“But I don’t understand why she’s manifesting at all!” I said. “I thought… I thought after her funeral, she would have… I don’t know, moved on? Crossed over? Is any of that even true, or have I just watched too many movies?”
Xiomara smiled gently. “Yes. There is a spirit realm. And yes, when a spirit is ready, they cross into it, and there they remain.”
“So, you’re saying Asteria hasn’t crossed yet?”
“That’s what’s troubling me,” Xiomara said slowly. “I knew your grandmother well. I knew her energy. And I knew when it left this world. I felt it.”
“But then…how can she be here now?”
“How, indeed? That’s what we must discover,mija. Shall we try together?”
Xiomara reached a hand across the table, an invitation. I hesitated.
“Is there any chance I’ve just been imagining it?” I asked, almost hoping it was true. “Is it possible I’m just… just fixated on her and…”
Xiomara didn’t have to answer out loud. I could read the answer in the depths of her eyes, where it burned, pitying butbright. However, she spoke anyway, her hand still extended toward me. “Do not be afraid, Wren. Asteria has reached out to you. If she has something to say to you, do you not want to know what it is?”
I couldn’t answer right away. Was it possible I both wanted and didn’t want to know? I didn’t know much about ghosts, not really, mostly because I’d never believed in them before, but even I’d heard the well-known stories and urban legends about tortured spirits, unable to move on until they’d found resolution for their unfinished business. Was any of that true? Because if it was, I didn’t think I wanted to know. I didn’t want to imagine Asteria desperate and trapped. Surely, that couldn’t be the case. And yet, if it wasn’t something vitally important, why wasn’t she resting peacefully, or was that just a story, too?
Xiomara watched me patiently as all of these thoughts chased each other through my brain. I realized she must do this all the time —guide people through experiences like this. Bea’s drawing of her flashed across my mind, and I was able to appreciate on an entirely different level just how accurate it was. Though she did not speak, waiting for my permission to begin, I could see the curiosity burning in her eyes, the fire that seeks truth and knowledge.
“You want to know as badly as I do, don’t you?” I whispered.
“Her presence here troubles me. If she has something to say, I think we owe it to her to discover just what it is.”
That was apparently exactly what I needed to hear. I placed my hand in Xiomara’s and told her, “Okay. What do I do?”
Xiomara smiled encouragingly. “Simply close your eyes, child, and try to feel your connection to her. You can connect to spirit, just as you can connect to the other elements. Trust yourself.”
“I’ve never?—”
“Try.”
I did as she told me, letting my eyelids fall shut, and trying to clear a hundred other thoughts that were bounding loudly around in my head, so that I could create a mental space for Asteria, and only Asteria. At first, it felt impossible. How could I focus on something so tenuous, on something that I knew was real, and yet in no way understood? How did you grab a hold of something so ephemeral?
“You’re doubting yourself, Wren. It’s blocking you,” Xiomara said, after a silent minute.
“I know, but I don’t know how to get rid of the doubts,” I said, my teeth gritted in frustration as I battled with my own brain.
“You don’t need to dispel them. Just push them to the side. Imagine a box in the back corner of your mind, and place everything in it, like a child putting away toys, until the room is clear.”
The metaphor was concrete, and suddenly, I felt like I had something to hold onto, something that felt more real than anything we’d said up until that moment. I visualized the box, and one by one, every other thought that tried to crop up, I shoved it inside. I did it over and over again, and when I began to worry that my brain would simply produce a never-ending supply of distractions, I took that worry and shoved it away as well. It took what felt like a long time, but Xiomara showed no signs of impatience; and soon, I found, for perhaps the first time in my life, that my brain felt… empty. An empty stage, with a single spotlight, waiting for someone or something to make its entrance.
Perhaps it was the energy coming off of me or the fact that I seemed to have gone unusually still, but Xiomara recognized the very moment that I’d achieved what she’d requested of me. Her hand tightened around mine, and she said, “That’s it,mija. Now, into that space that you’ve just cleared, I want you to picture your grandmother. Just place her there and picture her just asshe appeared to you out in the garden, both at Shadowkeep and at Lightkeep. If there’s a detail you can’t remember, fill it in until she’s like a picture you’ve drawn for yourself.”
I began to do as she asked, and then started in surprise as Asteria popped into my head, fully formed. Every detail was exactly as I remembered it, and I felt myself taking mental stock of it, trying to commit it all to memory. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in shining, gray-streaked waves. Her greenish eyes twinkled out from her lined face—I wouldn’t have called it wrinkled. Each line was simply a memory of smiles and frowns and deep concentration, a permanent incarnation of the joys and sorrows and accomplishments of her earthly life. She wore the dress she had worn the very last time I’d seen her alive, a bell-sleeved confection of jewel-tone patchwork, with crocheted lace dripping from the collar, cuffs, and the handkerchief hem. I felt Xiomara’s hand twitch in mine.
“She’s here,” we both whispered at the very same time.
“Asteria, my friend, why do you linger?” Xiomara was asking, her voice soft but insistent. “What message do you have for us?”
Wren. I need Wren. Wren Vesper.
It wasn’t like hearing a human voice. I didn’t seem to hear it with my ears, but with my brain.
“Wren is here, Asteria. She can hear you,” Xiomara insisted.
Wren. I have to speak to Wren. I have to warn her.
