Chapter 9: The Things That Came After

Mom's diary was eighty percent her life story and twenty percent useful information. I skipped over the life story part. It was not that I was uninterested in it, but it would have taken awhile to read through two hundred pages of that first.

The second half of the diary I labeled as "useful information," because that was what it was. I came up with the bright idea of making copies of the pages that I needed to save time. The obvious choices were the phone numbers, instructions on what to do next, and the huge family tree model.

Huge? I did not know that we had that many members in our family, but obviously we did.

I did not take the time to read it immediately. I went for the copier. It was linked to mom's laptop and still fully functional. Lucky me.

I made copies of about seven pages, all containing the most useful information. I brushed mom's diary aside for a moment so I could check into the information that I copied. I made myself comfortable in her bed. It was strange being in her bed without her. It was the first time that I had ever been there by myself.

I did not recognize very many of the names that came with the phone numbers. One of my old school friends made the list as well as a couple of Faith's friends. I must have been being lazy while mom was making friends.

The instructions were fairly simple. In them, Mom mentioned a cousin from Arizona who promised her that he would "oversee us" while we learned to use our abilities. Aside from being careful and making sure that Faith stayed in school, my job was easy. Aunt Carol and Uncle Chuck had promised to look after the house for her, but I was determined to stay and help them as long as they needed me. I owed them that much.

The guy from Arizona's name was Larry Hoff. I was unable to find a picture of him, but a picture was not really important anyway. That was just me hoping to make the study session more colorful.

Larry was mom's age with one child of his own. The diary did not give information about the child, but it did tell a little about his wife. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was younger than him.

Not much to go by, but thanks for trying, Mom.

Larry and his wife were on the family tree model that mom had drawn. It was not the best drawing ever, but I could not blame mom for that. She did not have an artistic bone in her body. She probably traced it off of an internet article about family trees or something.

Faith had been pretty engrossed by the diary before, but she was more interested in the story. I decided to let her have it so she could read it whenever she liked. She was the reader of our family anyway.

Faith loved mom to death. She was obviously upset when mom died. I had been gone for a few months so I assumed that they had become close during that time period.

I quietly made my way down the hall into Faith's room, and left the diary beside her bed. It was too dark to see her face, but I thought that I could make out the shape of a smile. Rest peacefully, sister I thought to myself. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and left her to sleep.

My room was the same way that it had been for twenty years. My curtains were a dark purple color, and my bed was medium-sized. The quilt on the bed was hand-stitched by my mother when I was very young. It had purple colors to match the curtains.

I felt around in my wardrobe and found some pajamas. They were soft and comfortable and gave me a sudden urge to get into bed and fall asleep. I did just that after I was changed into them.

I was sleeping pretty well until I woke up. My vision was blurred for a moment, but I looked at my alarm clock when I was able to see more clearly. 3:00 a.m. My throat was dry so I made my way downstairs to get some water from the refrigerator.

Getting downstairs was not as easy as I would have liked for it to be. I stumbled around like a drunk person. The major issue was I had forgotten to put on my glasses, not that seeing in the dark would be possible for me anyway. The light of the refrigerator in the kitchen helped me at the base of the stairs.

I should not have been able to see light with the door of the refrigerator closed, but the door was open. I walked into the kitchen cautiously, avoiding sharp objects at any cost. Knives, scissors, and paper were never my friends, and I was fairly sure that things like that were lying around.

I looked for Aunt Carol or Uncle Chuck, figuring that one of them was awake and needing a late-night snack. I did not see anyone.

This looks vaguely familiar.

I knew what to look for then. I searched for an energy stream like the ones from before. I would have been relieved to find one right away. I had a weak stomach, and I was not fond of surprises. Then again, some spirits are mischievous. I was going to have to get used to different types of them.

One good example of mischievous spirits was the ones that Faith used to spend time with. They certainly did not like me very much, maybe because I knew of their existence. That gave me an idea of what was going on.

"I know who you are," I spoke quietly, "you are the same spirits who my sister used to play with."

No response. I tried again.

"Don't play with me anymore. Just show yourselves to me with your energy."

Everything remained quiet, but the air around me grew thicker.

"It isn't energy."

That made me jump.

I looked to my right and saw Faith standing beside me. She was wiping her eyes with her hands. I gave her one of my confused looks.

"They are right in front of you. They chose not to show themselves to you. They told me to tell you that it isn't energy that you are seeing."

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"Don't ask me. I haven't gotten to that part in the diary yet. Speaking of, thanks for leaving it for me to read."

Interestingly enough, the spirits did not scare me in the least bit. Faith was near me so they would not do anything out of hand. Besides, the worst crime that they ever committed was getting my arm broken. No big deal. Okay, maybe I should have been somewhat afraid of them.

"So… what do they want, Faith?"

"They live here. They were helping you because you could not see."

Sure. Helping me.

"Go ahead and get something to drink so you can get back to sleep." Her words were calm.

"And you?"

"I'm doing the same thing that you are - getting a drink."

She pulled a canned drink from a shelf inside the refrigerator and back away. I must have looked smart staring at her the way that I was.

"What?" she asked. I stopped staring.

I followed suit and got a drink.

"You're amazing," I smiled at her.

"I deal with this everyday. It feels normal to me to talk with spirits. I'm just not used to seeing them other places. These two are the only ones that I consider friendly."

I patted her on the head and went back upstairs. I sipped on my drink while I looked up at the ceiling from my bed. It was cool in a way to be able to do the things that my sister and I could do, but it was scary as well. I was eager to learn more and get better at it, but I was cautious at the same time.

I took off my glasses and put my empty can on the nightstand beside me. It was maybe five minutes, and I was asleep again - this time, for good.

I awoke the next morning refreshed, finally. A good, full night of sleep had been evading me for awhile. I was the second one up, only bested by Aunt Carol.

She was always the first one up in our family. She cooked breakfast for mom most of the time so she woke up before us to come over and begin preparing it. I met her in the kitchen where I found her cooking as I had suspected.

"Good morning," she said when she first saw me.

"Good morning," I replied with a yawn.

"I have good news," she spoke as I sat down at the table. "I have the funeral arrangements finished. The hospital is sending Madeline to Memories today, and we can get this thing over with tomorrow."

"Excellent," I said.

I took a sip of coffee from one of the four cups sitting on the table.

Aunt Carol was good about things like that. She was the most organized person that I had ever met. She would have breakfast completely finished by the time Faith and Uncle Chuck were up.

Speaking of, Faith made her way downstairs, yawning with her arms stretched into the air. She sat next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.

"I'm still tired," she said with another yawn.

I laughed at her.

"You can go back to bed after you eat," Aunt Carol spoke to her, "you need to eat, though. You are nothing but skin and bones. I am going to put some meat on you while we are here."

"Aunt Carol," Faith moaned a complaint, "I'm perfectly fine."

Aunt Carol winked at me and tossed a pancake out of the frying pan into the air. "You are still going to eat."

Uncle Chuck took the most time getting out of bed. Of course. He was as lazy as he had ever been. Faith got her morning-sluggishness from him. She moaned and groaned of a morning because she wanted to sleep until noon everyday. School days were the worst on her.

Faith pulled her white-blond hair out of the ponytail that she had it in the night before and it fell all over me.

"Don't start, Christian," she said when she noticed me looking at her, "I am going to brush it later."

"I didn't say anything," I replied.

I annoyed her by playing with her hair to the point that she stopped leaning on me. That was one of my favorite tricks with Faith. She was irritable of a morning so I could get her to leave me alone by messing with her. I rarely ever did, though. I just wanted her to start using manners while we had guests over.

Uncle Chuck reached the kitchen table about a half-hour after Faith did. Aunt Carol scolded him for not being on time, but it did not appear to have much affect. We were patient enough for him, but she was not.

"Time to eat," he wailed happily.

"Not yet," Aunt Carol replied while waving her index finger in the air, "we have one more guest coming for breakfast."

I did not understand what she meant until Jack pranced into the room. He sat down on the floor at her feet, and panted with a goofy grin on his face.

"That's more like it," she spoke again while patting him on the head.

"I get in here, and you talk to me like I am a dog; the dog gets in here, and you pat him on the head?" Uncle Chuck had impatience in his voice.

"Pretty much!" Aunt Carol clasped her hands together and laughed.

We ate together and forgot about the rest of the world for a few minutes. We all missed mom and wished that she could have been present at that meal, but we were happy that she had finally gotten where she wanted to be. No one seemed mournful about her passing. The meal was more about reverence than sorrow.

A good breakfast was the best way to start the day. I remembered that it was summertime, and instantly became satisfied. Even though we had a funeral service to deal with the next day, I planned on enjoying the one that I was on.

Faith went back upstairs, but she did not go to sleep. She started reading in the diary. I knew that she would be eager to get into it. I went outside for fresh air.

Jack followed me out; and for the first time since we got back, the backyard did not look completely horrible to me. The grass was overgrown, but everything else was decent. It reminded me of a nature hike.

Jack jumped into one of the wooden chairs on the back porch and curled up. He loved to nap in our chairs during the summer. I was not very tired, but watching him was making me a little dreary. I had to leave him alone so I could go exploring.

My destination : the special pond behind our house. I had not been back there in it seemed like forever. I was careful to watch for ants and snakes while walking along the path. Other creatures could be aggravating too, but those, in particular, were bothersome to me.

The pond was about the same as it was before. The water was mucky. I did not go too far into the water because I was not sure what kinds of creatures inhabited it. I found a spot close to it where the grass was not completely out of control and sat.

The scenery was nice. I was hoping that Faith's spirit friends would show up and try to annoy me while I enjoyed it. I wanted to find out more about them and what they meant when they said that I was not seeing energy. They would not be able to communicate with me without Faith there, but they could at least give me a clue or something.

I waited for most of the morning, but I did not have any choice meetings. The only thing that shared the view of the pond with me was a dragonfly, unfortunately. I did not let that bother me. The spirits would have to show up sometime to continue their onslaught on me.

I brushed my pants off and left the pond after I became bored with waiting. Back at the house, Jack had rotated from the chair to the porch floor. Faith was reading in her room, and Aunt Carol and Uncle Chuck were watching television in the living room.

We wasted the rest of the day waiting on the call from Memories about mom.