“What warmth?” Lucio counters. “It’s freezing in here. And it didn’t seem to stop Michael Weir’s spirit.” His muscles flex with the effort it takes to stay upright in this windstorm. “None of the old rules apply anymore.”
What magic did Aidan have to work to lock these spirits inside? Victoria had to give up her powers to create the energy it took to send Anna and her demon to our house in Ridgemont. How much energy did this take? Perhaps he made a deal with another luiseach, just like he did with Victoria. Split another person in two for the greater good.
How much energy would it take to set them all free? I remember a lesson from physics class: the law of conservation of energy. Energy is never created or used up; it’s just moved from one source to another. I wonder whether I have enough energy in me to set all of these spirits free.
I rub my hands up and down my arms, feeling the ridges and bumps of the goose bumps beneath my fingers. The wind sends the papers that had been neatly stacked on Aidan’s cold metal table flying around the lab. The flashlight smacks into the wall so hard that its batteries fall out, throwing the room into darkness.
Neither Aidan nor Lucio notices me stepping inside the room. It starts as soon as I step over the threshold: image after image, flash after flash, one life and then another. Every memory looks and feels angry. I stumble, crashing against the table with a whomp.
“Sunshine!” Lucio catches me before I hit the ground. We lean against each other to stay upright. I reach out blindly and lace my fingers through his. “You have to get out of here. It isn’t safe for you.”
I manage to shake my head. Understanding crosses Lucio’s face. I close my eyes and concentrate, just like I’ve been taught.
I hold my breath and seek out one spirit, just one. The man with the walker. His name is Joseph. But this time the memory of his life that flashes before me isn’t one of him calmly walking up and down the hallways of his retirement community. This time it’s a fight he had with his caretaker, when he was refusing to take the medicine she offered him. When he was so sick of suffering that he just wanted to let go.
Just like he wants to let go now.
“Get her out of here!” Aidan shouts.
“No,” Lucio counters. “Maybe she can calm them down.”
My thoughts exactly, I think but do not say.
“I want to help,” I manage. And not just because Ashley will be here in less than eleven hours. The spirits in this room are suffering. It’s bad enough they’re trapped in here. Now they’re trapped and reliving some of their worst memories. Their anger shoots through my body. I slide my hands from Lucio’s and ball them into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms.
In a flash I feel another set of hands on me. It takes the combined strength of both men to keep me upright. They lean against me. I feel warmth coming from the center of their bodies, from their heartbeats, nearly as fast as my own.
I can do this.
I’m so sorry you’re trapped in there. I would set you free if I could—but no, I wouldn’t. The last spirit to escape this lab became a fire demon. A breeze whips across my bare neck, sending shivers down my spine.
No, I wouldn’t set you free. But I would help you move on, like I did Estella. I imagine it: one right after the other, like some kind of one-person luiseach assembly line in a spirit factory.
I wish you could move on by yourself, like Aidan wants. I wish you could feel the peace that comes with releasing your grip on this Earth.
I know your son loved baseball and that you could always taste the pills the nurse crushed into your applesauce.
The wind shifts, the deafening whistle just one octave lower. The flashes of Joseph’s life change before my eyes: instead of seeing all the times he couldn’t do what he wanted, I begin to see the times he succeeded: the race he won in high school, the promotion he worked so hard for.
I must be succeeding. I lower my fists.
Leaning against Lucio and Aidan, I seek out another spirit.
The woman with white hair and dark brown eyes holding her grandchild.
I know your granddaughter’s name is Maria and that your grandson loved dogs.
And then another. A man who never got to say good-bye to his husband.
I know how much you loved each other.
And another.
I know you’re sorry you got behind the wheel when you were too tired to drive.
And another.
I know how much you loved your wife.
And another.
And another.
I’m shivering, but I’m also sweating from the effort of concentrating so hard. My teeth are clenched so tightly that I can feel them grinding against one another.
I tell every single one of them I know how you felt in life. How you feel now, in death. I can feel it too.
“You’re suffering,” I say out loud. “I’m suffering too. And I will suffer until each of you has gotten to move on like you should.”
One by one, the images that flash before me go from the worst moments of these people’s lives to the small, petty inconveniences, to just the normal, everyday sorts of things. Finally the memories shift from frustration and powerlessness to success and accomplishment.