CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I'm frozen. I can't breathe; I can't move; I can just stare.

Did he just address me by my friend's name?

"Melissa, this is–"

"You," I say. I can't help it – it just comes out.

The man frowns. "Me?"

"You're the one – you're the one..." Now that I'm speaking, all I can do is breathe until I'm breathing too much. I take in breath after breath, vaguely aware that I'm going into shock. "You did this to me," I accuse. My voice rises. "You did this to me!"

A breeze wraps around my head, blowing my hair into my eyes and then back from my face. It swirls through the house, getting stronger with each passing second, and outside, I can hear it howling.

There's a hand on my shoulder. "Melissa, you have to calm down." Caden's voice.

But I'm not listening. I direct my anger at Rand. "What is he doing here? Are you trying to get me killed? Who are you?"

Rand's eyes are calm and full of understanding; his voice is steady as he speaks. "Whoever you think he is, I can promise you: he isn't."

I shake my head, my eyes landing back on the man with the sweet voice, the man who held the small hard object in his hand as he placed it to my chest, promising that it wouldn't hurt but knowing that it would.

The man who swapped me with Sarah and bound me to a body that is slowly freezing to death.

"He isn't who you think he is," Rand repeats as I look into the man's dark brown eyes.

The man steps forward and smiles.  I take two quick steps back. "I'm Patrick," he says. He extends a hand. I just look at it. Does he want me to burn him? Or does he just not know how cold my skin is?

He withdraws and faces Rand. "I would stay longer but it looks like you have enough to deal with right now."

Patrick's eyes meet mine. "It was nice to see you again, Sar– um, Melissa." And then he disappears. One second he's here and the next, there's just an empty doorway where he had been standing.

Suddenly, my legs feel too weak to support my weight and I have to lean against the wall as Rand closes the door.

"Who was that?" I ask.

Rand shakes his head. "You weren't meant to meet him. Not yet." He walks down the hallway and into the living room.

I turn to Caden and send him a questioning glance. He just shrugs and follows Rand. I chase after both of them. Everyone sits on the couches in the same places as yesterday, but I stand behind the sofa, my hands gripping the backrest.

"Why did he call me Sarah?"

Rand's head is in his hands. He takes two deep breaths before looking up and saying, "The last time he saw you, you were Sarah."

"But that would also mean I was in a different body. I don't look like Sarah. I look like Melissa."

Rand lets out another deep breath, and that's when I finally notice the large blossoming bruise on his arm and the dirt all over his clothes. "Patrick can see people's spirit's within their body. He recognised you as the person you really are, while everyone else can only see Melissa."

I'm only half-listening. My eyes move to Caden, and for the first time, I see the scarlet cut on his forehead and the blood dribbling down the side of his face.

How did I miss that?

"Oh my God, what happened?"

"We were meeting Patrick when that person who had been watching you finally showed himself," Caden states simply. "He attacked us and we defended ourselves." He pauses. "Anyway, long story short, he won't be watching you anymore."

"You didn't...kill him, did you?"

Caden smiles, but I fail to see what is so amusing. He's still smiling when he replies, making his words sound much more unsettling and creepy than they should. "No, just...seriously injured him."

Oh, great. I'm surrounded by psychopaths who think it's fun to seriously injure people.

I move on, wishing to lessen the questions swirling around inside my brain. "Why were you meeting Patrick?"

Caden opens his mouth then stops himself.

"That is between us and Patrick," Rand answers.

 "Ok then." It's getting easier to let things slide when I'm refused an answer, which is surprising.

They, too, look surprised that I let the subject drop.

"Am I right in assuming that Patrick's vanishing act is another one of his abilities?"

They nod.

"And Patrick knows me, how?"

"He will tell you himself when he feels you're ready."

I breathe in deeply to stop myself from letting my irritation get the better of me.

"Right. And the people who are watching me. Who are they exactly?"

Rand looks uncomfortable suddenly. "We – we don't know yet."

"You don't know yet?" I ask, my tone disbelieving. "How can you not know who they are? You seem to know everything else about them."

Rand shrugs, then shakes his head as he looks down at the floor.

That's when the cold creeps over us, like an icy blanket. As the first hint of goose bumps appears on my arms, I go deathly still. My eyes rise to the window overlooking the backyard on instinct, and when my gaze lands on the ghost leaning on the back fence, a smile spreads across his face and chills travel down my back.

Upon feeling the cold, Rand turns and looks out the window behind him, sighing. Caden doesn't even move.

"What is this? Like the twelfth time since last Saturday?" Rand asks.

Caden nods solemnly.

Rand sighs for a second time. "I suppose that means I'll have to get up, then."  He doesn't seem worried at all, and I watch with panicked eyes as heaves himself off the couch, looking bored and annoyed. "Come, Melissa. We're going to the basement."

As Caden stands and walks with Rand to the stairs, I say, "Why?" before following them and flicking glances at the ghost over my shoulder. Caden opens a door beneath the staircase and is swallowed by the darkness that lies beyond.

"It's just in case the ghost decides that today's the day he's going to...finish the job," Rand answers as extends an arm, letting me go in first. I take a cautious step into the darkness and nearly trip on the stairs that lie beyond.

I start my descent, and ask, "Finish what job?" even though I have a pretty good idea of what he's talking about. Caden himself told me that he had his suspicions that the ghost had been hired to kill him, or, at least, he implied it.

Behind me, rand closes the door and starts walking down the steps. I rub a hand absentmindedly against my now goose bump-free arm and realise that, already, the cold has started to lessen. It seems the further we move from the ghost, the warmer it gets, and as I continue to walk down step after step, I start to wonder just how far the stairs extend underground. 

"The kill job," comes Rand's reply, from a spot not too far behind me. "He's already observed Caden, so now we're basically just waiting for him to strike."

I nod, even though he can't see me. And then I hear the sound of an opening door at the bottom of the flight of stairs and a light flicks on, spilling into the dark corridor and lighting up the final bunch of steps that I have yet to walk down.

At the bottom, I walk through the doorway and into the basement, my eyes on my feet, and when I look up, I feel my jaw drop. From floor to ceiling, every wall is covered in bookshelves, and each shelf is crammed with books. A wooden table is surrounded by wooden chairs in the centre of the expansive room and my converse squeak against the polished cement floor as I travel towards the table.

Rand steps in to the room and passes me on his way to stand by the table. When he notices my expression, he smiles. "Welcome to the library."

"Wha – Is – Did you – I don't..." My mouth and tongue move as if forming words but no sound comes out. My eyes latch onto the lit chandelier dangling from the ceiling high above.

"How high is this ceiling? I've never seen a basement this big before. Did you build it yourself?"

Rand shakes his head, then nods. "This house already had a basement; we just expanded it, built in the shelves, attached the chandelier and polished the floor."

"Why?" I ask, frowning. Since I'm always moving houses, I can't see the point in putting so much effort into a single home. What if one day, they want to move? Do they just leave all their hard work behind for someone else to enjoy?

"Because I wanted a library for my books," Rand states.

"Why didn't you just not buy the books in the first place and borrow them from the pre-built library?"

"Because there's no way I'd find these books in a public library. There all about abilities, ghosts, spirits and any other things you can think of that almost everyone thinks are made-up. Plus, some of them are so old that they're the only ones of their kind."

I move onto something else. "How does going down here help to stop the ghost?"

"They don't like going underground," he says and I frown. "You know how hell is thought of as being underground and heaven is thought of as being in the clouds? Well, ghosts are incredibly stupid, and they are all scared that if they go underground, the devil will be able to snatch them up."

"So, the ghost's fear of coming underground is the only thing stopping him from coming down here?"

He nods.

"What if he decides that killing Caden is more important than his fear of the underworld?"

"We'll tackle that challenge when it comes." Rand smiles and then abruptly changes the subject. "Hey, how about we test out that telekinetic ability of yours?" He walks over to the opposite walk and taps an old book with a dark green spine. "Try pulling this off the shelf."

I've never used my telekinesis on purpose before and as I will the book do move, I find that it's harder than expected. After what feels like hours but is probably only five minutes, the book slides half an inch out of the shelf and stops.

I think, for today, that's as good as I'm gonna get.

I collapse onto one of the chairs, feeling exhausted. Who knew moving things without touching them could be so tiring?

Rand frowns as he takes a seat opposite me. "Tired already?"

"Yeah."

Then something in his brain clicks and he nods as understanding dawns. "I guess using your powers will be more tiring for you than it is for most. After all, all your senses and abilities are dulled. For me, it'd be like trying to use my powers on something that's behind a brick wall. I'm impressed you can even use them at all."

I sigh. "Is there even any point to this? If I can hardly use them and I'm going to freeze to death anyway if we don't swap me back with Sarah or the real Melissa or whoever soon, why should I even bother?"

"Because using your abilities is like using a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets."

"And that helps how? Being able to use my powers isn't going to stop my spirit from freezing this body to death."

"Look, we're working on it, okay? We're trying to find Sarah, but wherever she is, she's well hid, because for one, we can't find any trace of abnormally low temperatures, nor has anyone seen her or her parents – your real parents – since they left that farm."

"When you say 'we', who are you talking about?"

He runs a hand through his hair. "People like us."

I nod, as if that explains anything, but without prompting, he soon realises that it doesn't really answer my question.

"You've seen Harry Potter, right?"

I nod.

"They have this government called the Ministry of Magic and they have a whole lot of laws for all those with magic. And for us, it's sort of similar, except on a much smaller scale and it's really laid back. Basically, a group of us – us being people with abilities – meet every now and then to discuss things, and we call that group of people the council. I met Patrick through attending the meetings."

"So...what? You told these people about my situation and they decided to help out?"

He shakes his head and half-smiles. "Actually, it was the other way round. They noticed you and since I live in your area, they told me to help out. So I enrolled Caden in your school, told him to get to know you so that we could tell you the truth if you didn't already know it."

I don't know exactly why, but I feel as though he's just punched me in the stomach. Is that why Caden hasn't been speaking much to me since I met Rand yesterday afternoon? Was he only pretending to be a friend so that he could tell me the truth? Was I just a job that the council told him to complete?

Hurt wells up inside of me and I cover it with a blanket of nonchalance before anyone sees. My eyes drift over to Caden who is standing by the shelves to my left, flicking through a book. I had thought that he was keeping his distance because he thought I was still angry at him after what happened in school yesterday. But now I can see that he really just doesn't care. He doesn't care about me or my life; he's just being an obedient son, doing as he's told and nothing more.

Anger builds up beneath the blanket within me and I have to hold onto the corners to keep it contained.

When I look back at Rand, my expression neutral, I say, "Can I borrow your bathroom?"

He nods. "Up both flights of stairs, straight down the hallway, first door on your left."

I get up, the chair screeching as it scrapes against the polished floor. Caden looks up briefly, but deems the current happenings uninteresting and returns to his book. I turn around and head back up the stairs we came down.

The cold flows over me as I reach the top and the ghost stands by the window, leaning against it so that he's facing he backyard. He doesn't notice me as I creep past and walk up the second flight of stairs.

At the top, I head straight down the hallway and turn left into the bathroom as Rand told me to do. The bathroom is fairly larger than the average bathroom and I am thankful for the space to move as I shut the door behind me, locking it.

Then I lean against the door and sink down to the floor, not sad or crying, just hollow.

Very, very hollow.