I’m back in Ridgemont, with a bird’s-eye view of a crowded coffee shop on Main Street. I scan the crowd, and my heart skips a beat when I see Nolan. He’s wearing his grandfather’s leather jacket. His hair is falling across his forehead. I try to call out to him, but no sound comes out of my mouth. I try to reach for him, but my arms aren’t there. I’m not a baby in this dream, but I’m still utterly powerless. In this dream I’m not anything at all, really. I’m just a set of eyes watching what’s happening, like it’s playing out in front of me on a movie screen.
A girl sits down across from Nolan, her back to me. She has long hair—not short and jagged like mine is now—that cascades down her back in perfect, nonfrizzy curls. She holds herself so easily that I can tell she’s never tripped over anything in her life, never stubbed her toe just taking her pants off, never forgotten to put glue down before dropping a jar of glitter over her collage.
She never turns from Nolan’s face. Clearly she isn’t distracted by spirits whizzing past. Unlike me, she’s not constantly haunted. She can focus on him completely.
She reaches out and rests her hand on top of his. Her grip is soft and sure, and she doesn’t so much as cringe when their skin makes contact.
I manage to wake myself up before I see what happens next. Before she does more of the things I can’t. Before she reaches over and touches his knee. Before she rests her forehead against his. Before they kiss.
My heart is pounding and I’m covered in sweat, just like after one of my baby nightmares. And just like I do when I wake from one of those dreams, I reassure myself that it wasn’t real. I practically conjured that girl myself before I fell asleep tonight, thinking about the normal girl Nolan might date if I were out of the picture.
Though I have to admit, I’m a little surprised my subconscious gave her hair as curly as my own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
On the Precipice
In the morning it’s back to my not-so-real luiseach work. My complete-and-total-opposite-of-real luiseach work. By the time I make my way across the courtyard Lucio is already inside, waiting for me at the top of the stairs, close enough to the door that I can almost feel the spirits, but far enough that I’m capable of having an actual conversation without my teeth chattering or, you know, passing out.
“’Morning,” I mumble. Lucio is standing so it’s impossible to walk down the hallway without touching him. I plant my hands on either side of his torso to step past him. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt today, similar to the ones Nolan wears, except Lucio’s is bright green, while Nolan’s are usually gray and navy and brown.
Was he wearing one in my dream last night? No, he had his jacket. Light brown, almost the same color as his eyes. I hope Mom got it back to him after he left it behind on our porch the day I left town.
“Why are you wearing a sweatshirt?” I ask Lucio finally. “It’s already at least eighty degrees outside.”
“Outside, but not in there.” He nods in the direction of Aidan’s lab. We walk down the hall side by side. “We have to tell Aidan how well it went yesterday.”
I reach up and finger my newly short hair. Even after a shower, complete with apple-scented shampoo and conditioner, it still smells like fire and ash. “I’m not sure how well it went.”
Lucio doesn’t look at me when he talks. “You completely destroyed that demon. Aidan thinks your sensitivity is a weakness, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It was because you felt so much that you kept fighting the demon, even after it looked like we’d already won. If you hadn’t felt the demon reaching for that man’s heart, we’d have lost him.”
Before I can answer—or argue—Lucio opens the door to Aidan’s lab. I’m immediately struck dumb by the drop in temperature. Wearing a sweatshirt was the right idea. I’m dressed as inappropriately as ever, in plaid shorts and a blue T-shirt with white flowers embroidered into the neckline.
“Is it just me, or is it colder than usual?” I ask, teeth chattering. I can see my breath.
From inside the room Aidan nods. “A few more spirits joined us last night.”
A lump rises in my throat. A few more spirits joining us means that a few more people died.
Lucio steps inside first, and I follow. My heartbeat speeds up, but I’m getting used to the way it feels: I imagine the blood rushing through my veins like it’s trying to win a race or something.
The spirits hit me all at once. I see flashes of five, ten, twenty different lives, all overlapped like pieces of film layered on top of each other in a darkroom. A little boy playing baseball on top of a man with a walker on top of a woman with white hair and dark brown eyes holding her grandchild.
Image on top of image, life on top of life, spirit on top of spirit.
And somehow, louder than all of that, comes Lucio’s voice: “Try to concentrate on just one at a time.”
I’ve tried and failed at that before. This would be so much easier if Helena and Aidan’s experiment had actually worked, if I’d had the powers they intended, if I was strong enough to see just one spirit in the whirlwind of spirits swirling around me.