Chapter 5
The gray world was less jarring this time. It felt almost natural to float above the men, to turn in place and drink in the beauty of the gray skies. The gray ribbon. The stream of lights now stretching further into the distance.
I wondered where each of those cars was hoping to go. What urgent business they were heading to. What chores and tasks and duties they felt were so critical. Did they know how fleeting life was? How precious every moment was? How so much of what they raced for and struggled for was meaningless?
I would give everything I owned – every last earring and commemorative shot glass – for one more day with my sister.
Just one more day.
Mike was compressing my chest again, shouting something at Jordan, and the cop was staring between the two of them in helpless immobility. All of their attention was on the husk of me which lay on the soaked ground.
But the real me was floating above them.
I tried to look at myself. I was translucent, perhaps a shimmer of gold-white, but it was more like I was an energy ripple than a solid object. I did have a roughly Sarah-shaped form. I wondered if that was some sort of a residual shape I took out of familiarity.
I smiled. If Mary had been here, she would have been thrilled. Ecstatic. Over the moon. She would have finally been able to prove what she had felt since she was tiny.
That life was more than this fragile shell we temporarily occupied.
I thought again of Mary, standing before me on the rain-soaked road, and my brow creased. Or at least it felt like it did. I wondered again if these were all just residual feelings built up over years and years of habit. But, in any case, I wondered if Mary had done this for a reason. Given me the opportunity to cross over. Not because she wanted me to die – I couldn’t imagine that of Mary. But because she wanted me to … to …
My eyes landed again on the crab-dent.
Because she wanted me to prove to the world that she was right.
The truth of it filled me.
She had always said she had a sixth sense. That she knew when things would happen. That she sensed things from far away. She told me that we had this ability because our mother had died in childbirth. Because we’d grasped at life while hers had slipped away.
I was the more logical of us two. I’d always told Mary she was imagining things.
Her retort, tried and true, was that, as twins, we must both have these powers. Therefore I was deliberately squelching mine.
Well, they weren’t being squelched now.
I looked around. If I were to come back with more proof of my leaving the body, it’d have to be something other than that ambulance roof. Something new.
But what?
The pair of cruisers blocking the road blinked in steady sequence and I drifted toward them. There was a cop, young, lean, sitting in the driver’s seat of his cruiser. As I approached I could see that his face was pale green. He kept glancing nervously back at the wreckage. I wondered if this was his first real accident.
I closed in on him and looked at the badge number on his shield.
4897.
I repeated the number back to myself. 4897. 4897. I kept repeating it as I floated back toward the mangled remains of my car. Back down to the mangled remains of my body which Mike was compressing … compressing …
I eased in.
Coughing, coughing, and Mike sat back again, his breath coming out of him in long heaves. His voice was a guttural growl. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
I laughed, as best I could through the coughing. “My father used to say that.”
“I hope to God you never put your father through this.”
I gave a wry smile. I wheezed, “My sister and I weren’t the quiet types, if that’s what you mean.”
He put a finger to my neck for a long moment and at last nodded. He bent back down to my leg, muttering, “If your sister was anything like you –”
The cop’s badge sprang back into my mind. “4897! 4897!”
Mike barely glanced up. “What’s that?”
Abe stepped over, his brow creased. “That’s my partner’s badge number.” His face paled. “Hey, lady, did you have some sort of a … a vision?”
I shook my head. “No, when I was out of my body I went over and looked at his badge. To prove I was really out of my body! There’s no way I could have seen it from here, right?”
His small eyes creased. “Maybe you heard someone say it over the radio.”
I barked a laugh. Do you guys always recite your badge numbers over the radio? You have that camera recorder thingie on you. Play it back later. I didn’t hear the number. There’s no way I could have known the number. The only way I could have known was if I left my body and went to see it.”
Jordan blew out his breath. He was doing something to my arm, which I now saw was bent at an unusual angle. “Saw it with what? Your eyes are here in your head. How could you see anything if you really left your body?”
“Sharks have their Ampullae of Lorenzini,” I retorted, my love of all things swimming coming to my rescue. “Scientists used to be baffled by how sharks could find their prey. They had no idea that sharks could sense electrical currents in the water. Even tiny signals.”
I shrugged. “Who knows what kinds of sensors a spirit has? Heck, maybe our human body is just a rough shell with flawed equipment. We know that some fish can see ultraviolet light – we humans can’t do that! Some fish can smell blood at the tiny level of one part per million. And they can sense pressure! Think of all the things our human bodies miss out on. The spirit, freed of that, might be open to a myriad of sensations.”
Jordan’s lips drew down. “I just don’t think that –”
I pressed up. “But I just proved to you –”
Mike shot Jordan a look, then gave a final tug on my leg bandages before looking up to me. “You’re not dying a third time to prove it. We’re getting you in the ambulance and to the hospital.”
He moved to my head, and Jordan took a place at my feet. They lifted. I realized that there must have been a stretcher beneath the blue fabric, because somehow I rose into the air and was carried over into the vehicle. A few adjustments and I was locked into place.
Abe’s voice rose from behind us. “Do you think she’s right? Did she really leave her body?”
Mike jumped down to gather up his gear and tossed it into the back. “Talk to you later, Abe.” He slammed the doors shut, sealing us in.
There was a creak as Jordan climbed into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see him from where I lay – my head faced the back window. The door slammed shut and Jordan called out, “Twenty minutes.”
“Make it a fast twenty,” replied Mike, and the vehicle kicked into motion.
I gave him a wry smile. “At least there’s no traffic on the road south.”
He shook his head, his gaze flicking to mine as he worked on my injuries. “Never heard that one before.”
I shrugged. “My first time nearly dying.” I thought back. “Well, wait, maybe that’s not true. There was this time my sister dared me to swim out to the rocks down at Jamestown … oh wait, and then there was the other time we were breaststroke-racing up off of Old Orchard Beach -”
Mike chuckled. “You aren’t the quiet type, I see.”
I thought of my routine. Go to the bank. Sit at a desk all day. Go home. Sit on the couch. Waiting … waiting …
My voice dropped. “Well, we weren’t. Before she passed.”
His eyes came back to mine again. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
That moment on the road came back to me again, with her eyes holding mine.
I looked up at Mike. “I’m telling the truth, you know. I really did leave my body. Twice.”
His gaze softened. “I know you believe it happened.”
His hand took mine.
Sweet Jesus.
It was as if I’d plugged into an outlet of golden serenity. Rich calm flowed into me from him, seasoned w
ith sparkling points of energy. I could almost see it, a river between us, and it lifted me … lifted me …
I looked up into his eyes. “Swear to me you won’t let go. Just until I get back.”
His brow creased. “Get back from wh –”
I gently slipped up and out.
It was easier, now that I’d done it twice, and I peered at my body in cautious anticipation. It didn’t jerk or flail. My chest still rose and fell. But my eyes glazed as if I’d lost consciousness.
Which I had.
Mike leaned forward in sharp concern. “Sarah?”
I had to be quick. I had a sense the moment he let go of my hand that my energy would fade. I might disconnect from my body. I might lose my way back. I had no idea how any of this worked and I wasn’t taking any chances.
I darted through the front wall into the passenger cab, glanced at the mileage counter, and then flew back to dive into my body. My hand tightened on Mike’s just as his fingers began slipping free.
I snapped, “I told you not to let go!”
He stared down at me. “What just happened?”
I called forward to Jordan, “46,295.”
Jordan yelled, “What’s that?”
“Your mileage.”
Silence. Just the noise of the windshield wipers going swish-swish-swish and the steady thrum of tires on the pavement. Apparently there wasn’t enough traffic to warrant the sirens.
Mike lifted his head to look forward. “Jordan, did you hear –”
Jordan’s voice was less steady. “Yeah, yeah. She’s – uh – right. That’s the mileage.”
I smiled. “There’s no way I could have known that, right?”
Mike’s face was a kaleidoscope of emotions. “But maybe you –”
“Hold onto my hand,” I told him. “This time I mean it.”
He nodded and settled his grip more securely on mine.
I lifted.
It was almost fun now. I gently twisted and turned in three dimensions. Almost like I had when my car was tumbling-tumbling-tumbling along the highway. I was free of gravity and limbs and bones and sinews. It was almost like being underwater, only better. For I didn’t have to come up for air.
I glanced down at my body, lying in its broken, mangled state. Perhaps returning to that was like coming up for air. Or was it? Was being in that body the being underwater, biding the time until one returned to their natural state? To where existing was not prone to a time limit?
Mike’s voice was low, rich with concern. “Sarah –”
I blinked back to awareness and went out to the passenger cockpit again. There was a paperback novel lying on the passenger seat. I glanced at its cover and then returned to the main compartment. I slipped into my body.
Mike’s breath eased out of him and he gave my hand a squeeze. “You’re back, I see.”
I nodded. “Slave Graves, by Thomas Hollyday.”
Jordan called back, “I’m reading that. It’s a murder mystery set in the Chesapeake Bay. Interesting characters.”
I looked up at Mike. “How bad are my injuries. Tell me straight.”
His fingers twined into mine. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. And I think there’s internal damage. They’ll have to open you up. Your chances … it depends on how extensive it is.”
He looked down my body. “The rest of you? Probably a few broken bones, but those can heal.” His face shadowed. “It’ll come down to how bad it is inside.”
I nodded. “Then we have to make use of every second we have, in case I don’t make it off the table. Call down to the hospital. Have them contact Brown and get their head of their psychiatry department down there. We have the cop’s video-cam and – do you have a webcam in here?”
He pointed to a blinking light in the top right corner of the space.
Strength grew within me. “All right. You get the Brown professor there waiting for us at the gate. Able to join us in surgery. In the meantime, us three will do as much testing as we can until we make it there. Deal?”
His brow creased. “I’m not sure that –”
I made as if I was going to detach my fingers from his. “Or I could just go on trying to do it without –”
His fingers closed in firmly on mine; his gaze locked on me. “All right. You need to let me do my job – to monitor your vitals and patch what I can. But I’ll help however I’m able to, with your tests. We’ll do it together.”
I smiled.
“I thought you’d say that.”
I prepared to lift –
A sharp, chill wind blew through me. Through my very soul; into my very bones. It seared places that had never known cold before.
Mike’s hand closed tight on mine, his voice rich with concern. “Sarah?”
Darkness.
Thank you for reading Stepping Outside Oneself. Book 2 in this series is Becoming Awake!
https://www.lisashea.com/paranormaloutofbody/becomingawake/
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Dedication
To Ruth, who inspires me daily.
To George and Bob, who encourage me in all my dreams.
To Sam, Peggy, Tom, Mike, Amy, Sara, Gillian, Molly, Margaret, Liwen, Rob, Cynthia, Helen, Michael, and AnnMarie who all provided valuable feedback.
And, most of all, to my loyal fans who continue to encourage me in the cause. Whether you’re on GoodReads, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or my blog, together we help make the world a better place!
About the Author
Lisa has lived in Massachusetts for over twenty years. This is the landscape of the Salem Witch Trials and the ghosts of the Mohicans. Its mossy forests and wooded glens sing with whispers of the past.
Lisa was in a quite similar crash in her early twenties, on that same stretch of 95, and was saved from going over the cliff by running into a parked flatbed. Luckily her injuries were not nearly as extensive as this heroine’s.
A portion of all author’s proceeds benefit battered women’s shelters.
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