Limbo

RACHEL:

Everyone sort of freaks out when I walk into the dining room with Ashley, so they can obviously see me, which is progress. He manages to calm them down a bit, and tells them what happened last night, while they finish eating. After he gets done explaining, Susan asks to see the necklace, so he pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to her.

She looks it over, turning it in her hands a couple of times before handing it back. "It just looks creepy," she says. "Sorry, Rachel."

"You've got nothing to be sorry for, I've thought it was creepy since the first time I saw it. But since it seems to be the only thing that can help me communicate with anybody but Ashley, I'll deal with it for now."

"I think maybe we should do some experiments before we leave for the studio," Jinxx announces. "We need to see if we can figure out if there's any sort of limit to the range, or anything like that."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Ashley replies. "We can give it a try as soon as we finish eating."

So as soon as they get up from the table, they start testing things out, taking turns holding the necklace, and moving in and out of the different rooms. By doing this, they manage to figure out that whoever is in the same room with the necklace can see and hear me, but if they move to another room, they can't. Ashley is the only one who can see and talk to me even without it, and strangely, he can actually sort of feel me when he does have it. He says that I basically feel semisolid, kind of like he's touching a piece of paper or plastic wrap that's been laid over water, or moving air, but when he tries to actually hold onto my wrist or anything like that, he can't get an actual grip, because his hand actually goes right through me.

Once they finish with this, Bob reminds them that they need to get moving, so we all head for the living room, and they start going out the door and onto the porch. Ashley hangs back until everyone else is out, then turns to me and asks, "So, are you ready to give this a try?"

"Most definitely!" I tell him. Then I raise my voice slightly so the other guys can hear me, and add, "But don't freak out if I disappear or something when I walk through the door. Every other time I've tried, I can't get more than two or three steps onto the porch before I get rebounded into some room in the house."

"I think we can manage not to trip out," CC calls out. "Just give it a go, and see what happens!"

Ashley walks out onto the porch, and starts down the steps, so I very cautiously follow behind him. I step out the door and start walking across the porch, and by the time I get to the bottom of the steps, it's pretty clear that I'm not going to get sucked back into the house. I step onto actual grass for the first time in over a year, and the guys are all high-fiving each other and cheering, which makes me chuckle a bit.

As they all pile into the cars, I get into the seat behind Ashley and Jinxx, who's driving. I see both of them glance into the rearview mirror and then grin at each other, so I ask, "What's so amusing, guys?"

"I wouldn't say 'amusing', exactly," Jinxx says as he pulls out of the driveway. "It's just kind of cool."

"We were just looking at you, because this is the happiest you've been since we met you," Ashley adds. "That smile on your face when you stepped out into the yard was so bright it practically had wattage."

"Guys, you have no idea how much I've wanted to be able to leave that house," I inform them. "I did everything I possibly could to get away from there, just to end up permanently stuck. To be honest with you, when I first figured out that I couldn't leave, I was pretty well convinced that I'd gone to hell, because that's what I'd imagine it would be like, being stuck in the place that you hate the most."

"From what you told us the other day, I can see how it might seem that way," Jinxx observes. "But at least now we can get you out from time to time, so maybe that will help."

"Dude, just having people there to talk to helps. I just wish I could figure out why it happened in the first place. I mean, there has to be a reason, doesn't there?"

"Yeah, I'm sure there is, we just have to find it," Ashley chimes in. "That's what we're working on, remember? So hopefully it won't be very long before we have some sort of answers."
`
After a few minutes, we get to the studio, and Jinxx parks the car. The others arrive within a couple of minutes, and we all go inside. Bob heads for the control booth while the band gets their gear ready, and I tap Ashley on the arm. "I've never been in one of these places before. What exactly are you going to do? And how does it work?"

He sets his bass back in the stand and says, "Come on, I'll show you a bit before we get started." We walk toward the control room, where Bob is, and go inside. He looks up, sort of puzzled, and Ashley tells him, "Rachel's never seen a recording studio before, so I'm just giving her a quick tour before we get started."

"Fine by me, just don't touch any of the knobs, I have everything where I need it to be," Bob responds. "Hopefully." He points to the different gadgets and gives me a quick rundown of which knob or lever does what, and says that they're going to start off with having CC finish his drum track for a certain song, then have the others add their parts.

We go back out so Ashley can finish tuning up, and CC goes into the other room and sits down at the drum kit, and Andy tells me that he's doing the track for a song that's going to be called "Last Rites." He runs through it a couple of times, and Bob finally tells him that he's happy with one of them, so Ashley takes CC's place in the booth, and starts doing the bass line, which I'm impressed with, it has a definite groove to it.

I stand in the control room with Bob and watch them work on that song for awhile, then do bits of a couple more before they stop for lunch. We leave the studio, and they decide that they want Thai food, so we head to a restaurant a couple of blocks away. The hostess shows everybody to a table, they make their orders, and then chat while they wait. I'm standing off to the side a bit, partially behind a potted ficus, when a group of women walks past the table. As they pass, one of them stops and looks back, seeming to be a bit surprised, and I recognize her as one of our regular customers at the alteration shop.

"Doris, are you okay?" one of her friends asks, and she shakes her head, sort of like a dog shaking off water.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answers. "I just thought for a second that I saw somebody I used to know."

"Maybe you did, you should check it out," one of her friends says.

"No, I don't think that'll happen. The person I was referring to has been dead for over a year."

Ashley looks a little startled when he hears this, and instantly starts whispering to Jinxx. They start whispering to Andy, CC, Jake, and Bob, and start eating a bit faster. I wait for someone to tell me what's going on, and Jinxx glances at me and mouths, "Later, at the studio."

They finally pay for their lunch, go back to the cars, and drive back to the studio. We go inside, and I say, "Okay, guys, what's going on?"

Ashley takes a deep breath, and replies, "It's about what just happened at the restaurant. Nobody thought about it before, but apparently at least some other people can see you, so we're going to have to be careful about where you go. Since you grew up around the inn, and lived here in Edmonton with Sawyer, it's not impossible that you might come across somebody you knew. That could raise some rather awkward questions, don'tcha think?"

"Plus, it could be a problem if somebody from your dad's group happened to see you," Andy reminds me. "I mean, what kind of problems would that stir up?"

"The kind nobody wants to deal with," I sigh. "You're right, we're gonna have to be a little more selective about where I go, much as I hate to admit it. There's no way I want my father to find out that I'm still around, and especially not that I'm hanging out with you guys. That would put all of you in even more danger, and we don't want any repeats of what happened to Ashley. But that will be more of an issue around the house, since I grew up there. Even if he's not anywhere around, I knew just about everybody, since I grew up there, and it would be entirely too likely that somebody would talk about something like this. So I guess it's back to being stuck in the house."

Ashley reaches out and pats my shoulder. "It's okay, we'll just work out a system. We all saw how much it meant to you that you were able to go out, and I, for one, have no intention of letting things go back to square one. I think it should still be safe for you to come here, and we can probably walk around the property back at the B and B sometimes, we'll just have to be more careful about going into town and stuff like that."

Everyone agrees, and we decide to refine things tonight, back at the house. Then Bob says, "Okay, now that we have that settled, lets get back to work." So Jake and Jinxx grab their guitars, and I make myself comfortable on the edge of the control board, waiting for them to get going. I finally have a degree of freedom, and I want to enjoy as much of it as I can, before it gets restricted again. And as I wait for the music to start, I realize, yet again, that being dead really, really sucks.

Notes