Awaken

“Oh my God, Carmen! It’s so PEM!” Phoebe ran up behind her from the fitting rooms. I looked at Willow, but she just shrugged her shoulders; as clueless as I was.

“PEM?” I prodded.

“Pure Effin Magic,” Phoebe clarified with a telling smirk.

“Oh my God, this is it!” Willow jumped up and down as she pulled something from the rack.

“This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!” I couldn’t help but smile at the costume that could have been made just for her. It was a flowing ethereal lavender dress straight out of a fairy tale.

“Cinderella?” Phoebe rubbed her chin.

“Cinderella wore a blue dress, Phoebs,” Carmen corrected her, but didn’t offer a guess of her own. Fortunately this dress belonged to the one Disney princess I ever liked. Probably because I had a lot in common with her.

“Rapunzel,” I confirmed simply with an adoring smile. As Phoebe and Carmen caught on, their faces lit up.

“Hair extensions! You need hair extensions! I’ll put them in for you!” Carmen was already sizing up the length of Willow’s hair, while Phoebe took a close look at Willow’s eyes; pinching her cheeks.

“And you need glitter on your eyelids, it’ll make your eyes sparkle…” she explained. Willow sent me a subtle look that screamed ‘get them off me before I murder somebody’.

“Oh my God, is that Kim Kardashian?” I squealed and pointed out the window.

“Where!?” Phoebe and Carmen spun around, just in time for me to grab Willow and pull her away.

We headed back to Lorelei with three winning costumes and four others for the undecided Phoebe. She justified her unnecessary purchases by telling us she’d return the ones she didn’t wear.

But I had a feeling they had all just found a permanent home in her closet. Back on the ferry, we followed the sun as it set below the horizon and cast warm colors across the sky.

“Did you guys hear that girl Nadia went back to California?” Carmen asked us.

“She did?” My breath caught in my throat at her name. She hadn’t been in class for a week, but I definitely wasn’t losing any sleep over it.

“I guess she didn’t like it here,” Phoebe shrugged her shoulders, but I knew there had to much more to her disappearance than that. As much as I didn’t like seeing her evil smokiness and being in her chilling presence, not knowing where she was or what she was doing was even worse. They always say to keep your enemies close, right?

“I’m glad she’s gone. She just gave off bad vibes,” Willow scowled, visibly shivering.

Maybe she could feel a hint of Nadia’s evil nature without realizing it.

“Same here. Something about her just didn’t add up,” I agreed as my phone vibrated in my pocket. Finn.

Ur goin to be the most beautiful dead bride ever How in the world did he know what costume I bought? I looked around the ferry to see if he was spying on me. Then I remembered.

Either ur stalking me or u had a vision bout me Yes Yes ur stalking me or yes u had a vision bout me?

Stalked u in a vision Ur impossible Thank you That wasn’t a compliment Then why r u smiling?

Good night, Finn So I was right Good night, Finn Night Pasha - luv u Luv u 2

*** Later, as I crawled under my cool covers and closed my eyes, I made an effort to stop the rush of thoughts that were splashing around in my head. November second was now only a week away and I still didn’t feel ready. I doubted I ever would. How do you prepare yourself to die and travel to another realm?

“I like your room.”

I sat up so fast I got whiplash. As soon as the world had stopped spinning, I noticed her standing in the corner of my room in that same blue dress. Her blonde hair flowed down her shoulders and a shy smile danced on her colorless lips.

“Bianca?” I squinted at her, trying to make sure it was actually Bianca and not Nadia dressed up in ghost clothing. She walked out of the shadows and towards my bed, stalling on the soft rug.

“You remember me!” The surprise in her wispy voice was unmistakable.

“Who could forget their first ghost sighting?” I joked, attempting to make light of the situation. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect on Bianca.

“I haven’t always been a ghost.” She drifted closer and actually sat down on my bed. The bedspread didn’t give under her weight. But then again, she must weigh next to nothing. I wasn’t sure if the jitters in my throat were from the whiplash or from the actual ghost sitting next to me. I just chalked it up to a combination of the two. “I had a good life…or so I thought.” She smoothed her bloody dress and hung her head as sadness pulled down her beautiful features.

“I thought my mother loved me,” she looked up at me with desperation, “but I guess in the end, she… didn’t.”

“What…happened to you?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer to that, but I couldn’t help but ask. It just seemed so tragic. Her life had been cut short before it could even truly begin. And now she was left to wander the earth until the end of time? That couldn’t be the way her story ended.

“I’m…I’m not real sure. I mean, I remember mother getting real mad at me and me crying, pleading with her that I hadn’t done it.” She looked down at her transparent hands, “But she didn’t believe me. She wouldn’t listen. And then everything went black and all of the sudden I was floating above my body. I was only fifteen.”

Fear splintered in her eyes, “That’s when I met her.”

“Who?”

“The Reaper,” she whispered, and a shower of shivers cascaded over my skin.

“Nadia?”

“Yes. She took me to Persephone. And then she brought me back here after I was…rejected.

Now I really am cursed. I’ll always have to answer to her.”

“But why? Why did Persephone reject you from entering the Underworld? I mean you don’t seem, well, broken.” I wasn’t sure how to say it, so I stole Finn’s description of the rejected souls.

“If The Reaper finds a soul she wants to have, she will stop at nothing to obtain it - even if that means influencing the living. Persephone grants her daughter any wish she may have.”

“You mean…” I was having trouble speaking as Bianca was unknowingly confirming my fears about Nadia’s true intentions.

“I believe The Reaper coerced my mother into killing me.” Her bright green eyes flitted up to mine, hesitant, “She wanted my soul.”

I was completely speechless for several minutes as I accepted what I didn’t necessarily want to believe. Nadia had taken Bianca’s soul. Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. At the seance, she had ripped my soul from my own body; so she obviously had the ability to play with people’s souls like her own personal play toys. She knew exactly what she was doing. And she appeared to be incapable of feeling any remorse.

“Does that happen…often?” I asked gingerly. What I really wanted to know was if some version of Nadia had coerced the infamous Drake doctor and probably many more unfortunate people across the centuries.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I don’t know why she’d want my soul. I’m nothing special.”

The wheels in my head started turning.

“What happened to your mother? Where is she?” I asked quietly.

“I’m not sure. She never came back to the island we lived on…the island you and your friends visited.”