Chapter 15

Just what the hell happened last night?

Who was I?

It’s five-thirty in the morning. A soft wind whispers through the window which Julia cracked open when she came in after her meeting with Fiona.

Our conversation was the very definition of banal.

Hey.

Hi.

Oh my god I’m wiped.

Me too.

Hungry?

Eh. Not really.

I’ll be up for like five hours to get all my work done.

Tell me about it.

Stuffy in here.

Yeah.

Makes me sleepy.

Mmmm.

Can I open the window?

I think I slept an hour. Maybe half that.

I blinked and saw the blackness of night descend. I blinked and watched dawn approach.

And now it’s .

I have revisited every step, every moment of my shift into Julia and back, over and over and over again. Each time I recall how I summoned the aura and changed into my roommate, I feel a surge of adrenaline shoot through my veins.

I loved being Julia. I loved being gorgeous and sexy and I loved admiring myself in the mirror. I felt confident and strong and passionate.

And it sure as hell didn’t hurt to have Mackenzie’s hands and lips all over me. A pleasant shudder runs up the back of my spine when I glance over at my roommate’s bed and imagine myself with her boyfriend tangled up in those sheets. When she tucked herself in after studying, could she tell we had been there? Like Mama Bear, did she sense Goldilocks had been making out in her bed?

What’s truly shocking is how I fooled Mackenzie. He treated me like his girlfriend! Kissing me, touching me, rolling around and under me: nothing clued him in that he wasn’t with Julia. I wonder if I should feel guilty for that, for making him cheat on her but technically, he didn’t.

My roommate looks so peaceful as she lay sleeping, one arm resting above her head, the other clutching her blanket. Her silken hair is arranged like a fan across her pillow. She’s so delicate and sweet. Part of me is surprised at how aggressive I was as Julia and I wonder, was that Julia or was it me?

Or someone else entirely?

I can shift. I can become whomever I desire.

I feel…powerful. Unstoppable. Undefeatable.

Unique.

But then I remember the face I saw in the mirror, the one I didn’t recognize. Who was she? I’ve never seen her before in my life.

Or have I?

Did I bump into her at a mall or in the fieldhouse showers? Did she cut my hair when I was a little girl? Was she a student at Sisters of Mercy?

I only have a vague understanding of what the shift is all about, how it happens. I have so far been able to cause it twice but I don’t think I can control it. And that worries me. What if I do this again and I can’t choose who to shift into? What if I can’t shift back? Will I get stuck somehow? Will I never truly be Callie again?

I suppose the answer is to never shift. I suppose the responsible thing is to take the blue pills if and when the aura comes unbidden. I suppose I should listen to my aunt Beatrix.

But I feel a duty, an obligation, to my ability, one that Beatrix simply doesn’t get. Or if she does, she refuses to acknowledge it. She is obviously holding whatever my mother did against me. I must have this skill for a reason, right? I – and my mother and grandmother and every other female dating back to Abigail Sweet – must have been given this gift in order to do something with it. It would be just as foolish of me to ignore it and pretend I am simply another plain Jane, another average human in this world.

I’m not. I’m not just Callie anymore. I am more than Callie. I don’t know why I can do what I do, but I have a feeling that Abigail Sweet, despite being dead for three centuries, may have the answer.

***

All Souls Church in Darby Cove is one of the original Anglican churches in the country, according to the small bronze plaque erected outside its front doors.

White clapboard with a slate and stone base, uneven sandstone steps, and a gravel parking lot, it looks like it could hold maybe a hundred parishioners – possibly twenty more if they are 17th Century sized instead of 21st Century super-sized.

Tall oaks shade the chapel on all sides, except for a patch of sky through which a simple cross rises from the steeple. A flagstone path leading to the narrow wooden doors is lined with flat brick markers, each one with a name and date on it. Curious, I bend down to examine one of them: Anne MacNicol, 1874. Another has the name, B.T. Longstreet, 1923. The grass around each brick has been trimmed to a uniform ½” up and down the path. Someone has been doing a great job landscaping.

What could the markers be for? They don’t seem to be in any particular sequence, either alphabetically or chronologically. And they’re too small to be gravestones. I laugh a little, imagining tiny people buried under those bricks. It’s like whistling through a graveyard, which is just what I’m about to do.

Behind the church is the cemetery: hundreds of headstones in neat rows. The lawn smells newly-mown, its blades crisply shorn to golf course-level. Here too the earth is meticulously cared-for, the gravesites clean and devoid of graffiti or even bits of trash. I notice there are no dead flowers on any of the graves; every bouquet is fresh and brightly-colored, which is no mean feat in a rain-soaked town like Darby Cove.

I wonder if anyone has put flowers on Abigail Sweet’s grave.

And then I wonder…where the heck is it? I am surrounded by headstones and, as with the bricks on the path, there is no order whatsoever.

Between the church and the cemetery is a squat clapboard-covered building which must be the caretaker’s office. Before I can raise my hand to knock on the door, it opens and a face appears.

“Oh!” I jump back instinctively.

“Um, hi.” Beneath a head full of messy waves and curls, the boy’s eyes are green with flecks of black and yellow, set far apart on his wide face. I’m so close I can see the golden stubble on his cheeks and chin, see how his sideburns contain dozens of sandy curlicues. He smells like the lawn around the building: sweet yet slightly acrid.

I wave. “Hi.” I feel like I’m running into a cute guy at a party rather than the middle of a cemetery.

Without a smile on his face, he looks so solemn, so…grave. The lame joke makes me laugh…grave. Ha!

He tilts his head to one side and a curl falls over his forehead; he brushes it out of his eyes with a grime-covered hand. “Did I say something funny?” he asks and his eyes blink quickly, three or four times.

“No, no. I was just…never mind.” I clear my throat and point over my shoulder. “The graves?”

“Oh, um. Can I help you find someone?” He straightens up. This must be his job.

“Yeah. One of my relatives died a really long time ago. Is there a way to look her up somewhere? Like, do you have a book or something?” I suddenly sound like a Valley Girl, circa 1982. Geez, he’s going to think I’m flirting.

Which I’m totally not.

He holds open the door for me. “Come on in.”

The inside of the caretaker’s office reminds me of Mrs. Gibson’s, deep in the recesses of the library, with stacks of haphazardly stacked books on near-toppling shelves.

The boy stands behind the desk, staring at the books. “When did your relative pass away?”

Pass away…it sounds so formal for someone I don’t even know.

“Um…17 something.” What was it again? The nearness of this pungently-scented yet decidedly attractive guy has me temporarily discombobulated.

He takes a huge book down from the shelf, blows off a thick layer of dust. “Early 18th Century? Mid? Late? Do you remember?”

I think back to what Mrs. Gibson told me. “1751.”

He nods and flips through the well-worn pages. Dust is something that definitely sets this place apart from the librarian’s. Looking around, I notice it also has something the other office doesn’t: tools. Lots and lots of tools. Hanging on one wall are hedge clippers and scythes, hoes and spades, even a pitchfork.

“Is that for the zombie attacks?” I ask.

The caretaker glances up from his book, over at the wall of tools, and his lips begin to curl upward. Just when I think he’s going to break down and smile, he turns serious again.

“Zombies in cemeteries are a myth,” he says, returning his gaze to the book.

“Oh. Right.”

“We use the pitchfork on vampires.”

I snort a laugh right through my nose. If I were drinking milk, it would have shot out both nostrils. Funny guy.

“All right, 1751. Name of the deceased?”

“Abigail Sweet.”

“Let’s see.” He runs his finger down the page as his eyes scan it top to bottom. Another page, same thing. And another. And another. “You sure 1751 is the right date? Not 1851 or 1951?”

“No, no. It’s 1751. I’m sure. Well, Mrs. Gibson was sure.”

“I’ve looked through all of the names of people who passed away and were buried here around that time and…” He shrugs.

“Can I look?”

I come around the back of the desk and read the names over his shoulder. He shifts slightly in his chair but I still have to lean closer to see the book.

Could he have simply given me the book so I could have stayed on my side of the desk?

Sure. But then I wouldn’t be standing here nose-deep in his curls, breathing in the scent of his shampoo, would I?

“I’m Trey,” he says.

“Oh. Um, Callie.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He looks like he might want to shake my hand but I clasp mine behind my back as I lean down, ignoring the casual touch. If I’m going to have any physical contact with this guy, I don’t want it to be a handshake.

Oh my god, Callie! I had one make-out session with one guy and all of a sudden, I’m the Connoisseur of Contact, the Flirt Queen? Get over yourself!

In front of me is a long list of names, handwritten in black ink and in formal script.

Mary Goode, wife of John Goode, b. 1701, d. 1750.

Nathaniel O’Connor, husband of Grace, b. 1699, d. 1750.

Elizabeth Bishop, daughter of Samuel and Mary Bishop, b. 1749, d. 1750.

Margaret Bishop, daughter of Samuel and Mary Bishop, b. 1747, d. 1750.

Samuel Bishop Jr., daughter of Samuel and Mary Bishop, b. 1750, d. 1750.

Mary Bishop, wife of Samuel Bishop, b. 1720, d, 1750.'

I hear myself gasp. Trey turns in his chair and his eyes search mine.

“They died young back then.”

“Yeah, but a whole family?”

“Yeah,” he says again, apologetically. “Almost.”

“1750 was a busy year at All Souls Church.”

“It was probably influenza,” Trey replies. “Or cholera. People weren’t into proper hygiene back then. Not a lot of washing of hands.”

“No Lysol, huh?”

Trey narrows his eyes at me. “You certainly have a grim sense of humor,” he says.

“I do, don’t I? Not usually,” I say. “I guess it’s being in a cemetery and surrounded by dead people. I’ve never been in a cemetery, if you can believe that. And I’ve never seen dead people. Although I did see ‘The Sixth Sense,’ which was an okay movie. Did you see that?”

Trey is staring at me; I must be babbling.

“I’m actually pretty humorless when I’m not near so many graves,” I finish, taking a breath.

“Yeah? Maybe I’ll have to test that theory someday.”

Maybe…test…someday…

Was that like, an invitation? To like, see me again?

Welcome back, Valley Girl.

Trey does nothing to indicate one way or the other; then again, I didn’t actually ask that question out loud, did I? I force myself to stare back at the ledger and its neatly-penned names.

“Not one Abigail Sweet, huh?” I ask, my hopes sinking.

Trey shakes his head. “Sorry.”

I shake my head too. “I don’t get it. I’m like, 99% sure that Mrs. Gibson told me Abigail was buried here in 1751.” I return to the guest chair on the other side of the desk where I left my backpack. Inside I find a piece of paper on which I had scribbled all the info I remembered from my meeting with the librarian. I show it to Trey.

“Who’s Mrs. Gibson?” he asks.

“She’s the librarian at my school. Darby Prep,” I add. And then, because I’m apparently a dork, “I’m a senior.”

“And you were talking to her about this…for a class project?”

“Um, not really.” As excited as I have been about joining Bell Book and Candle, I suddenly feel embarrassed to tell Trey about it. Will he think it’s juvenile? Exclusionary? He doesn’t seem like the prep school type.

“Well, thanks for checking,” I tell him as I zip up my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. “I appreciate your help. See ya ‘round, Trey.”