Afterworlds

  Right. By publishing a novel. Which meant her adulthood would vanish if she never managed that trick again.

  “I’m surprised we haven’t read your stuff, Imogen,” Carla was saying. “Even if you’re not famous, we read everybody.”

  “My first novel’s not out till September.”

  “We get ARCs,” Sagan said. “Our librarian is, like, connected.”

  “I see.” Imogen was smiling. “It’s called Pyromancer. Imogen Gray’s my pen name.”

  “Isn’t that your real name?” Darcy asked, but Imogen didn’t answer.

  “I don’t think we got that one,” Carla said. “So a pyromancer must be like a firestarter, right?”

  “Pretty much,” Imogen said. “My protag likes to play with matches. Then she finds out she doesn’t need matches.”

  “I would totally TBR that,” Sagan said.

  “Darcy’s got the file.” Imogen rested a hand on Darcy’s shoulder, sending the tiniest shiver through her. “She can send it to you guys if you want.”

  “That would be awesome,” Carla said. “We promise not to forward it to all our friends.”

  Imogen shrugged. “I’ll take piracy over obscurity.”

  Sagan turned to Darcy. “So you must get to read everything way early, now that you’re a big-time author.”

  “Some stuff,” Darcy said, though it occurred to her at this exact moment that she had not, in fact, read Pyromancer yet. Not because she was worried it would suck, but because her life in the last two weeks had been a whirl of packing and unpacking and improvised furniture and begging her parents to FedEx her bedsheets.

  Darcy blushed a little. But she had to be brave, to trust the people she’d just kissed. “Actually, I haven’t started it yet. I’m sure it’s awesome, though.”

  But as she said the words, a fresh trickle of anxiety went through Darcy. What if passionate, brilliant Imogen, the first person who’d ever made her heart beat faster, didn’t have the fucking juice?

  “I mean, Kiralee blurbed it!” she added.

  As the others wowed over this fact, Imogen squeezed Darcy’s shoulder and leaned in closer. “Hope you like it,” she whispered. “Might be tricky if you didn’t.”

  At this moment Darcy decided that she was reading Pyromancer first thing tomorrow morning, regardless of the thousand other things on her to-do list. Brave or not, she needed to know.

  “So I just realized,” Sagan said. “Your book is all about fire, Imogen, and Darcy’s is all about a cold place inside. Funny, huh?”

  Imogen and Darcy stared at each other for a moment, unsure what to say.

  Then Carla spoke up. “Did you ever get that letter from your editor? The one that tells you what you have to change?”

  Darcy shook her head. “Nan keeps promising, but it never comes. You think I should ask her about it, Gen?”

  “At your own party? That’s kind of tacky. But I bet Moxie would do it.”

  “Right,” said Darcy. The great thing about agents was, they did 100 percent of the unwriterly parts of the job for 15 percent of the money. “But she had to leave early.”

  “Leave? She’s right over there, talking to . . .” Imogen blinked. “Is that . . ?”

  “It is,” Sagan said. “Your party just got way more illustrious, Darcy.”

  “Squee,” Carla added in a tiny voice.

  Darcy turned, wondering if Coleman Gayle had finally arrived. But it wasn’t Coleman headed straight toward her across the room. It was no less than the Sultan of Social Media, Stanley David Anderson.

  “Hello,” he said, extending a hand. “I understand you’re the hostess of this affair.”

  “Yes,” was the best Darcy could do. She took his hand and shook it, and then remembered to say, “Darcy Patel.”

  “Stanley Anderson.”

  “I know,” Darcy said. “I mean, um, this is Imogen and Carla and Sagan.”

  “Carla and Sagan?” Standerson nodded. “That’s quite funny, though you might be too young to know why.”

  “The odds against it are astronomical,” Sagan said.

  “Billions and billions to one.” When Standerson giggled, his expression barely changed. “I hope you don’t mind me crashing your party, Darcy.”

  “Of course not. But weren’t you having dinner with Moxie?”

  “I was. But I’ve had one of my frequent bouts of dyspepsia.”

  “Oh,” Darcy said. “That sucks.”

  “The ‘Frequent Bouts of Dyspepsia’ episode was my favorite,” Sagan said. “From season one, anyway.”

  “Mine too,” Standerson said. “I wish I’d had a better camera back then. Is that guacamole?”

  “Yes,” Sagan said. “I find its consistency soothing.”

  “I concur.” Standerson took a corn chip from the bowl and loaded it up. He turned to Imogen. “I think we’re touring together this fall.”

  Darcy turned. “You are?”

  “Paradox wants us to.” Imogen looked a little stunned. “But it’s not a done deal, so I didn’t think . . .”

  “Could be fun.” Standerson nodded. “I’ll talk to Nan.”

  “That would be amazing,” Imogen said softly, but Standerson was helping himself to more guacamole.

  It was strange to see Imogen struck silent, but not as strange as seeing Sagan making instant friends with Standerson. The two were in their own little world now, discussing the guacamole-carrying capacity of various shapes of corn chips.

  “This alarms me,” Carla said quietly as they watched. “And yet it also makes sense.”

  “I know, right?” Darcy said.

  “I liked how you were in no way smooth with Standerson,” Carla said. “That was reassuring, city girl.”

  “Thanks.” Darcy turned to Imogen. “Since when are you touring with him?”

  “Last time I heard, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. But I guess now that he’s met me, the idea’s more real, you know?”

  Carla laughed. “Stuff always happens at Darcy’s parties, ever since fifth grade. Breakups, hookups, big fights, all the craziest stuff. But the weird part is, it never happens to her.”

  Imogen and Darcy glanced at each other, and Darcy felt a little smile flash across her face. Her lips felt hot and dry.

  “Well . . . so much for that theory,” Carla said, and began to giggle to herself. She slipped an arm around Darcy, squeezing her old friend hard, and suddenly she was laughing aloud, and people were looking at them from across the room.

  “Um, Carla?” Darcy asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m great. But this party is giving me all the feelings.”

  CHAPTER 18

  IT FELT JUST LIKE A river, strong and swift and brutish. carrying us with the simple mindless power of fast-moving water.

  It had been roaring past me since the moment I’d sunk beneath my bedroom floor. That constant wind really was a current, and once I let myself go it took me, suddenly and completely, as if someone had given me a giant kite to hold. Only Yamaraj’s hands gripping mine made me feel as though we would ever stop moving again.

  The river was full of cold, wet things like the one that had brushed against me. They always came from behind, soft and whispering, never quite forming words against my ear or the back of my neck. Yamaraj said they were harmless, unless you turned to look at them. So I learned to shudder and ignore. The trip felt endless, dizzying and wild, and it was all I could do to keep the image of my mother’s old house in mind. But once we eddied to a halt, it seemed as if hardly any time at all had passed.

  We came to rest on another dark expanse, just like one we’d left behind.

  I looked up into the empty black sky. “How can you even tell where we are?”

  “We’re where you wanted to be, Lizzie. If you have a real connection to this place. Otherwise . . .” He shrugged. “We could be anywhere.”

  “Right,” I said, wondering if the Chrysler Building might have been the safer choice.

  Yamaraj knelt a
nd placed his palm on the ground, and a moment later black oil began to bubble up. It spread quickly, and I skipped back to keep my sneakers out of it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s okay, Lizzie.” He pulled me closer, my feet joining his in the black oil.

  “Seriously?” We were already sinking.

  “This is how it’s done. You’ll understand better if you keep your eyes open.”

  “Um, okay.” I held Yamaraj tighter as we descended, hungry for his body heat, and not minding the feel of lean muscles through his silk shirt. The black oil wasn’t much colder than the river’s current, but shivers still fluttered through me as it climbed my spine.

  I managed to keep my eyes open, and as the darkness rose past my vision a new reality fell into place around us—houses and trees and mailboxes, a whole suburban street.

  I looked up, half expecting the black water’s surface to be there just above my head. But there was only a starry night sky, with the same half-moon we’d left behind in San Diego. In front of us was a house just like the one in my mother’s old photograph, except that at some point someone had added a picket fence.

  We were in Palo Alto.

  I took a breath, and the metallic smell of the flipside filled my lungs.

  “This makes no sense.” My voice sounded thin in my ears. “I sank through my bedroom floor to get to the river, and we just went down to get out of it too?”

  “That’s the afterworld for you. Down always works.”

  “Of course.” I realized that I was still clinging to him and let go, stepping back.

  Yamaraj was smiling. “The river isn’t as depressing as the rest, is it?”

  “No, it’s more like a roller coaster. Except you wear a blindfold, and creepy wet things brush against you.” I turned to the house before us. “But it takes you someplace, at least.”

  The little bungalow was older than the other houses on the street, with a wide front porch. The flipside had painted it gray instead of the sky blue in my mother’s photograph, but this was definitely the right place.

  Of course, this old house wasn’t really why I’d wanted to come here.

  “This is amazing, Yamaraj. But it’s kind of weird, finally seeing this place. Do you mind if we walk around a little first?”

  “Of course,” he said, and took my hand again.

  It felt bad making him think that this was some big emotional moment, when really I was playing Nancy Drew. But I swallowed my guilt and led him away, glad to have his hand in mine.

  My mother’s old street seemed normal enough, with tidy lawns and mailboxes decorated with seashells, a few palm trees swaying in the moonlight. Not the sort of neighborhood that looked like it was harboring a child killer. Though I guess that was the point of living here, if you happened to be one.

  What I was looking for had to be somewhere nearby, though I didn’t really know how to recognize it. Most likely, the bad man had died or moved away in the last thirty-five years, but maybe he’d left some sort of sign here on the flipside.

  A small form shot from beneath a car right in front of us, streaking across the road. I jumped back, letting out a shriek.

  But it was only a cat, a long and lean tabby that came to a skidding halt on the far sidewalk, staring straight at us. Its eyes glowed unearthly green against the gray background of the flipside.

  “What the hell? Is it looking at us?”

  “Cats see everything,” Yamaraj said. His voice was soft, almost reverent. “Their eyes are in both worlds.”

  “Right. Mindy said something about that.” My heart was pounding in my chest, and I realized that the gray world wasn’t fading around me. “That scare didn’t send me back. My grip on the flipside must be getting better.”

  Yamaraj shook his head. “You can’t cross back to the real world here, only where you started. The river is carrying only your spirit, not your body.”

  “So this is like astral projection?” I pinched the flesh of my own arm, which was goose-pimpled and cold, and felt totally real.

  “Only for now,” Yamaraj said. “One day you’ll be able to travel in body as well.”

  “So if my body isn’t here, where is it? Back in my bedroom, where my mother’s going to find it and freak out?”

  “Don’t worry.” He paused, thoughtful for a moment. “This may sound strange, but it’s in the ground beneath your house. Safe among the stones.”

  “Nothing creepy about that.”

  “The afterworld isn’t comforting, Lizzie.”

  “You said that already. But still . . . this is pretty amazing.” I stood and caught my breath, taking in the hilly landscape around us, so different from the flatness of San Diego. “I didn’t even know the address, and we came straight here.”

  “Not bad for your first time.”

  “Thanks.” Motion flickered at the corner of my eye, and I spun to face it. But it was only the tabby, following us from a distance.

  Yamaraj was looking closely at me. “You’re funny, Lizzie. In the airport, you were composed enough to play dead. And just now you were facing down that old man without any help from me. But this neighborhood has you jumping at shadows.”

  “I guess so.” I didn’t want to lie to Yamaraj, so I went for vague instead. “Like I said, something happened here when my mom was little.”

  “Something bad?”

  I nodded. “Bad enough that she never talked about it. She only told me after what happened in Dallas.”

  “Nothing bad will happen now,” he said, taking my hand again.

  We walked in silence, taking in the moonlit empty streets. It was nice simply being with him, and basking in the fact that I had brought us here with my mystic powers. I didn’t see any sign of the bad man, which was fine with me.

  Yamaraj was too polite to ask any more about my mother, but after a while he said, “Every psychopomp has a story like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “One that’s hard to tell. We all cross over the hard way, the first time.”

  “So what’s your story?” I asked softly. “How did you wind up playing dead?”

  He shook his head. “There were no wars where I was born, no terrorists. My sister and I come from a small village. A quiet place.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “It was beautiful, but to me and my sister it mostly seemed small. When we saw sails on the horizon, we’d rush down to the docks for glimpses from other places. The sailors were like people from another world. They wore cloth dyed in colors we’d never seen before, and used bronze knives that our village coppersmith couldn’t dream of making.”

  “Bronze knives were high tech,” I said. “Okay, so this was a while ago.”

  He shrugged. “It was, and our village was backward even then, I suppose. When the sailors showed us pressed flowers from other lands, and claimed they were warriors slain in a great fairy war, my sister and I believed them.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “They knew other languages too, and my sister would trade them her prettiest seashells for foreign words. She had a fine collection of curses.”

  I felt a smile on my face. “Sounds like my Spanish.”

  He smiled back at me, but the expression faded. “It was a good place to grow up. But people didn’t live long back then. My sister died younger than most.”

  “Yeah, she only looked about fourteen. Wait, were you . . . ?”

  He nodded. “Twins. We still are, even if I’m a little older now.”

  “Right. Weird.” Yami was stuck forever at the age she’d died, but her brother wasn’t. “Is that why you stay in the underworld? So you don’t leave her behind?”

  “I live there to keep my people from fading away.”

  “And she’s one of them. You’re a good brother.”

  He didn’t answer, and we walked a little farther. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a brother or sister, especially a twin. I’d imagined making up our own lan
guage, and giving each other secret names.

  Of course, I’d had an invisible sister all that time. Mindy had been there every day, watching me grow into an eleven-year-old, then aging past her. A shiver went through me.

  “Are you okay?” Yamaraj asked. His eyes glinted brown against the gray world. He and I were still in color, as if we didn’t belong behind this veil of death.

  “I’m fine. So when your sister died, is that when you became . . . like us?”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t let her go alone.”

  “Whoa. So that whole twin-bonding thing is real.”

  Yamaraj thought for a moment, then shrugged. “It is for us.”

  “How did she die?” I asked, my voice small.

  “She was betrayed by an ass.”

  “Um, pardon me?”

  “A donkey,” he said. “A beast that belonged to my family.”

  I was still confused, but my next question froze in my mouth. Past Yamaraj and down the street, the cat lurked in the shadows, green eyes glimmering.

  But it wasn’t watching us anymore.

  It was staring at another bungalow, even older than the one my mother had grown up in. The house was set back from the road, with gnarled desert trees in the front yard. Around each was a planter box full of stones.

  Standing on the lawn were five little girls, all Mindy’s age, dressed in outfits that all looked out of date—plaid jumpers, shirts tucked into jeans, short dresses. They were all staring at the house.

  “He’s still here,” I murmured.

  Yamaraj turned to follow my gaze. “Who is, Lizzie?”

  “The bad man. The man who killed Mindy.”

  He took my arm. “This is why you wanted to come here?”

  “She needs to know.”

  “Be careful,” Yamaraj whispered. “There are some ghosts you can’t save.”

  “I don’t want to save them, I just want to help Mindy. She’s afraid all the time, even after all these years.” I couldn’t take my eyes from the collection of little girls. They just stood there staring at the house, silent and fidgeting, as if waiting for a performance to start. “She needs to know if the man who killed her is still alive. Or if he’s wandering the flipside, looking for her.”