I've always been intuitive, and I started having psychic dreams a few years ago. The night before I met my boyfriend, I had a dream about a giant scorpion at my feet. The next day, he and I had our first date. I'm a bit of an astrology fanatic, so of course, I asked him his sign. My date was a Scorpio, and upon further research, I discovered that Scorpio occupied five places in his chart, so I was convinced my dream was foretelling someone important had just entered my life. Other times I'd dream of gold coins on the ground and the next day find money in my path.

But, my precognitive abilities really took off when I started studying journalism in 2004. Around that time, I started seeing images of the morning news before I woke up. Once, I dreamed about a pitbull. The alarm went off, and I sleepily turned on the news. Coincidentally, the first story I saw was about a little boy in my town who was attacked by a pitbull. Another time, I dreamed about someone named Ed Jovanovski. I didn't know who he was, but remembered seeing a picture of a man and the name in a paper in my dream. On the news that morning, the story was about hockey player Ed Jovanovki hurting his groin, eliminating him from play that night. I don't have cable, but on the night of the Canadian music awards show The Junos, I dreamed about rocker Sam Roberts' face in a spotlight. The next morning as I walked to the bus, I saw a picture of Sam Roberts in the paper. He'd swept the Junos the night before with three wins.

I have never understood what the dreams mean, in a larger sense. I know they're a gift-more like one of those impractical gifts that one doesn't quite know what to do with, but really enjoys showing off. The fact that the dreams became more frequent and "newsy" when I started studying journalism suggested that perhaps I had found my calling. But I think I'll likely never know why or what or how. What I do know, is that something strange and larger than me is going on here.

*****

My journalism program was very demanding. We were constantly under enormous time pressures to find the story, find the lead, find the source, portray both sides of the story and to package it neatly in a little one or two column box sans grammatical errors. We were at the mercy of our editors and professors, who seemed to take great pleasure in cutting us down to size and destroying our egos with a red stroke.

The first week in October, with the leaves turning yellow and the air turning chill, my editor put me on the story of a girl at my college, Rachel Adams, who had gone missing, along with her boyfriend, with whom she allegedly had a stormy relationship. The couple was described as belonging to the "goth" community because of their affinity for dark clothing and their frequent attendance in the local goth music scene.

That week, I scrambled to find a source, but because of privacy laws, the college administration refused to even confirm that she'd been a student at our school. I'd heard a rumour she was studying criminology, so I tried to contact the professors in that department. All of them claimed they didn't know who I was talking about.

Things weren't looking good because apparently Rachel's boyfriend Mark Rempel had written a suicidal e-mail to friends the week before he went missing. When relatives went to check on Rachel at her apartment, they found blood spattered on the floor and walls. It was easy to assume the couple was dead, and I definitely had my suspicions Mark Rempel was responsible.

But then, after the blood was found, Rachel and Mark were spotted alive on video surveillance at a West Vancouver bank machine.

Not having much to go on, local Vancouver papers began to angle their stories around what role Rachel's and Mark's goth lifestyle may have played in their disappearance. A gothic subculture website defined goth as pertaining to literary fiction prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries emphasizing the grotesque, mysterious and desolate.

Other members of the goth community protested loudly at the media's cookie cutter portrayal of dark side affiliates and denied that the lifestyle played any role in the Rachel/Mark mystery, suggesting instead that goth was more about art, a style of music and a unique fashion sense than a preoccupation with death.

I found the story intriguing and determined to find a source and blow my little school newspaper away with my story. I had gotten the phone numbers of Rachel's mother and aunt, but there was no answer when I called. Secretly I was relieved my call went unanswered because the thought of asking a bereaved family about something so traumatic struck me as insensitive. It was the first time I really understood why reporters are sometimes stereotyped as vultures, preying on the misery of masses.

The Vancouver media had released Rachel's address, so one foggy morning before class, I caught the bus to the avenue her house was supposed to be on to see if I could find a neighbour to talk to. I had heard that friends were holding a vigil outside her house, so it was a good lead.

I was disturbed when I stepped off at 33rd Avenue and found myself in the midst of an enormous graveyard spanning a number of blocks. I couldn't see any houses where Rachel's home was supposed to be-only tombstones. I checked the address I'd written down again to see where I may have gone wrong. Finally I stopped and asked a woman passing by if she knew where I may find the house.

She pointed me around a corner where I found a hidden street and Rachel's house. There was no one around, but I saw some yellow ribbons tied to the trees, so I knew I was in the right place. While I was snapping a few photos, a neighbor came out and started loading some bags into her car. Feeling a little shy, I approached the woman and asked her if this was Rachel's house. She nodded without a word. I asked if she had known Rachel and she shook her head and climbed into her car without looking me in the eye.

I thought about ringing the doorbell to speak to the people upstairs, but like a rookie reporter, I was scared, so instead, I just climbed under the hedge across the street from the house and stepped into the cemetery to take some photographs there. No wonder Rachel was preoccupied with death, I thought. Wouldn't it be spooky to live right across the street from this cemetery? But I guess for a goth, it would be pretty ideal.

After snapping my pictures, I made my way to class. It was then that my editor called me to his desk and said, "Girl's dead. Story's dead. I'll give you something else by noon." Rachel's and Mark's bodies had been discovered that day hanging from a tree near Squamish, B.C. in an apparent double suicide.

I was saddened to hear the outcome, but could not understand why my editor thought the story was dead. Wasn't it just getting more interesting? I suggested that he keep me on the story, but he said only if I could find a source and a new angle.

That day I posted signs at the school asking anyone who knew Rachel to contact me immediately. I tried the family again, but there was no answer. The administration remained tight-lipped, and I still hadn't confirmed that Rachel had even been a student at my college.

A small break finally came when I approached the counseling department and told them I wanted to do a story about suicide prevention and asked if any students had come in feeling bereaved about Rachel's suicide. They said they would indeed speak to me about suicide prevention and confirmed Rachel's student status by telling me that her professors had referred some of her colleagues to the counseling department in the event they needed to speak to someone about their feelings.

It was a good angle, but one that bored my editor. I was about to give up when I got an out-of-the-blue e-mail from a former roommate. She said she had been really upset all week because a friend of hers had been found dead. I immediately called my former roommate and asked if she'd be willing to be my source.

Unfortunately she was both too freaked out by it all and too concerned about the family's feelings to go on the record. She added that while the police investigation was still ongoing, she didn't feel it would be appropriate. But she did say she felt that the goth lifestyle definitely played a role in their deaths.

"It's so horrible and really freaky," she'd said. "Anyone who knew Rachel and Mark knew they were into some really dark stuff. It wasn't just one of those things. It could have been prevented. Someone should have intervened."

I was able to convince my editor that we should use this unnamed source. He felt an unknown source lacked credibility, but said he'd allow it in this case, since even the larger papers hadn't found anyone to say as much.

We ran the story and I ended up getting a lousy mark on it for not having been able to find a reliable, named source.

But it wasn't like the other stories that I was just able to put behind me. I kept thinking about Rachel. When I was 14, I used to dress like a goth and listen to Alice Cooper. I wasn't into anything really dark. It was more about rebellion and making a statement about how different I felt. But I still related to Rachel. She was probably just a little lost. Certainly, like anyone, I've had suicidal thoughts at times, and when I dressed in dark clothing, it was a way to tell people that I was in pain. I kept wondering if someone could have intervened.

My Scorpio boyfriend was living with me at the time all this was unfolding. He said it made him nervous that I was following the dead girl around, and he warned me against talking about her too much, lest I open up some sort of portal and invite her energy into our house.

Being that I am superstitious and a believer in life's mysteries, I heeded his warning.

I didn't talk about Rachel again until the following Spring when for my ethics class we were asked to write about the greatest ethical dilemma we'd faced as reporters that semester. I decided to write about Rachel Adams and about how I'd felt like a vulture stirring up pain for her family. I presented it to the class and that was the last I'd spoken about it.

*****

That Spring was difficult for me because my boyfriend and I had begun to have relationship problems. I ended up moving out and finding my own place. It was small and I had to share a bathroom, but it had a nice view and was comfortable enough.

But a few months later, I still wasn't feeling settled. My boyfriend and I had decided to keep working through our problems and he'd come over on many occasions. Sometimes we'd fight for no apparent reason. I chalked it up to stress.

Sometime that summer, the girl I shared the bathroom with came in for tea and we got to talking about the former tenants. She said she didn't normally like to tell people because she didn't want to freak them out, but that the girl who used to live in my suite had killed herself along with her boyfriend the year before.

"Don't worry," she'd said, "it didn't happen in here. But this was the last place she lived before she moved out to be with her boyfriend. He used to stay over a lot, and they'd fight. The walls in here were painted black. It was really freaky."

My mouth dropped open, and suddenly my ugly beige walls took on a whole new meaning. I had LITERALLY followed the dead girl, right into her room.

I can't describe how much this moved me. Surely this was one of the strangest coincidences to happen to me yet, and it only further solidified my faith in the weirdness of being. Did Rachel want something from me? Did I want something from her? I still don't know.

I immediately called my boyfriend and told him. He was equally blown over.

So, to say that Rachel Adams haunts me is an understatement. I've since moved out. My new apartment is also small, but at least this time I have my own bathroom. The worst is when I have to pee late at night. I don't like to turn on the lights because I want to be able to get back to sleep. But without fail, as I tinkle in the dark, I always imagine Rachel hanging from my showerhead.

I don't think I really have to be afraid of her spirit. I just feel we share something. Something of the same path, but different outcomes. I still wear black, but it's not an expression of pain anymore. I wish that Rachel had lived to lift hers too.

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