Afterworlds (11 page)

“But she grew up in Palo Alto.”

“Duh,” said Mindy. “Me too.”

I frowned. “That’s hundreds of miles away. And you’re . . . here.”

“Ghosts can walk, you know. And we have other ways to get around.” She looked down at where her fingers were picking at the bedspread, an old quilt my grandmother had made. “But yeah, it’s kind of dorky. Like that Disney movie where the pets get stranded on vacation and have to get home. Ghosts are really loyal, like dogs. Except dogs can’t see us, only cats.”

I shook my head. Mindy kept skipping around, as if she’d never told her story out loud before.

“After I died, my parents started to hate each other. There was a lot of yelling, and it was all my fault, so I moved across the street to Anna’s. Her room was always my favorite place. Especially her closet. I would hide in there with her for fun.”

“And you’ve been following her around for . . .” I did the math. “Thirty-five years?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Mindy looked up from playing with the bedspread. “But I feel more real when I’m around her. Like I’m not fading. It helps to be with people who remember you, and who still think about you.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering why Mom had never mentioned her. I was also curious about how Mindy had died, but it seemed rude to ask.

“Then you got born!” Mindy said happily. “When you got to be my age, I used to pretend we were best friends.”

My reaction must have shown on my face.

“Sorry to be creepy,” she said, staring down at the bedspread again. “I never lived in your closet, only hers.”

“Right. And
that’s
not at all creepy.” I was way too claustrophobic to have ever hidden in a closet when I was little.

Mindy shrugged. “It’s just, I don’t have any friends like me.”

“You mean dead people?”

“Yeah. Ghosts are scary. And mostly kind of weird.”

She paused for a moment, like someone who’s just said they hate their new haircut and you’re supposed to disagree. And it was true that Mindy didn’t scare me. Somehow it wasn’t creepy sitting here and talking to her. She’d been around my whole life, so I’d gotten used to her without realizing it.

But all I said was, “It must suck, being dead.”

“I guess. But now that you can see me, we can be
real
friends, right?” She looked up with a timid smile.

I didn’t know how to answer that. Maybe my mom had been close to Mindy, but it’s not like I was looking for an eleven-year-old invisible best friend.

Then I realized something. “When you walked in here you
knew
I’d be able to see you.”

“Of course.” Mindy’s stare softened, as if she were looking through me. “When you came in, you had that shiny look, like pomps have. That’s why I hid at first, because I thought you were one of them.” She smiled. “But then I realized that it was just you, Lizzie, and that you’d never do anything bad to me.”

“Okay. But why are you afraid of . . . pomps?”

“They come looking for ghosts sometimes,” Mindy said. “They take them away. But I always hide.”

“Do they take them someplace bad?”

“I think so.” Mindy stared down at the pattern of the quilt again. “I met a boy once, who’d gone down to the underworld. But he ran away because he didn’t like it. He said it was better to stay up here and fade away.”

My skin was crawling with questions now. I’d assumed that Yamaraj was telling the truth, that he and Yami were taking all those people to safety. But what did I really know? All I had to go on was his pretty face.

“What happened to you, Lizzie?” Mindy said, reaching out to run her hand down my naked arm. Though I could hardly feel her touch, goose pimples sprang up beneath her fingertips. “How’d you get so shiny?”

I pulled the towel tighter. The cloth was still damp, though my skin had dried. I didn’t feel like telling Mindy about the airport—I wasn’t ready to tell anybody about that yet—and I didn’t want to mention Yamaraj either. She might tell me not to trust him, and he was the only thing I had to hang on to.

“I should get dressed.” When I stood up and went to my dresser, Mindy didn’t look away. “Um, do you mind?”

She only laughed. “Lizzie! I’ve seen you naked, like, a zillion times. Since you were a little baby!”

“Yeah, that’s awesome. But it’s kind of different now that I can see
you
.”

“Pfft,” she said, but turned around.

I dressed quickly, in a T-shirt and cargo pants that were both dark gray, the closest thing I had to black. If my trip to the afterworld had changed me, I could at least look the part.

Was this what my life would be like from now on? Having ghosts watch my every move? I hadn’t seen any on the trip home, at least not that I’d recognized. But Mindy looked pretty normal except for wearing out-of-date clothes and walking through solid doors. Maybe I’d passed hundreds of wandering spirits and hadn’t even noticed.

“So how many of you ghosts are there? I mean, is the whole world haunted?”

Mindy shrugged. “Most places, not so much. In this suburb I’m mostly alone, because no one remembers their neighbors. But little towns . . .” Her voice dropped a little. “They’re crawling with whispers.”

A knock came at the door, and I jumped a little.

“It’s just Anna,” Mindy said.

I tried to keep my voice steady. “Yeah, Mom?”

She opened the door, her eyes scanning the room. “Um, were you talking to someone?”

“I wish. No phone.” I tried not to look at Mindy. “I was just singing along with something.”

Mom looked at my laptop, which was shut. Other than my phone, it was the only thing I ever played music on.

“Something in my head,” I clarified, pushing wet hair behind my ears.

“Okay.” She gave me a nervous look. “I thought we might make pasta tonight. From scratch, with squid ink. I’ve got the island all cleaned off so we can make a mess.”

“Perfect time to make a mess. I just took a shower.”

My mother hesitated, so I smiled again to show I was kidding, still managing not to look at Mindy. After what I’d been through, it wouldn’t take much to convince my mom that I was going crazy.

“Great! I’ll go start the sauce,” she said, and shut the door.

“Mmmm . . . spaghetti,” Mindy said.

I looked at her. “Ghosts can eat?”

“We can smell,” she said.

“Oh, right.” I was whispering now, convinced that my mother was outside with her ear pressed against the door. “But you have to stay in here while we cook. I’m not used to this invisible friend thing yet, and I don’t want to look insane in front of Mom.”

Mindy pouted, running a palm across the bedspread as if she were smoothing it out. But the wrinkles stayed. It had to be frustrating, being shut off from the world of objects and people, unable to connect.

“That’s not very nice of you,” she said. “Now that you’re a pomp, we should be
friends
.”

“But Mom’s going to want to talk about stuff. She always gets deep and meaningful when we cook. And I won’t be able to concentrate if you’re hanging around. So please?”

“I’ll sit in the corner and not say anything. Promise!”

I hesitated, wondering how reliable Mindy’s promises were. She might be two months older than my mother, but she still talked like an eleven-year-old. I wondered if ghost children never grew up.

“If you let me hang out, I’ll tell you a secret,” she offered.

“Awkward details from my mother’s childhood? No thanks.”

Mindy shook her head. “It’s something really important. Something you need to know.”

“Okay, I guess.” Mindy knew more about the afterlife than I did. And given Yamaraj’s warnings about dangers and predators, it wouldn’t hurt to learn more. “What’s your big secret?”

“There’s a man watching our house,” she said. “He’s been there for three days.”

*  *  *

I took the backyard path, the recycling bin trundling behind me. My mother had seemed a little surprised when I’d volunteered to take it out, but she hadn’t argued.

Mindy was walking ahead, checking that the way was clear, but my nerves were jumping. I had no reason to trust Mindy. My mother had never even mentioned her. What if there wasn’t anybody watching the house, and this was some kind of . . . ghost trap?

But what else could I do? Pretend Mindy hadn’t said anything?

“He’s not in the back lane,” Mindy said from the other side of the gate. “He usually parks his car in front of the Andersons’ house.”

“Who are the Andersons?”

“You don’t know our neighbors very well, do you?”

I didn’t answer, pulling open the gate and rattling the bin into its usual spot in the back lane. Ghosts had plenty of free time on their hands, I supposed, and spying on the neighbors was probably more interesting than staring at the walls of my mother’s closet.

With a glance at the house to make sure Mom wasn’t watching, I headed up the lane, staying a good distance behind my ghostly escort. Out here in the daylight, Mindy looked more out of place than she had in my bedroom. It wasn’t just her bold checked shirt and wide 1970s belt. The way the late-afternoon sun played on her looked wrong.

And then I realized it—she had no shadows. Not just the big shadow that should have been rippling along the ground beneath her, but all the little ones in the wrinkles of her clothes were missing. The sunlight didn’t texture her the way it would have a living person.

I’d found a way to spot ghosts, at least in daylight.

From the end of the back lane we could see the car, a black sedan with California plates.

A young man with dark hair sat in the driver’s seat, a tablet computer of some kind propped on the steering wheel. He was reading from it, tapping on the screen, but then his eyes lifted to peer at my house. After a long moment, his gaze fell back to his tablet.

“Crapstick,” I whispered. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I don’t kid about scary men,” Mindy said.

I stood there, willing my heart to slow down. “Can you go see what’s on his screen?”

Mindy looked at the ground, kicking without effect at a dry leaf blowing past. “I’m kind of scared of him. Can you come with me?”

“Um, not invisible. Remember?”

“But you’re a pomp.” She frowned. “Can’t you cross over?”

“You mean, into the afterworld?”

She giggled. “Just call it the flipside. Dork. That’s what you say when you’re walking around up here, and not down in the underworld.”

“Okay, the flipside.” I wondered if I could manage right here in the alley, or if I even wanted to. That meant remembering what had happened at the airport, replaying it all in my mind again. “Maybe.”

Mindy cocked her head at me, wondering if I was kidding. When my expression didn’t change, she held out a hand.

I took it a little hesitantly, and felt the distant tingle of her palm in mine. The cold place inside me responded to her touch, swelling into icy fingers that stretched around my heart. The earth seemed to sink beneath my feet, like when an elevator begins its descent.

It was happening again, right here in my back lane.

I almost dropped Mindy’s hand, but she squeezed tighter—suddenly her small fingers felt real and solid. The cold inside me pulsed and surged, sweeping through my body. It flooded my head and fell across my senses, turning everything gray and quiet.

The afterworld air had its familiar taste, like I was holding a
rusty nail under my tongue. The dead leaves stirring around our feet were silent.

“Huh.” My own voice sounded distant in my ears. “It’s not usually that easy.”

“Maybe because you’re new.” Mindy had turned gray, like the rest of the world. “But the man can’t see you now. You’re just like a ghost.”

I looked around, breathing hard. It was strange seeing my own neighborhood turned colorless and flat, like the airport. I realized that Mindy was the opposite of Yamaraj. Her touch had pulled me over to this dead, gray place, while his had sent me back to the world of the living.

I took a few cautious steps. My feet felt numb, as if they’d fallen asleep. When I stamped my bare soles against the asphalt, I felt only a dull ringing in my feet.

I hadn’t noticed any of this the first times I’d crossed over. Maybe I’d been in shock. Or maybe it was different when Yamaraj was there beside me.

“This is weird,” I said.

“Sucks to be dead,” Mindy agreed. Then she saw my expression and added, “Not that
you’re
dead. You’re just a psychopomp.”

“I think maybe I’m going to use another word. One that’s less . . . psycho.”

She shrugged. “That’s what everyone calls them.”

I looked at the black sedan again. My shaky first steps had taken me out into the road a little, but the man hadn’t looked my way. Of course, the terrorists hadn’t been able to see me at the airport. One had walked straight through me.

But Mindy’s touch had made it seem too easy. “You’re
sure
I’m invisible?”

Mindy nodded. “Does he look shiny to you? No way can he see the flipside.”

I looked at my own hand. The shine wasn’t as radiant as on Yamaraj’s brown skin, but it was definitely there. My shadow had disappeared completely.

“Okay, invisible,” I murmured. “Sweet.”

I walked out from the back lane and toward the black sedan. The man’s gaze stayed on his tablet, even when I stood right in front of his car.

Finally his eyes flicked up at me, but they registered nothing, peering straight through me to my house beyond.

Mindy came up timidly beside me. “He’s scary, right?”

“He’s stalking my house. What do you think?”

I went to the driver’s side and knelt, looking straight at the guy. It was almost intimate, being this close without him seeing me, like spying on someone through a one-way mirror. I could hear him breathing through the open window, and could smell his coffee in the cup holder below the car window. He looked younger than I’d thought at first, in his midtwenties, maybe. He wore a dark suit and tie, and thick-framed nerdy glasses.

“What’s he doing with that computer thing?” asked Mindy.

I looked at her. “You mean his tablet?”

She gave me a shrug, and I wondered how much of her understanding of the world was stuck in the 1970s.