M Sellars - Miranda

“Pretty typical non-committal answer, don’t you think?”

“You just need to…”

“You aren’t going to tell me I just need to believe, are you?” I asked, cutting her off before she could finish. “Because I’m running a little short on faith these days.”

“Actually, I was going to say wait. But would it help revive your faith if I said believe?”

I ignored the question and held her gaze for a long while before finally speaking again. “I’m not really used to this, you know.”

“Used to what?” she asked.

“Well, for one thing, up until very recently you’ve been non-existent. I haven’t even seen you for several years. I just assumed that when I solved your murder you had moved on.”

“To Summerland?”

“Or life. Knowing you, I figured you were probably a precocious kid somewhere, making life hard on some parents.”

“No over thinking,” she replied.

“Yeah. I suppose I should have known you would say that,” I replied with a shrug. “But, I guess what really has me perplexed at the moment is that I’m actually carrying on a conversation with you. In the past you would just point me at things and say something completely off the wall. Then I would have to give myself a migraine figuring out what you were trying to tell me.”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“So, you’re saying that this conversation has a hidden meaning?”

“I love autumn, don’t you?”

“Well, at least that part is,” I muttered, punctuating the comment with a low snort. “Staying the same, I mean.”

“Which part is that?”

“The cryptic answers, within non-answers, within hidden answers that make my head hurt.”

“Did you expect it to be any different?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t suppose so. To be honest, I didn’t expect much at all.”

“I love autumn,” she repeated.

“Since I’m having this unique opportunity to actually talk, mind if I ask how this is even happening?” As I spoke I twisted back toward the tomb and gestured. “I was fairly certain Miranda had somehow revoked my visiting privileges to your side of the fence.”

“Did she?”

“Help me out here, Ariel,” I said, turning back to her. “Am I answering that question for you, or for myself?”

“For whom do you usually answer them?”

I gave her a nod. “So…class is once again in session, I see.”

“You learn quickly.”

“Seems I used to say that about you.”

She smiled. “I had a good teacher.”

“And now you want to return the favor?”

“Have you ever imagined how you will die?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. Way too many times.”

She stared back at me without saying another word. I held her eyes with mine, waiting for the next non sequitur to fall from her lips.

A moderate breeze began to blow, seemingly from nowhere. I looked at my surroundings and watched as it kicked its way through the cemetery. Fallen leaves tumbled over one another, caught up on the rising current of cool air, making a dry sound in the midst of the quiet. Slowly, the wind tapered off and silence cascaded around us once again.

I glanced back at Ariel. “You aren’t even really here, are you?”

“Perhaps I should ask you the same thing,” she replied.

I snorted and shook my head. “We both know I’m not.”

“Do you?”

“I know I’m in a hospital bed and pretty well drugged up. I also know that a seriously nasty spirit has managed to shut the door between the worlds for me. So, I have to assume that either I conjured you from recent memories and this is just a really screwed up dream, or I just went ahead and died,” I announced, holding out my arms and twisting in place. “I don’t feel dead, at least I don’t think I do. So, my guess? All of this is drug induced. Just a bad trip is all.”

“Are you sure?”

I settled my focus back on her and said, “Yes.”

Ariel shrugged. “If that’s what you want to believe.”

“Can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t?”

Instead of answering verbally, she simply reached out, placed her palm against my chest and gave me a gentle push. I stumbled back and then went into freefall.

As darkness folded in around me, I heard her say, “Some people just don’t want to stay dead, Rowan.”

I heard a woman scream.

Her scream was my scream.

I felt pain as she struck the hard surface of the water.

Her pain was my pain.

I felt panic as the swift current pulled her under.

Her panic was my panic.

I felt death as the silty river flowed into her lungs.

Her death was my death.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“‘Bout thirty seconds past the last time ya’ asked me,” Ben replied. He didn’t look up from the folded magazine in his hands. He just kept intently scanning the column of text then said, “Hey, did’ju know Isaac Newton was obsessed with the occult? Bet he woulda just loved hangin’ out with you.”

“Seriously, Ben.”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“I mean seriously I was talking about the time.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “So was I.”

“Ben…”

“Really, Row.” He glanced at his watch and then returned his attention to the magazine. “Now it’s been a whole minute. Why don’t we see if ya’ can make it five before ya’ ask again, okay?”

“Dammit…” I mumbled. “What’s taking so long?”

“Nothin’. You just think it is ‘cause you’re an impatient patient.” He chuckled to himself at the pun.

“Not really funny,” I said.

“‘Scuse me for tryin’ ta’ cheer you up a bit.”

I ignored him and bemoaned my original train of thought once again, “It’s definitely taking too long.”

“Will ya’ just try ta’ relax, white man.”

I pressed my head back into the pillow and puffed out my cheeks as I exhaled a long sigh. Directly in front of me, the curtain was open on the floor to ceiling windows that formed the wall, but there really wasn’t anything unique to see beyond the panes. I already knew the routine on the other side of the glass by heart because I had been watching the activity for the better part of the day. It was like an endless, boring television show marathon where all of the episodes were exactly the same. Doctors and nurses would come and go, and then they would come and go again, and again, and so on. Obviously, I couldn’t change the channel, but the anti-drama was interrupted here and there by random commercial breaks whenever I drifted off to sleep, as the occasional self-administered bolus of morphine would tend to push me over the precipice into fitful slumber.

I actually wasn’t all that excited about being drugged into a brain sucking stupor, so I would wait until I simply couldn’t take the pain any longer before finally mashing my thumb down on the button of the pump’s control pendant. Of course, whenever such a moment would come around, my body would wonder why I had waited so long. My mind, on the other hand, would curse me for being weak and giving in-right up until the moment when the opiate would make me forget why I even cared, which didn’t take very long at all.

Soon after that, darkness would seep in, and harsh nightmares were never far behind. Unfortunately, all of them seemed to feature a perplexing visit from Ariel Tanner and would end with me drowning. I still had no sense that anything had changed on an ethereal level. No voices, and no feelings from the other side. No indication that the door between the worlds had been reopened for me. Therefore, I was relatively certain the nightmares were simply that, nightmares. No hidden meanings, just my subconscious unloading on me at the behest of the drugs. Because of that, I was very quickly developing an intense hatred for the apparent side effects of morphine.