Afterworlds

  My geology teacher in tenth grade had always said that there were no islands, only mountaintops that brushed the ocean’s surface. It made me dizzy for a moment, thinking of the coral reef beneath us, and beneath that a mountain reaching all the way to the lightless floor of the Pacific.

  All those millions of tons of rock and coral, just to hold this lonely sliver of land a few yards above the water. I wondered how many times the sea had washed over it, erasing everything.

  “How did you keep from going crazy, hearing voices all the time? I mean, before you found this place. It took so long.”

  His voice went softer, as if he were telling me a secret. “Looking for a thousand years is worth it, if in the end you find what you need.”

  I swallowed, taking a moment to answer. The words were clumsy in my mouth, like typing with hammers. “I’m glad you did.”

  His arms tightened around me, and for a moment the roar of the surf went silent in my ears. Or maybe it was inside my body now, all of me vibrating with that same huge sound.

  We kissed there, the bell of the ocean ringing in my lips, until I needed to hear his voice again.

  I pulled away and said, “You never finished your story about crossing over. You told me about where you and Yami grew up. You said she died young, because she was betrayed by a donkey. Seriously?”

  “That’s how it seemed at the time.” He turned, leading me along the rocky spine of the island, the ocean on one side, the lagoon on the other. “My father’s brother had a farm, a couple of hours’ walk away from our village. When Yami and I went there to play with our cousins, we brought along an old donkey. My sister could ride him when she was tired, and he knew his way home in the dark.”

  “The donkey knew the way home. Of course.” I’d almost forgotten about the bronze knives in Yama’s childhood, and now there was donkey GPS. The distant past sounded like a very strange place.

  “One afternoon we stayed too late. There was a storm on the horizon, and my uncle said we should spend the night, but Yami refused. She said his house smelled of boiled onions.”

  “She hasn’t changed much, has she?”

  “Not really,” Yama said with a sigh. “She wouldn’t listen. We set off before dusk, but when the rain started it went as dark as night. There was lightning all around us.”

  I looked out across the sea, trying to imagine what a thunderstorm would look like from this empty, windswept island. “Sounds scary.”

  “It was, but the donkey led us through the darkness. He didn’t complain.”

  “So how did it betray you?”

  “We thought he was taking a different way home, along the sea instead of across the hills, to avoid the lightning. He was an old and sensible beast, and we’d always trusted him. But then he stopped in a place we didn’t recognize. We could hear waves crashing, and the ground was sharp and crumbling underfoot. Something brittle was cutting my feet through the straps of my sandals. I knelt to see what it was.”

  He paused, and a shiver went through me.

  “The ground was covered with bones.”

  I stared at him. “Holy crap. What the hell lived there?”

  “Nothing at all.” As we walked, Yama stared down at the rocks and shells beneath our feet. “It was the skeletons of dead animals. When the lightning flashed, we saw piles of bones broken and scattered all around us.”

  I shook my head, not understanding. Some little piece of my airport panic was returning, its cold tendrils creeping through my body. I pulled Yama closer.

  “But then I remembered something,” he said. “A few years before, when our donkey’s mate had grown too old and sickly to work, my father led her to the top of a tall cliff near the sea. He brought me along to help.”

  “To help with what?”

  He spread his hands. “To push her over the cliff.”

  “Whoa. That’s cold-blooded.”

  “That was the way of our village,” he said simply. “But it seemed awful to me, and that night, my sister and I thought the beast was getting his revenge. I suppose he was only visiting the burial place of his mate, his ancestors. There must have been centuries of bones there. Maybe he was paying his respects to death itself, and we were just along for the ride. But we were terrified.”

  “No kidding. So what happened?”

  “A sheet of lightning came down around us, thunder booming right over our heads, and my sister startled and fell from the donkey’s back. A shard of bone stabbed through her wrist.” Yama’s voice grew quieter, barely audible over the crash of surf. “She was bleeding. I held her wound, trying to keep the blood in. She wouldn’t let herself cry, but I could tell it hurt. Dying is painful, if you fight it.”

  “Poor Yami.” There was a tremor in my voice.

  “She died at dawn, just as the storm was fading. I felt her growing cold, and I promised to stay with her, to protect her. So when I saw her leaving her body, I followed.”

  “And you’ve been taking care of her ever since.”

  He nodded. “That was my promise. If I forget Yami, she’ll fade.”

  I drew him to a halt, and we kissed again. There was salt between our lips now. “You’re a good brother.”

  “She helps me in return.”

  “With your people, you mean.” The weight of it all struck me at last. Not just his sister, but thousands of ghosts depended on Yama’s memories to keep them from disappearing. “You’re taking care of all of them.”

  “All I can. Sometimes I wonder how many I’ve lost. It’s hard to count the people you’ve forgotten.”

  The sadness on his face made me want to argue. “But doesn’t every memory fade, sooner or later?”

  “Everyone dies as well. That doesn’t make murder okay.”

  I shook my head. “But ghosts are already dead. And that old man who followed me home, he said that ghosts are just stories that tell themselves.”

  “So are the living.”

  I stared out at the ocean, wondering if that were true. Some of us livers were made of the stories we didn’t tell. I’d kept what had happened in Dallas to myself, spinning lies and half-truths to everyone I loved. And my mother hadn’t told me about Mindy’s death, even though it had haunted her for all those years.

  Though maybe she had, just without words. Her fear of road trips, her need to hear from me every five minutes. She was telling the story of Mindy’s disappearance every day of her life.

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “We’re all made of stories. But you and me, we’re flesh and blood in a way that ghosts aren’t.”

  “It’s not about what ghosts really are, Lizzie. It’s about what you and I decide to make ourselves.”

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “We choose whether to respect the dead or use them.” Yama took a step back from me, and the cold wind slipped between us. “Think how easy it is for that old man, deciding that ghosts aren’t people. It would be easier for you to think the same. You wouldn’t have to worry about Mindy anymore, or any of them.”

  I stared at the ground. “I’m not like that.”

  “No. But it will always be a choice. You have to decide that ghosts are worth saving.”

  I looked up, daring the intensity of Yama’s gaze. Thousands of people depended on his thinking they were real, including his own twin sister. Their need lay heavy on him, like guilt for a crime he hadn’t committed yet—the crime of forgetting, of moving on.

  “Okay,” I said. “Ghosts are real. That’s why I want to help Mindy. That’s why I went back to that house.”

  Yama looked like I’d hit him.

  “Her murderer still lives there,” I explained. “He killed those little girls. Those trees are like . . . trophies in his front yard.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone back there, Lizzie.”

  “But I had to do something. Mindy’s scared all the time, worried he’ll come for her again. She’s been scared for longer than I’ve been alive.”

  He nodded
, accepting all that. “But she’s why you’re changing so fast.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “You’ve had death in your house since you were born. A dead girl was always there, in your mother’s memories, close to your mother’s heart. That’s why you never doubted that the afterworld was real. That’s why you could see ghosts that first night in Dallas. You were born to it, Lizzie.”

  I pulled my hands from his, took two steps backward. “Are you serious? You’re saying I’m cursed.”

  “No. I’m saying the afterworld is second nature to you. Which means that you have to fight it, not go looking for it. You have to stay away from that house and those dead girls.”

  “That’s crazy. Mindy wasn’t a part of my growing up. Mom never even told me about her.”

  “She didn’t have to. A ghost was right there in your house, wanting to be your friend, envying you for all those years of growing up that she never got. Her story was all around you. It’s in your bones.”

  I couldn’t even speak.

  “You shouldn’t talk to her anymore,” he pleaded. “Just pretend you don’t see her.”

  “Yama.” I shook my head. “Mindy lives in my house. What am I supposed to do, move out?”

  “As soon as you can, while she’s still more connected to your mother than to you.” He crossed his arms. “And you should probably stay away from me too.”

  “Why?”

  “My people need me to protect them, to remember their names. You distract me from that.” His voice was ragged. “And every time we touch, there’s more death on your hands.”

  I reached for him, and he pulled away.

  “This is crazy!” I cried. “My life was normal until two weeks ago!”

  “The first time you took the river, I asked where you wanted to go. And of every place you’d ever known, where did you choose?”

  I swallowed. “My mother’s old house.”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t have to answer. Yama had figured it out already. Even that first night, I’d been curious about Mindy’s story. “I wanted to look for clues.”

  His eyes flashed, his voice angrier with every word. “With your choice of anywhere on earth, you wanted to look for a murderer’s house. And I thought that after you saw those girls, you’d never dream of going back. How many people would go to that house twice, Lizzie?”

  “I had to. Because of Mindy.”

  “Exactly. Because her murder is inside you. It was a part of you before what happened in Dallas.”

  It was all I could do to keep standing. “You think I’m something awful.”

  “No. I think you’re something wonderful. So you should be fighting this, not chasing it.” He spread his arms, taking in the whole of the windswept island. “Imagine, feeling safer here than anywhere else in the world. Is that what you want?”

  “That’s why you . . .” My voice faltered. “Did you bring me here to scare me?”

  He tried to say something, which came out broken. Then he turned away to face the ocean and tried again. “I brought you here because I’ve never brought anyone else here. And because you aren’t like anyone else. But you have a life in the overworld—in the real world—which you shouldn’t give up yet. Not for this desolation.”

  “I’m not giving anything up.”

  “You’ll have to if you become like me. At least try to slow down, Lizzie.”

  I turned away from him. We had come to a halt at a wide inlet connecting lagoon and sea. The water was rushing out, pulled by the tides or maybe just the tumult of the ocean on all sides. The inlet made the whole place seem even more tenuous, as though the island were punctured and deflating, losing its battle to exist.

  “Promise me you won’t ever go back there.”

  I stared at Yama. This didn’t make sense. He was supposed to fight the bad man with me. “So your people are worth protecting, but Mindy isn’t?”

  “I don’t try to avenge their deaths. I don’t judge the living.”

  “This isn’t a judgment call. He’s the worst kind of person who can possibly exist!”

  Yama was silent. His gaze was still off in the distance, and I wondered if he was thinking of all the things he’d seen across thousands of years. Maybe to him, the bad man was just a blip.

  But for me, the bad man was the fear in my mother’s eyes every time I walked out the door.

  “I’m not going to stop. I’m going to fix this for Mindy.”

  He shook his head. “It was a mistake, teaching you to use the river so soon. It was me being selfish.”

  Anger twisted in my gut, and I knew in a moment I was going to say something I’d regret. But after what I’d been through, he didn’t get to treat me like a child. No one did.

  My voice went cold. “Thank you for showing me this place, Yama, but I have to go. Mindy gets scared when I’m gone too long.”

  “Yami doesn’t like it either. She thinks I’ll forget them all, because of you.”

  My eyes stung, and I wondered if Yami knew what her brother really thought of me. That I was damaged, cursed from the moment I was born. I’d thought he was the person who understood me most, and all he saw in me was death.

  But when he held out his hand to me, I took it. His skin was warm, full of heat and current.

  I pulled him closer, rested my forehead against his shoulder, and breathed him in. There was no rust on Yama, no scent of blood. He was so alive, which made a lie of everything he’d said.

  Or maybe it wasn’t every psychopomp who was stained by death. Maybe it was just me.

  “I have to go,” I said again.

  If Yama wasn’t going to help me, I knew someone who would.

  CHAPTER 25

  “AND HOW’S YOUR BUDGET GOING?” Aunt Lalana asked.

  “Not bad,” Darcy said. “More like . . . terrible.”

  Lalana sat back in her chair, looking satisfied. “I suppose it’s all the mops you’ve been buying.”

  Darcy rolled her eyes. She had, in fact, bought a mop. But it had been very cheap, and had broken in a week. Its replacement was on the long list of things she needed but couldn’t afford.

  “I’ve been exploring the city. To stimulate my creativity.”

  “That’s very commendable. But isn’t ‘exploring’ free?”

  “Technically, yes.” Darcy looked down at the thali in front of her, a half dozen different dishes in small bowls clustered on a steel tray. Lalana had brought her to the city’s oldest Gujarati restaurant. The food was vegetarian, delicate and perfect, and the free refills were endless. “But not the way we do it, which involves lots of food research.”

  “I suppose I should be stern with you,” Lalana said with half a smile. “But being right is too much fun. Who’s we?”

  “Oh, um, Imogen and me.”

  “You’ve mentioned her before. A writer friend, right?”

  As Darcy nodded, she heard herself say, “She’s more than a friend.”

  Aunt Lalana sat there, fork in hand, waiting for more.

  Darcy had noticed lately that she’d stopped making decisions in the old-fashioned way: thinking first, then speaking. Maybe it was thanks to spending her days writing, which consisted of nothing but decisions—who dies? who lives? what happens next?—so by the time she got back to real life, she was done with deciding. Things just came out of her mouth.

  Of course, she’d promised to keep her aunt informed.

  “She’s more like a girlfriend.” Darcy cleared her throat. “In fact, she’s pretty much exactly like a girlfriend.”

  “How interesting.” Lalana took a bite of lentils and chewed thoughtfully. “Have you told . . .”

  “Not yet.” She hadn’t even told Nisha, whose texts were too easy for their mother to stumble across. Darcy wasn’t the only snoop in the family.

  “But you will?”

  “Of course. But face-to-face.” That gave Darcy until Thanksgiving, at least.

  “You know they won’t b
e upset, right? At least, not Annika.” Lalana shrugged, never quite sure about her sister’s husband. “And Grandma P. might find it . . . challenging.”

  Darcy blinked. She’d forgotten all about Grandma P. and the uncles, not to mention Mom’s relatives back in India. Only a few of her cousins had ever visited America, but news about Darcy and Nisha seemed to scatter across the subcontinent like quicksilver dropped from a great height.

  But all that was eight thousand miles away. What mattered was here.

  “It’s not that I’m worried about what Mom and Dad will think.” This was true, but it was more complicated than that, and it took Darcy a moment to continue. “It’s just, I never used to do things they didn’t expect. And now that’s pretty much all I do. They probably think I’m trying to rebel or something. That’s not what this is. This is real.”

  Aunt Lalana gave her a smile. “There’s that certainty again.”

  Darcy didn’t know what to say to that. There were whole days when she wasn’t certain of anything. Whether she was a real writer. If she would ever find the right ending for Afterworlds. How Imogen could stand to be with someone as prying, immature, and budget-challenged as her.

  But . . . “I know who I love.”

  A wistful sigh escape Lalana. “That’s such a big word, Darcy. And so distracting. I thought you were going to focus on writing.”

  “We write together, all the time. Imogen makes me better.”

  Lalana must have heard the certainty in her voice, because she only nodded.

  “And you’re not going to tell my parents? Really?”

  “Darcy, that’s for you to do.” Lalana reached across the table and took her hand. “It’s a big part of your growing up. I’d never steal it from you.”

  “Thanks,” Darcy said. It was a nice sentiment, but it made her feel very young. “I’ll find the right time.”

  “I’m sure you will. When do I get to meet her?”

  “Anytime. You’ll like her.”

  “I’m sure I will. But in the meantime, since your parents don’t even know about this yet, it’s my auntly duty to learn every detail.” Lalana leaned back into her chair, interlacing her fingers. “Leave nothing out.”