Ellie knew her expression had betrayed her. Her jaw had tightened, and her pulse was thumping in her fingertips where they gripped the doorframe.
“Yes, can I help you?” she asked, trying to sound unworried.
The man narrowed his eyes curiously, looking something like a school teacher. He wore a thick woolen coat that looked slightly too big for him, but he made it work.
“Yes, I – uh, I’m looking for someone,” he said, politely. His voice was a soft, American baritone.
“Who?” Ellie asked, sharply.
The physical reality of the man was a shock to her system.
“I think … you know who?” The man replied, vaguely.
From the kitchen, Ellie heard Byron shout, “Who is it?”
The man tilted his head towards the sound.
“Perhaps I could talk to your friend?”
“No, you’ll speak to me.” Ellie replied coldly, “How are you here? How did you find me?”
There was a moment of silence, as the thick tension of accusation hung in the air.
“I only found you because you found me first,” the man replied.
His continued vague responses did nothing to soothe Ellie’s prickled mood.
“I – who are you?” Ellie asked.
Byron had appeared next to Ellie, wiping the grease from his face sheepishly. He looked at the man, and then Ellie.
“I’m Drew… Drew Woodrow.” The man said, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ellie.”
“Alright, good to meet you, Ellie. Good to meet you.”
He seemed to be searching for something to say, as Ellie and Byron stared back.
“And you?” Drew asked Byron.
“The name’s Byron -”
“How did you find me?” Ellie cut him off, “And this time, don’t give me a cryptic answer. You were in California just hours ago. There’s no way – ”
“It’s … I mean, you know what you can do so… you know this isn’t exactly a conversation we can have over a doorstep. If you don’t want me to come in, maybe we could go to a cafe or something?” Drew suggested.
Ellie looked at the man. He looked sleep-deprived, with heavy bags under his glasses.
“One moment.”
Ellie closed the door almost tight and turned to Byron in a frantic whisper.
“Well?” she asked.
“What?” Byron whispered back.
“Can he come in?” Ellie asked.
“You’re asking me?” Byron replied, blindsided.
Ellie threw him an incredulous look.
“It’s your house, doofus!” she hissed.
“Right. Well, it doesn’t look like he’s got a massive sword under that coat so… I’ll leave it up to you,” Byron shrugged.
Ellie nodded and took a breath, then re-opened the door.
“Fine, you can come in,” she conceded, and allowed Drew entry into the house, “But don’t try anything funny.”
Minutes later, they were sitting in the sitting room. The silence was agonizing. Drew looked around the room, from the stacks of comics on the coffee table and a map, half-rolled up on the dining table.
“Um… I know this is odd, me just turning up like this… but well, all this is odd.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” Ellie agreed.
Drew smiled, and it seemed genuine this time.
“You get used to the weirdness after a while.”
“You’ve known about your … thing, for a while?”
“Seventeen years,” Drew replied, with a curt nod.
Ellie and Byron exchanged incredulous looks.
“Sorry, mate, did you say seventeen years?” Byron asked, leaning forward.
“That’s right,” Drew nodded, “I know what you’re thinking. If this has been going on for at least seventeen years, why doesn’t the world know? Well, my answer to that is: are you going to tell anyone?”
Drew chuckled, but Ellie was eager to press on with learning more.
“How were you able to see me?”
“Huh?”
“When I found you yesterday, how did you know I was there? Nobody else can see me,” Ellie pointed out.
“Well I didn’t see you… not exactly. But everyone would be able to “see” you if they knew where to look,” Drew replied.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not the first person I’ve met with your abilities,” Drew explained, “Astral Projection is a pretty impressive feat. I spent many years around it, so I’m good at picking up traces of it.”
“So? How did that help you find me? I could have been anyone, from anywhere. And not only did you know where I was, you got here awfully fast.”
“True… but then, you sensed me, didn’t you? Came and found me? The reverse is also true. Ever since then, I knew you were there. I tried to follow that sense and it told me to come to London. As for how I got here so fast, well, the short version is I can fly.”
“Nice,” Byron said automatically.
“You can fly?” Ellie asked.
“In a way, yes. It’s a bit more complicated than that -”
Ellie interrupted with her burning question.
“You said you met someone with my powers before?”
Drew’s smile faltered.
“Yeah… years ago.” Drew said, abstracted.
Drew’s lack of elaboration told Ellie he wasn’t keen on broaching the topic, but she couldn’t help it. If he had known someone like her, she wanted to understand more.
“Was that Lila?” Ellie asked.
Drew scowled involuntarily.
“How did you – ah, you heard me,” Drew figured out, “Yes, that was Lila.”
“Where is she now?”
Drew didn’t reply right away. There was a pause almost like he was contemplating the answer.
“She’s… gone,” he finally said.
Ellie was glad they weren’t making eye contact, because she felt so uncomfortable she would have had to have broken it.
“Sorry,” Ellie mumbled, “shouldn’t have asked.”
Drew sighed.
“Can’t blame you for asking. I told you I knew someone like you…”
“How did you know her?” Ellie asked.
“It’s a long story,” Drew warned.
“If you want to tell it, I want to hear it.”
Drew sighed again and shrugged.
“When I discovered what I could do, I looked for others like me. I didn’t find any, not for years. There were times I thought I was just crazy and there was no way I could show someone what I could do. I’ve seen enough movies. I knew how it would probably go. But then one day, eight years ago; she found me. She came to me in her astral form; just like you did. Scared the life out of me at first, until I realised what it meant. That I had finally found someone else like me.”
“But – sorry – how did you see her if you didn’t share her power?” Ellie asked.
“How long have you had these abilities?” Drew asked in retort.
“A couple of days,” Ellie replied.
Drew nodded, “So, there’s a lot you probably don’t even know you’re capable of. Lila was advanced… she could allow people to see her projections. It was a bit like what I imagine a ghost would be, which makes sense, when you think about it… anyway, that’s another discussion.
Lila found me and we decided to meet up. I was the first person she had found with special abilities too. She was… great. She helped me with my research. We experimented with our abilities, tested what they could and couldn’t do. We explored old legends of people with superhuman abilities to see if we could find some kind of explanation…”
Drew got lost in his thoughts for a moment. Ellie waited and studied his face. There was a sadness in his eyes that she hadn’t noticed before. When Drew carried on talking, it startled Ellie a little.
“About a year after we met, Lila wanted to… well, we both wanted to… it’s hard to explain without going through the science but we wanted to test her abilities to travel through the Astral Plane.”
“Astral plane?” Ellie asked.
Byron chimed in, “Like another dimension?”
“In a way,” Drew half-agreed, “but there’s a lot of variables and it’s far more complex. It would take hours to explain. But Lila had been practising and she wanted to do it. I was stupid to let her… well, I couldn’t have stopped her… I was a fool to encourage her… but she was so brilliant. So certain. She tried to ‘step through’. I don’t know what happened, but… she was just gone. She vanished. Her physical body too. I’ve never found her.”
A thick silence followed Drew’s story. Ellie felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold outside.
“That’s… horrible,” she finally mustered, “So do you think she really died?”
“I don’t know… she’s gone, and I have no idea if I can ever find her. She barely knew how the Astral Plane worked. I still don’t. We had some guesses but… when I sensed you last night, I thought – for a split second – ”
Ellie’s thoughts raced. She could see the desperation in this poor man and a part of her hated that he saw hope in her that she knew she couldn’t deliver. If Lila had been an expert compared to her, what could she do to help?
“So… you saw me, I have the same power as Lila… and you come right here from California…what’s this about?”
“Well, the thing I’ve realised since my initial shock last night is you’re not Lila. You’re Ellie. And the fact you found me, and you found him,” he pointed at Byron, “shows me something. The world is finally waking up to people like us. I won’t pretend that the prospect of possibly finding Lila was above everything else when I left home… but it’s not just that. You are the first people I’ve found, like me, since Lila vanished. It’s been… a strange journey. I can do these incredible things… and I can’t ever talk about it. With anyone. Even if I could, they wouldn’t understand. But you two… you are the first I’ve seen, first I’ve even sensed…”
“So you get the signals too!” Byron exclaimed.
“Signals?”
“It’s what he calls… whatever we sense when we find others like us.”
Drew raised his brow.
“So you’ve found more? Apart from me?”
“Well… not really. I haven’t spoken to any of them. Byron knows one of them.”
“I – this is a lot to take in,” Drew replied.
Byron stood up suddenly.
“Want a brew?” Byron asked, “We’re probably going to be here a while.”
“A brew?” Drew frowned, momentarily lost.
“A cup of tea,” Ellie explained.
“Ah, yes – please – thank you,” Drew replied, though Ellie doubted he had much interest in drinking tea aside from maintaining politeness.
Ellie watched Drew as he looked around the room, trying not to acknowledge the awkward silence that fell between them.
He seems genuine, Ellie thought, but he’s desperate too.
Imagine if you’d been through what he has, though.
I’ve been through my fair share of shit, thank you
Sure, but no magically disappearing lovers.
Ellie ignored her own thoughts and broke the silence.
“I’m still quite new to this. You said you studied this kind of thing for years. Can you tell me what else you know about Astral Projection?”
© 2026 Rhys Clark. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, including scraping for AI training or large language models, without the prior written permission of the author.
Writing by Rhys Clark 