The Unseen (21 page)

Cassidy barely noticed it had happened until she realized she was looking at the blade of a ceiling fan right in front of her almost nonexistent face.

She rolled over and looked down, and there she was, lying on her bed, her arms unconsciously crossed like a sleeping vampire’s.

It took a moment to remember she had a specific purpose for being out of her body this time.

Okay, Barb
, she thought.
Let’s see who’s crazy.

She plunged through the wall, passing through the circuit boards of the television and the glass screen to emerge in the middle of the small living room.  Barb stood behind the coffee table, holding up a white porcelain pig with pink spots, one of Cassidy’s mom’s decorations, a look of mock reverence on her face as she bowed her head low as though the pig were a holy relic.

This feels pretty real
, Cassidy thought, and she returned to her body.

When she opened her eyes, she called out, “Barb, are you worshiping that pig?”

“Yes!  Awesome, it’s real!”

“
Fuck!” Cassidy pounded her fist into the wall.

“
What’s wrong?  Are you okay?” Barb asked from the hall.  She jiggled the door handle. “Hey, let me in.  Are you hurt?”

“
Hold on.” Cassidy eventually regained her feet and hobbled over to unlock the door.

“
Why did you yell?” Barb asked when Cassidy opened it.

“
I didn’t tell you something.  Last night in my dream—or I guess it wasn’t a dream—I went over to Peyton’s.”

“
Without your body,” Barb said.

“
Right.  There was a girl spending the night there.”

“
What?  Who?  I’ll cut a bitch.” Barb looked furious. “He doesn’t put you in the hospital and cheat on you in the same week, that’s too much.”

“
It was Reese.”

“
Reese?  Not
Reese
Reese?  From high school?”

Cassidy didn’t say anything.  The girl’s name hung the air between them like a lead weight.  The closed door to Cassidy’s old room, where the insanity had happened, suddenly seemed threatening, as if something evil crouched on the other side.  Something with an unhinged jaw, hot breath, and rows of teeth.

“What...how?” Barb asked. “I thought she moved away forever or something.”

“
Me, too.”

“
But how does she know Peyton?  He didn’t go to our school.”

“
I have no idea.”

“
Does she still wear the eye patch?”

“
Yep.”

“
What
exactly
did you see her doing?”

“
She was poking around the fridge.  Wearing panties and a little sexy top.  And she’d bought him groceries.  I could tell.”

“
All bad signs,” Barb said. “How could they possibly know each other?”

“
At this point, I’m more interested in how well they’re getting to know each other right now,” Cassidy said. “I should call him.  No.  I should project over there and spy on him.”

“
Sounds fun,” Barb said. “Wish I could come.”

“
You could try.”

Barb smiled, then checked the time. “I guess I have a few minutes.  What do I do?”

“I just lie down, close my eyes, and imagine I’m out there.”

They lay on the bed together, eyes closed, and waited.

“I forgot to tell you something else,” Cassidy said, opening her eyes. “I’m pretty sure Reese saw me.”

“
What?” Barb’s eyes flew open. “You were out of body and she saw your face?”

“
I don’t know if she knew it was me, but she knew something was there.  Maybe she thought it was a ghost.”

“
So you scared her.” Barb gave a satisfied grin.

“
No, that’s what’s even weirder.  She challenged me to a fight, and she acted like she really
wanted
me to attack her.  Who sees a ghost and reacts like that?”

“
That’s messed up.  So watch out for Reese.  Maybe she’s still got a little demon in her.”

“
Exactly.”

Barb snickered. “That made me think of a dirty joke.”

“I’m sure it did.”

They tried again, closing their eyes.  Cassidy rose up and out in her pencil-sketch of a body, and she looked down at Barb.  If Barb was floating around, Cassidy didn’t sense her in any way.

After a few minutes, Barb opened her eyes and sat up.

“
It’s not happening,” Barb told Cassidy’s slumped body. “Hey, Cassidy, you there?” Barb looked around the room, trying to see Cassidy but unable to do it. “Are you out there?”

Cassidy dropped back into her body.

“Nothing?” Cassidy asked, opening her eyes.

“
Nah, it never works for me.  I have to run, okay?  You go spy on your boy and call me with the details.  Promise?”

“
Promise,” Cassidy said. “Thanks for helping me with this, Barb.”

“
Of course.” Barb hugged her before leaving.

Cassidy stayed in the bed.  She lifted up from her body and visualized Peyton.

She didn’t find herself in his loft, though, but trailing behind him like a balloon as he browsed the record store Wax ’n’ Facts, always searching for obscure vintage sounds.  Cassidy rose up near the ceiling and orbited the cluttered store slowly, but saw no sign of Reese.

After pretending to turn up his nose at the selection, then dropping two hundred dollars on rare old vinyl, he walked next door to Savage Pizza, a place literally wallpapered in comic books.

Cassidy felt a flush of anger as he ordered slices for himself, jealous that he was eating at one of their special places, right in her own neighborhood, while she was away.  He hadn’t even called or texted her today, and he must have noticed her four a.m. phone call.

She glowered invisibly at him while he ate.  The thick slice with pepperoni and olives, dripping red sauce and mozzarella, looked so good that she was almost tempted to return to her body so she could eat.

It was clear Reese wasn’t spending the day with Peyton, but Cassidy very much wanted to know what the girl was doing at the moment.  She pictured Reese in her mind, trying to imagine her just as she looked the previous night.

The pizza parlor dissolved around her.

Cassidy stared at a wall.  Bricks of rough black stone, cut and fitted to each other like puzzle pieces, stared mutely back at her.

The wall stretched up farther than she could see, seeming to fade into a far, misty horizon.  She looked down and saw that it stretched impossibly far beneath her sketch-outline feet, too, and extended away forever to her right and to her left.

There was no sound, no movement, just dimness and the wall.  The sudden absolute silence, replacing the chattering voices and clinking glasses of Savage Pizza, unnerved her.  She floated in a lightless place, staring at a wall that had no doors, no windows, and no end in any direction.

Cassidy had made a wrong turn somehow.  Her location was nowhere that could exist on earth, a hand-made stone wall miles wide and miles high, and this frightened her.

Steady, concentrate
, she told herself.
Reese
. 
I was trying to find Reese.

She again conjured the mental image of Reese, concentrating more carefully, trying to imagine every physical detail of her—which didn’t take much imagination,
considering
the outfit Reese had been wearing in Peyton’s kitchen.

She heard a shuddering sound, like stone grinding on stone grinding on a million tons of rusty iron.  The sound echoed like a deep, wordless voice, like the bellow of an angry giant, the sound vibrations shaking her to her core.

She felt she’d angered the wall somehow.

Cassidy decided to forget about Reese and settle for escaping back to her own body.

She pictured her body lying on the bed, waiting for her return, but nothing happened.  The rubber-band sensation didn’t whip her back home.

She imagined herself trapped in this strange dark purgatory-place forever, unable to find the way back to her body, and bright green panic swirled around her.

She calmed herself by imagining she was taking a deep breath.  As she did, her sketch of a body became just slightly more visible, its pencil-outline shape just a little darker.

There’s no place like home
, she whispered, and some tiny back part of her mind couldn’t help bubbling with the feeling of laughter.  She drew on it for warmth and light, and she pictured her body as clearly as she could.

There was a long moment when nothing happened, and she thought she really was stuck somehow.  Then she felt a painful lurch, and she was back in her room.

Cassidy grabbed her phone and called Peyton. 
You’d better pick up, fucker,
Cassidy said.
I know you’re not busy.

“
What’s up?” Peyton answered.

“
You tell me,” she said. “What are you up to lately?”

“
Just getting out in the sunlight.  Shopping for sounds.”

“
Anything else happening?”

“
Not much.”

“
Did you make any new friends in the hospital?” Cassidy asked, feeling more annoyed every second.

He hesitated. “Uh, what do you mean?”

“Sometimes that happens in the hospital.  Meet interesting people, hear interesting stories.  Anything like that happen?”

“
No.  What are you talking about?”

“
What have you been up to since you got out?” she asked.

“
Nothing.  Just hanging out.”

“
By yourself?”

“
Mostly.  Cassidy, are you on the rag or what?  What’s with the drilling here?”

“
Who’s drilling?” Cassidy asked in the sweetest voice she could muster, which wasn’t particularly sweet even at the best of times. “I just want to know if you’ve made new friends or you’re hanging out with anybody new.”

“
No. What are you talking about?”

“
Nobody?  No blond girls with eyepatches spending the night at your place?”

Cassidy heard him draw air through his teeth.

“Sounds like a yes,” she said.

“
Cassidy, I can explain that.”

“
I just gave you like seven chances to explain and you didn’t.  You weren’t going to mention her to me at all, were you?”

“
Hey, listen, Cassidy, I don’t know what you heard, but there’s nothing going on there.”

“
Then why’s she sleeping over?”

“
She insisted.”

“
And you refused, and she pulled a gun and forced you,” Cassidy said.

“
She’s this crazy church chick.  She’s trying to save my soul or something.  She’s pushy.”

“
Tell her to call me,” Cassidy said.

“
Who?”

“
Reese!” Cassidy snapped. “The girl you’re sleeping with.”

“
I’m not sleeping with her.  Cass, we need to get together, talk this over—how do you know Reese?”

“
I don’t think I want to speak to you anymore,” Cassidy replied. “Just tell Reese to call me.  She and I obviously need to catch up.  It’s been years.”

Cassidy ended the call, and she didn’t answer when Peyton called her back.

Peyton tried to call Cassidy back a few times, but she never answered.  He texted her to say they should get together and talk.

She was clearly pissed at him.  Peyton wondered how she even knew about Reese—maybe somebody had seen them together at the blues festival.

He’d made a mistake letting Reese hang around.  She was hot, but she was a different kind of person and Peyton wasn’t sure he was ready to leave Cassidy for her.  All of Reese’s apparent interest in him could have just been part of how she recruited people for her little cult.  She’d said that every moment of her life was missionary work.

Peyton was back home when his phone gave three annoying beeps, the sound of someone paging him from the front gate of the loft complex.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“
Hey, Peyton, it’s Reese!” The girl said her name as though it were the thrilling announcement of the century. “Buzz me in?”

He sighed and pressed the 9 button, which sent a signal to open the gate.