Afterworlds Page 13

  “Do you hear that?” I whispered.

  Mindy nodded, closing her eyes. “Those aren’t ghosts. Not of people, anyway.”

  “Of what then?”

  “Of this place. Of its sounds.”

  I looked at her, suddenly doubting whether “ghosts” was the right word for all this. “Memories. These are memories, aren’t they?”

  “That’s what I keep saying! As long as people remember something, it never completely disappears.”

  I reached out to the nearest locker and ran a finger across the air vent. The tick-tick-tick of my fingernail against metal sounded real.

  “So we’re standing in memories?”

  “I guess so,” Mindy said.

  “Maybe this isn’t about ghosts at all. What if us pomps are, like, mind readers? We see other people’s memories as if they were places and things and . . .”

  Mindy was glaring at me. “And people? You think I’m just a figment of your mom’s imagination?”

  “I don’t know.” As the words came out, I could hear how unkind they sounded. Mindy wasn’t a memory—she was a person whose existence depended on being remembered. There was a difference, maybe. “I was just thinking out loud. I don’t understand any of this, really.”

  As we stood there in unhappy silence, a sound drifted down the hallway, a child’s voice singing . . .

  “Come down, come down, whoever you are.”

  “Um, okay,” I said. “Is that, like, the ghost of a song?”

  “No.” Mindy reached up and took my hand, squeezing hard. “There’s someone down there, Lizzie.”

  “Okay . . .” The song repeated, distant and forlorn, and sparks of fear kindled in my veins. “Are they going to come up?”

  “I hope not,” Mindy said.

  We stood there, frozen for a moment, me trying to slow my breathing. The last time I’d panicked on the flipside, I’d popped back into the normal world right in front of Special Agent Elian Reyes. That wasn’t something I wanted to repeat in the middle of a vacant lot surrounded by razor wire, especially with a creepy ghost-song leaking out of the ground.

  The singing cut off. Mindy and I stared at each other in the awful silence.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a step backward. “Let’s just try to—”

  “Look,” Mindy whispered, her eyes on the floor.

  A darkness was spreading down the hallway, like spilled ink rolling toward us. It blotted out the tiles of the floor, pure black against the soft grays of the flipside. Like the rivers of oil I’d glimpsed in the desert, it moved with intent, a living thing, and it carried the same thick and sugary scent.

  The singsong voice called out again.

  “I can heeeear you up there. Why don’t you come down and play?”

  “Maybe we should just get out of here,” I whispered.

  “Yep.” Mindy turned and ran.

  “Wait for me!” I shouted, setting off after her, out the school door and down the stairs. As I ran across the playground, my heart galloped, pushing warmth outward into my arms and legs.

  Life was surging through me, and the world began to shift. The playground faded, and stars shone through gaps in the flat gray sky, as if a vast fabric were tearing overhead. I wondered whether to stop and regather my grasp on the flipside, or try and run to the fence in time.

  “Please don’t go!” the voice sang from behind, which pretty much made the choice for me.

  I ran harder, catching up with Mindy and passing her, my feet pounding the asphalt as hard as they could.

  The fence in my path was looking more solid every second. School buses loomed around me now, and I swerved to thread my way between two of them, not wanting to solidify inside a mass of metal and rubber.

  The fence was right in front of me, and I launched myself at it, covering my face with both arms. The chicken wire pulled and sucked as I went through, like a thick spiderweb, sticky and reluctant to let me pass. But the tension broke with a snap, and suddenly I was on the other side, stumbling into the living world . . . and the street.

  Headlights flashed as I skidded to a halt, the shriek of a swerving car screaming in my ears. I fell and dropped into a fetal position as the machine whooshed by, so close that I felt engine heat in the wind of its passage. But the scream of tires turned into the fading blare of a car horn, and the car flashed past and kept moving.

  I uncurled myself and sat up, looking both ways down the street—no cars in sight except for the red taillights, accelerating now. I guess the driver hadn’t been too keen on investigating black-clad figures popping out of thin air.

  “Whoa.” Mindy jogged up beside me. “That was close.”

  I stood up gingerly, swallowing when I saw skid marks curving around me. My right knee was throbbing and the heels of both hands were raw. The pain felt sharp and real after the gray flatness of the flipside. My scraped palms pulsed with my heartbeat, but it was wonderful, being back in the real world.

  I limped as we crossed the road.

  “Are you okay?” Mindy asked.

  “Yeah, great. But next time, let’s try a ghost building with no fence around it.”

  “Sure.” Mindy looked back at the vacant lot, her eyes wide. “And maybe . . .”

  I nodded. “Without anything scary in the basement.”

  “I don’t know what that was. Sorry!”

  “Going inside was my idea.” I touched my right knee. My jeans were ripped, but not bloody. “Anyway, thanks for showing me how this works, Mindy.”

  She looked up at me. “Really?”

  I nodded, still buzzing from the chase. Crossing the barrier between life and death was getting addictive.

  We headed back to my house—our house, as Mindy kept reminding me.

  On the way around to the back door, we checked in front of the Andersons’ yard to see if Special Agent Reyes had reappeared, but he hadn’t. His car had been gone the last few days, so I guess his boss wasn’t worried about me anymore.

  I’d looked up the Movement of the Resurrection online, and it seemed as though they had bigger things to worry about than me. After the Dallas massacre, all sorts of investigations had been opened up, from illegal weapons to tax avoidance. The Feds were closing in on them.

  Not being a terrorist target was fine with me, but I kind of missed waving to the FBI on my way home.

  Back in my bedroom, I pulled off my jeans, sat on the bed, and sprayed antiseptic on my palms and knee. The sting started my heart pounding again, but tomorrow I would be all bruises and aches, without the adrenaline of basement monsters and near car accidents to distract me.

  When I looked up, Mindy was watching raptly.

  “Never seen blood before?”

  “I don’t really feel pain anymore.” She shrugged. “Everything is kind of soft over here. I’m mostly bored, and kind of restless.”

  “Sounds like school.”

  “It sucks. I never feel anything real.”

  “Except when you get afraid.” I felt a smile on my lips. “I mean, you ran away much quicker than I did. And you should have seen your face when we heard that song!”

  “Of course I get afraid.” Her eyes flashed.

  “Sorry.” I’d almost forgotten how Mindy had become a ghost. Even if she was beyond suffering now, her last hours were something I could never imagine. “You know I won’t let any bad men hurt you, right?”

  “I know.” But she didn’t look convinced.

  “Listen, Mindy. Maybe he died a long time ago. Maybe he’s already faded into nothing.”

  She looked away from me, toward my mother’s room and the closet, where she always went when she got scared.

  No matter what promises I made, she remained certain that the bad man was out there, still alive. That he would die one day, and then wander the earth looking for her.

  Maybe it was better to change the subject. “So what do you think that was, down in the school basement?”

  She started tracing the pattern of the be
dspread with one finger, not much happier. “I don’t know.”

  “But it was the ghost of something, right?”

  Mindy only shrugged.

  “You must have some idea,” I said. “Is there anything out there besides ghosts? I mean, what about vampires and werewolves?”

  A laugh sputtered out of her. “Don’t be a dummy. Those are just make-believe!”

  “Are you sure? I mean, if ghosts are real, why not all the other creatures of legend? Golems? Garudas? Selkies?”

  Mindy’s smile faded. “I don’t even know what those are, but I think some monsters never got legends. Some places are just bad.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to know everything, I guess.”

  “Good, because I don’t.”

  Mindy was an eleven-year-old girl, I reminded myself. To her, a monster wasn’t something to be analyzed, it was something to be feared.

  Not that I had the energy for monster analysis. The last dregs of my adrenaline were fading, and school was starting back up the day after tomorrow. The beginning of my last semester, and my first day in public as a national symbol of hope.

  I’d avoided my friends since getting home, except for sending Jamie an email saying I wasn’t ready to see anyone. My dad still hadn’t bought me a new phone, despite promising to, so avoiding people had been easy enough. But I was going to have to face the real world soon.

  I put the antiseptic away and slipped under the covers.

  “Good night,” I said, and turned off the bedside light.

  Mindy, as always, sat on the end of my bed. Ghosts didn’t sleep, which probably contributed to their boredom and restlessness. It was clear that Mindy wandered the neighborhood at night. She knew all the neighbors’ names, and their secrets too.

  “Sleep tight, Lizzie,” she whispered.

  “Thanks for taking me to ghost school.”

  She giggled, and we were silent for a while, my brain searching for sleep. But the pain of my injuries came and went like ants traveling around my body, first one scraped palm itching, and then the other.

  The sting of the antiseptic slowly faded, though, and I was almost asleep when the scratching sound began.

  It was like a fingernail running along the underside of the floorboards, almost too soft to hear, too quiet to believe in. But the sound persisted, refusing to disappear even as my brain tried to ignore it.

  By the time I opened my eyes, Mindy was standing on the end of my bed, staring wide-eyed down at the floor.

  I sat up slowly, carefully, but already my skin was damp with fear.

  “What the hell is that, Mindy?”

  “I think it followed us home.”

  “What did?”

  The sound came again, scraping its way from my bedroom door toward me. My spine turned to water as it traveled beneath the bed.

  It fell silent again, and Mindy whispered, “It’s all connected.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s down there, Lizzie. That thing we heard singing.”

  “What do you—!” My voice rose almost to a shout, and I forced my mouth shut. Mom was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t dare wake her with a monster in the house.

  “I’m sorry, Lizzie.” Mindy’s voice was shaking. “I didn’t know it would follow us home!”

  “Where is it?” I hissed. “This house doesn’t have a basement!”

  She looked at me with exasperation. “It’s not in the basement. It’s down in the river.”

  I shut my eyes, trying to make sense of Mindy’s words. My body was wide awake, but my brain was still spinning up from being half-asleep.

  “Come down, come down, whoever you are!” sang a voice from beneath my bedroom floor.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE INVITATIONS TO DARCY’S HOUSEWARMING party had said seven, but at seven thirty not a single person had arrived.

  “Crap.” Darcy kicked the bucket of beer and ice waiting in the corner. A pool of condensation had collected beneath it, like an unloved and sweaty pet left by its owner on a country road.

  It was awfully hot in here in the big room, and would only get worse if any guests ever arrived. Darcy pushed open another of the windows, letting in the roar of Chinatown traffic and a tired breeze that stirred the hem of her sundress. She’d bought the dress at a vintage shop that morning, only to realize moments out of the store how close it was to the one Imogen had worn the day they’d found apartment 4E.

  It wasn’t rust colored, at least, but the blue-gray of an overcast sky.

  Darcy stared at her phone. Imogen had promised to arrive at six for moral support, but had texted an hour ago to say she’d be late. On top of that, Sagan and Carla had missed their intended train from Philly and wouldn’t be showing up till after nine. Aunt Lalana was out of town on business.

  The inevitable question was forming in Darcy’s mind: What if no one came? It had been pure hubris, having a housewarming party in a city where she knew hardly anyone. Of course, a few people would show up, just enough to witness and ratify her humiliation.

  The phone pinged in Darcy’s hand, and she raised it eagerly.

  Still nobody there? #Loserfest

  Only 438 days till publication!

  “Thanks a lot, Nisha,” Darcy muttered, resolving never again to share doubts with her sister.

  As she composed a suitably rude reply, the intercom sounded.

  Darcy ran and buzzed open the downstairs door without asking who it was—party crashers were better than no one at all. She primped her hair in the wall of mirrors, opened the door, and stuck her head out. Climbing the stairs were Moxie Underbridge, her assistant, Max, and a young woman whom Darcy recognized from YA Drinks Night—Johari Valentine, a writer from Saint Kitts.

  A moment later the three were inside, drifting past Darcy’s greetings and toward the windows of the big room. Darcy felt a swell of pride as they exclaimed over the views. This was the best time for looking out, the hour before sunset, when the sky was rosy and the shadows long and sharp.

  For the first time all day, Darcy felt that neither the party nor the apartment had been a terrible mistake.

  “This’ll be splendid in winter.” Johari was staring down at the street. “The rest of us down in the darkness, you up here in sunshine!”

  “Really now, Johari,” Moxie said. “It’s July. Are you still traumatized?”

  Johari gave Darcy a mock shudder. “My next book’s set on an ice planet. Dark and freezing, like winter up here.”

  “It’s called Heart of Ice,” said Max. “ ‘Who holds the secret of fire, rules the world!’ ”

  Johari shook her head. “Listen to you, Max. Peddling taglines for a book that isn’t half-done. Might be about penguins by the time I’m finished.”

  “ ‘Who holds the secret of penguins, rules the world’?” Max said. “See, it works with everything.”

  “Sounds awesome,” Darcy said, but all the talk of fire made her think of Imogen, and wonder again where she was. She glanced at her phone—nothing.

  “Sorry to arrive so early, my dear,” Moxie said. “But we have a dinner at nine.”

  “I’m just glad someone’s here!” Darcy put her phone away, praying that more people would arrive before they left. It would be inhumane of the universe to make her suffer two preparty freak-outs in one night. “You guys want drinks?”

  They did, and as Darcy set to work, Johari and Max poked their heads into the bedrooms.

  “Great idea,” Johari called, “having a party before moving in your furniture. Nothing broken if we get too lively!”

  Darcy didn’t explain that all her furniture was, in fact, moved in. Her new desk was in the corner of the big room, holding soft drinks, plastic cups, and two bowls of guacamole. It wasn’t a real desk, just an unfinished door laid across two sawhorses. Page proofs and copyedits needed large surfaces, and doors were cheaper than desks.

  Darcy was sleeping on her futon from home, which her father had dr
iven up from Philly, along with a chair, some linens, and a few dozen indispensable books, which were now in the second bedroom on cinder-block shelves. Sagan and Carla had been warned to bring sleeping bags, but Darcy had forgotten to buy them pillows.

  “And no TV?” Max was laughing. “The sign of a true writer.”

  “I’m all about the words,” Darcy said, though she had yet to write a single sentence in apartment 4E.

  She’d hardly noticed her lack of a television, given all the other things she didn’t own. Aunt Lalana had been right. She had no extension cords, no vacuum cleaner, no umbrella, nor a vase if anyone brought flowers tonight. She had no bathroom curtains and hardly any real dishes, only two bowls and a tea mug, and exactly one pan for making masala chai and instant noodles, the only cooking she’d done so far. She had a spice rack, complete with cardamom and tamarind and even saffron, but that had been a housewarming present from her aunt.

  As Darcy handed out red plastic cups, she wondered what else she was missing. She’d only remembered to buy a corkscrew this afternoon, and the tiny speakers connected to her computer were unlikely to get anyone dancing tonight.

  “Thank you, darling.” Moxie took her drink and swirled it thoughtfully. “Did you know Stanley David Anderson was in town?”

  “Really? For an appearance?”

  “Business. That’s who we’re dining with. You follow him, I presume?”

  “Who doesn’t follow Standerson?” Darcy asked. That was one of his internet nicknames. The other was the Sultan of Social Media. Standerson had a million followers, and there were a dozen YouTube channels about his YouTube channel. “But you don’t represent him.”

  “Not at the moment.” Moxie brushed an index finger across her lips. “But he’s a bit unhappy over at Sadler Lit, and might be looking around.”

  “Whoa, that’s great,” Darcy said, though she was suffering a moment of petty jealousy. She wasn’t invited to dinner with Moxie, Max, Johari, and Standerson, and her housewarming party wouldn’t be the most glamorous YA event in New York tonight.

  But this irrational moment passed when the buzzer sounded again, and Darcy sprang for the door.

  * * *

  As if the party’s surface tension had been broken, the guests arrived quickly now. Soon the big room was pleasingly full. Darcy recognized a dozen writers from YA Drinks Night (thanks to Oscar Lassiter’s email list), and Nan Eliot had come down from Paradox with a young assistant editor named Rhea. Carla had texted that she and Sagan were approaching Penn Station, but Imogen was still missing.