Everbound: An Everneath Novel
Read Everbound: An Everneath Novel Online
Authors: Brodi Ashton
To Sam
For always being sure,
even when I’m not
It is by going down into the abyss
that we recover the treasures of life
.
Where you stumble, there lies your treasure
.
—Joseph Campbell
MAP
THE EVERNEATH
A
ncient Greeks called it the Underworld or Hades. Ancient Egyptians called it Aaru or the Duat. Both believed it was a place for the souls of the dead.
Both were wrong.
Those who know the truth call it the Everneath, and it’s not an afterlife. It’s a place for the Everliving and the Forfeits.
The Everliving are immortals who survive by feeding on the emotions of humans.
Forfeits are humans trapped in the Tunnels of the Everneath, being drained of all energy to supply the Everneath with power. The only escape from the Tunnels is death.
Jack—the boy who got me through hell, the boy I Returned for, the boy I love—is in the Tunnels. He is a Forfeit.
I know the truth. It should’ve been me.
AT NIGHT
My bedroom
.
I
see Jack every night. In my dreams.
He’s lying next to me. Parallel worlds—the Surface for me, the Tunnels of the Everneath for him—that overlap at this one spot, and only for a moment. In my bedroom, while I dream.
His hair still curls in perfect waves past his ears. Tonight, the steel post that pierces his eyebrow shines in the dull moonlight through my window. It looks as if I could raise my finger and touch it
.
But I have to remind myself that it doesn’t really shine, because the post is a faint copy of the real object. Just like Jack is
.
He is starting to forget little things. Things he never would have forgotten before
.
“What do we talk about when I’m here?” he asks
.
“All sorts of things,” I say
.
“Like what?”
“You always say you miss me.”
He puts his hand over mine, and it slips right through. He has forgotten he is a ghost to me. Or maybe I am the ghost. “That’s obvious,” he says. “What else?”
“You talk about the time Jules told you I liked you.”
“And?”
My words flow out as the memories wrap around my heart like a blanket. “You talk about your uncle’s cabin. The Christmas Dance. How my hair hides my eyes. How my hand fits in yours. How you love me. How you’ll never leave.”
“And what do you say to me?”
“I say I’m sorry. And I ask you how I’m supposed to do this.” My voice wavers. “How am I supposed to do this, Jack?”
“Do what?”
“Live this borrowed life. Without you. Knowing that you’re there because of me.”
He is quiet. The first rays of sunlight stream in and morning is upon us, always too fast, and I can’t help but stir in my sleep
.
He watches me. He knows I am about to wake up. “How do we say good-bye?”
I try not to let my face show my heartache at that word, or my anger at the Everneath for existing in the first place, or my resentment of Cole for taking me to the Feed just over a year ago. But mostly, I have to hide how angry I am with myself. Jack doesn’t like to see me angry
.
When I speak, I make sure my voice is calm. “We say ‘See you tomorrow.’”
“See you tomorrow, Becks.” He squeezes his eyes shut, as if he can’t stand to watch me disappear
.
I place my hand over his, helplessly grasping at air
.
I am worried about the forgetting. Most nights he is lucid; his thoughts are clear. But then he has bad nights, like this one; and I wonder if he will eventually forget me, and then he won’t visit me in my dreams anymore
.
If that happens, will I be able to keep him alive?
The sun rises, I open my eyes, and Jack is gone. My bed is empty, and I’m left with only my guilt for a companion. I hug my pillow tight and wonder how long I will be able to survive with the crack in my heart
.
Perhaps it will grow large enough to consume me
.
If it does, will I find Jack in the next life?
The Surface. My bedroom
.
The headline read
THE DEADS POP UP IN AUSTIN
.
I rolled my eyes. That made it sound like the beginning of a zombie apocalypse and not what it really was, which was a surprise concert given by the Dead Elvises in Austin, Texas.
A couple of months ago, a reporter from
Rolling Stone
magazine dubbed them the “next Grateful Deads.” Ever since, the nickname the Deads had stuck. I wanted to punch that reporter.
But lately, I kind of wanted to punch everybody.
I printed the article, cut out the headline, and took it over to my desk. Probably most people would have kept things like this on their computer, but when it came to my search for Cole—and the rest of the Dead Elvises—I liked the tangible clues. The map I could spread out. The headlines I could fold and refold.
If it kept my hands busy, it kept my brain busy; and if it kept my brain busy, it was almost possible to keep the memories of my latest dreams of Jack tucked away.
Almost.
Who was I kidding? Most mornings it felt as if I had to glue the pieces of myself back together just to start the day. Because what Jack had done for me—when he jumped into the Tunnels and took my place in hell—it had fractured my soul.
I stole a glance at the shelf above my desk, where several pictures of Jack and me rested alongside a crumpled note with the words
Ever Yours
scrawled in Jack’s messy boy handwriting. The ghost of his presence was everywhere—in the deck of cards set out on the desk, the quilt on my bed, the book he’d lent me years ago—but it was especially strong on this shelf. I didn’t know how many times I’d tried to put the pictures away, in a drawer or under my bed, out of sight. But I couldn’t.
I went to reach for one in the corner that showed half of my face and all of Jack’s. It was one of those self-taken shots. Jack had turned the camera around on us at the top of the Alpine Slide, but all you could see was our faces and the blur of evergreens in the background.
The memory squeezed me like a vise around my heart, and just as my fingers touched the frame I yanked my hand back, sending the picture flying off the shelf. The glass in the frame shattered on the wood floor. The sound it made was more than glass shattering. It was the sound of old wounds reopening, and it echoed from deep inside of me. I put my hands over my head and squeezed. Sometimes it was the only way to keep the pieces inside from falling out.
It was thoughts like this that made me realize no amount of visualization exercises from Dr. Hill—my Dad-mandated therapist—could help me.
I heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and I held my breath. Maybe my father had heard the glass break. I kept waiting for a knock on the door, but it never came. Running my fingers through my hair, I tried to straighten up my desk and focus on the map. I couldn’t let my dad see how broken I was. Not just the kind of broken warranted by the sudden disappearance of the boy I loved. The kind of broken where I knew I was the only one to blame.
My dad had been through enough.
The top middle drawer of my desk was large and flat, perfect for the map of the United States. I uncapped my red pen and put a shaky little red dot over Austin, then added the clipping to the pile of headlines next to the map.
DEAD ELVISES SAY “THANK YOU” TO CHICAGO FANS WITH SURPRISE CONCERT
DEAD ELVISES GIVE IMPROMPTU FREE CONCERT IN NYC
NEXT STOP ON THE MYSTERY TOUR: THE DEADS IN DURHAM
LOOKING FOR THE DEADS: A VLOG
I was looking for the Deads too, but not because I was a fan. Cole Stockton, their lead guitarist, had disappeared on me three weeks ago without a trace, taking away my only chance to get to the Everneath.
My only chance to find Jack.
I closed my eyes.
Stay with me, Becks. Dream of me. I am
ever yours.
Two months ago Jack said those words to me. They were the last words he spoke before the Tunnels of the Everneath sucked him away. The words haunted me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to live any kind of life until he was back with me. The problem was, how to get him back.
Not just anybody can go to the Everneath. In all the research I’d done over the past two months, I’d never come across a human who’d made it to the Everneath without the help of an Everliving. No one who’d made it there—and back—alone.
So it all came down to Cole. He and his band were the only Everlivings I knew.
Cole had visited me once, about a month after that horrible night. He’d stood in the yard outside my house, his swagger gone. He wanted me to become immortal like him.
I have ninety-nine years until I have to Feed again
, he’d said.
What makes you think I’d ever give up?
He’d seemed so smug. I’d placed my hand on his chest.
If you feel
anything,
please leave me alone
, I’d said.
I didn’t think he would, but he did. He’d disappeared. My only connection to the Everneath was gone. Now I regretted asking him to leave me alone.
I wrote the date next to Austin, Texas.
6/1
.
Running my finger eastward, I read the previous tour stops: Houston, 5/29; New Orleans, 5/27; Tampa, 5/24.
The Dead Elvises were heading west. For a little while, I had tried to guess which city they’d end up in next, pack up my car, and take off. But my dad could only take the sudden disappearances of his daughter so many times, and I was already in enough therapy now.