fine. He’s walking through some woods between St. Albans and Milton.
“So he’s not too far away. Let’s go get him.”
It takes me all of a second and a half to determine this is a dangerous idea for Rei.
What are you going to do with him once you find him?
“I’ll talk him into going to the police and they’ll straighten this whole thing out,” he says. “You said it yourself: he didn’t do anything wrong.”
It doesn’t matter what I say—nobody can hear me. The police will be listening to the Anna Rogan who tells them Seth pushed Taylor.
“Well, the law says he’s innocent until proven guilty.”
The school already has him coded with behavior issues. And all of Taylor’s friends have told the police Seth was there with her, and they didn’t exactly portray Seth in a very positive manner.
“How do you know that?”
I went to the school today. I heard them talk to the police.
“Okay,” Rei sits back and spins his desk chair in little quarter circles while he digests this latest bit of bad news. “How can I help Seth, then? I can’t just leave him out there.”
He seems to have something planned. Let him do what he’s doing. He’s done plenty of camping; he knows how to fend for himself. If he doesn’t get in touch with you by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll bring you to him.
“Fair enough,” he turns back to the computer with his poker face in place, but his aura tells me differently. He’s not happy with this compromise, and his blues give way to layers of dismay.
The air feels heavier, like a wave of negativity has rolled into the room. I’m sure it’s Rei’s energy reacting to my reluctance to lead him to Seth until I hear a car door slam, then another. I fly to the window just as the doorbell rings.
CHAPTER 13
I give Rei a warning look while the sound of the doorbell echoes through the house.
As soon as he sees who is here, he mutters one of those Japanese words he won’t translate for me.
“Wait here,” he tells me.
Not a chance. I hover at the top of the stairs, out of sight. The police look in expectantly when Rei opens the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Rye Ellis?” asks the same short, bald police officer I saw at school.
“Rei Ellis,” he corrects them.
“Okay, Rei. I’m Officer Daigle; this is Officer Mooney. We’d like to ask you a few questions about Seth Murphy.”
Even if Taylor called the police right after Rei left, they wouldn’t be here asking questions so soon, unless …
I zip over to the river where I last saw Taylor’s body bobbing in the current. The birch branch now cuts freely through the water, and the mud along the shore has been trampled and stamped with dozens of heavy boot prints.
They know.
There’s very little Rei can tell the police about Seth. He mentions Seth’s stolen phone, the note on his locker, the fact that he hasn’t heard from him since yesterday afternoon. The police ask Rei about me, so I’m going to take a wild guess here that Taylor wasted no time after Rei left to make that call. Rei mentions my concussion and memory issues. Twice. They don’t leave until the short, bald police officer hands Rei a business card and asks him to call if he hears from Seth.
Rei crumples the card slowly in his hand as he watches the cruiser back out of his driveway and head over to my house, then he takes the stairs two at a time. “Anna!” He stops short before he plows right through me. “Sorry. Hey, the police are on their way to question Taylor. Can you go listen to what she says?”
Me? Eavesdrop on a private conversation? Sure, why not.
Twenty minutes later, I’m back, furious at Taylor and even more anxious for Seth. Rei stands at his bedroom window watching the police car leave my driveway when his keyboard clatters into motion.
She described everything Taylor was wearing, how all the buttons were ripped off her shirt and her fingernails were all bent back. Nobody would know that unless they were there or they had seen the body. Which they found, by the way—I checked.
Rei sits on the edge of the bed and leans over to read the computer monitor.
“Wait a second. You told me before that when Seth grabbed her, her shirt ripped. You meant all the
buttons
were ripped off?” I can tell by his expression that his attempt to visualize this is having staggering results. “Wow. That’s really … bad.”
It was a really flimsy shirt, but still, it does look really incriminating.
“Well, yeah, I guess it would.”
If I can just get her out of my body, they’d have no witness.
“You know,” Rei says with a trace of bitterness, “it would be nice if your father could just tell the police you were home in your room the entire time.”
Yes, it would, but Rei knows as well as I do that my father’s brain has all the mental retention power of a sewer drain.
“Okay, so we’ve got to get you back in your body. We were Googling spirit possession. Let’s get back to that.”
Rei sits in the chair and I read over his shoulder.
“I read one while you were gone that said we just need to convince her she’s dead and her loved ones are waiting for her on the other side of the light.”
Nothing is ever that easy. This light, this highway to heaven is an obscure thing to me.
If
Taylor qualifies for the light,
if
we could figure out how to summon the light, could we convince her to cross over to the other side? Ha! I can just imagine the conversation now:
Rei: “Taylor, I’m sorry to break this sad news to you, but due to a tragic accident, you are dead. On the brighter side, your loved ones are waiting for you on the other side of the light!”
Taylor: “Piss off.”
I give him a thumbs down and point to the next result.
Rei opens it up and we both read. “So this site wants me to enter my credit card number, and for one hundred euros, they’ll perform a long distance spiritual release exercise on your body.” He smirks. “Is anyone really that stupid?”
Sadly, yes.
He clicks over to another link. “This one says some people can be partially possessed. Maybe your mom could negotiate a time share with her.” I go through the motion of smacking his shoulder and he goes through the motion of pretending he felt it, but he won’t meet my eyes as he toggles over to the next screen. Down at the bottom of the page, one heading catches my attention. I point to it.
“That one?” Rei clicks.
Yes, that’s the one. I hover close to Rei so I can read.
SMUDGING: In order to clear negative energy, the Native Americans tie white sage twigs
(salvia apiana)
into bundles which are then lit and allowed to smolder. The pungent smoke is waved through the air to cover all areas that are thought to harbor negative energy. Traditionally, an abalone shell is used to catch falling embers.
Rei looks very unconvinced as he reads through the article, but I’m excited. Taylor is nothing if not negative energy, and maybe if she gets a few whiffs of white sage smoke, it will break her grasp on my body and I can push my way back in.
“This doesn’t look like the same sage my parents sell at the store,” Rei finally says. “Where would we even get this stuff?”
I wave him away from the keyboard and search for new age shops around the greater Burlington area. The closest one is over by the waterfront.
“The Hallowed Eave. Discover the magick of your true spiritual self. ” Rei’s shoulders wilt as he reads this. “Books, jewelry, aromatherapy, tarot … ritual tools? Cauldrons?
Voodoo?
” He looks positively distressed now. “Really? You’re sure about this?”
I nod emphatically. If nothing else, it will give us something to do besides sit here and worry.
“Okay,” he sighs. “Let’s get this over with.”
* * *
Down an alley off a side road that’s several streets away from the waterfront, we spy a violet colored storefront with a tangerine roof. Four dragon-faced gargoyles jut out from beneath the wide eaves, alternating with a dozen or more neon windsocks. There’s a brightly painted, bohemian-looking sign that welcomes us to The Hallowed Eave. Rei looks less than enchanted.
A bell tinkles when we open the door and the cloying smell of incense nearly bowls us over. I know my senses are more sensitive when I’m out of my body, but one look at Rei tells me I’m not the only one who thinks this stuff stinks.
“I hope that’s not what white sage smells like,” Rei mutters.
There’s an odd blend of dark and light energy sparring in here, almost as if the displays of witchcraft and voodoo merchandise want to overthrow the angel and fairy wares. Scattered around the shop are rustic baskets filled with gemstones—quartz, amethyst, and other pretty rocks I can’t name, but there is a powerful buzz generating from them. I am sloughing off their energy as fast as I absorb it in an effort not to materialize in front of anyone. In the middle of all this chaos, Rei’s energy is idling quietly as he gets his bearings in this strange shop.
“Merry meet, brother!” The middle-aged woman behind the counter reminds me of a cardinal with her poufy red hair, conical nose, and heavy eyeliner surrounding sharp little eyes that look Rei up and down over the rim of her psychedelic reading glasses. She hops off the stool and flits toward him. “Can I help you find … oh!” She takes her glasses off and lets the beaded chain catch them. Her fingers twitch at her sides, and I’m only slightly horrified by how long her fingernails are. “Oh, my! You have a lovely aura,” she coos at him. “Are you here for a psychic reading?”
Rei does not have a lovely aura, at least not at this moment, unless she’s partial to the color of Dijon mustard. “Um, no. I’m looking for white sage,” he says cautiously. “It comes in a bundle.”
“Why, yes,” the woman winks at him. “It certainly does. Follow me, dear.” She leads Rei through a cluttered maze of bookshelves and clothing racks, past glass display cases featuring crystal balls, a collection of ornately carved daggers under a sign that advertises Ritual Knives, and a creepy assortment of voodoo dolls, complete with their own lethal-looking hat pins. “Here ’tis,” she chirps. “Would you like the abalone shell, too, dear? It’s very handy for collecting the ash and it’s only $9.99 more.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“All right, then.” Rei follows bird-lady to the register at the front of the store.
Three minutes later, Rei is sprinting to the car, having survived the bizarreities of The Hallowed Eave. Once he’s in the car, he tucks the magical sage bundle under the seat.
“Did you see the ritual knives? What do people
do
with those?” he asks me as we head up the highway ramp. “And you must have loved the voodoo dolls.”
* * *
Later that night in Rei’s bedroom, we try to figure out the best way to fire up the sage bundle and smoke Taylor out. “My mom will kill me if I light this in the house,” he says as he sniffs the sage bundle for the zillionth time. “It doesn’t smell like sage,” he says, also for the zillionth time. I have no idea. If someone wants to know what vanilla smells like, I’m their girl. Even blindfolded, I can identify garlic, cinnamon, even rosemary. But sage?
Rei is on the computer, Googling “what does white sage smell like” and he doesn’t like what he finds. “If I burn this in the house, not only will she kill me, she will bury my dead body under the front porch for the worms to eat,” he says flatly. “It smells like marijuana when you burn it.”
Marijuana. Rei can be so formal.
I’d heard that Taylor and her friends used to go to Burlington and drink with the college kids, but I don’t know if the party extended to drugs outside of alcohol. Did she smoke? I don’t know. I wasn’t privy to the conversations she had with her girlfriends.
Why don’t we see if she’ll smoke it?