Balance

Chapter 9

9

            The day was new and the sun had barely crested the horizon when Calix stepped outside of his home. Cool morning dew wet his sneakers and the bottoms of his jeans as he made his way through the grass and to his Chevrolet. He swung a stuffed backpack into the passenger seat and climbed into the beat-up sedan. He knew little about Jay’s intentions and even less about how far he and Eleanor would be willing to go to stop them. The redhead blew a long breath out his nose. This was not how he intended his summer to begin.

            Calix jammed his key into the ignition, and rolled the old car down the driveway and past his home. Belatedly he remembered there was an early-morning soccer practice starting just an hour from then. He also remembered Eleanor stating that she didn’t know how long they would be on this journey to find Jay, meaning he could be missing practices for weeks to come.

            He grumbled one expressive curse. Perhaps he could grovel for his spot back on the team once he came home.

            He pulled over on the side of the road, stepped out of his car, and followed the jogging trail he and Eleanor had lounged around almost daily. The morning was made even cooler under the thick ceiling of leaves. The Seer wished he could stay in that shade for a while longer, stay at peace. Not follow a dead girl into the unknown.

            “Are you ready?” He heard a quiet voice call. Eleanor stood behind a tree, a slight glow gracing her ghostly form.

            Calix wondered if Eleanor was worth his spot on the soccer team. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

            She beckoned him to follow her through the wood. He complied, and brushed branch after branch out of his way while he pursued. She moved effortlessly through the bushes and trees; he snapped himself in the face with a twig. “Life wants me to be out here in the forest when they bring me back to life. She says she wants it to feel as natural as she can make it.”

            “Doing this in my house wouldn’t be natural enough for her?”

            “You can argue with her all day. But what Life wants, she always gets.”

            After minutes of trekking through the thick woods, the pair found two gods standing before a patch of wildflowers. Life beamed at the two as they approached. She waved them over hurriedly. “Come quickly! You two need to be on your way soon!”

            Eleanor stepped to her superiors without a thought. Calix held back. The two had a chokehold on him—he moved where they told him not to, and he knew he’d be a pile of ashes in milliseconds. He wasn’t as frightened of the entities as he had been the night before, just angry. But he knew better than to voice such an opinion to a pair of gods.

            On the bed of flowers, a body lay. Brown curls framed a square jaw and pale skin, and a soft t-shirt and jeans covered a scrawny frame. “Oh my,” Eleanor hovered nearer. Only when she stood over the girl did Calix realize what this was.

            “This is your new body, isn’t it?” He joined her to appraise the form.

            “We tried to make as exact a replica as we could.” Death explained, “While the body’s new, it may as well look and feel familiar, right?”

            “Right,” Eleanor said, but Calix could tell her mind was far away. She looked like she wanted to reach out to the body, but she knew her hand would pass right through the mortal form. Calix wondered how often she had watched mortals and wished she could breach that unseen barrier between them.