Hereafter

  I walked over to the closest shelf and looked back at Joshua with raised eyebrows. He continued to watch me without speaking, but a slight smile twitched at his lips. The expression was as close to permission as I would get and so I let my fingers trace lightly across some of the spines.

  “You have way more books than I did, Joshua.”

  He shrugged modestly. “Just a few.”

  “I know these titles,” I muttered in amazement. “Lots of them.”

  “I had a feeling you might.”

  Something in his tone made me turn to look at him again. His expression had softened even further, especially his eyes. The way he now stared at me . . . it made me uncomfortable and happy at the same time. I couldn’t think of a word to describe how I felt. Jubilant, maybe, came closest.

  Before I could ask him what he was thinking, he cleared his throat and shifted his weight against the bedpost. He uncrossed his arms and tucked one hand into his jeans pocket while running the other through his hair: his classic, awkward pose. It was utterly endearing, as was the blush that suddenly flooded his cheeks.

  “So, what do you think?” He gestured with one hand to the room. In turn, I gave him my brightest smile. I had just enough courage to make a confession of my own.

  “Before I give you my opinion on the room, I really should tell you—the scenery doesn’t really compare.”

  “Compare to what?” he asked, frowning. I ducked my head and sighed. Then I looked right into his lovely eyes as I spoke.

  “You,” I said, my voice surprisingly bold, even to my ears.

  Joshua’s face set again into that intent stare. Several moments passed, each one almost palpable in the charged atmosphere. Then, ever so slowly, he raised one arm and held out his hand. I reached out, too, and placed my hand into his.

  The feel of his touch flared across my skin. This time the warmth spread faster, as if each renewed touch intensified the effect. And this time the fiery tingles now reached strange places on my skin, places that made my breath quicken until it was audible. Joshua must have experienced a similar sensation, because he closed his eyes and let out a low moan.

  That sound was enough for me. I grasped his hand tightly, almost fiercely, willing the tingles to fade. Within only seconds I could feel his actual skin, rough and warm against mine.

  I closed my eyes, too. Still holding on to him, I moved my hand across his and up his arm, to his shoulder. I began to draw closer to him until I stood only inches away from his body. Finally, I rested my hands upon his chest. Once I lost contact with his skin, everything went numb. But for once the numbness was worth it, to be this close to him again. I kept my eyes shut, even when he pressed himself closer to me.

  “Amelia?” he whispered, moving his lips right next to my ear. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes,” I nearly gasped.

  Ask me to do anything. Anything! I practically screamed the words in my head. I’ll kiss you again; I don’t care about the risk.

  Joshua paused for a beat and then—

  “Do you want to listen to some music?”

  That wasn’t exactly the question I’d expected. My head darted back, and I stared at him. He wore a mischievous smile, as if he’d read my mind and intentionally avoided the questions I wanted him to ask. I scowled a little.

  “Tease,” I muttered under my breath. Joshua simply grinned wider. I was more than ready to give him a soft smack on his chest for being so infuriating, but then I noticed his breath was just as uneven as mine. I sighed. As long as he seemed at least mildly ruffled by our contact, I could forgive him.

  I carefully lowered my arms from his chest and backed away. Once there were more than a few inches between us, I made a show of stretching and yawning. The picture of utter boredom, totally blasé. Joshua obviously wasn’t fooled, because he chuckled softly at my performance.

  “So, you’re finally going to entertain me? With music, I guess?”

  Joshua sat down on his bed and patted a spot next to him on the dark blue comforter. I thrilled a little at the image of us sitting . . . on his bed . . . together, and then tried to accomplish the act as calmly as possible. I couldn’t imagine how badly the mood would be ruined if I accidentally slid off the comforter and onto the floor.

  “Actually,” Joshua said, “the music is part of my devious plan.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “Your ‘devious plan’?”

  He nodded, and his face lit up with excitement. He tucked one leg beneath him on the bed and spun around to face me more fully.

  “We need to figure out more about your personality, right?”

  When I nodded, he went on.

  “Well, what tells us more about your personality than your musical tastes?”

  I twisted the corner of my mouth in disbelief. “Isn’t that a little too simple?”

  Joshua shook his head, still smiling. “Not really. Short of finding a time machine and going back to 1999, we aren’t going to figure out who you were. So why don’t we figure out who you are now? Isn’t that more important anyway?”

  I blinked in surprise. “That . . . well, that actually might be brilliant, Joshua.”

  He shrugged again. “Just because I can’t do differential equations, it doesn’t mean I’m totally useless.”

  I laughed, and then mirrored his position by crossing both of my legs under me.

  “So, how do we do this?”

  “I play DJ, and you tell me what you like.”

  “Got it,” I said with a firm nod, fighting little jitters of excitement.

  “And who knows? Maybe something will be familiar. As long as it’s not death metal, I think we can rule you out as a potential Satan worshiper.”

  “Well, don’t judge me if it is.” I laughed.

  He chuckled and then reached back to his nightstand to fiddle with something on it. I craned my head to get a better look at the object. It appeared to be a tiny, plastic box with a glowing screen sitting atop a small stereo.

  “What is that thing?”

  Joshua stopped what he was doing without letting go of the little box and threw me a quizzical look over his shoulder.

  “You’ve never seen an MP3 player before?”

  “A what?” A defensive note crept into my voice. “Died in 1999, remember?”

  “Not a big deal.” Joshua gave me a warm smile and went back to working on the machine. “I don’t remember whether these things were big back then.”

  “Probably not for a poor girl from Oklahoma,” I grumbled. Joshua simply nodded, too distracted by his efforts to answer aloud.

  The machine made some soft clicking noises under Joshua’s hands and then a few strains of perfectly clear music flooded the room. I assumed it came from the speakers, and the MP-whatever thing.

  “Tell me what you think,” Joshua murmured as he leaned back against his pillow.

  The song started with a soft guitar, strumming out a sad little melody. Then a young man’s voice joined in, southern and a little slurry. As he sang, drums and a more insistent guitar merged with his voice. The song grew until it transformed into something soaring and plaintive: a sort of lament that managed to sound heartbroken and angry at the same time. Finally, the song began to fade, and I sighed a little

  “Don’t recognize it?” Joshua asked.

  “No, I don’t. But I like it.”

  “It’s one of my favorites.” Joshua wore a strange expression as he watched me listen to the last few chords of the song. He almost looked proud that we seemed to have the same taste. I smiled a little at the thought.

  “What else have you got?” I asked.

  “Let’s see . . .” He adjusted the machine again and eventually found something appropriate. “This is from the early 2000s. Jillian likes to listen to it when we’re in my car. She calls it ‘old school,’ which is kind of ironic, if you think about it.”

  Bass pumped from the speakers. After a few thumping drumbeats, a girl’s voice warbled out, barely audible
over the accompaniment. She wasn’t the best singer in the world, but she sang in a throaty manner I guess one could classify as sexy. I wrinkled my nose each time she went off-key.

  “Nope,” I said after only a few repetitions of the chorus. “Don’t know it, don’t like it.”

  “Thank God,” Joshua breathed, putting the song to a merciful, early end.

  “Akin to death metal?” I asked with a sly grin.

  “Close.” He laughed. “If you’d liked that one, I might have had to get behind Ruth’s ‘pitchforks and torches’ campaign.”

  “Har har,” I said as Joshua tried to find something else on the MP3 player for us to analyze.

  “Here we go. Late 1990s. This is a rock song from when I was a little kid. I actually really like it, but I was too young back then to remember whether it was popular.” Joshua made one more click and then looked up again to watch me listen.

  This song began much like the first, with a few repeated guitar chords. Then drums and a man’s voice—older than the one in the first song but just as slurry—entered the song. When the man growled louder, so did the guitar. The sounds became raw and joyous. It made me recall the way I’d felt in Joshua’s car while we drove to school. Free and flying.

  And then it made me recall something else.

  About halfway through the song, just at the point of its crescendo, my surroundings shimmered and changed.

  When the image steadied, I was no longer in Joshua’s bedroom. I was in some other room, standing at an open window and looking out over a sunlit yard. My hands gripped a wooden windowsill, its surface rough from the chips in its white paint. A warm breeze hit me from outside. There was just a hint of cool in it, promising fall but still tugging at the end of summer. Somewhere behind me, a radio played the same song I’d just been listening to in Joshua’s room. As the man’s voice wailed happily, I smiled and swayed to the beat. Free and flying.

  Suddenly, the flash vanished.

  The residue of light from the flash still ghosted across my eyes in weird black splotches, as though I’d been looking directly at the sun. It took a few seconds before I could see clearly—could see Joshua staring at me expectantly. When I finally could, a smile began to spread across my face.

  “I know it!” I crowed. “I know the song! I listened to it once, inside some house . . . mine, I think.”

  “Excellent!” Joshua cried out, clapping his hands to his knees. Then he leaned closer and whispered, “You know, I don’t think anyone who likes so much of the same music as I do can be evil.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I whispered back.

  “I don’t need to hope. I know.”

  I was simply playing—we were playing—and yet I suddenly believed what he’d just said.

  I wasn’t evil. Ruth was wrong; Eli was wrong.

  I didn’t have much proof: only a few guitar chords, some disconnected memories, and a handful of moments with this boy. But I knew it, too, then. Believed it.

  I focused harder on Joshua. Although he couldn’t know what I’d just been thinking, he stared intently back into my eyes. After a few more seconds of this acute silence, Joshua ducked his head and looked down at the bedspread. He started to fidget, rubbing a loose fiber on his jeans. Mimicking him, I plucked at my skirt.

  In our silence I read a few subtle changes. I couldn’t speak for Joshua, but I felt as though we’d just shared something very intimate. More intimate than anything we’d experienced up to this point.

  Joshua cleared his throat and moved to fiddle with the MP3 player again, maybe in an attempt to ease the tension. He turned on a song I almost immediately recognized: a soft violin concerto. Vivaldi. I smiled slightly as Joshua curled away from the machine and back onto the bed.

  “I like this one.”

  “I figured, since I like it so much too.” He gave me a timid smile. “Good music to sleep to.”

  At the word “sleep,” I frowned and moved to get off the bed.

  “Should I go now . . . ?”

  “No,” Joshua said, reaching out to me. “Stay. Talk with me.”

  I was more than happy to comply. I pulled myself farther onto the comforter and wrapped my legs back under me.

  We talked for hours, sitting curled up together on his bed, quieting only when we heard another member of his family pass by the door. As we talked, we began to shift positions. At some point he removed his shoes and stretched out fully on the bed. I stretched out next to him, propped upon one elbow, watching as his eyelids slowly began to droop. Finally, well past two a.m., Joshua rolled over to click out the lantern light on his bedside table. He dropped his head back onto his pillow and shut his eyes.

  I could still see his face in the dark, enough to watch him fading in and out of consciousness. Before he faded entirely, I wanted to ask him one more question.

  “Joshua?” I whispered.

  “Mm?”

  “You never really explained why I’m supposed to call you Joshua when no one else does.”

  “I didn’t?” His words came out muffled, mainly because as he said them, he rolled over to face me. It would only take a little movement for him to brush against me, to ignite the flames across my skin again.

  I shook my head, trying to force some sense back into it. “No, you didn’t.”

  Thank God Joshua was almost asleep, because he clearly didn’t notice the ridiculous squeak in my voice. I scolded myself internally, telling myself to stop acting like an idiot every time he came close to touching me.

  Joshua’s mumble broke into my thoughts. “The people I care most about in the world . . . they get to call me Joshua.”

  “So . . . I’m one of those people? The ones you care most about?”

  The stupid squeak snuck back into my hopeful whisper.

  “Mm-hmm.” A faint smile played on Joshua’s lips. Keeping his eyes closed, he draped one arm over my waist. I couldn’t feel anything more than a faint pressure, but . . . still. Joshua’s arm was around me. In bed.

  I coughed to rid myself of the squeak and then launched into the most inane follow-up question I could think of.

  “Um . . . I’ve got one more question. A weird one.”

  “Shoot,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “It’s really weird,” I warned him.

  He groaned and cracked open one eye to stare at me. He lifted one eyebrow lazily, as if he was too exhausted for even this minor gesture. I sighed, and hurried with the question.

  “I was just wondering: can you smell me?”

  “Huh?” He opened both eyes now, albeit narrowly.

  “See, I—I don’t usually smell things,” I stuttered, embarrassed. “And I, uh . . . I smelled you today. Twice.”

  “Really?” The eyebrow rose again. “What was that like?”

  “Nice.”

  “Huh. You know what else is weird?” He yawned the question, eyes drooping closed again. “I can’t usually smell you, either. Only every now and then.”

  “And what’s that like?” I repeated his question, trying to keep my tone casual while praying I didn’t smell like ectoplasm or rotting trees or something.

  “Nice,” he murmured. “Sweet. Like peaches, or nectarines.”

  In the dark, with his eyes shut, Joshua couldn’t see the smile radiating across my face.

  “That is nice,” I whispered before settling down beside him, still tucked under his arm.

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  Chapter

  Nineteen

  While the night shifted into morning and Joshua slept on, my thoughts returned, unwillingly, to Eli.

  I took Ruth very seriously when she’d said “We’re coming for you.” She and her friends—fellow Seers, no doubt—wanted to end my afterlife as I knew it. So I needed to find some way to defend myself against them, and soon. But I had the strangest feeling I couldn’t
do that until I gained more information about my ghostly nature. I needed to know how ghosts really interacted with the living world. I needed to know about my nightmares, and possibly my death. And I needed to know whether Eli had trapped my father in the netherworld with the other frantic, whispering souls.

  Ruth had denied me this information yesterday, leaving me with only one remaining resource. As much as I hated to admit it, and as carefully as I would have to behave around him, Eli probably held the answers to some of my most desperate questions. Ones I had to obtain before Ruth and her friends made the task impossible.

  The more I thought about it, the more my resolve solidified. Near dawn, I bent over Joshua’s ear.

  “Joshua?” I whispered.

  “Mm.”

  Watching his peaceful face, I decided to risk an endearment. “Joshua, sweetheart, I have to do something today.”

  “Mm?”

  “I have to go find out a few more things. I’m not sure how long this . . . errand . . . will take, but I think it’s important. We can’t fight off the other Seers if we don’t know as much as possible, can we?”

  “No,” he mumbled. Despite the assent, however, he was clearly still asleep.

  “Glad to know you’re on board,” I whispered, smiling. “Can you meet me here tonight, around dark?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I smiled wider as his forehead creased. The motion made him look as if he took the promise seriously, even in sleep. I stared at him for a moment longer and then leaned closer. Gently, I pressed my lips to his forehead, just above his eyebrow.

  The heat of the little kiss spread across my lips, turning them into two smoldering coals. I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of it. Then I pushed myself off the bed. I crossed the bedroom and, pausing at the door Joshua had left partly open, looked back at him.

  “See you soon,” I whispered. I bit my lip; and, in a moment of sheer abandon, I added, “I think I might . . . you know . . . love you, by the way.”