Eternal (22 page)

He pursed his sensuous lips and inhaled. “Are you positive it wasn’t a dream?”

I tensed. “Jeremiah, I saw her. I was talking to you and I saw her standing right there!” I pointed to the spot where the woman had been only a minute ago.

He swept his palm over my hair. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now.”

I snuggled against him, curling my fingers into his shirt. “She looked so…upset.”

“How did you know her?”

“I saw her at the hospital, the…the day you and I first…kissed. She, her son and her husband had been brought in. She was dead on arrival. The man died later and as far as I know, the boy is still in a coma.”

“She must have…lingered,” Jeremiah mused aloud.

I shuddered. “I know she did.” My mind fled back to that day. I’d been so concerned Briar had done something to Jeremiah, I really hadn’t given a lot of thought to the idea that the woman had stayed behind or even what it meant.

“I saw her refuse to go. The Light appeared. She looked at it for a minute and then she stayed with her son,” I explained. “Because she didn’t go, does that mean she’s…stuck…here?”

“That’s how it works,” he drawled.

I mulled over what he’d said. “Can…can someone force you to go?”

He averted his gaze. “No one has ever tried.”

“That day…in the hallway at school,” I whispered hesitantly. “Did you talk to…to Briar?”

I immediately regretted asking the question. Everything had been so good I did not want to destroy it by bringing up Briar.

His gaze slid back to mine. “Yes.”

Panic welled to the surface and I began to shake in his arms. “W-what happened?”

His fingers threaded through my hair and he drew me toward him. He pressed a sweet kiss to my forehead. “Nothing about which you should be concerned.”

Every part of me wanted to remain in his arms and pretend he was right but I couldn’t. I wrenched away. “No. If you talked to her, it concerns me. Don’t patronize me.”

“Wren, everything is fine. She hasn’t bothered you, has she? No more hateful looks? No more threats?”

“No,” I said weakly, desperately wanting to ignore my intuition—
needing
to trust Jeremiah.

“Has she?” he reiterated, stronger this time.

“No.”

He inhaled and then cocked his head to the side. He studied my face. “I would do anything to see you safe,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure if I had heard the words correctly.

My heavy eyelids blinked slowly and I nestled back into his embrace, wanting, needing, to believe everything was okay.

But I knew as soon as I awakened the next morning, I planned to learn all I could about sending spirits to the Other Side.

* * * * *

David’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “The aunt just didn’t want to keep him in that state. As his next of kin, it was her call.”

I stopped in the hallway to listen.

“I still think it’s awful.” Mom’s whisper was just loud enough for me to hear. “He was Wren’s age.”

So, the boy had been taken off life support and allowed to die. A combination of relief and sadness swept through me. At least now, he dwelled in a happier place. I hoped. But his death also explained his mother’s presence in my room last night.

My lips parted in realization. Was she now separated from him? And did she think I could help her cross over to the Other Side?

“We’re lucky we didn’t have to make that decision,” David continued calmly. “I’m certain it wasn’t an easy one.”

Mom sighed.

Heart pounding as the conversation switched to me, I stayed put in the hallway.

“Don’t you think it’s time she started driving again?” David asked guardedly.

Mom’s retort came quickly. “She’s not ready.”

“She’s not ready or
you’re
not ready?”

I hadn’t even considered driving. David was being unfair to Mom.

“Come on, babe,” David added. “All she does is sit alone in her room when she’s at home. She doesn’t have friends over. She doesn’t go out.”

I held my breath. They just didn’t know. I wasn’t alone. I spent my time with Jeremiah but how could I ever explain him to my parents?

“I have noticed that she seems withdrawn, even more since we moved,” Mom said. “But when I told her you were prepared to move back, she didn’t want go. In fact, she seemed really upset at the idea of leaving Columbia.”

David heaved a sigh. “Do what you think is best but in my opinion, she needs to get back in counseling.”

Silently, I let my head fall back against the wall. Counseling was the last thing I needed or wanted. I debated telling them about Jeremiah but they’d just think I was even crazier than before.

“I suppose you’re right,” Mom said.

My pulse accelerated.

Somehow, I had to convince them I was all right. Maybe I did need to try driving again, even just to the end of the driveway and back.

Ella’s shuffling footsteps in the hallway startled me. I didn’t want Mom or David to know I’d been eavesdropping, so I coughed and started into the kitchen. What I saw made me gasp.

Jeremiah stood in the corner of the kitchen, his face grim. He’d been listening, too.

“Morning, Wren.” David turned to refill his coffee cup, just inches from where Jeremiah stood.

My gaze locked with Jeremiah’s and I had to tear it away before anyone noticed.

“Did you sleep well?” Mom asked.

I nodded but the memory of the woman’s ghost loomed fresh in my thoughts.

Ella burst into the kitchen clad in a fuzzy robe adorned with pictures of happy sock monkeys. A little smile crept across her face and I realized she saw Jeremiah, too.

I stared, stunned as he winked at her. Ella gave him a little wave and climbed onto her stool while Mom prepared her breakfast. How could she see him? And more importantly, why didn’t the little cretin blurt it out to Mom and David that a ghost stood in the kitchen?

Jeremiah’s eyes met mine again but I found his stare dark. Unreadable. When he vanished, a sense of doom crept over me.

* * * * *

That morning, the dead woman practically dogged my every step. I tingled with her energy. Unlike Jeremiah’s soft, warm energy, hers crackled, like ants crawling up the back of my neck whenever she was nearby. Her image emerged in my peripheral vision but every time I turned to look directly at her, she disappeared.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hear her. Our lack of communication skills frustrated us both.

Grateful for my Internet service, I fired up my laptop and sat down to investigate earthbound spirits. In addition to finding out how to help the woman, I wanted to know if someone could force a spirit to leave the earth plane—someone like Briar. At the same time, I didn’t want Jeremiah to think I felt as if he was keeping something from me.

Ninety-two thousand entries popped up as a result of my search for earthbound spirits. Most detailed regional ghost hunting groups, all of which looked to me like copy cats of those cheesy ghost hunter shows on television.

I yawned as I clicked on yet another site classifying earthbound spirits as demonic beings or someone who did not know he or she was dead. Where did these people come up with this hogwash?

Jeremiah certainly knew he was dead and obviously had from the beginning. Had I chosen not to come back to my body, I would have known I was dead.

I suppose there might be cases where the spirit lacked awareness it had left the body but those had to be rare.

One site stated that earthbound spirits could be found only in cemeteries. Based on my experience, unless Jeremiah went with me to the family plot, no other ghosts lurked there. Another site alleged that earthbound spirits were really aliens.

One religious zealot thought ghosts were the devil come to steal people’s souls. I rolled my eyes.

Jeremiah was about as far from evil as a person could be.

I sighed, about to give up finding any helpful, coherent information when I discovered a site by a woman who lived in Alabama. Vibrant, smiling and dressed in stylish, tailored clothing in her photo on the header of her site, she looked more like one of my mother’s country club friends than the hippies and New Age types I’d seen. Even her name sounded normal: Carrie McCafferty. Wow. No Madam Zelda or Miss Wilma. And no cornball computerized song set to auto play as the page loaded.

A knowing tingle bristled down my arms as I scrolled down past Carrie’s biography to the information posted on her website.

Her experience with spirits mirrored my own. But one thing stood out above anything else. She believed an earthbound spirit’s energy vibrated at a rate closer to a living person’s than that of a spirit who had made the transition to the Other Side.

I sat back in my desk chair, letting the implications of that fact settle.

Since seeing Jeremiah’s ghost, I’d wondered why I’d never been visited by Kira’s ghost or even my grandmother’s. Carrie’s theory explained it.

Since they’d obviously made the transition into the Light, their energy vibrated at a higher rate of speed, similar to the ability to better see the blades of a ceiling fan on low versus seeing the blades when the fan was set on high.

According to the theory, I couldn’t see Kira because her spirit energy vibrated so much more rapidly than mine, because she’d made the transition to the heavenly plane. I reasoned the same theory explained why I hadn’t been contacted by her either.

Jeremiah, whose energy vibrated at a rate higher than mine, remained visible to me because he was earthbound.

I tensed. If Jeremiah went to the Light, I wouldn’t be aware of him any longer. Stunned silence surrounded me.

Now that his parents were long gone, Jeremiah deserved—and probably wanted—to transition to the Other Side.

Only one thing kept Jeremiah here.

Me.

I swallowed thickly.

Briar’s hostility toward me stemmed not from jealously, but because of my selfishness. The realization sickened me. She’d let up on her attacks because Jeremiah told her he wanted to stay. With me.

My gut whispered that he’d possibly made some sort of bargain with her.

I wished I knew more about her but no one, other than her cronies, seemed to know anything beyond what Briar professed online.

If only I could drive, I could go to the New Age store in Nashville where her group headquartered and do some detective work.

Shivering, I concentrated on the words on the computer screen, scrolling down until I came to a section about smudging. Carrie’s site maintained that sage smudging was akin to spiritual housecleaning and that negative or earthbound energies could attach to the smoke. They would then be released into the Light where their energies would become heightened.

Carrie also stated that she felt the sage held no magical power in itself but rather, it was the intent of the psychic medium alone that cleansed the space or the spirit.

Carrie even included instructions on how to help a spirit make the transition. It seemed simple enough. First, the medium envisioned the White Light of the Creator around both him or herself and the spirit wishing to cross. Carrie suggested requesting the help of loved ones from the Other Side to assist the earthbound spirit. After saying a prayer to release the soul of the earthbound spirit, Carrie maintained that the entity should be able to easily cross and that if the spirit still remained uncertain, sage could be used to clear both the air and the spirit of negative energy.

Carrie wrote that some ghosts felt guilt or fear that trapped them to the earth and that others refused to go for a variety of reasons. Thus after a certain amount of time, the earthbound entities needed the help of a medium and those already on the Other Side to create an open door for them.

In bold letters, Carrie stated that a spirit had to give permission before they could be sent over.

I sighed. At least Briar couldn’t force Jeremiah to go to the Light.

An image suddenly flashed at my side. I gasped. My gaze locked on the ghost of the woman from the hospital. This time, she no longer looked angry. Instead, she seemed sad. Daylight shone through her spirit, giving her an ethereal appearance. Dressed in a sweater and pair of trousers, she didn’t have the old world eeriness Jeremiah possessed but nothing changed the fact that I’d seen this woman’s corpse.

She pointed at my computer screen and nodded and I clearly understood she wanted me to help her cross over.

“Is this what you want?” I asked. “To go to your son?”

She nodded. Again, her mouth moved but no words that I could hear emerged. I shuddered. The sight of her unnerved me so much, I shook.

How could I be so comfortable with Jeremiah’s spirit and yet so frightened by another?

“I’ve never done this before,” I warned.

Impatiently, she shook her index finger at the screen. When she took a menacing step toward me, I sank back in my chair. “All right! I’ll try. Just…please don’t…come any closer.”

She stopped, begging me with her soulful eyes.

Inhaling, I reluctantly closed my eyes and tried to envision White Light surrounding us both.

“Wren!” Jeremiah’s voice snapped me out of my trance.

My eyes opened. I stared. A wide swath of blinding, glittering Light surrounded the woman.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to help her cross over,” I said, realizing Jeremiah still couldn’t see her.

The Light intensified so much that I shielded my eyes.

Jeremiah, stared, amazed. “I see her!”

My ceiling suddenly ceased to be my ceiling. Instead, it was as if heaven had opened up and dropped a host of ghosts and angels in my bedroom. I recognized the man she called Tom and the woman’s son, both of whom appeared happy and peaceful—joyous to see the woman. Others stood by in a variety of time periods of dress. Some wore clothes that obviously hailed from the sixties and seventies. One man sported trousers, suspenders, a bowtie and hat. A shy little blonde girl, who looked to be about Ella’s age, stood by dressed in her Sunday best.

My heart twisted as the woman rushed into their waiting arms. I glanced at Jeremiah, wondering if he saw what I saw.