Hereafter (9 page)

“Don’t be condescending to me, Joshua. Tell me what made you think you could bring something from High Bridge into our home?”

“Grandma, I didn’t—”

“Don’t.” Ruth cut him off immediately. Joshua frowned, but she went on, her sharp eyes darting in my direction every few seconds. “Don’t say you ‘didn’t,’ because I can obviously see you
did
. I told you to stay away from that bridge—I’ve told you since you were little. But you go and wreck your car there and then bring
this
into our home? When I’ve tried so hard to protect you all from things like this?”

Her eyes fell fully upon me as she spoke the last phrase. I couldn’t help but shiver and then shrink farther back, toward the hallway.

“Come on, Grandma.” Joshua laughed again, although he seemed to have given up on masking the tension in his laugh. “All the stories about the bridge are just . . . stories.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Joshua’s father called from behind us, sounding pretty nervous himself about his mother’s behavior. “You know those stories are just made up to scare kids away from an unsafe bridge.”

I looked back to see Joshua’s father cast his eyes around the kitchen at the rest of his family. Like him, they all stared at Ruth in disbelief. As if they were afraid their matriarch—the family “pit bull,” as Joshua had called her—was losing it, taking her little ghost hobby way too far.

Ruth, however, shook her head, her cheeks now blooming a violent, angry red. “I know no such thing, Jeremiah. What I do know is that bridge has a bad history. The kind of history that can change a place. Make it attractive to certain . . . things.”

“Grandma, you know I don’t believe in—”

Ruth laughed mirthlessly, cutting Joshua off again. “Joshua,” she all but whispered, her eyes locked once again onto his. “I’m pretty sure you do believe. At least you believe
now
.”

A soft, thoughtless yelp escaped my lips.

I slapped my hand to my mouth. Ruth, however, didn’t look at me. Instead, she remained focused on her grandson.

Maybe she hadn’t heard me yelp? And maybe I was being hypersensitive, imagining that she saw me, too? Imagining that she referred to me as one of those “certain things” associated with High Bridge?

Maybe. But it didn’t seem very likely anymore.

And I didn’t want to risk it. In fact, I suddenly felt trapped. The need to run began to burn in my limbs. I threw one more longing glance at Joshua before I crept several paces backward.

Joshua followed my movements from the corner of his eye. “Don’t—!” he started to protest, but then clamped his lips down and gave his grandmother a tight smile.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, hovering at the entrance of the hallway. “But I think I’d better get out of here.”

He frowned, still staring at his grandmother, who had yet to drop her eyes from him. I looked back and forth between Ruth and Joshua, gnawing on the corner of my lip. At last my gaze fell on Joshua. I looked down at the hand closest to me and watched him clench and unclench it, like he’d done outside his math classroom today.

Despite my fear, this little gesture made me smile. It emboldened me, if just a tiny bit.

I drew a deep breath and then said, “Meet me at your school tomorrow, okay? At lunch, in the parking lot?”

Joshua gave me just the slightest nod, and my grin widened. The grin shrank, however, when Ruth’s eyes darted once more to mine. If I didn’t know better, I would have believed that a gaze like that could kill me again.

“Help me get out of here, Joshua,” I whispered, as if my hushed tone would somehow make Ruth less aware of me. I spun around and bolted down the hallway before I had the chance to find out.

Once I reached the end of the hallway, I nearly shrieked in frustration. The screen door stared back at me, shut tight against my useless, dead hands. I almost collapsed with gratitude when an arm reached past me and shoved the door open, wide enough for me to pass through it. I crossed onto the deck and spun back around with a wide smile of relief.

“Thanks, Joshua, I really—”

The words died on my lips.

Ruth stared out at me from across the threshold, her hand still clenched to the doorframe, standing only inches away from me.

She was alone in the hallway.

I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from Ruth’s. Watching her, my vision blurred, and I could swear my head actually started to
ache
.

Finally, with an almost nightmarish slowness, I looked away from her. I began taking uncoordinated, fumbling steps across the deck and then down its stairs.

From behind me, I thought I heard something—a soft murmuring, almost like chanting. But I didn’t look back at Ruth. Instead, I dashed through the yard and toward the driveway, intent on escape. Before I could flee, however, the sound of Ruth’s voice froze me one last time.

When Ruth spoke, she whispered. But this time she did so loud enough for me to hear her, even from across the yard. The very sound of it prickled, icy and cruel at the back of my neck.

“You weren’t who I expected,” she hissed into the dark, “but whoever you are—leave. And don’t come back.”

My first impulse was to drop to the ground, curl up into the fetal position, and pray for a nightmare. For a good old disappearing act.

My next impulse was to cry out
Yes, ma’am; of course, ma’am
and promptly obey her orders.

My final impulse was a little less familiar. A little out of my character, as I’d come to know it since death. Following this last impulse, I didn’t acknowledge Ruth’s edict in any way except to stand as straight as I possibly could and cast my head back.

Then, after this meager act of defiance, I followed at least part of Ruth’s instructions and ran, fast, into the blackness of the night.

Chapter
Eleven

I
have no idea how long I wandered after I left Joshua’s house. One hour, four—who knew? All I knew was that the night had darkened into a sinister black. Unlike the one in the flash I’d experienced earlier, the sky above me didn’t glow with stars. Instead, a sickly looking moon provided the only light. It was a ghost itself, so dull and weak it appeared out of place in the sky. As if it didn’t belong.

Like me,
I thought bitterly.
I don’t belong here, either.

Well, maybe I belonged
here
, on the desolate stretch of road upon which I now walked. But certainly not in the place I’d just visited. The place from which I’d just been unceremoniously banned.

Picturing Ruth’s sharp eyes and cold voice, I wondered,
Was she right? I wasn’t what she “expected” from a ghost. So . . . was I
worse
? Was I really some dark “thing” from High Bridge, like Eli? Some evil force in Joshua’s life, saving him just so I could wreck him?

I certainly didn’t
feel
evil.

But I had to ask myself whether my current feelings even mattered. I knew nothing about myself, nothing about my own nature. The flashes were starting to give me some information, but only slowly and in a piecemeal way. So I’d been homeschooled by a mother I obviously argued with, known how to do differential equations, and had enough nerve to pick out dresses such as the one I would probably wear for eternity. These scant details, however, didn’t really tell me anything about myself, whether or not I was a good person.

For all I knew, I spent my life kicking puppies or shoplifting underwear.

Or worse, obviously. Far, far worse.

Maybe something I’d done during life, or even at my death, made me
deserve
the afterlife Eli insisted was waiting for me. Had I been a cruel person? Was my life so terrible, I’d killed myself?

I had no idea.

A sudden wave of frustration washed over me. The flashes were so unrelated, so lacking in meaningful detail, I might never know who I’d been or what I could become. I let out an angry puff of air and began to trudge more forcefully down the road.

I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I walked, because I nearly stumbled over my own feet. Only after I’d steadied myself did I take in my current surroundings, the sight of which angered me further.

In my distraction I’d wandered back to the place I hated most: High Bridge.

I was standing right at its entrance. Its metal girders loomed above me, glinting in the yellow moonlight in a way that reminded me of spiteful winking.

“Oh, isn’t this
perfect
!” I shouted.

My voice sounded childish, echoing back at me from the girders. So, in keeping with my petulant mood, I swung my leg back to kick uselessly at a rock on the shoulder of the road.

Before I could complete the kick, a sudden blast of cold air hit my back, running a chill from my neck to my heels. Immediately following, a smooth, familiar voice oozed out from behind me.

“You know, Amelia, you can kick it all you want. But that rock isn’t going anywhere.”

I closed my eyes, told myself not to shudder—no matter how appropriate it might feel—and then turned on one heel. I fixed a small, derisive smile on my face.

“Eli.”

My only word of greeting. Eli’s lips curled at one corner in amusement.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Amelia?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Clearly,” he said, leaning forward and arching his eyebrows, “you wanted something. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“And why would you think that?”

“You sought me out. So far I’ve kept my promise to leave you alone.” He gestured with one arm to the metal and pavement around us. “But
you’re
the one who returned to the bridge, like I said you would.”

I scowled at him. “Trust me, it wasn’t intentional.”

“Whatever you say, Amelia.” He began to turn toward the embankment. Then he looked back at me and, after a moment’s consideration, twitched his head toward the river. “Why don’t you come with me? We can talk more comfortably down there.”

I tried not to laugh. “Uh, no thanks, Eli. I thought I made my feelings pretty clear on the subject of hanging out with you in dark places.”

Eli shook his head. “But you do want to talk, don’t you?”

“To you? Why would I want to do that?”

“I saw the look on your face before I spoke. You’ve had a bad night.” He stated it like a fact.

“So?”

I sounded defensive, and for good reason. I had no intention of letting Eli know why I’d had a bad night. Eli couldn’t know where I’d just been—he couldn’t even know about Joshua’s existence, as far as I was concerned.

“
So
,” Eli said, “maybe you’d like to know why you’re frustrated since you woke up from the fog? Why you can’t quite figure out where you belong?”

I blinked.

“How did you . . . ?” I began, and then I shook my head. Eli couldn’t possibly have known what I’d been thinking about before he arrived. He’d just taken a guess. A very good one.

I shrugged again. “You’re right; it would be nice to know some things. But you’re delusional if you think I’m going to do whatever you want me to just to get some information.”

To my surprise, Eli laughed. “Fair enough, Amelia. How about I give you a . . . what should I call it—a freebie?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I’ll give you some details about the afterlife in exchange for nothing but your company for a little while.”

I raised one skeptical eyebrow. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch . . . for now.”

“For now?”

“Well.” He sighed. “I’ll expect you to think about what I tell you tonight and consider it reason enough to come back to me—for good—later.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll deal with that problem when we come to it.”

I bit my lip, confused by how suddenly appealing Eli’s proposition sounded. I didn’t think I could trust him, nor did I really want to. But I also couldn’t resist his offer of information, not at this point. I wanted to know who I was, and what happened next. No, I
had
to know. I nodded as decisively as I could, given my
lingering reservations.

“Okay, Eli. Lead the way.”

Eli looked startled by my sudden agreement. Quickly, though, a pleased smile spread across his face. He rubbed his hands together.

“Excellent.”

Without pausing for my response, he spun around and marched down the hill. I took a breath for courage and followed him.

Slowly, carefully, I made my way down the grassy slope. Eli waited for me at the bottom of the embankment, feet planted apart and arms folded over his chest. I stopped several yards from him and mirrored his stance.

“Well?” I asked.

Eli grinned, and ignored my question. “How’s the temperature, Amelia?”

“Huh?”

I frowned, hard. Even if I was interested in what Eli had to say, I didn’t want to fall for any of his tricks. So I felt extremely foolish—not to mention unnerved—when our surroundings suddenly changed. Without further warning, everything melted into a deep, charcoal gray; and cold air blasted my skin.

Looking around me, I gasped. Again the trees and river had transformed into charcoal and tar. Eli had plunged us back into the place he’d revealed yesterday: the dark afterworld in which I was supposedly doomed to spend eternity, trapped. The passage of a full day had done nothing to improve this place’s appearance.

My voice came out timid and wavering when I protested, “I thought you said we were just going to talk?”

“Relax, Amelia,” Eli said. “I’m keeping my promise. I just want to keep it where I’m most comfortable.”

I peeked above and past him. Neither the black chasm under the bridge nor the weird, moving shapes had appeared yet. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to block out the chill. “Okay, fine. But do it fast, and let me go. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Well,” he said, “why don’t we start with this place then? Would you like to know where we actually are?”

I nodded hesitantly.

“This
is
part of the afterlife, like I told you.”

“That’s not really reassuring,” I murmured, taking in all the bleak grayness with a roll of my eyes.

Eli shook his head. “It’s not as bad as you think, Amelia. Honestly.”

Locking his eyes on mine, Eli raised one hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the netherworld lightened as if Eli’s snap had flipped some kind of supernatural switch.

My mouth gaped.

With the introduction of just a fraction of light, an entire landscape appeared around me. Granted, it was still in various shades of gray. But the scene itself, and not its color, captured my attention.

At first glance the netherworld bore a strong resemblance to the riverbank we’d just left. The vague, charcoal shapes I’d seen yesterday took on more familiar forms: the long prairie grass, enormous trees, and clumps of unruly wildflowers still crowded around us. Each piece of gray plant life, however, differed in slight but significant ways from those in the living world.

Here the tree branches twisted into sinister shapes, like claws and hooks; the wildflowers and grass snarled around each other, looking as if they were in some kind of angry battle. And, though the plants indicated that it was late summer in this world too, every surface shimmered and glittered with a fine layer of frost.

This netherworld, once illuminated, actually looked like some kind of creepy wonderland. Like a double-exposed negative of the living world: cold, dark, scary. And also unbelievably beautiful.

“Is it always like this here?” I breathed.

“No,” Eli answered, his voice low and respectful. “It’s always gray, and cold. But I have the ability to lighten or darken the scenery, if I want.”

“Are you the ruler of this world or something?”

Eli laughed loudly, breaking the spell this place had cast over me. “Are you asking if I’m a god, Amelia?”

“Not exactly the entity I meant,” I muttered, too low for Eli to hear.

“No, I’m not one of the higher powers here,” he said. “Although I do work for them.”

I pulled my eyes away from the fantastic trees and met Eli’s gaze. “Them? Explain.”

Eli settled back on his heels. “Well,” he said, “I guess I should start with my job description.”

I raised my eyebrows, and he sighed.

“I’m the . . . guardian, in a sense, of this afterlife. I’ve been commissioned to care for it. To grow it.”

“Grow it? You mean, with all the plants?”

For some reason Eli’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “With those, and . . . other things. Listen,” he commanded, and then cupped his hand to his ear.

I obeyed thoughtlessly, clamping my lips tight and focusing on the quiet around me. Initially I couldn’t hear anything, except perhaps the weird echo of silence, like the kind you hear when you press your ear to a seashell.

Then, just over the silence, I heard them. Faint at first, but growing in intensity.

Whispers. A chorus of them.

“Who . . . ?” I started, but Eli pressed a finger to his lips, indicating I should stay quiet.

The whispers continued, hushed and insistent. I couldn’t be certain, but after a few more seconds, I thought they sounded . . . desperate. Frantic.

Something about them frightened me.

“What are those voices, Eli?” I demanded shakily. “Tell me now.”

“I think you already know.”

“People?” I whispered.

“Well,” he said with a sly grin, “they used to be.”

I gulped, feeling strangely dizzy. “What exactly is your job here, Eli? Really.”

He sighed as if relieved I’d finally asked an important question. “I’m not only a guardian, but also a sort of recruiter. I’ve been chosen to usher certain newly dead souls to this place. Some of those voices you heard are my charges—souls I was ordered to bring over.”

“Other ghosts?”

Eli nodded. “I think you saw a few of them yesterday actually.”

I thought back to the flitting shapes along my peripheral vision. I looked wildly to either side of Eli, at the empty riverbank. “Where are they now?”

“I told them to stay away for a while so you and I could talk.” He jerked his head toward the line of weird trees behind him. “Mostly, they stay in there until I need them.”

“Are you . . . their boss or something?”

Eli shrugged, but the gesture looked prideful. Almost self-satisfied. “I recruit them for my masters. In return, my masters give me power over this place, and the recruited souls in it. The souls follow my commands and help me with whatever I need. On big missions they definitely come in handy.”

I tried not to shudder, thinking of what a “big mission” might mean to Eli. “And these ‘masters,’ the ones who gave you this job—are they in those trees too?”

He laughed as if I’d said something ridiculous. “No, of course not, Amelia. This is my realm. Over
there
, however . . .” He trailed off, looking over my shoulder. I followed his gaze to the place where the river moved sluggishly under High Bridge. To the space where the black hole had appeared yesterday.

A few details clicked into place in my mind, and I moaned. “You trap people in this world? On orders from whoever lives in that . . . that hellhole?”

“Only because this is where these souls belong. And that darkness over there isn’t hell. It’s just one of the places where the higher powers go when they’re not giving me my instructions.”

Eli sounded sincere. But I shook my head vigorously against his words. No soul deserved to stay in this dark forest, trapped forever, unable to move between worlds like Eli and I obviously could. No matter who, or what, had ordered it.

Thinking about what it might feel like to be trapped inside the dark forest or, God forbid, somewhere in that sightless chasm below the bridge, a thought struck me. A terrifying one.

I raised my eyes to his again, searching their pale blue depths. “What about me, Eli? What about my soul?”