Episode 1: Blood Stained, Part 1
Aiden blindly reaches for his buzzing alarm clock, his eyes heavy with sleep. He sits up in his bed, rubbing his eyes and pushing his long dark hair out of his face. When he can finally see, he turns on the small lamp on his bedside table. He can sense the Watchers presence even before he turns.
"Good morning." Aiden says to him, unfazed by the man's appearance. The Watchers face looks troubled. "I know that face. What's wrong?" He says, using his uncanny ability to get straight to the point. The Watcher stares at him for a moment.
"Why does something have to be wrong for me to come and wish you luck on your first day of high school?" The Watcher answers, his gaze unwavering. Aiden looks into his eyes for a moment, but it is clear that the Watcher is not going to tell him whatever it is now. There is a knock on his bedroom door.
"Come in." Aiden says, and his dad, Jim, opens the door. Aiden had the same smooth black hair and fit build as his father did, according to his mom. However, the body his father's spirit now resided in looked nothing like him.
"Just making sure you're awake. Hurry and get ready, your mothers making breakfast. I'm sorry but I just got a call from the hospital, so I can't drive you to school."
"That's okay; I was going to ride my bike anyway." His dad chuckles.
"Too old for your old man to drive you school now?" Aiden smiles, and looks in the direction of the Watcher. Jim follows Aiden's gaze. "Is he here?"
"Are you surprised?" The Watcher says in return even though Jim cannot hear him.
"Yeah, he is." Aiden responds. His dad rolls his eyes.
"You know, if you weren't dead you'd be paying rent." He says, and Aiden laughs. Jim smiles and points at Aiden. "Be downstairs in fifteen minutes."
"Okay." Jim leaves the room and the Watcher is gone.
After taking a shower, Aiden puts on a pair of blue jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and a pair of socks, then goes downstairs into the kitchen. The morning sun is casts streaks of light through the kitchen, and the smell of eggs and bacon and toast wafts through the air. Aiden breathes it in deeply.
"Smells good." He says, and his mom, Melinda, turns from the stove, smiling. She is still dressed in her white nightgown. Aiden shares his mom's small nose, high cheekbones and long eyelashes framing hazel eyes. She puts her spatula down on the counter and hugs him. When she pulls away, her eyes are wet. She wipes one of them. "Mom, are you crying?" She laughs.
"My little boy isn't quite little anymore." Aiden smiles and his cheeks turn red. She turns back to the food and turns off the stove. "You're just in time for breakfast." Aiden takes two plates from the cupboard above the stove.
"Here, let me get it." He says.
"Thanks. I need to get changed anyway. Delia will be here any minute."
"Why?" He asked as he flipped the scrambled eggs from the pan to a plate. It's not that he didn't like Delia, he does, but his mom was going to cry enough as he peddled away to high school without Delia there to cry with her.
"She wants to see you off too." His mom says, confirming his fears. Just then, the doorbell rings. "Come on in!" She shouts to the front door. The door opens, and Delia walks in. After closing the door behind her, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a tissue, dabbing her eyes.
"Aiden!" She says, holding her arms out to him. He hugs her, and she sniffles. "I can't believe it's your first day of high school!" Melinda laughs.
"I'll be right back Delia, I need to get changed."
"Okay." Delia says, dabbing her eyes again. After Melinda leaves, she says, "I remember Ned's first day of high school. He couldn't wait to get on the bus because I wouldn't stop crying and hugging him." Aiden laughs and Delia laughs with him.
"Do you want something to eat?" He asks her.
"No thank you." She says, shaking her head. "I ate before I came."
"Are you sure?" She eyes the pan of bacon.
"Okay, just one strip of bacon. But that's it! I'm on a diet, remember?" She pushes his shoulder and he laughs, putting one of the strips on a paper towel for her.
Fifteen minutes later, the three of them are standing at the end of the driveway. Aiden is sitting on his brand new bike he bought with his saved money.
"Now, do you have everything? Pens, pencils, notebooks, paper, your bike lock, clothes to change into for gym-"
"Yes!" Aiden says, stopping the rush of words coming from his mom. She laughs.
"Sorry. Oh wait!" She says, reaching into her purse and taking out a five-dollar bill. "Here's your lunch money." Aiden takes the money and shoves it in his pocket.
"Thank you. I have to go or I'm going to be late!" He says. She smiles.
"Hang on just a minute." She takes her camera out of her purse and hands it to Delia, whose tears have already left lines down her face through make-up. "Can you take a picture of us?" She stands next to him and he smiles for the camera. The camera flashes and Delia hands the camera back to his mom. "Here, I'll take one of you two now."
"Okay." Delia says, dabbing even more tears from her face, and then smiling for the picture.
When Aiden recovers from the flash, a girl about his age stands behind his mom. Her light brown hair fans out over her shoulders. She is dressed in a long black dress, but it is torn up her right leg, revealing a gash where the dress had been. Smaller cuts riddle her arms and face. She is staring at him with scared brown eyes. She disappears just before Melinda turns to see what he is looking at. Delia looks back and forth between the both of them.
"Is there someone else here?" She asks. His mom looks to him for the answer. He shakes his head.
"No. I guess I'm just nervous." Delia shakes his shoulders, and Melinda laughs.
"You'll be fine." Delia says to him, and he smiles. "You better get going or you'll be late." She wipes her face with the back of her hand, streaking eyeliner across her face. Aiden chokes on a laugh. "What?"
"Oh, Delia, you might want to redo your makeup before we leave." His mom says, and Delia sighs.
"Is it that bad?" She asks, and Melinda nods, trying not to laugh. She walks up to Aiden and kisses him on the cheek.
"Good luck." She says, fresh tears falling down her face.
"Thanks mom." He stands on the pedals of his bike and begins to ride away. He hates to lie to his mom, but she would be worried about him enough today, and adding a ghost to the mix would just make her more nervous.
"Alright class, settle down." Aiden's ninth period history teacher walks into the classroom. "My name is Mr. Daniels. Now, I know it's the end of the day, your tired, you want to go home or hang out with your friends, and it's only the first day of school, so all I ask of you to do today is to write down what you already know about ancient history." Aiden reached into his backpack and took out one of his notebooks and a pen. After opening it, he feels someone standing next to him. Out of the corner of his left eye, he sees the bottom of a black dress and bare feet. He ignores the ghost and begins to write in his notebook.
"I know you can see me." The girl says, her voice quavering. He says nothing. Then the Watcher, whose name is Carl, appears on his other side.
"Excuse me, miss." Carl says to the girl. "He is busy right now. If you need to speak to someone, I can take you to them." When Aiden turned ten, his mom had asked the Watcher if he could keep other spirits away from Aiden while he was in school. Aiden did not like ignoring them, but his mother had explained to him that she didn't want him to have to go through what she had gone through when she was in school, tormented by classmates for her abilities. Not that Aiden had many friends anyway, he usually kept to himself.
"No, I only want to talk to him." She says angrily, and she disappears. A moment later, Carl is gone too.
At the end of the day, one of Aiden's friends, Eric, stops him at the bike stand.
"Hey Aiden, why don't you come over and hang out at my house?" Aiden nods.
"Sure, just let me ask my mom." He takes out his cell phone and texts his mom. When he looks up, the girl is standing at the other end of the parking lot. He blinks, and suddenly she is standing right in front of him.
"Please help me." She says. Aiden takes a deep breath. As much as he wanted to help, he still could not talk to her. Not here. She would have to wait until he was home later. His cell phone vibrates in his hand. After reading it, he turns to Eric.
"Sorry man, my mom needs some help at her shop. Maybe tomorrow." Eric walks away towards the buses and Aiden mounts his bike.
"Please." The girl says desperately. She only has to wait until he gets to his mom's shop, then he can talk to her. He pushes the pedals and rides down the street.
Aiden rides into the square, riding slowly so as not to hit anyone standing too close to the curb. He hears a cry of pain ahead to his right, and he sees the girl laying in a fetal position in front of his mom's shop, clutching her leg. He tries to stop and get off his bike before it comes, but a searing pain spreads down his right leg. He cries out in pain, loses control of the bicycle and falls off, hitting the pavement hard. He hears the sound of screeching brakes and tires, but blacks out from the pain.
When Aiden comes to, his mother, Delia, and an EMT are standing over him. He sits up, and a dull ache radiates from his shoulder.
"Aiden, are you okay?" His mom asks, looking as though she might cry. He nods quickly.
"I'm fine. My shoulder hurts though."
"You dislocated your shoulder." The EMT says to him. "Luckily, you were still out cold when we got here, so you didn't have to feel me poppin' it back in." Aiden rolls his stiff shoulder.
"Thanks." He mumbles, looking around for the girl, but she is gone.
"You only have a few scrapes on your arm and some bruising on your back, but my concern is your concussion." He says to Aiden.
"Concussion?" Aiden says.
"You hit your head when you fell, that's what knocked you out." Oh no sir, I blacked out because I'm an Empath who channels the emotions of ghosts. I blacked out because the ghosts pain was too much. If it wasn't so true, Aiden probably would've laughed at the statement that almost came out of his mouth. The man turns to his mom and begins telling what to and what not to do with me for the next couple of hours, but I'm not listening.
The girl appears, standing beneath a tree near the center of the square. When he meets her eyes, she looks down, guilt painting the features of her face. She disappears.
"Okay son?" The EMT says to Aiden, and he nods. "Alright, you be more careful next time."
"Thank you." The three of them say to the EMT at the same time. He takes his bag and throws it back in the ambulance, then gets in and drives away. When Aiden looks at his mom, she is just looking back from the gondola. "Come on, let's get you inside." She says, helping him to his feet. He grabs his bike and locks it to the bike stand on the sidewalk, then follows his mom inside.
"Who is she? What did she do to you?" She asks as soon as the doors are closed. Delia looks at Melinda, then back at him with worried eyes.
"A ghost did this to you?" She exclaims, and then the Watcher appears next to her.
"You know what happened, don't you?" He says to him. Melinda turns to see him. He nods, and Aiden turns back to his mom. "She has a gash on her right leg. Just as I was going to stop outside the shop, she appeared out front. She was clutching her leg and screaming in pain. Before I knew it, I could feel it too. I fell off my bike and passed out." She knits her eyebrows together.
"Why was she screaming? Can ghosts feel pain?" She asks Carl.
"Sometimes." He answers, and she waits for more. "It's called Recurrence. I have only seen it a few times. Sometimes when a person dies a painful death, the very thing that killed them becomes an overwhelming fear. That fear presents itself as the pain, almost everyday at the time the person died until they come to terms with their death or, as you say, cross over." Aiden realized what he was saying before his mother did.
"So this is going to happen to me everyday until we can get the girl to cross over." It was a statement, not a question.
"What?" Delia asks. Sometimes it easy to forget she can't see or hear ghosts. Melinda explains to her what Carl had told them. "That's horrible." She says. "Dieing seems bad enough, but having to experience it over and over again everyday? You know what, I'm going to let you guys handle this, I'll be next door filling out some paperwork for one of my clients."
"Bye." Melinda and Aiden say. When Delia leaves, Melinda crosses her arms. Her protective mother look appears on her face, and she looks around the shop. "Well, she's not here now, so there's nothing we can do." She picks up a broom that had been leaning against one of the display windows and hands it to him. Carl disappears. "Here, why don't you get your mind off of things and help me clean up. I'll call your father and let him know you're okay." She kisses his forehead, and then laughs. "If you get any taller I'm going to have to stand on my toes to do that." Aiden laughs and begins to sweep the floor. She walks behind the desk and begins to dust display cases while dialing her phone in the other hand.
That night, Aiden stands at the kitchen sink, filling a cup with water. The clock on the wall says 11:34. When he turns off the water, he hears a faint crying noise behind him. He turns, but no one is there. He follows the noise into the living room. Sitting in the corner with her head buried in her hands is the girl in the black dress. He crouches down in front of her.
"I'm Aiden." He says. She parts her fingers so he can see her eyes. She chokes on a sob and wipes her face, even though there are no tears there. "What's your name?"
"Emily." She watches him warily.
"Why won't you talk to anyone else, Emily?" She looks around the room as though she is afraid of what she might see.
"They don't come near you. They're afraid of you."
"Who is?" He asks.
"The Shadows." She disappears, and a chill runs through Aiden. He had not seen nor heard about the Shadows since the day they had taken control of his mother's body, and he had led the Shinies against them and destroyed them. If they were back again, this was very bad news. Aiden climbed the stairs and went back to bed, although he doubted he would get much sleep now.
Episode 1, Part 2
The next morning, after taking a shower and getting dressed, Aiden tells his parents what had happened during the late hours of night. Fear fills his mothers eyes at the mention of the Shadows, and she crosses her arms, hugging herself as though it had suddenly become cold.
"The Shadows are back?" Jim says rhetorically. Aiden nods.
"By what she said, it sounds like they have been back for a while, but they won't come near us because I destroyed them the first time."
"But how could they come back?" Jim asks, but before either of them could answer, the Watcher appears, sitting on the kitchen counter with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap.
"You knew they were back, didn't you?" Aiden says before his mother can say anything, keeping his voice calm. "That's what you've been keeping from me." The Watcher looks away, not saying anything.
"You knew about this?" Melinda asks angrily. "How long have they been here?"
"Three years." He answers, staring out the window. His mom takes a step towards him. "For three years they have slowly been recuperating."
"Why didn't you tell us?" She asks, exasperated.
"It was pointless." Aiden answers for the Watcher. "There was nothing we could have done about it. The Shadows come and go as they please. It would have only worried us."
"Carl's here, isn't he?" Jim says. He kisses Melinda's forehead. "Well, I'm off to the hospital. I'll leave you two to talk to him."
"Have a good day." She says to him, and then turns back to Carl, who turns to Aiden.
"Thank you, Aiden. He is right. There is nothing you can do about it now, whether I had told you or not. The reason I have stayed so close to Aiden recently is because I am the only Watcher who knows who is in possession of the Book of Changes, and as the girl-"
"Her name is Emily." Aiden says.
"As Emily said," The Watcher corrects himself, "the Shadows will not come near the two of you, particularly Aiden. At least not until they are strong enough."
"So they're trying to get more people to do there bidding, stealing more helpless spirits to make themselves stronger?" Aiden says. The Watcher nods.
"Emily found that you two are relatively Shadow-free, and word is spreading quickly." It takes a moment for the two of them to understand what he is saying.
"There are a lot of ghosts headed our way then." Aiden says, and Carl nods again, then disappears. Melinda turns to Aiden.
"Things are going to get very complicated around here." She says, then kisses his cheek. "Why don't you get to school, you can buy breakfast there. I will try to find out how Emily died. If I need help, I'll pick you up from school."
"What about Eli?" Aiden would rather stay home and help the ghost, but he hates to lie to his friends about his gift, so he knows he must go to school.
"Eli is still on a business trip in Colorado, and before you say Ned, he doesn't get back for another week from meeting his girlfriend's family in Florida." Aiden takes his backpack from the counter.
"Okay."
At the end of the day, as Aiden leaves school, the girl appears next to him.
"Aiden." She says, but he doesn't answer. "Aiden, it's almost time again." She says. Aiden freezes. His mind had been so preoccupied with the Shadows that he had forgotten she would have to go through her death again.
"You okay man?" Eric asks, turning back to him.
"I need to use the bathroom." He lies. Aiden turns and runs back into school, weeding his way through the mob of students who are in a rush to get home. He runs down a long hall and into one of the men's rooms. He closes the bathroom door behind him and locks it, then drops his backpack on the floor and sinks down against the wall, waiting. The girl appears, lying on the bathroom floor, clutching her leg.
Pain floods through Aiden, and he grits his teeth, trying not to yell out. He hugs his leg to his body, his eyes squeezed shut. The girl screams, and Aiden feels hot tears forming behind his eyes. He opens his eyes, blinking them away. The girl is reaching out for someone who isn't there.
"Please don't leave me here!" She shouts to the figure of her imagination.
"I won't." He says in an attempt to calm her and ease her pain, but she screams again and a fresh wave of hell courses through Aiden, and he buries his head in his free arm, groaning from the pain.
Finally, the pain begins to subside, and the girl is only crying. A few minutes later the pain stops, and they are both wiping there faces. She looks around, confused, but when her eyes meet Aiden's, she seems to come back into focus.
"I'm so sorry…" She says, but Aiden shakes his head.
"You can't help it." She looks as though she might begin to cry again, so he says, "Thank you for warning me." She stands, straightening her dress. "How did you die?" He asks, standing up as well. She reaches out to him, and when her hand reaches his arm, Aiden is suddenly standing somewhere else.
He is standing in a large church, and there is a line of people wearing black. Thunder rumbles outside the church. In the front of the line, a man kneels in front of a casket. Behind him is Emily, wearing her long black dress. She is wearing a black sunhat and holding a rose in her hand.
The man stands from the casket, walking away as Emily takes his place, along with another girl about her age. She places the rose on the casket and kneels in front of it. There is a flash of lightning, and a deafening boom that causes Aiden to cover his ears. Above, a mosaic of stained glass shatters, shards both large and small raining from the ceiling. The people in line scream, as does Emily, who stands to run from the casket. Wind blows off her hat, and before she can take two steps, a large shard of glass slices her right leg open, lodging itself in the bottom of the fresh gash.
Emily screams and falls to the ground, blood pooling from her leg out onto the floor of the church as she is pelted with more shards of glass. No one hears her screams at first, as more lighting drowns them out. She clutches her leg, blood pouring through her fingers. She reaches out towards the other girl who is running from the room.
"Please don't leave me here!" She shouts. The other girl stops and turns to look at her, but more of the stained glass breaks off, and the girl turns and runs out of the room. Aiden suddenly feels sick to his stomach, but not from the blood. He looks around the room and sees Shadows writhing in the darkest corners of the room.
Within minutes, Emily bleeds to death, and her spirit stands over her dead body. She looks around the room, confused, and the shadows begin to converge on her. She sees them coming, and disappears.
Aiden is back in the bathroom, and the girl disappears. Aiden looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He is breathing heavily, and he is pale. His eyes are still red from the tears.
Aiden stays in the bathroom for twenty minutes, waiting for the color in his face to return and his eyes to go back to normal. He picks up his backpack, unlocks the bathroom door, and leaves. When he is outside, he calls his mom and asks her to come pick him up, telling her that it had happened again.
As they sit in the car heading home, Aiden explains to Melinda what had happened, how Emily had shown him the way she had died and how the Shadows had almost taken her.
"Did she tell you why she's still here?" She asks.
"She disappeared before I could." Aiden unconsciously rubs his leg. When they pull into their driveway, Aiden suddenly feels exhausted. Melinda turns off the car and runs her hand through his hair.
"It took a lot out of you, didn't it?" He nods, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Tell you what, I'll start making dinner now while you do your homework, then you can get to bed early."
"No, I want to help you find out more about her." Melinda smiles.
"Thanks, but there's only one computer in the house. I wasn't getting very far with just a first name, but now I have more to work with. Don't worry about me sweetie."
"Okay." He says, getting out of the car.
An hour later, Aiden's dad comes home.
"Mmm." He says. "What smells good? It's only four thirty." He closes the door behind him, and Melinda kisses him, then explains what had happened while Aiden sits at the dining room table trying to figure out an algebra question, but his mind continues to wander to the vision Emily had shown him of her death. Just as Aiden finishes the last question, his dad sits down at the table and his mom sets down a bowl of spaghetti.
Just then the Watcher appears, sitting at the fourth chair of the dining room table. Melinda sighs and rolls her eyes.
"I doubt you're here for my spaghetti." She says, and then Jim adds,
"Just once I'd like a ghost free dinner."
"What's wrong?" Aiden asks, seeing the worried look on the Watcher's face.
"Eli is coming home early." He says. "His plane will land at around midnight tonight. Eli is the last known keeper of The Book of Changes to the Shadows, and they are waiting for him there. As soon as he's out in that dark parking lot, whether there are others around or not, the Shadows will attack him." Melinda and Aiden look at each other, eyes wide.
"Oh no, that look is never good." His dad says.
"Eat fast." Melinda says. "You and I need to get to the airport."
"What about me?" Aiden asks. Melinda shakes her head.
"I'm not putting you in danger, Aiden."
"But I'm the only one the Shadows won't come near!" He says louder than he had meant to. He looks away from her, his face hot. "If you and dad go there to get Eli by yourselves, the Shadows will take all three of you. I need to be there." He looks back up at her and can see and feel the silent debate going on inside her head. "Tomorrow's Saturday, so I don't have to go to school anyway." He adds, and he can tell this has pushed her over the fence.
"Alright. Eat, quickly." She says, and the Watcher disappears.
Episode 1, Part 3
At eleven o'clock, Aiden changes into a pair of gray running pants and a black windbreaker with reflective tape on the torso and back. He slips his shoes on and nearly runs down the stairs.
In the kitchen, his dad, who is dressed similarly, is finding as many flashlights as possible and placing them on the counter, and shoves a pack of spare batteries in his pocket. He takes two of the seven flashlights and puts one in each pocket of his sweatpants.
His mom comes down the stairs, dressed as they are only wearing her most shiny silver bracelets, necklaces and earrings. She takes two of the flashlights as well. Just then, the doorbell rings. Jim goes to the door and opens it, and Delia rushes in, looking the same as his mom. She takes two of the flashlights from the counter and his dad takes the last one.
"Are you guys ready?" Delia asks, looking at each of them in turn.
"Wait a minute!" Jim says, turning and opening the front door and jogging out to the garage. When he comes back, he is holding a small searchlight in his hand. When he turns it on, the room is lit so brightly Aiden has to shield his eyes. Jim turns the spotlight off. "Perfect. Here Aiden, you take it since you can see the Shadows." Aiden takes the spotlight and gives his dad one of his flashlights.
"Now were ready." Aiden says, and they all go outside. Delia gets in her car, and Aiden and his parents pile into his mom's minivan.
When they get to the airport, it is five minutes to midnight. When Aiden gets out of the car, he gets a sick feeling in his stomach.
"They're close." He says to the three of them. They begin to make their way through the parking lot towards the airport, Aiden leading them. Every few seconds he sees a dark figure slip through his peripheral vision. He steels his face and his emotions, holding back his fear, giving the Shadows nothing to feed on. When they finally reach the outside of the building, the air around them seems slightly less thick as the light from inside the building washes over and around them. As soon as they walk inside, a familiar voice reaches Aiden's ears.
"Guys?" Eli says, standing fifteen feet to their right, stopping just before going outside through one of the exits. He walks to them. "What are you doing here? I was going to surprise you tomorrow."
"Eli, there's something we have to tell you." Melinda says.
"It's nice to see you too." He says in return. Aiden's mom fills Eli in on everything that had happened in the past two days.
"If you had come any later, you would probably be a brainwashed lackey of the Shadows right now." Aiden says, summing everything up. Eli nods.
"Well," He says, "I don't think there could be a more appropriate 'Welcome Back to Grandview'. Anyone have a flashlight for me?" Aiden gives Eli his small flashlight. "Why can't I have the big one? I am the one in danger." He says, but Melinda grabs his arm and pulls him closer to the rest of them.
"Everyone get in a circle around him." Aiden says, turning his mind on autopilot to suppress the fear that is beginning to build inside him. They do as he says and he takes his place in front of them. "Flashlights on." He says. Seven small beams of light focus through the windows. Just beyond the light, the darkness seems to writhe.
Aiden turns on his spotlight and begins to walk towards the door. When they are outside, he can just barely hear sounds like quiet hisses as he waves the light slowly back and forth in their path. They walk in silence, and when they are about halfway to the car, a scream pierces the silence like an air horn in a long, abandoned hallway. He, Melinda and Eli stop, turning in its direction.
"Why are we stopping?" Delia asks as she and his dad search the darkness. The scream comes again, and Aiden points his spotlight in the direction it is coming from.
Standing about fifty feet away is Emily, and there are Shadows slowly wrapping around her body. Without thinking, Aiden rushes away from the group, sprinting towards her.
"Aiden!" They shout to him, and his mother adds, "It's a trap!" He stops in his tracks. When he turns, Delia and his parents form a tighter circle around Eli, waving their flashlights around frantically as the shadows converge on them. Aiden can feel the Shadows quickly weakening from the light.
"You can hold them off!" He shouts over the now deafening screeching coming from the Shadows, then turns and continues to run to Emily, who is struggling to free herself from the Shadow's grasp. He aims the light directly at her, quickly walking around her, weakening its grip. Finally, it releases her and Aiden steps closer to her, keeping the shadows away. "Emily," He says, "I won't be able to keep them away from you forever. Why are you still here?" She looks at him, confused, wiping her face although there still are no tears.
"What do you mean?" She asks over the screeching.
"You're an earthbound spirit. That means there is something keeping you here, some unfinished business that you need to do before you can cross over into the light. You will be safe from the Shadows there. Why are you here?" She hesitates, closing her eyes as if trying to remember.
"I can't remember." She says after a few moments, keeping her eyes closed.
"Look at me." Aiden says, and she opens her eyes to look into his. "The Shadows can't get to you right now. Just concentrate." She nods. Aiden remembers the vision she had shown him. "Who was the girl you yelled out to in the church?" He asks. At first, she knits her eyebrows in confusion, and then recognition crosses her face.
"My sister!" She exclaims.
"Aiden!" His mom shouts. When he turns to look, some of the Shadows are pushing through the light.
"What about your sister?" Aiden asks Emily, trying not to let too much urgency leak into his voice.
"When I died and the shadows tried to take me the first time, I went home. I waited for what seemed like forever for them to come home. When they finally did, my sister was a wreck. It took almost a week for my mom to ask what I kept asking over and over, but she couldn't hear me. She asked her what was wrong, and she said that she felt guilty because I had asked her to stay with me, but she had run away." Emily sniffles, and she wipes her tearless eyes. "Could you maybe tell her that I don't hate her for what she did, that I'm glad she ran and didn't get hurt?" Aiden nods, but than she shakes her head. "She'll never believe you, she doesn't believe in ghosts."
"Then tell me something only the two of you would know." He says. She searches his eyes, and then whispers it in his ear. When she leans away, she asks,
"Do you promise you'll tell her that?"
"What's her name?" He asks her.
"Felicia Adams. She and my parents live in Moss Grove, a few hours from here. Do you promise?" She asks again.
"I promise." He answers, and a soft light illuminates her face. She looks in some far off direction.
"Wow." She whispers.
"What do you see?" Aiden asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"My grandmother." She answers without looking away from the Light. "She's the one the funeral was for." Emily turns back to Aiden. "Thank you, Aiden." She says, and he smiles back at her. She walks away from him and disappears. Aiden turns around and runs back to the rest of them, waving his spotlight around to get rid of the Shadows that had begun to break through the lights from their flashlights.
"Run to the car!" He shouts, and they all break for it. When they reach it, Jim jumps in the driver's seat and turns on the car, its headlights burning through Shadows. Delia starts hers, adding to the light. Eli throws his things into the backseat next to Aiden and climbs in as Melinda gets in the passenger seat. They close their doors quickly, and Jim and Delia peel away from the parking lot.
"What happened back there?" Eli asks him. Aiden explains everything Emily had said to him.
"So she crossed over?" Melinda asks, turning in her seat to face him. He smiles. "I'm proud of you." She says, and heat floods his face. Now that he is in the dark car and the Shadows are gone, drowsiness floods through Aiden. He leans his head back on the seat and closes his eyes, quickly falling asleep.
Aiden's mom wakes him when they get back to their house. All of them, including Delia who pulls in behind them, file out of the cars and into the house. As soon as he is inside, Aiden runs up the stairs to his bedroom. He finds a pen and paper and quickly writes down what Emily had told him only her sister would know, putting it in his desk drawer. When he gets back downstairs, his mom is telling Eli that he should stay here.
"Just until we take care of the Shadows again." She says.
"Well that only took forever last time we dealt with the Shadows!" Eli retorts. "I have a therapy practice to take care of and a nice warm bed at home that's been calling my name for the past nine days." Melinda turns to Aiden.
"Can't you just get all the Shinies back together again and force the Shadows away?" Aiden shakes his head.
"I haven't seen the Shinies since that night we destroyed the Shadows the first time." He turns to Eli. "You can use my bed if you want to. I'll sleep on the pull out couch." Eli exhales a deep breath.
"Fine, but you can keep your bedroom; I'll take the pull out couch. Can we get my things tomorrow?" He asks Melinda, and she nods.
"Aiden and I can come with you tomorrow to your house so you can pack more clothes and whatever else you need." He puts his suitcase down next to the couch.
"Here, let me help you with that." Aiden's dad says as Eli begins to set up the pull out couch.
"Eli," Melinda says, and he looks up, "Were glad your okay." Delia nods, and Aiden smiles.
"Thanks guys. It's good to be back."