Free Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan by Noelle Ryan

be a fool. Of course you’re hearing voices. It’s part of your gift.
    I started panting. I tried taking my hand away, but the pain spiked, and so I left it where it was. This didn’t make sense—I thought my gift was to feel things, or know them, but not hear voices. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do.
    Just listen to me.
    Oh, of course. Just listen to a delusion. Sure. No problem. No problem at all.
    A delusion? I don’t think I was ever called that before. Trust my little professor to give me a new name.
    What do you mean, your little professor? I mentally replied. Hey, if I was going to have delusions, I might as well go all out and talk to them.
    Alyson, it’s Dorothy. I’m not a delusion, I’m your great-grandmother.
    But you’re dead! Score one for team obvious.
    Of course I am; I couldn’t talk to you otherwise. You’re not generally telepathic—but, if you’re like me, you can occasionally communicate with the deceased.
    I can?
    I know you didn’t manage to block that experience in Santa Fe completely from your mind, dear. That’s when Damian became certain you’d inherited my gifts; he started keeping a much closer eye on you after that.
    Santa Fe. I’d really tried hard to forget about that trip. This delusion was digging up memories I really preferred buried.
    I’d gone to Santa Fe when I was eighteen to live with the Benningtons, some family friends. They needed a nanny for the summer, and I was eager for an adventure. The high desert and mountains of Santa Fe seemed incredibly exotic to a girl who’d spent her entire childhood amongst oak trees and wide grassy lawns. Shortly after I arrived, I met two brothers who were around my age, David and Joseph. We hung out on the evenings the Benningtons didn’t need me to watch their kids. The brothers had a pool table, a massive stereo system, and plenty of beer, all of which made them terribly cool in my eyes.
    One night we were sitting around in their garage, listening to Bob Marley. I’d been feeling tired that day, so while they drank beer I sipped on my water bottle, only half paying attention to their argument about the shortcomings of some recent rock star’s remake of “One Love.” The original version of the song in question had just finished playing when, out of nowhere, the skin across my back, neck, and upper arms felt as if it had half-dissolved, as if my insides were suddenly open to the slow currents of air the overhead fan was lazily circling around the garage. And then I felt someone inside my skin with me. Michael. I’d heard David and Joseph mention Michael and his death a few months before, once or twice, but we’d never discussed it in detail. Now I was feeling Michael’s thoughts, and I knew I was supposed to tell David that he was okay, that he’d had to leave this plane of existence for a reason, and that his fall from his tree house had not been a suicide as David feared.
    My reaction to this sudden influx of sensations was almost instant—I’d clamped down on my brain, telling myself I was obviously sleep deprived and needed to get home and get some rest. As I repeated this to myself, the sensation in my back, neck, and arms gradually faded, replaced instead with a pounding headache. David must have noticed me grimacing in pain when he looked up to ask me a question a few minutes later, because he offered to give me a ride home right then, even though my original plan had been to hang out with them for another couple hours.
    After a silent five minute car ride, we pulled up outside the Benningtons’ house. I’d gathered my bags and turned to thank David for the ride, when the clear sky suddenly clouded and began dumping rain.
    “These summer storms only last a few minutes; you might as well wait in the car until it’s over so you don’t get soaked” he said.
    I sat there, staring out the window, trying to will my headache to go away. Instead the pain intensified, and for some reason that I