Olivia stared at her reflection in the mirror. Only it was older her, not in age, chronological age, in appearance. She was looking at her primordial alter, if that was even feasible. She had worked through some other possible options for the sake of scientific theory, like this was somehow an elaborate practical joke played on her by producers of some unheard of reality show where you take survivors of trauma and throw them together on an island until they go crazy or kill each other off.
Or perhaps this was some form of shock therapy that accessed parts of your brain with repressed past life memories.
Because right now she was looking into the eyes of the girl on the cover of that National Geographic magazine she saw at her grandfather’s house one time. It had haunted her since 1985. Sindexhe had forgotten about her until now. Only it wasn’t her, the girl from the magazine, it was HER. She pulled the eyelids of her eyes up and peered inside the whites of her eyes.
Oh man this ayahuasca is strong, thoughts creeping in about possibilities and alternate realities and if time is really time at all.
I don’t remember even drinking the tea, only smelling the aroma, wafting up. Lemon and cedar wood and then nothing but black and warmth. There was definitely something warm in the darkness. I was surprised by the comfort it held, nothing cold about it at all.
I would have stayed there, warm and gone forever except I heard the cries. Not cries of grief or sobbing cries. Cries of battle, cries of war. I heard her lungs expand with the vibrations of her power and watched her mouth open as her head was drawn upward toward the rising moon and she did the most remarkable thing. She roared.
She roared!
Did you hear me? She roared.
She roared and the earth shook beneath her and the mountains slid to create a valley for her to pass.
And from the ash of fallen stone rose demon after demon, determined to send her back to a time before, before women had voices, before they could fight side by side, shoulder to shoulder.
Her might, her power, her VOICE moved the mighty mountains so that those who came after her would be drawn to the way. She became the ultimate shape shifter.
Becoming cloud, becoming stone, becoming river to carve her way over, under and through her obstacles, following one call.
The birth of her truest form, the ocean herself.
The beginning of all things, from one cell, one division we all began.
The mother of all shapeshifters…
…these are the adventures of Ghost Girl!
Written by: Christie Page
Illustrated by: Christie Page
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