Pieces of Hope (10 page)

“A
history?” I repeated, startled.
Creesie
had said that
souls could travel together through lifetimes, but a history implied, well,
more. Much more.

Then,
without hesitating, he added, “I believe we fell in love a long time ago—a very
long time ago. Before you were Hope and I was Ethan. Before something took me
away from you.” He emphasized the word again in case I’d missed it. “Before . .
.”

Slightly
dazed, I found myself struggling to breathe. Not because the words he’d spoken
seemed so impossible, but because they hadn’t. They stirred something within
me. Not quite a memory nor a realization, but something less tangible—a desire,
a belief, a hope that he might be right.

Whatever
pulled at him was stronger than his infallible will. Nearly transparent now,
Ethan shouted, “Find me again, Hope. Promise that you will!”

My brain
was still scrambling to form words when Ethan completely disappeared.
Everything else quickly followed. First, it was the steering wheel. Then the
Jeep. Then all the lights went out! It was so devastatingly dark that I
couldn’t see my hands in front of my face.
 

“Ethan?”
I called out hesitantly, my voice trembling.

But
Ethan didn’t answer.

I
stumbled around in the dark after that, stretching my arms in front of me,
longing to feel something—anything. But not only was there was a void of sounds
and scents and light, there seemed to be an absence of everything.

“Ethan!”
I screamed louder as panic took over. But there was no hint of a reply, not
even an echo of one. The entire place was empty, as though I’d been
vacuum-sealed into a large black bag and tossed into some forgotten closet. For
several terrifying moments, I fumbled blindly in the emptiness, struggling to
make sense of it. And then, from nothing, I knew. I just knew—
  

Ethan
was awake!
        

7
New Friends

My
thoughts tripped over themselves. What was I supposed to do now? Why hadn’t
Creesie
explained how to return to Liberty Station? And she
called herself a travel guide? I chewed off three fingernails before an idea
finally came to me . . .

If the
Station operated on thought, and if I had thought myself to Ethan, then maybe I
could go back the same way. Closing my eyes, I envisioned myself back on that
yellow-bricked street, pictured all those stunning souls coming and going,
and—while it didn’t feel as if I’d moved even a fraction of an inch—when I
opened my eyes, I found myself standing in the exact spot that I’d landed in
the first time.

“Have a
nice trip?” someone asked as she appeared beside me. Without waiting for a
reply, she raced on, “I wish you could have seen my sister! She was so happy to
see me!”

The girl
was elated and, of course, extraordinary. Her auburn hair was pulled up in a
loose knot, and she was wearing a long gown with thin, silky straps.
 

Seeing
me glance at her outfit, she said, “Oh, this . . . I died on prom night ten
years ago. Drunk driver.” She shrugged as if it no longer mattered, or nothing
could be done about it. “My family is still lost so I visit as often as I can.”
There was sadness in her voice. “I keep trying to tell them, but they don’t
want to hear it . . . I didn’t feel a thing.”
 

Instantly,
I thought of my mother and hoped it was the same for her. Perhaps that was the
norm after you died—the actual manner of death was of little concern. Or maybe
it felt more like a distant memory, like the time I fell out of the Alexander’s
oak tree and broke my collarbone. It had happened, sure. But it was so long ago
that it almost seemed like someone else’s memory. Maybe it was something like
that.

“Oh!” I
said at last, stopping short of
I’m sorry
for your loss
. Not only had those words sounded hollow when my mother died,
they seemed kind of stupid to say out loud in this place, what with everyone
walking around like they were happy as sunshine.

As we
approached the revolving door—as though it was the most normal thing in the
world to say—I asked the girl, “What did you and your sister do?”

“We
shopped! Oh, it was so much fun!” she gushed in a little-girl voice. Her blue
eyes were round and wide, and I couldn’t help but notice how they matched her
gown. “I helped her find the prettiest dress for prom. I just know she’s going
to love it!”

“It’s .
. .” I hesitated, not certain I was hearing her correctly. “It’s a real dress?”

“Yes, I
spotted it at the mall and showed it to her.” She twirled one loose red curl
around a finger. “Tomorrow—or rather, in her time—if I know my sister, she’ll
be dying to know if it’s real. And when she goes to the store and finds it
hanging on the rack, well, she’ll put two and two together and know that I’m
real, too!”

I found
myself wondering about Ethan’s reaction. Would he think of me all day? Visit Heaven’s
Peak? Best case scenario, I hoped he couldn’t wait to fall asleep and see me
again. Yes, that would work out nicely.
 

“I’m
Charlotte Gooding, by the way.” Her grin was infectious. “And you must be the
new girl . . .” In less time than it took to blink, she said, “Hello, Hope
Valenti.”

I shook
my head. “I can’t believe how fast word travels around here.”

“Yes,
well it’s that and your smell.” Her face didn’t wrinkle up, but I stopped just
short of sniffing myself, hoping I didn’t reek. Did they take showers here?

“My . .
. smell?” I made a face. “What do you mean?”

“Oh,
it’s nothing bad,” Charlotte
chirped, waiting in line to enter the door. “To the dead, the living smell a
lot like, well, fresh blueberries is the closest thing to it. But it’s a little
stronger than that. And hard to ignore. Everyone smelled you on your arrival.”

“Hmm . .
. that’s not so terrible. I like blueberries.” It was a relief to know I didn’t
smell like rotten eggs or dead fish. Charlotte
giggled, and I guessed it was because of my stupid reply.
I like blueberries?
Then again, maybe she’d overheard my thoughts.
     

“Back
from a visit with your boyfriend?” she asked. Before I could answer, we stepped
inside one of the pie-shaped wedges together and the door revolved in response,
automatically granting us entrance to the Station.

“How did
you—?” I began.

“I
wasn’t reading your mind, silly. You were rubbing your lips.”

Astonished,
I looked down. My fingers were still touching my lips. Charlotte giggled louder this time, and gave
a little wave to an Asian girl with long silk-like hair and penetrating black
eyes. She was seated at a bench at the other end of the Station, but thanks to
my heightened senses, I could easily see her through the crowd.

.

“That’s
Rin
Suzuki! We’ve been best friends since the first grade,”
she rambled excitedly. Charlotte
exuded the kind of giddy enthusiasm found only in small children and hungry
squirrels. It had the potential of either getting on your last nerve, or
growing on you. In Charlotte’s
case, I found it oddly endearing. “We tend to do everything together. We even
died in the same accident, but it’s not like we planned it that way.” She
laughed a little, then changed the subject. “I can’t wait to tell her about my
last visit! And,” she added with a heartwarming smile, “introduce her to our
new best friend.”

I was
flattered. If only it were this easy to make friends in the real world, I could
be as popular as Claire.

“
Rin’s
very . . . pretty,” I said. The compliment was
dreadfully inadequate, but adjectives were incapable of their usual impact.
Here, everyone was extraordinary.

A long
line had formed in front of the ticket booth. As we passed by, Mac jerked up
his head. His
perma
-grin widened. “What’s up,
buttercup? Back from your visit?”

I returned
his smile and nodded. Charlotte
tugged my fingers away from my lips, and we laughed as we glided our way
through the crowd.

Rin
was even more spectacular up close, though not quite as
bubbly as Charlotte.
Aside from
Rin’s
gown being bright fuchsia, the two
of them were identically dressed, wearing tall, skinny heels, and a single
flower in their upswept hair.

We sat
comfortably on a high-backed bench, the traveling bus in clear view to our
right. A long line had formed beside it, no shortage of travelers today.
Squeezed between the two of them in a tight three-way huddle, I waited as Charlotte finished a
recap of her visit. “
Rin
, do you think she’ll know it
was me this time?”

“I’m
sure of it, Char,”
Rin
said, working at a smile.
“Lucky seventy-nine!”

“Have
you visited your sister seventy-nine times?” I asked. If that were the case, I
couldn’t help wondering what Ethan was going to think. There was no way he’d
believe it was me after just one visit. I’d have to do something more memorable
next time.

Charlotte looked at me,
and I saw the tears in her eyes. From out of nowhere,
Rin
passed her a tissue. “I usually visit my mother, not my sister,” she said
quietly. “I wonder if she’ll ever stop crying.” As she dabbed at her eyes, she
tilted her head a little. Knowing she could hear my thoughts, I tried to stop
thinking, but couldn’t. Out of reflex, my face flushed. “I wouldn’t worry too
much about Ethan,” she said at last, her voice sweet and clear. “It should be
easier for him to believe it was you. After all, Hope, you’re not dead.”

“I’m so
sorry, Charlotte.”
I fought the urge to slap my own face. “That was inconsiderate. Moronic,
really. This dead thing is new to me. Well, not new but—”

“I
didn’t mean it like that,” she interrupted, reaching for my hands. “There’s no
need to be sorry. I’m”—she glanced at
Rin
—“
we’re
very happy you’re alive.”
  

It made
it both easier and harder that they could hear my every thought as clearly as
if I had shouted them out loud. I felt a mounting pressure to monitor myself
and, to say the least, I was disturbingly awful at it.

“Most
people are too preoccupied to listen to your thoughts,” Charlotte interjected sweetly as she
eavesdropped again. “And we’ll try our best not to do it. Won’t we,
Rin
?”
  

Rin
hesitated. Her response was less than believable.
“Sure, not a problem.” Then she sniffed the air as if it were a pleasurable
experience. “Truth is, your smell does make it harder to concentrate. You smell
positively delicious, Hope.”

“So I’ve
heard.” I tried to sound casual, as if people told me that all the time.

“You
have to be careful about—”
Rin
began. But Charlotte kicked her in
the shin and she stopped talking long enough to yell—“
Ow
!
What’d you do that for?”

Following
a brief stare-down with
Rin
, during which time I was
certain a deep conversation was taking place, Charlotte turned to me.

“What
Rin
means to say is, and this doesn’t pertain to anyone at
this Station”—they both shook their heads vigorously—“only if you travel to the
lower levels, which we don’t know why you ever would, but—”

“I would
like to know more about the other Stations,” I broke in. “
Creesie’s
only briefly mentioned them.” Shock registered on Charlotte’s heart-shaped face.

“See, I
told you,”
Rin
mumbled through her teeth. “It doesn’t
mean it’s going to happen for sure, but don’t you think she should know?”

“If
Creesie
didn’t tell her, I don’t think we should,” Charlotte countered.

Rin
narrowed her eyes and tilted her head in a menacing
fashion.
 

“No,”
she argued. “I’ll tell her! But only the bare
necess
—!”
Charlotte
stopped speaking as her eyes met mine, seemingly surprised that she was
speaking aloud. There was a lot going on at the Station, more than
Creesie
had let on. Hadn’t she said that things were
simpler here? Or was this all a part of the “unraveling” process?
  

“In
regards to the Stations, honestly, there are so many of them that we probably couldn’t
count that high.” I almost laughed at the way Charlotte had phrased it, but her serious
expression stopped me cold. “And we do know that they’re organized by levels,
like floors in an elevator—”
 

“Only
the elevator runs sideways,”
Rin
broke in.
 

“Exactly.
Sideways,” Charlotte
agreed, smiling at her friend as if all was forgiven. “You caught a glimpse of
the other Stations as you came in. Do you remember, Hope?” I pictured the
blindingly-bright corridor, and the thousands of doors without knobs. “Yes,
that’s them,” Charlotte
said, reading my thoughts. “Most of the doors didn’t have handles because only
your Station would be open to you. It’s part of the organizational process.”

“I see.”
I rubbed my hand thoughtfully over my chin, hoping I looked like I meant it. In
fact, I really didn’t see. I didn’t see at all.
  

“Most of
us don’t walk in the way that you did,” Charlotte
admitted with a shrug. “But you must have done it that way because you’re just
visiting. As you already know, most of the people here are permanent
residents.”

“Yes, I
know all about that,” I told her, still confused. “But that doesn’t explain how
I landed at
this
Station.”

Charlotte made a face as
she thought. “No one gets to select their Station. We’re assigned to it based
on the way we’ve lived our lives. Sort of the way Santa does it . . .” She
grinned at me facetiously. “You know, good or bad, naughty or nice.”