Hereafter (17 page)

“Let’s hope not,” I whispered back.

“I don’t need to hope. I know.”

I was simply playing—
we
were playing—and yet I suddenly believed what he’d just said.

I wasn’t evil. Ruth was wrong; Eli was wrong.

I didn’t have much proof: only a few guitar chords, some disconnected memories, and a handful of moments with this boy. But I knew it, too, then. Believed it.

I focused harder on Joshua. Although he couldn’t know what I’d just been thinking, he stared intently back into my eyes. After a few more seconds of this acute silence, Joshua ducked his head and looked down at the bedspread. He started to fidget, rubbing a loose fiber on his jeans. Mimicking him, I plucked at my skirt.

In our silence I read a few subtle changes. I couldn’t speak for Joshua, but I felt as though we’d just shared something very intimate. More intimate than anything we’d experienced up to this point.

Joshua cleared his throat and moved to fiddle with the MP3 player again, maybe in an attempt to ease the tension. He turned on a song I almost immediately recognized: a soft violin concerto. Vivaldi. I smiled slightly as Joshua curled away from the machine and back onto the bed.

“I like this one.”

“I figured, since I like it so much too.” He gave me a timid smile. “Good music to sleep to.”

At the word “sleep,” I frowned and moved to get off the bed.

“Should I go now . . . ?”

“No,” Joshua said, reaching out to me. “Stay. Talk with me.”

I was more than happy to comply. I pulled myself farther onto the comforter and wrapped my legs back under me.

We talked for hours, sitting curled up together on his bed, quieting only when we heard another member of his family pass by the door. As we talked, we began to shift positions. At some point he removed his shoes and stretched out fully on the bed. I stretched out next to him, propped upon one elbow, watching as his eyelids slowly began to droop. Finally, well past two a.m., Joshua rolled over to click out the lantern light on his bedside table. He dropped his head back onto his pillow and shut his eyes.

I could still see his face in the dark, enough to watch him fading in and out of consciousness. Before he faded entirely, I wanted to ask him one more question.

“Joshua?” I whispered.

“Mm?”

“You never really explained why I’m supposed to call you Joshua when no one else does.”

“I didn’t?” His words came out muffled, mainly because as he said them, he rolled over to face me. It would only take a little movement for him to brush against me, to ignite the flames across my skin again.

I shook my head, trying to force some sense back into it. “No, you didn’t.”

Thank God Joshua was almost asleep, because he clearly didn’t notice the ridiculous squeak in my voice. I scolded myself internally, telling myself to stop acting like an idiot every time he came close to touching me.

Joshua’s mumble broke into my thoughts. “The people I care most about in the world . . . they get to call me Joshua.”

“So . . . I’m one of those people? The ones you care most about?”

The stupid squeak snuck back into my hopeful whisper.

“Mm-hmm.” A faint smile played on Joshua’s lips. Keeping his eyes closed, he draped one arm over my waist. I couldn’t feel anything more than a faint pressure, but . . . still. Joshua’s arm was around me.
In bed.

I coughed to rid myself of the squeak and then launched into the most inane follow-up question I could think of.

“Um . . . I’ve got one more question. A weird one.”

“Shoot,” he said without opening his eyes.

“It’s really weird,” I warned him.

He groaned and cracked open one eye to stare at me. He lifted one eyebrow lazily, as if he was too exhausted for even this minor gesture. I sighed, and hurried with the question.

“I was just wondering: can you smell me?”

“Huh?” He opened both eyes now, albeit narrowly.

“See, I—I don’t usually smell things,” I stuttered, embarrassed. “And I, uh . . . I smelled you today. Twice.”

“Really?” The eyebrow rose again. “What was that like?”

“Nice.”

“Huh. You know what else is weird?” He yawned the question, eyes drooping closed again. “I can’t usually smell you, either. Only every now and then.”

“And what’s that like?” I repeated his question, trying to keep my tone casual while praying I didn’t smell like ectoplasm or rotting trees or something.

“Nice,” he murmured. “Sweet. Like peaches, or nectarines.”

In the dark, with his eyes shut, Joshua couldn’t see the smile radiating across my face.

“That
is
nice,” I whispered before settling down beside him, still tucked under his arm.

Chapter
Nineteen

W
hile the night shifted into morning and Joshua slept on, my thoughts returned, unwillingly, to Eli.

I took Ruth very seriously when she’d said “We’re coming for you.” She and her friends—fellow Seers, no doubt—wanted to end my afterlife as I knew it. So I needed to find some way to defend myself against them, and soon. But I had the strangest feeling I couldn’t do that until I gained more information about my ghostly nature. I needed to know how ghosts really interacted with the living world. I needed to know about my nightmares, and possibly my death. And I needed to know whether Eli had trapped my father in the netherworld with the other frantic, whispering souls.

Ruth had denied me this information yesterday, leaving me with only one remaining resource. As much as I hated to admit it, and as carefully as I would have to behave around him, Eli probably held the answers to some of my most desperate questions. Ones I
had
to obtain before Ruth and her friends made the task impossible.

The more I thought about it, the more my resolve solidified. Near dawn, I bent over Joshua’s ear.

“Joshua?” I whispered.

“Mm.”

Watching his peaceful face, I decided to risk an endearment. “Joshua, sweetheart, I have to do something today.”

“Mm?”

“I have to go find out a few more things. I’m not sure how long this . . . errand . . . will take, but I think it’s important. We can’t fight off the other Seers if we don’t know as much as possible, can we?”

“No,” he mumbled. Despite the assent, however, he was clearly still asleep.

“Glad to know you’re on board,” I whispered, smiling. “Can you meet me here tonight, around dark?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I smiled wider as his forehead creased. The motion made him look as if he took the promise seriously, even in sleep. I stared at him for a moment longer and then leaned closer. Gently, I pressed my lips to his forehead, just above his eyebrow.

The heat of the little kiss spread across my lips, turning them into two smoldering coals. I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of it. Then I pushed myself off the bed. I crossed the bedroom and, pausing at the door Joshua had left partly open, looked back at him.

“See you soon,” I whispered. I bit my lip; and, in a moment of sheer abandon, I added, “I think I might . . . you know . . .
love
you, by the way.”

“Too,” Joshua whispered back groggily. “Love.”

He was asleep, and the words meant nothing, I knew. But the knowledge didn’t stop me from stifling a shout of joy as I slipped out of the room. I tried very hard not to skip down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Only when I reached the back door did my mood sink. Actually, “sink” was too delicate a word. “Plummet,” perhaps, better fit the situation.

Because, bent over a magazine at the kitchen island and casually flipping pages, was Ruth.

When I entered the kitchen, Ruth’s head remained down, the dawn sun bright in her white hair. She looked as if she hadn’t heard me approach. I hoped that if I just tiptoed very softly past the island to the back hallway, I might go unnoticed. I wasn’t surprised, however, when Ruth’s voice stopped me short.

“You know,” she mused without looking up from her magazine, “I could have sworn I made my feelings on your relationship with my grandson quite clear.”

I pressed my teeth firmly to my bottom lip, refusing to answer.

“Yet,” Ruth went on without needing my response, “here you are.”

She flipped the last page of the magazine shut and finally looked up, focusing those cold eyes upon me. For a moment I didn’t move. Didn’t react. Then, slowly, I nodded.

“Yes. Here I am.”

Ruth sighed. “And why is that?”

I composed my face into what I hoped was a determined expression. “Because I was invited, Ruth.”

“Not by the person who counts.”

“I’m not scared of you.” I gave myself a gigantic, internal high five when my voice didn’t waver.

In an instant Ruth stood, her hands gripped to the edge of the island and a tight smile on her lips. “You should be scared,” she whispered.

Suddenly, a vicious headache hit me, similar to the one I’d experienced yesterday outside the church.

Similar, but not identical. Because this headache was far, far worse.

It exploded in my head, a searing pain that spread down my neck and crashed behind my eyes. I shut my eyes tight against it, but the effort didn’t provide any relief. After a few more seconds, I couldn’t help but drop to my knees and clutch both hands to my temples as if I could hold the ache at bay with sheer force.

The headache continued to expand as I cowered, blossoming in bright white flashes behind my eyes. The flashes pulsed like strobe lights in my brain, flaring in repetition until, abruptly, they changed.

Instead of white flashes, I saw the images, moving again in rapid succession against my eyelids. Like some kind of montage, switching so quickly from one image to the next that I could only catch one or two details from each: the crinkles around my father’s eyes; tall, swaying grass; a strand of my mother’s dark hair; the flash of lightning against something metal. The images sped and blurred until I could no longer distinguish any of their individual elements.

“Stop,” I moaned, wrapping my fingers so tightly into my hair that my scalp ached too.

To my shock, the headache immediately ended. The images vanished, and the pain evaporated so fast, it may never have been there at all.

Without removing my hands from my head, I opened my eyes to peek up at Ruth. She still stared at me with the tense smile, but now her dark eyes danced with something powerful, and malicious.

“Life flashing before your eyes, dear? That’s just a taste of what’s in store for you tomorrow night,” she whispered. She flicked her head toward the hallway behind me. “This house won’t be open to you again. Now, get out.”

I didn’t need any further instructions. I scrambled to my feet, nearly falling over them in the process, and fled through the hallway.

I had a brief moment of panic, uncertain as to how I’d get out of the Mayhews’ house without some sort of assistance. However, as my eyes scanned down the length of the back door, I found that assistance had already been provided.

On the floor, propped upright between the door and the jamb, stood an enormous book. Judging from its worn leather binding, the book was old and probably quite expensive. A wreath of drying herbs and flowers wrapped around the book, twining it shut. Scrawled upon its cover in gold I could just make out the words
HOLY BIBLE
.

Ruth’s work, no doubt. Some talisman to protect against anything sinister I might have planned. In its current position—wedged against the door in such a manner as to leave enough space for someone thin to pass through the doorway—the book also sent a clear message.

Leave, dead girl.

“Your wish is my command, Ruth,” I muttered shakily, and slipped through the opening.

I stood on the bank of the river and paced, unwilling to walk too close to the water’s edge but unwilling to stray too far away from it, either. The bank itself was empty of everything but me and a few chirping crickets.

“I’m here,” I called out to the air, my voice echoing off the surface of the river. “You said I’d come back to talk, and you were right. So let’s talk.”

Only the rustle of the leaves answered me. I sighed and began to pace more forcefully.

“Hello? Anyone out there? Do I have to do a rain dance or something?”

“Only if you want it to rain.”

Cold air swept over me in a wave, rolling up my body until it finally crested against the sensitive skin of my bare shoulders and neck. I wanted to shiver, but I wanted to present a powerful front to Eli more. So I kept my face expressionless, ambivalent, as I turned around.

Eli stood alongside the riverbank, where only moments before there had been nothing but tall grass and mud. He crossed his arms over his chest—mirroring the position I’d inadvertently taken as he approached—and leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin.

“Hey, Amelia.”

“Hey, Eli,” I answered, obviously in a less amused tone.

“So,” he said with a barely concealed laugh in his voice. “What can I do for you on this fine morning?”

Looking at his smug grin, I lost a fraction of my confidence. But I forced myself to clear my throat and straighten my backbone. “I have some questions for you.”

“Such as?”

The genuine curiosity in his tone, which was usually so smug, surprised me. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as difficult as I’d anticipated? This unexpected turn disoriented me, and I blurted out the first question that came to mind.

“How did you get here so fast? This place was empty a few seconds ago.”

Eli shrugged. “I materialized.”

“You what?”

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his tight jeans and strolled closer to me. “Haven’t you ever noticed, during times of stress or excitement, you’re able to travel? To move through time and space at will?”

I frowned. “Um . . . not exactly.”

Eli stopped only a foot from me,
tisk-tisk
ing. “You really should take more time to notice these things, Amelia.”

I scowled heavily.
There
was the smugness with which I was already so familiar. “Why don’t
you
take time to be a little less condescending, Eli? Otherwise, I’m leaving.”

He
tisk
ed again. “Didn’t you invite me here?”

“Yeah, but I can just as easily uninvite you.”

“I don’t doubt you can.” Then his smile faded, and he tilted his head to one side, giving me a quizzical sort of look. “You know, I’m very interested in seeing exactly what you can do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, “we all have abilities—and by ‘we’ I mean the dead. You’re no exception, I’m sure.”

“Abilities? Like being able to move through time and space at will?”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s one of the more common abilities. But really, Amelia, this shouldn’t be news to you. I’ve seen plenty of your materializations, each time you disappeared.”

I blinked, taken completely aback. What on earth was he talking about? I’d never “materialized,” whatever that meant.

Then proverbial lightning hit me.

The nightmares.

My nightmares were actually materializations? And they were something potentially controllable, through extreme emotion? Here was one of the answers I sought, then.

I looked up at Eli, unable to hide my excitement. “What else can we do?”

Immediately, I cursed my own stupidity.

Seeing the glimmer in my eyes, Eli grinned; and, at that moment, I could read it on every line of his face: he knew he had the upper hand. I wanted his knowledge, desperately, so I was his captive audience. At least for now.

“If you want me to answer your questions,” he said with that smug note still in his voice, “my help obviously comes with conditions.”

“Obviously.”

Eli nodded, and I felt suddenly like this nod had sealed some kind of deal. One I wasn’t sure I really wanted to make. Too late for me to recall my request, however; Eli clasped his hands behind his back and turned to stomp off into the woods.

“Wait,” I called out despite my misgivings. “I thought we had a . . . deal?”

Eli laughed loudly but didn’t stop walking. “Of course we do. And our deal just became mobile. So keep up.”

As he stepped into the trees, the riverbank instantly darkened behind him. With seemingly no command from Eli, the bank had shifted into the netherworld. But for now the flitting black shapes and whispering souls stayed away, leaving nothing but a cold, glittering landscape around me.

I tossed a wary look over my shoulder at the tarlike river dragging its way to the bridge. At first I thought the gaping black hole wasn’t visible today. However, as I watched, a tiny spot of darkness appeared under the bridge and then began to swell, its black edges clawing their way upward and outward. Eventually, it stopped growing; but even in stillness, it seemed to move and shift like some crouching beast. Giving it one last, hesitant glance, I shuddered and faced forward again.

“Amelia Elizabeth Ashley,” I whispered to myself. “You’re an idiot.”

Then I followed the creepiest thing I’d ever met into the deep, twisting forest of the netherworld.