The Half-Ghosts: A Spirit Prince

Ch. 3: The Vision ~ or ~ Hemmett Stoops to Snooping on the Snopes

Hemmett cruised down in the darkness toward the little neighborhood, keeping as insubstantial as possible. He didn't want to glow and give himself away, but his excitement made it difficult to go completely invisible. So he stayed close to any trees he found, wafting through their branches. Soon he saw a movement below him, and beheld a mortal walking along the sidewalk. Hemmett leaned down from the tree to observe the man walking. So solid--his every step resounded with the weight of his corporeal essence. Hemmett admired this for a moment.

Of course--if he was to come and go among the mortals, he'd have to stay solid and walk, not waft and fly and float. He'd never seen Ms. Cockleberry do any of those things, and she was mortal. Unless she was just too prim and proper to have any fun--but he doubted that was it. Hemmett was almost ninety percent certain Ms. Cockleberry couldn't float at all--nor could she dematerialize. It explained why she never went through walls--although not why she didn't want anybody else to do it.

The girls Hemmett talked to in the bookstore also walked and behaved much like Ms. Cockleberry. But his mother--she was also a mortal, and could float and move through walls, although he'd never seen her dematerialize. She had spectricity to spare, though--the blue enlivening energy of the spirit world. None of the other mortals seemed to exude blue sparks from their fingertips the way his mother did.

Hemmett drifted down to the sidewalk and drew in a great breath. He concentrated on breathing in and out, staying on the ground, just like the man he'd seen. He began walking. One foot and then the other. He could do it--sure. He knew how. The trouble wasn't the walking, really. The trouble was to keep walking. Hemmett was in the habit of walking a ways, then floating. Or he'd materialize through a wall and then walk up it, just to keep things interesting. He'd never tried to stay to the ground, just walking, walking, walking. He'd done it for short periods of time, when talking to mortals in the bookstore, but even then--when they turned away, he'd always flipped backwards through a bookshelf, or streamed out through the ceiling. Never just walking, walking, walking, stuck to the ground for an eternity.

I'm at least half mortal, he thought. I must have some kind of knack for this.

The sky had darkened and the street lights winked on. Hemmett paid no attention, but continued practicing his walking. After a couple hundred feet or so, he lost patience and bounced. He did not allow himself to levitate--not exactly--but he jumped far too high for a mortal. Finally he jumped up into a tree and floated inside the cover of the branches.

It was too difficult. He'd never pass for mortal. He thought of home, and returning. He'd been gone long enough for them to sense his absence--would Aether mock him if he returned? His parents might be looking for him by now. Of course, they wouldn't actually come outside and look. His mother would search for him with her mind. His father . . . well, his father would most likely consult the prophecies.

Hemmett held his temples and focused. He kept a mental block up now most of the time, but occasionally it needed to be reinforced. Johnny Jr. had taught him how to do this when they were smaller--apparently Johnny had the same problem with his spiritualist mother peeking into his thoughts. Also, Johnny's father had seer abilities, so the Vallejos kids had it doubly bad. But at least there were lots of them. Hemmett felt he bore the entire brunt of his mother's spying alone, since perfect Aether shared everything with her mother.

No! Hemmett wouldn't go back. He'd had enough of the spying and the school and everyone's superior attitudes toward him. Plus Aether would laugh at him. He was almost sure of it. He was going to stick it out, even if he had to hide in a tree every couple of minutes.