Calliope: Life A.D. By Imani Wagner (Short Five)

Dive into the spirit world with Calliope and Ellie in the fifth short story in the Calliope series! - IW.

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"Ellie Marshall was a thirty-two-year-old retired elementary school teacher who had gone missing on the north side of Chicago just last month. Unfortunately, her body was found late last night in a self-storage facility located in Hyde Park. Police report that her body had been folded inside a sofa bed placed within the drive-up self-storage. The storage unit belonged to her husband, Delton Marshall, who is now in police custody." Ellie held my hand as we listened to the news reporter talk to us through the television. Her energy was more potent to me than it had ever been. An overwhelming feeling of relief passed over from her and infiltrated my own being. 

I was surprised by just how much I had grown fond of Ellie. She had changed so much since that first day. Her red hair was full and bouncy. It seemed brighter against the mistiness that her spirit had been made of. Her skin glowed without the bruises she had when she first came to me.

I had called Dr. Delvaux this morning, as she suggested. She sat on the other side of Ellie on the burnt sienna couch. Azrael rushed over early that morning, too, and had fallen asleep almost immediately in the green armchair. He had been up the remainder of the night dealing with the finding of Ellie's body and Delton's arrest. 

“So it’s over then?” Ellie looked at me with tears in her questioning eyes.

"Yes, Ellie. It's all over." I smiled in celebration of her. Her soul was beautiful, and she began to glow brighter with the peace that the news brought her.

“Well, not quite. There’s just one more thing to do,” Dr. Delvaux turned to face us. “Ellie, how do you feel right now?” 

"I'm not sure, exactly. I just feel…done, I think. Yeah, I feel like I've done everything I came here to do." I watched Ellie as she spoke. I could see her traveling inside of herself to find the answer to Delvaux's question. It was difficult for me to understand, but something was telling me that Ellie wasn't getting her answers from her own mind. I felt as though she was receiving direction from the same source that allowed me to understand this about her, from the same internal place that allowed me to connect with her. It was another indescribable, yet familiar feeling. 

"Calliope, Ellie has completed her life here on this earth. She's learned all that was necessary in this cycle, and now it's time for you to guide her to the place that comes afterward. For her to get there, you will have to allow her to pass through you," Dr. Delvaux was like a witchy-wizard helping me on the most unpredictable quest. 

“What, like heaven or something?” I hadn’t realized Azrael had woken up. He was cracking a joke, but Ellie and I looked to Delvaux as we awaited her answer. 

"You can call it that, but as far as I know, it's not like the heaven so many have grown up learning about. This place is just as peaceful, but much more complex, according to my understanding. I like to explain things as such: Earth is school, and this place is where you go to do your homework before school the next morning." Dr. Delvaux crossed her legs, as she always did. "Calliope, take both of Ellie's hands in your own." 

I did as she said. Ellie looked at me, tears filling up her eyes again until they spilled over and down her now rosy cheeks. "Calliope, thank you. Thank you so much. Despite the circumstances, I am so happy to have known you," Ellie said.

"Ellie, it was such a pleasure to have you as the first ghost I have ever helped, even though you scared the crap out of me that first night," I laughed in between emotional sniffles. For the first time since pulling that thread out of my ear, like Ellie, I too had found my own little corner of peace. 

“Close your eyes, ladies, but find each other in your mind's eye. Breathe deeply and slowly.” I followed Dr. Delvaux’s instructions. It was easy to see Ellie in my head. She had been there so many times. As she walked forward inside the impression of our minds, I realized all of the times I had seen her there before. After she came to me in the cafe, I would think of her face and see her so clearly behind shut eyes. She had shown herself to me the same way she was doing so now, but it wasn’t because of my own thoughts and spouts of overthinking. It was because she had been reaching out to me. Even when she didn’t appear right in front of me, she connected with me through the spirit world.

Time slowed down in such a way that made me feel like I was in the know of something big and great. Ellie was just the beginning, and as I opened my heart to her, I felt an awareness of my own soul. I could see myself walking toward the part of Ellie that was in this spirit world. I was made of the same dust-like mist that Ellie's ghost was. It was like watching myself from afar as I interacted with someone, while simultaneously experiencing the same interaction firsthand. It was a double perspective or view of some nature. 

Delvaux instructed Ellie and me to join hands in the spirit world as well to strengthen our link. Though I felt like I was somewhere else, I could hear Delvaux speaking to me, "Calliope, do you see it?" She wasn't specific about what she was asking, but I didn't need her to be. A bright opening formed above Ellie's head. It seemed to grow taller and higher until it was out of sight. I noticed it looked more like a wide luminous cord attaching itself to Ellie, without ever having touched her. It glimmered in the same way the sun did. It was curled in on itself in some areas, and elongated in others. Its light grew faint, then brighter again, like it was breathing. It was alive. 

Ellie jolted gently in front of me. "It's alright, Calliope," she said, smiling, "I think this is how I'm supposed to go. I feel like I'm being tugged upward. I don't completely understand yet, but I'm excited to get there." 

I squeezed her hands so that our palms were together. A sensation that felt like a thousand feathers washed over every surface of my body. The glowing cord unraveled and became taut as it tugged at Ellie's soul. As it pulled her upward, the misty particles of her spirit thawed into nothingness. All that was left behind was the remnants of her energy, full of warmth and love. 

I was there in the nihility of this consciousness that was an entire new world I was only then being introduced to. It appeared that I was alone, although it had not felt that way.

"Calliope," a woman's voice called out. I searched the void that surrounded me, turning from left to right until I was slowly spinning where I stood. "Calliope," the voice had said again. I turned around and came face-to-face with a tall, slender woman. Her black skin glistened, as did her teeth when she smiled at me. She hadn't said anything, but there was something in her eyes that I immediately found comfort in. I was not sure how, but I had seen her before. I stepped forward until I was directly in front of her. Her long frame towered over me as she brought her face closer to mine. 

“Calliope?” I asked her. Even though we didn’t quite look the same, I knew without a doubt that, in some ineffable way, she was me.