Intrinsical (9 page)

“
Yeah, I missed tonight.” Brent threw a sly smile my way. “I’ve been busy.”

“
I knew girls coming here would create problems,” Coach Tait grumbled before bidding us good night. Brent kept his arm around me until the swim coach was out of sight, then stepped away from me.

“
What was that about?”

“
I didn’t know it was him. I wanted us to have a good reason to be talking in such a secluded spot.”

“
I doubt people use that alcove to talk,” I pointed out.

Brent gave me a wicked grin. “Exactly.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I admit I’d be embarrassed if we got caught having that conversation, but you sort of overreacted back there.”

Brent’s shoulders slumped and he started chewing on his nails again. “Yeah. I’m just jumpy recently.”

“
Why?”

“
Doesn’t matter.” Brent raked his fingers through his hair. “What matters is that I’m officially offering to train you.” Brent shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be on your fire escape at one this morning.”

I dropped onto a stone bench that rested under the branches of an oak tree, my jaw clenched in protest. “Is it really that dangerous?”

He sat beside me. “It can be. Unless you have training, your spirit can leave without you wanting it to any time you’re scared or angry. There are some foods you have to avoid.”

“
You’re joking, right?”

Brent shook his head. “No. You’re lucky you have me. I had to learn this alone with some old notes. It wasn’t fun.” Brent started in on his nail again. All his fingers had ragged nails chewed down to the skin. “Black licorice, for example—avoid it. Some forms of it can push you out of your body with such force you end up far away from it and can’t return for a while. It’ll actually put up a barrier between your body and any spirit. Peppermint can—”

I cut him off. “No worries about licorice. I hate the stuff.” I bit my lip trying to absorb the information Brent had spewed out. “It sounds like there is so much to know. Are you sure I have no choice in this anymore?”

“
Once you do it the first time, it’s part of you.” Brent gave me a pitying look.

“
How long have you been able to leave your body?”

He paused for a beat, loosening his tie. “I developed that talent right before I started school here. How about you?”

“
You saw my first time. Could the other guys in your family do it?”

He tilted his head. “Yeah.”

I lifted my necklace out of my shirt and my fingers anxiously grasped the charm that dangled from the chain, rubbing it between my thumb and pinky. Brent stared hard at my necklace, taking a few steps toward me. He lifted his hands, stroking the beads almost lovingly— the amber in them burned a little brighter and warmed from his touch; its heat snuggled into my soul.

“
Wow. It responded to your touch,” I whispered, slightly awed. It was like something out of some fantasy novel, a magic talisman connecting with its master.

“
Where did you get it?” Brent asked, ignoring my statement.

“
My grandmother sent it to me from Brazil. Why?”

Shaking his head, he shoved his hands into his armpits while stepping back. “No reason. It’s pretty.”

I didn’t believe him, but I examined my necklace with newfound interest. The amber beads were flecked with tiny preserved blossoms, and the intricately carved wooden flower pendant glowed beautifully in the moonlight. I lifted it, watching the way the material picked up the beams of light.

“
It isn’t all bad, you know. Once you can control it, it’s downright sick.”

It took a few moments for me to remember the conversation we had been having about astral projection. “What’s so great about being able to separate your soul from your body?”

Bent looked around, making sure we were alone before lifting his arm and running his hand back and forth in the air, creating a gentle breeze that lightly shook the leaves of the tree. I couldn’t help but gape at him open-mouthed. Had he really just made the leaves move? He grinned at my wonder and raising his hand again, waved it around my face, lifting the hair off my shoulders so it floated gently in the air.

“
That was incredible,” I said as my hair fell back around my face and neck. I raised my hand, trying, but nothing happened. “How did you do it?”

“
Meet me tonight and I’ll tell you,” he said, his low voice taking on a husky tone.

He was pouring on the charm, and it was working. I took a deep breath and refocused my brain. “Can everyone who can astral project do that?”

Brent paused, uncomfortable for a minute, before answering. “No, but I have this feeling you’ll be able to.”

“
It’s a date then.” Brent gave me an odd look and I realized what I had said. My cheeks burned and I sputtered, “No, I mean . . . not a date, an appointment.”

He puffed his chest out as he stood. “Gotta watch out for those Freudian slips.” He grinned at me lazily. “See ya tonight.”

****

“
So, explain to me one more time how you astral projected,” Cherie demanded.

I lay across my bed, with my head hanging off the side looking toward Cherie’s bed, my legs stretched up and my feet resting against the shiny white cinder block wall. “Well, when I first got up there, I was a wreck.”

“
Right, I noticed that. But that isn’t out of the ordinary,” Cherie interjected, as she dug through her makeup drawer and pulled out her nail care bag.

Although she spoke the truth, I gave her a nasty look as I sat up. “And then I remembered this advice I found in a book in the library. It said that when I was nervous I should take a deep breath and pretend I was dreaming, and it would help me get through it.”

“
So how did that make you leave your body?” She asked, her nail file pausing in her hands.

“
I don’t know how. I was panicking. It just happened. Anyway, and then when I did, I noticed that I sort of separated.” I continued to tell her everything that had happened, hoping she wouldn’t think I’d lost my mind.

To my relief, she set down her emery board and leaned closer to me, her eyes dancing with anticipation. “What was it like?”

“
Everything around me slowed down, but my mind was so alert I felt like I was in fast forward. When I fully stepped out of myself, my body froze like an empty shell.”

“
So cool.” I could almost hear the internal gears of Cherie’s mind working. “Can you do it again?”

“
I don’t know,” I answered, more than a little nervous of trying it again. I didn’t feel it was my place to tell her about Brent being able to do it too, so I couldn’t explain his warnings.

“
What do you mean you don’t know?”

“
I haven’t tried it yet. I did some research on it and found it could be dangerous,” I lied, wringing my hands together in my lap. I wanted more answers from Brent before I told her more. “Some article said that if you do it once you won’t be able to stop.”

“
Who says you’d want to? You need to embrace this, Yara. It’s part of who you are.”

“
I’m not sure I want this, Cherie. It’s too close to everything else I don’t want to be part of. I need some time to process it.”

Cherie pressed her lips together but her eyes spoke volumes. She wasn’t done talking about it. Voices carried into our room from the hall outside and then grew faint as the girls walked by. A new song on the radio began, but still she said nothing. Finally she nodded. I’d bought myself a little time.

****

I hadn’t told Cherie about my training session with Brent, so I slid out the window and onto the fire escape as quietly as possible when my alarm went off. I shivered in the chill air, trying to find constellations in the stars as I waited for Brent.

I must have dozed off at some point because the next thing I knew the sun was peeking over the mountains behind the school. My body was stiff, sore, and freezing as I stood and stretched. A gentle gust of frigid air circled around me, tugging my hair away from my shoulders. Instead of moving on, the wind danced around me for almost a minute, like I was in the eye of a small storm. The breeze carried all the smells of Pendrell and a familiar scent that tugged at my memory. I tried to place it as I made my way back to my room. My bed was warm by comparison and I crawled into it drowsily. I drew up the blankets, wondering why Brent hadn’t shown up and if I should be angry or worried.

By the time I got up, I had slept through first period, despite Cherie’s attempts to drag me out of bed. In an effort to not be even later, I considered skipping a shower, but one sniff of myself and I ruled that option out. So I gathered my bathroom bucket, robe, and striped towel on my way to the bathroom.

After showering, I toweled off and wrapped myself in my robe. I emerged from the shower stall to find the whole bathroom deserted and full of steam. I hadn’t realized my shower had been so hot. The row of shiny sink faucets dripped with condensation. The blue and white floor tiles were dangerously slippery and I slid along the moist floor toward the fog-covered mirrors. I wiped my hand across one of them and peered at my hazy reflection. I looked like I had been up half the night. The image of me vanished behind a new layer of steam.

The vapors of wet heat thickened, making it hard to breath and leaving me unable to see beyond my nose. I knew no one had come into the bathroom but I also knew someone was in there with me. Fear beaded into glistening sweat on my skin; my lungs seemed to wither, and I couldn’t take a decent breath. Through the dank air, I smelled the same almost musky scent from the fire escape, sending a tiny wave of comfort through my frayed nerves. Not enough to make me less scared, but enough to give me the clarity of mind to get out of the room. My hands in front of my face, I started to scoot my way to the door, when a sound akin to a squeegee on glass echoed through the vacant room. I wheeled toward it and almost lost the contents of my bladder when I saw words on the mirror, written through the steam.

Do Not Trust Brent

I read the words aloud and once spoken they vanished along with the steam and I was alone in the perfectly ordinary bathroom.

Chapter 6

“
Brent, wait up,” I called, scrambling out of my chair after Language Arts. Somehow, I had been able to get myself to class after the bathroom experience. I kept trying to figure out why the ghost had written that, what it would gain by me not trusting Brent. I decided to ignore the warning, at least until Brent gave me reason to do otherwise.

He stopped with an impatient tapping of his foot. “How may I help you?”

“
Thanks for standing me up last night,” I complained. “I probably caught a cold waiting for you.”

“
Oh . . . right. I forgot about our date,” he said slowly.

“
It wasn’t a date,” I corrected with a shy grin. “It was a training session, remember?”

“
Yeah, sorry. I got unexpectedly detained. Do you want to reschedule?”

“
I figured you would. You’re the one who thought it was so important I learn to control,” I leaned in close, “my astral projection.”

Brent staggered back, looking stricken. “I was wrong. You don’t need training, you only need to avoid it.”

My head cocked to the side, a feeling of unease sashaying through my stomach. “You said I couldn’t stop.”

“
I just wanted an excuse to spend more time with you,” he whispered huskily. Blood rushed to my face. He licked his lips and got a faraway look in his eye. “I did some research last night and it turns out you can suppress it with herbs.”

I frowned even as he gave me the solution I wanted. “Oh. I have to admit that watching what you did made me want to learn more.”

“
Trust me, you want to leave this alone. It’s dangerous.” He stepped toward me with a savage glint in his eyes. I studied them for a second, as his gaze dropped to my necklace, a slight frown pulling at his mouth. Brent’s usually dark brown eyes were faintly edged in green, and with large flecks of jade I hadn’t noticed before, they almost looked as hazel as mine. The words I had dismissed on the mirror flashed in my mind like a neon sign. Reflexively, my hand lifted to my necklace, my fingers toying with the wooden flower.

“
Okay,” I said, shivering. “So what do I need to take?”

He cracked his knuckles. “I’ll bring it by your room when I can find some. You’re in 222 right?’

“
Yeah. How did you know?”

“
I know all.” He laughed, starting down the hall.

I stared after him, remembering the words on the mirror. Something about the conversation felt off and I wondered if I was starting to believe the ghost.

****

That night as we were getting ready for bed, Cherie asked, “So, did you try to see if you could leave your body again?”