Frankie knocks on the door: two swift knocks, a pause, three more knocks, another pause, two knocks, one ring of the doorbell, and three more knocks. For safety reasons, the volunteers don’t answer the door unless they hear the correct combination of knocks, pauses, and doorbell rings. The code is never given to victims because they’re prone to disclose it to their abusers. Only volunteers know the code and the code changes every week.
I can hear footsteps on the other side of the door as someone peeks through the peephole. The door opens and Melanie greets us with a beaming smile that vanishes the moment she sees Frankie’s hair. “Saw your bald head on the news. A tree did that to you?” she says, stepping back so we can come inside. Melanie’s jeans and white shirt match the denim sofas and white curtains in the room.
“It was a strong tree,” Frankie replies as we cross the polished pine floor to the hallway on the left, toward the office.
“Had to be to crack that head open,” Melanie says as she waddles behind us, her wiry black ponytail fluttering under the air-conditioning vent. We make our way down the hallway. I enter the office and find Lionel sitting with his feet propped up on the desk while talking on the phone.
“We need to find them a more permanent shelter ASAP,” he says in his smooth caramel voice. “Have Pete call me when he gets there. I need these girls transferred.”
Lionel hangs up the phone and stands to make room for Frankie and me to get to work. Frankie and he exchange their complicated handshake as I take a seat in the desk chair.
“Look at you, Goldilocks!” Lionel says as he reaches up to rub the fuzz on Frankie’s head.
Frankie catches his hand to stop him and turns his head to show Lionel the long stitched up incision where the surgeons cut him open. “I got a free haircut at Mercy Medical,” Frankie replies. “Just in time for me to impress the girls at my surfing competition next week.”
Lionel’s eyes widen. “You’re going surfing like that? Boy, you are out of your damn mind.” Lionel turns to me as if I should be able to explain Frankie’s stupidity or at least stop him, but I just shrug. Lionel shakes his head. “There ain’t much that needs to be done today. But Prissy’s got a job interview at the mall in about half an hour.” His eyes widen for a moment to communicate just how much he loves watching Priscilla’s four-year-old twin boys when she has a job interview.
Priscilla showed up at the shelter three weeks ago with a bloody earlobe where two earrings were ripped out and a broken nose where her loving boyfriend slammed her face into a refrigerator for googling “child support.” The twins are the product of her relationship with another equally charming man who threw her out of a moving vehicle in the middle of a freeway. Priscilla’s multiple facial piercings and tattooed wrists have made it difficult for her to find a job while at the shelter, but looking for work is a requirement to be accepted into the program. The most difficult part of Prissy’s job search is when we have to babysit the demons she calls Jaden and Marlon.
The thirty minutes fly much too quickly as Frankie and I update computer files with all the information Lionel handwrites in the program participants’ files. Before we know it, Prissy is ushering the twins into the office to greet Frankie and me.
“Go with Frankie and… and…. Oh, shit! I totally forgot your name,” she says, looking at me apologetically.
“It’s Belinda,” I say as I grab a cardboard box full of small toys from underneath the desk and place it on the floor in front of the desk where Frankie is sitting in another office chair. “Hey, Jaden. Hi, Marlon.”
Both boys stare at me through their icy blue eyes, which are mostly hidden by the unkempt blonde hair that falls around their faces and nearly reaches their shoulders.
“You go ahead. We’ve got this covered,” Frankie says to Prissy, but she’s already halfway out the door. She doesn’t even bother to say goodbye to her boys.
Frankie appears upset as he begins pulling toys out of the box for the boys to play with. Sometimes, I wonder why we still come here considering how stressful it can be. Then I think of Frankie and how he became a carrier spirit. It must be even more difficult for him, but I still don’t feel like I understand quite how it happened.
“How does someone become a carrier spirit?” I ask him as he attempts to get the boys to play with some small toy cars and action figures.
“Do you really want to talk about this here?” he glances up at me from where he’s crouched next to the box of toys and I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it.
There’s no reason not to talk about it. Melanie and Lionel are out buying supplies and Prissy is at a job interview. The family in the apartment above the stairs are too far away to even factor into this.
“Yes. I want to know,” I reply as I settle myself into the chair next to Frankie.
The twins finally grab a couple of superhero action figures and begin making them battle each other.
“You already know it has to be something tragic, something that… that makes you abandon all hope,” he begins as he takes a seat in the chair again. “It took me a long time to learn all this stuff from hundreds of other carrier spirits, so… just bear with me a little, okay?” I nod and he continues. “Humans can survive without hope, but most choose not to, if you know what I mean.”
Suicide.
“But… is it possible for your spirit to abandon you permanently? I mean, at some point it has to come back, right? And then that person has hope?”
He shakes his head. “It just depends on the trauma and whether or not you were the cause of the trauma. It could be seconds, minutes, or days.”
I think of what Frankie told me when we were outside the library; how his spirit life when he realized he had killed his unborn child.
“There are laws,” Frankie continues.
“Who makes the laws?”
“The ECHOES make the laws and if they don’t think you deserve a spirit, they won’t allow your spirit to return to your body.”
“And without a spirit….”
“There’s no hope.” He finishes my sentence as he searches through the box for more toys to keep the twins busy. “Hope is something only humans can feel. I mean, a carrier spirit can get glimpses of it, when they’re being carried by a human, but, for the most part, carrier spirits are hopeless creatures.”
“That’s awful,” I say as I think of Mara. I wonder if she’s in this room with us right now listening to Frankie reveal this information.
“Yeah, so it’s easy to feel like there’s no point in trying to get your body back. You can’t accomplish something if you think it’s impossible. That’s why most carrier spirits never get their bodies back. Some of them possess humans for too long. That makes the human’s spirit weak and eventually it dies or abandons the human. And, like I said, humans can live without hope, but they usually choose not to.”
“So then how does someone become a carrier spirit?” I repeat my question because I fear Frankie’s getting off track and Lionel and Melanie should be back soon.
“Well, that’s the thing, when something tragic happens that causes someone to lose their spirit, to lose all hope, that feeling doesn’t last long because the spirit usually finds their way back to the body. The problem comes when that person dies before their spirit reenters their body, or if the ECHOES decide you’re not worthy of getting your spirit back. Abandoned spirits becomes carrier spirits.”
“So… is it possible for a carrier spirit to actually want to be a carrier spirit? I mean, if carrier spirits are hopeless that must mean that they don’t have any aspirations.”
“You just answered your own question,” he says, and he smiles for the first time since this conversation began. “If you have no hope or aspirations then you’re perfectly fine remaining a carrier spirit for all eternity. That’s why it took me so long to get a body. It took almost four centuries to fight the hopelessness.”
“You’re weird,” Jaden says, crinkling his nose at Frankie as if his weirdne
ss comes with a stench.
“Thank you,” Frankie replies.
“I have one more question,” I say, practically whispering because I’m starting to get uncomfortable with this conversation and Frankie’s proficiency in the subject—but I have to ask. “Do carrier spirits have special… powers?”
Frankie’s expression is unreadable as he considers my question. “Yes,” he replies.
“Do you have one?”
“Yes.” He stares at me with a blank expression before the corner of his mouth twitches upward, but he doesn’t elaborate.
“That’s it? Come on, Frankie.”
“You’ve seen it plenty of times—hundreds of times—you just never noticed it,” he says, his smile growing with the thought of this secret he’s been keeping from me in plain sight. “I’ll show you, but not today.”
“Fine, but I have one more question.”
“I thought that was your last question.”
“Well, you didn’t really answer the last one so I get one more,” I reply. “What happened to Conor yesterday? I mean, what do you think happened?”
This time Frankie looks confused. “What do you mean? Are you saying it wasn’t Mara inside you?”
“No, Mara was inside me, at least I think she was. But I was able to feel everything and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who… who did it.”
One of Frankie’s eyebrows rises slowly. “You were awake while Mara was inside you? Were you in control?”
I’m not sure I understand his question. I’m always in control of my thoughts while Mara is inside me, but I’m never in control of my body or my senses. But I know I was in control of my senses yesterday. I’m just not sure if I was in control of my body. And if I was in control, what the hell did I do to Conor?
Frankie’s getting frustrated. “Why are you letting Mara use you? You do know it’s not safe, don’t you?”
“Why isn’t it safe?”
“I just told you why,” he replies, his frustration with me clearly building. “If she possesses you for too long your spirit can die.”
“How long is too long?” I ask, but he’s not amused.
He stands from the chair and steps over Jaden and Marlon on his way out of the office. I spring out of my chair and nearly trip on a toy car as I stumble around the twins and into the hallway.
“Where are you going?” I yell as Frankie disappears into the living room.
“I’m just going to the backyard to get some air,” he shouts back.
I glance at Jaden and Marlon and they’re both staring at me with that questioning expression. “Come on. Let’s go outside,” I say, and they leap to their feet and shove their way past me toward the living room.
I chase after them as they dart across the living room and through the kitchen toward the back door. Frankie sees them approaching as he’s about to close the sliding glass door so he holds it open. His face is stony as he waits for me to exit then slides the door closed behind me.
We take a seat in a couple of plastic patio chairs and watch the twins run in circles over the parched grass. I don’t know if I want to help Mara anymore. But backing out would be one of the cruelest things I’ve ever done to anyone. Mara has spent three hundred years building a fragile sandcastle of hope. I don’t think I have it in me to knock it down.
Chapter 43
Listen
How on Earth did I stumble upon Tuket’s best friend? Of all the humans I could have chosen, why was I attracted to her? If I believed in fate this would be a prime example of the stars aligning in someone’s favor. Not mine. Darius’s perhaps. He is the one who clings so desperately to his belief that we are destined for each other.
“Did someone say my name?”
Darius appears next to me inside the shed in Belinda’s backyard. If I had known Darius before we became carrier spirits, I never would have fallen for him. Even now, I can’t help but wonder what people would think of us if they saw us as humans walking hand and hand.
I have the slightly privileged, but nonetheless savage, look of a Native American princess. I’ve been wearing the same tattered dress I wore when I leaped off the cliff more than three hundred years ago. One look at Darius and it’s obvious he descended from 14th century Spanish nobility. Whatever he was doing when he died, he was dressed well.
“Your name hasn’t touched my lips for centuries,” I reply.
“My name may be far from your lips, but my lips came very close to yours last night,” he replies. “And I do remember a certain kiss on Belinda’s doorstep a few nights ago.”
“That wasn’t you,” I reply. “How long have you been here?”
“I never left.”
“You know what I mean?”
“In Payne Bay? Approximately six months.”
“Conor?”
“Three months,” Darius replies. “He’s quite a conundrum, that boy. So fearful of God and spirits yet brave enough to plan his escape from Payne Bay. How do you propose to get Belinda to choose Conor over the other boy she so clearly loves when Conor is three hundred miles away? Or are you really so blinded by your hatred of Tuket that you cannot see what is so plainly obvious?”
I’ve spent a century climbing this tower of hope and every time I reach the top, Darius swoops down and knocks me off. My biggest fear is that I will one day stop climbing. My biggest fear is Darius’s biggest hope.
As always, his face is solemn as I ponder his words. Darius doesn’t gloat. Darius has never felt the need to impress me or anyone. Darius is convinced of his purpose on this Earth and nothing he does is to intimidate or put on airs. The belief that his life is already planned out gives him peace. The flipside to this calm certainty is that he has no motivation to change anything.
“It’s hard to know what reality is when possessing a human, isn’t it?” he says. “So easy to believe you matter to them.”
The darkness is creeping toward me. I close my eyes against it. It will drown me if I let it. I open my eyes and Darius is gazing at me with that look, that look I see on Conor’s face every time he sees Belinda.
“What I feel when I possess a human is more real than anything I ever felt with you,” I say. “You’re toxic, Darius. As toxic as the poison your mother used to kill you. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you let me be? If you truly love me, I beg of you, let me go.”
“I don’t want you to disappear,” he replies, feeding me the same bittersweet line he fed me three hundred years ago. “Why do you despise this life? We are free to do as we please, learn as we please, live as long as we please.”
“I’ve lived long enough.”
“We are better than humans. Why do you want to be like them?”
“I don’t want to be like them. I want to be one of them. I’m done with this… this constant longing.”
“Then stop longing for something you can’t have.”
“But I can have it!” I shout. I glance at the window of the shed, but no one can hear me. No one can see me—except Darius. “That’s the problem. I know I can have it. I can be human again and, no matter how many times you try to shatter my hope, I won’t stop trying.”
We’re only replaying the same conversation we’ve been having for the last century, but I can’t help but feel that this time everything is different. Maybe it’s Tuket’s ability to get his body back that has reinforced this wild hope flooding my spirit, poisoning my every thought. If Tuket could do it then so can I. I need out now or I fear I’ll surrender to the shadows again.
As always, Darius does what he has always done best. He disappears.
Chapter 44
Conor doesn’t call or text me all morning or afternoon. He left in quite a hurry after I didn’t respond when he professed his love. Michael comes to retrieve Frankie in the late afternoon after his Saturday shift. Once Michael’s truck pulls away, I run upstairs to call Conor.
I snatch my phone off the nightstand and plop down onto my bed. Conor’s phone rings four times before his v
oicemail picks up. I hate leaving voicemails. I always sound like my throat is full of goo. The phone beeps and I begin. “Hey. I was just calling to see—to say hi. Um… Call me…. Oh, yeah. It’s Belinda.”
Ugh. I probably sounded like a troll, too. Wait a minute. Why do I care what I sound like on a stupid voicemail?
Conor loves me.
I stage a short fantasy in my head where Conor chooses me over a lineup of hot cheerleaders based solely on my awesome voicemail skills. Then I decide to call Frankie.
“What up, B?” he answers.
“Thanks for talking to me today.”
I don’t know why I feel this sudden urge to thank him for divulging so many of the secrets he’s kept hidden from me. It’s almost as if the realization that Conor loves me has buoyed me and filled me with a sense of deep gratitude. I want to share this feeling with everyone.
“As opposed to ignoring you?” Frankie replies.
“I just felt the need to thank you for… for being so great to me. I don’t think I say that enough.”
The silence that follows crackles with tension.
“Belinda,” Frankie says then he pauses again. “I don’t think I can….”
All the long pauses are killing me. “You don’t think you can what?”
An audible sigh blows in my ear. “I don’t think I can hang out with you this week.”