As usual, she watched me quietly, hands folded before her, wearing the kind of dress my grandmother might have worn decades ago. Her outfit made sense, since Millicent had been my grandmother’s age when she had died. Her face seemed younger, though, of late.
“You saw?” she asked. When Millicent spoke, sometimes her lips moved, sometimes they didn’t. Either way, her words appeared directly in my head, just behind my inner ear. Same with Samantha Moon, that was, when we decided to communicate telepathically. It sounded weirder than it actually was.
“I saw,” I said. I was looking for my keys. They weren’t on the hook where they belonged, and that irked me to no end. Sure, I could telepathically fly around the houses of other people, remote viewing the hell out of them, but I couldn’t find my own damn keys.
“They’re in the bathroom. You were in a rush this morning, remember?” Millicent said.
“Oh, yes.” Just like every morning, I had been rushing to the local Coffee Bean to get my decaf sugar-free mocha and rushing to get back. Yes, decaf...and sugar-free.
Sadly, caffeine and sugar hampered my psychic sensitivity.
Yes, it was a bummer, but I had convinced myself that sugar-free mocha tasted just as good, and just getting out of my apartment was a nice way to start the morning. Of course, getting back to my apartment on time, before my shift started, was always a challenge. Hence, the mad dash to the bathroom where I had left the keys.
I grabbed them now, and crossed back through the living room and headed for the front door. Millicent watched me calmly from my kitchen. Then again, everything she did was calm. No, she wasn’t quite a ghost. She was a spirit. There was a difference, apparently. Ghosts were bound to a location. Millicent? Not so much. As a spirit, she could come and go as she pleased. And she pleased to come and go often enough. Not to mention, she could appear and reappear anywhere else, too.
“He’s going to die, Allison,” said Millicent as I approached the front door.
I paused and took in a lot of air. Without turning, I said, “I know.”
“Allison?”
I continued not looking at her, although I sensed her approaching me from behind, sliding up next to me. I knew this because the hair on my neck and arms and most of my scalp were all standing on end.
“Yes?”
“You can’t help him.”
“Who said I was going to help him?”
“I know you, child. Perhaps better than most.”
“That, and you have direct access to my thoughts.”
I couldn’t recall Millicent’s personality in our past lives. But in this life—or, rather, in her current spiritual state—she was as serious as hell. Then again, maybe that was the nature of spirits: a complete lack of humor.
“Not a complete lack, Allison, but I didn’t come here to joke or humor you. I came here to educate you. To train you. To remind you of who you really are.”
She appeared suddenly before me, blocking my path to the front door. I gasped at the sudden sight of her, now denser and more defined. One would think I was used to the woman—or spirit—appearing and disappearing before me. But not yet. Maybe someday. And, yes, it was as if a fully formed woman was standing in front of me. Correction: not quite fully formed. She was missing her feet and most of her hands.
So weird.
I held my chest. “And half the time, you scare the crap out of me.”
Millicent didn’t like it when I used words like “crap” or “hell,” let alone, the bigger, more colorful words. This, I suspected, was a holdover from her previous, and slightly more prudish, incarnation. Now, she frowned in mild distaste.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Allison.”
“I know, I know, it’s just a lucky bonus.”
She moved in closer and now I could feel her warmth, which was an odd thing to say about a discarnate entity. Still, when Millicent was particularly energized—and excited—she veritably radiated heat. Granted, it was my heat back to me; meaning, she drew energy from me—and the surrounding household—which was why my lights now flickered and my refrigerator hummed and sputtered.
She ignored my last comment. Millicent often ignored my jibes and jabs and witticisms. Instead, she said, “Part of your education, child, is to know when to step aside...and when to take action.”
“And let nature take its course?”
She nodded. Now she was directly in front of me, so close that I could see the irises of her eyes. They might have flared briefly with a small fire...or that could have been my imagination. Had she had bad breath, I would have known. She didn’t, thank God, mostly because she didn’t breathe.
Once again, I soaked her in, studying her every feature, and as I did, I had brief flashes—as I often had when she was nearby, and especially when she made a full physical appearance, as she was doing now—of us as teenagers, in a long-ago time, in a forgotten forest, practicing our witchcraft...and loving every minute of it. There was, of course, another witch with us. Samantha Moon. The three of us were something to behold...and something to respect and to even fear.