Pieces of Hope (27 page)

           
“Daniel is trapped
in a Station where very dark souls reside.”
Creesie
waited
a few seconds, allowing the idea of that to sink in. But it wasn’t necessary. I
couldn’t get Daniel’s terrified image out of my mind. “We really should be
going, there isn’t much—”

“And Daniel—” I shrieked, my
stomach twisting as I tried to process what she was saying. “Are you telling me
that Daniel is one of them?”

“Things here aren’t quite as black
and white, or right and wrong as they seem to be in the living realm. This isn’t
something that’s easily understood . . .”

“You mean it’s easier to get when I’m
dead! Well, I’m not,” I shouted, “so we’ll just have to work around it. Give me
something to go on. Make me understand!”

She looked troubled, seeking silent
counsel from the others around her. The six of them engaged in conversation,
without me knowing a word that was said. I watched their expressions alter from
dull to dire, but there were several in the middle that were hard to pinpoint.
Eventually,
Creesie
spoke again, pausing a few times
as she tried to convey a concept I would eventually and fully understand, only
after death.

“Souls can be, for lack of a better
word, influenced by more powerful souls—”

“Just like the living,” Charlotte said in an
attempt to be helpful. But I was swiftly losing my patience, and it was
infuriating that they thought me so incapable.
 

“Okay, I get that—go on!” I leveled
my gaze at
Creesie
.

“And if Daniel is in the vicinity
of other dark souls, he may—”
Creesie
hesitated,
possibly attempting to soften the blow, or find the right phrase.

“He may what?” I shrieked, no
longer agitated. I was suddenly very afraid, and a part of me didn’t want to
hear the rest.

Creesie
didn’t blink. “He may lose all vestiges of his former self.”

“You mean he could turn evil?” I
didn’t believe it, not a word of it. “But you could be wrong,” I argued.
“You’ve been wrong before, right? So far there’s no indication that—”

“Shadows
are a very bad sign,” she interrupted. “Remember what I said regarding the
significance of auras?” Without waiting, she hurried on, “Remember? I told you
that they have meaning—the freer and brighter the soul, the clearer the color.
The darker the soul, the more muddied and grayish . . .”

I nodded
briskly, impatiently. Of course, I remembered. But what did this have to do
with Daniel?

“Now
imagine a soul absent of color, a soul without substance, a soul that’s only a
shadow of itself . . .”

“No, no,
no—please, not Daniel!” I croaked. My knees collapsed, but Charlotte’s bony arm held me steady. Her
strength surprised me; I thought she would have crumpled to the ground beside
me.

“Don’t
worry, Hope We’re going to help you,” Charlotte
whispered sweetly in my ear. “We’re going to save Daniel. You’ll see,
everything is going to be all right.”

I
couldn’t even nod. Charlotte
had meant to reassure me; unfortunately, her words had the opposite effect.
Everything was going to be all right? How?
  

I
suspected the dead would be gossiping about this misguided rescue attempt and
dying of laughter for centuries to come. Just how unlucky could a person get? I
was
this
close to traveling to some
perverted version of our beautiful Station—headed straight into the lair of
evil—accompanied bravely by a pair of skinny sixteen-year olds, two would-be
senior citizens, a super-speedy waitress, and a twelve-year old gap-toothed
charmer who ran the ticket booth.

We had
neither height nor muscle on our side. Aside from Gus—who was close to six feet
tall—and followed closely by Cat, I stood next in line a few inches shorter, and
Mac was right there with me.
Creesie
was lucky if she
broke five-foot, and
Rin
and Charlotte were just slightly
taller. If I had to guess, Gus looked the oldest (and I hoped with age came
wisdom) and though he was tall and lanky and that often translated to klutzy
(especially with teenage boys), Gus moved more like a dancer. Even standing
still, he looked remarkably elegant and graceful, just like everyone else at
the Station. I wracked my brain as to how that could be beneficial.

In
regards to usable skills, Cat undeniably moved the fastest. Numerous times, I’d
see her standing somewhere, and then, suddenly—between blinks, it seemed—she
would be gone. Unlike the others who behaved as though they still had bodies,
Cat moved more like whispery-thin vapor, mysteriously disappearing and
reappearing at will. Then again, it was possible they all possessed that
talent, and I simply hadn’t witnessed it.

And yet,
not a single one of them looked as if they could ward off a bad cough, let
alone battle an evil being. They had the kind of faces you’d come across in
People’s
“100 Most Beautiful” issue. (Nice
to look at, but not very useful.) And yet, for reasons that were a total
mystery to me, this unorthodox group was planning to rescue my first love from a
fate worse than death? If the idea hadn’t been so pitiful, I’m certain I would
have laughed myself into hysterics. Looking at them again, I cringed. I’d seen
tougher-looking kids at Claire’s ballet recitals.

“I’m
guessing we should prepare ourselves for the butt-kicking of the century,” I
muttered, despair marring my attempt at a joke.

No one uttered
a word in reply. Genuine terror inched up my spine.

“But if
what
Rin
and Charlotte said holds true, none of you
can be . . . can be”—I couldn’t say the words, let alone imagine the process
involved—“That is to say, none of you can be . . .
permanently affected
by whatever it is that’s near Daniel.”

There
was a mutual shrug, which I interpreted as a no, and which did nothing to allay
my concerns.

“You
mean, can we get our souls sucked away?”
Rin
volunteered.

With Daniel’s
terror still lingering in the back of my mind, I was almost successful in
swallowing my sarcasm. “That’s one way of putting it,
Rin
.
Truthfully, it gives me a visual I don’t really need right now.”

Creesie
cut in, casting a firm, motherly glance at
Rin
who looked back as if to say
What
? “For what it’s worth,
Rin’s
rather
graphic way of speaking isn’t an accurate depiction. For the living’s sake, we
have a tendency to oversimplify things . . .”

“But
nothing can happen to any of you?” I asked again. A guiltier conscience was not
something I was in need of, especially given our odds.

Creesie’s
eyes grew soft. “Nothing long-lasting, I assure
you. Any effects we feel will be temporary. And all things considered, I’d
prefer you didn’t dwell on the details.”

I tried
not to, but when she paused, I dwelled. I was thinking about what Charlotte and
Rin
had said about how they could feel other beings’
emotions the same as if they were their own. And if the emotions were
distressingly wretched, even evil—?

Cat’s
head tilted. Unfortunately, she’d heard me dwelling. Her expression brought to
mind an angry, wet cat—a real one—sopping and snarling. Though why she directed
it at me was puzzling. “Curiosity killed the cat!” she shouted, and it sounded
like a warning.
     

Beside
her, Charlotte
was holding her smile tight. Despite her promise not to listen in, she
whispered, “It’s really not as bad as you made it sound.”

I stared
at my feet, shaking my head. “I have no right to put you through this.”
 

“Nonsense!”
Creesie
chastised, then softened her tone. “We want
to help. That’s the only reason any of us are still here.”

It
seemed that everyone was waiting on a decision from me—Ethan, Daniel, Mom and
Dad, Gigi, Claire, and Brody. I suddenly felt spineless, certain that jellyfish
had more of a backbone than I had at the present moment.

And now,
more people were waiting on me—
Rin
and Charlotte, Gus and
Creesie
, Cat and Mac, hanging around the Station for what?—a
temporary visitor from the living realm? None of it made any sense.

I looked
at Mac and Cat, standing side by side across from me. They seemed quite
familiar with one another. Despite their age and height difference, they seemed
fond of one another. And, had I imagined their fingertips touching?

I knew
they’d heard me because Cat took a sudden, tiny step sideways.

Excusing
their closeness by the fact that they both worked at the Station, I asked,
“What about your jobs? Who’ll fill your shoes if you don’t . . . that is to
say, if you don’t return quickly?”
 

“Things
at the Station aren’t always what they seem, doll,” Mac said with a wink, and
Cat sent him a sideways look. It didn’t dampen his spirits. His gap-toothed
grin never left his face. “You see, we made a promise to—”

“To
protect all visitors,” Cat hissed in his direction. And, of course”—she pointed
at me (the blueberry-scented living-dead girl)—“you’re one of them . . .”

I knew
there was something she wasn’t saying, but dead people had a bad habit of
keeping me in the dark. And I’d been around them long enough to know I wasn’t
about to get a straight answer out of any of them no matter how much I
persisted.

Still, I
decided to try. “Clearly, you have my best interests at heart, and I’m very
grateful for that. But for my own protection, and I hope, for yours as well,
I’d like you to tell me more about this, this soul-sucking thing that
Rin
and Charlotte alluded to.”

I could
suddenly hear their breathing—too fast. More likely than not, they weren’t
frightened (as I was) but were merely taking on my emotions. Though I tried not
to think of it, I couldn’t help but wonder—if I screwed up—how painful and
permanent the result might be.

“Nothing
is going to happen to you.”
Creesie
cupped my chin,
putting me in mind of my mother. “You might be surprised at who you have on
your side.”

“Never
judge a book by its cover,” Charlotte
added brightly, as if this trite cliché could solve all our problems. But since
they were apt to take things so literally, I voiced a dry thought.
 

“If it
were a really big book,” I said, alluding to our lack of muscle, “and not half
a dozen puny ones, I could at least smack someone over the head with it. How
unfair is it to not be given something more substantial to work with?”

Charlotte was the first
to giggle, a happy little-girl sound that infected the entire group. I couldn’t
stop myself from joining them. The situation was beyond ludicrous.
  

Hearing
several of my unasked questions,
Creesie
sighed.
“Come along. We can explain more along the way.”
     

Cat led
us to an inconspicuous corner of the Station, just a few hundred feet to our
right. The travelers had no need to venture here. There were no benches near
it, no places to sit and talk privately. In fact, there was so little to see
that, at first, I hadn’t the faintest idea why we had stopped here.

Everyone
stared resolutely into the corner, into the vast amount of unbroken wall space
as if something else was there—something other than the obviously plain yellow
wall. For an immeasurable span of time, no one moved. No one even blinked.
Initially, I cast a few furtive glances at the group, trying to assess what we
were doing, but everyone kept concentrating on the wall before us. I was
staring at it with such focus that my vision began to blur, and at the precise
instant that I was ready to throw my hands in the air and ask what we were
doing, something altered.

Dim
figures began to appear in the plain-looking wall—rather muted and fuzzy at
first, then slowly becoming sharper—as if an unseen hand were delicately
carving them as we watched. As the details became crisper, the wall gradually
darkened from yellow to a rich mahogany. It wasn’t paint. I could see that. It
was . . . it was
aging
. Seconds
later, I recognized the intricately carved figures as the same ones from the
ancient elevator doors in
Amora’s
room. Two massive
panels met at the corner of the wall and went all the way to the ceiling. They
had to be seventy-five feet high, and just as wide, and those detailed carvings
covered every inch of them.

“The
history of mankind,”
Creesie
said to my stunned
expression. She pointed out a few. “There’s the
Hunas
,
the Romans, and over there is a Minoan bull leaper . . .”

I
studied them closely as her finger jumped around. The tiny figures, marching in
straight rows end to end, were like tiny works of art. “They look so happy,” I
said, unable to look away.
 

“Yes,
they do . . . here,” she added. Before I could ask anything further, she strode
straight through the panels. The rest of us followed. Beyond the panels was an
oblong waiting room with an elevator at the end. Its doors were as tall as the
panels we had just passed through, but only as wide as a standard elevator. The
space was pleasant enough, and bright, almost blindingly so—though I didn’t see
any lights—and there was a soothing melody playing quietly in the background.

Getting
here had seemed to take more than the usual effort, but
Creesie
explained it away with a casual shrug. “Safety feature. Travel between the Stations
is generally not encouraged.”

“Emergencies
only,”
Rin
added in a hushed voice.