Chapter 7

The tabby cat purring in Rei's lap had been her favorite for months, though she'd never admitted it to the other volunteers. Mochi was elderly, missing half an ear, and had the kind of attitude that sent most potential adopters looking elsewhere. But something about his grumpy independence reminded Rei of herself.

"You're not going to find a home, are you?" she murmured, scratching behind his remaining ear. "Too old, too scarred, too set in your ways."

"He had a home once."

Rei froze. The voice had come from directly behind her, warm and maternal, but when she turned, the volunteer area was empty except for cats and their caretakers.

"I used to feed him every morning. Cream from a blue saucer, the good kind from the corner market."

This time Rei saw her—a translucent elderly woman standing beside the cat enclosures, her gentle eyes fixed on Mochi with unmistakable love.

"You're not real," Rei whispered, clutching the cat closer. "You're not real."

"Real enough to worry about him. Real enough to be grateful someone still shows him kindness." The woman smiled sadly. "Thank you, dear one. Thank you for taking care of my boy."

The spirit faded like morning mist, leaving Rei alone with her racing heart and a suddenly alert tabby cat. Mochi's yellow eyes tracked the empty space where the woman had been, and he let out a soft meow that sounded almost like recognition.

"This isn't happening," Rei said firmly, but her hands were shaking as she set Mochi back in his enclosure. "People don't see ghosts. People don't talk to dead people. This is just stress from finals."

But even as she tried to rationalize it away, Rei knew this wasn't the first time. There had been whispers in empty hallways, shadows that moved wrong, fleeting glimpses of people who couldn't possibly be there. She'd been dismissing them as imagination, fatigue, anything but what they actually were.

The walk home to her tiny studio apartment did nothing to calm her nerves. Every reflection in shop windows made her jump, every rustle of wind through leaves sounded like whispered words. By the time she reached her building, Rei felt ready to crawl out of her own skin.

Her apartment was small but meticulously clean, every surface carefully maintained despite the secondhand furniture and patched walls. Photographs covered her desk—mostly of her with Sephy's family, the only real family she'd ever known. Keith and Akira had taken her in when the state system had failed, not officially, but in every way that mattered. They'd fed her, clothed her, helped with homework, attended school events when her assigned caseworkers couldn't be bothered.

And Sephy... Sephy had given her something she'd never thought she'd have: a real friend. Someone who chose to spend time with her not out of pity or obligation, but because they genuinely enjoyed each other's company.

Rei was setting up her study materials when her phone buzzed with a text from Sephy: "Study session at 7? Dad's making his famous chocolate chip cookies."

Despite everything, Rei smiled. Keith's cookies were legendary among their friend group, though he pretended to be annoyed whenever teenagers invaded his kitchen. She texted back confirmation and tried to push thoughts of dead old ladies out of her mind.

Two hours later, she was sprawled across Sephy's bed while her best friend quizzed her on European history dates. The Keith house felt like a warm haven after her unsettling day, filled with the sounds of family life and the scent of baking cookies.

"1453," Rei said confidently. "Fall of Constantinople."

"Correct!" Sephy grinned, then paused as her mother's voice drifted up from downstairs. "Mom's watching the news again. She gets so worked up about tower politics."

"She should be worried. The barriers between worlds are weakening."

Rei's blood went cold. The voice had come from the corner of Sephy's room, where a middle-aged man in outdated clothing stood watching them with concerned eyes.

"Rei?" Sephy's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Who were you talking to?"

"I... what?" Rei realized she'd been staring at the empty corner, her mouth half-open to respond to someone only she could see.

"You just said something about barriers weakening. Are you feeling okay?" Sephy set down her quiz cards, genuine concern creasing her features.

"Oh! I was just... thinking out loud. About the tower, you know? All those dimensional floors." Rei forced a laugh that sounded brittle even to her own ears. "Sorry, my mind was wandering."

But Sephy's eyes remained worried. "You've been acting weird lately. Distracted. Are you sure nothing's bothering you?"

"Tell her. She would believe you."

Another voice, this one from a young woman perched on Sephy's windowsill. Rei bit her lip hard enough to taste blood, using the pain to anchor herself in reality.

"Just stressed about finals," she managed. "And the tower applications, and graduation, and... everything."

Sephy's expression softened. "You know you don't have to worry about the tower thing, right? Phoenix Academy accepted both of us. We're going together, just like we planned."

"Right. Together." But even as Rei smiled, she could see more spirits gathering in the room—translucent figures drawn by something she didn't understand. An elderly man by the bookshelf, a woman in a nurse's uniform near the door, others flickering in and out of visibility like poorly tuned television stations.

They were all looking at her with the same expression: desperate hope, as if she were the answer to prayers she didn't know they'd been making.

"Finally, someone who can hear us."

"Please, we've been trying to communicate for so long."

"There's something coming. Something dangerous."

"I need to use the bathroom," Rei said abruptly, scrambling off the bed.

"Sure, you know where it is." But Sephy's frown deepened as she watched her friend practically flee the room.

In the bathroom, Rei splashed cold water on her face and stared at her reflection in Keith's meticulously clean mirror. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her skin looked pale despite the warm evening.

"This isn't real," she told her reflection. "Ghosts aren't real. Dead people don't talk to living people. This is just stress, or maybe I need to eat better, or sleep more, or..."

"Denial won't make us disappear, child."

The bathroom mirror now showed not just her reflection, but also that of an ancient woman with kind eyes and flowing robes that seemed to move in non-existent wind.

"You have a gift. A rare and precious ability to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead. But gifts come with responsibilities."

"I don't want this gift!" Rei whispered fiercely. "I just want to be normal!"

"Normal people cannot hear the warnings we bring. Normal people cannot help when the barriers fail."

"What barriers? What are you talking about?"

But the spirit was already fading, leaving only a whispered warning: "Something stirs in the spaces between. Something that feeds on despair and grows stronger with each soul it claims. Be careful who you trust, bridge-walker. Not all who seem kind have pure intentions."

Rei spent several more minutes in the bathroom, waiting for her hands to stop shaking. When she finally returned to Sephy's room, her friend immediately noticed her pale complexion.

"Okay, that's it. You're staying for dinner, and then we're having a real talk about what's bothering you." Sephy's tone brooked no argument.

"It's nothing, really—"

"Rei." Sephy's voice carried the authority that made her such an effective student council president. "We've been friends for years. I know when something's wrong, and I know when you're lying about it. You don't have to tell me everything, but don't insult my intelligence by pretending everything's fine."

For a moment, Rei wavered. Sephy was her closest friend, practically her sister. If anyone would believe her about seeing spirits, it would be her. But what if she didn't? What if Sephy looked at her with pity or fear? What if telling the truth meant losing the only real family she'd ever had?

"I've been having strange dreams lately," she said finally, choosing a safer version of the truth. "Really vivid ones. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm awake or asleep."

Sephy's expression softened with relief—at least her friend was admitting something was wrong. "Stress dreams are totally normal before big life changes. When I was little and we moved houses, I used to dream about voices calling my name all night."

If only it were that simple. But Rei nodded gratefully, accepting the normal explanation for her very abnormal experiences.

That night, lying in her own bed in her small apartment, Rei tried to convince herself that Sephy was right. Stress dreams. Pre-graduation anxiety. Anything but the growing certainty that she could see and communicate with the dead.

But as she drifted toward sleep, whispers filled her room—dozens of voices, maybe hundreds, all trying to speak at once. Some sounded urgent, others pleading, a few carried warnings about shadows and dangers she couldn't understand.

And threading through them all, barely audible but somehow more disturbing than the rest, came a sound that made her blood run cold: soft, satisfied laughter, as if something was very pleased with her growing abilities.

Rei pulled her pillow over her head and tried not to listen, but she had the terrible feeling that ignoring the voices wouldn't make them go away.

If anything, they were getting stronger.