Afterworlds (45 page)

“You’ve got a thing for bleak places,” I said.

Yama smiled. “It might be bleak, but it’s almost silent.”

Almost
silent. That meant a few people had managed to end their days up here, maybe unlucky mountain climbers haunting the peak where they’d died. I hadn’t seen any ghosts wandering around, but Yama could hear their voices in the stones. This was his mountaintop in Persia, one of those desolate places that Yama
needed to stay sane. How long would it be before I started needing them too?

I shook off that thought.

“I’m worried about Mindy. She spent all day in her closet.”

“She’s been afraid for a long time.”

“This is the worst I’ve seen her.” When I’d checked on her that evening, Mindy had been crouched in the deepest corner, behind the dresses hung in dry-cleaning plastic. Her hair had been tangled, her clothes unkempt. “Her voice sounds softer. Like she’s fading away.”

“She can’t fade, Lizzie. She has your memories of her to keep her together, and your mother’s.”

“But what if she decides she doesn’t
want
to exist, because it’s too scary?” I turned from the snow-bright view to face him. “Can ghosts
make
themselves disappear? Like, spectral suicide?”

He shook his head. “She’ll go back to the way she was. Ghosts aren’t really affected by what happens to them. They only change as the memories of the living change.”

“Then why is she totally traumatized?”

“Because of what happened years ago. That’s still part of her.”

I turned away from Yama. I could see what he was saying—Mindy was still eleven years old, still afraid of the man who’d murdered her so long ago. But I hated the idea that she was trapped with her fear forever. It didn’t seem fair to give the bad man that much power.

And if the afterworld kept ghosts frozen in time, what would it do to me?

“We can change, right?”

“You and me? Of course.”

“But do you
feel
seventeen? Or really old?”

Yama shrugged. “I’m not sure what ‘seventeen’ feels like. I was fourteen when I crossed over, almost old enough to take a wife.”

“Now, see, that’s just creepy.”

“It was the way of my people.” He said this a lot.

“Your people and mine are different.” I said this a lot too. “But you don’t really seem much older than me. You seem seventeen. Of course, that’s probably what your people called
middle-aged
.”

His crooked eyebrow rose, carrying a challenge. “In my village, people went from young and healthy to old and frail in a few seasons. There wasn’t enough middle age to have a word for it.”

“Okay, that sucks.” It wasn’t fair to make fun of people who’d lived in the late Stone Age, but sometimes it was just too easy.

“It takes some getting used to,” he said. “Losing time. You’re already days younger than you should be.”

I blinked. That was a weird thought, that on my eighteenth birthday I’d be cheating, not really as old as my driver’s license claimed. But much stranger was that I could live forever if I wanted.

“Mr. Hamlyn told me he never comes out of the afterworld. Like, he’s worried he could die of old age any minute.”

Yama sat up straighter. “He told you his name?”

“Yeah.” I took a slow breath, realizing it was time to go into detail about how I’d rescued Mindy. “That was one of his conditions for letting her go. I had to learn his name.”

“He wants you to call him.”

“He thinks I’ll want to, for some reason.” I scratched my arms. Mr. Hamlyn’s weird energy was still on me, like phantom insects. “He also made me kiss his hand, to make sure we’re connected. Was that some kind of trick?” I tried to laugh. “I mean, does he get my firstborn now?”

Yama smiled a little, put an arm around me, and answered with a kiss of his own. The warmth of his lips danced on my skin, erasing for a moment the lingering taste of the old man. The touches of freezing air softened around me.

When we pulled apart, he said, “It was no trick, but it’s odd. Why does he think you’ll want to call him?”

I just shrugged, not even wanting to guess. “His last demand was that I deliver a message to you: ‘Tell him I’m hungry.’ Does that make any sense?”

“It sounds like a threat.”

“But he’s scared of you.”

“Of me, but not my people.” Yama’s voice faded a little. “I protect the dead, and he preys on them.”

I waited for more, but Yama was lost in thought. As the silence stretched out, I started to wonder if I should go. Sometimes in these desolate places of Yama’s, I felt like an alien, a cactus transplanted to the tundra. It was midnight back in San Diego, noon here in Persia, and a jet lag fuzziness was hitting me.

“I can see why psychopomps don’t bother with sleep.” I leaned my weight into Yama, closing my eyes.

He held me. “You still need to sleep, Lizzie. It will keep you from changing too quickly.”

“We’ll go in a minute,” I said, but in the end it was longer than that.

*  *  *

When Jamie drove me home from school the next day, we found a strange car in the driveway. It was a two-door. Sleek, dark red, and very shiny.

“Looks like your mother has company,” Jamie said as we pulled in.

“She’s supposed to be at work.” I looked up at the house. “Till seven.”

“Okay. Weird.” Jamie stared at the mystery car. “Those are dealer plates. You think she bought a new car?”

“Are you kidding?” I stepped out, looking around for anyone the car might belong to. No one was waiting at the front door. Nobody was in sight at all. “Since my dad left, we haven’t even bought new towels.”

“That’s too bad.” Jamie was out now, walking around the car. “It’s a pretty sweet ride.”

“Yeah, but why is it
here
?” I pulled out my phone. “I’m going to call Mom.”

“Hang on.” Jamie reached over the hood and pulled something from the windshield. “It’s a note, Lizzie. For you.”

She came around the car and handed it to me—a blue envelope. My name was written on it, but nothing else.

“Open it!” she cried.

“Okay,” I said, but part of me was afraid. Something weird was going on.

I tore the envelope open, and a single piece of paper slipped out. It was a printed-out email, from my father to a Chrysler dealership here in San Diego. A passage in the middle was highlighted in yellow.

Dear Lizzie, this is for you, because of everything you’ve gone through . . .
I had to stop there and stare at the car. Seriously?

“It’s from my dad.”

“I
knew
it!” Jamie cried. “The second I saw the dealer plates, I knew that this was some kind of terrorism-related guilt gift!”

I shook my head. “No way. My dad wouldn’t
do
this.”

“Clearly he has. What else does it say?”

I stared down at the paper, which had turned everything I’d thought about my father completely sideways. But as I kept reading, everything turned sideways again.

. . . especially now with your mother’s diagnosis. I wish I could do more.

They’ll slip the keys under the door. Love, Dad.

“No,” I said softly.

Jamie was still laughing, her fingers stroking the curving lines of metal. But my mind went rushing back to two nights before, when I’d been making ravioli with Mom. What she’d said about my father:
You’ll need him one day.

This is what she’d been talking about.

“My mom’s sick.”

It took a long, twisting moment for Jamie’s laughter to fade. “She’s what?”

I held out the piece of paper, unable to speak. Jamie pulled it from my hand and read, her expression showing everything I was too shocked to feel.

“What diagnosis? What’s he talking about?”

I shook my head.

“But you’d know, Lizzie! I mean, your mom would never tell
him
anything before she told
you
.”

“She said something the other night,” I managed. “About me needing him.”

“No way.” She crumpled the paper in her hand. “He must be fucking with you.”

I wanted to believe Jamie, but my mind was still flashing back to everything Mom had said two nights before.
Jamie doesn’t want to talk about herself. She wants to be there for you.

My mother hadn’t meant Jamie. She’d been talking about herself.

“She thinks I can’t take it,” I said softly.

Jamie shook her head. “Even if she’s hiding something, Anna would have told him not to tell you! Not even your dad would just
forget
something like that.”

As I stood there, some cold, impassive part of my mind worked it out. It was easier to tease apart my father’s motivations than to think about what the note had just told me.

“He wanted to spoil me.”

Jamie looked at the car. “You mean, to be nice?”

“Not that kind of spoil. This was a
spoiler
.” I was breathing hard now. “He wanted to show that he found out Mom was sick before me. To make the point that
he knew and I didn’t
.”

Suddenly my legs were too weak to hold me, and I sat down right there on the driveway. It wasn’t like falling, just a slow collapse into a heap. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and my eyes closed.

A second later, Jamie was right next to me.

“It’s okay, Lizzie.”

“It’s not.”

Her hand smoothed my hair. “You don’t even know what kind of diagnosis. It could be, like, for a root canal or something.”

I didn’t even bother to argue with that. People don’t use the word ‘diagnosis’ for root canals. Nor does anyone buy a car for you when your mother requires dentistry.

Instead I said, “What if it’s me?”

“What do you mean?”

“The attack in Dallas, whatever disease my mom has.”

I opened my eyes and looked at her pleadingly. She didn’t answer.

“What if it’s all because of
me
?” I asked. “I’m not a valkyrie at all. I’m a fucking grim reaper.”

“You’re talking crazy, Lizzie.” Jamie’s voice was calm but stern. “You didn’t cause what happened in Dallas. That was those guys from Colorado. And whatever your mother has, it’s because of a bacteria or something.
Not you.
”

I shook my head. Jamie didn’t know what was inside me, the cold place that resonated with the darkness of the afterworld. She didn’t know that I could see ghosts, could cross over to the flipside, and could see the dead histories of things dancing in front of me. She hadn’t seen the little girls, the way they looked at me, wanted me.

She didn’t know that I was part of death now.

“It’s inside me, Jamie.”

She pried one of my hands loose from my knees and held it. “What is?”

“Since Dallas. There’s something different about me.”

“Of course there is. But nothing that can make your mom sick.
We should call her and find out what this is all about.”

“Maybe it’s always been with me.” I squeezed Jamie’s hand. “I grew up with Mindy. She’s been here since before I was born.”

“Wait. Who the hell is Mindy?”

Suddenly I had to explain it all. “My mother’s best friend, when she was little. She was murdered. It changed my mother’s life.”

Jamie was just staring at me. I could hear that I was barely making sense, but somehow I couldn’t stop talking. I’d hidden so much from her, from everyone, and I had to say it aloud now.

“I think it changed me too. I grew up with the ghost of that little girl.”

Jamie stared at me a long time. “Are you serious? That really happened to Anna?”

“When she was eleven years old, her best friend disappeared on a trip with her parents. But they found Mindy buried in her own backyard. That’s why my mom’s always afraid for me.”

Jamie dropped my hand. “You mean, like on that field trip last year, when she texted you every five minutes?”

I nodded.

“Crap,” Jamie said. “I made so much fun of you about that.”

“Mindy’s always been here, since before I was born. That’s why I’m changing so fast.” Even if half the stuff coming out of my mouth sounded crazy to Jamie, it was helping me to say it out loud. I was a natural psychopomp, just like Yama had said.

Jamie squeezed my hand harder. “You know there’s no such thing as ghosts, Lizzie. But why didn’t you ever tell me about this little girl?”

“I didn’t find out until after Dallas. Mom hid it from me.” I
looked down at the crumpled note, now on the ground. “Just like she hid being sick.”

“Lizzie. We should call your mother.”

“Sure.” I put my hand on the bumper of the new car, pushed myself back to standing. I knew what I had to do now. “But not while she’s at work. I bet she hasn’t told them either. We can’t just drop this on her.”

“But it got dropped on
you
!”

“That’s not her fault.”

Jamie didn’t look like she agreed, but said, “Okay. But I’m staying with you till she gets back.”

“You don’t have to.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to smile at her. “I mean, I kind of need to be alone. Please.”

She stared at me, and I stared back. The cold place inside me was growing, keeping me calm.

“Are you really okay?” she finally said.

I nodded and gave her a hug.

Eventually Jamie was convinced, and I watched her drive away, smiling and waving at her. Then I walked to the front door and opened it. There on the floor was another blue envelope. I knelt and picked it up. Metal clinked inside.

“Lizzie?”

It was Mindy, peeking out of the hallway that led to my mother’s bedroom.

“Everything’s okay,” I said.

“You look funny.”

I nodded. No doubt I did look funny, like someone ready to calmly tear the world to pieces. The blue envelope ripped in half
like tissue paper, the car keys dropping into my hand.

“I have to go away tonight. But I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.”

“Okay,” Mindy said hesitantly. “Where are you going?”

“To fix things,” I said.

*  *  *

The new car had a fancy GPS system, which blinked to life when I started the engine. But instead of simply taking me to Hillier Lane in Palo Alto, the car wanted to dither and delay, to regale me with operating instructions and helpful hints and endless safety tips, as if it wanted to
get to know me.