Free Auracle by Gina Rosati

mattress. I try to roll into her, but I’m met with a solid wall of flesh who grunts irritably.
    I lean very close to her ear. “ Taylor Gleason .” I know she can’t hear me, but I say it anyway. “ GO AWAY! ”
    Snore.
    I spend the next half hour trying to inch, slide, push, and then force my way back into my own body, but my efforts are for nothing. She is stubbornly impermeable and I am tired. Not physically tired, but I feel like a car running on fumes. There’s something about being here in my house, close to my worried mom and my drunken father, that sucks my energy dry. And since I am one hundred percent energy, this is a problem.
    A sudden vibration startles me, until I realize it’s just my cell phone, still stuffed in the pocket of the jeans I’d traded earlier in favor of the gym shorts Taylor now sleeps in. I don’t have to look at the caller ID to know it’s Rei. He said he’d call me tonight, and I doubt anyone was home at his house when the ambulance came, so he probably thinks I’ve just forgotten to charge my phone. The guilt I feel when I think of him drains my spirits even lower.
    How can I tell him what’s happened this afternoon? Besides the obvious fact that he can’t hear me from this dimension, how do I tell him that not only did I ignore his advice, but I’m now trapped outside my body because of my own stubbornness?
    Even though I am floating here in my bedroom, I feel a terrible homesickness. What I want, what I need , is to be near Rei and all the calm that flows from him.
    I drift over by his bedroom window to find it wide open on this warm night. The smooth, sweet sound of acoustic guitar music pulls me closer. Could this be his surprise song? Rei plays by ear, listening to a little piece of a song on his iPod, and then working out the notes and chords on his guitar, playing them over and over until he has it memorized. Sometimes he’ll Google the lyrics and sing along, although despite his love for metal music, he realizes his voice is better suited for acoustic. Whatever song he’s teaching himself tonight is beautiful and complicated.
    I curl myself into a ball, hovering just inside his window, and the music soothes me like a cup of hot sweet tea on a snowy day. A light breeze blows through me, stirring the wind chimes into gentle motion. Rei is lost in his song. He sits cross-legged on the bed wearing a black T-shirt and gray gym shorts, his hair still wet from the shower.
    Slowly, I float down off the sill and linger over the swing chair hanging from the ceiling close to Rei’s bed, careful not to jar the chair into motion. From here, I can watch his fingers work the strings and chords, listen to his clear, quiet voice. The scent of his citrus soap floats all around him, along with a calm, summer sky blue aura.
    I hug my knees to my chest and bury my head in my arms so I will concentrate on the music instead of the complex strands of muscles flexing gently in his arms as he plays. Sitting here with Rei, I feel like a sponge soaking up the energy I badly need. When the music stops, I don’t move, I just let myself rest here and recharge. I don’t know how much time passes, but I suddenly realize that Rei isn’t moving. I peek up to see if he’s fallen asleep, and he’s not. He’s still sitting cross-legged; his guitar still rests on his lap, but his bewildered eyes look directly at me.
    “Anna?”

 
    CHAPTER 9
    My knee-jerk reaction is to bolt out of Rei’s room, so that’s just what I do. I hide myself in the tangle of willow branches and listen to him call my name softly, again and again. Finally, he says the one thing that breaks my resolve. “Are you okay?” he asks. “I tried to call you a couple of times and you never picked up.”
    I float back in through the open window and he relaxes when he sees me.
    “There you are,” he smiles at me as I hover around the swing chair.
    I’m surprised he can see me. Usually, I have to summon up a considerable