Chapter 8

"Mai wife's abilities have baffled many, including me. If there were any rules to psychic powers, she would have broken them all. I will not waste space in a narrative to go into what I've managed to comprise a whole book about, but suffice it to say that the moment I thought I had her abilities categorized, they'd change-or fail to meet the bill. While not a perfect medium like Gene was, her ability to gather insight pertaining to her own survival has gone beyond basic human instinct. It has led me to believe that she is an evolved outlier.

But since its evolution seems to be based off exposure to the supernatural, I have wondered on more than one occasion if she would have never noticed she had abilities if I had not entered her life. I, after all, don't lead an exactly supernatural phenomenon free life."

-Oliver Davis in Slim, under a different name

He had never looked more unlike his twin and so uniquely himself in all my life. It was almost as though he had never been a twin at all.

"Unless it's the baby, that is," he said, giving me a soft, and yet still radiant smile. "Women just don't die of childbirth anymore. Not afterwards, anyways. Not often."

I was stopped from throwing myself on him in a full-body hug by those words. My body went cold.

"I'm dead?" No. That couldn't be. Where had been the tunnel of light? But Gene had moved on, I shouldn't be able to see him, unless I was-

"Calm down, you're not dead. Not yet, anyways."

That didn't help me feel any better. "Eugene Davis, tell me why you're not crossed over right now-"

"I did cross over!" he said, hands up in defense, though the edge of laughter to his tone didn't help. "Get this, though, the spiritual world? It's here. On Earth. When we cross over, we go to a place to review our lives, but then we're just sent back to the spiritual plane, except it's different. It's not the black place with the foxfires, it's Earth, just changed to how you've lived your life-based on your perception even further." Gene waved his arm over the ethereal glen of grass and trees and tear-jerking blue sky. "You're probably having a hard time focusing on this place yourself, but it's a good sign if you see something beautiful or your comfortable here."

"Why?"

"Means you're going in the right direction. Choice wise." He brought up his knees and folded his arms over them casually. "But thing is, you're still alive, so you still have to deal with the veil. The only reason you can see me now, I think, is because you're so close to death. But don't be afraid. Death is nothing to be afraid of."

I jerked away from him. "Of course you can say that! I have a baby and a husband-they need me. I need them. I'm not ready-I can't-" Tears bubbled from my eyes, but I didn't have a throat to clog. I just couldn't form the words through the sheer emotion that had taken over that ability.

"Shh, shh, Mai, no, don't cry. Everything's going to be alright."

His arms reached out to encompass me, and I wanted to push him off, but I didn't. I had missed him. I had missed him so much, and I was so scared.

"Remember what I told you?" he said, soft as the musical sigh of the breeze. "Time on this plane is relevant. Right now, on the other side of the veil, your heart only stops but a moment and no one will even notice, because it will start back up. Your blood pressure just dropped too quickly."

"H-how do you know this?"

"There's a book out there that says something along the lines of the righteous will be able to know the thoughts of others. Did you know that predicting the future is all based off of knowing people enough to predict their actions or thoughts? Well, not all of it, but what I've learned so far. But, well, long story short, I didn't do too badly at my life. Not perfectly, but I'm working on that. They're more than happy to give me every opportunity and chance to advance. They're practically begging me to."

His chatter was calming, and I rubbed my face into the soft fabric of his shirt. It felt so real, and I thought I could catch the smell of sage-almost just like Naru's scent, except without that trace of tea, and somehow purer.

"Who are they?" I murmured, wrapping my arms tight around his middle.

Here, he hesitated. As he did so, the warm light of the world grew a distant like quality. But his hand rubbed up and down my back, stilling the panic that rose at the change.

"Angels. Sentinels. Servants. Messengers. Brothers and sisters. Really, you should find out for yourself. I said you weren't going to die, didn't I?"

His hands slipped from my back, down my arms, and his soft shirt and smell pulled away as well. Darkness began to encroach about my vision, covering Gene's happy face and his heavenly surroundings. I didn't fight it, though. It meant I was going back.

Though, in its place, the hunched, bloody figure wearing a striped, purple shirt started to fade back.

"Wait! What about her? The girl?"

"Don't worry about another exorcism destroying her," said Gene, his voice now almost a whisper. "The human spirit is immortal and eternal. It's all emotional and mental. Once she crosses over and goes to judgment, all will be made right."

Blackness. I could no longer see Gene. There weren't even any foxfires. The hunched over girl rose to look somewhere into the darkness, but I could not see what she saw, nor could I know if she saw me or not. I could hear something though: a soft, gentle voice. A voice I knew.

"...Oh Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name..."

I moved towards the sound without using a limb, pulled by desire and an aching delight. Oh, John. Oh, my precious friend.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..."

The girl straightened, and as she did so her hair moved back, so I could watch the tears and pain vanishing from her face. She took a step towards his voice as well, but as she did so, someone materialized besides her, brilliant and white like lightning, and yet not painful to look at or harmful to the comforting darkness about it. As its features grew clearer and its hand landed on her shoulder, I recognized the face: Gene, except with snow-silver hair and eyes like a fire and gleam of a diamond.

The girl flinched, stunned. Gene's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear the words. The hand moved from her shoulder to her hand and, although the dried out, haunted look didn't leave her face, and though she still trailed blood behind her, she followed him into the light I had previously thought was emitted by him, but was rather emitted by whatever portal he had come out of. I stared hard into the light, trying to make out what really was beyond, because somehow, intrinsically, I knew it wasn't the green pasture Gene and I had been in before. This place was different, and some base, ancient part of my soul ached with forgotten memory. I started following them, almost running towards the light.

"No, Mai..."

I stopped. My heart trembled. That voice...

No. I couldn't go. It wasn't my time. Hadn't I just told Gene I had a baby and Naru to live for? My time wasn't yet ended. I still had many wonderful things to experience and learn, a life to accomplish.

So, despite the gut wrenching ache in my bowls to keep running towards the shrinking light, I turned my face away-

And woke up in the hospital bed, Eugene's familiar wails cracking into my ears and Naru besides me, pale. A nurse had appeared besides me and was finishing hooking up a blood bag to my IV. Doctor Biswell had returned between my legs (good thing I had lost my dignity a long time ago anyways-at least they bothered to put a blanket over me this time so the doc was looking into a white tent). Naru's parents stood near the window looking just as frightened and pale, with a squirming, crying Eugene in Luella's arms.

Instantly, I reached out for him. "Eugene. Please."

"He's okay-" started Naru, but Luella had already crossed the distance and handed over my son.

"I think he's scared," she said. "Scared for his mommy."

It must have been something like that, because the moment I had Eugene cradled to my chest his crying turned to snuffling, and his little hands twisted and flopped against me. He nuzzled his face against a breast, searching for comfort, a fat tear slipping off his cheek.

"It's okay, baby." I brought him up to bury my face in his baby-scented bundle. "Baby. Baby. Ssshhh."

I heard a snap of a book and a cool brush of fingers against my forehead. "Bless us this day..."

Hidden from my peripheral vision by the bulk of the nurse and her work area, I had almost missed the blond, freckled man dressed in khaki shorts and a button up plaid t-shirt. His skin had toasted to a light almond brown since the last time I had saw him, but his blue eyes reminded me of that tear-jerking sky in Gene's heaven.

His fingers completed the cross of holy water on my brow. Then, hesitantly, and gently, he brought them down to do the same to my baby's face, though it was a bit more difficult with the newborn trying to undress me in his haphazard, I-don't-really-know-how-to-control-my-limbs-yet way.

As John finished his prayer, he tugged a rosary from his pocket and draped it over my head, careful to adjust it so it didn't get in my baby's way. With his soft Amen, the roomed seemed to light, almost as though a cloud had moved away from the sun.

"The bleeding's slowing," said the doctor, surprise tingeing his relief. He pulled his head out from the tent and eased my legs back down. "Seems a blood clot wiggled itself lose and picked up the bleeding again. You should be fine, though. Might have to keep you another day, though, Miss Davis." He nodded his head towards Naru. "I apologize for the scare."

Naru said nothing. His returning gaze, however, was icy. I didn't expect anything less.

Nor did I care, for I had looped an arm around John's neck and brought him in as a close a hug as I could with my weak strength. John seemed a bit startled at first, but he returned the hug with equal affection, careful not to squish the baby between us.

"It's good to see you," I managed through a tight throat. Man, I was so freaking emotional. Where had the exhausted post-popped-out-a-baby numbness gone?

"Seems I got here just in time." He pulled away, his eyes bright. "You should have told me you were having trouble with a spirit, mate. Didn't you get my email saying I was in town?" He looked up at Naru, his grin turning wry. "At least you got it."

Naru gave him a curt nod. "Thank you for responding."

"Anytime, friend."

Stupified by all the images going through my head, along with the sheer exhilaration of just being alive and waking up to a dear friend, I held out my baby to John.

"Look, John! I made a person!"

This, of course, displeased Eugene greatly, and he sent a yowl at John's face.

John winced, but chuckled. "Yes, you did. A very grouchy person."

"That's how you know he's Naru's."

Everyone laughed. Naru, however, scowled.

"Just feed him already."

IMPORTANT! I got the audiobook of Cumin on Youtube up for ya'll. ^.^ I've finished recording all of it, now I've just got to edit it and make it into a format for Youtube to accept. I'll also be looking up sites for fanfiction audiobooks to upload the audio on to there to, for those of you who would rather not have to pull up Youtube to download your books. ^.^ I plan on updating those audiobooks every week, just like I do with my stories on here, so stay tuned! I hope you like it. And I don't think I'm half bad at reading. I use to do it all the time for my siblings and do for my husband now. But if my voice annoys you, let me know so I can find someone else.