Chapter Seventeen – A Past Reclaimed

I wake up on the floor covered in sweat and gasping heavily for air. Blood leaks slightly from my nose and ears but it’s wiped away with my energy-drained hands. My limbs feel so heavy but the pain is gone. It’s all gone. Everything is gone.

Just like my family.

“No,” I cry out, huddling on the floor of my mind. I have not left the swirling red tunnel but all of the memories have stopped attacking. The emotions that had been withheld from me are now here. I remember everything. My mother, sisters, my death… The hate. My hate scratches at every bone and muscle in me but it’s driven back with the love I keep for the friends I’ve grown to be with. That isn’t me. That can’t be me.

“Gail,” the Emerald tries to bring me out of the red. “Come back to us. We need you now!”

I slowly follow her voice and leave the tunnel, closing my eyes and falling back into my body even though I never really left. As my real eyes open, I inhale deeply and cough out the air that came into my lungs too fast. The Emerald helps me sit up but leaves my side as soon as I’m able to breathe on my own. My ears are ringing so badly I can’t even hear if she left the room or not.

“My Aunt Carol raised me,” I whisper to her not knowing if I was loud enough to be heard. My fingers pinch at my nostrils to clean my dripping nose. Using my pajama shorts, the red staining my skin is wiped off hastily. “She pretended to be my mother in this life! And my dad, Jeremy? He was the Peridot’s assistant! What the hell?”

The bottom of my shirt is pulled up to rub off the rest of my sweat and blood. That hatred I had for the Spencings in the past life is back. My father hated me even though I was his own daughter. But because of what my mother was, he tossed us aside so easily! How can non-mystic people be so cold? Those ignorant humans! But I remind myself of all the people in my life that had been kind to me. It isn’t easy given the fact of how I was raised. The Spencings aren’t to blame, I know that now.

My body flinches again with another surge of sadness, experiencing the feeling of my parents’ death again and again. My beautiful mother being murdered by father, him being stabbed by Ivette, Aunt Carol/mom who died in the crash and daddy… I exhale slowly and try to even my breath. Life just loves taking my loved ones away.

“The worst pa-part about this,” I say choking on my own words. “Is that t-the dad I felt so connected to isn’t even related to—”

Everything in the world stops for me as I see Xander lying on the floor. I couldn’t hear the frantic cries of Carter shouting at Trevor to grab a different potion. The pulsing ring in my ears blocked me from noticing the panic. I crawl over to him and get a big rush of nausea from moving too fast. The Emerald and I beg for Xander to wake up. Her two fingers check the pulse of his neck.

“Xan,” I sob. “Wake up Xan. Please, wake up. Oh my god, Xander!”

~*~

The man in the blue uniform finishes scribbling down my last lie as an answer and leaves me to stare in Xander’s hospital room. He lies cold and unmoving on the bed with a slow heartbeat. His mom sits beside him, hunched over her knees and holding Xan’s hand tightly. The doctors watered down their medical jargon and said the pain brought on by the blows from our muggers is the reason he fell comatose. They also said he should be waking up in a few hours. But that’s what they think. The truth is: it’s much worse.

I’m treated for my wounds but there’s nothing really wrong with me. All I have are a few bruises and they can’t really cure those. My nose scrunches at the sickly hospital air. It takes them a while to let me see my friend. It’s Xander I’m worried for. What’s going to happen to him? My feet pace back and forth before I meet Trevor in the waiting area down the long hallway.

“Hey,” Trevor says standing up from the overly stuffed waiting room chair. I walk closer and crash into him with a much needed hug. He squeezes me back which is more than I can handle right now. “How’d it go?”

“Well, the police believe me,” I whisper to him, letting go keeping my head down. A nurse in kitten covered scrubs passes by while she flips through her schedule. Trevor nods to her but to our relief she’s too busy to notice. “I said we were jumped by two guys, I hit my head and I blacked out. After I woke up, I called you to help me get him here.”

“It’s kind of true,” he tries comforting me. I shake my head and check my phone again. I’ve already texted Scott who’d be on his way as soon as the check comes from the diner he and Michelle are eating at. Katie said she’d be here any second. I stuff my phone into my hoodie’s pocket and bounce nervously from foot to foot.

This is all my fault. If I hadn’t been stupid and left my amber charm in my room, the demons wouldn’t have felt my power. They would have never come to the house and tried to take me, Xan would never have found out I’m a witch and none of this would have happened. All my best friend did was support me and that support landed him here, not more than a few rooms away.

Trevor explained that Xander holding onto my hand did this. In an afterlife reading, the person is supposed to remain untouched otherwise the torture of remembering is shared. It didn’t even lessen on either of us; it was just identical pain. And since the Pulemp was still settling his personality, his strength was raw and weak enough for him to blackout. It’s my fault. It’s entirely my fault.

“He likes you, you know,” Trevor tells me bringing me out of my self-pity trance. I barely register the bizarre words he says but my jaw drops. “He may be with Katie and he may love her but he’s really falling for you too.”

“Shut up,” I spit at him after a moment of pure shock. Where did that come from? My eyes narrow at Trevor for his audacity at such an unwanted subject. “You can’t lie about something like that to make me ‘feel better.’”

I use air quotes with my last sentence. It’s far from making me brighten up. Trevor exhales defensively and I sit down bringing one knee up to rest my chin on it. Could Xan really like me? I shouldn’t even think about it. He’s my best friend’s boyfriend meaning he’ll be forever off-limits. I rage inside and scowl at Trevor. He shouldn’t have said a word.

“Especially now,” I bring it back up after a long pause. “Why would you say something so completely—?”

“A witch’s instinct doesn’t lie,” Trevor hisses back. He stands up and mumbles something about the cafeteria downstairs, asking if I want anything. I stay silent. I’m angry he said it at a time like this. Trevor stalks away but before he turns down the hallway leading to the elevators, he glances back. “If you’re so sure he’s not into you, take off your bracelet for a second and ask yourself. The first answer you come up with is the truth.”

Upon rounding the bend to exit, a girl in black sweatpants and a baggy grey jacket accidentally bulldozes into Trevor. He crashes into the wall but even I feel her anxiety with my amber charm fastened to my wrist. She barely mumbles her apologies as she runs to the nurse’s desk for a room number.

“Name?”

“His name is Xander. Um… Alexander Stenman.”

“Katie!”

The girl glances around at my call and completely ignores the nurse looking at the room chart. Katie races over and rams into me with a hug matching the force she had just done to Trevor.

“Oh my god, Ruiseñor,” she sobs using the nickname I missed hearing. We don’t let go for a long while, spending the time to let our tears fall free. Xander is the only person we both can be entirely real with but her love is probably greater for him than mine, as it should be. She loosens her arms and wipes the mascara running down her cheeks. “What happened? Wh-what was going on? Where is he?”

I hush her comfortingly and hold her again in my arms. Katie may be one of the toughest chicks I know but when it comes to the people she loves being hurt, she loses it. Her snivels blow through my dreads making me cringe a little but she’s too broken right now for me to do anything about it. I lead her down the hall and explain on the way.

“The doctors said he should be up in a few hours,” I tell her optimistically. She nods her head but doesn’t actually care. What she really wants to hear about is that he’ll be okay and I can’t give her that. Under the hospital lighting her tan skin seems so pale and sickly. I don’t think I’ve seen her not be dressed up. Katie’s never been one for sweatpants; even in her PJs look amazingly put together. The puffiness under her eyes makes it obvious she was crying the whole way over here. She barely responded when I called to tell her.

“So Xan picked you,” she starts, wiping her face and leaning on Xan’s room’s doorway. “He picked you up so you could go get money?”

“Uh… yeah,” I lie again. The pit in my stomach racks up another stupid fib to Katie. “I was going to take Michelle out today and I needed to get it fast. Xan being Xan was cool enough to come pick me up.”

“And you couldn’t wait until morning to get your damn money?”

“Katie I—” I stop midsentence. What could I say? Even if I tell her the truth she’ll think I’m lying. If I tell her another lie, she’ll know it. Katie may not be a witch but she’s definitely intuitive. “I needed to talk to someone, alright? You were being moody and wouldn’t let me say anything. So I called my other best friend to talk to.”

Man, that feels good to get off my chest. Too bad it’s wrong timing. Her mouth hangs open clearly offended by my real feelings.

“I wanted to know why you wouldn’t talk to me since best friends tell each other everything,” she complains to me. Her sudden anger takes me aback. “And if you he didn’t have to pick your ass up, you guys wouldn’t have been jumped in the first place.”

“You’re saying this is my fault?” I defend myself. She scoffs and faces me with a pained expression.

“I’m saying that you should have waited and used someone else’s boyfriend.”

Her snippiness is followed by a long and heated silence between us. I don’t know if I’m more angry with her or guilty because she would have been right. Xan was at the wrong place because he was checking up on me so yes, it is my fault. But I can’t tell Katie that. I unintentionally brought Xander into the crazy witch world and look what happened to him. He’s in a coma! I can’t let that happen to Katie too.

“I’m going to the café,” she lets me know. “I’m not starving if it’ll be a few hours before he gets up.”

And with that she leaves. My feet turn me around and I enter the patient room, approaching his bedside. The steady beat of his heart and the oxygen make everything seem grave. Xan’s mom is leaning on the uncomfortable chair using her jacket as a makeshift blanket. She’s had a long day at work but she manages to keep her hatred of me intact. She says nothing as I offer up a sincere apology.

My gaze next turns to Xander’s face. His hair isn’t so spiky anymore and the tube wrapped into his nose makes his cheeks seem sunken in. The swelling in his eye has gone down at least. I take a seat on the opposite side of the bed and wait. I really messed up this time.

After a wait of ten more minutes, Scott and Michelle finally find their way to the hospital. I dash out of the room and meet them as soon as they step off the elevator. Seeing their pitying faces, my strength of mind completely dissolves. Michelle comes to hug me with her eyes already glistening.

“I’m so sorry,” she mutters. “You didn’t need money that bad. We could have stayed home today.”

She blames herself. I shake my head no but because of her words, I break down. Tears stream my face and my knees plummet to the tile. Everything I’ve been trying to hold back for the past few weeks lets loose here in the hospital hallway. Strange looks from nurses and other visiting people are directed my way so Scott helps me move to the chairs of the waiting area. I stumble with him over and it takes me five minutes to become comprehensible.

“I… I just want to go home,” I cry into my sleeve. Scott nods his head but Michelle pinches her eyebrows together.

“Don’t you want to be here when he wakes up?” I turn to her ready to answer ‘yeah’ but the corner of my eye catches Katie returning with a filled plastic bag and a bad attitude. She passes me by without even glancing in my direction. I should’ve never said anything. My shoulder is rubbed by Scott whose concern is written all over his face.

“I’m not really welcomed right now,” I mumble to my little sister.

I send a quick text to Trevor and leave with my foster dad. The summer warmth from today has died down so walking outside in my shorts makes me skin prickle. But it’s a comfort to know I can still feel. I exhale a long sigh and think of my real sisters. How would they feel about the girl I’ve become?

Stephanie would probably have hated my hair. She, being the most girly of us, loved braiding and unbraiding my long locks. I sigh and get lost in my past. I’m happy I can finally remember them.

But I’m terrified of what we were supposed to do.

Half an hour later, Scott turns right onto our street and pulls up the driveway. It was quiet the entire way due to my distant thinking. I remember pretty much everything from my past life. I had a few friends but my love of the abnormality was mine to cherish. It still is. Memories flood through my thoughts, sifting apart and kneading together. I feel light-headed but not zoned out. The more I think about my past, the more whole I feel.

My legs immediately run up the steps, not wasting any time to get to the bathroom. The hot water nozzle is cranked up and after it reaches the hottest I can handle, I let the shower spit into action. My sweaty clothes are peeled off and thrown on the floor. I take extra precaution on keeping my bracelet fastened to my wrist. The water tickles my skin as I step in and let my dreads soak in the water. This is exactly what I needed. Showers are the best place to think.

Ivette, Lisa, Stephanie. I miss them so much. They were my rock, my home, my everything. Family was the only thing we could count on. We were going to be the Daughters of the Elements and prophecies were made to fear our power. But our clouded judgment couldn’t see around the revenge we wanted for mother’s death. Our sperm-donor is at fault, not every Spencing.

So why am I the one to be the Phoenix? I concentrate on my answer trying to think back to the days of deciding.

Stephanie was too young. She had barely begun her life. Besides, Steph was most suited for a life in the ocean with all the silence her ears could catch. She was a ‘feeling’ personality, never listening to a word but trusting her instincts to guide her wherever. The muted depths were to be her home before we knew we were witches.

There was no way Ivette would let herself be reborn. She even gagged at the word written in The Shadowed Past.

“Metempsychosis,” she used to say. “It means reincarnation but it sounds more like the terms they labeled us in the loony bin.”

Having such a strong soul anyways, she opted for hanging. Demon souls were only a step away from her loud being and secretly, the three of us were terrified of the power she would have if she were to become a Phoenix.

And that left it down to me or Lisa.

My older sister brushed off the idea of a rebirth on her part at once. It was never clear why but I was okay with it. Other than having to go through puberty again —something I can safely say sucks big time— being blessed by fire was a revelation. With my memories to reiterate who I was, I know I am more alive in this lifetime than I was as Emily. I have yet to figure out why there aren’t more witches who chose to be reborn.

After shampooing my dreads and cleaning myself, the scalding water is shut off and I wrap a towel around my torso. The fog of the mirror is easily wiped under my hand to let me see my reflection. The various rings and studs on my face reveal back a new me. Emily was fascinated by the new piercings, tattoos, even hippies growing their hair into dreadlocks. The counterculture was who she felt like inside but with her sisters and their plan, it was nothing she could do for herself… myself. As Abigail, I haven’t changed much of who I was and I’m proud of the freedom I have today.

“Nature versus nurture solved,” I whisper in joking manner.

Vapor from the sauna I made the bathroom exhales through my lips. I open the door to the cooler air of the house and let the lighter air wash over me. My room feels so far away with the chill biting my ankles. After getting clean clothes on and palm-rolling my hair, I hold the dryer up to my dreads and sigh with my eyes closed.

I don’t know how long I stand here with the heat so lovingly kissing my skin. My dreads are definitely dry, that much is certain. But it feels so wonderful. I sigh and finally click the dryer off. My fingers start working on tying back my hair but my vibrating phone makes me release my dreads and unlock the screen.

1 New message

Trevor M: The Emerald will find a cure. Xander is gonna be okay.

It takes me a while to remember what he means but once I do, my legs buckle under me. Xan is still in the hospital. How is it I’m able to rejoice in my past life when my best friend is laying comatose? I’ve been so focused on remembering Emily, it’s consuming me. I’m a horrible person. My fingers speedily press the phone’s keypad to reply. The thing is thrown on my bed with my last text swirling in my thoughts.

Me: You don’t know that.

He doesn’t know. None of us know what’s really going to happen to Xander. He could be in a coma for weeks. I can’t let that happen but I don’t know what else to think of. Nothing in this life or the last has prepared me for this.

Pillows bounce next to me as I join my phone on the crisp sheets. I’m not laying down for more than a minute before my phone takes back my attention. I glance at the screen seeing it’s from Trevor again. It’s an attempt at to lighten my mood. Why doesn’t he get that nothing he can say will make anything—

Trevor M: There’s a letter in your mailbox. Read it.

My eyebrows scrunch together as I sit up on my bed. There’s a small hum of a car engine outside making me scurry over to my window. I only catch a glimpse of it but Trevor’s van is driving away. I look at my phone again. He dropped off a letter? Why couldn’t he say what he had to say through text or ring the doorbell to tell me? I grumble as my arms push me toward the hall.

I bound down the stairs, open my front door and retrieve the mail from the rusty box on the wall. There’s a lot of post from today that no one grabbed so I bring it all inside. Bills addressed to Scott, the coupons for brand name stores and the one school letter about Michelle’s cheerleading program—they’re shuffled through before I spot it. My name is simply written on the piece of yellowed envelope. I turn it over and rip out the folded paper with the date of its inception in girlish script.

August 24th 1996 yet it’s addressed to me.

My hand flies to my mouth to keep me from whimpering in shock. There’s no mistaking Lisa’s writing from any other. She’s the only person I know who rounds her lower case 'g' backward and dots the inside of the '9'. I can’t believe it didn’t dawn on me sooner. My sisters… they’re out there. They’re alive.

And they’re waiting for my return.