Last Time She Died Read online

  “So I’m seeing through dimensions and that’s how I’m haunting Cali. That actually makes some kind of sense. Can every dead person do that? Is that what ghosts are?”

  “No. And no. You can’t see through dimensions—”

  “But you said—”

  “I said Cali could. You didn’t think all this rain recently was natural, did you.” Leland pointed up to the darkening clouds. “You’re like one of those movie clichés where it rains because you’re sad. Except almost all your emotions cause rain. Rain is your strongest ability for sure.”

  “I feel like I’d have noticed if Colorado turned into Seattle. Probably others would have too.”

  “It doesn’t change the real world. You couldn’t make rain as a human.”

  “Oh right. Just as dead me. Why didn’t I notice it?”

  “You’re an Essence in an Ether. Nothing here is right, not even your perception.”

  “Fine, okay. But if Cali is the one who sees through dimensions, but can only do it when she’s dead, and I can’t do it at all…what does this have to do with my necklace? And how is it my fault?”

  “Well, rain thins the barriers between all realms. It can even make it so Essences who don’t have Cali’s abilities can see through if they know what they are doing. However, for someone as sensitive as Cali, rain would allow her to see, and apparently even move, through realms with no real effort or thought, even as a human.”

  “Huh.” Alexia nodded. “Is that bad?”

  Leland shook his head. “Just weird. I don’t think we should worry about that, just getting you home.”

  “To the sit-whatever?”

  “Cetteri.”

  “Do you think my powers are what I need to get back?”

  “Hmm.” He shrugged. “Maybe. We don’t have to go to work at Tom’s Diner anymore so I could work with you to remember them.”

  “Them? I have more than the rain thing?”

  Leland nodded. “That’s your strongest, but yeah. Your other gift is hard to explain.” He paused. “You can make things happen.”

  “Make things happen?” Alexia mocked. “Like a mafia enforcer?”

  “It’s unusual. You can find a solution for any problem you want to solve. Not like poof!” He snapped his fingers. “But, if you want something enough, you have the ability to make everything work out that way.”

  “Like, I can always just get what I want? Like I’m some Mary Sue?”

  “You can set up events to get the outcome you want, but there is a price. Things have to happen, and you don’t always get to control that part. You didn’t want to leave your life as Alexia behind, so you found a way to stay—by haunting Cali. You don’t just get these perfect things you want dropped in your lap because you’re you.”

  “Huh. So, I can have a million dollars, but for me to get it, the orphanage has to shut down and those kids live on the street?”

  He scoffed. “You’ve never done that.”

  Alexia laughed at his horrified expression.

  “The weird thing about this power is that even though it’s not your dominant one, it tends to be the one that presents as human. Though really faintly. You want us all to be together, so your gift makes it easier and faster. With our bond, it would still happen, just probably slower sometimes.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t show up in humans.”

  “It doesn’t really. It’s more of the echo of the power. It’s hard to explain, but in certain lives, humans may get a hint of their abilities. For you, it’s more like the power presents as you being incredibly stubborn in most lives and finding solutions that others miss.”

  “So, what can you do?” Alexia asked.

  “My power is a mirror. I have a weak version of whatever others around me can do. Usually, just their strongest power.”

  “How does that work?” Alexia asked.

  “I just mimic other Essence’s powers while they are close to me,” he answered. “Sometimes I strengthen their power.”

  “So, when you’re around me, you can make it rain too?”

  “Yes, but not as strongly as you.”

  “Do you steal it from me?”

  “No. Copy. I can also sense powers and track the owner. I can feel powers growing. I can sense when something is not quite right. Like powerful intuition, which is not always so helpful. Also, it’s hardly worth mentioning, but I can see the future, a little.” He shrugged.

  “Can you see my future?”

  “No. I haven’t really had this ability long, and I wasn’t joking when I said it was hardly worth mentioning. My sensing ability is erratic, I have no control over it at all. Seeing the future is not much better. I can see a path that someone is down, and I can see where it is most likely to lead, but I am not always right, and I can’t usually control it. Even when I see it, I often have no idea how to change anything. It is terribly inconsistent. Sometimes there are so many paths, there is no way to know what the outcome will be.”

  “Ok. So the three of us are all magical when we die and are Essences?”

  “Right. Dustin too.”

  “Dustin?”

  The world spun around Alexia until something clicked into place and she finally recognized the man who’d been with Cali earlier.

  “Dustin is the guy Cali is always in love with.” Alexia remembered each past version of Cali and her lover.

  He watched her, and the silence stretched between them while Alexia replayed scenes of the past lives, trying to understand her part in them.

  “It’s still strange that you don’t remember all of this. All of us.” He said just as the quiet was getting awkward. “Dustin is part of our family.”

  “Will they be together in this life?” Alexia wondered. “Or am I messing with her too much?”

  “They are together and happy,” Leland said.

  “How do you know they are together? And happy?”

  “We check in on them. When you were alive, we checked on you too. It’s easier from the Cetteri. Here I have to use the ability I borrowed from Cali, so I can’t do it often or well.”

  “Oh.”

  Alexia shook her head. In silence, she scrolled through the lives she did remember, matching the faces of Cali, Leland, and Dustin to the faces they had in her past lives. She tried to pick out personality traits or speech patterns that had carried over until she swam in past versions of herself. Even so, she knew there were holes. Lives she still couldn’t recall. She felt confused. She felt tired.

  She just missed being alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  Leland reached out and took hold of Alexia’s hands. She felt heat flow up her arms and her mind calmed with his touch. He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. His hand paused on her cheek and she felt herself leaning into it.

  She closed her eyes and her stomach dropped like a stone.

  She opened her eyes and realized she was in a past life. Lowrans stood facing her, cupping her cheek in her hand.

  “Alesonne are you alright?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m just worried about him.”

  He smiled. “They say he will be alright. It was just a fall.”

  Her brother had always struggled. He was short tempered, and she’d always known it would get him in trouble.

  She looked up at the stone house in front of them. As the oldest male in his family, he’d inherited the house when their father died. All her other siblings were gone. It was just her and him now, and she hadn’t seen him in years. She walked through the door of her childhood home.

  The elderly housemaid visibly relaxed upon seeing her and led them to his room.

  He looked small to Alesonne as he lay crumpled in the bed. A cut across his cheek. Ragged breathing. His long, blonde hair sprawled across the pillows.

  He opened his eyes. They were icy blue, just as she remembered. He looked at Lowrans first and she thought he might jump from the bed and strangle him.

  His rage had never made s
ense and too many people in the family had fallen victim to his attacks.

  “How are you feeling, Blaine?”

  The fire died behind his eyes when he looked at her.

  “You’re here?” he asked. “Will you stay?”

  “We had to make sure you were ok. We’re here as long as you need us.”

  She reached for his hand and squeezed it in her own. His eyes dropped to her other, the one her husband held, and she saw the fire in his eyes again.

  When she dropped back into her body, Alexia’s stomach lurched. She pulled away from Leland and fell to the floor, clutching her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “That life…” she trailed off.

  “Scotland?”

  “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “You take me with you when you’re close. What was wrong?”

  Alexia opened her mouth, but no words came out. What was wrong with it? She asked herself. Allissaid hadn’t been upset. Her brother had recovered. Sure, he’d been angrier, but it had never been directed toward her.

  “Never mind. It’s not about Scotland,” she lied, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I think I’m ready to leave the Ether. Can we go now?”

  “Usually for someone to move on from their Ether, they just have to want it and realize they are dead,” Leland said. “I can’t make you move on. I can’t make you do anything.”

  Alexia mulled it over. She knew she was dead, and sure, she was sad to leave everyone behind, but she’d already done that by dying. She wanted to leave. “Then why...?” She let the question hang.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What am I doing wrong? Am I broken?” Her voice cracked at the end, but she swallowed and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  “Something’s different, and we have to figure out what it means. Perhaps part of you wants to stay until your memory’s intact.” Leland spoke surely, but his words quickened, and his gaze broke from Alexia’s long enough that Alexia knew the words were for comfort and he didn’t know the answer.

  “I remember a lot of lives,” Alexia said, breaking a weighted silence. “Something about a ship sinking and a bunch of people drowning, and some chick in France in a big, really fancy dress. There was one where we rode horses in Mongolia or something, and another in Ancient Carthage.” She sighed. “Are those my past lives too? They seemed more dream-like before I realized I was...dead.”

  He seemed surprised. “Yes. They are past lives. I don’t know why it is taking you so long to remember them.”

  “They have been kind of filtering in.” She spoke slowly as if picking each word carefully. She was embarrassed that she didn’t know her past and he did. “How long does it usually take? They are dumping on me every night. It is almost overwhelming.”

  “That’s weird. Memories just come back and it isn’t overwhelming.”

  Alexia looked around the house she didn’t remember and all the furnishings that weren’t real. “I hate being here.”

  “Really? I find your Ether strangely peaceful.”

  “I mean this place.” She waved her hand around the room.

  “I’m in that house by Tom’s. It’s huge. Come stay with me. Maybe you just need family.”

  She held his gaze and felt her pulse quicken. “Alright. Thank you.”

  The thought of living alone with Leland excited her. But he knows me. The thought was like ice water dripping down her back. They had a history she couldn’t remember. She ripped her gaze from Leland.

  “I’ll go pack.”

  He laughed. “No need. Anything you want will be there. It’s how you created this place. It’s convenient.”

  “I feel like I’d have noticed that.”

  He snorted a laugh. “Like you noticed you were dead for five years and Cali’s hair never changed?”

  “Ass.”

  “I’m just saying.” He reached for her hand. “You’ve only noticed what you wanted to. You’ll see.”

  A weird giggle slipped out of her while her emotions warred. She was going to learn her history. She’d be in the house with him. She’d get to know him. Things were looking up.

  Or not….

  Walking out the front door, they stopped in their tracks. The door slammed behind them. Alexia could hear the rasping sounds of her breathing as she looked from Leland’s horror-stricken face to the ravaged landscape in front of them.

  The houses stood deserted. Faded paint peeled as if they’d been abandoned for decades. The house next to Alexia’s home had a tree speared through its side like a tornado had blown through. Glass from broken windows littered the sidewalks. Doors hung open or had fallen off completely. A house across the street had a door attached only by its bottom hinge. The door let out a fierce whine with every sway.

  There was no grass, just dirt as if everything had long ago dried up turned to dust. Besides Leland and Alexia, there was no one else. No birds, no dogs, no creatures lending their chatter to the space around them.

  The murky purple sky roiled with dark yellow clouds. Lightning danced above them while sand and dirt raced around in the wind, nipping any bare skin it touched. Alexia’s hair slapped across her face, stinging her eyes.

  “Am I doing this?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this kind of change in an Ether happen so quickly.” His words were slow and deliberate. “I’m no expert on Ethers, but...”

  The wind raged around them and she cowered into his chest to shield herself from the hurtling sand.

  Cars parked along the curbs were rusted and broken. Most had flat tires, resting only on their rims. Two nearby had been crushed by a large fallen tree. The damage around her, the cars, the lack of people, it was what would happen after decades of abandonment.

  His little black car had never been anything fancy but amid the destruction, it was the only thing that still looked serviceable. The paint, although dirty, reflected the lightning above them. It still sat on working tires and had all its windows. It was oddly out of place in the broken, dismal world they stood in.

  He looked relieved when the car started as if he’d expected it to have died along with everything else.

  They bumped across the cracked and damaged road for three blocks. Then, the world started to look like it always had. The destruction and the electricity in the sky fell behind them. Alexia watched out the window as they drove. The houses had less and less damage the farther they got from her home until they all looked new again. The angry sky turned blue and sunny with white fluffy clouds.

  They arrived at Leland’s home and pulled into the garage. They sat in the car, in the dark, silent for several minutes. Leland cleared his throat, opened his door and coaxed her inside the house. Standing in the spacious living room, Alexia could feel the tension leave her shoulders.

  She was safe.

  ***

  Cali’s feet hurt so badly that she hardly moved while Dustin drove her home. Her face felt better, though, and the cuts on her arms had stopped burning.

  Dustin parked in her driveway. The unwelcoming dark windows of her house creeped Cali out in a way she’d never felt before. With her arm slung over his shoulder, Dustin walked her to her downstairs apartment, holding most of her weight. He had wanted to carry her, but she’d refused. She winced with every step and fell into her bed with a sigh of relief.

  He went to the small basement kitchen and returned with a glass of ice water. He plopped it down next to the pill bottles from the hospital, the antibiotic and the painkiller.

  “I’m running to the store. You need bandages. Do you need anything else while I’m out?”

  “No. I should pack while you’re gone.” She pulled on her pajamas and swallowed her giant, green antibiotic.

  “Cali, are you sure you’re okay to stand?”

  “I’m fine, Dustin. I’m not running a marathon. They’re tender, but as soon as these kick in, I’ll be able to move.” She rattled the painkillers in the bot
tle before twisting off the cap.

  Dustin watched her for a minute before heading back up the stairs. “Don’t go trying to do a bunch of stuff. You’ll tear your stitches out.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Cali waved her hand and tried to sound nonchalant, but she didn’t want to pop her stitches. She was in enough pain without tearing anything else.

  Dustin nodded and left. She could see the tension in his shoulders and vowed to be extremely careful.

  Once the painkiller had numbed the throbbing, she moved to her closet. Packing random clothing in a large duffle bag, she ran her fingers across the hangers until something felt nice, pulled it down, and tossed it into the bag. She was sure they wouldn’t do anything but sit around, so she didn’t have to pack much.

  Shoes would be tricky; she wasn’t even sure she wanted to take any. Turning to her shoe rack, she grabbed a pair of slippers.

  Screw the rest, she thought.

  When picking up the duffel bag, her hand brushed soft fabric. The lights around her brightened. She blinked hard and when she opened her eyes, she found herself sitting at a long wooden bench. The temperature rose ten degrees, and everything started spinning. Once it settled, she looked toward the front of the room and saw a solemn man standing next to a casket and an oversized picture. The man was speaking, but Cali didn’t hear the words.

  She wasn’t in her closet. She wasn’t anywhere near her bedroom.

  ***

  Waves of memories crashed into Alexia as soon as she entered Leland’s home. Like so much flotsam, fragments of past-lives tore through her brain. She walked into the living room and recalled a day from a childhood when she lived in a grass hut in ancient India. Then, many centuries after India, the day Vikings came to her town in Ireland. She remembered a life in Ukraine in wartime, fires set by night, and her past-self caught in the blaze.

  She only remembered one or two completely, but she remembered fragments from many. She no longer had any problems recognizing who someone was in a past life. In one life she watched as her younger sister died from a disease that had ravaged her since birth. Even as a child, Alexia knew she was a past version of Cali.

  Two days passed in a blur of images playing like movies. She couldn’t remember eating or talking to Leland. She just remembered the past. She’d started a journal to try and capture all the bits and pieces that came to her, but it wasn’t making anything clearer.