- Jessa Lucas
- Mar 29, 2021
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 14, 2021
Chapter Ten
Ghosting Out
Giving Sab a look, I begrudgingly unfurl my body and stand. After a quick perusal of Sab’s collection of tomes, I spot the right one and lift a hand. “Why’d I have to get it?” I tease.
“Because you were closer. Thaaanks, Mika. You’re the best.”
“And you’re lazy.”
“Class has been exhausting. You might even say it’s ‘taken the life out of me!’”
“First you make me get your book, then you steal my line, Sab?”
Except, there is no book to be had. Realizing I’ve been reaching for a long time, I slowly turn my head to the bookshelf, where my arm now cuts off at the elbow.
“Umm, Sabbath, will there be anything in your Death and Dying book about this?” I ask, arm floundering around uselessly in the bookshelf as I move it up and down.
“Oh, omens!” She leaps up, stumbling out of the tangle of her blanket, and we both gawk at my increasingly ghostlike nature. “I wondered…” she mumbles.
“You wondered?”
“Yeah…”
She’s clearly distracted by the way my entire limb now seems capable of moving through matter undeterred. I mean, it’s kind of fun watching my fingertips disappear in and out of something, even if it does mean that this intangibility thing is clearly creeping up my body.
“You wanna finish that thought…?” I ask, the pitch of my words starting to exceed the decibel at which human ears can decipher sound.
“I wondered if Soren was lying about how quickly the effect would spread. Clearly, he wasn’t. Just keep calm—”
“Calm?” I yell. “I think it’s totally normal to be freaked out when your hand goes through a wall, Sabbath!! What happens next, my body falls through the floor?!”
“Get a grip!” she shrieks.
Sticking my fingers in her face, I flex them frantically. “That is literally not possible, Sabbath!”
The door to the conjoined room slams open. “STOP YELLING!” Cecily demands, storming in as she pushes her really annoyingly square-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. At least she has the decency to look a little shocked by the volume of her own voice.
Both Sabbath and I glare at Cecily, but she musters some sort of emotion on her face and slaps both hands on her hips. “And can you please tell me why there’s a severed arm poking out of our wall?”
“Look!” I demonstrate, pushing my hand against the wall again. Except, as far as my hand’s concerned, there is no wall! In and out it goes, feeling like it’s moving through liquid silk. I feel like an animal at the zoo, watching Cecily watch me, her eyes wide and mouth agape. “Do it again!”
“I’m not a party trick!” I throw my hands in the air.
“You brought her back, then?” Cecily redirects her weasel gaze to Sabbath, and I see the moment it all clicks in her brain: the rumor about Sabbath and her hamsters isn’t just a rumor. “I knew you two were acting suspicious—”
“Yeah, I resurrected Mika!” Sabbath snaps uncharacteristically. “And now her body is moving through walls and—”
“So, let me get this straight,” Cecily interrupts, splaying her fingers out into the air like a professor gesticulating. “You did an unsanctioned séance of some kind. Mika died in the process. Then you brought her back to life, and lied to Thorncaster about it?”
Sabbath and I share a look, wondering if we’ll regret Cecily having such explicit knowledge of our indiscretions. However, Cecily is Necromancy Brood, and right now, we need all the help we can get.
Sab and I both nod slowly.
“Well, that’s weird.”
I narrow my eyes. “Thanks, Cecily.”
“No, I mean, it’s weird that you two are up to something,” she huffs.
“Hey!” I whine. “We lied to a professor!”
Sabbath swats at my arm to shut me up, but it swings right through—skin, muscle, bone and all. “Is it possible for someone to have, like, interrupted our séance? To hurt Mika on purpose?” she asks nervously.
“What, like murder?” Cecily balks.
“Yeah.” I nod.
Cecily shrugs like she doesn’t care much about my life after all. “I mean, I don’t know anything about that. But it was All Hallows’ Eve. You remember History of Spirits from fourth year. There are records of witches trying to contact the ancestors, and dying instead because they didn’t cleanse properly, right?”
“Right.” Sab shifts awkwardly—clearly, she does not remember.
“Or at all...” Cecily whispers her new realization. “You did cleanse, didn’t you?”
“We smudged!” I say triumphantly. “We did the protective rune and everything!”
“Hmm.” Cecily inclines her head. “But sometimes there are more intensive procedures, especially for the more powerful nights of the year. Or more powerful spirits.”
My gaze shifts to Sabbath, whose face has gone white. She looks almost as ghostlike as I do.
“So how do we fix this? I mean, resurrection was supposed to seal her back into life, but she’s—” Sabbath gestures at my entire body.
My mind comes up with a list of suggestions for her: Gone wraith mode? Ghosting out? Ringing in the Haunting hour? All of these seem like fair statements.
“Well, you see her,” Sabbath finishes.
Missed opportunity, I think.
“Resurrections only seal if you do them properly, Sabbath.” Cecily’s lapse in snobbery is over now, the shock of Sabbath’s necromancy triumph tempered by this new failure. “Which clearly you did not. You two need to see a professor—”
“You are not going to tell anyone, Cecily,” I interrupt her, taking a dramatic step closer. “Especially not Thorncaster, because if you tell, we get expelled. If we get expelled, we don’t figure out how I become a real girl again. And if I’m stuck as a ghost, take one guess who I’ll be haunting for the rest of my days.”
Cecily rolls her eyes. However, the small advantage of having a mass murderer for a mother is that no one really doubts what you’re capable of. She slinks out of the room and I turn to Sabbath.
“She’s right, Mika. I didn’t think about how All Hallows’ might affect the cleansing part.”
She’s in full-on panic mode, eyes wild, hands thrown in the air. Sabbath Winters was not supposed to raise me from the dead, on account of her Very Strict Rules, and now she’s morally imploding. I need to calm her down.
Reaching to set both hands on her shoulders, I pause. If my hands end up going through her body, Sabbath Winters will die right here, right now, of full-frontal religious guilt. Unfortunately for both of us, even if I have the sound conscious to resurrect her, I do not have the abilities.
“If you’re seeing ghosts or those who haven’t passed on,” she rambles, desperation rising in her voice. She cuts herself off, biting down on her lip, and I can nearly hear the end of that thought… or if you are a ghost. “Necromancy is soul magic. I—I’ve messed up your soul.”
“Okay, no need to exaggerate to such extravagant proportions,” I caution. “I watched my dad off my mom. My soul was already arguably not on great terms with eternity. So, let’s not get drastic here.”
“What are we going to do, Mika?”
“First, we’re going to breathe. And then, we’re going to go to the library.”
* * *
Correction: I am going to go to the library.
The next morning, our alarm reminds us that Sabbath has the bright and early shift at the Comet. Seeing her scramble from bed and, looking especially non-existent in the pale morning light, I decide it’s best to haul myself up, too. There are a lot of books in Spellfall’s library, and I’m going to need to summon approximately half of them if I plan to solve the mystery of my untimely death.
Sabbath loves our library, which is only fitting for the Queen of Theoretical Necromancy. It takes up three stories of the west wing, with the top levels forming a large balcony that peers down onto the reading area on the first floor. Outfitted with three double-sided fireplaces, the library is a haven for magical overachievers and academic junkies alike. And on Saturday mornings, it’s as quiet as the grave.
Which is perfect, because I’m going to die here.
I do not like libraries. I do not like the safety hazard that is the summoning charm students use to bring books from one section of the library to another. Big whoppers of textbooks swinging through the air without any safety regulations? I mean... as far as I’ve heard, no one has been knocked out by a flying book yet, but the chances it’ll happen seem high.
The administration has been saying for years that they’ll update the summoning charm to include traffic signals so that books don’t collide with other books, or messenger bats, or students. Then again, Spellfall is technically in France, and the French aren’t known for their bureaucratic efficiency.
The other personal problem I have with libraries is that I can’t find things to save my life, which is problematic today since my life needs saving.
This pursuit is made even more dizzying by the fact that I have no clue what I’m looking for. Séances on All Hallows’ Eve? Angry spirits? Death by séance? These all seem like decent places to start, except that I can only summon books that are approved up to our year—which doesn’t include books on séances performed on All Hallows’ Eve. I mean, obviously.
Three hours, twelve glossaries, and countless pages later, I find myself none the wiser on matters of “murderous séances” or “shadow walkers.”
I stare down at my palm irritably, the blistered rune even angrier against the increasingly colorless nature of my skin. My hands keep going in and out of tangibility, sometimes only retaining corporeal functions for a few moments at a time.
I’m definitely getting worse.
Sniffing as I stare down at the rune, I wonder why Peter-Paul gave it to me. Sabbath initially thought it meant murder, but regardless, I should probably try to understand why I’ve been branded with it.
“Pervenire magicae,” I mutter, flicking my wrist. The library’s summoning charm reaches for the book it senses I need. It’s a bit hit or miss sometimes, but far better than perusing thousands of shelves and millions of words. You just have to be careful what you think about when you say it, or else you might end up with some very weird books on magical anatomy that you didn’t even know existed. Not that this has happened to me, or anything.
A book comes soaring like an errant pigeon separated from its flock. It flies toward me and a girl with bright red hair leaps to the side, yelping.
(Case and point.)
The thick, musty book thuds down in front of me, the force of its landing tossing my hair in disarray. It has the words Runes and Resurrection scrawled along the ridged spine, but the cover just has a nice fat rune stamped on the fading leather. Fingering through some of the pages, I quickly scan the chapters for anything that mimics the rune, keeping my branded palm flipped up for side-by-side comparison.
One by one, they skip past in the flurry of pages—runes to allow vamps to venture into the daylight, runes to tie ghosts to a certain location, and even to bring a dead soul back to life for ten minutes. There are so many, that it seems impossible anyone’s brain could store them all inside, tied to their various meanings, capable of being plucked out from a pocket of the mind in a moment’s notice.
Turns out there are a lot of ways you can murder a person, too. Drawn and quartered, arrow to the heart, blood poisoned, soul splitting, spirit exiling, body snatching. It’s all here... except, that none of these are a match for my souvenir from Purgatory, and none of them seem to explain how I died.
Soon, the flickering sensation overcomes me again, and my hand slips through the book it’s resting on. I half-heartedly attempt a page-turning spell, but the pages tumble forward, skipping several instead. The summoning part helps with the not-being-able-to-hold-books part, but there’s nothing I can do if I’m ghosting out so hard that my magic lacks the precision to turn pages.
I sigh. After half a day tucked away in a corner on the third floor, I determine that this trip is mostly, if not entirely, futile. Standing, I realize I’m stuck waiting for someone to walk through the door until my arms resume their ability to be arms. Waiting awkwardly in the shadowy stacks by the door, I finally spy the redhead who I almost bludgeoned via library book.
She heaves open the thick door and slips through, and I scamper after the door, catching it almost too late. I manage to wedge my back through just in time, but grunt awkwardly when the wood crushes into me.
“Are you okay?” the redhead turns, staring at the strange way I’ve chosen to exit, and the even stranger way I’m holding my hands away from my body. At least now, I have an excuse for never knowing what to do with my hands.
“I’m great,” I nod, waiting for her eyes to slide off of me. Finally, she carries on and rounds the corner at the end of the hall. I exhale in relief, shaking my hands out. “Stop. Ghosting. Out!” I grouse.
“Close call,” someone beside me muses, making me turn instinctively.
Big mistake.
The shadow walker beside me is bemused. He has thick eyebrows, jet-black hair, and that same ghost-like quality that I’m not entirely sure how to describe—like he’s made of smoke coalescing, and at any moment he could dissolve into the air. He’s not the one from before, and I don’t remember seeing him with the others. Then again, I was busy trying not to look very hard—kind of what I should be doing now.
I whip around immediately, but it’s too late.
“I saw that. Saw you, see me.” He seems energized by this epiphany and I silently curse myself for giving him the upper hand.
My pace quickens, the rise and fall of my hurried footsteps echoing in the hall. No one is stealing my skin today.
“Thanks for asking my name,” he crows from behind me, “Michlynn Carrow...”
All my thoughts circle around a single, terrifying realization: if I don’t figure out an official way back to the land of the living soon, I’m going to be stuck in the spiritual realm with these creeps forever.
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