I grin. “That’s convenient.”
“Hopefully it will be,” Theo says. “Would you mind if I ask a few questions? I know you’re missing your memories, but sometimes the rapid-fire stuff can unearth information you don’t realize is buried.”
“Sure, chief. Anything to figure all this out. Some of the other students have been doing the same thing actually.” And throwing various and sundry sports balls at me, but I decide not to mention that.
For privacy, Theo and I walk the campus grounds. In spite of the cold, he doesn’t put on a jacket, and even pushes his sleeves up a little to reveal the bottom of a tattoo. It’s rude, but I stare a little at its sharp lines.
He pauses and turns his arm so I can see it better. “It’s a Nordic compass. I’d like to say it has some deep meaning, but to be honest, I got it when I turned 19 because I thought it looked cool.”
I burst into laughter, pressing a hand to my stomach until the giggles subside. “You are so not what I expected.”
Theo chuckles and starts back down the trail. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” I lift my shoulders, leaving them there for a few steps. “When they said you were a medium for some reason, I expected a peace, love, and harmony guy wearing tons of hemp or something.” I look down at my own clothes. To be fair, they don’t really scream hippy either.
“That’s a pretty common assumption,” Theo says, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. “But with the rise of the Xers, it’s been necessary to toughen up. They’ve militarized, so we’ve had to as well.”
I comb my hair out of my face. It doesn’t like to stay in place, constantly floating around me, giving a whole new meaning to fly aways. “Militant? Great. Like I wasn’t scared of those guys before.”
“How old are you?”
The question, which catches me completely off-guard sans preamble, totally works as the information dumps right out of my mouth. “Seventeen. My birthday is May 30.” I grin. “Hey, that’s pretty cool. Distracts from my newly developing Xer terror too.”
“It helps if you’re trying not to think too much,” Theo says. “Sometimes that just trips you up.”
I hop over a fallen tree branch, scaring the crap out of a squirrel. “I’ll do my best to shut my brain off.”
“What are your parents like?”
My brain stutters a little over this question. When I can’t answer fast enough, my thoughts stall out, refusing to come up with any information at all. “No dice, sorry.”
“No problem. A non-answer can tell us as much as anything else.” Theo waves a fly out of his face. “Where did you live?”
“Right outside of Dallas, Texas.”
“Nice, I have family in that area too.”
“Awesome food.” I give a little skip. A picture now forms in my mind of the life I’d once lived. At the moment it’s vague, but it’s more than I had before, so I’m pretty stoked. “Guacamole is the best. The spicier the better.”
Theo chuckles. “I’ll agree with that. When did you get your powers?”
“I saw my first ghost when I was seven.” I purse my lips. “She was this girl from my neighborhood who died in a car accident. All she wanted was to talk, and for me to tell her parents she loved them. Then...something happened, and I didn’t have my powers anymore.”
“Hmm. There was a lot of that going around over the last few years.” Theo furrows his brow but doesn’t dig into this for some reason. “Do you have any siblings?”
I pause, throat tight, grinding my knuckles into the bottom of my pockets as another life flash dances across the grass in front of me. A small bedroom with glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and toy trucks littering the floor. The little boy sitting in the middle of them smiles, revealing missing teeth. Freckles dust his entire face. He hops up and runs for me.
Tears sting my eyes as the memory of his hug collides with my spirit. “Two. A sister...but I can’t remember her name, and a little brother. Cody...he died too.”
“Before or after you died?”
My throat is clenching so tight I can barely speak, but it’s too important to stay quiet. “Before. I talked to him after it happened…but...” I press my fingers against my pounding temples. Pain pinches the back of my neck, and I grimace. “I can’t remember.”
It’s like there’s a wall between me and this particular memory. I try grasping for any hint, leaning into it the way Ms. Alvarez told me to, but it doesn’t budge, and all the straining just adds to my headache.
“It’s okay,” Theo says. “Don’t push too hard. That won’t help you remember.”
Easy for him to say. He knows right where his big shouldered body is. This thought makes me smile a little, relieving some of the pressure in my skull. “Why would some memories be harder for me to find than others?”
“There are lots of reasons why some are more resistant to come to you.” Theo crosses his arms, which just makes his biceps bulge even more. “Sometimes it’s for your protection. The memory is a difficult one and you may not be ready to deal with it yet.”
“Like,” I swallow, “a super violent death?”
Theo nods. “Other times there’s magic involved. Usually, that only happens if whatever spell they’re trying to use goes wrong. This makes things even trickier because only the witch involved can give you those memories back. Which stinks because again, it only happens if said witch bumbles what they were trying to do in the first place. It could be intentional, but most witches don’t have a reason to remove a ghost’s memories.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “Great, more complications.” Resisting a spiral, I twist my hair between two fingers until they hurt, then force a smile on Theo.
He crosses his arms. “It’s a garbage fate.”
“Thank you.” I throw my hands up and let them
