Free Unnatural Occurrence (An Anna Morgan Novella (Part 1)) by Peggy Martinez

I normally ignore the recently deceased. I definitely don’t stare at them openly or watch in awe and horror as the colors of their leftover aura meld into and out of them until they slowly fade away, leaving nothing behind but the slightest wisps of energy to indicate that they ever even existed. The dead can’t tell their side of a story. The living can’t see the dead like I can. Of course, I’m not normal. Never have been and never will be. Maybe I could have had a normal childhood. If it weren’t for the accident that killed my dad when I was three and if the very life hadn’t been snatched from my body for over seven minutes before I “came back”…maybe I could have lived a happy and ordinary life.
    But I knew… I knew it was just a matter of time before they came to lock me up in a padded room and threw away the key. I spent my entire childhood trying to avoid that fate, but it was just a matter of time before I could no longer hide the fact that I was different. Just a matter of time.
    On the day of my high school graduation I finally realized a simple truth. No amount of pretending and no amount of ignoring could change the fact that I was different. And it was high time I sucked it up and accepted it as the truth. It was actually a lot easier than I imagined it would be, but I guess that could have had something to do with fact that my momma’s ghost was hovering near her body with her aura already fading to the palest shades of gray as police and other officials walked around. They were taking notes and examining the body as I sat at the kitchen table, not hearing whatever it was they said.
    My eyes were riveted on my mo mma’s face, and for the first time I was not hiding the fact that I was staring at something no one else could see, at something unexplainable. In that moment, I didn’t care what people thought of me. I didn’t care if they would question why I was staring at nothing. I only cared what it was my momma wanted to tell me, what it was she needed to let me know before she moved on from this world.
    “She didn’t kill herself,” I whispered through my tears.
    “Excuse me?” A young detective named Patterson, with dark brown hair, green eyes, and a dimple in his cheek stepped closer to the table, his eyes sharp and his voice low. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five. Waves of blue aura poured off of him. Sympathy.
    “I said she didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t have.” I didn’t let my eyes drift away from my momma’s ghost, afraid she’d disappear as soon as I let her out of my sight. After a moment, Detective Patterson’s eyes slipped away from my profile and glanced over at the spot above the body, where I was staring before turning them back to me with a frown between his eyebrows.
    “How do you know that, Anna?” he asked gently.
    “I know because I can…” Momma’s ghost shook her head sadly and placed a blurry finger near her lips. I clenched my jaw as more tears poured down my already wet cheeks. The detective’s eyes glanced between me and where momma’s ghost stood, the frown on his face deepening. “I just know,” I said softly. He sighed deeply before crouching down next to me.
    “I know this is extremely difficult for you, so I won’t tell you how it will all eventually get easier, because the truth is it never gets easier. But I will tell you that I’ll make sure your mom’s death is thoroughly investigated to the best of the city’s ability. To the best of my ability.” I sucked in a sharp breath, my head buzzing with a new realization—his ability would never be good enough. No matter how thorough he was, no matter how deeply he dug into everything he knew about her death, he would never come to the correct conclusion. He’d never be able to really know what happened to my momma, because the only person who had the ability to see past the normal, to look past the everyday explanation was me. My momma’s eyes closed