What Isn't Forgotten

    We walk in silence, Magik and I. She is mad at me because I no longer trust her. I don't think anyone would blame me. After all she told me, after all the things she's done in her lifetime, I should be mad at her not the other way round.

    "Are you still mad?" I question and she bits her lip.

    "Not really," she replies and there is such sadness in her voice.

    "What's wrong?" I prod and brush a lock of hair from my eyes.

    "It's our birthday. I wonder if anyone remembered," Magik comments as we walk beside a shooting star.

    "I bet Piotr did and Katya too!" I cry out in joy. I look at her and see that she is not happy. "Why, what's wrong, Magik?"

    "I wonder if any of my friends remembered," she whispers and her words are nearly lost in the vacuum of space.

    "Why don't you go visit them and I'll visit Piotr and Katya," I suggest as I watch a sun turn and warm one of its planets.

    "We don't have time for that. We've wasted enough time as it is."

    "But, Magik, you said we had forever," I remind her.

    She looks at me then and a dim light starts to shine in her eyes. "You know, Illyana, you're right."

    "Goody," I exclaim. "I want to see Piotr so much."

    Magik just nods, an odd look coming over her face and I know she's thinking, wondering about what to do and how to do it. Sometimes I think that she spends too much of her time worrying and wondering. There hasn't been one time when she just goes with something, no, everything is planned.

    Impatient, I squirm around, twisting my hand in hers, longing to pull away and fly back to my brother. I want to just hover in the air, listen to him talk, and see his eyes, so full and sad, again. "Can I go now?"

    "I'll take you and I'll pick you up. Don't leave, okay?"

    "Okay, Magik."

    Then we're off, flying through the air, and I should be used to this by now but it fills me with wonder and joy. I can hear the stars whisper back and forth to each other in their low, soothing voices. When they notice me, they smile and murmur something that only I can hear. And it's wonderful and I never want the feeling to end. Yet, it seems that, just as I'm beginning to learn to love what I have been sentenced to, Magik introduces some new aspects of death to me and I am, once again, humbled by it.

    Finally, we reach our destination. "Where are we?" I ask because I've never seen this place before.

    "Muir Island. Your brother's here."

    "Our brother," I point out and look at her with large eyes.

    She just mutters something under her breath and releases my hand. "Whatever. Just go. And remember..."

    "I know. I know. Stay here. Believe me, Magik, there's nowhere else for me to go," I say to calm the worry and fear I can feel eating away at her mind. "Go see your friends." There passes a minute between us when I think she's gonna smile at laugh and me but it goes away so fast and then she's flying, leaving me alone.

    It's a big place this "Muir Island" and I'm not really sure where to go to find whom I want. I float through walls and see people I kinda know from pictures and foggy memories. There's the blue man with all the fur and the tail. I think he read me a story once and smiled at me. If it's the same man, he has sharp teeth.

    Farther down I walk into a room occupied by a thin, blond woman. I know that I don't know her. But I minute I walk in she turns to me and smiles. "Hello," she says. "It's your birthday, isn't it? Your brother's just downstairs and Kitty's room is in the next hall. Maybe you want to see Rahne, too, or Douglock. Well, they're not here right now. Sorry."

    All I can do is blink at her in confusion. How can she see me? No one's been able to see me before. "Thanks," I mutter and walk out of her room.

    I see Kitty walking down the hall. She's so much older than I remember her. Someone has cut her hair shorter and I hate it. However, it's still Kitty, my best friend. I'm sure she hasn't forgotten about me.

    "Kitty," I say, hoping, praying that she, like the blond woman, will hear me.

    No such luck. My friend keeps going. She walks right through me only this time it's not because she's phasing but because I'm the ghost.

    Okay, so maybe things will go better with Piotr, I think as I step through the ground. It's hard going through the ground but I do it exactly the way Magik showed me and it does work.

    Piotr's in his room painting pictures just like always. He used to paint pictures of me. It looks like he's given that up. I can't find one portrait of me, not one sketch. They're all of Kitty and the blond woman. My own brother has forgotten about me.

    Phantom tears well up in my eyes and I scream at the top of my lungs, "I'm here, Piotr. I came to see you. Don't you remember me? Don't you?" There is no answer and I leave to spend my birthday alone.

    But when I walk out of his room, I see Magik waiting for me. "You knew it would be this way," I accuse her.

    "I hoped it wouldn't," she tells me.

    "Was it the same for you?"

    "Yep. Come on, kiddo. Let's go. This isn't our world, not any more." She takes my hand and we start to float away back up to the sky, back where we belong. We are just ghosts, after all. Just ghosts.