My eyes were exhausted from looking at one spot for too long plus I had a headache from studying. 

I could do with a distraction and Chanel was being a little too quiet for her own good. it was selfish not to mention petty of me to think only of myself since Chanel's newfound problem took precedent. 

-Being dead kinda rock-paper-scissor-bombed me every time. Sure, I had a gift that allowed me to see the dead but i didn't really know how to console my good friend, luckily we had a common enemy of sorts. 

okay so i wasn't even sure if the gate to heaven blimped out for natural causes. Maybe Chanel had to prove her worth before the music happened and the pearly white light glimmered down upon her.  

chanels muteness told me either one of two things and i wasn't sure which was worse. 1, she  could feel someone watching us too or, and hoping against hope, was it possible that for all of her private undercover shenanigans she found something out that could help us.

Chanel dissipates from my headboard and peers around the room. Her expression was tight with  worry and something else i couldn't understand.

I scoot closer and  look behind me to make sure no one was lurking close by. -I didn't have a reason to suspect the girls i lived with cared but I wasn't going to take any chances. All they'd see is me talking to myself and that would cause me more worry, and big time trouble. 

Right now i was looking forward to a good omen and those peppy Louis Vuitton clutch gloating gluttons must've found something better to do like smoke weed under the staircase before 'study hour' if the smell were any indication. 

i had a visceral  impression that i was being watched. I rub my arms to heat  them up. No one else was in the room but i still had an eerie feeling creep upon me.  

i look at Chanel and smile warmly. If she saw me nice and calm then maybe she would relax. 

really, there was no reason for her to keep stuff from me. especially when that 'what if' could help get the ball rolling.

Chanel did one last sweep of the room, even if we were the only ones in it, and kept her eyes to the door. Sometimes not being able to close it until lights out was a real drag.  

Chanel moves closer to me. Her eyes never breaking away from the door. "This place gives me a creepy vibe. Like,  there's something big going on in campus and whoever made that wall the length of fenced cattle has the ability to keep supernaturals out and knows exactly what they're doing." 

"what do you mean?" i ask her in a whisper not fully understanding.

i didn't mention anything but Chanel offered confirmation to my earlier suspicions. it wasn't one  particular incident that had made me believe something iffy was going on surrounding students that barely said ten words all morning and the mysterious eye contact that said more than monosyllables ever did. 

"all the trapped dead people I've stumbled across in my quest to find the portal stay far away from  the school. lots of times I've seen them in the woods and if you think about it that makes sense because the barrier i told you about ends that way." Chanel crosses her arms as if she were staving off a chilly burst of wind. 

My dorm wasn't first-class colossal or even jaw-dropping-like-wow. It was simple. Elegant if somewhat stuffed to the brim like a green bell pepper. There were no windows not even in the adjoined bathroom and i had never thought anything of it until now. 

there was a considerable raw iciness in the room that wasn't there before and for the first time ever life felt foreboding. 

I had twisted with the concept that i was ready to accept this new life that I had at stark house even as I harbored bitter antagonism that had to do with my sudden downfall, not the school itself, not to mention the expectations of me to adapt quicker than i could skip with open toed shoes. 

i still say i was perfectly okay at my old school. 

Although I had to admit not living with my parents did frost the ice. Mom never thought I would talk again and here I had friends- at least i thought of them as friend material even if they weren't telling me the entire truth. 

But Chanel laying out her anxiety and concerns that other ghosts were spooked and that it likely had to do with a magical barrier?  That made no sense. for all of their nefarious satanic rituals they were a widespread phenomenon that hadn't reached this far up north.   

"But why?" I was curious because grandmother had only mentioned about them in her mythical adventures. i liked stories best when grandma did bedtime her way, full of folklore and fiction. 

i hated anything that had to do with castles and unpractical too heavy dresses that didn't look comfortable at all and fable love at first sight, all those things were just not practicable. Give me the sinister, the bad, the truly foul and I'll show you how to spot the light in even the most dreary of scenarios.

I guess that's why i loved grandmas tales so much. For every bad coincidence i liked to pretend the character in grandmas story had something good going on, even if he was a nosy boy who couldn't mind his own business. 

either there was more to chanels version of events i was willing to think about more seriously or it was all pure speculation on chanels part due to bad timing. 

she could have easily misheard a conversation while she was traveling to and from dimensions and simply became confused as both planes of existence blended together, as that was most common.

When I hear laughing in the hall i stay quiet and don't voice my concerns until the group out in the hall passes by my door in a hurry. By the looks of things they were getting a late night start; their kohl brimmed eyes weren't red and they didn't posses bedheads that looked like a boy had carelessly run his hands through and didn't bother to smooth out the fray of awkward strands.

Chanel was pacing the empty space that was next to and in between my bed and the tall antique chest of drawers that was stocked with basic every day items like puffy hand towels to handmade french body soap that had flowers in them.

Even if I wasn't one hundred percent certain if there was a witch on campus I was still on Chanel's side. Maybe since I knew my way around better than she did I could help by going to places that she couldn't. it was worth a shot.

I snap my fingers impatiently.

From what I'd learned whenever chanel was feeling a particular emotion fluorescent lights pulsate erratically around her outer apparition. i didn't have to ask her what was wrong, i knew right away what it was.

They looked like firelies. Various strips of color swirl beside her in a complex blend that started out first with turquoise, then neon green, light pink, and lastly, the purest radiance of white I had ever seen. 

It was surreal to witness such colors suddenly appear right before your eyes. I myself had trouble adjusting each time chanel did that. 

"Your glowing." I reveal using my finger as proof.

Chanel twirls around in front of the mirror and sighs out of frustration.

The color had to do with her aura; dead people had emotions thus they had auras.

The color of lights was tied to her personality. And the more emotional or upset that she got the more color I saw. it was like getting first chair, bright unbelievable lights flashed behind my eyes and i had to fight to keep them open.

I sit on my knees and try my best to calm her down.

With my hands outstretched I stay composed and call out to her in the most reassuring voice I could muster. If anything about her immortal life freaked her out it was not being able to control her emotions.

You see, ghosts were sensitive and proned to feeling mostly anger, hate, and fear.

lately Chanel has been aloof. - now i knew that was likely due to a possible barrier that was around stark house that someone on campus conjured up. true, that fact was yet to be proven.

-i was on the fence with that one but if i had ever believed anyone as much as Chanel then frogs could talk.

who knew how long i would have until Chanel was lost for ever. i knew it was a matter of 'when it happened' but i didn't think that time would come so soon.

breathing in deeply i begin my prepared speech. this time i didnt need to look at my outline. "Remember what we talked about, yeah? You just need to relax and center your vortex of emotion." Like a hypnotist would I flexed my voice low and calm.

Over time we learned Chanel was susceptible to loosing momentum and having difficulty thinking and expressing herself- Adverse effects of being on the physical plane far longer then any dead person ought to.

As Chanel focus's inward the colors diminish in vibration and float until all that's left is her usual accompanying pigment of white.

"Sorry." Chanel floats in front of me. "I promised I wouldn't say anything to you."

"I-ugh. I don't understand."

Chanels face changed. I didn't see my friend. that empty look was familiar and i knew then she wasnt planning on staying very long.

"I know we said we'd watch a movie but there's something I've been meaning to do. In the meantime don't make asumptions about people. after all, anyone can be the witch we're after." she warns me in a stern voice.

I roll my eyes upward.

It was getting hard to remember if Chanel was always so cloak-and-dagger. i didn't tell her but i wondered if being stuck on a plane that purged her of her physical body sooner than most was altering her brain or something.

I didnt know if she would suddenly go all berzerk and throw furniture in the air. i hoped not because i wasn't sure how i would explain to snot-nosed Rebecca that her ultra-expensive luxury jewelry box got stuck on the chandelier.

"Okay miss cryptic." I cross my legs in a comfortable position and fold both hands in my lap this time. I grin knowing my insubordination was driving Chanel mad but i couldn't help myself. for a moment i took pleasure in the small satisfying act until her sympathetic form turned chagrin. "Seriously don't worry about me." i tell her

"Promise." Chanel narrows her eyes. She crossed her arms and raised a brown brow, frowning. "Promise me that you'll be careful. The less people who know about your....ability....the better. Just go to class like you're not a channel-er and everything should be fine."

"I kept it from you didn't I?" I remind her none too easily.

I felt more relaxed and open when I was with her now that she was dead and that sat well with my conscious. It made being friends with her a snap. I didn't have to lie and hide. that got old fast. especially when i couldn't tell Chanel what i was really up to at three in the morning.

Truthfully, I was getting tired of going behind my best friends back just because I had something that I couldn't tell people about that until recently she would've never understood. let alone believed.

-sure, she liked me well enough and we hung out practically all the time but would she have gone with it? I would never know.

really, what was I supposed to do? tell her I could see her pet cherry the garden snake? um, yeah, nuh-uh. that conversation would have gotten me one friend less than i had and straight into the institution, which ironically I ended up in anyhow. evidently the universe is satirical.

who knows. maybe if the world was different and I'd been born another girl into a different family I would've had plenty of friends, a normal life, a boyfriend. I'd never wanted any of that but it would have made things easier for me that much was for sure.

"Swear on it. I want to hear you say it out loud."

I roll my eyes. "I will, I promise." I made an 'x' over my heart demonstrating I understood.

"And smile more. you look like a living corpse when you look at me like that." Chanel grumped. "You're supposed to blend in and looking like you never get any sleep doesn't help your cause."