The only other funeral I'd been to was my grandmother's.
It had been a one day affair, with people who knew Grandma Marie coming to view her remains the night before, then a service and interment in the morning, followed by lunch with family and close friends.
In contrast, Grace Alfonso's wake was a week long. At least that’s what Brother Allan—the leader of the Deliverance Team that helped us two years ago—told Lana, Migs, Father Nimoy and myself when we arrived in the funeral parlor that Thursday afternoon.
He was there with other members of their church group. They’d visited and prayed with the family for two days now, and they planned to attend the actual burial that weekend.
As Brother Allan introduced Father Nimoy to the Alfonso family, I stayed between Lana and Migs and looked around.
Grace’s casket was closed.
A large framed picture of her was perched on an easel that stood just beside her casket, and all around me I could see and hear very similar questions in people’s minds: What happened? Why won’t the family let us see Grace? What really caused her death?
“Are you alright, child?” Father Nimoy asked me, his hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him with a small smile. “Yes, Father. I can still handle it.”
He’d asked me the same thing repeatedly on the phone when we’d planned this trip to attend Grace’s wake. He wanted to know if I felt strong enough for all the filtering I’d need to protect myself from all that grief... and if I felt ready enough for the possibility of encountering any energy Grace left behind.
I knew, of course, that by myself I couldn’t really do it. But if Father Nimoy and Lana were going to be there to pray and have their bubble of protection around me, and if Migs was going to be there to catch any thoughts I couldn’t communicate verbally, then I knew things would be manageable.
Besides, I had to do this.
My dream felt more than a dream now, and if that was the case then it meant there was something Grace wanted to tell me, wanted to warn me about. And even though it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to look forward to, I knew I had to come here on the off chance that her energy was here.
Maybe out here in the real world, her energy could give me the information she wanted me to know.
Father Nimoy nodded and returned to talking with members of Grace’s family. Lana came up to me and squeezed my hand.
“So how’s your summer so far?” she asked cheerily, but not too loudly.
Her hair was up in a ponytail, and her usually fair skin had grown a bit more tan, looking wonderful against her plain white shirt. Lana had mentioned she’d been doing outreach missions with Father Nimoy and her group over the past week in the province, and it included doing a lot of storytelling with local kids under the shade of large trees.
In fact they’d just returned to Manila that morning, which is why I had to hitch a ride with Migs so we could meet up with them here.
I shrugged. “Stayed home a lot,” I whispered, as we sat together on vacant chairs two rows away from the casket. “Maybe it’d be another year before we go back to a beach again.”
Lana smiled her pixie smile. She leaned towards me, and in an even lower whisper she said: “I heard you and Migs have been spending a lot of time together.”
At almost the same time Lana and I glanced back at Migs, who at that moment was sitting two rows behind us and being chatted up by a teenage girl with a shirt that said “Youth On Fire” on the front. It looked like a friendly enough conversation, even though it seemed to me that Migs was more interested in finishing off his sandwich and juice.
“Did Migs tell you that?” I asked Lana, as we both turned away from the scene.
“Nope.” She grinned. “Aris texted me something about it. He said Migs was spending more time with you than he was with him.”
“Tell Aris he doesn’t need to get jealous,” I whispered, feeling the smile on my face even before I realized I felt like smiling. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Oh, he’s not jealous. He actually only told me about it so he could convince me to spend more time with him.”
I looked at Lana for a moment, then decided to tell her: “Aris always liked you.” She smiled. “You think so?”
I wanted to tell her I know so, then back it up with the many thoughts I heard Aris think about when it came to her, even during those brief moments I was around him. But all I told Lana was, “Yeah.”
Her smile grew wider. Then she leaned towards me again and whispered, “I think Migs likes you, too.”
I glanced back at Migs again—this time he and the girl were at the food table, and Migs was helping himself to a plate of pasta—and wondered if Lana was right.
Because she couldn’t hear people’s thoughts like I could, and while I actually had proof that Aris liked her, I had absolutely no idea what was really going on in Migs’ head.
Because when it came to Migs, I’d found that the very same thing that I'd always appreciated about him was now the very same thing that annoyed me the most about him.
And I didn't even know what to call “it.”
I do remember the very first time I sensed it: two years ago, inside our university’s chapel. I'd been sitting there in shock, having just heard the most emotionally traumatizing sounds I’d ever heard in my life, when Migs found me.
He didn't ask me stupid questions like "What happened?" or "What's going on?"
He just sat beside me, asked me if I was okay, then gently yet nonchalantly wiped the tears from my face, as he talked about the video evidence he'd wanted to capture but didn’t.
He didn't make a big deal out of it, never even mentioned it. And for that I was always grateful to him.
But now when it came to the way he felt about me, he was doing the exact same thing. We'd share the most incredible connection to the point where we could read each other's minds, but he’d never bother to ask the important question of "What's happening?"
Now and again he'd tell me things that would make my heart stop, sweet things that made me believe that maybe I was actually special to him. But then he'd never say anything more beyond that, never bring up the all important topic of "What's going on?"
He never makes a big deal out of it, never even mentions it. And so there were moments when I wanted to strangle him.
Samantha, she called out to me, her voice faint.
I looked up and saw her standing in front of her casket, standing right beside the large frame with her picture on it.
Grace wore the same dress she had on in her picture, and wore her hair the same way: in loose waves down to her shoulders. The only difference was that her eyes were gone, and from those empty sockets dripped dark red blood.
She took a step towards me.
I knew it was Grace, and I knew she didn’t want to harm me. But her empty eyes unnerved me, and I shuddered as I squeezed Lana’s hand.
“Is something wrong?” Lana asked quietly, turning to look at where I was staring. “Do you see something?”
I’d never really told Lana about my abilities, but she’d been hanging around me long enough to know that I sometimes had… strange experiences.
Grace took another step closer; she now stood just in front of the first row of chairs.
Samantha, she said again, her voice hollow, as if coming from the ground. She paused.
Her mouth quivered; she seemed to be struggling with what she wanted to say next.
He’s after you, she said finally, urgently. Protect yourself… He’s after you.
And with that she disappeared.