Hereafter

“This movie’s stupid,” Darcy grumbled, snuggling further into the couch cushions.

  “Bite your tongue,” my dad shot back, his arm slung around my shoulders. “This is one of the greatest films of all time.”

  We were watching Superman—the original one from the 1970s—on his laptop, which glowed brightly in the center of the coffee table. It was ridiculously cheesy, but it was one of my father’s favorites, so at the moment, I didn’t care.

  “Fine, but we’re watching Footloose next,” Darcy muttered.

  “Kevin Bacon?” Dad said hopefully.

  Darcy gave him a look, as if she was embarrassed to share the same air with him. “Please. Do I look like I’m forty?”

  “Okay, fine. We’ll watch your version. What about you, Rory?” my dad asked. “What’s your pick for this little all-nighter you’ve got planned?”

  “I don’t care,” I said honestly, tugging the musty afghan up over my shoulders. “I’ll watch whatever.”

  “The Natural it is, then,” he announced.

  Darcy groaned, and I stifled a laugh. Dad could have whatever he wanted as far as I was concerned. I hadn’t been forced to fake illness to make him leave the party. The mayor had mysteriously disappeared on him, and he said he was more than ready to “blow this Popsicle stand,” as he put it. Darcy had been the harder sell, but my dad put his foot down. Joaquin was right. He didn’t want her walking home alone in the fog.

  So now here we were, ensconced in our little house, the fog still clouding the windows as we indulged in a family movie marathon. As Superman struggled with his kryptonite necklace on the screen, I rested my head against my father’s chest and listened to his improbable heartbeat. I hadn’t done this in so long—cuddled with my dad on the couch—not since I was a little girl. Now it was the only place I wanted to be. He was still warm, still breathing, still here. And that was all that mattered.

  I gazed through the living room window at the grayness outside, and a pair of sinister, glittering eyes stared back at me.

  “Dad!” I shouted, jumping up.

  “What?” he asked, startled to his feet. “What is it?”

  “Outside! I saw—”

  But when I looked at the window again, the eyes had vanished. I walked to the front door, shaking, and yanked it open, met with a swirling wall of wet gray air. In the distance a crow cawed.

  “Who’s out there?” I demanded, as my father and Darcy walked up behind me. “Who’s there?”

  Silence. Nothing but the hissing of the fog.

  “It was probably just a bird or something,” Darcy said, trudging back to her seat.

  “This fog can really mess with your imagination,” my dad added, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get back to the movie.”

  He waited for me to close the door, then walked me back to the couch. We settled back in together, but this time I found I couldn’t relax. While my dad and Darcy watched Superman save the planet, I kept my eyes trained on the window and the swirling fog outside.

  Someone had been out there, watching us. I was sure of it. And whoever it was was out for blood.

  A merry morning birdsong tugged me from my sleepy state on Saturday. The first thing I noticed was that my face was not on my pillow, but stuck to something grooved—soft but grooved. I blinked open my eyes and looked around, disoriented. The living room. Right. I’d passed out somewhere between Ren getting his butt kicked and…whatever happens after Ren gets his butt kicked. I glanced at the end of the couch. No Darcy. I pulled the corduroy pillow I’d been sleeping on into my lap, then stretched my arms over my head, yawning as I gazed out the window.

  It was another beautiful morning in Juniper Landing. Light breeze, sun shining, waves crashing in the distance…

  Suddenly, I was sucked backward through the couch and thrown against the wall, all the air knocked out of my lungs.

  Sun shining. The sun was shining.

  I threw myself off the couch cushions, screaming, “Dad!”

  I tripped over an ottoman as I raced for the stairs, and my big toe exploded in pain. Tears burned my eyes as I stumbled forward, shaking, trembling, gasping for air. He wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be gone.

  “Dad! Daddy!” I screeched, fumbling up the staircase. I threw open the door to his room.

  His bed was made. There were no slippers on the throw rug next to it. No worn novels on the nightstand. No glasses, no coffee mug, no piles of dog-eared manuscript pages. Tears spilling over onto my cheeks, I staggered to the closet and tore it open. Two dozen empty hangers stared back at me. Everything was gone. Everything.

  “No!” I shouted, whirling around. “No!”

  I ran over to Darcy’s door and reached for the knob, when it suddenly turned and the door swung open. Darcy, wearing a black nightgown, stood before me, her hair in a tangle.

  “What are you shouting about?” she demanded through her teeth, her eyes at half-mast.

  “Where’s Dad?” I yelled.

  There was a long, silent moment as Darcy’s face slowly screwed up in confusion. “Dad?”

  She pronounced the word as if she’d never heard it spoken before. Her eyes were a total blank.

  My sister had forgotten our father.

  “Omigod,” I said under my breath, turning around on knees so weak they buckled. I forced myself to breathe. How could this be happening? I was the one who was supposed to take him. And they’d all promised. No one else was to leave the island. They’d made a pact.

  And just like that, it hit me. The pact. Nadia. Nadia had looked so betrayed when the mayor had agreed to my plan. She hadn’t wanted to stop ushering souls. Why? Because if we stopped ushering souls, there would be nothing else to frame me for. It was her all along. She was the one doing all this and trying to pin it on me.

  That was why she’d been the only Lifer who hadn’t attended Krista’s party last night. She’d probably been off somewhere, plotting this—planning her ultimate revenge. She wanted Tristan so badly she was willing to betray the Lifers, usher my father before his time, and get me sent to Oblivion in the process.

  Suddenly I remembered the pair of sinister eyes watching us through the window last night. The pair of dark, glittering eyes.

  “Omigod,” I said again. “Omigodomigodomigod.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Darcy demanded.

  I shoved myself up to my feet and ran, barreling down the steps. I stopped short when I saw the table by the door, bare. She’d taken the family picture. The only one I had of my mother, my father, Darcy, and me all together.

  I was going to kill her.

  Slamming the front door behind me, I ran for town. On Freesia, the guy on the bike with his surfboard swerved around me and crashed, but I didn’t care. I threw myself out onto Main Street and almost collided with someone’s chest.

  “Rory!”

  It was Joaquin. He held both my arms in a death grip as I bent toward him, heaving, gasping for air. At my toes, a long line of ants marched toward the curb.

  “Where’s my father?” I begged. “Where’s my father, Joaquin? Where is he?”

  I leaned past his shoulder, trying to get a look at the mayor’s house, needing to see.

  “Rory,” he said, tugging me around in a circle, trying to put my back to the bluff. “Don’t. Just calm down. Just—”

  “Get off me!” I screeched, shoving him so hard he fell to the sidewalk. For a split second, we both stared at each other, stunned. Then I turned to look.

  There was the weather vane, gold and gleaming against the bright blue sky, sitting up with its proud swan, like its message was unimpeachable, like it had all the authority in the world.

  And it was pointing south.

  “Where’re you going?” Joaquin asked as I sprinted away from him and started across town, my eyes so blurry I could barely see straight.

  “It was Nadia,” I spat, keeping my eye on Tristan’s house. “I know it was. I’m going to tell Tristan and the
mayor.”

  “Rory, stop!” Joaquin shouted. He grabbed my arm as I reached the curb, and a car jammed on its brakes. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Just take a breath.”

  “Take a breath?” I screamed, my heart splintering in my chest. “My father is in the Shadowlands! I can’t take a breath!”

  Bea jogged up next to us. Her face was all red, and her hair was darker at the hairline, soaked with sweat. Fisher and Kevin were close behind, their jaws set, looking grim.

  “What happened?” Bea demanded, gasping for air. “Where’s the fog?”

  “Her dad was taken,” Joaquin told them, still holding on to my arm.

  “What?” Kevin’s eyes were wide. “Who?”

  “Nadia,” I said, gnashing my teeth.

  “You’re kidding,” Bea replied.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Joaquin said placatingly.

  “No. You don’t know that for sure.” I lowered my voice as two visitors strolled by, carefree, holding hands. “I know what I saw. She was at my window last night, watching us. Just waiting for us to fall asleep so she could take him.”

  Tears welled up behind my eyes as I remembered the feeling of my father’s arm around me, my cheek resting against his chest. I fought as hard as I could to keep them at bay. I couldn’t break down right now. I had to help my father.

  “Rory, I know you don’t like Nadia and she doesn’t like you,” Bea said. “But she would never do something like this. She lives for the rules almost as much as Tristan does.”

  “It was her, Bea. I swear to you.” I looked up at Fisher’s mirrored sunglasses and he removed them, as if he sensed this was too important not to look me in the eye. For the first time all week, I knew exactly how I felt about him—I felt he could be useful. “Where does Nadia live?”

  “What?” Fisher asked, glancing over at Joaquin. “Uh…down by the docks. Why?”

  “Get her,” I said. “Go by yourself, take someone, whatever you want to do. Just get her.”

  Fisher laughed nervously. “Um, okay. I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but I don’t take orders from—”

  “Get her,” Joaquin grunted. Fisher stared at him. “Just go, Fish. The sooner we let her tell her side, the better off we’ll all be.”

  “I’m on it,” Fisher said, and he ran off toward the bay.

  “We’ll be at Tristan’s!” I shouted after him. Then I turned and speed-walked up the hill. Joaquin, Bea, and Kevin were right on my heels. I stared blearily at the weather vane.

  My dad is in the Shadowlands. She sent him to the Shadowlands.

  One sob burst from my lips, and I bit it back. I couldn’t think about that. Not now. If I thought about that, I would go down in a swirling black cloud of despair, and I couldn’t let that happen. I was my father’s only hope. Nadia was the key. If she’d sent him there, she had to know how to get him back. And if anyone could make her talk, it was the mayor.

  The moment I crested the hill, I saw Cori and Pete sitting on the bench at the fork in the path, one trail leading back down the hill toward the beach, the other to the house. Two dirt bikes lay in the grass next to them. They both stood up as I approached.

  “Stay away from me!” I shouted, veering toward the house.

  “Where’s she going?” Cori asked behind me.

  “She’s lost it,” Joaquin replied. “She thinks Nadia took her dad.”

  “What?” Cori blurted.

  “Where is she, anyway?” Bea asked as they all jogged to keep up with me.

  “I don’t know,” Pete replied. “I haven’t seen her since the Swan on Thursday.”

  I pressed my lips together, triumphant. I knew it. She’d even steered clear of her friends yesterday? It was her. It had to be her.

  “Tristan! Mayor Parrish!” I hurried to the porch. I stumbled up the steps, and Krista opened the door.

  “Rory! Are you okay?” she asked, stepping toward me.

  “Where’s your mother?” I demanded. “Where’s Tristan?”

  “Oh…uh…the mayor’s not here. But Tristan’s up in his room, I think,” she said hesitantly. “Why don’t you—”

  I shoved past her and barreled up the stairs. I had to get to him. I needed him. I needed him to tell me he would help me fix this. That everything would be all right.

  “Tristan!” I cried, my voice breaking. “Tristan!”

  The door to his room was wide open. He wasn’t there, but sitting in the middle of his bed was a red drawstring bag, bottom heavy and bulbous. The sight of it, so odd and out of place, stopped me cold. I took in a deep, shaky breath as I heard the rest of the Lifers scramble up the stairs. Joaquin looked over my shoulder into the room.

  “What is that?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” Krista responded.

  With the confidence of a person who’d been in this room ten million times before, Joaquin pushed between us and opened the bag. His face lost color so fast I thought he was going to faint. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with terror.

  Everyone else froze. Bea and Kevin took two steps past me into the room, while Krista stayed rooted with me at the door. Cori and Pete hovered at the top of the stairs.

  “What?” I breathed. “What’s wrong?”

  Joaquin overturned the bag. Dozens upon dozens of fat gold coins rained out onto the bedspread, tinkling a happy song as they slid this way and that, forming a messy pile. Krista covered her mouth with both hands. Nadia leaned into the wall.

  “Ho-ly. Shit,” Kevin said.

  Then we all heard a footstep in the hallway.

  “Rory?” Tristan’s voice said.

  “Tristan, don’t,” Krista said.

  But he’d already stepped into the room. His eyes focused on the pile of coins, and his face went slack.

  “Tristan?” I said blearily.

  “What the hell is going on?” Joaquin demanded.

  Slowly, Tristan tilted up his chin. He gave me a long look. The depths of his beautiful blue eyes swirled with shock, with pain, with fear—and with guilt.

  I felt something jagged slice through my heart, and my knees started to buckle.

  Then he turned around and ran.

  I stood at the very back of the cave, a flashlight stuck into the ground at my feet, shining up at his name.

  TRISTAN SEVARDES (PARRISH) 1766.

  He’d made me believe that he loved me, that he was willing to change everything for me, but it had all been a ruse to throw me off the scent. He and Nadia had been together all along. That confrontation between them on the night we first kissed had been for show. He’d been lying to me from day one. Setting me up to take the fall.

  I was so stupid. So very, very stupid.

  The wind outside shifted, howling through the mouth of the cave. I shivered inside my heavy sweatshirt and hugged it closer to my sides. I was never going to trust anyone ever again. I was never going to allow myself to love. Clearly, I had no sense of people, no ability to judge character, no clue what was going on in anyone else’s mind.

  “Rory?”

  Joaquin’s voice echoed through the cave, surrounding me, filling me with a whisper of hope.

  “Back here,” I called out.

  His flashlight beam darted across the wall, illuminating colorful snatches of names, a riot of letters and numbers. I wondered if Tristan had been here that night, when I’d come here to find his name. If he’d hidden from me in the shadows. If he’d left that tally behind in his haste to get away from me. Bile rose up in my throat at the millionth realization of how stupid I’d been.

  Never again. Never.

  After a moment, Joaquin and Krista appeared. I’d left them just over an hour ago, but they both looked as if they’d been marooned somewhere for days. Krista’s white T-shirt had a streak of dirt across the front, and Joaquin’s forehead had gone red with sunburn. They were out of breath as they stopped behind me.

  “What’re you doing?” Krista asked, eyeing the open can of red paint at
my feet, the paintbrush handle sticking out the top.

  “I realized I never added my name to the wall,” I told her coolly. I wouldn’t let my voice betray my emotions. Once I started letting my emotions pour out, they would drown me. My sharpened gaze flicked to Joaquin. “Did you find him? Nadia?”

  “Not yet, but we will,” Joaquin said, gasping for breath as I turned my back on them to face the wall. He reached out to grasp my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m an idiot,” I said, glaring at Tristan’s name. “There are all these things I’m remembering. The other morning I walked in on him locking something inside his desk—probably the coins.” I looked at Krista. “Then you heard him and Nadia talking Thursday morning and they were both gone all day—the same day five souls got ushered? They must have been off somewhere, planning it. Making sure everything would go off like clockwork.”

  “I can’t listen to this,” Krista said, shaking her head and taking a few steps back toward the fire pit.

  I pursed my lips as I looked over my shoulder at Joaquin, knowing how hard this must be for her.

  “Remember that tally I found the other day? The one Pete took from me?” I said, and Joaquin nodded. “I think it was theirs. I think that’s why Nadia immediately knew what it was and tried to pin it on me. I saw Tristan making those same kinds of marks in the sand the other day.”

  “This is insane,” Joaquin said, rubbing his forehead. “This can’t be happening.”

  “I just didn’t put it together until today,” I finished.

  “Stop it,” Krista snapped suddenly, storming over to us. Her skin had gone from white to red, and I’d never seen her eyes so angry. “Tristan is the best of all of us. There’s no way he had anything to do with this.”

  “Krista…what other explanation is there?” I asked.

  “He’s had a lot going on,” Krista said, looking at the ceiling. “He’s been distracted. Maybe Nadia planted those coins in his room—did you ever think of that?”

  “Then why did he run?” Joaquin asked. “Why is he hiding?”

  Krista just stared at him. She didn’t have an answer for that.