But instead of leaping up and trying to figure out where I was, I shut my eyes again and did an unrushed self-appraisal. After what had just happened to me, I had the feeling I wouldn’t get another quiet moment to assess the damage I’d suffered; I had to take advantage now.
To my surprise, I found … nothing. Absolute nothing.
My thighs didn’t sting with adrenaline anymore, nor were my lungs straining from the effort of my run. Best of all, the fire in my chest was gone. My heart felt free, unburdened—as if the flame had never burned there.
Because I was suddenly free of pain, I assumed that all my physical sensations had disappeared. With my eyes still closed, I wriggled my fingers, expecting the numbness of death. When they touched something grainy and wet, I pulled them back into my palms.
For some strange reason, the sensation didn’t scare me. I opened my eyes, splayed my hands against the wet earth, and pressed myself up into a seated position.
First, I checked my body, now free of the blue-glowing veins. Evidently, they’d gone the way of the burning in my chest.
Next, I took in the wide expanse of slate-colored beach stretching out in front me. I sat in its sand, bare feet pressed to the ground, staring into what looked like an endless black sea. Only, I couldn’t really tell where the water stopped and the clouds began.
I felt everything now: the cold, gritty sand between my toes; the spray of mist off the water; the brisk chill of the wind.
Again, none of it scared me. If anything, it made me more peaceful than ever. Perhaps that mood allowed a memory to seep into my mind instead of flash suddenly as it usually did.
In the memory, I was a child, so young that the image seemed faded and patchy like an old photograph. I wore a bathing suit dotted with small, blue daisies—my favorite suit, I remembered. But I shivered, too, as I played doggedly on the muddy beach. Every few seconds I would toss a petulant glare back at my parents, who waited impatiently in the car. Seeing the image now, I didn’t blame them—it was an unseasonably cold day, and I was the only member of the family who hadn’t given up on our day trip to the lake.
The memory faded, until I was once again watching black waves lap at the beach of an unfamiliar sea. I had the sudden urge to touch the mud one more time. To mold it into something important. Something memorable.
Still feeling inexplicably calm, I squished my fingers into the silt. Before I could raise my hand, though, a hushed voice spoke next to me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said softly. “That this is an ocean. But it’s definitely not.”
I turned toward the voice, strangely unsurprised to see the pretty redhead from my prairie dream. She sat cross-legged next to me, arms propped behind her so that the sleeves of her green tunic skimmed the sand.
Looking at her, my brain did a few automatic leaps: if this girl—an obvious figment of my imagination—sat here, then that meant “here” was just another dream space. Which meant this place wasn’t real.
This also meant that my pain might not actually be gone.
“If it’s not the ocean,” I said in an oddly detached voice, “then what is it?”
Still watching the waves, the girl shuddered. “It’s the river.”
“What river?”
“The river.” She nodded toward the shoreline. “Maybe not the biggest in existence, but the biggest one I’ve ever seen. So wide that when you’re sitting beside it, you think it’s the ocean.”
I looked back at the supposed river, searching for another side. Another bank, matching this one, somewhere far across the water. No matter how hard I searched, I found none. Only black waves undulating into the horizon.
Glancing back at her, I shrugged. “Well, it sure looks like the ocean.”
“It looks like anything they want it to. Same as our place. They can shift and change it all they want.”
“They …?” I said, but she cut me off with a soft shh. Wordlessly, she pointed to the shoreline directly in front of us.
At first I didn’t see anything. Then, while we watched, a small, dark shape appeared, hanging in the air without support. It was moving too, swirling and spinning around itself like a mote of dust in the wind. As it moved it expanded, stretching and widening until it eventually took the shape of a small house.
For a few seconds it hovered several feet above the ground, and I wondered whether the strange building process had stopped. But then stilts began to form beneath it, anchoring the house to the sand. Next, a steep roof appeared, supported by evenly spaced columns instead of walls so that we could see through to the ocean. Finally, in this state, it settled.
And I gasped.
The structure wasn’t a house—it was the dark pavilion. The one I’d hallucinated last night before Joshua and I left for the cemetery. The only difference was, now I sat outside of it. But I would have recognized it anywhere.
We were in the netherworld.
“We have to get out of here,” I breathed, scrambling backward in the sand. “Any second, High Bridge will show up, and then the demons, and then—”
“High Bridge isn’t going to show up,” she said. “This is a different part of their world, one that they’ve intentionally designed to match the living world—or, at least, parts of it. They traditionally stick to moving bodies of water. Transitional places. You know, ‘crossing the River Styx’ and that whole bit. But don’t be fooled; their world is completely interconnected. They can get from Oklahoma to here in a matter of seconds. Besides, every portal—whether in Oklahoma or New Orleans—leads to the same dark place.”
Before I could tell her Thanks for the info, but we should probably still be running, she spun around to face me. Her bright green eyes were suddenly fervent, wild.
Without warning, she grabbed my wrists and jerked me toward her so hard that the wet sand slopped over my skirt.
“Amelia, you have to stop doing this,” she pleaded.
I shook my head and tried to pull away from her. “Let me go. Now!”
My command only made her hold on tighter. “I can’t, Amelia. Not until you understand that you have to stop.”
“Stop what?” I growled, tugging harder. The longer she held on to me, the more my wrists began to ache. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”
Finally, she let go. The moment her hands released mine I clutched at my wrists and tried to massage feeling back into one, then the other. The girl, however, seemed totally unconcerned about my discomfort. Wearing that same fanatical expression, she gestured with one hand down the length of my body.
“This,” she said flatly. “This is what you need to stop.”
I followed her gesture and then blinked in confusion.
“My … dress? Look, I get that it’s outdated, but that’s no reason to—”
She cut me off with a violent shake of her head. “Not your dress. You, Amelia. You’re the problem. What you’re doing is unnatural, and we won’t put up with it for very long.”
“I don’t … I haven’t done anything,” I sputtered, now totally lost.
“But you have. You’re doing it right now.... You just don’t know it yet.”
“I … I’m sorry?”
The girl sighed and tugged at her copper curls. “I know. Trust me, I know. I’ve seen this coming for a while, and I’ve been trying to warn you, with all the visions. I’ve been trying to keep you away from this place. But you are so … damn … stubborn.”
She pronounced each of her last words individually, as if to emphasize her frustration. For some reason that rankled me. By now my zenlike feeling had completely vanished. So I sat up straight, stopped massaging my wrists, and looked her directly in the eyes.
“Maybe—now, this may sound totally nutso—but maybe you should have tried to make the dreams easier to understand. How about that?”
She groaned. “I have to work within the parameters they set for me, okay? This guardian thing has rules, and I can’t just—”
“They
?” I quoted. “You keep saying that like I’m supposed to know who you mean. And what’s a guardian? Are you my guardian angel or something? Because, if so, you’re a really bad one.”
She waved both hands in front of her, looking distraught.
“No!” she cried. “God, no. I’m just … I’m a … crap, I can’t tell you what I am. Just trust me when I say you have to figure out a way to undo this.” She gestured down the length of my body again. “Then go home.”
I arched one eyebrow. “Home? To Oklahoma?”
“Yes, Oklahoma. Perfect.”
“But the demons are waiting for me there.”
“They’re waiting for you everywhere, Amelia.”
When I blanched, she rushed on: “Don’t worry, though—we’ll take care of it. Just go home, stop talking to the living, stop hanging out around that bridge … just go back to your old existence.”
“You mean … the wandering? The fog?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes, exactly. The fog. You think you could do that again?”
I puffed out a long, frustrated breath before answering her. “Okay, let’s just say for argument’s sake that I thought going back home was a good idea and that I wanted to reenter the fog. Do you know any ghosts who’ve done it before? And if so, could you give me some tips? Because I have no idea how to unremember everything at this point.”
The girl groaned again and flung her arms up in the air. “Truthfully? I have no clue. Almost every soul gets claimed right after death.... There are only a few ghosts who wander, and even less of you who wake up.”
She surprised me by flopping back onto the wet sand as if she didn’t fear the netherworld at all. Lying flat, she released a heavy sigh. “You were doing just fine on your own, staying off their radar and ours. But then I just had to give in. And things got too complicated, with the living guy and that fire glow, and Eli not doing what I thought he’d do—”
I cut her off. “Wait. You know about the glow? You know Eli?”
She darted a guilty look at me and pinched her lips shut, like a little girl who had just divulged someone else’s secret.
“No,” she said weakly. “Of course not.”
“Are you going to give me any useful answers? Like, what my glow is, and how I can use it again?”
Her subsequent silence didn’t surprise me, not at all.
I abruptly shifted my legs under me and pressed myself up so that I towered over her. “Look, I don’t need any more supernatural beings mucking around with my afterlife. So thanks for your … help, I guess. I have the feeling that you’re part of whatever the opposite of the netherworld is, and I appreciate the fact that you guys have finally noticed that I exist.”
She looked a little stricken by my bitter tone, but when she didn’t respond, I went on.
“That being said: I don’t want your help anymore. Not unless you can keep the demons from going after me and—”
“We can!” she interjected, right as I finished with “And the living people I love.”
Her face fell.
“We can’t do that,” she said. “Rules are rules; they get to make their choices, just like we get to make ours.”
“Then I’m making mine, right now. Your help isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t extend to the living people I care about. I’m not like those ghosts back in the French Quarter—I wouldn’t trade someone else to save myself.”
She frowned up at me from the beach without commenting; apparently, she didn’t like how I’d summarized her offer. And that was just too bad.
“Okay,” I said firmly. “Since that’s settled, stay out of my business. And stop giving me creepy dreams and hallucinations—my afterlife is weird enough. I mean, making me imagine my dad’s voice in the prairie? That was below the belt.”
The girl opened her mouth to object but then popped it shut. When I felt certain she didn’t have anything more to add, I turned away from her and examined the endless stretch of water and sand around us. Other than the eerie pavilion—still unoccupied, thank goodness—I didn’t see any other structures or objects. No doors or windows or cars or boats … nothing to take me back to reality.
I looked down at the girl. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how to get out of here?”
She shrugged—a gesture that looked strange, considering she still lay flat on her back. “Close your eyes tight and say ‘There’s no place like home’ a couple times.”
I snorted derisively. “Are you going to tell me I need to click my heels next?”
Even through her scowl, the girl laughed. “Okay, okay. But you’ve still got to close your eyes.”
“Why?” I asked, justifiably suspicious.
“Because I’m going to end this dream, and I can’t do it while your eyes are open.”
I quirked one corner of my lip in disbelief, and she sighed. “Please, Amelia. Just close your eyes.”
I studied her for a moment longer—lying back in the sand like she didn’t have a care in the world except for me: a stubborn, anomalous dead girl. Then, against my better judgment, I lowered my eyelids.
Of course, I didn’t close them fully until she chided, “Stop peeking.”
After I obeyed, I heard the soft whoosh of air. When I reopened them, I no longer saw the beach. But my new surroundings weren’t exactly comforting, either.
Mostly because, almost immediately, I recognized the small, dark room in which I’d woken. The slatted windows, the slipcovered furniture, the rainbow of pills on the coffee table in front of me—all elements of one of my darkest dreams.
The one in which I saw myself alive.
And dying.
Chapter
TWENTY-ONE
I tried to sit up, but almost every inch of my body shrieked in protest at even the slightest movement. So instead, I lay perfectly still, gazing around with bleary eyes.
Dawn was breaking here, too—I could tell from the light creeping in between the heavily slatted shutters across from me. As the room lightened and my eyes began to clear, I could see more than just the elements I recognized.
Now free of the dream haze, I realized that this room was actually far nicer than I’d first thought. The walls were painted a rich purple and hung with what looked suspiciously like original canvases of priceless art. The furniture (at least those pieces not covered in white sheets) had an expensive sort of feel to it, all highly polished wood and lush fabrics and gilt accents. Even the coffee table with its collection of spilled narcotics was inlaid with gorgeous mosaic tiles and decorated with clusters of lit, luxe-smelling candles.
Despite the candles, however, the place still smelled … odd. Almost palpable, even. Like rich food and humidity overlaying the sweet scent of decay. The longer I lay there, the stronger the smells grew.
But that … didn’t make sense. I dragged in a deeper breath through my nose, and the scent followed, strong and continuous. It didn’t fade like it was supposed to. I just kept right on smelling it.
Even weirder, I felt other things, too: a bitter taste in my mouth, dryness in my throat, and an itch just begging to be scratched on my arm. Sensations I’d never felt long enough to fully experience.
Until now.
I did another self-assessment, noting the raw ache in my legs, the pounding at my temples, the strange heaviness in my chest.
Not a single part of my body was numb. Not anymore.
I was trying to make sense of all this, trying to reason through it, when I heard a soft snore from somewhere near my feet. I gritted my teeth and hazarded some movement, using one elbow to prop myself up on the couch. Although everything—and I mean everything—hurt, I craned my neck so I could see over the rolled arm of the sofa.
There, sitting in a dark corner a few feet away from the couch, was a boy. He’d slumped forward in his chair, with his arms dangling over its sides and his head flopped down to his chest.
I listened to one more snore and then I did the only thing I could think to do.
> “Hey!” I shouted. “Who are you?”
Except I didn’t actually shout. I tried to, but the sound came out scratchy and dry, like I was recovering from a nasty cold.
Still, the boy must have heard me. He stirred, shifting backward in the chair and releasing a final, rough snore. Half yawning, half groaning, he shook himself awake and then wiped one hand from his forehead to his chin.
For that brief moment I couldn’t see his face. But when he removed his hand and opened his eyes, I sucked in a sharp breath.
The boy looked exactly like Gabrielle, the Voodoo girl. The same coffee-and-cream skin, the same flawless bone structure. Their only difference, aside from gender, might have been age. His stubble and the frown lines around his mouth made him seem older … but not by many years.
His luminous blue eyes caught mine, and I suddenly felt dizzy. I swayed for a second; and though I tried to stay upright, my elbow gave out, and I dropped back to the couch.
The boy, however, didn’t move. If I angled just right, I could still see him, sitting awkward and stiff in the chair. It didn’t look like a comfortable place to wake up, and his handsome face showed the burden of sleeping there all night. Like he’d been keeping watch.
Or watching over me.
I hadn’t made up my mind which option seemed more likely when he called out in a voice almost as rough as mine.
“Gaby, she’s awake.”
I heard a muted curse from somewhere deep in the apartment, followed by the sound of footsteps. Within seconds, Gabrielle emerged from the archway next to the boy’s chair. She wore a long, embroidered kimono, and although she didn’t look half as tired as he did, she still yawned as she plodded into the room.
Even tired, she was still prettier than the last time I’d seen her: covered in blood and possibly possessed. In fact, compared to last night, she looked positively cheery.
She flopped into a nearby chair, used her fingernails to muss her Afro into shape, and then turned to me with an affected sigh.
“Don’t you think you could have let us all sleep for a few more hours?”