Shimmer (Riley Bloom #2)(14)

A girl I figured to be around the same age as me.

A girl with curly brown hair, deep hazel eyes, a long, elegant nose, an overly embellished dress with a big yellow bow that slashed across the middle, and a small black dog by her side.

A girl I immediately recognized as Rebecca.





11


When I opened my eyes, I found myself positioned in a way that left me staring directly at Prince Kanta’s calloused bare feet. My cheek pressed hard against the woven-grass mat, my body still toppled on its side.

And that’s when I realized that despite all the things I’d just seen, I hadn’t actually gone anywhere.

Hadn’t stepped foot off the beach, or even out of his hut for that matter.

The tea was the journey.

I scrambled to get myself together, rearranging my limbs until I was upright again. Gazing at Prince Kanta who sat right before me, as a mess of conflicting emotions ran amok in my head.

I was speechless.

Completely gobsmacked and speechless.

Which, if you’ve followed me to this point, then you know is not exactly a feeling I’m used to.

But to Prince Kanta’s credit, it’s not like he tried to rush me. In fact, he seemed pretty content to just remain right there on his pillow, legs crossed, feet propped up on his knees, as he calmly observed the ceaseless lull and sway of the sea. Allowing me all the time I could possibly need to make some kind of sense out of all the horrible things I’d just seen.

“So Rebecca haunts the earth plane because she was murdered?” I ventured, figuring I had to start somewhere and that was as good a place as any. “And if so, is that why you haunt it too?”

He faced me, observing me with that infinite gaze of his. Holding the look for so long that I started to grow a little antsy, a little uneasy, until he finally said, “Not exactly.”

I scrunched my brow up under my bangs and waited for him to elaborate in some way. But when he didn’t, when he just continued to sit there, I decided to press full speed ahead and say, “So, I guess I really don’t get it then. I mean, why is she here? What’s the point of the bubble and … and all the rest?” I winced at the way my voice cracked in the middle, knowing it revealed the full extent of my desperation to make some kind of sense of it.

Back on my very first assignment as a Soul Catcher, it didn’t take long to learn that knowing a ghost’s motivations, their reasons for lingering behind on the earth plane, could only help when it came time to dealing with them. And seeing how Rebecca had trapped my friends, well, I was more than a little eager to learn just what it was that motivated her.

So I waited. Waited for what felt like a ridiculously long stretch of the most agonizing silence. Waited until Prince Kanta finally looked at me and said, “Rebecca haunts the earth plane because she is angry. Very, very angry. And while it’s true that her anger is a result of her murder, the murder itself is not what keeps her bound here. The anger alone is responsible for that.”

Okay, on one level I got it, but on the other, I really didn’t. And knowing he wasn’t the type to just give away the answers, that he pretty much insisted I work for them, I said, “So, is that why you stay behind too? Because you’re also angry about what happened to you?”

I clutched my hands in my lap, nervously entwining my fingers. Seeing the way his face transitioned through a variety of expressions, sure I’d somehow insulted him, overstepped some sort of unseen boundary, when he did pretty much the last thing I expected.

He smiled.

Okay, maybe it was more of a half smile.

But still, his cheeks widened, his lips lifted and curled at the sides, just enough to encourage those twin dimples to spring into view. It was all right there before me—the full-on beginnings of what could’ve resulted in a truly lovely grin—but then he dropped that smile so quickly I was left wondering if it really had occurred.

“In the beginning, I was kept here by my anger, yes.” He nodded, face solemn and serious once again. “But no longer.”

I sat with his words, tossing them around in my head, going over them carefully, repeating them silently again and again. But despite all my efforts, despite my analyzing as best I could, I was still no closer to understanding just about anything he’d said.

Obviously, I got the part about anger being the glue that bound Rebecca here and that used to bind him here as well, and bippidy blah blah. I mean, duh, it’s not like I’m stupid. But what I didn’t get was that if he was no longer angry, if he was no longer bound to the earth plane in that particular way, then why stay? Why hang on to such a horrifying past, when it was just as easy to move on to something else—something better than what he currently had?

Figuring I’d take one last stab at offering my services, I looked at him and said, “So, if you’ve moved past your anger, then why not cross the bridge already? I mean, I’m not trying to brag or anything, but getting people to the other side is pretty much my specialty.”

I couldn’t help but smile when I said it; I felt so empowered by the words. Reminded that I had a purpose, one that I was actually good at, and for a moment anyway, it lessened some of the guilt I had for getting my friends trapped.

But Prince Kanta would have none of it, and if he was impressed by my area of expertise, well, let’s just say he did a pretty good job of hiding it from me.