The Alchemy of Forever

ID.”
    “Oh. Um, I don’t have it with me,” I try.
    “I mean it, miss. Hand it over.”
    I feel my face go hot and have no words as I open the bag and hand over Kailey’s driver’s license. He looks at it for a long time, then shakes his head.
    “Get in.” He nods toward the police car.
    “Why?” I ask.
    “I won’t make you ride in the back, but we need to go to the station where we’ll call your parents.”
    Oh my God, the Morgans. The last thing they need is to think their daughter, who they almost lost yesterday, has turned into a delinquent overnight.
    “Please, sir,” I beg. “Please don’t call them. I promise I’ll never skip school again.”
    The officer smiles ruefully. “Do you know what your problem is, Kailey?”
    My problems would fill his citations notebook and make him question everything he thinks he knows about the world, but I keep my mouth shut.
    “Your problem,” he continues when I don’t respond, “is that you’re a terrible liar.”

fourteen
     
    The station smells like old coffee and men’s cologne, and the fluorescent lights overhead turn my hands a sickly shade of yellow green. I am sitting on one of the hard plastic chairs behind the reception desk when the entire Morgan family walks in. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan won’t look at me, but Bryan raises his eyebrows with grudging respect.
    The officer pulls Kailey’s parents into a private room to talk to them, and Bryan takes a seat next to me. “I had no idea you were such a badass,” he whispers.
    I don’t say anything—I just shake my head slowly. He elbows me in the side, and I allow a small smile.
    Mr. and Mrs. Morgan exit the conference room, both of them tight-lipped and still refusing to make eye contact. Mr. Morgan’s face stands in flushed contrast to Mrs. Morgan’s ashen pallor, but I can tell they’re both furious.
    As soon as we pull out of the parking lot, the floodgates open.
    “First we have to come pick you up at the hospital, and then at the police station. What’s next? The morgue?” Mr. Morgan explodes, banging his hands on the steering wheel for emphasis.
    I flinch at the word “morgue,” where this body should be right now. Before I can answer, Mrs. Morgan sighs. “Honestly, I blame myself. We’ve been entirely too permissive.”
    “No!” Mr. Morgan snaps. “This is not our fault. Kailey, the officer told me you lied to him. Sneaking off is one thing, but I thought we raised you to always tell the truth.” He frowns. “I’m very disappointed in you.”
    “Where were you even going?” Mrs. Morgan demands. “Does this have something to do with why you were there on Saturday night?”
    “I, um,” I hesitate. Why would Kailey have been down there that night?
    I glance at Bryan, who’s enjoying this way too much. I shoot him a poisonous look, but he just smiles wider.
    “I’m painting the cranes,” I finally finish. “It’s my new project.”
    “At night?” Mr. Morgan says skeptically.
    “You’re grounded, of course,” says Mrs. Morgan, watching us in the rearview mirror. Bryan smirks. “For two whole weeks, if not longer.”
    Mr. Morgan nods vigorously. “No going anywhere but school. And no TV.”
    They continue to berate me the entire way home, but I tune them out, instead focusing on the whisper of an idea that’s taken root ever since the police officer slammed the door of his car on me.
    Every push I’ve made to end my life has been thwarted. Every single one. It could be simple incompetence—after all, I’ve been with Cyrus for six hundred years, and I should expect some hiccups making my way through the world alone. But then I think of the night I switched into Kailey’s body, of the vision of my mother whispering, Not yet , and it feels like something, or someone, doesn’t want me to die.
    I think of the disgusted expression Cyrus would wear if I said such a thing to him. Cyrus doesn’t believe in fate or anything at all beyond the physical world that he moves through so certainly. Modern science is the child of alchemy , he’d say. All magic has a rational explanation.
    The hairs on my arm stand up as I consider that the universe might be trying to tell me something. As much as I think Cyrus is close minded in his staunch rejection of anything resembling spirituality, I have to admit that I’ve never actually witnessed anything to convince me otherwise. I’ve never seen a ghost, never heard a prophecy, never really believed in anything beyond this