The next morning, Pan knew she needed to do two things: talk to Celin’s ghost and research the reaper family tree.

As Pan got breakfast, she thought about the familial connection. She had no family connections to the original reapers. Pan came from a small group of unknown individuals, who lived and died in silence. So, if Pan wasn’t related to the original reapers, why assume the deceased reapers were?

If they even were reapers. Pan wasn’t sure. She rubbed her forehead. Maybe, she saw something that wasn’t there. She needed to talk to Celin or one of the other dead children – though she couldn’t assume any of them were ghosts.

“Hi.” Aria joined the table. She set her plate down and banged it on the edge of Pan’s. “Sorry.” Aria sat and almost missed the mark.

“What is up with you?” Pan said.

“I was about to ask you the same. You’re blazing like the sun.” Aria looked in the other direction.

Pan narrowed her eyes. “What color am I?”

Aria still turned away. “Bright blue, a bit of yellow, and a lot of lavender. What are you planning?”

Pan sighed. “It’s not important.”

“Okay, we don’t have to talk about it, but by chance, does it have anything to do with how you almost died during an encounter with a spirit at the hospital?” Aria picked up her fork. “I was really worried.”

 Pan shook her head. “It was nothing.”

She started to think she should play it off as a traumatizing experience. She could feign pain and never talk about it again. That would leave Sotir’s prediction in a place of finality.

“Did you draw it?”

Pan startled. “What?”

“Did you draw the thing you saw?” Aria paused and looked down at her food.

Pan shook her head. “I didn’t draw it.”

A long pause followed.

Aria said, “Listen, a group of us are going on a short hike. You have nothing today, right? You should come.” Aria still wouldn’t look at Pan.

Pan wished she could control her aura and spare Aria some eye strain. Still, if they weren’t going to look at each other, Pan might as well avert her eyes. She looked into her cereal. “Actually, I have to go back to the hospital.”

Aria went quiet and slack-jawed. “You...have to go...back?” Aria put down her fork. “But, the mentors said you had no jobs for today.”

Pan hid her surprise at Aria’s initiative. Asking the mentors for Pan’s schedule? Best not to lie. “I don’t have work. Someone new came on the ward, and I want to visit.”

Arcanes were always allowed, even encouraged, to visit new additions to their ranks.

Aria took a moment to think. “That’s a bit unlike you.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to go on the ward if I didn’t know whether the person would live or die. Then again, very few of us die these days.”

Pan had no answer for the sentiment. She needed to go to the hospital and find Celin’s ghost, or even better, the ghost of another suspected reaper. She might as well drop in and see the patient too.

“Pan, can’t you go later? Hike with us in the morning, and then, we could all visit the hospital together in the afternoon.” Aria finally looked at Pan. Her eyes moved rapidly.

Pan shook her head. “I want to go alone. How about I go to the ward, you hike, and we’ll meet each other by the strip, where the fancy stores are?”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “Alright. That works, but what should I tell Sotir?”

“Excuse me?”

“He sent me a message asking to get in touch with you. Apparently, you haven’t answered the messages he sent you. He says he has trouble seeing your future. Of course, it doesn’t help that he’s spending time off and on in orbit.” Aria reached for Pan. “Doesn’t that worry you? That he can’t tell your future?”

“A bit. I’m more worried about how much he’s calling me.” Pan feared that she colored at the thought.

Aria’s eyes got wide. “Oh, I know. I was starting to think you liked it.” Aria went quiet and watched Pan. “Oh, you do.” Aria shook her head.

“Never mind that.” Pan pointed up. “He’s too far to get a good read, so I’m not surprised he still can’t see me. Besides, he has no business looking at my future. Tell him to stop.” Pan plucked her water glass from the table and got up. “Better yet, tell him to focus on his colony project.”

“Well, I’ll tell him on the hike.” Aria looked up at Pan. “But, don’t be surprised if he joins us this afternoon.”

Pan’s heart skipped a beat. “What? But, he’s in space. He can’t hike from there.”

“It’s intense work,” Aria said. “He works for a day. Then, he gets a break.”

“He can’t come to our meeting.” Pan shook her head.

“Why, Pan? I thought you were fond of him.” Aria looked tired, so tired. “Look, if you’re worried about him telling you scary things, don’t be. After strenuous work, he has a day without his powers. That’s why we’re going to take advantage of it and get him on a hike. It’s good for him.” Aria frowned. “Then again, maybe you two should stay away from each other.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Pan said.

“No, it doesn’t. It’s the other way around.” Aria regarded Pan with narrowed eyes. “Against my better judgement, I’m going to bring him to the shopping strip. He’s really worried about you, and frankly, I want him to explain his vision more. I can’t wait till he can actually read you again.”

“I can.” Pan stepped away from the table.

Aria grabbed her arm. “Yesterday, you couldn’t keep the damning colors out of your aura. They’re still there. Why lie?” Aria raised her eyebrows.

Pan stuttered. “I have no control of my aura.”

“Right. But you can control other things.” Aria let her words hang in the air.

“Oh, stay out of it.” Pan shot Aria a look of frustration.

“I’m not going to let you make a big mistake,” Aria said.

“Then, let me get some distance from him.” Pan put a hand to her heart. “Here I am trying to spend some time away, and you’ve invited him along to our shopping trip.”

Aria bit her lower lip. “I don’t know what you’re trying to get from him, but I don’t think it’s distance.”

“I’ll see you later. You and Sotir. I’ll meet you at 13:00.” Pan started away.

Aria watched her go but said nothing.

Pan exited the cafeteria through the back, walked a short hall, and slipped out a side exit. She hurried her way to the street. The mentors trusted her little after her forgotten check-in, and Pan didn’t need any more of their guidance this morning.

Now, Pan also had to worry about Sotir. He seemed determined to get the truth. She wondered if he pursued all his visions with this kind of fervor, and she worried he would find the truth too easy. If she couldn’t stop him, he would look deeper. He’d see her past. He’d see her future, and he would know.

 

Pan put a net over her hair and prepared to step into a sterilizer. She’d never been to the arcane ward during an active illness, aside from her own. Apparently, the doctors and nurses took quite a few precautions to prevent infection, just one more thing to ease the struggle for survival.

“You can visit for up to one hour,” a nurse informed Pan. “He might be asleep. He seemed close about fifteen minutes ago. You’re welcome to sit by him but don’t wake him. And, if he doesn’t wake in time, you’ll need to leave.”

Pan nodded. She peered through the plastic that blocked the boy’s doorway. “I don’t remember this part from when I was here.”

“It’s new. In the last five years, we’ve begun to keep the rooms sterile for the first week of illness. Then, we transition them to normal rooms. Soon, we’ll build a special intensive care room at the end of the ward. All of this will be built in.” The nurse gestured to the sterilizer equipment that squeezed between the hall and the boy’s door.

Pan looked it over. She stepped into the sterilizer and closed her eyes. She got blasted with a mist. Pan dubbed it the anti-mist: anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-viral. Thankfully, it wasn’t anti-Pan. Or, anti-reaper. They were one and the same.

Pan entered the boy’s room. She found herself in a dim space, tinted in blue. No windows graced the walls, but two screens showed mock views of the outside. At the moment, they displayed a view of space. Pan smiled. How impossible.

Metal equipment and cabinets lined one wall. On another, she saw the bed and the boy. Wires ran from one large machine to his head, face, and chest.

Pan looked away. When she got sick, she didn’t remember having any of this. How were they supposed to have a visit with him in this state?

Lucky for Pan, the boy slept. Probably lucky for him too. Now, Pan just had to find her ghost in the hour that she spent on the ward.

Pan stalked further into the room and walked to the boy’s bedside. At first, she stared over him. Then, she forced herself to look down. He just breathed.

“Looks like they updated this place since I’ve been here. A lot changes in twelve years.” Pan looked at the machine and watched its monitor. “I guess they track your nerve function now. I didn’t get any of this. I don’t think I needed it.”

Pan looked at the boy again.

He still slept.

“Celin?” she called quietly. She didn’t raise her eyes. She stared at the sick boy. “What do you think of this new machine?”

Silence followed.

Pan looked up. To her surprise, someone stared back from the other side of the bed. It wasn’t Celin.

“He’s not going to make it. I can tell,” the ghost said. Her black eyes had tiny white pinpricks at the center. Like Celin, her arms and legs fizzled into nothingness. She had a distorted face, with no features quite where they should be. She looked a smidgen depraved.

Pan’s cheeks grew warm. She knit her brow. “Who are you to say whether or not he’ll make it?”

The ghost shook her head. “I can tell. You just have to believe me.”

Pan had one of the ghosts she wanted so desperately, and yet, she felt more like arguing over the boy’s survival.

“I can tell too, and I don’t agree.” Pan could feel the tug of death, but she wasn’t at all sure it would claim him.

The ghost reaper judged his life according to her time. In the ghost’s time, the boy would die. In Pan’s time, they would see.

The girl floated forward. She started to come around the bed, respecting the new arcane boy’s space.

“What’s your name?” Pan almost took a step back but held her ground.

The ghost girl stopped. “Zoi.” Zoi looked at the boy and cocked her head. She vibrated and resettled.

Pan preferred Celin.

But, Zoi was on her list, and she seemed every bit a reaper. Zoi reached a non-existent hand to touch the boy. The hand materialized and rested on his arm. Pan felt the same as Zoi: a compulsion to touch the boy. While Zoi’s dead touch would do little to harm him, Pan’s living touch might assure his death and take his power.

Pan resisted. With narrowed eyes, she regarded Zoi. “I’m collecting complaints against other arcanes. Serious accusations about their behaviors visiting the ward. Do you have any?”

Zoi vibrated in place. “Seems like they shouldn’t just let you older arcanes waltz in here.” Zoi began to hover around the bed again, slowly coming towards Pan.

Pan moved to the center of the room. She recognized Zoi’s tactic. Zoi wanted to cut off Pan’s escape, but now, Pan had the sterilizer and door at her back. Zoi remained ahead.

Zoi stopped. She hovered and vibrated. “I don’t really have a complaint. But, an arcane attacked me.”

Pan raised her eyebrows. “You got attacked by another arcane – in the ward – and you don’t have a complaint?”

Zoi smiled. Her teeth were present but not her tongue or gums. Nothing else filled her mouth. She’d forgotten her mouth should be more than darkness and teeth. “I was visiting someone else on the ward. She was about to die. I just wanted to touch her.”

Pan nodded.

Zoi went on. “I pretended to comfort her, but that’s not really what I was about. The other arcane knew.”

“So, he or she killed you?” Pan asked.

“Killed? Zoi floated a short distance from Pan.

Pan took a step back. “Sorry, I meant injured.”

Zoi vibrated. “Do you think it’s funny to joke about death? Did my uncle put you up to this? I’ve spent two weeks here, and I almost died. I want to leave!” Zoi’s voice changed in timbre, going lower. Her pinprick eyes flared red.

Pan didn’t wait for Zoi’s anger to worsen or subside. She ran through the sterilizer and exited the room. Once outside, she pulled off her hair net, ran down the hall, and tossed the net, along with her gown, to a nurse.

“Something wrong?” The nurse approached Pan.

Pan waved her off. “This is too much for me. I’m on my way out.”

Pan glanced back and saw Zoi float through the sterilizer. The lights dimmed; some more than others. Pan hoped that Zoi wouldn’t affect the boy’s machine.

The nurse looked up and paused. Her finger hovered over the button that would release Pan into the larger hospital.

Zoi floated down the hall; pinprick eyes set on Pan.

Pan wanted to bang the exit and beg to be let out. It figured she’d find it locked when the aggressive ghost followed her.

Pan stared at the nurse. “You’re having power troubles. You might as well let me out, so you can deal with the problem.”

“Right.” The nurse hit the button.

Pan slipped out. She walked some distance from the door. She turned and saw Zoi’s face at the ward window. Lights dimmed inside, but Pan found herself beyond Zoi’s reach. The ghost couldn’t leave the ward.

What a terrible place to be trapped. Pan stared back.

All this time, she’d avoided the ward and its parade of reapers. If she ever returned, would she find them all here? All five?

It didn’t matter. Pan didn’t need to return. She was sure. They were reapers. She’d found the other individuals that proved she was not a rare being.

Now, Pan could move forward with the game. And, what a game it was. She had to find the reapers’ murderer before Sotir discovered her secret. How to do it? How to set him off track?

Pan looked at the time. She had four hours before she would meet Aria. She wondered about the family tree and thought she might as well check. More importantly, Pan wanted to see who the active arcanes were at the time of all five deaths. It would be simpler to check the hospital’s visitor record, but Pan had no access to that. So, off to the library she went.