Of Breakable Things (3 page)

Alex gestured to the word under which Miss Petra had drawn several emphatic lines. MIND. “If the life I have left is mental, what happens if my mind isn’t all there?” She searched for the right words. She’d spent the last year of her pathetic life in a drug-induced haze. “My mind is more than a little bit cracked.”

Miss Petra wiped the chalk from her hands. “Well, my dear, that’s kind of the purpose of our meeting here. You can leave it all behind you, you know.”

“Leave what?”

“Everything. Including the things that made your mind so fragile. Your mind can’t be damaged if it doesn’t exist, and thus you can’t feel pain.”

Alex mulled over the idea. No more sadness. No more regret. The offer was certainly tempting. She studied the door at the front of the room. It practically bulged from the force of the light behind it. Was it that easy?

“On the flip side,” Miss Petra added, “to be rid of pain is to be rid of its source as well.”

The source?

“What made you feel that life was no longer worth living?”

Alex suddenly understood. Her losses hovered around her, expanding into the air like smoke rings. “I wouldn’t remember any of it?”

“You can’t have a memory without a mind.”

“None of my life? Nothing about
him
.”

Another head shake.

“No,” Alex replied softly, “I would rather live without Chase than lose what I remember of him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“You know, most people would consider you to be rather
lucky
to have something to make this decision so easy. You need to look deeper than the surface. You might not have been able to keep your body forever, or to keep Chase, but the things that exist forever are never in tangible form.”

Miss Petra walked swiftly to the back of the room and stood next to a door with an EXIT sign above it, a door Alex hadn’t noticed until now. There was no bright light behind this one. “Let me be clear. If what you said is true, then you are making the choice to keep living as who you are. You aren’t ready to give up your memories or, ultimately, the life you had. Therefore, you live as Alex Ash, with whatever life you have left in your mind.”

“That’s the choice? That’s it?”

“Yes. To remain here or not. And please be advised that the easy way out is literally right in front of you.”

Miss Petra pointed to the door at the front of the classroom. Trying to tempt Alex, the air from underneath the door rose like the scent of sweet sugar, calling her home.

“You and I both know how ugly the world can be. I’m sure you can imagine the possibilities when boundaries are broken. But you’ve never been one to take the easy road, have you?”

Alex rubbed her forehead, glancing at the door ahead through her fingers. The light behind it brightened. “Where does the shiny one lead? If I’m not really me anymore, who do I become there?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been through that door, but comfort hums through the cracks, so there’s no doubt in my mind what lies behind it is much easier than the alternative.”

Door number one was a mystery. Alex hated surprises. She twisted in her seat and looked again at the door in the back. “But what about that one? Can you tell me what I’ll become if I make that choice?”

The difficult one.

“Since the mind you had in the previous life still exists in the form of energy, the essence, or the
spirit,
of your former body is still intact.”

Spirit.

Alex leaned toward her teacher. Hope fluttered inside of her. “
Ghosts
?”

Miss Petra face contorted into disappointment. “Society has made that word so belittling.”

“But that’s what you meant? That’s what I’d become?”

“I realize it’s rather hard to conceive of the possibility.”

“Miss Petra, do you remember where I grew up?”

Like in most old towns, ghost stories in Parrish were a dime a dozen. Alex had had her fair share of paranormal experiences, so the possibility of ghosts was never something she questioned. Chase had been here in this room, too. Why would he have been here if he had not been asked to make this same decision? If any two paths were meant to collide, it would certainly be theirs. Alex’s heart continued to pump happiness through her useless veins in beautiful iambic beats,
ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. He’s here, he’s here, he’s here.

“Why me?”

“The ones who find themselves here have the strongest of spirits.”

Alex’s hands trembled, so she clasped them in her lap to hide it. Wrists down, of course. “How is one soul stronger than another?”

“Sometimes nature. Design. Heredity.”

Alex’s mind was clicking away a mile a minute. “And Chase? What did he choose?”

“I think you already know the answer.”

Alex took another good look at the door in the back, the one with darkness on the other side. Could death, which had toyed with Alex all her life, become her beginning again? Was Chase out there now, waiting? The thought of it made her spin around and turn her back on the light.

Miss Petra moved to the bookcase against the back wall and lifted a gray blazer draped over a stack of books. She slid into the jacket one arm at a time. “Sometimes you have to turn around to move forward.”

Something tugged at Alex, urging her from the chair. Desire? Optimism? “You aren’t exactly trying to convince me to stay.”

“Do you want me to?”

Instead of replying, Alex took a deep breath, stood up, and walked determinedly to the back of the room.

“Go ahead and open it,” Miss Petra instructed.

“You aren’t coming?”

She shook her head, gesturing to both doors. “I’m neither here nor there.”

“What do you mean?”

Miss Petra smiled slightly. “You don’t think these are the only two possibilities, do you?”

That’s exactly what Alex had thought, but she didn’t want to confuse herself any more, so she took one last look at her teacher and pushed open the door.

At first she couldn’t see or hear anything. And then it was like shaking water from her ears. She could hear the voice clearer than anything in her entire life.

She heard a loud gasp and a boy’s voice say, “My God, you look just like her.”

Alex never met her mother, never heard her voice. But she could probably pick it out of a lineup. There were many times as a child when she’d woken in the night to the soft whispers of a lullaby. Her mother had had the voice of an angel.

Parrish was a small town, and everyone knew Erin Ash. They knew about her unfortunate condition, the one she’d regrettably passed on to her daughter. Old ladies would cluck their tongues like they might scold a misbehaving child when Erin walked by with her swollen belly.

People always said Alex looked just like her mother. Some people even stopped on the street to gawk at her, no doubt wondering if they could add another ghost story to those that gave Parrish its fame.

You look just like her
, the boy had said.

“You know my mom?” Alex hadn’t even considered that her mother might be here. She had only thought of Chase.

The boy’s voice was low. “She isn’t here. Not anymore.”

Alex blinked her eyes several times until her vision cleared. She stood face to face with a child, a boy whose smile faltered.

“Anymore?”

“Sometimes we don’t last very long,” the boy replied, taking a step forward. “Come on out.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. Once again she was too late to know her mother. She abandoned the cover of the doorway, and was surprised when her foot touched the ground. She had shoes. And real clothes. She ran her manicured nails through the waves of her honey-colored hair. “How did that happen?” she asked, hugging herself. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Dead or alive, we all create a small version of our own reality in our minds. Here you can just project it more effectively. I take it you recognize your clothes.”

Of course she recognized her favorite jeans, her favorite shirt, and even the bracelet she’d worn every day since Chase had given it to her.

“How did you know my mom?”

“She was my friend.”

Alex ignored the pang of jealousy. “What happened to her?”

The boy tilted his head up at the sky and blinked through the raindrops. “Let’s save that for another time. Please. We have to get going now.”

She held her palms upward. The rain sent tiny electric
pings
through her skin, but didn’t leave it moist. She rubbed her fingers together. “Why can’t I feel the rain?”

He grinned. “You’re thinking of how the rain felt before.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll get used to it. Your senses are just different now, that’s all.”

He jabbed his thumb in the direction of a path and began to walk. She stole a look back at the doorway, surprised to find a moss-covered bunker with only darkness behind its open door. Miss Petra was gone, and the safety and familiarity of her classroom had vanished with her. Maybe Alex shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to leave. She had no choice now but to follow the boy.

Despite the overcast sky, their glittery green surroundings sparkled as though the trees were comprised of emeralds. Everything around her was adorned in shades of color so much more brilliant than she’d ever seen before.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the boy called over his shoulder.

“Yes,” Alex said, watching the rain around her jumping like colorful flashes of heaven. “Where are we?”

He chuckled. “California.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I’m serious. It’s the same old Earth. You can just see it better now.”

Crayola would have a field day with this place. The colors embellished everything, even the dreary canopy of clouds twinkling like a gray diamond. “It doesn’t seem fair that everyone can’t see this way.”

“Hmm. You wouldn’t appreciate it so much if your eyes had always been so open. Sometimes things only become clear when they don’t exist anymore.”

Alex listened to the trees whispering a song that sounded like her name. The trunks were so large it was like weaving through the legs of giants. Branches of the smaller, twig-like trees curled their fingertips in hello.

“They like you. I can tell.”

Alex caught up and fell into step next to her tiny companion, who carried an aura of comfort. She stole glances at him while they sloshed through the kaleidoscope of colors. His baby-fine hair fell over his chocolate-brown eyes and pale skin.

“Who are you?” she finally asked.

He kicked his feet up slightly while treading down the muddy pathway shining radiantly like a river of dark gold. “My name is Ellington Reynes.”

An inappropriate name. It was much too grown up for a boy who was doomed to look like a cub scout for the rest of his life.

“I’m the one who saw your arrival,” he informed her proudly.

“Saw it?”

“In my head. I’ve been seeing arrivals now for decades.”

Alex took in his babyish features. “How old are you?”

“Don’t be fooled by the bowl cut. I’m much older than you.”

“How old were you when you died?”

“Twelve.”

“You don’t even look ten.”

“I was short for my age.” he said, leading her to the bank of a torrential river.

Alex skidded to a halt. “Is there a bridge?”

Ellington stepped right onto the rolling tide and swung his arms playfully as he strode across. “We are the bridge!” The water acted as a crooked treadmill, carrying him downstream, but he remained unfazed and leaped casually onto the opposite bank.

“Your turn,” he called, spinning back around to face Alex.

She froze at the water’s edge. She couldn’t do this.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Laughter rose from the splashing current, and Ellington lifted his finger to his lips to hush it. “Go on,” he urged her, crouching down to watch with the expression of a father seeing his child taking a first step.

Alex bent to touch the water. Her outstretched fingers shook, making contact with the gelatinous surface. The shock of electricity from the river stung much more than the rain, and buzzed like a headache. She straightened up and stepped gingerly onto the water. Her body jerked to the left. She flailed her arms to steady herself, shuffling the rest of the way without lifting her feet.

“Nice job.”

“You made that look way too easy,” she said, tumbling to Ellington’s side.

“I’ve had more practice.”

Alex watched the water lapping and splashing the shore. “Could I still go
in
the water?”

“Be my guest.”

She pressed her fingers against the surface, which yielded somewhat but did not allow her to breach it. She raised her palms.
Now what?

“Think a little harder about breaking the plane,” Ellington offered. “You need to use your mind. You’re weightless now, so you are going to have to use a little willpower.”

Alex nudged the water, but it was like pushing on putty.

“Try again.”

She concentrated harder. Finally her hand shot through the static goo, which felt like a breeze. She raked her fingers through the wonderfully unsettling energy. “Wow,” she breathed.