3 x 1

* * *

Reality, whatever you believe it to be, will not be found here...
If it is what you search, you had better look elsewhere...
* * *

   

 
        "Helena..." She whispered. No sound, no motion, no unexplained voices, no sudden gust of cold wind, nothing... Just silence. Lise opened her eyes and let out her breath disguised as a sigh. She looked at the notebook, where her lone question still sat there unanswered, and sighed again, half out of disappointment, half out of relief. She blew out the canle, finding it only slightly odd that it had burned down so quickly that it was almost half the size it had been. She gathered her pencil and notebook and turned to leave, but like every normally out of balance person, she hit her elbow on the towel holder and that sent everything flying to the tiled floor. She rubbed her arm gingerly, still experiencing that awkward feeling so many people described as a small shock, and bent down to collect her things. The candle had lost a piece of its melted wax, which she promptly threw in the trash. Her notebook had fallen awkwardly open in some other page. Coincidently, the page where had written down Anne Lockhart's name and the place where she was living. She only glanced at it, but she imediately recognized something that hadn't been put there by her. It wasn't her hand-writing for sure, and it didn't look like Julia's or Lyta's. Definetly not Ryan's. But it seemed familiar to her, she was almost positive she'd seen it someplace before. Maybe someone in her class had borrowed her notebook without telling her and forgot that they left something there. Convincing herself that that was the only reasonable explanation, she skimmed through it, the shock almost letting her hands release what they held. She read it again, a strange mixture of awe and despair pulling at her mind. Her eyes ran across the words again and again, still trying to convince her it was someone's deranged idea of a joke. It didn't say much, but it said enough to make her weary, fear being only a small step away. I need your help. We are all in grave danger. Trust no one. Go to sleep. I will see you in your dreams.
        Suddenly realising where she might have recognized the hand-writing from, she took that one last step, and fell face down into despair. Everything started to swirl, the pencil was dropped, the candle forgotten, the notebook thrown aside as if it had just stung her. Lise just stood there, an unpenetrable silence surrounding her and her thoughts, her eyes refusing to let go of their lock on the notebook. Trying to calm herself down, her eyes scanned the bathroom, searching for anything strange or out of place, anything broken, anything that wasn't there a moment ago. Her hands trembled, her heart raced, but as she noticed that everything was still as it had been, she began to calm. She reluctantly picked up the notebook and closed it carefully, slowly bending down to retrieve the candle and the pencil. She ventured one last look in the mirror and was startled by her own frightened expression. Still looking at herself, Lise absentmindedly turned the doorknob and the door opened. She froze, her hand still holding the knob.
        "I locked the door, didn't I?" She whispered to no one but her own reflection. She didn't need an answer. She knew she had locked it, she was certain of it. Without giving it another thought, she raced out of the bathroom and into her own room, the notebook still held tightly to her chest as she sat down on her bed and closed her eyes. She found she was scared, as scared as she ever remembered being, except for that day when she and Ryan were mugged, but then again, she didn't remember most of that.
        With a sudden thought, she opened the drawer where she had put away Helena's diary and took it out,opening it on a ramdom page. She looked at the hand-writing carefully, but still not believing her own eyes, she opened her notebook and compared the hand-writting from the misterious words with those she was sure were Helena's. To her utter despair, they were undoubtely one and the same.
        A sudden knock on the door startled her, she found herself holding her breath as the door opened. She relaxed as she heard her mother's voice.
        "Lise, are you still awake?" Vanessa asked, coming in.
        "I'm not sleepy." She lied, teasing herself for being so silly as to let some prank scare her this much. It has to be a prank, she tried to convince herself.
        Vanessa sat down at her daughter's side and smiled. "What's the matter, sweety?"
        "Nothing, I just think I'll read a bit... I'm not really tired." Just to prove her story, she reached out a slightly trembling hand and grabbed the first book in sight.
        "Suit yourself, but don't go to sleep too late or you won't get up tomorrow morning."
        "Don't worry..." Lise started to say as her mother left the room. "I really don't plan on going to sleep at all."
        She sat back and read out loud the title of the book she had selected by chance. "The Haunted... Perfect." She whispered with as much sarcasm as she could manage into just that one word. At least it was a long book, long enough to get her through the night. And it would be a long night. A very long night indeed.

***

        Mr. Quinlan's voice trailed on and on, wrapping the atmosphere in a boring veil. Lise felt her eyelids seem heavier each second, they urged her eyes to close. Are they even open? She caught herself wondering.
        She shook her head and widened her eyes, trying to focus on anything but her teacher's voice. I can't sleep... she thought. I can't, she repeated to herself continuously. But as her body slumped over the desk and her head craddled in her arms, she knew this was one battle she was condemned to lose. Even as she closed her eyes, she still tried to remain alert. Listen to his voice... she told herself. As long as you follow what he's saying, you'll be awake.
        In front of a dazing class, the history teacher spoke. "As I'm sure you all know, the second world war took place between the years of 1939 and 1945."
        The second world war...' Lise repeated to herself. '1939 and 1940 high... huh?
        "The end of the war came..."
        The blend of the world game... no... the end of the world came... wait... the world is ended? She thought it all funny all of a sudden, everything jumbled and confused. She felt herself relax, her eyes comfortably closed, her thoughts no longer making sense. She was falling... In an instant of pure reflex, her muscles tensed. She realized with some embarassment that she was still sitting her chair, still in history class. She opened her eyes and checked to see if anyone had been paying attention, and saw that they couldn't care less. Half of the class were asleep, three or four were playing cards in the back, a couple seemed to be drawing, and there were a lot of chemistry books open under the desk, hidden away. She noticed the few that remained with no activity seemed content enough to play with their own chewing gums. Her vision was blurred, her eyes wished to close again, she was tired. For that moment, Lise forgot herself and let sleep slowly creep up and envelope her. Without even realizing the transition, if there was any, she found herself sleeping again, and soon after, she discovered she was dreaming...
        The darkness dissipated itself, giving way to what looked like endless space. Much like her other dreams, that strange mist surrounded Lise, and kept her from whatever else was there. Almost unnoticeably, the mist began to lose consistance, and it began to thin, creating a sort of vaccum around her.
        "Okay, what the hell just happened?" The red-head asked out of nowhere. Lise turned around to face her, and found Helena there also.
        "I believe she woke up and went to sleep again..." Helena said without even looking at Lise.
        The girl just laughed. "Yeah... whatever. Now you gonna explain to me what's going on?"
        "What's your name?" Lise asked her.
        "Jadia. Jus' call me JC." She said with a shrug. "You are?"
        "Lise."
        "Can I explain what's happening to us now?" Helena cut in.
        "Why the rush? We got all the time in the world." Jadia said with a grin.
        "No, we don't. Just until Lise wakes up again."
       "About that..." Lise stepped in. "I have the weirdest feeling... I don't think I'm home... I think I'm in school. This doesn't feel like a bed..." As if on cue, everything started to blur around them.
        Helena grabbed Lise's arm. "Leave it all... Focus on us... There's nothing out there... There's nothing here but us!" She said it so forcebly that Lise was mesmerized by her every word.
        Jadia eyed them as if they were completely cut off from the world. "We're dead. Dead people do not attend school. Think of it as a positive side."
        "I'm not dead." Lise objected in a weak voice.
       "Could you please leave that for later?" Helena asked with a politeness only existent in her words. Her tone showed something else. But whatever it was, it didn't seem to bother Jadia.
        "You're a ghost, right?" Jadia asked her, purposedly ignoring the previous suggestion.
        Helena just shook her head.
        "Wait a sec. You telling me that we're dead, but we're not ghosts? Then what the hell are we? Last time I checked, fallin' off the top of a building resulted in certain death... So either I'm dead, or I grew wings and flew here..." Her eyes wandered around for a moment. "Wherever here is."
        Helena just took a deap breath and let it out slowly. "We're not exactly dead, we're just not alive anymore. I hadn't been able to figure it all out at first, but now it makes sense."
        "I'm glad somebody thinks so..." Jadia breathed out.
       Helena just tossed her a glance. "Our bodies were... well, we..." She breathed out again and took a few seconds to try and think of a better way to tell them what had happened.
        "Let me start at the beginning..." She finally said. "There's a curse on our family."
        Jadia looked at her, surprised. "We're family?"
        Lise nodded silently, her attention now focused solely on Helena's words.
       Helena enjoyed the momentary silence and continued. "The first child to be born in each generation is gifted with magic, these abilities would supposedly evolve as we grew older, but on the night of our eighteenth birthday, we are condemned to die. Just before my death, I cast a spell... I didn't exactly know what it would do, but apparently it removed our essence from our bodies and placed them in you." She finished, looking at Lise.
        There was a sudden silence. It enveloped them and tried to firm its grip, but its existance was cut short as Jadia finally laughed. "Oh great...I'm still in a coma in some hospital... Or maybe I'm just bleeding slowly to death while no one is looking for me... Wait, worse: I died and this is hell! Anyway you tell it, those three choices are more believable than your little fairytale."
        Lise barely listened to Jadia's comments. She was having a hard enough time with all of it as it was. "Why did you do it?" She asked Helena. "I mean... besides the fact that it keeps you... alive?"
       "We have to find a way to stop this curse. It must stop with us." Helena answered, completely leaving aside the fact that she had no idea of how they could accomplish it.
        "How?" Lise asked. "I mean... if you couldn't stop it, why would we? I wouldn't even know where to begin."
        "I'm not sure what we're supposed to do. But I think I know where we can find the answer."
        "Who cares... we're dead anyway."
        "Jadia!" Helena shouted, what little patience she had set aside. "For the last time, we are not dead!"
        Then, in almost a whisper, Helena repeated to herself. "We can't be."
        "Mind if I test your little theory, then?" Jadia asked with sudden seriousness.
        Helena studied her carefully for the first time since they'd seen each other, but nowhere in Jadia's face could she find what the girl had in mind. Despite that, she agreed with a nod.
        "'kay, so if I'm right, y' won't feel a thing." She approached Helena, and they realized she had a small pocket knife in her hands.
        Lise wanted it to stop, she wanted to get out of there, away from this nightmare, away from it all, but like every dream that goes too far, she had no more power over it than she might have had if she were running down a maze of mirrors with ten serpent-like creatures following her into a dead end. She watched terrified, and  silently hoped the dead end would come soon enough, so she could return to her normal, safe, calm, and safe little world.
        Helena simply stood still as Jadia came up to her. Jadia stopped in front of her and stared into her eyes, Helena's calm erased any doubt she had over what the result would be. Without another moment of hesitation, she plunged the knife into Helena's stomach. Lise took a step back, her eyes wide with shock. Everything was insane... nothing of this could be real... nothing of it was... She wished she could just wake up... Wake up and leave all the madness behind, if not erased, then locked away where it belonged...
       As the knife was plunged into Helena, she faltered with the force, and Lise felt the pain as if she herself had been stabbed. With the pain, she screamed, her scream echoing through the darkness that accompanied her out of her dream and back to her classroom. When her eyes snapped open, Ryan was staring at her.
        "That was a nice long nap you had." He whispered with a grin. 
        Lise looked at herself, her speach still trapped with the scream she had never unleashed. With a sideglance she looked down at herself. There was no blood, and the pain was only a memory, a very vivid one, but only that. She forced herself to take a deep breath and only then did she realize it was already the last class they had that day. Only to confirm how long she had slept, she checked her watch. As always, hours had gone by in what seemed to her like a simple dream. As she closed her history book, she let herself smile, Jadia's words coming back to mind. It was nice not to have spent the entire day listening to class.
        "Didn't you sleep well last night? You don't usually black out for an entire morning." Ryan said when the class ended.
        Lise finished putting her books into her backpack and rubbed her eyes. "I didn't sleep a wink last night."
        "Insomnia?" He asked.
        "No, just..." The words died in her throat when she finally thought of what she was about to say, and it was simply ridiculous.
        "Just what?"
        She shook her head. "Nothing."
        "Hey, if you wanna talk about what's bothering you..."
        "Maybe later..."
        "So you'll be okay?" He asked her, stopping as they got to the gate.
        "Yeah... aren't you going home?"
        "No. I'm gonna meet with Matt and the guys at the gym. Catch you later."
        "Okay, bye."
        "Hey." He called back. "Got any plans for tomorrow?"
        She shook her head. "What day's tomorrow?"
        "Saturday." He said sarcastically, then he shook his head. "Tomorrow's wednesday. As in the wednesday when the interclass games start. There's not gonna be any class for us. Don't tell me you forgot."
        "Yeah, it just slipped my mind. I'm not doing anything. You guys plan something?"
        "I was gonna call Jules. If we decide anything, I'll let you know."
        She nodded and waved him good bye as she turned and walked away.
        Ryan wondered what was bothering her, it was obvious something was on her mind. He could have tried to guess it, but he figured that if she wanted to talk about it, she'd let him know.
       
        As she made her way home, Lise tried very hard not to think about anything at all. It was hard at first, and her mind tried to occupy itself with other things such as the way her feet touched the ground, or how many steps she took to the bus stop, but somewhere along the way she got distracted from distracting herself, and not even as she got home, did Helena and Jadia come to mind. Leaving her things on the living room table, she went straight into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and taking out a bottle of water. She closed it still absentmindedly and turned around only to find her father standing at the entrance to the kitchen, his face haunted in a way she had never seen or imagined. She froze, wondering what it was that had fully drained the color from his face. A thousand possibilities ran through her mind, the thought that something had happened with her mother the one that terrified her the most.
        Daniel didn't move either, his eyes wide. "Where did you hear that?"
        Lise realized her mouth had dropped open. "What?"
        "That song you were humming, where did you hear it?"
        "I wasn't..." She started, but just then, the sense of deja vu hit her and she staggered. "I... I wasn't paying attention... Wha... What song  was it?"
        The color had returned to his face, and he had managed to move, but there was still something in his eyes. "My sister... Lena, she used to sing it to me, said it was her song. No one knew it."
        Lise was about to say that someone else did know it, but she caught herself just in time. If she said it, she'd have to explain what she had done talking to Anne Lockhart, and why she would go through all that trouble to find her. Instead she shrugged. "I think I heard it somewhere."
        "That's impossible."
        "Couldn't someone else know it? Was it a local band's song or something?"
        "No, someone gave it to her as a birthday gift. One of her friends wrote it, I don't remember which."
        "Maybe they sold it later on... Or maybe you just confused it."
        He shook his head. "I don't think so.."
        "Maybe... maybe I heard you humming it unconsciouly someday."
       "That could be it." He let out a long slow breath and poured some water on a glass for himself. "I heard you humming it, and just for a moment, I was a child again..."
        He smiled and pulled out a chair for himself. "She had a really nice voice." His eyes unfocused as if he were listening to the past come alive in his memory.
        Lise simply stood there, wondering if she should say something. Truth was, or at least she thought it was, that it was playing with her mind also. At least that's what she had been trying to convince herself every chance she got. 
  

        Jadia scuffed at her words, but didn't interrupt. Lise was just standing there, staring forward as if it were all surreal, as if she weren't truly there.
       Helena was about to continue when Lise's voice came, almost from out of her body, in a whisper. "How did that prophecy go?"
       "Throughout the centuries, they shall die, one by one, the first of each generation, following the line of Cassandra through time... Until the day comes, when the first born of the twenty-second generation says the lost words and unites in essence the sorcerer, the warrior, the innocent. On that day, darkness would bend the very curse it serves so that past and future might merge into the present..."

        "You memorized it, or you made it all up just now?" Jadia asked with something that should have been sarcasm, but sounded rather like amusement.
        Helena eyed her with an even smile. "I have a good memory."
        Jadia merely cocked an eyebrow. "So I'm the future?"
        "And I'm the shell?" Lise asked weakly.
      Helena turned to her. "According to the spell that got us here, you're also the middle, the balance between us. I'm the one who's supposed to know what's going on here, and you Christine, you represent strength, the protector, if you will."
        Jadia rolled her eyes. "Great... And I thought that being dead meant I could actually lay off the fighting for say... eternity. And don't ever call me Christine again. Yes, it's my name, but don't use it!"
        Helena just shook her head. "I ask for a protector, and we end up with a teenage gang leader going through an identity crisis."
        "Hey, at least I got you to make a joke... I'm guessing you're not a really fun person... right?"
        Helena shot her a deadly glare.
        Lise let out a sigh and took a few steps randomly. "Okay, so we're like... dead, but not really? That would make us what? Living dead or something? I thought those were, like, those zombies in the movies or something like that."
        Helena held her gaze. "You're not taking this too seriously."
        Lise shrugged. "How can I be sure that this isn't just a dream? You say I'm dreaming, but that all this is real... Well, how can I be awake in the middle of a dream?"
        "That's beside the point. The important thing is that you have to believe that everything I'm telling you is real."
        Lise stared at her. "And that real you're talking about is us being dead and having to break a centuries-old curse..."
        "Exactly." Helena said with a trying smile.
        "Well, that shouldn't be too hard, right?" Jadia mocked as she looked at her hand, stretching the skin, then "cracking" the knucles.
       Helena ignored the sarcasm. "First of all, we must make sure Aecteri doesn't suspect that we are all here."
         Jadia raised a hand. "Rewind... Aecteri would be..?"
       "He's the being that put the curse on Cassandra and her line. The stories tell of him punishing her for her having refused to read the Book of Fire for him."
        "All this is because of a book?!?" Jadia shouted. "That would be nice... I'm dead because someone wouldn't share a book."
       "It's not just any book. And we can't let him have it. He needs us to read it for him, because he can't read it himself."
       "Why doesn't he get us before we die... I mean, why didn't he get you before you died?" The words from Helena's diary suddenly came back to her. "Or did he?"
       Helena looked away. "He tried to make me read it... But I couldn't see the words. Not all of them."
       "If you couldn't see them, then why the hell would he come after us?"
       "Because I think now we can. He knew we were trying something. The woman who was helping me, Hagia... He had a hold on her. There's no way of knowing just how much he got from her about the spell we found. But as soon as he realizes that Lise is still alive, he'll suspect something... He must think that Lise has no knowledge of what has happened. We have to make him believe that. That's why we have to be very careful; he could be anywhere and anyone."
        Jadia drew her eyes away from her own hand. "That's gonna need an explanation attached."
        "Aecteri has no true physical form other than the ones he steals. He can take a person's body over and change into another person as he pleases, and the people he took over don't remember a thing. His other form of influence is like a hypnosis. He convinces someone to do what he wants by controlling them indirectly, enhancing their emotions or even putting strange thoughts and ideas into their heads. Those people don't even know it, they think everything was their own doing."
        Lise frowned. "So how do we know who he's controlling?"
        Helena's gaze darkened. "We don't."
        "I got a question, teach." Jadia said with a grin. "Y'sure we're family?!?"
        Helena ventured a smile. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were Lise's niece..."
        Jadia pointed at Lise's face and at herself, pulling a curl and showing it to Helena with a face. "No way!"
        Helena cocked an eyebrow and took in a long breath. She stepped next to Lise and nodded.
        Lise shook her head. "I don't think she's my niece, I don't have any brothers or sisters..."
        "Well, she's related to us somehow. Could even be your daughter if y--"
        Jadia laughed. "Yeah right! No way she's my mother."
        Helena looked at her and sighed. "I said she could be... I didn't say she was."
        "Who were your parents?" Lise asked.
        Jadia's face twisted into a sort of grimace. "You don't really wanna talk about it, do you?"
        Lise shrugged. "I wannna know how we're related... I'm just... curious."
        "You probably know my loveable father." Jadia said with sarcasm dripping from her voice. "His name was Carl. But I doubt I know anyone from your family since daddy dearest was cut off after he ran away with my mother when he was 19 or something."
        "Ten years from now." Lise whispered, then noticing that the other two were staring at her, she explained. "Carl's my cousin, my younger cousin. He's nine or ten, I think. He's got a sister, Eileen."
        Jadia shook her head. "Nope, doesn't ring a bell... But I haven't seen him in eight years, so I guess that's normal."
        "You haven't seen your father in eight years?" Helena asked under her breath.
        Jadia just ignored the question. "I did try looking for other relatives a few years back. Didn't find any Eileen Statler."
        "You wouldn't have. Her name isn't Statler. It's Fallow. After their father. Eileen took on uncle Henry's last name, while Carl took aunt Phyllis'."
        "Phyllis had two children, then?" Helena asked with a smile, the first real smile since she had appeared in this dark place in Lise's mind.
        "Don't think they turned out alright, though..." Jadia said with a grin. "A little too many loose screws up here." She added, tapping the side of her head with her index finger.
        "Well, if you're an example, I am worried." Helena said, the smile already gone from her lips. Jadia merely laughed.
       Lise opened her mouth to say something, but it seemed to draw further from her mind until it was gone in darkness. She opened her eyes and squinted because of the light.
       Her mother was standing there. "Aren't you late for school?"
       "There's no school today." Lise whispered, trying to open her eyes enough to look at her watch. "The games start today..."
         "Well, are you going to get up right now?" Vanessa asked.
       "No..." She mumbled. It was still too early, Ryan hadn't called the night before, probably wouldn't call her this early. And Julia was probably still sleeping herself.
        Her mother seemed to nod and say something else. Lise agreed inconditionally, but as soon as she did, she forgot what she just agreed to. With a yawn, Lise rolled over on her bed, readjusted her pillow, put her feet back under the covers and closed her eyes, not even noticing the exact moment in which she drifted back into sleep, and back into her dreams. The darkness no longer contained the mist, just the emptyness that it had seemed to hide. The two girls looked at her.
       "Irritating..." Jadia let out.
        "What?" Lise asked.
        "Nevermind." Helena told her, dismissing Jadia's comment with a wave.

        "There's something else I wanna ask..." Lise said with a frown. "Those first images I saw..." 
        "Images?" Jadia asked, turning to Lise, her curiosity spiked. "Like what?"
         "What did you see?" Helena asked.
        Lise shrugged. "I don't really remember everything... But there was a fight, and well, someone named Austin was strangling or choking me..."
        "Till I passed out..." Jadia finished, automatically lifting a hand to her throat, as mechanically as Lise's mirrored the action.
        Helena stared at her. "Was that the only one?"
        Lise shook her head slowly. "There was another one... It was more confusing."
        "Why?" Jadia asked. "What happened?"
        Lise shrugged. "First there was pain... just pain... Intense, excrutiating pain... I can't describe it beyond that..."
        Helena looked up at her, something undetermined hiding in her eyes. It resembled fear somehow, but even she didn't know what it was. The memory still fresh in her mind after what she thought were decades of limbo, she almost shivered as the lingering feelings of that experience returned. Her mouth opened, but as her mind quickly reasoned its own logic, in silence she remained.
        "Then what?" Jadia asked, neither her nor Lise realizing the conflict taking place within Helena's gaze.
        "Then I was going into the woods." She turned to Helena, who had momentarily spaced out. "You were going into the woods. And then you argued with my father..."
        Helena's gaze rose to meet her, her eyes still strangely absent from the moment somehow. "Must have been one of the times I went to see Hagia."
        "Then it turned to saying goodbye..."
        "To Peter as he left for the war..."
        They stared at eachother for a moment, as if there were a link, an understanding between them, but the silence began to grow on Lise, and she turned away with a shrug. "I guess that was all..."
        "So, what the hell was it?" Jadia asked with a grin. "Left-overs of our lives?"
       Helena shrugged in response, her eyes drifting to the ground as she turned away from the others. "Remanescents of our final thoughts..."
        "Memories?"  Lise asked.
        "Were they made by us somehow, or did they come naturally?" Jadia asked, amusement dancing across her face.
        Lise turned to her with a frown. "Like a camera before it focuses?"
        "Like a projection or shadow of what's really there..." Helena whispered, her voice lacking strength..
       "That doesn't make any freeking sense... I wasn't thinking about any of that stuff. I was dying! Why would I be thinking about anything else?" Jadia said dismissively. Then she stopped and seemed to iniciate an impersonation, adapting her speech to reflect a foreign accent, Lise couldn't determine which. "I was focusing solely on my death. After all, death would be the most traumatic event, not to mention, that which was happening at the moment the mind stopped, so to speak. The mind should stay focused on it, shouldn't it?" She laughed, dropping the persona. "Instead we got loose memories floatin' around for no real reason... and there's not even a link between 'em."
        Helena turned to face her, her face still serious. "Except that they were memories, painful or important for some reason... they meant something."
        "That's all? So we'd be back to the camera before it focuses thing?" Jadia asked.
        Helena raised an eyebrow and stared blankly at her. "Well, from what I could gather from this profound analisys, we should have no difficulty in understanding absolutely everything about what's happened to us." The sarcasm in her voice did not go unnoticed, but Jadia took it as nothing more than a joke, and laughed.
        "There's one thing that doesn't fit." Jadia said. "There were some people holding a gun to my face on a street I've never seen before..."
        Lise frowned. "That wasn't you, that was me..."
        "And then I took the gun from one of them..." Jadia continued slowly.
        "That was not me. There was a gap in what I remember... My friend Ryan said that I had..." Lise's mouth fell open. "You? But how?"
        Jadia cocked an eyebrow and smiled. "I was in your body? Nice..."
        "So was I..."  Helena said. "That day you locked yourself in the bathroom with your notebook. I got out, looked around. Then I went back in and I was staring into the mirror..."
        Lise interrupted her. "Why didn't you write an explanation in my notebook when I asked you what you wanted?"
        "I thought it would be best to speak to you, to make sure you understood everything, especially the importance of not sharing this with anyone."
        Jadia stepped between them. "Woah, so we're just randomly surfacing from the depths of her empty mind?"
        Helena shook her head. "There must be some trigger. But until we find it, and see if we can control it, we have to be careful around everyone."
        Jadia rolled her eyes. "Because of the Aecteri whatever..."
        "Aecteri, yes. He might be using someone to spy on you."
        "So we just wait?" Lise asked.
        "He might try getting to the people closest to you." Helena explained. "Maybe your family, or your imediate friends..."
       "Well, my closest friends are Ryan and Julia. I've told them about the dreams I had of you."
       "But we've got no way of knowing if he's using 'em or not."
        "We trust no one. Not Julia, not Ryan, not even Danny or your mother. No one." Helena said.
        Jadia's face became suddenly serious. "Just one another... right?" There was no answer.
       Lise remembered she should tell them that Ryan and Julia knew who Helena was. "Oh, and they helped me, Julia, and Ryan... To find Anne Lockhart. She told us you were haunting her. And well, she asked me to ask you to... to stop singing in her dreams."
       "You're already haunting someone else?" Jadia asked with an amused grin.
       Helena's mouth hung open for a second as she looked from Lise to Jadia. "I never haunted Anne, nor anyone else for that matter."
        "Oh goodie, we have exclusive rights." Jadia mocked.

       Lise looked up suddenly, the world vanishing around her. She opened her eyes slowly, and found her mother staring down at her. "What?"
        "Are you going to sleep through the day? Lunch is ready."
       "I'll be right there... Just let me ask her something..." Lise mumbled, turning away from Vanessa and pulling the blanket over her. She closed her eyes, hoping to get back to sleep. It was all a blur, and she didn't care. All she wanted was to sleep. She barely heard as Vanessa closed the door behind her.
        "You still haven't explained why we're here, like this..." Lise asked.
        Helena shrugged. "I don't really know. Maybe this is a temporary condition, in which we are dead, but not actually dead. Maybe when we break the curse, it'll resolve itself..."
        "And maybe it won't." Lise whispered.
        Jadia stared at Helena for a moment. "I can't believe you just said that... You're either dead or you're not! Anything else is impossible!"
        "I'm open to your theory." Helena said.
        "I don' really have any freekin' ideas right now."
        "Then can we assume at least for the time being that what I said is valid? Until we can better understand it?"

        "Just 'cause I don't have a better explanation doesn't mean I agree with you." Jadia shot back.
       "I have another question..." Lise said, her voice still under the volume of their discussion, but they turned to her. "The curse... If no one in centuries was able to break it, how can we?
        "No one's been able to break it because no one has been able to read from the book. It was always assumed the answer lay in its pages."
        "That wasn't an answer." Jadia interjected.
        "I'm not entirely sure how we can break the curse." Helena confessed, silencing Jadia's possible comments with a single glance. "It seemed obvious to Hagia that by destroying Aecteri, the curse would be undone. Problem is, I don't think there is a way to kill him. I'm hoping that if we manage to send him back to wherever it is he came from, the final result will be the same."

        "You're hoping?!?" Jadia finally shouted.

       When they got into the building, she hung back, saying she'd catch up with him, hehad no problem walking ahead. She stood in one of the corridors, back to the way, watching as everyone went by as if the world was normal. She took a few breaths and held the last one for a while, making herself move again.
        "Where the hell's there a bathroom around here?" She mumbled as she passed the corridors. She saw the sign on the doors and went towards them, constantly glancing around her. The bathroom was empty, except for the image on the mirror. The one that kept staring at her with a sort of terrified expression. With a delayed sense of realization, she noticed the reflection, albeit strange, was hers. Or at least the reflection of the body she was occupying. She laughed at the thought, but she wasn't amused. She leaned in closer to the mirror, staring deep into the stranger's dark eyes. "Where the hell are you? Come back already!"
        As she expected, there was no answer, and letting her head drop forward, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, there the face was, and the hair made into the delicate braid. With a grin, Jadia pulled it loose, her eyes daring Lise to come back and set it right. But still it didn't happen. She cocked an eyebrow and ran her fingers through the hair. "At least she's got good hair."  She let out beneath her breath.
       She stepped out into the corridor and stopped. She didn't know where she was supposed to go. With an annoyed look, she started walking, as if she were going somewhere, but she just waltzed around, passing the classroom doors, glancing in to see if she could spot Ryan. And that was assuming that they were in the same class. The other option was seeing if someone recognized her and by a miracle, pointed her the right way.
        A girl she had barely noticed bumped into her as they passed each other. Jadia stopped and whirled around, catching herself just before shoving the girl into the wall. This wasn't her world. She didn't know the rules here.
       As she watched the girl move further away, two other girls passed her, slowling their pace as they each came beside her. "Walk much, Lisa?" One asked with a giggle as she went by. That did remind her of her own world.
         With a subtle move, Jadia quickly twisted her foot sideways and tripped Amy. Everyone seemed to stop and stare for a moment, as if they hadn't seen what had happened. Amy herself didn't seem to understand. Jadia leaned in towards in with a strange grin. "Correspondence course on walkin', right?" Then she whirled around and walked away as if the entire scene had nothing to do with her.  

       Ryan noticed a sudden comotion down the corridor. It looked like someone had fallen down or something. Some kids were laughing, others staring. Then he watched as Lise came towards him as if she were oblivious to everything, even the few kids staring at her. She walked straight up to him and stopped there, staring at him. "What?" She asked.
         "What'd you do to your hair?"
       She grinned. "Nothing. Just let it breath a little."
       "Who are you and what did you do to the real Lise?" He asked with a smile.
       She tried to erase the surprise she was sure had come over her face, and then she laughed. "Why're ya actin' so weird today?"
       He laughed. "I'm acting weird?"
       She shrugged and went inside, waiting to see if he would object. Then she took a seat and still waited to see if he would ask what was she doing. Instead, he just passed her and sat down a few chairs back. At least I know I'm in the right class. She said with an amused glare at the blackboard.
       Soon everyone had taken their seats and a teacher, a short man in his early fifties, walked in. He placed his things on the dsk and seemed to take a moment to organize his thoughts, looking at some notes on a plain sheet of paper. It suddenly occured to Jadia that the silence was strange, it was disconcerting, even.
       He looked up from the paper and stared straight at her through his round glasses. She decided she didn't like him. "If I recall, you were absent on the day of our exam. You'll be taking it today."
       Her face twisted slightly. She hated tests. And she didn't even know what the subject was. He asked her to pull her chair apart from the rest of the class and she did so. He handed her a sheet with a set of questions and she looked at them with a sudden smile. As she read through them, she actually laughed.
       "Do you find something amusing?" The teacher's voice reached her.
       She turned towards him with annoyance, and her face twisted into a grimace as she stood to face him. "Non, pas du tout. J'ai simplement pensé que l'examen devrais être annonce, mais alors je voix que ça n'est pas necessaire. C'est tout..."
       She sat down and shaking her head slightly from side to side, finished the exam in less than 20 minutes. She turned it in with a grin and placed her chair back where it had been. Ryan came up next to her and kneeled down beside her. "What'd you say to him? I didn't even get half of it."
       "By the look on his face, he looked like he didn't either." She said with a grin.
       Ryan still stared at her, then just went back to his desk with a strange smile.

       A bell sounded and the students suddenly started out of the classroom. She looked down at her watch, it couldn't possibly be the end of the school already. She followed them out, eyes always around her. "How the hell am I supposed to get outta this body?" She let out beaneath her breath, hitting the wall as she went by, not as hard as she wanted to, but still hard enough to make some of the passing kids stare at her for a moment with worried or curious looks.
        "Great..." She mumbled as she merely walked away. She passed people on the stairs, all the while barely acknoledging their presence. When she was reaching the inner gate, someone held her arm from behind. She pulled it away rather violently and whirled around only to find Ryan staring at her with an absentminded expression. "I gotta take off as soon as class's over. Are you staying?"
        She cocked an eyebrow and held back her true thoughts. After all, how would she know if she was supposed to stay there or not? So she merely shrugged and shook her head. "No. Why're you asking?"
        He looked at her as if the answer were obvious. "So I can know if I should wait for you or not..."
        "What're you?" She snapped. "My escort or somethin'?"
        He stared at her. "What's the matter with you today?"
        She grinned. "I'm trying on a new personality. How's it so far?"
        "Honestly, lose it somewhere..." His eyes drifted away. "There's Jay. I'll go ask him about the college."
        "You do that." She said, pretending she knew what the hell he was talking about. Jadia watched him go, then found a quiet enough corner and sat down on the floor, burrying her head in her knees. "I want outta here..." She mumbled, hitting the side of her thigh softly.
        "Just somebody get me outta here... Where the hell are you?" She wished that she'd merely go back to that weird place where Helena tried to convince them that they had this sort of mission to accomplish. It was much better than being trapped in someone else's life. She leaned back into the wall and watched the kids in the patio, wondering why she didn't have to even try to avoid any of them. Then she closed her eyes and wished she could go back to her life, to the world she knew, people she understood. Like she could wake up, even if she had to find herself bleeding alone on the top of that building.
       Ryan joined her and started talking, but she didn't care, she didn't even listen. She found herself watching the comings and goings around them. The groups moving, one person breaking away from one group and going towards another. Then she noticed as a boy came towards them, breaking away from a group. The group noticed and someone shouted something, pointing to a spot across the patio.
        "Hey, Ryan... Thanks a lot for giving Suz my message." Matt said with a grin.
        Ryan laughed. "Sorry. I didn't forget, you know, but when I got here, Henry told me you were already here."
        "What the hell took you so long, anyway?"
        "Well, the bus took this giant detour to stop by the hospital cause some woman passed out and they couldn't get her to wake up. And I didn't have enough money to take another bus. I only had enough money for the way back..."
        Matt laughed. "Well, then it was a good thing I was right about the game not starting on time, otherwise we'd both have missed it."
        "Yeah... Although it wasn't that much of a game."
        "Not their fault. The other team was still asleep in the court. Speaking of which,  Lise, did you get enough sleep yesterday?"
        None of your business. She wanted to say, but instead she just nodded. The bell sounded again, and there went the giant mass of students back to the classrooms. Jadia thought they moved rather quickly, reminded her of a heard of wild beasts she'd seen on tv once.
      
       As soon as class was over, Jadia followed the stream of students to the outside and started retracing her steps from that same morning. "Gotta get the hell outta here..." She whispered, hitting herself lightly on the side of her head.
       "Trying to rearrange the loose screws?" Ryan asked as he came up beside her.
         She shot him a glance. "Yeah, something you obviously never accomplished."
       "You are on a roll today, aren't you? Too bad Julia's missing it."
         She was going to ask who Julia was, but she caught herself before the words came out, barely, since her mouth still opened and then the sound choked a little, and she closed her mouth again.
       As soon as she got back where she'd started, Lise's home, Jadia quickly parted from Ryan and went inside, dredding an encounter with Vanessa. She walked quickly past the living room, the kitchen, and went straight to Lise's room, closing the door and locking it behind her. She took off her shoes and threw them aside, dropping on the bed and burrying her head in the covers. "Falling asleep and dreaming would be nice right about now." She said with a smile. "Nothing like a dream to getcha out of a nightmare."
       Not even five minutes went by and a knock came on her door, the knob trying to turn a few seconds later when there wasn't an answer. Jadia turned her head and stared at the door with a raised eyebrow. "Take a hint." She whispered through clenched teeth.
       "Lise?" It was a man's voice. Definetly not Vanessa.
       "Fuck!" Jadia let out, jumping to her feet and opening the door. She found Daniel standing there. For a moment, she saw the resemblance between him and Helena.
         He smiled. "I thought I heard you coming in. How was school?"
       It was a strange question. She'd never had to answer it before. But she tried to smile. "Fine..."
       "Lunch is ready." She heard Vanessa call from the living room. Her face twisted involuntarily. She wondered if Daniel noticed.
       "Are you coming?" He asked.
       "I think I'll try taking a nap first. I'll fix myself something later."
       "Are you still having trouble sleeping?"
       "Nah... I just have a headache."
       "Why don't you eat something first, and then you can try sleeping."
       She hesitated. How much would he insist? And would Vanessa come and check on her if she insisted on saying she wasn't feeling well. The thought alone made her fringe, and she was hungry. She let out a slow breath and closed the bedroom door behind her as she followed Daniel out.

       Vanessa finished placing the forks and knives on the table and sat down. "How was your day, honey?"
       Jadia glared at her, wishing she would implode. "Great."
       Vanessa seemed oblivious to her tone and manners. "And the french exam? Was that today?"
       "Yeah, I aced it."
       That made Vanessa look up. "Really?"
       "Why? Don't you think I can?" Jadia shot at her.
       Vanessa was taken slightly aback, but she still didn't seem to have noticed the full extent of it, because she smiled. "Of course I think you can do it. But you were so worried about it. And you didn't look as though you had studied."
        "Looks deceive, right?" Jadia asked with a grin as she poured herself a cup of juice.
       Daniel cut in suddenly, and Jadia's path of argument was lost. Though she knew Vanessa wouldn't have understood her anyway. "And did the teacher say anything about it? You'd mentioned that he seemed to think you were going to fail."
       "I think he was disappointed I did so well... But he's an idiot."
       "Lise..."
       Jadia looked at him over her glass. "What?"

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