Serenity | Before

I sit in the middle of my bedroom, in the centre of a circle of thirteen scented candles in pretty glass jars. They’re all vanilla, Mom’s favourite scent. Technically, they are hers. Dad bought them as their twentieth wedding anniversary gift. But I need them tonight.

“How long will it take?” Naomi asks nervously, fiddling with her hair.

She sits opposite me, her auburn hair sitting in her shoulder, pulled away from the flames. Her hair reaches to her waist in long, natural waves most girls have to achieve with curlers. In the recent weeks, her slender frame has become dangerously skinny and her dark eyes are shadowed with exhaust.

I shrug. “Depends on what you give me.”

On her lap sits a blue football jersey with the number sixty-eight printed on the back. His parents gave in his second jersey for the school to put on display, giving his first one to Naomi. It’s soft and still smells like grass and soap.

“So are you, like, a witch?”

I shrug once again. “I’m not really sure. It’s not I can do much apart from see and talk to ghosts.”

I lay the jersey in between us and take Naomi’s cold hands.

“Neo, are you there?” I ask. “Give is a sign if you are.”

“Vi, this isn’t some N*****x slumber party movie,” Naomi hisses. “It’s not like he can actually—“

Before she can finish the sentence, one of the flames flashes pale blue before going back to its original gold.

I close my eyes as I put my hands on it. It’s softer than I thought it would be; Neo took good care of it. It’s like how it always is at first. Blankness before a spark of colour that rapidly transitions into an image. An image of a boy with honey gold hair in the jersey advancing towards me. He looks much better than he did the last time I saw him. Obviously, the last time I saw him he was in a coffin wearing a stiff suit at his own funeral.

“Neo,” I say quietly. “Can you hear me?”

“I can.”

“He’s here,” I tell her. “Neo, can you see Naomi?”

“She’s here?” He lifts his head and frowns. “I can’t see her.”

“Naomi, say something!” I whisper frantically. “Quickly!”

I can already feel the connection slipping away. Neo’s image is becoming blurrier around the edges and the colours are dulling, like someone’s turning the brightness down on a phone.

“Neo, it’s Cass,” she says nervously, holding my hands so tight I’m sure she’s cutting off blood circulation. “Can you… can you hear me?”

“I can hear her.”

“He can hear you,” I explain. “Say what you wanna say then!”

God, Naomi may be heading off to Harvard Med School in the fall, but she isn’t the brightest when it comes to contacting her ghost boyfriend who died in a drunk driving accident. The fact that the drunk driver didn’t even have a scratch on him is ridiculously unfair. Poor Neo, he was just walking home from the store with a carton of milk for his dad. The milk ran red from his blood when they found him.

“Neo, I got into Harvard,” she says, tripping over her words. “I’m going to do Medicine just like we talked about!”

Neo’s clear brown eyes are sparking with tears. “Just like we talked about,” he echoes.

Naomi’s voice becomes quicker as she talks. I’m not listening to what she’s saying anymore, I’m just clutching onto the connection with all my might. It’s like holding onto the rope in tug of war, when letting go would mean falling forward into the kiddie pool of mashed potatoes. God, those were weird summer camp days. I don’t know how much time has passed when Naomi’s voice turns into a scream.

“SERENITY!”

I open my eyes to see the thirteen candles all tipped over, the thick carpet catching fire dangerously fast. Everything in my room is catching fire. And the red flames are beginning to lick the door, burning the painted white wood away.

“Run,” I whisper. “Naomi, run!”

I leap over the flames and push the door open, Naomi hot on my heels and the fire spreading after us. I never knew fire could spread so fast without gasoline to help it along. Or maybe Naomi and I are just ridiculously slow. But we reach the front door as the flames are still only halfway through the stairs.

“Jason’s jersey,” she murmurs. “I need to get it back.”

“Naomi, don’t you dare go back up there!” I scream, pausing through dialling for the fire department on my phone.

It’s too late. She’s already running through the fire up to my room as I scream, causing people to run to our house even quicker.

Half an hour later, the street is swarmed with police cars and ambulances and fire trucks and neighbours. I’m wrapped in someone’s blanket, clutching the jersey that Naomi managed to get out of the fire. It’s burnt pretty bad, but the sixty-eight is still visible on the back.

Naomi, however, is under a sheet in the ambulance. Time of death? Nine fifteen pm. Cause of death? Freak house fire. That’s what they’re saying. That’s what everyone’s telling me. It’s a freak accident. A freak accident.

I killed Naomi Claire Lowell.