What is air? We are taught in school that it is hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide; small molecules that we must simply have faith in, tiny little puzzle pieces that may never seem exactly real to the very people who breathe it in and out every day. The ancient Itudu believed that the air was the breath of their ancestors, that it was the will of their predecessors to bring them rain or storm or drought.
I can understand where they were coming from. Maybe somewhere in their tribes in the deepest of the deserts there was a boy like me, who could see in the air what I can see, and explained it to his people in the best way that he could. Ancestors, gods, spirits. But maybe that little boy went crazy from seeing things that other people couldn’t, or maybe his people stopped him in time and put him to a merciful end before he finished himself off in desperation. If there was ever anyone else like me – and there must be, or have once been, because I couldn’t have just popped up out of nowhere – they never became rich or successful or popular, never even ogled for their strange looks and even stranger talents. Does that mean that there really never was anyone like me, before me?
Or did they simply never live long enough to matter?
These are drear musings, I know. But I had to wonder. These were the thoughts that haunted me as I drifted off to sleep each night, because even though I tried to be confident and sure of myself, because I had to be, still I always wondered. Who was I? What was I? What was my purpose in this world? Why did I have the powers I did? Why not someone else? Who were my parents? What had they been like? Had they looked like me, or had I been a great mistake?
I think everyone wonders these things at some point or another in their life. The answers can be found in cheap books at the super market, in long lectures on the mind, in church for those strong enough to have one. But for me…it was harder for me.
Because I can open my eyes, and the air is alive, and things are different. At first I thought I saw ghosts, heard them mumbling and shifting before my blurring vision, but then suddenly things would change, with a snap that brought everything suddenly into sharp perspective, and I would be the ghost. People would move around me, but not see me. Sometimes they would step through me, and I’d struggle for air and fight the desire to pass out. Sometimes I would see people I knew, but they would be different, changed somehow.
But now I know. In a sense, I do see ghosts. But they are not the ghosts of cartoons, or even the ghosts of horror movies. These ghosts have no mind of their own. They are simply replays of events that have already happened, memories, ghosts of the past.
What happens to a person when they die? Their spirits leave to whatever Afterworld or Heaven there is, for their surely must be one somewhere. Their bodies remain here, ferment, and turn to dust. But something must hold the two together in life, and where does that substance go when the spirit and body part ways? Into the air, forming the very memories that I see in my visions.
I call this substance ectoplasm, for lack of a better word. Keep in mind that this is all theory, and some fact, swirled together beyond recognition into my own twisted Truth. It may not make sense, but it comforts me. I surely would have lost my mind long ago had I not concocted this explanation of my Talent.
So back to ectoplasm. As one moves throughout life, ectoplasm forms between their body and spirit and remains behind in time as they move on with their life. And this, at least to my logic, is what I see when I let my guard down.
I don’t see spirits, I see the past.
There are times when my concentration slips, and Now blends with Then until Then takes over. When this happens, I’ve been told that I begin to fade, as though the past tries to claim me for its own rather than allowing me to be an innocent witness to its dark secrets.
I think powerful emotions must cause ectoplasm to melt more strongly from the person, because the stronger visions are terrifying ones. I remember walking into a hat store with my guardian and seeing someone murdered before my eyes. I began to scream and cry, but no one could see it but me. My guardian only panicked because my hand began to fade, and he is terrified of magic in any form.
Three days later they found her body, and I knew before anyone that the shopkeeper had killed her. No one believed me, but somehow without any help from me they found him guilty. That was the one with a good ending.
One matures quickly under those circumstances. As such, I didn’t have much of a childhood. I lived beneath a blanket of fear that choked the innocence out of me. I didn’t sleep enough because I was terrified of my dreams, and during the day time I couldn’t tell if I was truly awake or not, as odd images that only I could see floated in and out of my vision. What childhood I did have I spent mostly as a homeless orphan, traveling from foster home to foster home, always moving and never staying.
But then came Kaden Mar, my guardian who I now call Dad, who gave me a home, and Lyndsey, who gave me a purpose, and Arika and Aran Zayiir, who saved me from myself.
“Vael!” The slam of pots and pans rang from the kitchen, rousing me from my sleep. I was tempted to roll over and get right back to dreaming. It was Saturday morning, after all! But I recognized the note in my father’s voice: panic.
I gave a little sigh of discontent, but wasted no time rolling out of bed and jogging down the stairs to the kitchen, where I found Dad in Rising Upset Mode. He gets that way sometimes, when he can’t find something or is alone with Lyndsey. In this case, it was both, which raised a red flag of danger.
Lyndsey sat at the counter in her usual tediously matching little girl clothes (I swear Dad would have a conniption if he ever caught her wearing something that didn’t perfectly go with everything else). She was watching our father curiously as he managed to single-handedly make a mess of the kitchen.
“Yeah, Dad?”
Kaden turned to me and practically sagged with relief. “Oh good, you’re up. Lyndsey needs breakfast, but I’ve got to get to work, and I can’t find my – there. Thanks.” He sheepishly took the keys I held up and made a bolt for the door, talking over his shoulder as though he were in the greatest kind of hurry to get to the work that I knew he hated. “Arika should be here soon. She’s running late. If you could please get Lyndsey some breakfast…”
I sometimes wondered if there was some sort of award for getting to work early everyday, some sort of Secretary of the Year thing, or if he was really that anxious to get away from us.
But this morning he didn’t manage to open the door without another disaster. That disaster was in the form of Arika, who was just about to open the door from the other side. She never rings the doorbell, just walks right in. I honestly don’t think she even knows what a doorbell is. She’s a little quirky like that. In any case, Arika’s the stand-in woman of the house. She comes to our house six days a week to help keep the place tidy, Lyndsey fed and comfortable, and Kaden sane. At first I couldn’t imagine why she was so willing to take care of our miserable patchwork family, but the more I watch her, the more obvious her motivation is.
Kaden and Arika stood face to face now. The air whooshed out of him like he was a balloon or something, and Arika’s cheeks grew pink. “Good morning, Kaden.” She stammered cheerfully, carefully studying his tie. He nodded, not speaking, and let his hand fall purposelessly to his side as he shuffled out of the way to let Arika in. She smiled her perfect toothpaste commercial smile at him as she stepped into the entry way. I saw him squirm when she looked away. “Don’t let me make you late.” She advised, and he fled.
It is the weirdest thing to know that the most friendly, sunny, beautiful woman you know has a crush on your nerdy, scatter-brained father.
Arika just stood there for a moment, her hand on her chest, which was rising and falling rapidly, like her heart was pounding. Seeing my Dad on the other side of the door to his own house really couldn’t have surprised her that much. When she realized that I was watching her, she snapped out of whatever day dream she’d just been having.
“Hey,” she greeted me with a lopsided, friendly grin, kicking off her shoes like she did every time she came over. Quirk #2 (3, if you consider her being in love with my father a quirk, which I certainly do): Arika will never wear shoes if she can get away with it. “Sorry I’m late. Kaden wake you up?”
I realized that I was standing there in my pajamas and flushed. My skin’s pale as paper, so when I blush, everyone can tell. It sucks. I retreated to me room before I could further embarrass myself. Arika took it in stride, as she does everything, and moved into the kitchen to make breakfast for my little sister, who was talking to the houseplant she named Susan.
Really, nothing should surprise me anymore.
