Beyond (Afterlife book 1) (10 page)

The mirror was still there, beautiful and
bright although there was no light in the room. I approached it,
taking in a couple of deep breaths and preparing myself for the
fact that I might end up somewhere completely else.

I put both my palms on the mirror and
pressed myself through, this time with no resistance and not much
exhaustion. I had gotten much better at this. Maybe it was the fact
that I had my mind somewhere else, maybe I just really wanted to go
through, but I landed on the same bathroom floor in Jason’s house.
I immediately recognized the white tiles.

I opened the broken and repaired bathroom
door and stuck my head out in the hall. The house seemed
quiet.

Everyone must be asleep, I thought.

I found Jason’s door and opened it, trying
to make as little noise as possibly. There he was, sound asleep in
his bed. I approached him and blew some air carefully in his hair.
Then he opened his eyes and smiled at me. I froze for a second. His
face was badly beaten up. His one arm sticking out under the
t-shirt was filled with bruises as well.

“
I knew you would come
back,” he said and sat up. “I have been waiting for you every
night, checking the bathroom.”

“
What happened to your
face?”

“
Nothing. I was in a
fight.” He got up from his bed and started looking for his pants on
the floor.

“
With your
step-dad?”

He stopped the search.

“
Well … If you really have to
know, then yes.” He looked at me and saw my concern. Then he
sighed. “Listen. Don’t worry about it,” he said with an awkward
smile. “It was nothing. I’ll be fine.”

I had embarrassed him, I could tell by the
look on his face. He didn’t like to appear weak in front of me.

“
So how have you been?” he
asked. He found his jeans and began to put them on.

“
Busy with school, I
guess,” I lied. I didn’t want him to know that I had been worried
about him day and night. I looked out the window. It was another
beautiful and clear starry night.

“
Good. Busy is good. That
keeps your mind of things.”

“
It sure does,” I said and
smiled. As I turned my head my eyes caught something on the floor.
It was our puzzle, all the pieces in one big pile, the cardboard
ripped into small pieces.

“
What happened to our
puzzle?” I said.

He looked at it as well. “We might have to
start over,” he laughed, a little embarrassed. “I tried to collect
all the pieces, but I’m not sure I got them all.”

I sighed. “Let me guess, your
step-dad?”

Jason nodded. “After you left he went kind
of crazy and started throwing things around in the bathroom. He was
sure I was hiding someone and he searched the whole house. What an
idiot.”

“
Was that when he did that
to you?” I grabbed his arm and turned it so I better could see all
the bruises. Jason pulled his arm away.

“
Nah. That was another
time. He just smacked me around for awhile. It was nothing,
really.”

I looked at him like I definitely didn’t
believe him. Being smacked around could never be nothing. It wasn’t
until now that I remembered that time passed faster on earth so
what had been only weeks for me had been months for him.

“
Really. It’s nothing. I’m
tough, you know. I can handle it.”

He
was
tough and that was a good thing. He was a
big guy, tall and muscular, and that was a good thing too. But he
didn’t seem like the fighting type. My guess was that he would
never fight back.

“
Just be careful,
okay?”

He smiled and approached me. He put a
shirt over his head and pulled it on. It was tight on his body and
made him look strong.

“
I’m a big boy,” he said with
that boyish smile of his.

I visited Jason every night after that. It
became a habit and something I would look forward to all day in
school. We began working on the puzzle again and it came along
nicely, but slowly, since we spent most of our time talking about
everything and nothing. About his dreams for his future, about the
universe, about school and his friends, and I would even sometimes
grumble about Portia and her pack.

I couldn’t quite figure out if I wanted to
see him so badly because I wanted to keep an eye on him in order to
protect him or if it was because I was falling for him, but I
enjoyed the nightly visits and after a couple of weeks we became
really close friends. Naturally I couldn’t tell him much about my
life, since I still didn’t remember much about my life on earth. I
had to keep most of my life at the Academy secret, so we mostly
spoke about him. But after some time it became harder and harder to
avoid all of his many questions. He kept asking what it was like
and I tried hard not to make it sound great. I didn’t want him to
wish he were dead.

“
But you can fly! That
must be so awesome,” he said one day when we were staring at the
stars from the window in his room. “You can go anywhere you want in
the world. You could even visit the stars!”

“
Well I don’t know about the
stars, but yes, I can fly anywhere I want to,” I said, trying not
to seem to enthusiastic. But that was, in fact, one of the things I
really loved about being a spirit.

“
And the going through
doors and mirrors and stuff, that is so cool.”

“
I guess it is,” I said.
“But it also means you have no physical body.”

He looked at me with big eyes. “No body.
Just think of it. My step-dad could hit me all he wanted to but
never hurt me.”

I smiled and looked into his soft brown
eyes. They were so deep, like I could disappear in them. They were
really puppy eyes, but at the same time he had that bad-boy look on
his face. Like he was about to get me into deep trouble soon. Like
he would devour me. How he managed to have both things going for
him, I had no idea. But it worked. If I had had any physical legs
they would have been swept away from under me just by his
look.

“
Tell me, what is it like to
fly? Come on, please tell me. Pleease?”

I sighed. His white smile and brown eyes
were softening me. I reached out my hand toward him. “Take my
hand.”

He grabbed for it but went straight
through a couple of times. Then I turned my hand so the palm was
facing up and told him to place his flat on top of mine. He looked
at me as he did and suddenly I felt the warmth from his hand in
mine. Then I folded my fingers into his and held on tight. I had
been practicing and was getting better at holding onto things. My
heart was racing and I had never felt this alive.

I opened the window and pulled his hand
closer. Then I floated out the window, into thin air while he
stayed at the windowsill still holding my hand. He looked at me a
little scared but still smiling.

“
Come on,” I said with a
big smile. “Take my other hand, and I will show you what it is
like.”

“
You mean …?”

I nodded.

“
Come on. Just take a step
out.”

I had gotten better at flying lately, and
though I had never tried to fly with a human before, I knew I could
do it.

“
Are you sure about this?”
He asked a little concerned.

“
Just trust
me.”

Jason’s eyes looked at the ground beneath
him. He knew he would hurt himself badly if he hit the ground from
there.

“
Okay,” he
said.

He grabbed my other hand and closed his
eyes. Then he took a step toward me, falling a little downwards
before I could pull him up. The falling caused him to shriek and
open his eyes but I managed to pull him close to me and turn him
around so I could hold my arms around his back. Then with all my
strength I soared into the air.

Jason screamed ecstatically when we rose
high above the house and he looked down at the small trees and cars
beneath us.

It was so quiet up there in the air. No
human noise and no lights. The stars shone brighter than ever in
the black sky above us, and we both felt like we could just reach
out and touch them.

“
This is amazing,” he
whispered as we floated through a small cloud. He reached his hand
out and tried to touch it.

“
Your earthly body goes right
through it, but when you are a spirit you can actually touch it and
play with clouds. Sometimes we surf on them,” I said.

“
So is it true that Angels
jump on the clouds?”

“
I can’t speak for Angels, but
we spirits do. It’s kind of neat.”

“
I bet it is,” he said
pensively.

“
Do you want to try
something fun?” I asked.

He smiled and nodded.

“
Hold on,” I
said.

Two seconds later I turned our heads
toward the ground and we started falling in the direction of
Jason’s house.

He screamed, “Stop, stop, you are killing
us! We’ll hit the house!”

Then just a second before we would have hit
the house, I turned around and soared again holding on to him
tight.

Jason burst into a huge laugh. When we
were back high in the air again he yelled while still laughing.
“That was the wildest roller-coaster ride I have ever
had.”

I suddenly felt uncomfortable realizing
how close our bodies were. Strangely enough, I felt his body and
the warmth coming from it. It was a tickling feeling and it was so
strong and powerful that I was almost shaking. The smell of his
hair, the feeling of him so close to me was
intoxicating.

While I was still holding on to him, he
managed to turn around and we were now face to face.

“
You sure know how to
distract a guy from his problems,” he said.

I smiled shyly and tried to avoid his
eyes. I really liked being this close to him. It felt nice. But I
was afraid to like it too much. I didn’t want to put anything into
our relationship that he didn’t want too. I had to realize that I
was dead, that I had no physical body, and how could an earthly boy
ever fall for that?

But I was so wrong. A moment later Jason
grabbed my chin and turned my head toward his. He had a serious
look on his face. Gently he placed his fingers on my cheek and
touched it slowly, careful not to go through. He was so gentle I
felt like I was made of paper, that he was afraid I might
break.

Then he kissed me. His lips felt soft and
gentle on mine.

T
he stars seemed to dance above us. Later I
realized we were in fact spinning around in the air. I felt such an
incredible warmth running through my spirit body, a feeling I
thought I was not capable of having. My heart felt like it would
jump right out of my chest. When the kiss was over I was so
confused that I accidentally let go of him.

Jason started falling toward the ground,
screaming and kicking in the air and I had to fly insanely fast to
catch up with him and grab hold of him again. I threw my arms
around his back and flew toward the house where we ended sitting on
the roof.

“
I’m sorry,” I said. “Are you
okay?”

“
Sure,” he smiled. “I’m the one
who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have surprised you like that.”

I looked at him and froze inside. Was he
regretting the kiss? He saw it on my face. Then he leaned over and
whispered: “Like a gentleman I should have waited till we had solid
ground under both of our feet again.”

I smiled with relief. We sat quietly for
awhile until I realized the sun was about to rise behind the
mountains in the distance. I got up.

“
I have to go,” I
said.

I helped him to get back in his room and
then I hurried to the bathroom, making sure that no one was awake
in the house. I heard nothing so I opened the door to the bathroom.
It was empty. Just before I reached the mirror, I heard Jason’s
soft voice behind me.

“
Will you be back
tomorrow?”

I turned around and smiled. Then I
nodded.

Chapter 11

All the next day I was really
distant in class. Especially in Transitions
class in the cellar with Mrs.
Ohayashi. We were having a theory lesson on going through windows
but my mind was everywhere but the classroom. I couldn’t wait for
this day to be over so I could go and visit Jason again. Until then
I kept picturing him and me floating in the air, kissing under the
stars. I tried to recall the softness of his lips and the warmth in
his eyes.

But the dream didn’t last long. I was ripped
back to reality by the screeching voice of Mrs. Ohayashi.

“
Meghan! Answer me,
please!”

I looked up. She was standing in front of my
desk. I hadn’t even noticed that she had approached me.

“
What?” I said.

“
I asked you a
question.”

“
I’m sorry, I didn’t hear
it.”

Mrs. Ohayashi snorted.

“
I will have to notify
Salathiel that you are being inattentive in class, that you are not
listening and not doing your homework.”