Chapter 8 Aurora
EIGHT
AURORA
The lights in the room came on, and a woman walked through the door.
Through Aurora.
A light tingling sensation overwhelmed her. Hey! I thought that wasn’t possible, Aurora fumed to herself, outraged by her inconsistent ability to move through solid objects.
But fuck, it didn’t matter. A person was here.
Had the woman felt their contact? She spun around and froze, her tanned complexion going pale.
“Can you see me?” Aurora asked out loud. Or at least, she hoped it was out loud, given she had no body with which to produce sound.
The woman stumbled backward and hit the desk, her hand fluttering to cover her mouth.
So she could see Aurora. Excellent.
Aurora drifted closer. “Can you hear me?”
The woman whimpered, her eyes so wide the whites were visible all the way around. She smelled sweet and almost familiar. How Aurora could smell in ghost-form, she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she’d picked up on any other scents in the room, and she’d been here a while.
She did her best to look non-threatening.
The woman closed her eyes, muttering, “No. It can’t be a ghost.” Then reopened them, her long lashes fluttering.
Aurora waved. “Obviously, you can see me, but if you can hear me, I’d appreciate you letting me—”
The woman screamed and launched forward, crashing through Aurora and filling her ghostly body with electric tingles.
Aurora spun in time to see the woman fumbling with the door.
“Wait!” Aurora yelled, swooping forward.
The door slammed in her face, and she crashed into it.
“Fuck!” Aurora pounded her translucent fists against the door, but she still didn’t know if the woman could hear her.
Running footsteps pattered away, the sound growing faint. Aurora stilled and strained to listen. A few moments later, there was the distant sound of a slamming door.
“Satan damn you.” Aurora kicked the door, the muted ache in her ghostly toe adding to her ire.
When it was clear no one was returning in a hurry, Aurora faced the room. Her prison. The woman had left the light on. Aurora hadn’t noticed it being dark before. It seemed ghosts could see pretty well regardless.
Okay. This wasn’t all bad. Aurora had never seen that woman before in her life, and hadn’t gotten a good look out the door, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
Surely someone would return.
Wherever Aurora was, it wasn’t abandoned. She’d wait and do a better job of not scaring the next person who came by.
Aurora settled on the desk, and time stretched agonizingly slow.
With no windows, she couldn’t count how many days had passed since she’d arrived, and she didn’t seem to experience fatigue in this form. It warped her perception. Minutes and hours all felt the same.
Fuck, she had to get out of here.
Sometime later, a thought occurred. Was it possible to make herself invisible so the next person didn’t run off so quickly?
Strictly speaking, a witch couldn’t create an illusion strong enough to render themself invisible, but Aurora was in uncharted territory here.
She had no sense of her magic and couldn’t cast spells.
All her active power must’ve still been running through her blood in her body, meaning she’d miscalculated when putting this spell together…
But perhaps there was another way to harness the magic in her soul.
Even if she couldn’t access her usual abilities, magic ruled her existence in this form. A soul was pure magic. How else could she speak, hear, and feel with no vocal cords, ears, or nerves? Even if the jury was out on whether she could be heard by others, she could be seen.
But what if she simply didn’t want to be seen?
Raising a hand in front of her face, Aurora told herself to be invisible. Nothing happened. She scowled and tried again, meditating on the idea of going unnoticed. Willing her presence to be missed.
She opened her eyes, and her hand was gone.
Aurora wiggled her finger and saw nothing. She brought her hand to her nose, feeling along her face, but still didn’t see anything in front of her.
It was thrilling. Aurora knew the bounds of her magic better than almost anything, and to discover something new, something completely outside the realm of what she’d believed possible, made her wonder what else she could do.
The echo of a closing door sounded in the distance.
Aurora jolted, her hand flickering into view. She drifted to the corner of the room and willed herself to go unnoticed, tingles of anticipation twisting inside her.
Footsteps sounded outside. There was a pause, then the handle turned.
The door flung open and crashed into the wall.
The same woman with dark brown hair appeared in the doorway. Her eyes narrowed, and she scanned the room.
She huffed. “There’s nothing here.”
She didn’t sound entirely confident, but Aurora wasn’t about to reveal herself. With another look around, the woman shut the door and stepped farther into the office.
It was annoying that she hadn’t left it open. Oh well. She’d have to leave eventually, and Aurora would sneak out with her.
Mystery-woman tucked her hair behind her ears, opened a filing cabinet, and rifled through a few folders, a frown tugging at her soft pink lips. With a sigh, she closed the cabinet and sat behind the desk to turn on the computer, typing in the password written on a sticky note stuck to the monitor.
The woman’s brow furrowed as she scanned the computer screen.
If Aurora had to guess, whoever-she-was was in her mid-twenties, same as Aurora. Reflexively, Aurora scanned her for magic, but without direct access to her own power, the detection spell didn’t work.
How frustrating. Aurora had no clue if this woman was a witch, vampire, or human.
As the mystery woman clicked around on the computer, Aurora drifted out of her corner. Unnoticed, she hovered behind her companion’s shoulder and snooped on the screen.
Eww. Spreadsheets.
The file window closed, revealing a picture of the Spotlight Theater as the desktop background.
Aurora’s invisible skin prickled. Was that where she was?
It almost made sense.
No wonder no one had been around while she’d moldered away in this office for Satan knew how long. Susan Lockwood had passed away, and Aurora had heard the theater was closed while the coven grieved.
Aurora had met the Lockwood Coven leader once, when Susan had officially invited her to join.
Of course, Susan’s death had delayed Aurora accepting, but she hadn’t wanted to bother any of her friends about coven membership when their loss was fresh.
It wasn’t like the offer would disappear once the witches had selected a new leader, and Aurora couldn’t officially join until she’d left her coven.
She’d been busy trying to gather the courage to sever her earthly ties, arguing with her friends about there being no other way.
Something about the Lockwood Coven’s offer to join their ranks must have drawn her soul. Hopefully, it was a sign she was on the right track. On a path to the better life she’d always dreamed of.
A surge of hope filled Aurora, and she drifted higher into the air. It was too bad one of her friends hadn’t walked in and found her.
Wait. If this mystery woman was part of the Lockwood Coven, why had she been so scared?
Souls didn’t leave their bodies and linger in this realm, but most witches and vampires would be curious about a ghost’s existence rather than terrified.
Was this lady human? An unaware human?
Whoever she was, she seemed intent on going through every single file on the computer. If Aurora weren’t worried about scaring her off, she’d have told her to hurry up.
When the computer files were exhausted, the woman started flipping through each logbook in the desk.
What was she looking for?
The woman froze, page mid-turn, and slowly looked over her shoulder.
Fear lit her dark brown eyes, but she didn’t look at Aurora.
Her gaze landed to the left. Could she feel Aurora watching?
Slowly, she returned to the logbook. Instead of continuing to flip through it, she closed it and stacked the others on top.
Aurora zipped over to the door.
As soon as the woman opened it, logbooks bundled under her arm, Aurora shot out of the room.
She was indeed in the Spotlight Theater. Aurora didn’t stop to take it in as she zoomed down the stairs, stopping short at the closed front doors.
Damn.
Aurora waited impatiently for the mystery woman to join her.
She appeared, unlocked and opened the door, and Aurora shot forward.
A strong tug took hold of her midsection, and she halted in mid-air, right on the threshold.
“What the fuck!” Aurora struggled forward to no avail. What was keeping her here?
A shrill scream pierced Aurora’s ears.
Seemed she wasn’t invisible any longer. But that wasn’t her biggest concern. Was there a boundary spell sealing off the building? Why couldn’t she leave?
Aurora gave in and screamed.
“Oh my god, please don’t hurt me.”
Aurora spun around. The woman backed away, looking almost ill with fear, logbooks falling to the floor as her hands trembled.
“Hey.” Aurora raised her hands in surrender. “I won’t hurt you. I need your help.”
The woman swallowed, and her next words were soft. “My—my help?”
Aurora smiled. “So you can hear me.”
The woman’s face closed off, hardening into a steel barrier. “You’re my hallucination. Of course I can hear you.”
Aurora floated slightly closer. “I’m not a hallucination. I’m real. Please, I need you to tell the Lockwood Coven that Aurora Thornfield is trapped here.”
“The Lockwood Coven?” The woman let out a bitter laugh. “Is that where the idea for this stupid vision came from? One lawyer blabs about witches, and I lose my mind?” She frowned. “Oh god, what if I’ve passed out and this is a new symptom?”
Aurora had no clue what she was talking about. “You aren’t passed out. You’re talking to me right now. Please. You have to help me.”
“No. I need help.”
If this woman thought she was talking to an imaginary person, this would go nowhere. Aurora changed tactics. “Maybe I can help you. What’s your name?”
She hesitated for a long moment, a lock of hair falling into her face, but she didn’t brush it aside. “Gia,” she said at last.
Aurora liked the name, short and punchy. “Nice to meet you. I’m Aurora.”
“Um…hi?” Gia’s lips twitched, and she almost smiled.
“Hi.” Aurora floated closer, and Gia didn’t retreat.
Their eyes locked, and a tingle vibrated through Aurora’s soul. When she wasn’t scared out of her mind, Gia’s delicate face was as sweet as her scent.
The moment passed too quickly, and Gia closed her eyes, making a helpless sound. “Ghosts aren’t real. Covens aren’t real. Witches aren’t real.” She fixed Aurora with a glare. “You aren’t real.”
So Gia was a human, unaware of the magic world. But then… “If witches aren’t real, how do you know the Lockwood Coven?”
Gia’s expression darkened, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the only logbook she hadn’t dropped. “Knowing someone in a cult doesn’t make witches real. How can you be real? I can see through you.”
Aurora’s frustration flared, or maybe it was something darker. “If I’m not real, why are you talking to me?”
Gia seemed to deflate, and she averted her eyes. “I don’t know. So I don’t have to be alone.”
Aurora’s phantom heart clenched. “Funny. I don’t want to be alone either.”
There was a long silence, but Aurora couldn’t think of a single thing to say. All the hopelessness she’d felt the night she’d lain down in the dirt to take this risky stab at freedom swelled within her.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.” Gia skirted around Aurora. “God, why am I explaining myself? You aren’t even really here.”
“No, wait!” Aurora followed her to the door, but Gia didn’t stop as she hurried out.
Aurora couldn’t pass the threshold, the tugging sensation holding her firmly in place. “Please tell the Lockwood Coven I’m here!”
The door shut and the lock clicked. Aurora was alone.