Hereafter

  “Like all of us,” Joaquin put in.

  “What?” I breathed. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means you won’t be moving on,” he said quietly. “You’re staying here. With us.”

  My fingers slipped out of Tristan’s grip, and I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. I had just started to adjust to the fact that I was going to some ethereal place called the Light. That I would never see home again. Would never graduate from high school or go to college or med school or do anything that I had spent half my life planning to do. And now…now I was stuck here? Forever?

  “Why?” I demanded, dropping my hands. “What makes me so special?”

  “You died an unnatural death,” Joaquin told me, his voice suddenly gentle. “At least, that’s the first requirement you have to meet to become a Lifer. And in the last moment of your life, you achieved the second.”

  The room swam before my eyes, a wash of browns and yellows and greens. “The second? What’s the second?”

  “You have to prove your selflessness. Either in the other world or once you’re here,” Tristan told me. “You used your last seconds of life to rid the earth of a sadistic killer. Even as you took your last breaths, you managed to make the world a better place.”

  One last image came spiraling back to me. A slow-motion reel of me, yanking the knife out of my stomach, turning it on the man who’d murdered my family and so many others, the look of shock on Nell’s face as the blade arced toward his chest. A strangled sort of cackle escaped my throat.

  “My selfless act was killing Steven Nell?” I said, aghast. “That wasn’t selfless; that was revenge.”

  Tristan’s brow knit. “Maybe on some level, but—”

  “This has to be a joke,” I said, looking around at the rest of them. Waiting—hoping—for one of them to crack. To start laughing and shout “gotcha!” But no one moved. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I wouldn’t joke about something like this, Rory,” Tristan said. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  The room blurred in and out around me. The coffee cups scattered on the bar, the plaster cast of a jumping dolphin suspended over one of the couches, all the faces staring back at me—curious, pitying, concerned. I pressed one hand against my forehead and forced myself to focus on Tristan. Only Tristan. His perfect lips, his strong jaw, his kind eyes. Right now he was the only thing that made sense.

  I took a breath.

  “So what you’re telling me is, this is it,” I said, the air catching in my throat, making my eyes sting. “This is where I’m going to stay.”

  “Yes,” Tristan replied, his eyes shining. “This is your new home. Forever.”

  So now she knows she’s here—forever. It’s such a pretty word, forever. A promise, really. Found on so many Valentine’s Day and anniversary cards, signed in thousands of yearbooks, uttered in daily prayers. Forever is the greatest promise there is. Who doesn’t want to know that the thing they love, the thing they count on, the thing they believe in will never end? Who doesn’t hope for immortality, for the chance to live on…forever?

  Well, I’ve tasted forever, and here’s what I know: It never, ever ends. Every day on this island is an eternity. The sun rises, the clueless invade, the fog rolls in, the clueless depart. It’s the same, day in and day out. The same faces, the same places, the same smells and sounds and sensations. It’s like a never-ending loop of the most boring movie ever made, and I’m forced to live it over and over and over again. There is no end. There will never be an end.

  I know I’m supposed to feel pride in my work, understand and embrace that I’ve been blessed with a higher calling, a purpose—that I’ve been given a gift. And I tried to believe that in the beginning. I did. I so wanted to believe it. But it’s been so long now. So very, very long. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing. What will I ever have to show for it? Nothing. Because here, in this in-between, there is nothing to hope for, nothing to strive for, no going forward, no going back.

  Or so they think. What no one on this boring rock knows is that I’m already working to change my fate. I will get out of here.

  No matter what it takes.

  The sun outside was piercing. I held my hand up against it and tripped down the first few white marble steps, grabbing on to the handrail just in time to stop myself from sprawling across the sidewalk.

  “Rory, stop!” Tristan shouted behind me.

  “Just let me go, Tristan.”

  On a grassy stretch of the park, near the burbling swan fountain, a young woman worked her way through a series of yoga poses on a purple mat. An elderly couple strolled by with steaming coffees, whispering to each other and smiling. A middle-aged man jogged toward us, clutching a surfboard under his arm, headed for the beach. I stared at him until he dipped down the hill and out of sight.

  Dead. All these people were dead.

  Two black crows swooped in, cawing as they grazed perilously close to my ears—so close I felt the soft tip of one wing graze my skin. They swung up and across the street, coming to rest on the wings of the swan at the center of the fountain. The two of them sat there, puffing their chests and glaring at me.

  “Not until you hear what I have to say,” Tristan said. He caught up with me and looked down at his feet. “Listen, I really am sorry about having Fisher grab you on the beach. I just—”

  “No. I get it. It’s fine.” I paused and took in a sharp breath. “I mean, it’s not fine, but I get why you did it. You were trying to help me…my family.” My eyes welled up all over again as I thought of my dad and Darcy, how blissfully ignorant they were right then. “God. This sucks.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Tristan shoved his hands into his hair, briefly lacing his fingers together behind his head, his biceps flexing beneath the sleeves of his black T-shirt. “You should know that they won’t remember anything that happened last night, either—that Nell was here, that Darcy was kidnapped, that a search party was formed.”

  I balked. “Why not?”

  “No visitor who encountered Nell while he was here will remember him, just like all the other visitors who have been moved on,” Tristan explained. “Your sister and dad included.”

  I shook my head slowly. “This is insane. This whole place is insane.”

  “I know it seems that way,” Tristan said, dropping his arms at his sides. “But listen, you can get through this. Look at what you’ve been through already. You were stalked by a serial killer and you survived.”

  I laughed bitterly as one tear spilled over. “No, actually, I didn’t.”

  “No, I mean, your soul survived,” he explained, grasping my arms gently. “And it’s beautiful and strong and true. Look at you, Rory. Look what you did last night. You saved your sister. You faced your murderer and won. And now, thanks to you, he’s in the Shadowlands. You did that.”

  When I looked into his eyes, I could tell that he meant what he said. That he thought I was beautiful, strong, and true. That he even admired me, and what I’d done. Gradually, my breathing began to slow, and I felt something new sparking up inside me. It felt a bit like pride, a bit like hope. It was small, but it was there.

  Tristan turned me gently to look up at his house, the sprawling blue colonial mansion hovering high on the bluff overlooking the ocean to the south, and the town to the north and east.

  “You see the weather vane up there?” he asked, lifting his chin.

  It was a gleaming gold embellishment atop the tallest turret—another proud swan. The arrow was pointing south, and it was still as stone, even though there was a good breeze coming in off the water.

  “Have you ever noticed it never points east or west?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I told him, feeling a little rush of realization. “It never actually moves with the wind.”

  “Exactly.” His smile made me blush with an odd sense of accomplishment. “If the person goes to the Light, the weather vane po
ints north. If the person goes to the Shadowlands, it points south. That’s why it’s pointing south now,” he added, watching me carefully. “For Steven Nell.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I said quietly.

  Tristan smiled, and so did I. A small, tentative smile. “Come with me,” he said, tilting his head. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder toward the ocean, toward home. A huge part of me wanted to go back, to be with my family, even if I couldn’t tell them anything. But Darcy and my dad—both late sleepers—were probably still in bed, and I had a zillion questions only Tristan could answer. This was his home, his reality, his existence.

  We crossed the park and headed down a side street toward the water. The marina was a wide horseshoe shape lined by slatted docks that opened into a large parking lot. A dozen sailboats—some wooden, some fiberglass—were moored in the sapphire-blue water, while a few motorboats were tied in individual slips. One, I noted wryly, was named Eternity.

  Out on the choppy bay, I could see the ferry moving slowly toward the dock. I hadn’t laid eyes on the boat since the day my dad, my sister, Darcy, and I had arrived on the island, and I realized now that I’d never really looked at it. The enclosed areas had dozens of windows, all of which gleamed as if this run was the boat’s maiden voyage.

  Tristan walked to a weathered wooden guardrail overlooking the dock and the parking lot just below us. We waited in silence as the ferry slid into its berth. There were a few shouts from the dockworkers as they tied the boat off, and then the walkway was lowered. Before long, the first passenger stepped off the boat. He was a short, wiry man with thinning hair and a wide nose. He looked confused but not unhappy. Behind him was a chubby girl about my age, wearing a yellow sundress, her dark hair cut short so that it curled in a pixie-ish fashion around her ears. She was followed by a middle-aged couple holding hands, his ebony skin a stark contrast to her freckled pink complexion.

  “So these people…they’re all…”

  “They’re our new arrivals,” Tristan confirmed, glancing at me. “Fresh souls.”

  My grip on the guardrail tightened, remembering my first few moments on the island. How Tristan had watched me so closely as my dad drove past him and his friends outside the general store. I’d felt our connection even then—this sense that somehow we knew each other, that we belonged together.

  “I’ve gotten pretty good, over time, predicting who’s destined for the Shadowlands and who’s moving on to the Light,” Tristan said, leaning his forearms into the top of the fence.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  Tristan stared across at the gangway, turning so that all I could see was the back of his ear. “A long time.”

  I bit my lip, feeling as though I’d accidentally crossed a line.

  “Check it out,” he said, his tone light. He stood up straight and pushed his hands into the back pockets of his shorts. “Good. Good. Very good,” he said, nodding as each passenger appeared on the gangway. “Bad but thinks he’s good. Good. Bad.” Then, all of a sudden, his expression darkened. “Okay…bad. Really, really bad.”

  His gaze was on a boy who looked to be a few years older than I was, with shaggy dark hair, a silver stud earring, and ripped jeans. He carried a stuffed green rucksack and wore a blank expression as he looked around at the peppy dockworkers and the carved wooden sign welcoming him to Juniper Landing. But he had a baby face, and his shoulders were hunched in a way that made me feel more like he was a victim than anything sinister.

  “He looks normal to me,” I said. “Just…sad.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it, the longer you’re here,” he said, looking me up and down. “You’re meant for this place, Rory Miller.”

  My heart skipped a beat at hearing Tristan say my real name.

  “There’s something I have to ask you,” I said, steeling myself.

  “Anything,” he replied.

  “What about my dad and my sister?” My voice caught. “They died unnatural deaths, too.”

  A shadow crossed Tristan’s face, and I held my breath.

  Please don’t take them from me. Not now. Not after everything. Please, please, please.

  “They did,” he said. “The jury’s still out on them. They might stay or they might—”

  “Don’t,” I said, my gut suddenly wrenching in pain. I had thought I was ready to hear this, but I wasn’t. “Just don’t.”

  “But there is a chance they’ll stay,” he assured me. “We just have to wait and see.”

  “Okay,” I said with a nod, trying to hold the tears back. “Okay.”

  “Rory, it’s not all bad news. Being here, being a Lifer…it’s a good thing,” Tristan said, placing his hand on my back. “You’ll get to usher souls to their final destinations. You’ll be playing a huge role in their journey from life to afterlife. It’s an amazing thing. You’ll have a purpose now. A mission.”

  I took in a sharp breath and looked out over the water. “I had a mission,” I said, trying not to feel suddenly sorry for myself—for the hopeful planner I’d been. The girl who had no idea she would never achieve all the goals she’d always dreamed of achieving. I was going to med school. I was going to cure cancer. I was going to make sure that no one else ever had to suffer the way my family did when we lost my mom. “And now all of that…it’s just gone.”

  At the edge of the marina, I noticed a figure move in the shade of an elm tree. She flinched when I spotted her, then emerged from her position, half tucked behind the trunk of the tree, and walked off quickly, her head bowed. It was Mohawk Girl. Now I was certain she had a crush on Tristan. She looked up once, her eyes glittering black, before turning her back on me and heading for the bay.

  “You don’t get it,” Tristan said, oblivious to the girl. “That’s what makes you all the more perfect as a Lifer. You want to help people. You have the drive. You wanted your life to have meaning. Now it can.”

  A smile twitched at my lips. “You mean my afterlife will have meaning.”

  He laughed. “Exactly.”

  I gazed past Tristan toward town, studying the worn wooden shingles of the buildings on the square; the windsocks fluttering in the breeze; the joggers and the bikers and the morning strollers; the shopkeepers sweeping their walks, propping their doors open, greeting the first customers of the day.

  If I had to live someplace forever, this certainly wasn’t the worst place to end up. Even so, I felt the frightening pull of the unknown in the pit of my stomach. The sharp heaviness of the truth threatening to crush me if I chose to let it, if I chose to wallow. It had happened to me once before, after my mother died. It had sucked me into the darkest period of my life, a period I refused to revisit. Even now.

  “I can’t tell you how difficult it’s been for me, keeping all this from you,” Tristan said quietly, his voice thick. “You mean a lot to me—you know that, right? I can’t wait to share all of this with you.”

  My heart swelled. This was Tristan’s life. His world. And he wanted me to be a part of it. He wanted to share it with me.

  “So tell me about this whole ushering thing,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “How soon can I start?”

  Tristan grinned. “Tonight. Meet me at the Thirsty Swan at nine.”

  “Okay, then.” I smiled back. “It’s a date.”

  “I still can’t believe you asked me to go out,” Darcy said, hand to her chest as we walked down the hill toward the docks that night. My friend Aaron strolled along next to her, his dark hair spiked up and gelled in the front. He wore a blue-and-white-striped rugby shirt that made his tan look even deeper. “I mean, this is unprecedented.”

  “You’ve mentioned,” I said wryly.

  Up ahead, the calm water of the bay glittered in the light of a low-hanging moon. A buoy bell clanged, and I heard the faint sound of a boat motor chugging way out in the darkness.

  “It’s just, you’re my antisocial sister. It’s been one of t
he constants in my life ever since you hit puberty,” Darcy said, pushing her fingers into her dark mane and fanning it out over her shoulders. “I’m sorry if it’s taking my brain a couple of minutes to wrap itself around the concept.”

  “Try a couple of hours,” I muttered under my breath, crossing my arms.

  She’d practically fallen over when I’d gone down to the beach and suggested that we round up Aaron and hit the Thirsty Swan after dinner. Not that I could blame her. She was right. I’d always hated parties. It was practically my motto. But Tristan had told me to meet him tonight at the bar where he worked so he could start walking me through this whole Lifer thing, and while I knew we’d have to do that alone, the very thought of leaving my sister behind stopped me cold. After everything Tristan had told me, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight. I would have even brought my dad along if he wasn’t so busy working on the latest draft of his long-ignored novel—and if it was socially acceptable to invite your dad to a bar. There was a real possibility I might not have that much more time to spend with them or Aaron—my one true friend on this island. That soon they might be moving on…forever.

  Our feet had just hit the rickety boardwalk, and I reached out to grab the nearest pylon, the wind knocked right out of me.

  “What’s wrong?” Aaron asked.

  This was why I couldn’t allow myself to brood, to wallow, even to ponder too much. Because if I did, there might be no coming back. I had to believe that they would all become Lifers somehow. Aaron’s life had ended unnaturally, too, after all. Something I had realized after way too much pondering earlier. He’d told me all about it on the first night that we met, although neither of us had realized it at the time. There had been a fire at his uncle’s house in Boston. A fire he’d supposedly escaped unscathed. But now that I knew where we really were, how we’d all gotten here, I suspected that wasn’t exactly true.

  “Nothing,” I said with a tight smile, trying not to dwell on whether he’d suffered, whether he’d been scared, whether the rest of his uncle’s family had survived. “I’m fine.”