Of Delicate Pieces (2 page)

She searched her mind for any signs of Chase. She assumed the whispers she heard in her head moments ago slid between the swinging gateway of her mind and his. The noises surrounding Chase often leaked into Alex’s mind and vice versa. The more and more time she spent dead, the better Alex became at managing it, at shutting the floodgate when she so desired. Though it seemed impossible to latch it.

Chase might have gotten up early. He might be downstairs in the vestibule or outside in the courtyard. Considering the number of voices she’d heard, he was surrounded by people.

Her hair tied itself into a ponytail, a sign of impending productivity. She felt like someone was waiting for her. And as soon as she thought about it, her door swung open.

Despite the vibe, a vacant corridor awaited her. She moved down the crooked hallway of the seventh floor before turning the corner to find Skye Gossamer poised on the railing of the balcony overlooking the vestibule.

Skye waved and adjusted a blue and yellow flower tucked behind her ear. “Took you long enough.”

“I woke up two minutes ago.”

Skye raised her auburn brows as if to say,
Exactly.

Each floor had a common area overlooking the grand entrance hall below. Skye perched on the decorative railing like a bird on a wire. With her blanket of hair, Skye reminded Alex of a redheaded Rapunzel.

“It makes me nervous with you sitting like that.”

“I won’t fall. Not that it would injure me if I did.”

Alex peered down at the seven stories below. “You might not be strong enough to keep a fall like that from hurting.”

“I know my way around my brain.”

“It’s distracting.”

Skye gave her a pitying look that indicated how ridiculous she thought this was, but she dismounted nonetheless. Alex noticed a handful of newbury boys on an adjacent terrace staring at her unusual friend in fascination. Skye had that effect on people, especially boys.

Alex took a seat on one of the bistro chairs and rested her elbows on the matching table. “What are you doing up so early? Waiting for me?”

“I’m trying to be a good neighbor. If we had newspapers, I would have brought it in for you.”

The idea of a newspaper was absurd in a world so brilliant in its technology. News would always be a constant, but the source of its distribution evolved steadily. In Eidolon, news traveled as spirits traveled: using frequency waves.

Alex looked out at the shimmering headlines suspended over the vestibule in a checkerboard of electronic media. The morning news scrolled across the room like projections of stray thoughts. In the hoopla following the attack last spring, newburies rushed to read every ration of news they could devour. Whoever would have thought that keeping up with the times would become the latest trend?

She doubted that most of the newburies had ever blackened their fingertips with newspaper ink during life. Alex certainly hadn’t, but she blamed this gossip fad on the simplicity of reading with accelerated mind power and the lack of effort. Although she scoffed at the articles, in actuality, she craved more. The afterworld was so sparsely populated that the news tasted as juicy on her lips as high school gossip, especially when so much of it involved her. She pretended that she hated the attention, but she couldn’t deny that a piece of her enjoyed it. She tucked that secret into her pocket with the hourglass sketch.

The installation of the news projections in both Brigitta Hall and in the adjacent learning center sparked a lengthy debate among the staff. Half of the faculty argued that the center had always been closed to the outside world, shielding the newly buried until they were ready. For the sake of tradition, they believed the campus should remain primitive. On the other hand, some reasoned that this was a way to ease the newburies into the reality of the spiritual world outside Brigitta, and the familiar environment of a school was a great way to introduce the news.

The contemporary crowd claimed victory, and now dozens of newburies stood transfixed underneath the projections each morning. Fingers outstretched, they searched the feed by skimming the article titles in the frequency waves and pulling them from midair. With the constant crowd, the energy, and eagerness, the vestibule now reminded Alex of the New York Stock Exchange. If she desired, she could select an article from the reel, tug it away from its energy feed, and read it at her leisure, but something caused her mind to pound and pulse that morning.

She blamed the pollution of Skye’s apprehension.

“Spill it.” Alex sighed. “You might as well tell me what’s on your mind.” She poked the moving field of energy and it rippled in front of her.

“Do you want to go downstairs?” Skye asked, adjusting the flower behind her ear.

Alex glanced again at the vestibule, scattered with spirits wearing everything from sweatpants to eveningwear depending on their moods. If she went down there, they would watch her, and she’d rather be the one observing. Last year, she grew used to the teachers gawking at her, even interrogating her, but now after the attack, the entire world knew her secret. Her teachers encouraged her to steer clear of the negative articles, so she pretended not to care that her name appeared in the headlines like a celebrity on a binge.

But of course she cared. Of course she wanted to know what others said about her. Who wouldn’t?

Alex tried to ignore the itch in her fingertips as she browsed the bylines. “How bad is it this morning?”

Skye shrugged. “It could be worse.”

The itch intensified. “Sephi Anovark?”

“Of course.”

What could they possibly have left to write about her?
Alex wondered, thinking about Sephi’s love letters coincidentally twenty feet away from them. The temperamental box containing those letters hibernated in Alex’s room, stubbornly refusing to share any more of its stories.

“Am I mentioned?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Alex grimaced at the projections but wondered how genuine it seemed because it took all her effort to turn away. She didn’t know why she tried so hard. She would end up scratching the itch until she bled.

She could recite yesterday’s article easily with her Wikipedia brain.

What is the Big Deal?

Sigorny L.

The Voice of the Newburies

Last spring, a photo went viral and our campus flooded with questions about prophets, crime, and violence. When it comes to the potential return of the infamous Josephine Anovark, many of you have been posing this question:

What’s the big deal?

I’ve found myself wondering the same thing. If we have another prophet on our hands in the form of Alex Ash, so what? Isn’t it a good thing to know where our future might lead?

What’s all the hype about? Well, let me tell you a little bit about Sephi Anovark. Her gift. She was the Joan of Arc of the 1800s, using her visions to aid the Union Army during the American Civil War. When she was living, she was a myth, already a ghost in a sense, but her tall tale was no fairy tale. Her ending was far from happy.

She was a celebrity, a “Marilyn.” They call her captivating, a vixen who rolled with the likes of General Ulysses S. Grant and Walt Whitman in life, and in death, the politically dynamic DeLyre brothers; the fallen genius, Syrus Raive; and our very own hero, Ardor Westfall. People were infatuated with her then, as they remain now.

What would the human masses do if a dead ringer (pun intended) for Marilyn Monroe waltzed into a coffee shop in Los Angeles? I’m willing to bet the reactions would be the same if Sephi Anovark strolled into Broderick Square. Pandemonium occurred the first time Alex Ash innocently tiptoed along the endless knot at the stoop of the tower. With the release of one portrait photo, Alex Ash became larger than (after) life.

This is not necessarily a good thing. I, for one, would not choose to switch places with her if given the opportunity. For as many people who loved Sephi, an equal number despised her. During her short stint as an Ardor aide, she helped to imprison forty-seven spirits, half of who never sat before a jury. The world simply accepted Sephi’s accusations as the truth; the accused were indicted on her word alone. Scary. As a result, Sephi could not leave the city without an army of Patrollers flanking her side, led by Commander-turned-Professor Henry Van Hanlin.

Note: No Van Hanlin updates to report. He is actively listed as missing.

So what’s to fear? Well, let’s say Alex Ash claims you’re planning to blow up a frequency wave. Will you automatically be arrested? By nature, we feel the need to protect ourselves, and does a Sephi sequel stand in the way of our freedoms or our comforts?

After all, Sephi part one sparked a change in our world to ignite a full-on restructuring in our way of living. Do we want another Restructuring? Is that what will happen? Will Alex be used to generate political fear? Societal fear? And if that’s the case, should she be dealt with now? These questions seem to be at the center of our issue. Are we happy with the way the afterlife is run now? Or worse, are we not?

People fear the unknown.

And that’s the big deal.

Alex couldn’t fault Sigorny for bringing to light some important facts, but the girl enjoyed shining light in the darkest of places.

“Is today’s article worse than yesterday’s?”

Skye shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Is the article about watching my back?”

“You’re getting closer. She didn’t come right out and directly say that, but it’s sort of implied.”

“I’m done guessing.”

“Drumroll, please. The article is about—” Skye paused for dramatic effect “—tourism.”

“Oh. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Before I read it, I thought the same thing,” Skye said. “You can probably guess why so many spirits are visiting the town.”

“To see me.”

“The gist of the article is that the city should prepare itself for even more tourism. Shop owners are ecstatic, townies are annoyed, and the visitors, yeah, they are here to catch a glimpse of you, and they aren’t afraid to say it. Fame comes at a price.”

“Are visitors allowed on the school campus?”

“Of course not, but are you planning to limit yourself to the Brigitta campus?”

Alex hadn’t thought of this. As soon as she stepped foot through the alleyway leading to Lazuli Street and the city beyond, it was public domain. “Can anyone get into the city?”

“Any spirit? Yes.”

“How do they find it?”

“Like the bodied would, genius. They follow a map. Supposedly, the sky shines brighter over our little city, and that helps, too.”

“A map through frequency waves and following light. That’s hardly traveling like the bodied.”

Skye tapped her fingers along the edge of the railing, giving Alex a forced smile.

“What do you think? They won’t try to keep me confined to Brigitta, will they?”

“Do you want to read the article?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, then. I guess I’ll tell you. This year marks the centennial of the current civility laws.”

“In plain English please.”

“Seriously? We have brilliant minds.”

“I just woke up. Give me the plain and simple facts.”

“Fine. One hundred years ago, the spirited and the gifted came to a truce about how they would interact.”

“I thought there was no interaction.”

“Exactly. That was the truce. Sephi Anovark was really close to changing it, but she died at the wrong time. Her ambitions died with her, so the agreement became that we would live peacefully but separately.”

Alex heard her name whispered multiple times among the conversations seven stories below in the vestibule. They flew upward and fused together in a wavy question mark of light.

“It’s some big thing called the Centennial, and it’s going to bring in even more tourism.”

“The gifted are going to come in to see the city?”

Skye put a hand over her heart. “They’d never let the gifted in here.”

Alex assumed that once the summer was over, her fifteen minutes of fame would end. She didn’t know whether to feel anticipation or dread, to know on which side the grass would be greener. The funny thing about being dead though was that these tourists had all the time in the world to tread on that grass. Especially tourists who wanted to sneak a peek at a newbury who was identical to one of Eidolon’s most tragic figures.

Little did they know, she wasn’t related to Sephi Anovark, and, most importantly, she had no psychic abilities. She wasn’t special. “That’s all that the article said?”

Skye nodded her head and then shook it. “There were a few quotes from witnesses who had already seen you. Freaking out. Are you aware that there’s a map of where you usually go in the city?”

She didn’t know whether to be flattered or afraid. “What a way to start the new season.”

Skye hopped into movement. “Not until tomorrow! Let’s get going. We have a lot to do today.”

“We have nothing to do today.”

“Don’t you have group therapy?”

Alex followed Skye to the winding ramp leading down to the vestibule. “Like I said. Nothing.”

She despised therapy. Wallowing in her feelings and whining about death was a waste of time.

At the foot of the ramp, Skye turned. “Here. I almost forgot.” She plucked the flower from her ear, presenting it to Alex before descending down the stairs.

“What’s this?”

“Morning Glory. It should bring you some peace.”

Alex examined the blue flower in her palm.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Skye was contradicting herself. If Alex truly had nothing to worry about, why would she need something to invoke peace?

Alex’s definition for group therapy: a platform for complainers to do what they do best. She wished she could shove them from that platform one by one. She had plenty of compassion, a trait which often got her into trouble, but as someone who grew up with limitations, she’d never been able to stomach people who felt so sorry for themselves that they needed others to pity them, too.

Whining sounded different to dead ears. It shrieked and squealed, scratching its nails across whatever part of her mind still gave her the ability to hear. She slouched in her seat, grimacing, as the blond girl seated next to her sobbed into her fist. Alex wondered for the umpteenth time if Ellington Reynes had sentenced her to group therapy in order to test whether or not she was still clinically insane. If she wasn’t already crazy, this would do the trick.