Элисон Ноэль - Radiance

I nodded, far too choked up to trust my own voice. Instead thinking: You? Knowing he could hear it just as well as any words I might speak.

He stretched his legs out before him, craned his neck from side to side, arched his back for a moment, then stood. Offering his hand as he pulled me up too, his entire expression changing when he said, “I told you not to interfere.”

I balked, hardly believing what I’d just heard.

“I told you to stay out of it. Butnooo, you wouldn’t listen. You never listen. You have serious issues with listening.” He shook his head, adding, “And the truth is, I’m not sure what to do with you, Riley. I’m not sure if I’m even the right guide for you. I mean, it’s pretty obvious how hard it is for you to even try to respect me.”

“Wha—”I shook my head, so many arguments rushing forth at once, I didn’t know where to begin.

“Are you kidding me?” I looked at him, one quick look and I knew he was most certainly not joking, not in the least. “Because for your information, I did what you asked, and let me just tell you it wasn’tat all easy. In case you don’t realize it.I’m the one who watched you go all weird and spas my and freaky. All the while having no idea whatsoever whether or not you’d make it, not to mention what might possibly become of me if you didn’t. And yet, I still just ignored my doubts, gulped down my fears, and kept treading water, not assisting you in any way, shape, or form. And then, even after I was spit out of there, even after you swallowed her grief and she twirled her way into the sky, all I did was touch your arm and make sure you were okay. That’s it. Iswear. So you have no right to say what you did. No right at all, in fact—” He looked right at me, cutting in when he said, “See? That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.

Look at the way you speak to me! Tell me, Riley, were you like that when you were alive too? Did you talk that way to your parents, and your teachers in school?”

I screwed my lips to the side, placed my hands on my hips, and thought about it. Thought about it long and hard before saying, “Sometimes, yeah. What of it?”

He turned away, straightening his clothes and tucking the tail of his shirt back into his pants as he gazed out that small, square window and said, “The fact is, you did interfere. And now, because of it, I’ve no idea if I’ll get the credit I so desperately need for moving her across the bridge.” He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, pausing for a few moments, collecting his thoughts, before he plunged ahead. “You have no idea what you’ve done. You don’t have the first clue as to how this all works. You just jump right in, assuming you know way more than you do, refusing to pay any attention to what I’ve asked of you.” He turned toward me, pushing a lock of wet hair off his face and back behind his ear when he said, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, because you’ll just disrespect me that much more, but the Wailing Woman? She was my last chance. My last shot at redeeming myself and moving on. But now that you’ve butted in, despite my warning you to stay put, I’ll probably get demoted, and that’s if I’m lucky—”

“But that’s the thing, I didn’t interfere,” I said, arms flailing through the air, desperate for him to believe it.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole entire time.That’s what you don’t seem to get. I was there, yeah, we both know that. I saw the whole, entire thing. But that’s it. All I did was hope and try to surround you with hope. I hoped that you’d realize your own inner strength. I hoped that you’d stay on course, on your mission to help her move on to a better place. That’s it! I swear. So tell me, oh mighty guide, since when is hope considered a bad thing? Since when does hope get a person demoted? I mean, seriously, sheesh!” I shook my head and circled my arms high on my chest, dismayed once again at how easily they fit there. “If that’s the way things work in the Here & Now, if they’ve truly got some kind of anti-hope campaign going on, then no thanks. I will not be returning anytime soon, no matter how many clever Soul Catchers they send after me. And I won’t let Buttercup go back either. I’d rather we just stay right here and take over as the new ghosts of Warmington Castle. All I’d have to do is come up with some kind of cool, new, ghostly type gimmick that hasn’t been done before and—” I sighed, running out of steam and shaking my head as my eyes met Bodhi’s.

“You swear you didn’t interfere?” he said, obviously wanting to believe.

“Yes!”I practically shouted, desperate for him to hear me. “I absolutely, positively, swear upon my very own grave!”

“Yes, but do you swear on your favorite Kelly Clarkson song?” He tilted his head and eyeballed me.

I gaped, wondering how he could’ve possibly known about my penchant for filling my iPod with all of her songs. Then just like that, I got it. He’d seen my footage. It was part of his prep work, before taking on the responsibility of me. He’d been forced to watch the whole lame saga of my life, the one that was unfortunately titled: The (Short, Pathetic, Completely Wasted) Life of Riley — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know, from A to Z.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t the A to Z version,” he said. “Just the highlights, the movie trailer version, that’s all. But more importantly, are you saying I seriously did that — swallowed her grief and moved her toward the bridge all on my own?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, seeing his face light up in a smile for the first time since I’d met him, and amazed by the way it completely transformed him. “Like I said, the only thing I offered was hope, nothing more.

And they can’t fault a person for hope, can they?”

He looked at me, still smiling when he said, “Nope, they most certainly can’t.” Leading Buttercup and me out of that room and glancing over his shoulder as he added, “So, what do you think? You still up for that flying lesson?”

Here’s the thing — even after I’d mastered the art of being successfully airborne, neither of us had any idea what to do about a little problem named Buttercup.

Since we couldn’t speak canine, and didn’t know the first thing about how to go about reading his mind, well, let’s just say we were totally and completely flummoxed as to how to get him off the ground.

Like everything else in my world, learning to fly all came down to one thing: Desire.

Everything ran on desire.

Nothing was exempt.

Which meant no wings were necessary.

(Though some people happened to like the way they looked so much they wore them anyway. Which is how, according to Bodhi, that whole angel-with-wings thing got started.)

But still, in the end, it all came down to just how badly you wanted something.

Just how well you could imagine yourself having it and/or doing it.

And just how much you believed you truly could have it and/or do it.

It was simple.

Easy peasy.

All you had to do was know how to manifest it.

But the question was: Could a dog actually manifest something?

Something as foreign to them as flying would be?

And almost more importantly, why would Buttercup evenwant to pretend he was a bird gliding from tree branch to tree branch, when he so clearly loved being a dog?

But then, when I thought about it, really thought long and hard about it, I remembered the growing number of times I’d found him in his own little self-made nirvana — surrounded by piles of his favorite brand of doggie biscuits as he napped in a solitary warm patch of sun that hadn’t been there a few moments earlier.

And at that moment I knew just what it would take to get him to take flight.