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Dedication TK

We tell ourselves stories

in order to live.

—Joan Didion

Education is the path from

cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

—Mark Twain

CHAPTER 1

THE MOST IMPORTANT EMAIL THAT DARCY PATEL EVER WROTE

was three paragraphs long.

The first was about Darcy herself. It skipped the trifling details, her dyed blue-black hair and the slim gold ring in her left nostril, and began instead with a grim secret that her parents had never told her. When Darcy’s mother was eleven years old, her best friend was murdered by a stranger. This discovery, chanced upon during an

idle web search, both shocked Darcy and made certain things about

her mother clearer. It also inspired her to write.

The second paragraph of the email was about the novel Darcy

had just finished. She didn’t mention, of course, that all sixty thousand words of Afterworlds had been written in thirty days. The Underbridge Literary Agency hardly needed to know that. Instead, this paragraph described a terrorist attack, a girl who wills herself to die, and the bewitching boy she meets in the afterworld. It prom-SCOTT WESTERFELD

ised skulking ghosts and the traumas that haunt families, and little sisters who are more clever than they appear. Using the present

tense and short sentences, Darcy set the scene, thumbnailed the

characters and their motivations, and teased the conclusion. This

was the best of the three paragraphs, she was later told.

The third paragraph was pure flattery, because Darcy wanted

very much for the Underbridge Literary Agency to say yes to her.

She praised the breadth of their vision and paid tribute to their clients’ genius, even while daring to compare herself to those illustrious names. She explained how her novel was different from the other

paranormals of the last few years (none of which had a smoldering

Vedic psychopomp as its love interest).

This email was not a perfect query letter. But it did its

job. Seventeen days after pressing Send, Darcy was signed to

Underbridge, a flourishing and respected literary agency, and not

long after that she had a two-book deal for an astonishing amount

of money.

Only a handful of challenges remained—high school gradu-

ation, a perilous decision, and parental approval—before Darcy

Patel would be packing her bags for New York City.

2

CHAPTER 2

I MET THE MAN OF MY DREAMS IN AN AIRPORT, JUST BEFORE

midnight a few days into the New Year. I was changing planes in

Dallas, and I almost died.

What saved me was texting my mother.

I text her a lot when I’m traveling—when I get to the airport,

when the flight’s called, and when they make us put our phones

away. I know, it sounds like something you’d do with your boy-

friend, not your mom. But traveling alone made me nervous even

before I could see ghosts.

And trust me, my mother needs to hear from me. A lot. She’s

always been kind of clingy, but even more so since my father ran

off to New York.

So I was walking alone through the mostly vacant airport,

looking for better reception. This late at night most of the shops were shuttered and dark, and I’d wandered until reaching another

SCOTT WESTERFELD

wing of the airport, which was closed off by a metal gate that hung from the ceiling. Through the steel mesh I could see a pair of

moving walkways gliding past, empty.

I didn’t see the attack begin. My eyes were focused on my

phone, watching as autocorrect made war on my spelling. Mom

was asking about my dad’s new girlfriend, whom I’d just met dur-

ing my winter break visit. Rachel was lovely, always well dressed, and had the same size feet as me, but I couldn’t tell Mom all that.

She has awesome shoes and I get to borrow them wasn’t the right place to start.

My father’s new apartment was also amazing, twenty stories

up, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking down on Astor Place.

His walk-in closet was as big as my bedroom back home, and

full of drawers that slid open with a sound like spinning skate-

board wheels. I wouldn’t want to live there. All that chrome and

white leather furniture was cool to the touch and didn’t feel like home. But Mom had been right—my father had made a metric

fuck-ton of money since leaving us. He was wealthy now, with a

doorman building and his own driver and a glittery black credit

card that made shop assistants straighten up. (Calling people

who worked in stores “shop assistants” was a thing I’d learned

from Rachel.)

I was wearing jeans and a hoodie, like always when I fly, but

my suitcase was full of shiny new clothes that I’d have to hide

when I got back to California. Dad’s wealth pissed Mom off for

good reason: She supported him through law school and then he

bailed on us. I got worked up about it sometimes, but then he’d

send some of that wealth my way and I’d get over it.

4

AFTERWORLDS

Sounds pretty shallow, right? Being bought off with money

that should’ve been my mother’s? Trust me, I know. Almost dying

makes you realize how shallow you are.

Mom had just texted me: Tell me she’s older than the last one.

And not a Libra again!

Didn’t ask her bitch day.

Um, what?

BIRTHDAY. Autocorrect fail.

Mom was mostly desensitized to my bad typing. The night

before, she hadn’t even noticed when I’d texted that my father

and I were eating raw cock dough for dessert. But when it came to

Rachel, no typo went unremarked.

Ha! Wish you’d asked her THAT!

I decided to ignore that, and answered: She says hi, by the way.

How sweet.

If you’re being ironing, I can’t tell. We are TEXTING, mom.

I’m too old for irony. That was sarcasm.

I heard shouts behind me now, back by the security checkpoint.

I turned around and headed back toward my gate, but didn’t look

up from the phone.

I think my planet’s about to leave.

OK. See you in three hours, kiddo! Miss you.

You too, I began to type, but then the world fell into sharp little pieces.

I’d never heard an automatic weapon in real life before. It was

somehow too loud for my ears to register, not so much a sound as the air ripping around me, a shudder I could feel in my bones and in the liquid of my eyes. I looked up from my phone and stared.

5

SCOTT WESTERFELD

The gunmen didn’t look human. They wore horror movie

masks, and smoke flowered around them as they swung their aim

across the crowd. At first everyone was frozen with shock. No one

ran or tried to hide behind the rows of plastic chairs, and the terrorists seemed in no hurry.

I didn’t hear the screams until the terrorists paused to reload.

Then everyone was running, some in my direction, some the

other way. A guy my age in a football jersey—Travis Brinkman, as

everyone learned later—tackled two gunmen, wrapping his arms

around them and spinning with them across the blood-slick floor.

If there had only been two terrorists he might have won that fight and spent his life a hero, telling his grandkids the story till they got bored of it. But there were four gunmen in all, and the others still had plenty of bullets.

As Travis Brinkman fell, the first running people reached me.

Smoke roiled in their wake, bringing a smell like burning plastic. I’d been just standing there, but the acrid scent snapped my panic and I turned and started running with the crowd.

My phone lit up in my hand, and I stared stupidly at it. There

was something I was supposed to do with this glowing, buzzing

object, but I’d forgotten what. I still hadn’t grasped what was happening, but I knew that to stop running was to die.

But then death was right in front of me—that steel gate

stretched across the entire hallway, floor to ceiling, side to side.

The closed section of the airport stood behind it, the walkways still flowing. The terrorists had waited for midnight, when we were all

trapped in the smallest possible space.

A tall man in a leather biker jacket threw his shoulder against

6

AFTERWORLDS

the gate, and the metal rippled. He knelt to claw at the bottom, lifting it a few inches. Others joined him.

I stared at my phone. A text from my mother:

Try to sleep on the plane.

I stabbed at the screen to bring up a number pad. Some part

of my brain realized that I’d never called 911 before. As it rang, I turned around to face the gunfire.

People were scattered on the floor, a trail of them. The terrorists had been gunning us down as we ran.

One of them was walking toward me, still a hundred feet away.

He looked at the floor, stepping carefully among the fallen bodies, as if he couldn’t see well through the mask.

There was a tiny voice in my hand, dulled by my battered ears.

“What is the location of your emergency?”

“Airport.”

“We’re aware of that situation. Security is responding from on-

site and they will be there soon. Are you in a safe location?”

The woman was so calm. Looking back, it always makes me

cry to think how calm she was, how brave. I might’ve been scream-

ing if I were her, knowing what was happening at the other end of

the line. But I wasn’t screaming. I was watching the gunman walk

slowly toward us.

He was shooting the wounded people with a pistol, one by

one.

“I’m not safe.”

“Can you get to a safe location?”

I turned back to the gate. A dozen of us were pulling at it now,

trying to lift it up. The metal rattled and swayed, but was catching 7

SCOTT WESTERFELD

against some kind of lock. The gate wouldn’t rise more than a few

inches.

I looked for a door, a hallway, a drink machine to hide behind.

But the walls stretched away bare and flat.

“I can’t, and he’s shooting everyone.” We were so calm, just

talking to each other.

“Well, honey, maybe you should pretend to be dead.”

“What?”

The gunman looked up from the wounded on the floor, and I

could see the glitter of eyes through the two holes in the mask. He was staring straight at me.

“If there’s no way to get to safety,” she said carefully, “maybe

you should lie down and not move.”

He holstered his pistol and raised the automatic rifle again.

“Thank you,” I said, and let myself fall as the gun roared smoke

and noise.

My knees struck the floor with a burst of pain, but I let every

muscle go, flopping over onto my face, a dropped rag doll. My forehead hit the tiles so hard that light flashed across my vision, and I felt a sticky warmth on my brow.

My eyelids fluttered once—blood was running into my eyes.

In a stunned heap I lay there, the gun firing again and again,

the bullets hissing over me. The screams made me want to curl into a ball, but I forced myself to stay still. I tried to squeeze my own breathing to a halt.

I’m dead. I’m dead.

My body shuddered once, fighting me, demanding deeper

breaths.

8

AFTERWORLDS

I don’t need to breathe—I’m dead.

The shooting finally stopped again, but worse sounds filled

the ringing silence. A woman crying for mercy, someone trying to

breathe with torn lungs. In the distance, I heard the pop and crack of pistols.

Then the worst noise of all: tennis shoes squeaking on wet

tiles, taking slow, careful steps. I remembered him shooting the

wounded, making sure that no one would escape this nightmare.

Don’t look at me. I’m dead.

My heartbeat thudded, hard enough to shake the whole airport.

But somehow I kept myself from breathing.

The squeak of tennis shoes began to fade, crowded out by a soft

roar in my head. My lungs were still now, not fighting anymore,

and I felt myself falling softly away from my body, straight through the floor and down toward someplace dark and silent and cold.

It didn’t matter if the world was crumbling. I couldn’t breathe

or move or think, except to remind myself . . .

I’m dead.

Behind my eyelids, vision went from red to black, like spilled

ink spreading across my mind. Cold filled me, and my dizziness

became a slow swaying, a feeling of stillness.

A long time seemed to pass with nothing happening.

And then I woke up somewhere else.

9

CHAPTER 3

T H E M A N I L A E N V E L O P E F R O M T H E U N D E R B R I D G E L I T E R A R Y

Agency was as thick as a college acceptance package. But instead

of forms, booklets, and brochures, it contained four copies of the same document—a publishing contract—and a return envelope

that was already addressed and stamped.

Darcy Patel had learned all this from an email a week ago,

and had read the contract at various stages of its drafting. There was no mystery about the envelope’s contents at all. But the act of slicing it open still seemed momentous. She had appropriated her

father’s Princeton letter opener for the occasion.

“It’s here,” she said at her sister’s door. Nisha threw her book

aside, sprang out of bed, and followed Darcy to her room.

They were quiet going down the hall. Darcy didn’t want her

father reading through the contract again and offering more legal

advice. (For one thing, he was an engineer, not a lawyer. For

AFTERWORLDS

another, Darcy had an agent already.) But Nisha had to be here.

She’d read Afterworlds last November, as it was being written, sometimes aloud over Darcy’s shoulder.

“Close the door.” Darcy sat at her desk. Her hands trembled

a little.

Nisha obeyed and padded in. “Took long enough. When did

Paradox say they wanted to buy it? Three months ago?”

“My agent says some contracts take a year.”

“That’s seven today, and it’s not even noon!”

By mutual agreement, Darcy was allowed to use the phrase

“my agent” no more than ten times a day in front of her little sister; any overages cost a dollar each. This seemed generous to everyone

concerned.

Darcy faced the envelope, hefting the letter opener in one hand.

“Okay. Here we go.”

The blade cut smoothly at first, but halfway through it caught on

something inside, a staple or a butterfly clip perhaps. It began to stutter, tearing instead of slicing.

Then it was stuck.

“Crap.” Darcy pushed a little harder.

The opener moved again, but in its wake a ragged little filigree of white paper emerged from the slit.

“Smooth, Patel,” Nisha said, now standing directly behind her.

Darcy slid the contracts out. She had torn the top of the first page.

“Great. My agent’s going to think I’m a dipshit.”

“That’s eight,” Nisha said. “Why do they need all those copies,

anyway?”

“I guess it’s more official that way.” Darcy checked the rest of

11

SCOTT WESTERFELD

the envelope’s contents. She hadn’t destroyed anything else. “Do

you think this one counts, now that it’s ripped?”

“With a massive tear like that? Frankly, Patel, I think your

whole career is canceled.”

Something sharp levered itself between two of Darcy’s ribs, as

if the errant letter opener had slipped again. “Don’t even say that.

And stop calling me by my last name. Our last name. It’s weird.”

“Pfft,” Nisha said to this. She developed new verbal tics about

once a week, which was often useful. The protagonist of Afterworlds had borrowed a lot of her eccentric cursing. “Just put some tape on it.”

Darcy sighed, sliding open her desk drawer. A moment later,

the contract was taped together, but somehow it looked even more

pathetic now. Like a fifth grader’s art project: My PubLisHing

ContRact.

“It doesn’t even seem real anymore.”

“It’s a disaster!” Nisha fell backward on Darcy’s bed, bouncing

in her death throes and pulling the blankets askew. People were

always saying how much older Nisha seemed than her fourteen

years. If only they knew the truth.

“None of this seems real,” Darcy said softly, staring at the torn contract.

Nisha sat up. “You know why that is, Patel? Because you

haven’t told them yet.”

“I will. After graduation next week.” Or maybe later, whenever

Oberlin’s deferral deadline was.

“No, now. Right after you drop those contracts in the mail.”

“Today?” The thought of her parents’ reaction sent a cold

trickle down Darcy’s spine.

12

AFTERWORLDS

“Yes. Telling them is what makes all of this real. Until then,

you’re just some little kid daydreaming about being a famous writer.”

Darcy stared at her sister. “You remember I’m older than you,

right?”

“So act like it.”

“But they might say no.”

“They can’t. You’re eighteen. That’s, like, an adult.”

A laugh erupted out of Darcy, and Nisha joined in. The idea of

the elder Patels recognizing their children’s independence at eighteen—or any age—was hilarious.

“Don’t worry about them,” Nisha said once they’d recovered.

“I have a plan.”

“Which is?”

“Secret.” A crafty smile settled onto Nisha’s face, which was

about as reassuring as the shredded contract.

It wasn’t only her parents’ reaction that was making Darcy ner-

vous. There was something terrifying about her plans, something

absurd, as if she’d decided to become an astronaut or a rock star.

“Do you think I’m crazy, wanting to do this?”

Nisha shrugged. “If you want to be a writer, you should do it

now. Like you keep saying, Afterworlds could tank and no one will ever publish you again.”

“I only said that once.” Darcy sighed. “But thanks for remind-

ing me.”

“You’re welcome, Patel. But look—that’s a binding legal con-

tract. Until your book officially bombs, you’re a real novelist! So would you rather blow all that money as a writer in New York City?

Or as some freshman churning out essays about dead white guys?”

13

SCOTT WESTERFELD

Darcy dropped her gaze to the torn contract. Maybe it had

ripped because she wanted this too much. Maybe her hand would

always slip at the last moment, tearing what she desired most. But somehow the contract was beautiful, even in its damaged state.

Right there on the first page, it defined her, Darcy Patel, as “The Author.” You couldn’t get much realer than that.

“I’d rather be a writer than a freshman,” she said.

“Then you have to tell the elder Patels— after those are in the mailbox.”

Darcy looked at the return envelope and wondered if the

Underbridge Literary Agency provided stamps for all its authors, or only the teenage ones. But at least it made sending off the contract as easy as walking to the corner, which took less effort than resist-ing Nisha. If her little sister had a plan, there would be no respite without compliance.

“Okay. At lunch.”

Darcy lifted her favorite pen, and signed her name four times.

“I’ve got something to tell you guys,” she said. “But don’t get upset.”

The expressions around the table—including Nisha’s—made

Darcy wonder if she should have started differently. Her father had paused in midbite, and Annika Patel was staring wide-eyed.

Lunch was leftovers from takeout the night before—fried red

peppers, chickpeas cooked with tamarind, all of it swimming in

garam masala and served straight from the styrofoam containers.

Not an auspicious setting for important announcements.

“The thing is, I want to defer college for a year.”

“What?” her mother asked. “Why on earth?”

14

AFTERWORLDS

“Because I have responsibilities.” This line had sounded better

in her head. “I need to do the rewrites for Afterworlds, and write a sequel.”

“But . . .” Her mother paused, and the elder Patels shared a look.

“Working on books isn’t going to take all your time,” her father said. “You wrote your first one in a month, didn’t you? And that

didn’t interfere with your studies.”

“It almost killed me!” Darcy said. She’d dreaded coming home

some days last November, because she knew that two thousand

words of novel awaited her, on top of homework, college applica-

tion essays, and studying for the SATs. “Besides, I didn’t write a book in a month. I wrote a draft.”

Her parents just stared at her.

“There’s no good writing, only good re writing,” she quoted, not quite certain who’d said it first. “Everyone says this is the hard part, turning my draft into a real novel. According to the contract, I have until September to turn in a final draft. That’s four whole months, so they must think revisions are pretty important.”

“I’m sure it is. But September is when college starts,” Annika

Patel said, all smiles. “So there’s no conflict, is there?”

“Right,” Darcy sighed. “Except once I finish Afterworlds, I have to write the sequel, and then revise that. And my agent says that I should be promoting myself already!”

Nisha held up both hands, her fingers silently indicating nine

“my agents.”

“Darcy,” her father said. “You know we’ve always supported

your creativity. But wasn’t the main reason for writing the novel so you could put it on your college applications?”

15

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“No!” Darcy cried. “Where did you get that idea?”

Annika Patel placed her palms together, as if praying for quiet.

When she had everyone’s attention, her look of long suffering softened into a sly smile.

“Is this because you’re afraid of leaving home? I know that Ohio

seems a long way away, but you can call us anytime.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, realizing that her announcement was incom-

plete. “I’m not staying here. I’m moving to New York.”

In the silence that followed, all Darcy could hear was Nisha

chewing on a samosa. She wished that her little sister would at least try not to look so amused.

“New York City?” their mother finally asked.

“I want to be a writer, and that’s where publishing is.”

Annika Patel let out a slow, exasperated sigh. “You haven’t even

let us read this book, Darcy. And now you want to give up college

for this . . . dream.”

“I’m not giving it up, Mom, just deferring it for a year.” The

right words finally came to her. “A year of studying the publishing industry. Learning all about it from the inside! Can you imagine

what that would look like on a college application?” Darcy waved her hands. “I mean, except I won’t need to apply again, because I’m only deferring.”

Her voice took on a guilty quaver at the end. According to the

Oberlin student manual, deferment was allowed only under “excep-

tional circumstances,” and the definition of “exceptional” was up to the school. They could say no, and then she’d have to start all over.

But being under contract to write a novel was pretty excep-

tional, wasn’t it?

16

AFTERWORLDS

“I don’t know about this, Darcy.” Her father shook his head. “First you don’t apply to any universities in India, and then—”

“I’d never get into a good school in India! Even Sagan couldn’t,

and he’s a math genius.” Darcy turned to her mother, who actually

read novels. “You guys thought it was awesome when my book sold.”

“Of course it’s wonderful.” Annika Patel shook her head. “Even

if you won’t let us read it.”

“Just until I do the rewrites.”

“That’s up to you,” her mother said. “But you can’t expect every

novel you write to make this tremendous amount of money. You

have to be practical. You’ve never lived alone, or paid your own

bills, or made your own food . . .”

Darcy didn’t trust herself to speak. Her eyes stung, and her throat was tight. Nisha had been right—now that she’d uttered her dream

aloud to her parents, it had become real. Too real to lose.

But at the same time countless other things had become real, all

the nuts and bolts of food and shelter. Darcy had never even done

her own laundry.

She looked pleadingly at her little sister. Nisha placed her fork

down with a little tap, just loud enough.

“I was thinking,” she said as everyone turned to her. “Moneywise,

it might be better if Darcy takes a year off.”

No one said anything, and Nisha played the silence for a

moment.

“I was looking at Oberlin’s financial aid forms. And of course

the main thing they ask is what the parents earn. But there’s another place where they ask for the student’s income. Turns out, whatever Darcy makes comes straight off the top of any aid they offer.”

17

SCOTT WESTERFELD

Still no one spoke, and Nisha nodded slowly to herself, as if she

were realizing all this just now.

“Darcy’s going to make more than a hundred grand this year,

just by signing that contract. So if she starts college now, she won’t get any financial aid at all.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. Her two-book advance was about the size of a

four-year education. By the time she’d finished college, every penny would be gone.

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” her father said. “I mean, maybe there’s a way to change the contract and delay the—”

“Too late,” Darcy said, marveling at her little sister’s devious-

ness. “Already signed and mailed it.”

Her parents were staring at each other now, communing in

some unspoken parental way, which meant that they would discuss

the matter in private, later. Which meant that Nisha had opened

the door a tiny crack.

Now was the time to seal the deal.

“New York’s a lot closer than Oberlin,” Darcy said. “I’ll only be

a train ride away, and Aunt Lalana lives there, and there’s a much bigger Gujarati community than in—”

Annika Patel raised her hand, and Darcy stammered to a halt

on the word “Ohio.” Maybe it was best to save a few arguments for later, in case this battle went to round two.

But already something momentous had happened here at this

table. Darcy could feel her course in life, which had been set so

determinedly since she was a little girl, bending toward a new tra-jectory. She had changed the arc of her own story, merely by typing a couple of thousand words each day for thirty days.

18

AFTERWORLDS

And the taste of that power, the power of her own words, made

her hungrier.

Darcy didn’t want this interruption to last only a year. She

wanted to see how long she could stretch this feeling out. To be

dizzy with words again, like in that glorious week at the end of last November when everything had fallen into place. Darcy wanted

that feeling not just for a year.

She wanted it forever.

19

CHAPTER 4

WHEN MY EYES OPENED, EVERYTHING WAS WRONG.

My head hurt from having fallen to the floor. I touched my

hand to my brow and felt the stickiness of blood. I was too dizzy to stand, but managed to sit up.

Beneath me was an expanse of gray tile, just like the airport

floor, but everything else had disappeared. I seemed to be sitting in the midst of a formless gray cloud. All I could see were shadows,

wisps of motion in the fog.

Hitting my head had done something to my senses. The light

filtering through the mist was cold and hard, and there were no

colors, only grays. A roaring sound echoed in my ears, like rain on a metal roof. The air tasted flat and metallic. My body felt numb, as if the darkness I’d fallen through had left me chilled.

Where the hell was I?

A dark shape flickered in the corner of my vision. But when

AFTERWORLDS

I turned my head, it vanished back into the mist.

“Hello?” I tried to call, but could barely squeeze the word out.

Then I realized why—I hadn’t taken a single breath since waking up.

My lungs were like the rest of my body, filled with cold black ink.

I sucked in a startled gasp, my body starting up like an old car,

in jerks and shudders. A few shallow breaths forced themselves into me. I shut my eyes, concentrating on breathing . . . on being alive.

When I opened them again, a girl stood in front of me.

She was about thirteen, with large, curious eyes that met my

gaze. She wore a skirt that fell to the floor, a sleeveless top, and a scarf across one shoulder—all of it gray. Her face was gray too, as if she were a pencil drawing come to life.

I drew a careful breath before speaking.

“Where am I?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You can see me?”

I didn’t answer. In that billowing cloud, she was the only thing

I could see.

“You’ve crossed over,” the girl said, stepping a little closer. Her eyes focused on my forehead. “But you’re still bleeding.”

My fingers went to my brow. “I hit my head.”

“So you’d look dead to them. Clever girl.” She spoke with an

accent that I couldn’t recognize at first. And though I could understand her words, what the girl was saying made no sense. “You’re

shiny. You thought your way here, didn’t you?”

“Here? Where am I?”

She frowned. “Maybe not so clever after all. You’re in the after-

world, my dear.”

For a moment it was like falling again, the floor dropping

21

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out from under me. The distant rumbling sound grew louder in

my ears.

“Are you saying . . . I’m dead?”

She glanced up at my forehead again. “The dead don’t bleed.”

I blinked, not knowing what to say.

“It’s very simple.” She spoke carefully, as if explaining something to a child. “You willed your way here. My brother is just like you.”

I shook my head. Anger was rising up in me, along with the

certainty that she was trying to be confusing.

But before I could say something rude, an awful sound came

through the mist.

Squeak, squeak . . . tennis shoes on the tile floor.

I spun around, staring into the formless gray. “It’s him!”

“Stay calm.” The girl stepped forward to take my hand. Her fin-

gers were cold, and their iciness flowed into me, stilling my panic.

“It isn’t safe yet.”

“But he’s . . .” Squeak, squeak.

I faced the sound as he emerged from the cloud—the gunman

who’d shot at me. He looked even more hideous now, with a gas

mask hiding his face. He was coming straight toward us.

“No.”

The girl took my shoulder. “Don’t move.”

Frozen by her command, I expected the terrorist to raise his

gun and fire. But he walked past us— through us, as if we were smoke and mist.

I turned and watched him recede into the cloud. His passage

swirled the gray behind him, clearing a column of air. I saw plastic chairs and television screens and bodies lying on the floor.

22

AFTERWORLDS

“This is the airport,” I murmured.

The girl frowned. “Of course it is.”

“But why—”

Inside the swirling clouds something flashed, a metal cylinder

clattering along the floor toward us. The size of a soft drink can, it rolled to a stop a few yards away, spinning and hissing, spraying

more smoke into the air. In seconds the clear passage that the gunman had created filled with mist again.

“Tear gas,” I murmured. This wasn’t heaven. It was a battle

zone.

Security is responding, the woman on the phone had said. I finally realized that the roaring sound was gunfire, muted by distance or whatever had gone wrong with my senses.

“Don’t worry,” the girl said. “Nothing can hurt you here.”

I turned to her. “Where’s here? None of this makes sense!”

“Try to pay attention,” she said, exasperated now. “You’ve

thought your way into the afterworld, and if you go back to reality, you’ll be shot. So stay calm!”

I stared at her, unable to speak or move or think. It was all too

much.

She sighed. “Just wait here. I’ll get my brother.”

I was afraid to move after she left.

The mist—or tear gas, I suppose—would clear now and then,

and I could see bodies around me. Their clothes and faces were

gray, like the rest of the world. Everything was leeched of color, except for my own hands and the red blood I’d wiped away from

my eyes.

23

SCOTT WESTERFELD

Wherever this was, I didn’t belong here. I was too alive.

It was long minutes of waiting before another shape loomed

out of the mist—a boy my age. I could see the resemblance to his

sister, except that his skin wasn’t gray like hers. It was as brown as mine at the end of a long summer at the beach, and jet-black hair

fell just above his shoulders. He wore a silk shirt that rippled like a dark liquid across his skin.

Even in that awful moment, I could see that he was beautiful.

He shone somehow, as if sunlight were breaking through the mist,

just for him. He was one of those boys with a perfect jaw, who looks stunning when he’s clean shaven, but just that little bit more handsome with the barest shadow of stubble.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

I tried to answer, but my mouth was dry.

“My name is Yamaraj,” he said. “I can help you.”

He had the same accent as his sister—from India, I thought,

with a touch of England. His words came out precisely, like some-

one who’d learned English in a classroom.

“I’m Lizzie,” I managed.

He looked puzzled a moment. “Short for Elizabeth?”

I just stared at him. It was such a strange thing to say.

Something flashed in the corner of my eye—another man,

running fast, ducking and weaving as he went. He wore a gas

mask, a black uniform, and a bulletproof vest. He must have

been one of the good guys, but at that moment he looked like a

monster.

Yamaraj put his hand on my arm. “This is almost over. I’ll take

you someplace safe.”

24

AFTERWORLDS

“Please,” I said as he turned me away from the muted roar of

gunfire.

But then I saw what was ahead of us—the metal gate that had

doomed us all. A dozen bodies lay at its foot, still and silent. One woman had her arm flung across a child. Another man’s fingers

were bloody from clawing at the unyielding steel.

I froze. “This is where they caught us!”

“Close your eyes, Elizabeth.” His voice had a quiet intensity that forced me to obey, and he led me gently forward. “Don’t worry,” he kept saying. “The overworld can’t hurt you if you stay calm.”

I wasn’t calm at all. But my panic was like a poisonous snake

at a zoo, staring at me from the other side of thick glass. Only

Yamaraj’s touch on my arm kept the glass from shattering. His skin seemed to burn against mine.

With every blind step forward I expected to feel a body under-

foot, or to slip on blood, but there was only a slight tugging on my clothes, as if we were walking through brambles.

“We’re safe now,” Yamaraj finally said, and I opened my eyes again.

We were in another part of the airport, where rows of plastic

chairs faced the sealed-up doors of boarding gates. Televisions were mounted on the walls, their screens blank. Sliding walkways moved

between glass barriers, empty.

The light was just as hard and cold here, and everything still

gray, except for Yamaraj, shining and brown. But the tear gas was

only wisps and haze around us.

I turned to stare back the way we’d come. The gate was in the

distance, the fallen bodies on the other side.

“We walked through that?” I asked.

25

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“Don’t look back. It’s important that you stay—”

“Calm. I get it! ” Nothing makes me more annoyed than someone telling me to stay calm. But the fact that I could snap at him meant that I was coming out of shock.

My anger sputtered when I turned to face Yamaraj. His gaze was so

steady, and the glint in his brown eyes softened the hard light around us. He was the only thing in this world that wasn’t gray and cold.

“You’re still bleeding.” He grasped the tail of his shirt with both hands, and with a sharp movement ripped a piece away. When he

pressed it against my forehead, I could feel the warmth of his hand through the silk.

My mind steadied a little. The dead don’t bleed. I wasn’t dead.

“That girl who found me, she’s your sister?”

“Yes. Her name is Yami.”

“She said some weird stuff.”

A smile touched his lips. “Yami is unhelpful sometimes. You

must have questions.”

I had a hundred, but they all boiled down to one.

“What’s happening?”

Yamaraj looked past me. “A war, perhaps?”

I frowned. This boy wasn’t from around here. “Um, this isn’t a

war. It’s some kind of terrorist attack. But what I meant was . . . I’m not dead, am I?”

His eyes met mine. “You’re alive, Lizzie. Just hurt and scared.”

“But those other people, they shot them all.”

He nodded. “You’re the only one left. I’m sorry.”

I pulled away from him, stumbling a few steps back and sinking

into one of the plastic chairs.

26

AFTERWORLDS

“Were you traveling with someone?” he asked softly.

I shook my head, thinking how my best friend Jamie had

almost come to New York with me. She might have been lying there

with the rest . . .

Yamaraj settled on the arm of the chair next to mine, pressing

the torn piece of shirt against my forehead again. My sanity was

clinging to the simple fact that someone was taking care of me.

My hand clasped his.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked softly. “How you

crossed over?”

“We tried to run away.” My voice faltered, and it took a few

slow breaths to continue. “But the gate was locked, and one of those men was coming toward us, shooting everyone. I called 911, and

the woman on the phone said I should play dead.”

“Ah. You played too well.”

I closed my eyes and opened them again—same airport, same

plastic chairs and blank televisions. But everything looked wrong, like when a hotel elevator opens on a new floor, and the carpet and furniture and potted plants are the same, but different.

“This isn’t really the airport, is it?”

“Not quite. This is where the dead walk—beneath the surface of

things. You thought your way here.”

I remembered lying there playing dead, that feeling of falling

through the floor. “A man walked through me and your sister.

Because we’re . . . ghosts.”

“Yami is. She died a long time ago.” Yamaraj lowered the cloth

and peered at my forehead. “But you and I are something else.”

“What do you mean?”

27

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“We’re . . .” He stared at me a moment, an expression of longing

on his face, and I was transfixed again at how beautiful he was. But then he shook his head. “You should forget this ever happened.”

I didn’t answer, looking down at my hands, at the familiar

whorls on my palms and fingertips. My skin had the same shine as

Yamaraj’s, but it was still me. I felt the way my tongue slid along my teeth, and swallowed the taste of my own mouth. Everything was

perfect in detail, even the way my feet felt in my sneakers.

I looked up into his brown eyes. “But this is real.”

“Some part of you knows that, for now. But once you’re safe in

your own home, you can put it out of your mind, like a dream.” He

said it softly, with a kind of knowing sadness, but to me it sounded like a challenge.

“Are you saying I’ll be too afraid to believe this happened?”

Yamaraj shook his head. “It’s not about courage, Lizzie. It’s

about the world making sense. You may not even remember the

attack, much less me and Yami.”

“You think I’ll forget this?”

“I hope so.”

Part of me wanted to agree with this beautiful boy, to let every-

thing I’d seen fall into some dark hole of memory. But for a moment my mind went back to when my father left home. My mother lied

to me for the first few months, saying he was just working in New

York, that he was coming back soon. And when she finally told

me the truth, I was angrier at myself than at my parents, because I should have figured it out on my own.

Hiding from the truth was worse than being lied to.

“I’m not very good at fooling myself,” I said.

28

AFTERWORLDS

“Believing won’t be easy either.”

Something like a laugh pushed its way out of me. “You think

things are going to be easy? After this?”

The look of longing crossed his face again, but then he shook

his head. “I hope you’re wrong, Lizzie. Believing isn’t just hard, it’s dangerous. Doing what you’ve done, crossing over, can change you

in ways you don’t want.”

“What does that even—” I began, but Yamaraj was staring past

me, beyond the metal gate. I turned, and saw something that made

the inky cold rise up in me again.

Walking through the mist were dozens of people—eighty-

seven, as the news kept repeating later—their faces gray, their

clothing torn by bullets. They shuffled together in a mass, crowding around Yami, as if they all wanted to be close to her. They didn’t touch one another, except for one little girl holding both her parents’ hands. She was staring at me, her expression clearly wonder-

ing, Why does that girl get to stay?

Yami knelt and touched the tile floor, and a darkness began to

spread out from her, as if some slow black liquid were bubbling out of her hand. The dead people looked down at their feet. And then

they began to sink. . . .

A bitter taste rose in my mouth. “This isn’t fair.”

“Close your eyes,” Yamaraj said.

My heartbeat pounded in my wounded head, and the world

started to shift around me, normal colors shimmering through soft

gray. The mass of ghosts flickered for a moment, transparent, and

through them I could see the flash of gunfire. The hideous roar

grew sharper in my ears.

29

SCOTT WESTERFELD

Yamaraj grasped my hand. “Stay with me here. Just a little

longer.”

I shut my eyes, but only for a moment, willing my heartbeat

slower. When I looked again, the gray world had steadied, and I

could see the crowd of ghosts perfectly, Yami at its center.

“Where’s she taking them?”

“Somewhere safe.” He squeezed my hand again. “We’re here to

guide the dead. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” I pulled my hand from his, my voice breaking.

A single teardrop squeezed from my left eye. “Those men with guns

. . . they had no right.”

Suddenly the thick glass between me and my panic was gone,

shattered by anger. I could smell blood and gun smoke, and an acid scent that made the back of my throat tickle. The real colors of the airport were bleeding into the grays around us.

“Something’s happening,” I tried to say, but my throat closed

on the words. The air itself had begun to burn my eyes and skin.

As my grasp on the afterworld failed, the gas was leaking through

to me. I could feel my cheek burning where the single tear had

squeezed out.

Yamaraj stood up. “I have to take you back.”

He took my hands in his, which suddenly weren’t warm and

living anymore. His touch felt like Yami’s, ice-cold, and I felt a coldness rushing into me. I realized that he wasn’t taking me back to the real world, but to the dark place I’d passed through while

playing dead.

“Wait,” I tried to say.

“It isn’t safe here, Lizzie.”

30

AFTERWORLDS

I tried to protest, but my lungs stilled once more. My eyelids

fluttered closed, and I felt myself falling away, spiraling back down toward the silence.

I’m dead again. I’m dead.

I had a vague sense of Yamaraj lifting me from the airport chair

and carrying me back the way we’d come. I could see and hear

nothing, but felt him watching over me.

Finally, a long time later, he whispered in my ear.

“Believing is dangerous, Lizzie. But if you need me, call me. I’ll be there.”

His lips pressed against mine, and a wave of heat flooded into

me. Not only warmth, but energy, a force that stirred every muscle in my body. The cold inside me turned sharp and buzzing. Electricity coursed through my nerves and across my skin.

The heat built, pushing against my heart and lungs, the power

of it coiling around me and squeezing tight. My eyes sprang open,

but there was only darkness rushing past me, and then something

sharp and jagged burst from my lungs . . .

I was breathing, coughing and sputtering, spasming on cold hard ground. There were spinning lights in all directions—the

metal flash of badges, the dull glint of body armor.

I was lying on the sidewalk outside the airport. Fluttering yel-

low tape marked off the sidewalk around me, a corral of motionless bodies under white plastic sheets. Red and blue lights pulsed from every vehicle, sending shadows swinging, as if the bodies were

twitching beneath their covers.

There was so much color in the world, everything bright and alive. The crackle and hiss of radios electrified the air.

31

SCOTT WESTERFELD

I became aware of people suddenly gaping at me—two para-

medics, a police officer with a hand on his holstered gun and terror in his eyes. A plastic sheet was wrapped tight around me, its edges fluttering in the freezing wind, and I wanted to yell at them to set me free. But it was all I could do to keep breathing, to keep that fire that Yamaraj had relit inside me burning.

I was alive.

32

CHAPTER 5

MOXIE UNDERBRIDGE LIVED IN A TALL AND CURVACEOUS TOWER

on the south side of Astor Place. The neighborhood was full of

weathered colonnades and arched windows, but Moxie’s building

was shiny-new and wrapped in sinuous reflective glass. The mir-

rored checkerboard of its windows divided the sky overhead into a

pack of blue-and-white playing cards.

“This looks fancy,” Nisha said to Darcy.

“It should be fancy,” said their mother. “If that woman is put-

ting my daughter here.”

“Moxie isn’t putting me here. She’s letting me borrow it.” Darcy muttered this softly enough that a passing taxi swept her words

away. In two weeks she would be moving into her own apartment,

which would no way be this fancy—or secure. Best not to start her

mother thinking about that.

The lobby was even more impressive, with an arched marble

SCOTT WESTERFELD

ceiling and a chandelier with electric bulbs that flickered like tiny gas lamps. Before Darcy could open her mouth, the uniformed

doorman said, “You must be Miss Patel.”

Moxie had told the building management Darcy was com-

ing, of course, and how many young Indian girls strolled into

this building every day? But it was still intimidatingly efficient.

“Yes, she is,” her mother said when Darcy was too slow

answering.

The doorman nodded. “I understand you already have the keys,

Miss Patel?”

Darcy nodded back at him, her fingers dipping into the outside

pocket of her laptop case. The arrival of Moxie’s keys a week ago

had reignited the whole college deferment battle with her parents, and Darcy had hidden them beneath her mattress, half fearing that

her mother would steal them.

“You two go ahead.” Annika Patel flicked a hand at the eleva-

tors. “I’ll wait here. Who knows how long it’ll take your father to find a parking spot!”

Darcy blinked. Were they actually being allowed to go up alone?

Nisha grabbed her hand and pulled her forward.

At Darcy’s first hesitation with the keys, Nisha snatched them away and made short work of Moxie’s two dead bolt locks. She strode

through the door, kicking off her shoes with a victorious smirk.

Darcy followed, slightly miffed that her little sister had crossed the threshold first.

The foyer spilled down a few steps into the living room,

where sunlight filtered through a curtain that snaked along the

34

AFTERWORLDS

floor-to-ceiling windows. Nisha took hold of one end and slid

the curtain along its runners, the nineteenth-story view spilling

open in her wake.

“Be careful with . . .” Darcy swallowed the rest of her warning.

This would be her apartment for two whole weeks, but Nisha was

driving back to Philly with their parents in a couple of hours. It was only fair to let her enjoy it. It was strange to think that tonight, her little sister wouldn’t be a few footsteps or a shout away.

As the serpentine expanse of glass drew open, the city seemed

to wrap around them: rooftop gardens with stunted trees in pots,

water towers like chunky flying saucers, the spires of distant skyscrapers.

Nisha stared wide-eyed at the view. “Holy crapstick. Your agent

must be loaded.”

“My agent is kick-ass,” Darcy said softly, slipping off her shoes

and setting her laptop case on the couch.

“That’s number eleven!” Nisha didn’t turn from the view. “You

owe me a dollar, Patel.”

Darcy smiled. “Money well spent.”

“Why the hell does your agent go on vacation? It’s so awesome

here.”

“It’s probably nice on the French Riviera too.” Darcy was fairly

certain of that, but Nisha’s point stood. How could Moxie stand to leave this view behind?

“The French Riviera,” Nisha said slowly, as if all three words

were new to her. “Agents make more than authors, don’t they?”

“Um, I think that depends.”

“Well, she gets fifteen percent of your money, right?”

35

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“Yes,” Darcy sighed. She’d already had this discussion with Dad,

who’d offered to negotiate the contract himself for a mere 2 percent of the advance. He was good at missing the point that way.

“And how many clients does she have?”

“Maybe thirty?” While writing her query letter, Darcy had duti-

fully googled them all. “Thirty-five?”

“Damn!” Nisha turned from the window, triumphant. “Fifteen

percent is a seventh of a hundred percent, and a seventh of thirtyfive is five. So Moxie makes about five times as much as her average author.”

“I guess.” Darcy was pretty sure that Nisha was missing some-

thing too. “But I think most writers make, like, zero dollars most years. Not that you should tell the parentals that.”

“My lips are sealed.” Nisha smiled. “But forget writing. When I

grow up I’m going to be an agent.”

A squawk came from another room, and Nisha jumped up onto

the big living room couch. “What the hell!”

“Relax,” Darcy said, remembering the email from Max, Moxie’s

personal assistant. “That’s Sodapop. He’s a parrot.”

“Your agent has a parrot?”

The squawk had come from an open door, which led into a

room crowded with a huge bed, a duo of oak valets heaped with

clothes, and a covered birdcage the size of a gas station pump.

Max usually fed Sodapop while Moxie was away, but it would

be Darcy’s job for the next two weeks. She approached the cage, and heard a feathery shuffling from inside.

She reached up and pulled the cover off. A brilliant blue bird with streaks of yellow and red in its tail gave her a cockeyed stare.

36

AFTERWORLDS

“Hello?” Darcy said.

“Want a cracker?” Nisha said from the doorway.

“Let’s try to avoid clichés.” Darcy held the bird’s stare. “Do

you talk?”

“Birds don’t talk,” the parrot said.

Nisha shook her head. “That’s fucked-up.”

“Don’t teach my agent’s parrot to swear.”

“Two dollars.”

“Whatever.” Darcy turned to survey the rest of the room.

A half-open sliding door revealed a large black marble tub, and

another door stood closed. She crossed to open it and peeked

inside. “Oh, my god.”

“What is it, Patel?” Nisha was headed across the room. “Porn

stash? Author dungeon?”

“No. It’s a . . .” Darcy tried to wrap her head around the space.

“I think it’s a closet.”

It was as large as her parents’ bedroom at home. Two poles

stretched from wall to wall on either side, bowed under the weight of dresses in plastic covers and suit jackets with tissue paper stuffed into their sleeves. Directly across from the door were ranks of

glass-fronted drawers, with a bank of cubbyholes along the bottom

stuffed full of shoes.

Darcy walked into the closet, peering through the little glass windows into the drawers. Each held exactly three shirts, neatly folded and with a white curl of cardboard keeping their collars stiff.

“Whoa,” came Nisha’s voice from the closet door.

“Look at these drawers,” Darcy said, close enough to fog the

glass. “You can see what’s inside before you open them!”

37

SCOTT WESTERFELD

She pulled on a handle, and the shirts rolled out with the shush

of hidden little wheels. When she pushed, the drawer drifted slowly closed, pausing for a moment before shutting, as if an invisible

hand guided its passage.

Darcy opened and closed the drawer again. The sound had the

metal fizzle of ball bearings, like a bicycle wheel turning free, but less clicky.

The flattest part of her first chapter was Lizzie’s father’s super-fabulous apartment in New York City. Darcy had assembled it from

images in catalogs and movies, but now she had a real-life model.

How would she describe a closet like this in a single sentence?

“Rewrites are going to be fun,” she murmured.

“So where are you going to put your clothes?” Nisha asked.

“Looks pretty crowded in there.”

“Doesn’t matter. I only brought T-shirts.”

“Seriously, Patel?”

“That’s what Mom did when she came over. No clothes from

India except jeans and T-shirts, not a single sari. She waited till she saw what Americans wore, so she could fit in.”

Nisha rolled her eyes. “New flash: New York isn’t a foreign

country. Plus it’s on TV all the time, if you wanted to find out how people dress here.”

“Those are actors. I want to dress like real people,” Darcy said, but what she really meant was writers. There were swarms of them here in New York. From what she could tell, the population of Brooklyn

was at least 10 percent writers. With so many in one spot, there had to be a certain look they shared, a way of dressing and standing

and moving. And once her agent ( my agent, she repeated to herself, 38

AFTERWORLDS

because thoughts didn’t count against her total) had introduced

Darcy around, she would know that look. Until then, she wasn’t

going to walk around dressed like some girl from Philadelphia.

So jeans and T-shirts it was, even if the plan had appalled her

mother.

“So you have to pay rent, buy furniture, and get all new clothes.

Good financial planning, Patel.”

“Yeah, I was wondering.” Darcy turned to face her sister.

“Maybe you could make me a budget? I mean, you’re so good at

that stuff.”

“Flatterer,” Nisha said. “Twenty bucks.”

A knock came from the living room.

“You let them in.” Darcy pulled out her phone. “I want to take

some notes about this closet.”

“No way.” Nisha yanked Darcy out and shut the closet door. “If

they see all those clothes, they’ll know where your fifteen percent went. And Dad’ll want to do all your contracts from now on.”

“Seriously,” Darcy had to agree.

As Nisha opened the apartment door, she extending a hand toward

the living room windows with a proprietorial air. Darcy was pleased to see her parents’ dumbstruck expressions.

“My agent lives in the sky,” she murmured, too softly to cost

herself another dollar.

Her father had Darcy’s suitcase in hand, and her mother was

carrying something else—a garment bag.

Darcy took a step forward, blocking her way. “Wait. What’s

that?”

39

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“I thought you might need something other than T-shirts.” The

words came out in a rush, over-rehearsed.

Darcy groaned, but her mother kept talking.

“Really, Darcy. I should never have told you that story about

coming from India with nothing to wear. It wasn’t by choice. We

simply didn’t have money for proper clothes. And the first thing I bought here was a cocktail dress.” Annika Patel smoothed the garment bag. “I thought you would want one just like it.”

“You thought I would want a cocktail dress from 1979?”

Nisha laughed aloud at this, and even Dad cracked a smile.

“Hush, girl.” Her mother unzipped the bag and held up the

dress on its hanger. It was classic, short, and black. It was kind of perfect.

Darcy stared, admitting nothing.

“What do you think?” Her mother’s eyes were alight.

“Well . . . I do have this sort of party tonight.”

40

CHAPTER 6

THE PARAMEDICS WRAPPED ME IN SHINY SILVER MYLAR, LIKE

the weightless blankets my dad used to bring on camping trips.

They knelt to shelter me from the wind, and one gave me a hot

thermos to hold.

But I couldn’t stop shivering. The cold had crawled too far

inside.

My lips were cracked, my muscles brittle. I couldn’t feel my feet

at all. When I tried to speak, all that came out was a dry rasp. My eyes watered with the sting of tear gas.

How long had I been lying dead in that sidewalk morgue?

One of the paramedics was shouting into a radio on her shoul-

der, another wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. As

it began to inflate, I thought the pressure would shatter me into

splinters. I was made of ice.

An ambulance came to a skidding halt beside us. The rear doors

SCOTT WESTERFELD

opened, and a gurney hit the pavement, bouncing on dirty white

rubber wheels.

“Can you lie flat?” someone asked.

I was in a fetal position, curled around the thermos. My mus-

cled refused to thaw.

“Forty over forty?” shouted the paramedic taking my blood

pressure. She shook her head, starting to inflate the cuff again.

“Prep an adrenaline injection.”

I tried to say no. The heat inside me was building, my body

coming back to life.

On a three count, the paramedics hoisted me onto the gurney. The

world spun for a moment, and then I was inside the ambulance. It was crowded and swaying as we sped out of the airport. A needle glimmered among the blinding lights, as long as an ice pick.

“In her heart,” someone said.

They peeled the mylar blankets off me. Hands grabbed my

wrists, prying my arms open. I tried to roll into a ball again to protect myself. My body was full of heat now, life flooding back. My

lips still burned where Yamaraj had kissed me, and I didn’t need

their spike in my chest.

But the medics were stronger, and forced me flat. Someone

unzipped my hoodie, and scissors pulsed cold along my belly, slic-

ing open my T-shirt. A fist raised up over my bare chest, clutching the long needle like a knife.

“Wait!” A plastic-gloved hand slapped down over my heart.

“She’s at ninety!”

“Up from forty?”

“Don’t touch me,” I managed to say.

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AFTERWORLDS

The three paramedics in the ambulance were all silent for a

moment. I heard the sigh of the blood pressure cuff deflating, and felt my pulse flowing back into my arm.

“Ninety over sixty,” the woman said. “Can you understand me?”

I nodded, and tried to speak again. She leaned closer to listen.

“What time is it?” I managed.

She pulled away, frowning, but glanced at her watch. “Just after

two a.m.”

“Thank you,” I said, and closed my eyes.

Two hours since the attack had started. I’d been in the after-

world for only, what, twenty minutes? The rest of that time I

must have been lying outside in that makeshift morgue, my body

freezing.

More than all I’d seen and heard, it was coming back to life that

made me believe in the afterworld. I could feel that I’d been somewhere else. The scent of a faraway place lay on my skin. I could see Yamaraj perfectly in my mind, and his taste lingered on my lips.

On the way to the hospital, one of the paramedics kept saying

he was sorry, over and over. A deep calm had settled on me, but the paramedic sounded like a man in shock.

“What are you sorry for?” I finally croaked. My mouth was so dry.

“I’m the one who called you.”

I just stared at him.

“I couldn’t find a pulse. Your head wound didn’t look bad, but

you had no respiration, no pupil response. You were so cold!” His

voice grew ragged. “You looked too young for cardiac arrest, but I thought maybe you’d passed out on your back and the tear gas had

made you vomit and . . .”

43

SCOTT WESTERFELD

I finally understood. He was the one who had proclaimed me

dead.

“Where did you find me?”

He blinked. “In the airport, with the other bodies. Everyone

thought you were dead.”

“It’s okay,” I told him softly. “I think you were right.”

He stared at me, terror in his eyes. Maybe he thought I was going

to sue him, or that someone would revoke his license over this.

Or maybe he believed me.

At the hospital there were beds lined up, a squad of doctors and

interns waiting for the flood of wounded. But, as everyone soon

realized, there was only one survivor. Just me, out of all those people.

By the time they rolled me into an examining room, I could

sit up. My blood pressure and body temperature were normal, my

pulse steady, and the blue tinge of hypothermia had faded from my

skin.

Shudders kept rolling through me, but after the doctor put six

stitches in my forehead, he declared that I didn’t need anything but fluids. He was most confused by how little the tear gas had affected me. Nothing but an inflammation on one cheek, where that single

tear had somehow burned my skin.

The paramedic who’d pronounced me dead brought a cup of

hot water and lemon to me. Then there was a call that casualties

were coming in, and for a few minutes I was left alone. It was a car accident, I think, nothing to do with the airport, but the staff was keyed up by the news blaring from a radio. People in scrubs hurried past my door.

44

AFTERWORLDS

I blew on my hot water, blinking at the antiseptic whiteness of

everything. It was so noisy back here in reality, buzzing and chaotic.

The paper cover on the bed crinkled. A black plastic widget clipped to my fingertip transmitted my vitals to a small screen, where they pulsed in colored lights.

Exhaustion was creeping over me, but I was too tired to sleep.

Besides, on this narrow bed with its slippery paper cover, I’d probably roll off onto the floor.

I wondered if anyone had called my mother and told her I was

alive. They hadn’t even asked my full name yet.

My hand went to my pocket. But my phone was gone. Of

course, I’d dropped it. I sighed and zipped my hoodie closed over

my sliced T-shirt. At least no one had put me in a hospital robe.

Maybe they would just let me leave.

I had no ride, of course, or much cash, and my luggage was

back on the plane. . . . My mind spun away from everything that

had happened back at the airport, and focused on how annoying it

was to have no phone.

“Fucking terrorists,” I said softly.

“You shouldn’t say that word.”

I looked up. There was a young boy in the doorway, maybe ten

years old. He wore a red plastic raincoat, glossy and wet.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay.” He took my apology as permission to step into the

room. “I’m not supposed to tell grown-ups what not to say. Even if they use bad words. Are you a grown-up?”

“Only sort of. But compared to you, yeah.”

“Okay.” He nodded once. “I’m Tom.”

45

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“I’m Lizzie.” My head felt heavy again. Terrorists, the after-

world, doctors, and now this little kid. No one wanted to let me

sleep.

His raincoat was dripping water on the floor.

“Is it raining?”

“No. But it was.”

“Right,” I said. But it hadn’t been, and it was freezing out, too

cold for anything but snow. Tom’s bare legs showed beneath the

hem of his raincoat.

“When was it raining?” I asked.

“When the car hit me,” Tom said.

I felt a sliver of the cold that Yamaraj’s kiss had forced out of

me, like a cool finger sliding down the middle of my back. The hospital seemed to go still outside my room, as if the sound had been sucked up by something thirsty for noise and clatter and life.

I closed my eyes, but opened them again instantly. Tom was

still there, looking at me funny.

“Are you okay, Lizzie?”

“I don’t know. I died tonight, I think.”

“Don’t worry. It only hurts at first.” He frowned at me. “But you

look shiny, like the nice lady who comes.”

“The nice lady?”

“The one who’s not dead. She’s my friend.”

“Oh.” My own voice was distant in my ears, as if I’d already

fallen asleep and this was someone else’s conversation leaking into my dreams.

“She comes every week to talk to me.” Tom reached into his

pocket and pulled out something soggy. “Want some gum?”

46

AFTERWORLDS

“No thanks.” I could hear my heart beating a little faster, thanks to the machines by my bed.

I was shiny, like Yamaraj. And this woman who visited ghosts.

“Listen, Tom. Tonight was really weird. I’m kind of tired.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to go now. But get well soon!”

“Thanks. You too . . . I guess.”

Tom turned and walked back out into the hall, turning to wave

at me.

“Bye, Lizzie.”

“Bye, Tom.” I let my eyes close again, counting out ten long

breaths until the beep that was tracking my heartbeat steadied a

little.

When I looked again, he was gone, and the bustle of the hos-

pital had returned. People in blue and green scrubs went past the

doorway, no one looking in on me.

I pulled the black plastic clip from my finger, slipped from the

bed, and took a few steps to the door. I sank to my knees to place a palm flat on the spot where Tom had stood.

The hospital floor was cool and gleaming, but completely dry.

“Oh dear. What are we up to in here?” came a voice from the hall.

I looked up. It was one of the nurses who’d brought me to the

room. He knelt and took my wrist gently, feeling for my pulse.

“Did you get dizzy?”

“No,” I said. “I was just checking something.”

“Down here on the floor?” His big hands took my shoulders.

“What say we get you back to bed?”

I stood up on my own, and he gave me an encouraging smile.

“I just thought it was wet there, and someone would slip.”

47

SCOTT WESTERFELD

He looked at the floor. “Looks okay to me. Why don’t you lie

down, sweetie?”

“Of course.” I lay back obediently, but his hand stayed on my

elbow.

“I’m going to get Dr. Gavaskar now. Are you going to stay here

in bed?”

“I don’t think anyone called my mom,” I said. “She must have

heard on the news. She must be freaking out!”

“I think the airline and TSA are contacting relatives. But how

old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

His eyes widened a little. “I’ll get you a phone. Just sit tight.”

“Thank you.”

He disappeared into the corridor, and I was left alone with the

beeping of my heartbeat again. I decided that there was no need

to tell him about Tom. My resolve to stay quiet on the subject of

ghosts and afterworlds remained firm that night, through con-

versations with Dr. Gavaskar, a relentlessly nice woman from the

airline, and two field agents from the FBI.

My mother arrived four hours later, and I didn’t have to say

anything to her at all. She just held me while I cried.

48

CHAPTER 7

M A X , M O X I E U N D E R B R I D G E ’ S A S S I S T A N T , C A M E T O C O L L E C T

Darcy for YA Drinks Night at exactly six that evening.

Darcy had been ready since five, which wasn’t like her. But

the little black dress demanded makeup, which she’d never worn

often enough to get any good at. Usually after her first attempt,

Darcy had to start over completely. But today’s ventures at the

mirror had gone perfectly, leaving her fidgeting for a solid hour, afraid to touch her own face.

It would have been easier to wear jeans and her fancy black silk

T-shirt, with no makeup, like she’d planned. When Max arrived, he

was in chinos and a Thundercats pullover.

“Am I too dressed up?” Darcy asked as they rode the elevator

down.

“You look great!” Max eyed her up and down. “But Drinks Night

isn’t what you’d call a party. It’s just a thing Oscar does every month.”

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“And I’m really invited?”

“Anyone with a published YA novel is.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, wondering if Afterworlds really counted as published. It wouldn’t come out until late next September, almost

two years after she’d finished it. Didn’t “published” mean your

book was actually in stores? Or did it just mean you’d sold it to

a publisher? What if you’d signed a contract but hadn’t written a

word?

The elevator doors opened, and a moment later they were out-

side, Max leading the way. The sky had turned a watery blue over-

head. The sun was low and the streets in shadow. The heat of late

afternoon was cooking up a thickish smell from the sidewalks, as if the city had worked hard all day and needed a shower.

Darcy tried to memorize the storefronts passing by, so she’d

know the way home. An organic coffee place, a small theater, a

bicycle repair shop.

“Are you online yet?” Max asked.

“Um, I have this tumblr. But I don’t update it enough. I don’t

know what to say, really.”

He laughed. “I meant, did you get online at Moxie’s?”

“Oh, sorry. Not yet.”

“It’s You_Suck_at_Writing.”

Something twisted inside Darcy. “Pardon me?”

“Moxie’s wifi network is You_Suck_at_Writing, with under-

scores. The password’s ‘DearGenius,’ no space. You found the note

on her desk, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Darcy took a few slow breaths while the echoes

of alarm faded. She’d seen a handwritten page pinned beneath a

50

AFTERWORLDS

flickering white blobject on Moxie’s desk, but Darcy hadn’t even

cracked open her laptop yet. After the family’s tearful farewells, she’d sat in Moxie’s bedroom, staring into the fabulous closet and arguing with Sodapop about whether birds could talk or not.

Living here in New York felt somehow fragile, breakable if

Darcy moved too quickly. She wanted to wait until more realness

had settled over her before daring to email her friends with pho-

tos of the apartment. Putting on the little black dress and daring Drinks Night seemed positively foolhardy, but she’d promised

Moxie that she would go.

She felt a strange moment of jealousy for her friends Carla and

Sagan back home, who had the whole summer to read novels and

relax beside Carla’s pool before heading off to college. Darcy had an apartment to find, a city to learn, and rewrites to finish in the next few months.

Without looking up from his phone, Max stepped over the

stripped frame of a bicycle chained to a no parking sign. “Did you get your ed letter yet?”

“Nan said it’s coming this week,” Darcy said, feeling new jitters.

The editorial letter would be the official list of everything wrong with Afterworlds. It seemed perverse for her editor to go into detail, when Darcy herself had spent the last six months wallowing in the

novel’s shortcomings. But at least she had an excuse to wait on

starting the rewrites.

“And one last thing she wants me to ask . . .” Max was still

reading from his phone, an email from Moxie, apparently. “How’s

Untitled Patel going?”

That was the contractual term for the sequel to Afterworlds.

51

SCOTT WESTERFELD

But said out loud, the words sounded wrong, like one of Nisha’s

verbal tics.

“Um.” A tiny dog tied to the stanchions around a sidewalk

café skittered and yipped as Darcy went past. “I’m still outlining, I guess?”

“Still outlining,” Max repeated in a neutral tone, typing with

one thumb as they walked.

Darcy wondered why she’d just lied. Afterworlds had simply poured from her fingers, and she had no intention of outlining

Untitled Patel. Darcy was fairly certain she didn’t know how to outline.

It was possible she didn’t know how to write novels either, and

that last November’s efforts had been some sort of statistical fluke. If a hundred thousand novels were written all at once, surely one would be good purely by accident, like passages of Shakespeare typed by a monkey. But that lucky primate would never write another sonnet,

even if someone gave it a publishing contract.

Why was Moxie asking about Untitled Patel already? The first draft wasn’t due for a whole year. Did agents yell at you when you were late? Or were they more like the teachers at Darcy and Nisha’s school, quietly but deeply disappointed when you fell short of your full potential?

Max came to a halt, at last looking up from his phone. “And

here we are.”

Candy Ruthless looked like a quaint Irish pub, with its odd

name painted in a kelly-green Celtic font on the picture windows.

There were loading docks to either side and the faint smell of a fish market in the air. Over the ten-minute walk the neighborhood had

52

AFTERWORLDS

changed from refined old edifices to working warehouses. Darcy

had no idea of how to get home.

Max paused, his hand on the pub door. “How old are you

again?”

“I’ve been to bars before.”

Max only shrugged at this vaguery. Darcy was a published

author, after all, and had a reasonably convincing Pennsylvania

driver’s license saying she was twenty-three if it came to that. Even so, she found herself grateful to her mother for the little black

dress. In the mirror, it had made Darcy look positively adult, and fit perfectly.

“Okay,” Max said. “I’m just going to introduce you to Oscar

and leave. I’m not allowed in there.”

“You aren’t twenty-one?”

“I’m twenty-six.” Max gave her an indulgent smile. “But Drinks

Night is no agents, no editors, no whatevers. Unless they’re pub-

lished too, of course.”

“Ah. Of course.” Darcy took a steadying breath as she followed

Max inside.

Darcy had expected Drinks Night to have taken over all of Candy

Ruthless. She’d imagined a guest list on a clipboard at the door, or at least a private room separated by bloodred velvet curtains. But now, at ten minutes after six, the reality was a lone wooden table with a drink-ringed, battered surface and three people sitting at it.

Max ushered her forward. “Oscar, this is Darcy Patel.”

Oscar Lassiter rose a little and offered his hand, beaming a

class-president smile. “Nice to finally meet you!”

53

SCOTT WESTERFELD

As she took his hand, Darcy realized that the other faces at the

table were familiar. She’d seen them in videos, as Twitter avatars, on book jackets.

“Oh,” she said to the less famous of the two, a man with red

horn-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket. “I follow you.”

The man smiled at this, and Darcy felt foolish. The last time

she’d checked, two hundred thousand people followed Coleman

Gayle. Most of them didn’t read the Sword Singer books, he always

complained, and were only there for his profane political commen-

tary and profound knowledge of vintage sock monkeys.

“Good to meet you, Darcy. You know Kiralee?”

“Um, of course.” Darcy turned to face the woman at the table,

but her gaze shied away. She could hear the tremor in her own

voice. “I mean, we haven’t met. But I totally loved Bunyip.”

“Oh dear, Coleman. She’s got it all wrong!” Kiralee cried. “Save

her from herself!”

The others all laughed, but Darcy was perplexed and slightly

terrified.

Oscar softly sat her down. “We were just discussing Coleman’s

theory about the proper way to meet famous authors.”

“You check their sales on BookScan the day before,” Coleman

Gayle explained. “And whichever novel of theirs has sold the least copies, you say that one’s your favorite. Because that’s the one they think is criminally underappreciated.”

“Easy for me, since all of mine sold the least.” Kiralee tipped back her glass until ice rattled. “Except bloody Bunyip, of course.”

“Dirawong’s my favorite,” Darcy said, though really it was second to Bunyip.

54

AFTERWORLDS

“Excellent choice,” Coleman said. “Given the criteria.”

“BookScanning bastard!” Kiralee said to him while toasting

Darcy with her empty glass.

Darcy finally managed to meet the woman’s eye. In a gray

hoodie, with twin white earbuds draped across her shoulders,

Kiralee Taylor was dressed like a jogger. But she had the bearing of a dark faerie queen, her expression arch, her face framed by gray-streaked curly black hair.

“Though I’m afraid I haven’t read your books,” she said to

Darcy. “So I can hardly be picky about which you like of mine.”

“No one’s read my books. Book.”

“Darcy’s a deb,” Oscar supplied. “Paradox publishes her next

fall.”

“Congratulations,” Kiralee said, and all their drinks went up in

salute.

Heat crept across Darcy’s face. She realized that Max had disap-

peared without even a good-bye, but she was allowed to stay. Here, among these writers.

She wondered how long before someone figured out she was an

impostor and asked her to leave. Sitting here, she felt as though her little black dress didn’t fit anymore. It felt too big on her, as if Darcy were a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

“Welcome to the longest year and a half of your life,” Oscar

said. “Published but not printed.”

“Like when you’ve kissed a boy but haven’t shagged him yet,”

Kiralee said wistfully.

“Like you would know.” Coleman turned to Darcy. “So what’s

your book called?”

55

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“Afterworlds,” Darcy said.

The three of them waited for her to go on, but a familiar paraly-

sis crept over Darcy. It was always like this when someone asked

about her novel. She knew from experience that whatever she said

now would sound awkward, like listening to a recording of her own

voice. How was she supposed to compress eighty thousand words

into a few sentences?

“It’s quite good,” Oscar finally offered. “I’m blurbing it.”

“So it’s one of these tedious realistic novels?” Coleman asked.

“All the rage now, aren’t they?”

Oscar made a pfft noise. “My tastes are wider than yours. It’s a paranormal romance.”

“Are those still being written?” Kiralee was flagging a waiter

down. “I thought vampires were dead.”

Coleman grunted. “They’re exceedingly hard to kill.”

They ordered—Manhattans for Coleman and Oscar, a gin and

tonic for Kiralee, and Darcy asked for a Guinness. She found herself glad for the interruption, which gave her time to marshal an argument.

Once the waiter was gone, she spoke, her voice only trembling

a little. “I think paranormals will always be around. You can tell a million different stories about love. Especially when it’s love with someone who’s different.”

“You mean a monster?” Coleman said.

“Well, that’s what you think at first. But it’s like, um, Beauty and the Beast. When you find out that the monster is actually . . . nice.”

Darcy swallowed. She’d had this conversation a hundred times

with Carla, and had never once resorted to the word “nice” before.

“But doesn’t real love work the other way round?” Kiralee

56

AFTERWORLDS

asked. “You start by thinking someone’s fabulous, and by the end

of the piece you realize he’s a monster!”

“Or that you’re the monster yourself,” Oscar said.

Darcy just stared at the pockmarked table. She had fewer opin-

ions about real-life love than she did about the paranormal kind.

“So what’s the love interest in Afterworlds?” Coleman asked.

“Not a vampire, I trust.”

“Maybe a werewolf?” Kiralee was smiling. “Or a ninja, or some

sort of werewolf-ninja?”

Darcy shook her head, relieved that Yamaraj wasn’t a vampire,

werewolf, or ninja of any kind. “I don’t think anyone’s done this

before, exactly. He’s a—”

“Wait!” Kiralee grabbed her arm. “I’m keen to guess. Is he a

golem?”

Darcy laughed, dazzled all over again that Kiralee Taylor was

sitting close enough to touch her. “No. Golems are too muddy.”

“What about a selkie?” Coleman suggested. “YA hasn’t had any

male selkies.”

“What the hell is a selkie?” Oscar asked. He wrote realistic

fiction: coming of age and drunken mothers, no monsters at all.

Moxie had wanted a blurb from him to give Afterworlds what she called “a literary sheen.”

“It’s a magicked seal you fall in love with,” Darcy explained.

“Just think of it as a portmanteau,” Coleman said. “Combining

‘ seal’ and ‘ sexy.’”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see the appeal.”

“In any case,” Darcy said, not wanting the conversation to stray

too far, “my hottie’s not a selkie.”

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SCOTT WESTERFELD

“A basilisk, then?” Coleman asked.

Darcy shook her head.

“Best to avoid horny lizards as love interests,” Kiralee said.

“And stick with something more cuddly. Is it a drop bear?”

Darcy wondered for a moment if this was a test. Perhaps if

she proved her knowledge of mythical beasts, they would take her

through a hidden velvet curtain to the real YA Drinks Night.

“Aren’t drop bears more your territory?” she said to Kiralee.

“Indeed.” Kiralee smiled, and Darcy knew she’d gotten a gold

star on that one. Or perhaps a gold koala bear sticker. The drinks arrived, and Kiralee paid for them. “A troll? No one’s done them yet.”

“Too many on the internet,” Coleman said. “Maybe a garuda?”

Darcy frowned. A garuda was half-eagle and half–something

else, but what?

“Be nice, you two,” said Oscar.

Darcy looked at him, wondering what he meant, exactly.

Were Kiralee and Coleman gently mocking her, or all paranor-

mal romances? But the Sword Singer books were full of romance.

Maybe Oscar was simply bored with the mythical bestiary game.

“Darcy’s love interest is really quite original,” he said. “He’s a sort of a . . . psychopomp. Is that the right word?”

“More or less,” Darcy said. “But in the Vedas, the Hindu scrip-

tures I was using for inspiration, Yamaraj is the god of death.”

“Emo girls love death gods.” Kiralee took a long drink. “License

to print money!”

“How do you hook up with a death god, anyway?” Coleman

asked. “Near-death experience?”

Darcy almost coughed out her mouthful of beer. Lizzie’s brush

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AFTERWORLDS

with death was the book’s unique selling point, the singular idea

that had carried Darcy through last November, and Coleman had

just come up with it off the top of his head.

“Um, not exactly. But . . . kind of?”

Coleman nodded. “Sounds pleasingly dark.”

“The first chapter is megadark,” Oscar said. “There’s this awful

terrorist attack, and you think the protag’s going to get killed. But she winds up . . .” He waved his hand. “No spoilers—just read it.

Much better than your average paranormal.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said, smiling, though suddenly she won-

dered how good Oscar Lassiter thought the average paranormal was.

59

CHAPTER 8

I COULDN’T TELL THE FBI ANYTHING NEW, AND THE DOCTORS

had found nothing wrong with me that stitches couldn’t cure, so

two mornings after the attack, we left Dallas in a rental car.

Mom hated road trips, because highways in the hinterlands

scared her. But she was worried I’d start screaming if I saw the

airport again, or any airport. What she didn’t realize was that I was too numb for anything so dramatic.

It wasn’t just exhaustion. There was a sliver of cold still inside me, a souvenir of the darkness I’d passed through. A gift from the other side. Whenever I remembered the faces of the other passengers, or when a clatter in the hospital corridors sounded like

distant gunfire, I closed my eyes and retreated to that cool place, safe again.

We left the hospital in secret. One of the administrators led us

through basement corridors to a service exit, a squeaky metal door AFTERWORLDS

that opened onto a staff parking lot. No reporters waited there,

unlike the front entrance.

There were pictures of me in the news already. Lizzie Scofield,

the Sole Survivor, the girl who’d sputtered back to life. My story was uplifting, I suppose, the only bright spot in all that horror. But I didn’t much feel like a symbol of hope. The stitches in my forehead itched, loud noises made me jump, and I’d been wearing the same

socks for three days in a row.

Everyone kept saying how lucky I was. But wouldn’t good luck

have been taking a different flight?

I hadn’t read any newspapers, and the nurses had kindly shut

my door whenever radios and TVs were blaring near my room,

but the headlines leaked into my brain anyway. All those stories

about the other passengers, all those people who’d been strangers

to me, just passersby in an airport. Suddenly the details of their lives—where they’d been headed, the kids they’d left behind,

their interrupted plans—were news. Travis Brinkman, the boy

who’d fought back, was already a hero, thanks to security camera

footage.

The rest of the world was hungry to know everything about the

dead, but I wasn’t even ready to hear their names yet.

No one seemed to know much about the terrorists. They had

ties to a cult somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, but the cult’s

leaders were denying any knowledge or responsibility. The gunmen

themselves had all been killed in the battle—no notes left behind, no manifestos, no clues.

Wasn’t the point of terrorism to send a message of some kind?

It was as if they’d simply been in love with death.

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SCOTT WESTERFELD

* * *

We drove all afternoon, eating in the car, stopping only to use gas

pumps and restrooms. We passed Abilene, Midland, and Odessa,

and then the cities faded into a scrubby wilderness dyed brown by

winter. Oil derricks pulsed on the horizon, and dust devils swirled across our path, carrying road trash with them. The highway

sliced through outcrops of gray rock that had been dynamited

open. The clear blue sky grew huge above our heads.

Mostly we were silent, and I thought about Yamaraj—his eyes,

the way he moved, his voice telling me that I was safe. Those details were fast in my memory, while the rest of what had happened at

the airport was an awful blur. The only part of that night that had seemed real was the part that no one would ever believe.

When Mom and I did talk, our conversation matched the land-

scape—brittle and withered. She asked about Dad’s new apartment,

what I thought of Rachel, and the fancy restaurants where we’d

eaten. She asked me what classes I would be starting soon, and even delivered a little speech about keeping up the grades in my final

semester of high school.

I could see that Mom was trying to be kind, talking about trivia

instead of terrorism. But as the hours passed, her avoidance of reality started driving me crazy. Like she was gaslighting me, trying to make me think I’d imagined the whole attack. Every time her eyes

drifted up to the stitches on my forehead, or the little tear gas scar on my cheek, an expression of confusion crossed her face.

But nothing that night had been imaginary. I’d gone to another

world. Yamaraj was real. I could still taste his kiss, and when I

touched my lips, his heat still lingered there.

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Plus, he’d practically dared me to believe in him, which is a pretty good way to get me to do anything.

Mom just kept talking about nothing, driving us farther away

from Dallas, her hands tight on the wheel. The closest she got to

mentioning the attack was to say that my luggage would arrive in

San Diego soon after we did.

“They said a few days.”

No mention of who “they” were. The FBI? The airline? She

spoke as if my bag were simply lost, not sitting in a pile of evidence for the biggest Homeland Security investigation in a decade. No

big deal.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of clothes at home.”

“Yeah. It’s much better to lose your luggage on your way home

than going away!”

As if that was the big take-away from surviving a terrorist

attack.

“All I need is a new phone,” I said.

“Well . . . maybe we can stop somewhere and get you one.”

She hunched forward, scanning a cluster of passing signs, as if one might lead her to an Apple store out here in the West Texas desert.

Didn’t she understand that I needed things to make sense right

now? I needed my mother here in reality with me, not off in make-

believe land.

We kept driving. Long pauses were easy in this terrain, and it

was a while before I spoke up again. “I feel weird without it. That phone saved my life, kind of.”

Her grip on the steering wheel grew tighter, and her foot must

have tensed on the gas pedal, because the car shuddered beneath us.

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“What do you mean, Lizzie?”

I took a slow breath, drawing calm from the cold place inside

me.

“I was running away, we all were, and I called 911. The woman

on the phone said . . .” My voice gave out, not with any emotion

that I could feel, but like a ballpoint pen running dry. I’d already told this story, I realized—to Yamaraj.

My mother waited, staring at the road ahead, the muscles in her

shoulders tight, and I heard that calm voice from my phone: Can you get to a safe location?

“She told me to play dead,” I finally said. “That’s why they

didn’t kill me. They thought I was dead.”

My mother’s voice was tight. “The doctors told me about that

paramedic, the one who thought you . . .”

“He was really sorry about that.” I shrugged against my seat

belt. “Guess I fooled him, too. But it wasn’t even my idea. The

woman at 911 told me what to do.”

Well, not quite. She hadn’t told me to think my way to the after-

world, meet a boy, and then come back. And she hadn’t mentioned

anything about seeing ghosts, either.

Tom hadn’t reappeared once they’d given me my own room, so

it was possible I’d imagined him. Or maybe he only haunted the ER.

Mom made a soft sound. She was trying to say something, but

couldn’t. The hairbreadth narrowness of my escape was more real-

ity than she could take.

That was when I realized the weird truth: My mother was more

freaked out than I was. And the fact that I was so cool and calm, not sobbing and shuddering, only made it worse for her.

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AFTERWORLDS

She didn’t know about my dark place inside, where I could

escape anytime. She didn’t know that I’d walked the afterworld.

I was going to have to take care of her. But at that moment the

best I could manage was, “It’s weird not having a phone.”

“We’ll get you another one,” she said firmly. “Exactly like the

old one, so everything feels normal.”

“I’ll get Dad to pay for it.”

Her knuckles went white again, and I waited through another

long pause, staring out the passenger window at the pulsing high-

way lines.

At last she said, “Your father really wanted to come, he told me

to tell you.”

I frowned, because it hadn’t even crossed my mind that Dad

would fly down to Dallas. I was used to him bailing when things

got crazy. Once when I was twelve, one of our cooking pots had

exploded, a grease fire flowering across the kitchen ceiling, and

he’d beat the flames down with a towel like a total hero. He prob-

ably saved the whole house from going up. But the moment the fire

was under control, he’d driven away to spend two nights in a hotel, leaving me and Mom to call the fire department, clean up, and air

out the house.

That was just Dad being normal.

“I’m glad he didn’t come,” I said.

My mother let out a half-stifled laugh. “Really?”

“He’s tough to handle when he’s freaked out. And you’ve taken

care of him enough for one lifetime.”

She turned her head and stared at me. I’d never said anything

like that to her before, even though it was totally true.

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When her eyes started to glisten, I pointed ahead. “Um, Mom?

Road?”

Her attention went back to the highway. “He called this morn-

ing. But I was kind of bitchy and wouldn’t let him talk to you, since he wasn’t flying down. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” I smiled. “He can call me when he buys me a new

phone.”

I don’t know how late we drove that night. I fell asleep just as

the sun was setting, the sky turning red and swollen overhead.

We were at a motel when the car stopped next, and I woke

up just enough to stumble to our room. I remember that the bed

smelled wrong—not bad, but wrong, because it wasn’t mine and I

wanted to be home. And then I was asleep again.

It was still dark when my brain switched back on, all at once.

There was an energy running through my body. Not the panic

I’d felt at every sudden noise for the last two days, but something dark and warm. My fingers went to my lips, which were buzzing.

I sat up and looked around the room, taking a moment to

remember where I was. Light from the ice machine outside was

creeping around the blackout shades, revealing my mother asleep

on the other bed. The darkness felt close, like something physical pushing in on me.

I’d fallen into bed in dirty clothes, but on the dresser were the

T-shirts and underwear we’d bought at the hospital gift shop. I took a shower, which didn’t wake Mom up, and dressed quietly. The

hospital shop hadn’t sold socks, so I slipped my sneakers over bare feet, grabbed my hoodie, and went outside.

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AFTERWORLDS

The sky was streaked with shredded clouds, slowly turning

burnt orange as dawn approached. A few spots of broken glass in

the motel parking lot glittered like frost in the still, cold air. I pulled on my hoodie and crossed my arms against the chill.

A neon sign read WHITE SANDS MOTEL, and across the highway

loomed the silhouettes of sand dunes. We’d made it all the way to

New Mexico.

My father had taken me to White Sands for a camping trip

when I was ten or so. I wondered if Mom even remembered that

I’d been here before.

With no cars in sight, I strolled across the empty highway, bra-

zenly stopping in the middle to close my eyes and listen. The warm energy that had awakened me was still playing on my lips. In the

silence I could almost hear it crackle.

When I opened my eyes again the desert looked as blank as

fresh paper. White Sands is a desert like little kids draw, the dunes featureless humps receding into the distance. The scrubby deserts

of California had looked wrong to me ever since that camping trip

with Dad.

The dunes were low by the highway, but after half an hour of

walking they’d grown high enough that I was climbing with hands

and feet, shedding little avalanches with every step.

From the dune tops, the desert lay spread out before me,

ripples in a vast white sheet. The sky had lightened, erasing all but a few stars, and the eastern horizon was blossoming with dawn.

Down among the dunes were metal picnic tables bolted to blocks

of concrete. Forty-foot poles shot up from them, little plastic flags at their tips.

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I remembered those flagpoles from our camping trip. They were

to help picnickers find their way back to the tables. The sands were so featureless that you could get lost a hundred yards from your picnic and wander straight out into the desert, thinking that your table was just over the next dune, or maybe the next . . .

I wondered if there were any ghosts out there, tourists who’d

gotten lost in the desert.

That’s when I felt it strengthen, the energy that had awakened

me, a tingle on my lips and a heat in my veins. And I recalled something that Yamaraj had said . . . Believing is dangerous.

But I didn’t have a choice in what I believed. I wasn’t going to

forget what had happened in Dallas. I’d seen firsthand what phi-

losophers had been arguing about forever, that there was something after death. Whether it was good or bad, I didn’t know, but at that moment the metaphysical issues didn’t seem as important as one

simple question:

Could I do it again?

Not only because it was something amazing, going to the land

of the dead. But because Yamaraj had thrown me a challenge, say-

ing that if I called him, he’d be there.

Did I believe in him enough to see him again? Did I believe in

the afterworld at all?

I climbed the highest dune in sight and stood there, letting my

breathing slow. I closed my eyes, focusing on the cold place that

lived inside me now, my souvenir from the other side.

Was there some spell that could take me across? The first thing

to try was obvious . . .

“I’m dead.” A shiver went through me as I spoke the words, but

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AFTERWORLDS

when I opened my eyes nothing had changed out in the desert. Of

course, I wasn’t lying in a pool of my own blood, with bullets whizzing overhead and panic in my veins. Plus, I was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a stuffed bear holding a box of chocolates. (That’s hospital gift shops for you.)

I closed my eyes again, letting myself remember the details I’d

spent the last two days shutting out—the cold terror of running for my life, the squeak of tennis shoes on tile. And then, out of nowhere, gun smoke stung my nostrils, and a shudder went through my body. My

heart beat harder, but I kept my breathing slow.

“I’m dead.”

As the words came out, I imagined myself sliding down into

the cool sand beneath my feet, down into darkness, through ink

black and cold. It seemed like a long time later that I opened my

eyes again.

But nothing had changed, except that dawn was a little brighter

in the sky.

I sat down in the sand. This might be pointless, trying to think

my way into the afterworld again. Maybe nothing short of a full-

fledged terrorist attack would work. It wasn’t magic words that

had changed me that day, but an unlucky plane reservation, seeing

people die, a call to 911.

With a little shiver, I remembered the woman’s voice coming

from my phone. She’d been so calm, almost mesmerizing in all that

chaos. In a way, that had been the moment when I’d started to leave the real world behind.

For a third time, I closed my eyes and waited for quiet to settle

over me. Then I said the words burned into my mind that day . . .

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“Security is responding.”

A shudder went through the sand beneath me, but I didn’t

startle. I calmly breathed in the smell of gun smoke, and let the

squeak of running shoes on tile pass over me. The tear-shaped scar on my cheek began to pulse.

I knew what to say next: “Can you get to a safe location?”

The changes came fast—the flat and metallic taste in the air,

the silence of the wind, the sudden cold wrapped around my heart.

When I opened my eyes again, color had been sucked out of the

world. The sky was huge overhead, as gray as polished gunmetal.

There was no sun, only a scattering of red stars, like eyes peering down. Flowing rivers of black oil snaked among the dunes, the air

above them wavering with heat. A sugary smell washed over me,

sweeter than boiling maple syrup. The dark rivers below were rip-

pling and shivering like a live thing, and my hands and arms were

shining.

“Yamaraj,” I whispered. It was the first time I’d said his name

out loud, but it felt natural in my mouth. Like a word from a lan-

guage I’d learned a long time ago and only half forgotten.

A shiver went through me, and my grip on this gray place

slipped a little. Back in the airport, panic had almost thrown me

out. But this time it was excitement, a current that ran along my

skin.

I closed my eyes again, shutting out the huge gray sky. I wasn’t

sure what I was waiting for, but then another shift passed through the air. The scents of blood and gun smoke changed to something

sharper, like a burning field of black pepper. And then a wave of

heat . . .

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AFTERWORLDS

“Elizabeth,” came his voice, and the cold inside me began to

fade a little.

I opened my eyes and Yamaraj stood there, halfway up the

dune, a dark figure against the white sand.

I didn’t know what to say at first. “Hello” seemed insufficient, ridiculous.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I managed. “This is real.”

He took a long, careful look at me, until a smile crossed his lips.

“Very real, Lizzie.”

Him saying my nickname—my real name—made the edges of

my vision pulse again with color, as if the daylight world were trying to break through.

Yamaraj was as beautiful as I remembered. He still shone, as if

lit by the missing sun. He climbed the dune and knelt a few steps

from where I sat.

“I’m impressed.” His voice was soft, serious.

“What do you mean?”

He spread his hands at the desert around us, the gray sky. “You

crossed over on your own. You called me, and so soon.”

I shrugged, trying to look casual. But at my sides, my palms had

closed around cool fistfuls of sand. “You said I could.”

“I said it would be better not to believe, Lizzie. Safer too.”

“It’s not like I had a choice.” With Yamaraj this close to me,

the sharp, cold place inside had softened, and the words came

easier. “There was a ghost in the hospital, a little boy. Which

means I can see spirits now. Did you know that was going to hap-

pen to me?”

“I knew it might, but . . . How did you know it was a boy?”

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I blinked. The question made no sense. “Um, because he just

was?”

“You could see him that well?”

“Sure. I didn’t even know he was dead at first. He just looked

like . . . a kid. He said his name was Tom.”

Yamaraj sat a little straighter, as if I were suddenly something

dangerous.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“It never happens this fast. At first, you should only see wisps

of light, or hear stray noises. You talked to him?”

I’d been so proud of myself for crossing over to the afterworld,

for calling Yamaraj. But now it felt like I’d done something wrong.

I tried to smile. “Quick learner. That’s what my Spanish teacher

always says.”

“This is serious, Lizzie.”

“I know that.” My mouth went dry, the taste of anger sudden

and bitter. “Did you think I missed the serious part of watching eighty-seven people die?”

“No,” he said simply, looking away across the desert. “But

I hoped you’d forget. The changes fade, like scars, if you don’t

believe.”

A took a few slow breaths. I wasn’t angry at Yamaraj, but at the

four men who’d broken my reality. “That’s not going to happen. If I curl up and pretend none of this is real, then I’ll always be scared.

Because I’ll still know.”

“I see,” Yamaraj said, still watching me carefully. “Then you’re

going to become one of us, and very soon.”

I stared back at him, my skin restless and tight. The numbness

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I’d felt since the attack was melting, like when you put your ice-cold hands under running hot water, and the cold turns into itches and

sparks.

“What the hell are we?” I looked down at the glimmer that lay on my pale hands, a fainter version of Yamaraj’s shine.

“There are many words,” he said. “Soul guides. Reapers.

Psychopomps.”

I looked up. “Um, did you just say ‘ psychopomps’? ”

“Some names are more graceful than others. I don’t like

‘ reaper,’ myself.”

“Too grim?” I asked.

As he smiled, I noticed that his eyebrows had a natural arch in

them, a crook in their curve. It made him look like he was teasing me, despite the topic of conversation.

“You can give yourself any name you want,” he said. “What

matters is, when we’re brushed by death, we change. Some of us

can see the dead and walk among them. Some of us even live in

the underworld. But most of us take longer than a few days to see

ghosts clearly.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had seen Tom only hours after the

attack.

“Unless . . .” He paused. “Has anything like this ever happened

to you before?”

“Are you serious? Not a chance. But you said guides. So where did your sister take all those people?”

“To our home.” Yamaraj looked down at the rivers of black oil

that coursed among the dunes. “Down to the underworld, where

they’ll be safe.”

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“Safe from what? They’re dead.”

He hesitated, then said softly, “There are predators.”

The last word sent a trickle down my spine. Suddenly this all

felt vast and paralyzing, like realizing for the first time that death was real, and scarier and more complicated than I’d ever imagined.

Yamaraj leaned closer. “You’ll be okay, Lizzie. I can help you

understand.”

“Thank you.” I reached out to take his hand.

At the spark of our fingers brushing, something went

through my body, an ache, a longing. My heart beat sideways,

and sudden colors wheeled across the sky, cutting the gray into

tatters. For a moment I was back in reality, the rivers of black oil and red stars gone, like ghosts chased away by morning.

I pulled my hand away from him, and the gray world all came

rushing back.

“Maybe this is too soon.” He looked down at his own fingers,

which had sent that surge through me. “I should go.”

I swallowed, trying to speak. I wanted him to stay and tell me

everything, but I also felt defenseless before all these changes—like the scar on my cheek, I was raw and new.

In the end all I could do was nod, and a moment later I was sit-

ting alone on that tall sand dune, gasping fresh air, the sunrise pink and brilliant and warm on my skin.

“Shit a brick,” I said, staring at my hand. One touch had been

enough to throw me back into reality.

My fingers went to my lips, and I sat there for a while, feeling

alive for the first time in two days. Only a little piece of the afterworld’s cold remained, like a sliver of ice on my tongue.

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* * *

My mother was stirring by the time I made it back to the room. My

shoes and hair were full of sand, and sweat slicked my back inside my hoodie. But a shower could wait.

“Breakfast?” I asked as her eyes opened.

Mom nodded. “You must be starving. You hardly ate yesterday.”

She got up and ran a brush through her hair, and a minute later

we were headed toward the motel diner. As we crossed the parking

lot, an eighteen-wheeler rolled to a stop in one of the truck-sized spaces. I could feel its rumble through my feet and the heat of its engine against my skin, as if it were a monster beside us.

“You look kind of spacey,” my mother said.

“Not enough sleep.” Then I did the math. “Make that too much

sleep.”

“Poor kiddo,” she said softly.

We went inside and studied the place mat menus, Mom smiling

at how much I ordered. My body was really waking up now, want-

ing food and coffee and for the world to make sense again.

After the waitress had left us, I caught my mother staring at the

stitches on my forehead. Then her eyes lingered on the place where the single tear I’d cried in the afterworld had left a tear gas burn on my left cheek.

I doubted she knew how often she did that. Would she keep

doing it for the rest of her life?

But finally she turned from me to look out the window. “It’s so

beautiful here. We should stop and see some of the sights.”

“Um, like the sand dunes?”

“Well, they’re kind of hard to miss. But there’s a ghost town up

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north of here. It’s called Chloride, because of a mining boom way

back. There was a brochure in the room. Looked interesting.”

For a moment I thought of Tom’s face, and a shudder went

through me. “No ghost towns, okay?”

She turned back from the window and saw my expression, then

reached to take my hand.

“Of course not.” She was talking just above a whisper, like she

didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Sorry I even mentioned that.”

“No, I’m fine, Mom. It’s just that . . .” These terrorists had

tried to kill me but I’d gone to the land of the dead and now could see ghosts and apparently had acquired dangerous new powers

and this boy, this boy had touched my fingertips—and they still

tingled.

Plus, I really needed some better clothes.

“It’s okay,” my mother said. “We’ll just get you home.”

76

CHAPTER 9

AN HOUR LATER SOME TWO DOZEN AUTHORS HAD ARRIVED. YA

Drinks Night had taken over several tables, though these were

populated only by handbags and empty glasses, as everyone was

standing now.

Oscar had introduced Darcy around, as a writer whose debut

novel featured a hot Vedic death god. Everyone smiled when

they heard that phrase, or joked that they were dying to read it.

Somehow reducing her book to a single phrase made talking about

it less paralyzing. It gave Darcy a feeling of control, like knowing Rumpelstiltskin’s name.

Everyone was talking about their own work as well, and

about the superpowers of their agents, the bloody-mindedness of

copyeditors, and the perfidies of marketing departments. Darcy

was swimming in a sea of publication, and all she wanted was to

drown.

SCOTT WESTERFELD

My first day in New York, she thought, a little giddy from her second Guinness.

“Are you Darcy Patel?” asked a young woman in a bright red

fifties cocktail dress. “You signed with Paradox a couple of months ago, right?”

Darcy smiled. “That’s me. Afterworlds.”

“Sister debs!” the woman cried, and gathered Darcy into a

breath-stopping hug.

When she let go, Darcy stumbled back a step. “Um, sorry?”

“I’m Class of Fourteen too! We’re sister debs!”

“Right.” Darcy wasn’t sure if “deb” was short for “debutante” or

“debut author,” but they meant the same thing. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I’m Annie Barber. Pretty stupid, right? I should have gone

with a pen name.” She looked fearful, as if Darcy were going to

revoke her publishing deal on the spot.

“I’ve always liked the name Annie,” Darcy said.

“Yeah, but Barber sounds like . . . a barber. But at least I’m at the beginning of the alphabet, so I’ll get shelved at eye level. I’ve heard the end is okay too, because some people sit down and start

at the end. It’s just the middle letters that everyone ignores.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, wondering if her middling last name had

doomed her to shelving oblivion. “What’s your book called?”

“A Parliament of Secrets. Does that sound boring?”

“No, I love collective nouns. Like a parliament of owls, right?”

“Yes!” Annie’s face broke into a smile, and her phone came up.

“I’m tweeting this.”

“Congratulations,” Darcy said. “On your book deal, I mean.

Not on tweeting this.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“I’m so glad I found you! We’ve been looking for more sister

debs.”

“We?”

In answer, Annie propelled Darcy across the room to meet

three more debutants from the Class of 2014. They were all as bub-

bly as Annie, most of them meeting each other for the first time in person. They’d been on an email list together for months, exchanging advice and gossip and ironclad rules of publishing, none of

which Darcy had ever heard before.

“If you don’t make a bestseller list in your first week, you’re

doomed!” was one.

“Blurbs don’t work anymore!” was another.

“You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in

your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!” seemed

at best debatable.

“Your website should get at least a thousand hits a day before your book comes out!” was the scariest.

The strange thing was that the four of them seemed to be in awe

of Darcy. They’d read about her deal in Publisher’s Brunch, and had gleaned how much Paradox had paid.

“Do they, like, roll out a red carpet when you come to the

office?” one of her new sisters asked. Her name was Ashley, and her novel was a dystopian set on Mars.

“Not exactly,” Darcy said, laughing. When she’d come to New

York in March to meet Nan and Moxie, all the carpets at Paradox

had been industrial gray.

“Maybe you can blurb me!” another of them joked, and Darcy

didn’t know what to say to that. She was suddenly glad that

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Publisher’s Brunch hadn’t given her age. Her sister debs were all in their midtwenties at least.

Again, the little black dress was feeling too big, as if Darcy were shrinking inside it.

“Isn’t this fun?” Annie asked as she handed Darcy her third beer.

“Sure,” Darcy said, staring at the drink warily. “But you guys all know so much. I haven’t really figured out anything yet. Like, what should I do to promote myself?”

“Everything.”

As that word twisted itself into Darcy, she drank carefully,

casting her eyes around for Kiralee Taylor. Being teased by Kiralee and Coleman had been frightening, but it had filled Darcy with a

prickly, shivery joy. Her sister debs’ zealousness was generating

only formless terror.

“Everything? As in . . .”

“As in do you have a blog at least?”

“Just a tumblr. But I never know what to post. I mean, should I

just talk about myself?”

“We could interview each other!” Annie exclaimed.

“Okay.” Darcy tried to smile. “First question: Do you really

think it matters where my name falls in the alphabet?”

“Everything matters,” Annie said.

There was that word again. As Darcy took another long

drink to consider it, she spotted Kiralee, who was in the corner

with a tall young woman who Darcy hadn’t met, both of them

laughing as if nothing mattered. Maybe they would let her stand near them.

“How old are you, anyway?” Annie was asking.

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AFTERWORLDS

Darcy hesitated, and the silence stretched until it was impos-

sible not to make a joke of it. “My agent and I are keeping that a secret,” she whispered.

Annie’s eyes widened. “Good idea! You can do a big reveal of

your age. Like a cover reveal, but years!”

Darcy could only nod. With her third beer under way, her feet

seemed disconnected from the floor, as if gravity were sputtering a little. She’d always wanted to try Guinness, which contained something called “isinglass,” which sounded magical to Darcy, even if it was made from fish bladders.

She realized that lunch had been hours ago, and dinner lay in a

distant and uncertain future.

“Excuse me a second,” Darcy said, and made her way across

the room.

Kiralee was in a corner of the bar by the jukebox, an old-fash-

ioned one, almost as large as Sodapop’s birdcage and alight with

red and yellow neon tubes. Some sort of liquid pulsed inside them, as if the jukebox were a living creature. Kiralee’s friend looked only a few years older than Darcy, and wore a crisp white button-down

shirt under a black linen jacket.

“Mine’s only two-fifty a month,” Kiralee was saying. “And it’s

very secure.”

“I could almost afford that,” the younger woman said.

Darcy moved closer, testing the bubble of the conversation. The

two didn’t seem to notice her at first, but she had to be brave. Like Nisha kept saying, she was an adult now.

Kiralee shrugged. “Everything’s cheaper out in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” her friend said with a sigh. “There’s nothing in

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Chinatown for less than four hundred a month.” She glanced at

Darcy and smiled, which seemed like an invitation.

“Are these those rent-controlled places?” Darcy asked. “All the

apartments I’ve seen online are at least two thousand.”

They both stared at her for a long moment, and then Kiralee’s

face broke into a smile. “We’re talking about parking spaces, dar-

ling. Not flats.”

“Oh. Right.” Darcy drank from her beer, hoping that it was too

dark to see the blush galloping across her face. “Parking spaces.”

A hearty laugh was bubbling out of the younger woman. “That’s

one way to save money. Just live in a parking lot!”

Darcy laughed along, wondering if she should head back

toward Annie and the others, where she belonged.

But then Kiralee placed a kindly hand on her shoulder. “Have

you two met? This is Imogen Gray, another of you endless debu-

tantes.”

Imogen smiled, extending a hand. “Darcy, right? Hindu para-

normal?”

“That’s me.” They shook hands. “Seems like everybody here

knows who I am.”

“Oh,” Imogen said. “I guess I just assumed, because you look . . .”

Darcy stared at her, taking a beery moment to understand.

“Hindu?”

“Um, yes?” Imogen’s eyes had widened a little.

Darcy smiled, trying to look reassuring. All the other writers

she’d met tonight were white except Johari Valentine, a science

fiction writer from Saint Kitts. “No worries. What I meant was, it’s weird how everyone knows about Afterworlds.”

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“Death gods are the new selkies,” Kiralee said.

Imogen rolled her eyes. “What she means is, it’s nice to see

some new mythologies explored. So your book’s set in India?”

“No, mostly in San Diego, where my protag lives. And in the

underworld, of course.”

“Of course.” Kiralee clinked glasses with them both, toasting the underworld. “So here’s a tricky question for you. Does your Vedic

death god speak English? Or does this girl from San Diego speak

Hindi? Or Sanskrit, I suppose?”

“No. She’s white.” For a moment, they both looked at her,

as if this needed explanation, and Darcy added, “Is that weird?”

Kiralee spread her hands. “Not at all.”

“It’s just, I wanted to have an Indian guy as the love interest,

a guy who looks like Muzammil Ibrahim.” They both gave her

another questioning look, and Darcy felt embarrassed and young.

“He’s a Bollywood actor, a model, really. He’s the hot guy who was never in the paranormals I read when I was little, you know? But I didn’t want it to be about me wanting him.”

“You wanted every girl to want him.” Kiralee was smiling again.

“So you chose a white girl from California.”

Darcy suddenly wished she had drunk less, even as she took

another drink. “Pretty much?”

“Makes perfect sense.” Kiralee swirled her ice. “In a problem-

atic way. But life is problematic, so novels must be too.”

“That’s really deep, Kiralee,” Imogen said.

“But yeah, Yamaraj speaks English,” Darcy said, because

she wanted to show that she’d thought about this. “It’s called

Afterworlds, plural, because there’s lots of them. And each after-83

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world has a raja or a rani in charge, a living person who can cross into the spirit realm.”

“Is that from the . . . ?” Imogen frowned at her drink.

“The Vedas? Not really. It’s just a thing I made up.”

“That’s what we novelists do,” Kiralee said. “Make things up.”

“That’s for sure,” Darcy said. In the chaos of last November,

she’d never kept straight what she’d made up and what she’d lifted from scripture. “Anyway, Yamaraj’s afterworld has lots of people

from India, who speak languages from all over the subcontinent—

Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi. English gets used as the common tongue

down there, just like in real-life India.”

“Ah, the language of the colonizer.” Kiralee’s expression bright-

ened. “There are some interesting things you could do with that.”

“Right,” Darcy said, though she suspected she hadn’t done any

of them. She’d made Yamaraj speak English for the most practical

of reasons, so that he and Lizzie didn’t have to mime their undying love. “The hardest thing is making him sound old-fashioned; it just makes him sound unsexy.”

“Old-fashioned?” Imogen asked.

“He was born, like, three thousand years ago.”

“And hooks up with a teenager?” Kiralee tsk ed a few times.

“Such a thing has never been done!”

Imogen laughed at this. “Except all the vampires ever.”

“Well, he’s still seventeen, really.” Darcy took a sip of beer to

marshal her thoughts. “Because time passes differently in the . . . crap.

Is it creepy?”

Kiralee waved a hand. “As long as he looks seventeen, nobody gets squicked. And as for English, everyone speaks English on TV,

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even the bloody Klingons. Why shouldn’t Hindu death gods?”

“You’re babbling, Kiralee,” Imogen said. “Klingons speak fuck-

ing Klingon. There’s a language institute and everything. They’re translating the plays of Shakespeare!”

“Right, I forgot. You can obliterate the cultures that told the first stories, but Elvish and Klingon must be maintained at all costs!”

Imogen turned to Darcy. “Just ignore her. Kiralee hassles every-

one about this stuff. But it’s only because she’s always in trouble herself.”

Kiralee shrugged. “As a whitefella who plunders indigenous

mythos, I’ve had my share of squabble, all of it richly deserved. But at least I pass on my wisdom by hassling you young people.”

“You get in trouble for your books? But they’re so . . . inspir-

ing!” After reading Dirawong, Darcy had done her sixth-grade final project on the Bundjalung people. “I mean, it feels like you believe everything you write. You’re a lot more respectful than I am about the Vedas.”

Kiralee laughed. “Well, I never used anyone’s god for purposes

of YA hotness.”

Darcy stared at her.

“Not that I’ve read your book.” Kiralee put her hands up in

surrender.

Imogen rolled her eyes. “It’s different when it’s your own god,

Kiralee.”

“I guess so,” Darcy said, but that was a tricky one. The only

statue of Ganesha in her parents’ house sat on her dad’s computer, and had magnetic feet, and she’d rejected her family’s vegetarianism when she turned thirteen. “Anyway, Yamaraj isn’t really a god.

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He’s the first mortal to discover the afterworld, which gives him

special powers. He’s more like a superhero!”

Darcy was cheating here too. In the earliest scriptures, Yamaraj

was mortal, but later he became a deity. That was the thing about

the Vedas. They weren’t one book but hundreds of stories and

hymns and meditations. They had everything—many gods or one,

heaven and hell or reincarnation.

But in Afterworlds, Yamaraj was just a normal guy who’d discovered, more or less by accident, that he could walk among ghosts.

Wasn’t that what mattered? Or had the words “hot Vedic death god”

magically replaced the novel itself?

Imogen was smiling. “He’s only a superhero if he has an origin

story.”

“He does! With lightning and everything!”

“Radioactive spider?”

“More like a donkey,” Darcy said. “That’s not from the Vedas,

though. I ignored a lot of stuff, like the hymn where Yamaraj’s sister is trying to sleep with him.”

“That’s so YA!” Imogen said.

“I’m so not going there.” Darcy stared at the bottom of her glass, where there was nothing but foam. “Do you think I’m going

to get in trouble?”

Kiralee placed her own drink on the jukebox and put a heavy

arm around Darcy. “It’s not as if you’re some whitefella, plunder-

ing away.”

“That would be your specialty,” Imogen said.

“Look who’s throwing stones!” Kiralee cried. “Your work is

hardly free of scandal.”

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AFTERWORLDS

Imogen let out a sigh. “Right now my work’s free of everything,

including a plot. I can’t find a decent mancy to use.”

“What’s a mancy?” Darcy asked, relieved that the conversation

was finally moving past the plundering of religions. It had opened up questions that her drunken brain wasn’t fit to consider.

“Imogen’s debut is about a teenager who sets things on fire,”

Kiralee said. “Pyromancy! And she thinks I’m bad.”

“Hey, I just glamorize burning shit down. That’s way better

than cultural appropriation.” Imogen turned to Darcy. “My protag

starts out as a pyromaniac, a kid who plays with matches. But then she develops gnarly fire powers, and it turns out she’s from a long line of pyromancers.”

“I knew a kid like that in middle school,” Darcy said. “No

superpowers, but he was always lighting toilet paper on fire.”

Imogen smiled. “My first girlfriend was a pyro, too. In my trilogy, all the magic systems are based on impulse control disorders.”

“Right.” Darcy had thought that Imogen was her own age, per-

haps a little older. But she was already thinking in trilogies, while Darcy had seen only glimmers of Untitled Patel.

The thought struck Darcy again: What if there had been only

one novel out there for her madly typing fingers to stumble upon?

“The first one’s called Pyromancer, of course,” Imogen said.

“But my publisher hates the title for book two.”

“Can you blame them?” Kiralee cried. “Ailuromancer!”

“What the hell does that mean?” Darcy asked.

“Cats.” Kiralee laughed. “Cat-lady powers!”

“Get us drinks.” Imogen pulled an old leather wallet from her

hip pocket and slipped out two twenties. Kiralee plucked them away 87

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and headed toward the bar, and Imogen turned back to Darcy. “It

means precognition with felines. Like reading chicken innards.”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “Your hero chops up cats?”

“Eww, no. Ailuromancy is about reading the way they move,

the twitches of their tails.” Imogen’s hand swept through the air

in a graceful curve, as if stroking the back of a sleeping feline. “My protag can listen to a cat’s purr and know things, like when you hear random words in the crashing of waves.”

Darcy’s eyes followed Imogen’s hand. Sliver rings crowded

her fingers, a skull-and-crossbones decorating her pinkie. “That’s pretty awesome.”

“The magic works fine, but everyone at Paradox hates

Ailuromancer as a title. They want to call it Cat-o-mancer.”

“That’s even worse than Ailuromancer.” Darcy’s three Guinnesses made a mess of the word. “But hey, we have the same publisher.”

“Who’s your editor?”

“Nan Eliot.”

“Me too!”

Darcy frowned. “But how do cats fit in with pyromania? Pets

aren’t a disorder.”

“Are you kidding? My protag’s mother is a full-blown cat lady.

He’s growing up in a cat-filled garbage house. His clothes smell like cat piss, and nobody talks to him at school. Social services is closing in. . . .”

Darcy was nodding. “And then he gets gnarly powers?”

“Precognition, and a bunch of other catty stuff as well—bal-

ance, climbing, hearing. He goes from shoplifting to being a legit cat burglar.”

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“Did you know cats don’t have taste buds for sweetness?”

“Really? Cool.” Imogen pulled out her phone and began to type.

“They also don’t get jet lag, because they sleep so much.”

“Makes sense. In my book, they can see ghosts!”

Imogen smiled. “Don’t think ghosts exist in my world. But

maybe. I’m starting rewrites this week.”

“Me too.” Darcy felt a smile on her face. Had she just had some

slight influence on Imogen’s novel, just by being here and half

knowing something about cats?

Maybe that made up for the fact that she was plundering her

parents’ religion for purposes of YA hotness. Darcy took a slow

breath, letting that thought slide away again.

“But I have to come up with a mancy for book three.” Imogen

swiped her phone a few times, then read from the screen. “There’s

hundreds of them: Austromancy, spheromancy, nephelomancy.

The only hitch is, they’re all crappy powers. But I guess it’s not fun if it’s not tricky.”

Darcy contemplated these words. In her experience, tricky was mostly hard, not fun. If she’d known how tricky it would be to write a character traumatized by a terrorist attack, who had to process

the horror of a massacre across four slow-moving and depressing

chapters, she would’ve chosen a more peaceful way for Lizzie to

think her way into the afterworld.

Everyone loved that first chapter, but it had made all the ones

after it a lot trickier.

Kiralee returned, a trio of drinks clustered between her hands.

“I was just having a think at the bar, and I may have solved your

mancy problem!”

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“Oh, great. Another one.” Imogen lifted two of the glasses from

Kiralee’s grasp and handed the Guinness to Darcy. “Let’s hear it.”

“Why not have book three be about a flatumancer?”

No one said anything for a moment.

“Does that word mean what I think it means?” Darcy asked.

“From the Latin, flatus.” Kiralee’s eyes were sparkling. “It’s a license to print money!”

“So you’re suggesting,” Imogen said carefully, “that the finale of my impulse-control-disorder-based dark fantasy trilogy should be

about a character whose farts are magic?”

“Well, her farts wouldn’t have to be inherently magic. But couldn’t one control magical forces by farting? It’s an act of will-power, after all. And it requires a certain purity of spirit.”

“I hate you,” Imogen said.

Kiralee turned to Darcy. “What’s a better name: Fiona the

Flatumancer or Freddie the Flatumancer?”

Darcy, trying not to laugh, was unable to reply.

“I think they’re both equally good,” said Imogen. “In that nei-

ther is good.”

“But wait,” Darcy managed. “What do you do with flatumancy?

I mean, besides the obvious?”

“Well, I haven’t worked out the entire magic system yet.”

Kiralee waved her drink vaguely. “But the spells will all have

evocative names: the Cushion Creeper, the Air Biscuit, the Brown

Zephyr, and of course the dreaded Secretary of the Interior!”

Even Imogen was laughing now. “Sounds like those spells all do

pretty much the same thing.”

“Only because I haven’t mentioned the Flaming Flabbergaster!”

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“You plagiarizing cow!” Imogen cried. “The Flaming

Flabbergaster is clearly pyro mancy!”

“Pyro- flatu mancy, yes,” Kiralee said, maintaining an air of absolute dignity. “But let’s not be pedantic.”

“No, let’s not,” Darcy said, and the three of them clinked and

drank.

The night went on like this, a mix of serious talk, utter bullshit, self-promotion, and slumber-party giddiness. It seemed to last all night, and yet it was still before ten when Darcy looked around

and realized that YA Drinks Night was ending. The bar had grown

crowded, but now it overflowed with random nonwriters, suit-

able for xenomancy but not publishing talk. She recognized only a

handful of faces.

Her new friends began to congregate in a last cluster.

“Anyone fancy sharing a cab to Brooklyn?” Kiralee asked.

Someone did, a writer of gothic gay romances who lived in

Mississippi and was staying with friends. Darcy’s quartet of sister debs was organizing dinner at a pizza place nearby, but she felt too dizzy from her four beers (or was it five?) to go anywhere but home.

“Do you know the way back to Moxie’s?” Imogen asked her.

Darcy found herself short on bluster, and told the truth. “No

idea. But it’s across from Astor Place. A cabdriver will know where that is, right?”

“That’s only ten minutes from here. I’ll walk you.”

“Sorry to be clueless.” Darcy had reached the stage of drunken-

ness when apologies and promises were frequent. But Imogen only

smiled.

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They said long, gushing good-byes to everyone and walked out

into the night.

The warehouses seemed to have grown larger since sunset, and

the streets felt empty and dramatic, like a film set through which they had been permitted to wander after hours. The air was cool

against Darcy’s skin, which felt fevered from hours of writerly

blather.

Imogen pointed. “Ghost building.”

Darcy looked up and saw the discoloration on a high expanse of

brick before her, a silhouette of a building torn down decades ago. The angle of the roofline was visible, and the jutting shape of a chimney.

Above was a ghost billboard—a faded ad for a car repair shop, ancient enough that the phone number had letters at the start.

“My protag can see ghosts,” Darcy said.

“Of course. He’s a death god.”

“Not him. The other one—Lizzie.”

“Seriously?” Imogen asked.

“Seriously what?”

“Your protag’s name is Lizzie . . . and yours is Darcy?” Imogen

began to laugh. “Jane Austen much?”

Darcy came to a halt. “Oh, fuck.”

“You didn’t realize?”

“I didn’t mean to. Seriously! It’s my mom who’s the Austen fan!”

Still laughing, Imogen pulled her forward again. “No one’s

going to notice. Well, except everyone who reads Jane Austen,

which is everyone who reads.”

They headed toward Astor Place again, Darcy still in tow.

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AFTERWORLDS

Was it too late to change Lizzie’s name? A search-and-replace

could effect the switch in seconds, a silent shifting of zeroes and ones. Only a few friends and editors would ever know. But for

Darcy it would be like reading a different book, as if some shape-

shifter had taken the place of her protagonist. An impostor who

might look and act like Lizzie, but whose resemblance only made

the impersonation more uncanny.

“I can’t. It wouldn’t be real.”

“You could use a pen name,” Imogen said. “Change your name

instead of hers.”

Darcy thought of Annie Barber and the unlucky alphabetic

placement of “Patel.” “Do people really do that?”

“More than you’d think,” Imogen said, squeezing her hand.

“But worry about it tomorrow.”

Darcy nodded. She had lots of things to worry about tomorrow.

Finding an apartment, opening a bank account, and figuring out

how to live alone in New York City.

As they walked, she began to read the passing street signs—she

needed to learn the city. But it was good to have Imogen beside her.

“How did you meet Kiralee?” Darcy asked.

“She blurbed Pyromancer, right after Paradox bought it. And when I wrote to thank her, she invited me to lunch. We’ve been

friends for a year now, I guess, since I moved here from college.”

Darcy frowned. Imogen might be a debutante, but she was at

least five years older, with college and a whole year in New York

behind her. And she’d already written two books, not just one lucky fluke typed in November.

“When does Pyromancer come out?”

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“This September.” Imogen breathed out through her teeth.

“Finally.”

“You’re lucky. Mine’s not out till next fall.”

“Being an author sucks, doesn’t it? It’s like telling a joke and

nobody laughs for two years.”

Darcy nodded. Nisha had sent her a text today from the car ride

home . . .

Only 462 days till publication!

Darcy suspected that she would get tired of that joke before

Nisha did.

They walked without talking for a while, Imogen silently

pointing out the shadows of vanished buildings. Darcy began to

wonder if things other than people might have ghosts—not just

cats and dogs, but motorcycles, typewriters, and school yards. Or

even the careers of novelists who’d peaked too early, or had never peaked at all . . .

Darcy was still holding Imogen’s hand, and she squeezed it a

little tighter. She looked up—the sky was too swollen with the glow of the city to leave any room for stars.

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CHAPTER 10

IN THE END WE DID A LITTLE SIGHTSEEING, AND THE TRIP HOME

to San Diego took that whole day and most of the third.

Mom let me take the wheel every now and then, but only after

a long talk about how post-traumatic stress can affect driving skills.

Because that’s what people need after traumas, apparently—lots of

long conversations about the effects of trauma.

To make things worse, my mother used the trip home to

indulge her own road-trip phobias. She commented on the gothic

weirdness of the roadside diners we passed, how they looked like

they had dead bodies in the freezers out back. And anytime a car

stayed within sight for more than a few miles, she thought we were being followed. Driving with Mom was about as fun as it sounds.

Of course, she’d always been a nervous mother. When I was

little, I was only allowed to play in our backyard, never at other kids’ houses. She got me a phone when I was only ten, which was

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cool at first, till I found out it was basically a tracking device. And now four terrorists had confirmed all her fears. I wondered if she would ever stop worrying about me now.

But when we crossed the California border just past Yuma, her

mood brightened, and she made me play a stupid highway game of

spotting palm trees (five points), hybrid cars (ten points), and roof-racked surfboards (twenty!). I quickly got bored of this and shut my eyes in protest, falling asleep until the crunch of tires over driveway gravel told me that we were home at last.

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I got out and came around to the

trunk, ready to unload luggage. But of course there wasn’t any.

Mom had packed in a hurry, and I only had my hospital gift shop

bags full of dirties.

“I’m so tired. We can return this car tomorrow.” Mom pulled her

overnight case from the backseat and shut the door. “You mind fol-

lowing me over to the rental place in the morning, early?”

“Early’s no problem.” I’d been waking up at six a.m. every day.

Maybe I was still on New York time, or maybe sleep didn’t stand

much chance against a terrorist attack and a three-day road trip.

Inside the front door there was an awkward moment of parting,

my mother gathering me into a long hug.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” I said.

“I always will.” She stepped back, still holding my shoulders.

“I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Yeah, me too.”

We stood there another moment, then wordlessly retreated to

the luxury of separate bedrooms.

I dropped the plastic bags on my bed and opened my computer,

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AFTERWORLDS

but when a progress bar showed hundreds of emails downloading,

I shut it again.

My face had been on TV, hadn’t it? In a sad, awful way I was

famous now.

Sitting on my bed, I tried to imagine recounting the attack to all my friends. Would telling the story become something automatic

and detached from me, like the time I’d broken my arm in fifth

grade?

That was a depressing thought. What had happened in Dallas

was about a thousand times more horrible than falling from a tire

swing, and also more private. I’d gone to another world, and had

brought back pieces of it inside me. That wasn’t going to fade, even if Yamaraj said that would be safer. But at the same time, it wasn’t something I wanted to share aloud so many times that I’d memorized it rather than truly remembering.

I stood and went to my closet, wondering what to wear now

that I was a soul guide, a psychopomp, a reaper. Presumably black

was appropriate. I didn’t have many black clothes, except for a few things I’d just bought in New York. But my suitcase wasn’t here yet.

The main thing was to avoid hospital gift store T-shirts with

love bears on them. I pulled off the one I was wearing and stuffed it in the trash can by my bed. Then I took a long post-road-trip

shower. The water at home was hotter than at any of the motels

we’d stayed at, and seemed to thaw the cool place inside me a little.

But the cold never went completely away, even the afternoon before in Tucson when I’d stood in the sun on hot black asphalt, willing

myself warm. The only time the cold had really gone away was in

the desert with Yamaraj.

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I wondered if he’d known what his touch would do to me, make

my heart shudder so hard that I was thrown back into reality. Or

was it something he’d be embarrassed about the next time we saw

each other?

There were so many things I wanted to ask him, about the black

oil, the underworld, and if he cared whether people had been good

or bad in life. But most of all, I wanted to know how Yamaraj had

become one of us. What awful thing had happened to send him

over to the afterworld that first time?

His face was so serene and flawless, not like someone who’d

been through a reality-shattering trauma. Of course, as I stared

into the bathroom mirror, I expected my own face to be different,

to show what I’d gone through. But the only changes were the

scars on my cheek and forehead, as if I’d only fallen off a bike.

I was back in my bedroom drying myself when a noise came

from behind the door.

“Yeah, Mom?” I wrapped the towel around me.

The door didn’t swing open. It didn’t move at all. But it slipped

somehow ajar for a moment, like a piece of the world gone miss-

ing, and I could see through it into the hallway behind. A little girl stepped through the gap. She wore red corduroys with a brown

plaid shirt tucked tightly in, and two fat braids of blond hair hung across her shoulders.

I took a step back. “Um, hello?”

She looked timid and uncertain for a moment, but then she

placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “I know this is

going to be a little weird at first, Lizzie. But the thing is, I’ve been in this house just as long as you have.”

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AFTERWORLDS

Her name was Mindy Petrovic, and she was a friend of my mother’s

from way back.

“We grew up across the street from each other,” Mindy

began. We were both sitting on my bed, me still in my damp

towel. “Your mother had a dog called Marty who ran all over

the neighborhood, and he used to chase me on my bike. I made

friends with Marty first, then with Anna.” Mindy’s eyes got a

faraway look for a moment. “And I went to the vet with Anna

when he died, which was only about a week before I did.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of Marty or Mindy

before, but I vaguely remembered pictures of a collie in my mom’s

old photo albums.

“That’s when Mom was how old?”

“Eleven, like me.” She smiled. “I’m only two months older than

Anna, but she was always in the grade below me. She got born with

bad timing.”

“But she grew up in Palo Alto.”

“Duh,” said Mindy. “Me too.”

I frowned. “That’s hundreds of miles away. And you’re . . . here.”

“Ghosts can walk, you know. And we have other ways to get

around.” She looked down at where her fingers were picking at the

bedspread, an old quilt my grandmother had made. “But yeah, it’s

kind of dorky. Like that Disney movie where the pets get stranded

on vacation and have to get home. Ghosts are really loyal, like dogs.

Except dogs can’t see us, only cats.”

I shook my head. Mindy kept skipping around, as if she’d never

told her story out loud before.

“After I died, my parents started to hate each other. There was

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a lot of yelling, and it was all my fault, so I moved across the street to Anna’s. Her room was always my favorite place. Especially her

closet. I would hide in there with her for fun.”

“And you’ve been following her around for . . .” I did the math.

“Thirty-five years?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Mindy looked up from playing with the

bedspread. “But I feel more real when I’m around her. Like I’m not fading. It helps to be with people who remember you, and who still think about you.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering why Mom had never mentioned her.

I was also curious about how Mindy had died, but it seemed rude

to ask.

“Then you got born!” Mindy said happily. “When you got to be

my age, I used to pretend we were best friends.”

My reaction must have shown on my face.

“Sorry to be creepy,” she said, staring down at the bedspread

again. “I never lived in your closet, only hers.”

“Right. And that’s not at all creepy.” I was way too claustrophobic to have ever hidden in a closet when I was little.

Mindy shrugged. “It’s just, I don’t have any friends like me.”

“You mean dead people?”

“Yeah. Ghosts are scary. And mostly kind of weird.”

She paused for a moment, like someone who’s just said they

hate their new haircut and you’re supposed to disagree. And it

was true that Mindy didn’t scare me. Somehow it wasn’t creepy

sitting here and talking to her. She’d been around my whole life,

so I’d gotten used to her without realizing it.

But all I said was, “It must suck, being dead.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“I guess. But now that you can see me, we can be real friends, right?” She looked up with a timid smile.

I didn’t know how to answer that. Maybe my mom had been

close to Mindy, but it’s not like I was looking for an eleven-year-old invisible best friend.

Then I realized something. “When you walked in here you

knew I’d be able to see you.”

“Of course.” Mindy’s stare softened, as if she were looking

through me. “When you came in, you had that shiny look, like

pomps have. That’s why I hid at first, because I thought you were

one of them.” She smiled. “But then I realized that it was just you, Lizzie, and that you’d never do anything bad to me.”

“Okay. But why are you afraid of . . . pomps?”

“They come looking for ghosts sometimes,” Mindy said. “They

take them away. But I always hide.”

“Do they take them someplace bad?”

“I think so.” Mindy stared down at the pattern of the quilt

again. “I met a boy once, who’d gone down to the underworld. But

he ran away because he didn’t like it. He said it was better to stay up here and fade away.”

My skin was crawling with questions now. I’d assumed that

Yamaraj was telling the truth, that he and Yami were taking all

those people to safety. But what did I really know? All I had to go on was his pretty face.

“What happened to you, Lizzie?” Mindy said, reaching out to

run her hand down my naked arm. Though I could hardly feel her

touch, goose pimples sprang up beneath her fingertips. “How’d you

get so shiny?”

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I pulled the towel tighter. The cloth was still damp, though

my skin had dried. I didn’t feel like telling Mindy about the

airport—I wasn’t ready to tell anybody about that yet—and I

didn’t want to mention Yamaraj either. She might tell me not to

trust him, and he was the only thing I had to hang on to.

“I should get dressed.” When I stood up and went to my

dresser, Mindy didn’t look away. “Um, do you mind?”

She only laughed. “Lizzie! I’ve seen you naked, like, a zillion

times. Since you were a little baby!”

“Yeah, that’s awesome. But it’s kind of different now that I can

see you.”

“Pfft,” she said, but turned around.

I dressed quickly, in a T-shirt and cargo pants that were both

dark gray, the closest thing I had to black. If my trip to the afterworld had changed me, I could at least look the part.

Was this what my life would be like from now on? Having

ghosts watch my every move? I hadn’t seen any on the trip home,

at least not that I’d recognized. But Mindy looked pretty normal

except for wearing out-of-date clothes and walking through solid

doors. Maybe I’d passed hundreds of wandering spirits and hadn’t

even noticed.

“So how many of you ghosts are there? I mean, is the whole

world haunted?”

Mindy shrugged. “Most places, not so much. In this suburb

I’m mostly alone, because no one remembers their neighbors. But

little towns . . .” Her voice dropped a little. “They’re crawling with whispers.”

A knock came at the door, and I jumped a little.

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“It’s just Anna,” Mindy said.

I tried to keep my voice steady. “Yeah, Mom?”

She opened the door, her eyes scanning the room. “Um, were

you talking to someone?”

“I wish. No phone.” I tried not to look at Mindy. “I was just

singing along with something.”

Mom looked at my laptop, which was shut. Other than my

phone, it was the only thing I ever played music on.

“Something in my head,” I clarified, pushing wet hair behind

my ears.

“Okay.” She gave me a nervous look. “I thought we might make

pasta tonight. From scratch, with squid ink. I’ve got the island all cleaned off so we can make a mess.”

“Perfect time to make a mess. I just took a shower.”

My mother hesitated, so I smiled again to show I was kidding,

still managing not to look at Mindy. After what I’d been through,

it wouldn’t take much to convince my mom that I was going crazy.

“Great! I’ll go start the sauce,” she said, and shut the door.

“Mmmm . . . spaghetti,” Mindy said.

I looked at her. “Ghosts can eat?”

“We can smell,” she said.

“Oh, right.” I was whispering now, convinced that my mother

was outside with her ear pressed against the door. “But you have to stay in here while we cook. I’m not used to this invisible friend thing yet, and I don’t want to look insane in front of Mom.”

Mindy pouted, running a palm across the bedspread as if she were

smoothing it out. But the wrinkles stayed. It had to be frustrating, being shut off from the world of objects and people, unable to connect.

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“That’s not very nice of you,” she said. “Now that you’re a

pomp, we should be friends.”

“But Mom’s going to want to talk about stuff. She always gets

deep and meaningful when we cook. And I won’t be able to con-

centrate if you’re hanging around. So please?”

“I’ll sit in the corner and not say anything. Promise!”

I hesitated, wondering how reliable Mindy’s promises were. She

might be two months older than my mother, but she still talked like an eleven-year-old. I wondered if ghost children never grew up.

“If you let me hang out, I’ll tell you a secret,” she offered.

“Awkward details from my mother’s childhood? No thanks.”

Mindy shook her head. “It’s something really important. Some-

thing you need to know.”

“Okay, I guess.” Mindy knew more about the afterlife than I

did. And given Yamaraj’s warnings about dangers and predators, it

wouldn’t hurt to learn more. “What’s your big secret?”

“There’s a man watching our house,” she said. “He’s been there

for three days.”

I took the backyard path, the recycling bin trundling behind me.

My mother had seemed a little surprised when I’d volunteered to

take it out, but she hadn’t argued.

Mindy was walking ahead, checking that the way was clear,

but my nerves were jumping. I had no reason to trust Mindy.

My mother had never even mentioned her. What if there wasn’t

anybody watching the house, and this was some kind of . . . ghost

trap?

But what else could I do? Pretend Mindy hadn’t said anything?

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“He’s not in the back lane,” Mindy said from the other side

of the gate. “He usually parks his car in front of the Andersons’

house.”

“Who are the Andersons?”

“You don’t know our neighbors very well, do you?”

I didn’t answer, pulling open the gate and rattling the bin into

its usual spot in the back lane. Ghosts had plenty of free time on their hands, I supposed, and spying on the neighbors was probably

more interesting than staring at the walls of my mother’s closet.

With a glance at the house to make sure Mom wasn’t watching,

I headed up the lane, staying a good distance behind my ghostly

escort. Out here in the daylight, Mindy looked more out of place

than she had in my bedroom. It wasn’t just her bold checked shirt

and wide 1970s belt. The way the late-afternoon sun played on her

looked wrong.

And then I realized it—she had no shadows. Not just the big

shadow that should have been rippling along the ground beneath

her, but all the little ones in the wrinkles of her clothes were missing. The sunlight didn’t texture her the way it would have a living person.

I’d found a way to spot ghosts, at least in daylight.

From the end of the back lane we could see the car, a black

sedan with rental plates.

A young man with dark hair sat in the driver’s seat, a tablet

computer of some kind propped on the steering wheel. He was

reading from it, tapping on the screen, but then his eyes lifted to peer at my house. After a long moment, his gaze fell back to his

tablet.

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“Crapstick,” I whispered. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I don’t kid about scary men,” Mindy said.

I stood there, willing my heart to slow down. “Can you go see

what’s on his screen?”

Mindy looked at the ground, kicking without effect at a dry leaf

blowing past. “I’m kind of scared of him. Can you come with me?”

“Um, not invisible. Remember?”

“But you’re a pomp.” She frowned. “Can’t you cross over?”

“You mean, into the afterworld?”

She giggled. “Just call it the flipside. Dork. That’s what you

say when you’re walking around up here, and not down in the

underworld.”

“Okay, the flipside.” I wondered if I could manage right here

in the alley, or if I even wanted to. That meant remembering what

had happened at the airport, replaying it all in my head again.

“Maybe.”

Mindy cocked her head at me, wondering if I was kidding.

When my expression didn’t change, she held out a hand.

I took it a little hesitantly, and felt the distant tingle of her palm in mine. The cold place inside me responded to her touch, swelling into icy fingers that stretched around my heart. The earth seemed

to sink beneath my feet, like when an elevator begins its descent.

It was happening again, right here in my back lane.

I almost dropped Mindy’s hand, but she squeezed tighter—sud-

denly her small fingers felt real and solid. The cold inside me pulsed and surged, sweeping through my body. It flooded my head and fell

across my senses, turning everything gray and quiet.

The afterworld air had its familiar taste, like I was holding a

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rusty nail under my tongue. The dead leaves stirring around our

feet were silent.

“Huh.” My own voice sounded distant in my ears. “It’s not usu-

ally that easy.”

“Maybe because you’re new.” Mindy had turned gray, like the

rest of the world. “But the man can’t see you now. You’re just like a ghost.”

I looked around, breathing hard. It was strange seeing my own

neighborhood turned colorless and flat, like the airport. I realized that Mindy was the opposite of Yamaraj. Her touch had pulled

me over to this dead, gray place, while his had sent me back to the world of the living.

I took a few cautious steps. My feet felt numb, as if they’d fallen asleep. When I stamped my bare soles against the asphalt, I felt only a dull ringing in my feet.

I hadn’t noticed any of this the first times I’d crossed over.

Maybe I’d been in shock. Or maybe it was different when Yamaraj

was there beside me.

“This is weird,” I said.

“Sucks to be dead,” Mindy agreed. Then she saw my expression

and added, “Not that you’re dead. You’re just a psychopomp.”

“I think maybe I’m going to use another word. One that’s

less . . . psycho.”

She shrugged. “That’s what everyone calls them.”

I looked at the black sedan again. My shaky first steps had taken

me out into the road a little, but the man hadn’t looked my way. Of course, the terrorists hadn’t been able to see me at the airport. One had walked straight through me.

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But Mindy’s touch had made it seem too easy. “You’re sure I’m invisible?”

Mindy nodded. “Does he look shiny to you? No way can he see

the flipside.”

I looked at my own hand. The shine wasn’t as radiant as on

Yamaraj’s brown skin, but it was definitely there. My shadow had

disappeared completely.

“Okay, invisible,” I murmured. “Sweet.”

I walked out from the back lane and toward the black sedan.

The man’s gaze stayed on his tablet, even when I stood right in

front of his car.

Finally his eyes flicked up at me, but they registered nothing,

peering straight through me to my house beyond.

Mindy came up timidly beside me. “He’s scary, right?”

“He’s stalking my house. What do you think?”

I went to the driver’s side and knelt, looking straight at the guy.

It was almost intimate, being this close without him seeing me, like spying on someone through a one-way mirror. I could hear him

breathing through the open window, and could smell his coffee in

the cup holder below the car window. He looked younger than I’d

thought at first, in his midtwenties, maybe. He wore a dark suit and tie, and thick-framed nerdy glasses.

“What’s he doing with that computer thing?” asked Mindy.

I looked at her. “You mean his tablet?”

She gave me a shrug, and I wondered how much of her under-

standing of the world was stuck in the 1970s.

I leaned in closer, my lips only inches from his ear.

“Hey, dipwit!”

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His long eyelashes blinked once, but otherwise he didn’t

respond. I let out a nervous laugh, then leaned farther into the car, trying to read from his tablet.

On his screen was a list of email. My eyes darted through the

subject lines. Nothing weird—a reminder about a party, someone

asking for a missing file, and the usual smattering of spam. He

tapped at one of the emails, and it expanded to fill the screen. I leaned in closer to read, my cheek almost pressing against his.

Maybe I brushed against him then, or maybe it was just a coin-

cidence, but at that exact moment he decided to scratch his ear. The back of his hand slid across my cheek, leaving sparks and tingles in its wake. I startled, pulling away, and banged my head on the top

of the car window.

“Crap!” Anger surged through me.

Mindy stumbled back from the car. “We should run!”

“Run? What do you . . . ,” I began, but already it was happen-

ing—the world brightened around me, the gray wash over my

vision peeling away. Warmth flooded into my body, and I sank to

one knee, dizzied by the onrush of light and color, gulping in the air that suddenly tasted fresh and real.

“Come on, Lizzie!” Mindy shouted, already running away.

A moment later I was sitting there by the stalker’s car, blinking

in the bright, all-too-normal sunshine, and he was staring down at me with his eyes wide open.

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CHAPTER 11

THE MORNING AFTER YA DRINKS NIGHT, DARCY SAT UP IN BED

to discover that she had a hangover. She was still wearing the

little black dress, to which clung an inescapable whiff of beer. Her first instinct was to lie back down again, but by then the bed was spinning.

Her first few minutes upright were difficult, but once Darcy

had a bathrobe on and coffee in hand, her condition began to

shift from dizzy to quietly philosophical. The churning of the

world outside Moxie’s ten-foot-high windows proved soothing.

Airplanes drew stately contrails across the sky, and a steady flow of cars and taxis headed northward toward the spires of Empire

and Chrysler. Darcy watched the people sifting through Astor

Place from a writerly remove, telling stories about them for her

own amusement.

The refrigerator contained only batteries, mustard, and makeup

AFTERWORLDS

and the pantry held even stranger things, like canned truffles and pickled quail eggs. But while starting up the house wifi to search for nearby food, Darcy found a sheaf of menus on Moxie’s desk. These

offered breakfast, lunch, and dinner all delivered to the door, which was exactly what Darcy needed.

After ordering breakfast, she had an intense conversation with

Sodapop about how birds couldn’t talk, then connected to You_

Suck_at_Writing. There were emails from Carla, Sagan, and Nisha,

and she replied to them all with the story of having met Kiralee

Taylor, Coleman Gayle, and Oscar Lassiter in the flesh. Indeed, she hadn’t just met these writers, but had discussed superpowers and

book titles and cultural hijacking with them. Darcy tried to convey how intoxicating it all had been, while only hinting at how terrifying.

Her mother had also sent an email, making sure that Darcy

hadn’t been mugged or murdered overnight. Darcy thanked her

for the little black dress, and managed to mention that she’d got-

ten home before eleven the night before. Then she replied to Aunt

Lalana’s welcome to New York City, cc’ing her mother so that the

whole family knew that all was well.

Thankfully her in-box held nothing from Paradox. Darcy felt

far too fragile for the long-awaited editorial letter. It was all she could do to reassure herself that last night had been real, that no one had questioned her right to be here in this city.

It felt safe, holing up here in Moxie’s tower for her first full day in Manhattan. Everyone she’d met at YA Drinks Night had seemed

so poised, so sure that they were really writers. Not melting into a puddle in the face of their certainty had left Darcy emptied of all her aplomb. She needed to recharge.

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* * *

The next day she made sorties out of the apartment, noting cafés

and bank machines, buying two reams of paper at an office supply

store, and dropping off the indispensable little black dress at a dry cleaner’s. Her confidence grew with every transaction, and Darcy

wondered if she should limit her apartment search to Moxie’s

neighborhood, now that she had a beachhead here.

Or was that cowardly, like those limpet girls who became best

friends with whoever they met on the first day of school?

New York had dozens of neighborhoods, after all, whose inhab-

itants swore by them with a kind of tribal loyalty. But Darcy didn’t know much past what she’d gleaned from movies and TV, and

she had only twelve days before Moxie returned. Her cluelessness

gave her the same empty feeling as missing homework. Maybe she

should have spent the last month researching the city instead of

going to senior parties.

So on the third morning after YA Drinks Night, she decided to

call for help.

“Um, would you want to look at apartments with me?”

“Sure, I guess.” Imogen sounded amused. “Where were you

thinking?”

“Um, the East or West Village. Or maybe Tribeca, Chelsea, or

Chinatown?” These were all the neighborhoods Darcy could name

off the top of her head.

“So . . . Manhattan. Do you have a list of places to see?”

Darcy did, printed out on the first sheets of those reams of paper that would one day hold rewrites and sequels. She and Imogen

agreed on a place nearby and a time between breakfast and lunch.

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* * *

“You have to accept that the first places will suck.” Imogen was

staring down at her phone, using it to guide them through the grid-addled streets of the West Village. “But that’s just to soften you up.”

“Right. So the realtors show you the crappy places first, to get

you to pay more.”

“No, I don’t mean them. It’s the city itself, fucking with you.”

Imogen looked up from her phone, dead serious. She was dressed in

a rust-colored sundress, worn over jeans that she’d obviously worn while painting. The flecks of paint were the same ruddy color as the dress, which Darcy found rather artful. “You have to prove to New

York that you really want to live here.”

“But I totally do.” Darcy was already certain there was nowhere

else, that she would crawl over glass to live here. “Can’t the city just know that?”

“It’s a ritual. Embrace it.”

Darcy nodded and took a steadying breath, one of many that day.

The first apartment was situated in a basement from whose

cold floors arose the smell of wet concrete. The only sunlight

entered through a high sliver of window in the very back, which

looked as though the ceiling and the rear wall hadn’t quite met during construction, and the rift had been plugged with glass.

“Okay. This is weird.” Darcy was trying vainly to catch a

glimpse of sky, hoping to dispel the claustrophobia the apartment

was giving her. It was like peering up through the lid of a giant coffin slid slightly ajar. “What’s this window thing called?”

“In a bomb shelter,” Imogen said quietly, “it would be the view-

ing slit.”

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“It’s a loge,” supplied the agent, but he had lost Darcy’s confi-

dence by trying fourteen keys before finding the right one for the front door. “Very whimsical.”

“Very.” Imogen was staring at the matte-black claw-footed

bathtub in the kitchen. “And it’s all this one room?”

“Yes,” the agent said. “Basement lofts are very popular now.”

“Basement lofts,” Darcy repeated, and she and Imogen smiled

at each other, sharing amusement at the contradiction in terms. But then her claustrophobia started to come on stronger, and Darcy

had to leave.

The next apartment was equally whimsical, though the real

estate agent here was better with keys. It spanned the top floor of an old freestanding servants’ quarters, which occupied a courtyard behind a West Village row house. This apartment smelled fresher

than the basement loft had, and was blessed with views in all directions. But every window looked straight into the tenements sur-

rounding it, which were only yards away.

“Panopticon,” Imogen said, engaged in a staring contest with

an orange tabby in a neighbor’s window.

Darcy didn’t know the word, but it had a lovely sound and its

meaning was clear enough. She wondered if there was any way to

fit “panopticon” into Afterworlds, and if Imogen would remember today and suspect she’d inspired its use.

As they descended the stairs, Darcy said, “So is the city done

with me yet? Can we see the good apartments now?”

Imogen shook her head. “After only two? You’re not very

steadfast.”

“I’m steadfast. I’m the fucking steadfast tin soldier. But Moxie’s 114

AFTERWORLDS

coming back in eleven days!” Darcy pulled out her list. “Maybe we

should skip to the more expensive ones.”

They were out on the street now, and the sky had darkened. All

of Darcy’s weather apps had warned her of rain today, but she had

no umbrella of her own, and Moxie’s was huge and covered with

vintage images of naked men.

Imogen held out a palm to check for drops. “Those last two

places looked pretty pricey already, even if they were whimsical.

What’s your budget?”

“Three thousand a month.”

Imogen’s eyes widened a little. “Seriously?”

“That’s what my little sister says.”

“Your little sister’s coming to live with you?”

“No way! I mean, she’s only fourteen.” This might have been an apt time for Darcy to tell Imogen her own age, but she didn’t. “Nisha’s the math brain in the family. She made me a budget for the next three years, because Afterworlds comes out next year, and the sequel a year later. So I figure by the year after that, I’ll know if I’m a real writer or not.”

“You mean, you’ll know how you’re selling?”

Darcy nodded, wondering if her words had been a false step.

“That’s a habit Nisha got me into. She keeps saying I’m a real writer now, but I might not always be.”

“You wrote a book,” said Imogen. “That’s real, whether it’s a

bestseller or not.”

Darcy stared down at the black fossils of chewing gum on the

sidewalk. “But it’s not just sales. It’s getting to say ‘my agent’ and being allowed in at Drinks Night. I know it’s kind of pathetic, but all that stuff makes me feel more real.”

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“Don’t apologize. Money and status are pretty real.”

“It’s not that I need to be super-rich and famous,” Darcy went

on. “It’s just . . . it feels like someone’s going to ask me for ID. Like, writer ID.”

The sky let out a rumble, and they both stopped in the middle

of the sidewalk. As the first drops fell a man went past them in a hurry, walking a beautiful black greyhound. The metal dog chain

slid for a moment against the knee of Darcy’s jeans.

Imogen pulled Darcy beneath an awning, and they stood together

against the glass front of a shop that sold pipes and cigars. The sweet, heavy smell of tobacco mixed with the fresh scent of rain.

“I know what you mean,” Imogen said. “Remember back in

high school, when you were at a party, and if you weren’t talking

to that one person you had a crush on, it was pointless being there?

Like everyone else wasn’t real. Which is a crappy thing to think

about other people, but that’s what it felt like, you know?”

Darcy knew very well, but she nodded vaguely, as if those days

were a distant memory.

“Or sometimes it’s food,” Imogen said, the rain coming on

harder as she spoke. “Like when a big pile of french fries is the only real thing to eat, and you have to go out at midnight and find some or you’ll die.” Imogen’s hands were in fists now. “For me, writing’s the only thing that’s always real. I’ve never regretted a day I wrote a good scene, whatever else I screwed up that day. That’s what’s fucking real.”

Darcy had stopped breathing, because she agreed so much. She

wished she could spin time backward and steal Imogen’s words,

just to hear them in her own voice.

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AFTERWORLDS

“I know,” she managed. “But it only happened once. . . .”

Last November, she meant, when that billionth random monkey

had taken up residence in her head and helped her type Afterworlds.

“Right. Sophomore slump.” Imogen waved a hand, her inten-

sity fading. “I was like that after Pyromancer. Because my first girlfriend was a pyromaniac, so maybe that was the only thing I

could ever write about. Like it was all an accident. But books don’t happen by accident.”

Darcy nodded. Imogen’s certainty was contagious, and Darcy

felt more real just standing here with her, the rain building to a roar and clearing the air around them. “So I just need to write another book, and I’ll be cured.”

“For a while. There’s one little hitch: I felt the same way again

after finishing Ailuromancy. And Kiralee says that every book she’s ever written feels like an accident. We can all look forward to an endless sophomore slump.”

“That’s okay, kind of,” Darcy said. The slumps would be worth

it, as long as there were more Novembers.

Imogen was smiling now. “So you can suffer a lifetime of angst,

but you can’t deal with a few more whimsical apartments?”

“I remain steadfast.” Darcy looked at her list, but the addresses

had begun to swim before her eyes. “Where do you live, anyway?”

“Chinatown.”

“Is that good for writers?”

Imogen laughed. “I live there for the food.”

“Oh, right,” Darcy said. “I like noodles.”

This made Imogen laugh as well, though it had sounded feeble

in Darcy’s ears.

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“If you hate everything up here, we can go look near my place.

Got anything on your list?”

“A few, I think.” Uncertain of where Chinatown began and

ended, Darcy handed over the printouts. “I’m not keeping you

from writing a good scene, am I?”

“I don’t write when the sun’s up. Too unromantic.”

“Well, if we’ve got all day . . .” Darcy waited to be contradicted, to be told that Imogen only had another hour or two to spare, but

Imogen said nothing. “Let me buy you lunch, then we can keep

looking?”

“Great.” Imogen handed back the printouts and pulled Darcy

into motion, despite the rain. “I know a place with noodles.”

Darcy’s budget, which was really Nisha’s budget, went like this:

Afterworlds and Untitled Patel had sold in a two-book deal to Paradox Publishing for the princely sum of one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars each. Of that three-hundred-thousand-

dollar total, fifteen percent (forty-five thousand) belonged to the Underbridge Literary Agency, and another hundred thousand or

so to the government, depending on how much Darcy let Nisha

finagle her taxes.

After a new laptop and some furniture, that left her with about

fifty thousand a year for three years.

At this point, Darcy could do the math herself. Fifty thousand

divided by twelve was a little over four thousand a month, which

meant a maximum of three for rent. And a thousand divided by

thirty was thirty-three dollars a day.

Neither she nor Nisha knew if that was enough to eat, clothe,

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and entertain oneself in New York City, but it sounded reasonable.

And there were always noodles.

Though at this exact moment the noodles that Darcy and

Imogen were eating—ramen with Tuscan kale, pork shoulder, and

white miso reduction—had exceeded that amount already.

“Whoa,” Imogen said when Darcy was done explaining the

budget. “You’re rich!”

“I know. Crazy lucky, right?” Even as she spoke, Darcy real-

ized that when her mother used that word—how lucky Darcy was to have published a book—it made her unspeakably angry. But

between Imogen and herself, lucky was okay. “I know everything I write won’t sell for that much.”

“Yeah, you never know,” Imogen said. “Kiralee’s books haven’t

done well since Bunyip.”

Darcy looked up from her noodles. “Really? I thought Coleman

was kidding the other night.”

“Nope. He says Kiralee’s books only sell about ten thousand

copies each,” Imogen said.

“That sucks.” Darcy wasn’t sure exactly what that number

meant, but it sounded low compared to her own advance. “And it’s

scary. If a writer like Kiralee can’t sell books, how am I supposed to?

I mean, everyone I know has read all her books.”

“The people you know read books.” Imogen gave a shrug.

“But Bunyip broke into a much bigger demographic—people

who don’t read books. Or, they read maybe one a year. Coleman says that’s where the money is in publishing—people who don’t

read.”

“Whoa. That explains a lot about the bestseller lists.”

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Darcy had spent every spare minute of the last four years in her

high school library, surrounded by the Reading Zealots, who all had widgets on their blogs counting down to the next Sword Singer or Secret Coterie pub date, and who sent each other photoshopped YA covers with lolcat captions for Valentine’s Day.

But now that Darcy thought about it, that was only about

twenty kids out of a thousand in her school—2 percent. What if the rest of the world’s readers shared those slim proportions?

“Now I feel guilty,” she said.

“You should. One-fifty times two? Crap.”

Darcy wondered what Imogen had been paid for Pyromancer,

but Imogen hadn’t volunteered the number, so she felt weird ask-

ing. “Well, minus taxes . . . and Moxie’s cut. And the twenty bucks Nisha charged me to make that budget!”

Imogen grinned at this, and her eyes blinked in a slow, catlike

way. Darcy wondered if that always happened when she smiled.

“Speaking of Kiralee,” Imogen said. “She wants to read

Afterworlds.”

Darcy froze. “But it . . . it’s not even edited.”

“Yeah, she hates reading edited novels. There’s not enough

to complain about. If you send me the draft, I’ll forward it to her.

Maybe she’ll give you a blurb.”

“Um, sure.” Darcy recalled the mix of elation and anxiety at

having her book analyzed by Kiralee, and wondered how gut-

churning the examination would be once she’d actually read it. “So how serious was she the other night? You know, about my hijacking a god for purposes of YA hotness?”

“Pretty serious,” Imogen said. “But it’s got more to do with

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Bunyip than you. It’s her book that everybody loves, but it’s the one she has the most regrets about.”

Darcy frowned. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Okay, so it takes the mythology of an ancient culture, and

uses it to frame a colonist girl’s angst about her first kiss. Which is tricky enough. But then all the aboriginal characters, who are

actually from that culture, don’t really appear in the last half of the book.”

Darcy thought for a second. “Whoa. I didn’t even notice.”

“Yeah. Because it’s all about that first kiss.”

“Which is so amazing,” Darcy murmured. “And the weird

thing is, if Kiralee hadn’t stolen that myth, I wouldn’t know about bunyips at all.”

“That’s the power of Story. And with great power . . .” Imogen

spread her hands. “Kiralee doesn’t want you to feel the same way

about Afterworlds in fifteen years.”

“Or sooner.” Darcy was already nervous about her mother

reading the book, and now she had another eight hundred million

people to worry about.

“But you’re a Hindu,” Imogen said. “Isn’t it your culture?”

“I modeled Yamaraj on a Bollywood star, which shows how

much I know about Hinduism. I’m worried he turned out more hot

than serious. For a lord of the dead, I mean.”

Imogen shrugged. “Well, you’ve still got rewrites.”

“There’s only good re writing,” Darcy murmured. She still

couldn’t remember who’d said that first.

The waitress brought the check then, and Darcy waved away

Imogen’s battered wallet and paid with cash. With a tip, the bill

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was more than twice her Nisha-approved daily allotment, but the

noodles had been very good indeed.

“Do you want to read it too?” Darcy asked as they headed for

the door.

“Of course. I’ll send you Pyromancer.” Imogen scooped up a handful of matchbooks with the noodle shop’s logo on them and

shoved them in her pocket. “Ready for more whimsical apartments?”

“Sure,” Darcy said. “Thanks for showing me this place.”

“The best way to know a city is to eat it.”

“I’m a tin soldier. Steadfast,” Darcy said tiredly. But the word had long since stopped meaning anything. Maybe she would use it in

her rewrites, just to remind her of this endless day.

They were approaching their sixth apartment since eating. The

first two had been in the Meatpacking District, one across from a

FedEx garage, whose rumbling trucks Darcy could feel when she

pressed a palm against the walls, the other on a street that smelled like meat. The next three had been soulless white boxes in the glass towers surrounding Union Square. It was the sort of neighborhood

that Annika Patel would approve of, but Imogen had warned that

nothing written in such a sterile place would ring true.

So they’d headed down to Chinatown in the clearing rain. They

were met in front of a corner building by an Israeli man named Lev, who had a Russian accent and wore a three-piece suit. He led them

up a wide staircase that, instead of doubling back at the landings, just kept climbing in the same direction, like the steps of a Mayan temple.

Without any key fumbling, Lev opened the door of apartment 4E.

It was the largest Darcy had seen yet, occupying half the floor

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of the building. The ceilings were at least twelve feet high, and two walls had rows of windows looking down onto the street corner

below. A glimmer of pale sunshine had appeared in the sky, a glar-

ing leak in the clouds. It angled through the windows to ignite a

galaxy of dust suspended in the air.

“You could roller-skate in here,” Imogen said with quiet awe.

“It was dance studio.” Lev gestured at the mirrors along one

wall. “But you can take those down.”

Darcy stared at herself in the mirrors; she looked tiny with all

this open space around her. She went to the nearest window—the

glass was mottled with age, bulging in the bottoms of the panes like a slow liquid. The buildings across the street were garlanded with fire escapes covered in leftover raindrops, dripping and sparkling.

The floor creaked as Darcy walked from window to window, look-

ing out at Chinatown.

“Where does that hall go?” Imogen asked. It was beside the

apartment’s front door, in the corner opposite the two walls of

windows.

“There are two changing rooms for dancers.” Lev wiggled his

finger for them to follow. “And a kitchen, not very big.”

The two changing rooms weren’t big either. Each had a row of

lockers along one wall, and between the two rooms was a bathroom

with a shower.

Imogen stood in the hallway. “You could make one a bedroom,

the other a closet. You’ll be the only person in Manhattan with a

shower connecting to your closet.”

“No,” said Lev. “I have seen this before.”

“I didn’t bring that many clothes,” Darcy said. Though, of

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course, she could always ask her parents to drive up with more.

And she planned to buy clothes here in New York, of course, once

she’d decided what writers wore. She’d mostly forgotten to notice

at Drinks Night, too overwhelmed with everything else.

Lev showed them the kitchen last. It was the smallest room

in the apartment, but Darcy didn’t see herself cooking much. She

wanted to go out and eat the city until she knew it in detail.

“How far is this from your place?” she asked Imogen when they

were back in the big room.

“Five minutes’ walk? We’d be neighbors if you lived here.”

Darcy smiled back at her, then looked at her printout of apart-

ments. Her heart squeezed a little when she saw that this was one

of the places with no listed price.

“Is this lease even legal?” Imogen was asking Lev. “I mean, a

dance studio would be zoned for business, not residential.”

“It was illegal as dance studio,” he said with a shrug. “Now is

legal again.”

Darcy didn’t care. The very fact that she could live in New York,

in this apartment, hardly seemed real. Legality was an afterthought.

She took a slow breath. “How much?”

Lev opened a green leather binder, the spine of which crackled.

“Thirty-five hundred. Utilities included.”

“Crap,” Darcy said, and two things clicked inside her. One was

a hopeless feeling of falling through the floor, the other was the certainty that she could write here. That she had to write here.

“Can you give us a moment, Lev?” Imogen asked quietly. He

bowed, a knowing smile on his face, and drifted away into the tiny kitchen.

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“I have to ask my sister,” Darcy said, already texting: What does $3500/month do to budget?

“So you want it?”

“I need it. I don’t even know why.” Darcy stared down at the street. It had the same bustle as the view from Moxie’s, but the

streets were more crowded here in Chinatown. And from only five

stories up instead of fifteen, the rippling current of bodies was more intimate, more personal. An open-air stall selling fresh fish bathed in a shaft of sunlight, white ice and silver scales glittering. “This room’s so big, I’d have to tell myself stories just to fill it up.”

Imogen smiled. “Where would you write?”

“My desk goes there.” Darcy gestured at the corner where the

two walls with windows met. She would orient the desk outward

and diagonally, taking in the whole view. The rest of the room

would stay empty.

“You can pay that rent and still eat?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just write and not eat.” Darcy realized

that the desk she was imagining was from her school, square and

wooden, with a scooped plastic chair. Was that the best her imagi-

nation could do? Some writer.

Her phone dinged with Nisha’s answer:

$3500/mth = 2 yrs, 8 mths #mymathisyourgod

She groaned and showed the message to Imogen. “This means

I lose four months!”

“Um, you could get a job, you know.”

Darcy almost started to explain that her parents would surely

make her go to college if it came to that. But Imogen probably

thought that Darcy had already graduated. She promised herself

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to tell Imogen how old she was very soon, even if it meant feeling young and, frankly, a bit less real.

But not right now, while her future was being decided.

The phone dinged, Nisha again.

Alternate plan: 3 whole yrs but eat only $17/day

HAHA RAMEN GIRL! #weightgain

Darcy sighed. Nisha didn’t realize how expensive ramen could

be here in New York. Of course, there were noodles with Tuscan

kale, pork shoulder, and white miso reduction, and there were

noodles pressed into bricks and priced at three for a dollar. Darcy liked them, too, as long as she could add Tabasco, turmeric, and a soft-boiled egg. She could write on seventeen dollars a day, especially in this magnificent room.

“I’m going to take it,” she whispered, and Imogen gave her a

smile and a satisfied cat’s-eye blink, as if she had never doubted Darcy’s steadfastness at all.

126

CHAPTER 12

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” SAID THE MAN IN THE BLACK

sedan.

I scrambled away from him, across the sidewalk and onto the

Andersons’ lawn. My heart was pounding and the world felt sharp

and real.

“What am I doing?” I yelled. “You’re the one stalking my house!”

“Your house?” He glanced up at the stitches in my forehead.

“You’re Elizabeth Scofield, aren’t you?”

“I’m the person who’s calling the police unless you get the hell

out of here!” My hand went to my pocket, where there was no

phone.

“No need, Miss Scofield.” He reached into his jacket and pulled

out a large wallet, which he flipped open to reveal a badge and

photo ID. “Agent Elian Reyes, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

I stared at his ID, then at him again. It definitely was his picture, SCOTT WESTERFELD

nerdy glasses and all, and the badge looked very real. A metal eagle splayed its wings across the top, fiery gold in the bright sun of the living world.

Agent Reyes flipped the badge case shut and opened his car

door. But he paused a moment, waiting for my approval before

stepping out onto the sidewalk.

I nodded, but took another half step backward.

“Sorry to upset you, Miss Scofield.” He pocketed the wallet as

he stood, then leaned back against his car, arms crossed. “It wasn’t my objective to frighten anyone.”

“Then why the hell are you stalking my house?”

He paused a moment, drumming his fingers on his arms. “I’m

authorized to tell you why I’m here, to avoid any misunderstanding.

It’s because of the attention you’ve received since the attack.”

“Right. But there aren’t any reporters here.”

“There were, but they gave up yesterday. That was smart, taking

your time getting back from Dallas.”

“Uh, thanks.” I wondered if Mom had thought that part

through.

“But I’m not here to protect you from reporters.” His voice

dropped a little. “My agent in charge is concerned about the group who committed the attack.”

I kept my breathing steady. “But they’re all dead.”

“The attackers are, but they were members of a larger cult.” He

paused again, as if wondering whether to continue.

“Please tell me what’s going on, Agent Reyes.”

“You’re only seventeen.”

“Old enough to sneak up on FBI agents, apparently.”

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All I got for that remark was a raised eyebrow, and then the

words, “Perhaps I should talk to your mother.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that. My mother scares easy. Like, she’s

afraid of cars on highways.”

“That must make driving interesting.”

“You have no idea.” I took a step toward him. “Just tell me

what’s going on, Agent Reyes. I survived machine guns this week. I can probably handle whatever you have to say.”

He glanced back at my house, then sighed. “Fair enough. The

gunmen belonged to an organization called the Movement for the

Resurrection, which has an Armageddon mentality, an isolationist

dogma, and a charismatic leader. In other words, all characteristic of a destructive cult—what is sometimes called a death cult.”

“Crap,” I said. “But everyone says those four guys did it on their own.”

“That’s what the cult leaders say. But we’re still looking at the

group as a whole.” He raised his hands. “Not that you should be

concerned. It’s just that you’ve been on the news a lot.”

“As a symbol of hope,” I said softly.

“Yes, Miss Scofield. A symbol of life, even.”

“And they’re a death cult.” I let out a slow sigh. “Crap. I hate

death cults.”

“I also dislike them. But, again, this is purely precautionary.”

He turned to glance at my house again, as he’d done every thirty

seconds or so while we’d been talking, even though I was standing

right in front of him. My mother was still inside, of course.

That thought, that as we stood here he was still doing his job,

calmed me a little.

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“Thank you,” I said.

“It was only fair to tell you.” He nodded, a firm little motion of his chin.

“No, I mean thank you for doing this.” My gaze dropped to his

beautifully shined shoes, and I suddenly wished I wasn’t barefoot.

“For protecting people.”

My mind went back to the airport. The TSA agents there, the guys

my dad always complains about when they search his luggage, had

fought back against the attackers, pistols against machine guns . . .

“You’re very kind, Miss Scofield,” Agent Reyes said. “But rest

assured that the Movement will be under surveillance for the fore-

seeable future. There’s no reason for you to be scared.”

“I’m not.” I had powers now, after all, and I’d walked on the

flipside. Some of my best friends were ghosts.

Not that Mindy was anywhere in sight. Had she vaporized in a

fit of fear? Or just run off?

“I should go. My mom’s waiting. Thanks for not telling her.”

“That’s your call.” Agent Reyes reached into his jacket and

pulled out a business card. “But if you change your mind, I’m

happy to explain everything.” With a hint of a smile, he added,

“Hopefully not in a scary way.”

“Okay. Maybe.” I looked down at the card. “‘Special Agent

Elian Reyes’? You didn’t say you were a special agent.”

He gave me a shrug as he got back into his car. “Little-known

fact about the FBI: We’re all special agents.”

He didn’t sound like he was kidding, but I had to laugh. Then

I felt dorky, and waved as I turned and walked away, trying not to consider the fact that his glasses were kind of cute.

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* * *

Mindy wasn’t in the back lane, or in the backyard. She wasn’t going to be much help if I ever got in trouble in the afterworld, I realized. Not that it was fair to blame her for running away. Whatever year she’d been born in, she was basically an eleven-year-old.

“Lizzie?” My mom stood in the back doorway, rubbing her

hands on a dish towel. “Where’d you go?”

“Oh, sorry.” I looked over my shoulder. “I was just looking

around.”

“For what?”

I shrugged, and squeezed past her into the house. Mindy wasn’t

in the kitchen either.

On the kitchen counter was a pile of dough, stained black with

squid ink. It had my mother’s handprints in it, and the uneven look of dough that wants more kneading. I went to the sink to wash my hands.

“Are you okay?” my mother said.

“I’m fine. I just wanted some fresh air.” If Mom demanded a

better excuse than that, I could always hand over Special Agent

Reyes’s business card and let him explain.

But all she said was, “Okay.”

We split the dough in two and stood there awhile, kneading it

to an even consistency. It felt good to have something squishing

between my fingers, something pungent and fishy-smelling and

undeniably corporeal.

I wondered where Mindy had run off to. Was she hiding in the

house? Or was there some deeper level of reality that she could go to? Somewhere farther down than the flipside, where I couldn’t see her at all?

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Both she and Yamaraj had mentioned “the underworld,” wher-

ever that was.

My mother was staring at me, and I realized that she expected

to hear more about my little wander outside.

So I changed the subject. “Did you ever have a dog?”

My mother’s hands stopped moving. “When I was little, yeah.

Do you want to get one?”

“Nine months before I go to college? That would be kind of

random.”

“Right, but maybe you’d feel safer with a dog around.” She

glanced out the open kitchen door, like she thought I’d been checking the backyard for terrorists.

“I feel totally safe, Mom. I was just wondering. You don’t talk

much about when you were little.”

“I guess not.” She stopped kneading again. “Where’s this com-

ing from?”

“Nowhere.” That wasn’t true, but I could hardly say it had

come from the ghost of her best friend, who’d been murdered, the

one she’d never mentioned. “I guess I’m asking . . . did you ever go through anything like this?”

“Like a terrorist attack?” Her eyes went wide. “Jesus, kiddo. You

know they’re really rare, right? A lot more people get hit by lightning than killed by terrorists.”

She looked fragile saying that, so I smiled and reached out to

take her hand. “Lightning? Good. That means I’ve had my lifetime

quota.”

We combined the two masses of dough and began to work

together, standing shoulder to shoulder, our palms turning gray.

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Squid ink takes a couple of days to fade completely from my skin,

which always fascinated me.

This time it was extra weird seeing my hands turn gray, as if

the flipside were breaking through into reality. Of course, Yamaraj and I looked normal in the afterworld, while everyone else, living or dead, was gray.

We psychopomps were special.

As we worked the dough, I realized that I’d told my mother

the truth—I wasn’t scared of the Movement of the Resurrection, or whatever they were called. What had Special Agent Reyes said

about their “isolationist dogma”? That probably just meant they

lived in the mountains with crappy toilets. They were small people with a small worldview, and I was learning how to enter a whole

new reality. Forget them.

At the moment I was more worried about Mindy. I wondered

again why my mother had never told me about her.

“What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you, Mom?”

“The worst thing?” She drew in a long breath, dusting off her

hands, then opened the big utensil drawer and began to rummage.

“I suppose when your father told me that all our years together had been a waste of his time.”

“Oh, right. Of course, sorry.” I stopped kneading to give her

a floury hug. “But I meant when you were young. Like, the most

traumatic thing that ever happened to you.”

She pulled out a rolling pin and turned it slowly against the

palm of her left hand. “Maybe now’s not the time.”

“I think now pretty much is the time, Mom. Help me process this.”

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“But I don’t want to scare you.”

It was all I could do not to laugh at her then. Not to be mean,

but because it was so funny. “Mom, the stuff that’s going to scare me this week already happened. And I survived, so please tell me.”

She looked at me closely for a moment, as if I had changed into

something she didn’t quite recognize. But, like Agent Reyes had, in the end she told me.

“It was when I was eleven.”

I nodded to encourage her to keep going, and because I’d

known that much already.

“My best friend,” she said softly, “a little girl who lived across the street. She was abducted.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She was driving across the country on a trip with her par-

ents, and they were at one of those big rest stops . . . and she just disappeared.”

I stared at her, trying to keep track of all the things that were

becoming clear at once. My mother’s fear of highways. How ner-

vous she’d always been about letting me play outside. “Did they

ever find out who did it?”

She shook her head. “No, but they found her a few weeks later,

and that was the scariest part.”

“What was?”

“Mindy had been buried . . . in her own backyard. So whoever

it was knew where she lived, maybe even knew her family. Even though she’d disappeared hundreds of miles away. That’s why

my parents moved down here. They couldn’t live on that street

anymore.”

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A shudder went through me, and I felt the cold place inside

growing around my heart, like when I’d placed my hand in

Mindy’s. The taste of metal slivered across my tongue, and for a

moment I thought I would cross over to the flipside, right there in front of my mother.

“Crap,” I said, hugging myself with floury arms.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lizzie.” Mom’s eyes were wide. “I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not.” I breathed hard, gathering deep lungfuls of

the air of the living world. “You had to tell me. We both went

through something bad. I needed you to tell me.”

“Kiddo, you didn’t need that horrible story. Not right now.”

Her hand reached out, her fingertips almost touching the teardrop

scar on my cheek.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.” I turned and washed my hands. “Just give

me a minute. That’s all.”

I hugged her again, hard enough that a ghostly mist of flour

filled the air around us, and then walked toward my bedroom.

“Just a minute,” I said, and shut the door behind me.

My heart was beating hard, life pushing back the cold inside

me. I touched my lips where Yamaraj had kissed me in the airport,

and felt his heat there. I wasn’t going to cross over. It had just been a passing chill from my mother’s story. From Mindy’s story.

I looked around the room.

“Are you here?” I whispered.

There was no answer, but suddenly I knew where she was.

I stepped back out into the kitchen and gave my mother a

happy smile. “Turns out I just needed to pee.”

I went past her and down the hall to the other side of the house,

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pausing in the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Then I

went a little farther, into my mother’s bedroom.

Her overnight bag lay open on the bed, still half full of clothes.

That was weird. My mother usually unpacked everything the

moment she got home. There was more mess than usual, clothes

strewn on the floor and draped across the back of her dresser chair.

And there beside Mom’s bed was a framed photo of her and

her parents, posing on the front lawn of a northern California

bungalow with a wide front porch. She looked about Mindy’s age,

and had the same long pigtails. The picture was familiar to me,

something Mom always kept on her dresser, but I’d never thought

much about it.

I crossed the soft carpet and opened the door of her closet.

It was dark inside, only the glimmer of shined shoes and dry

cleaner’s plastic catching the light from the bedroom windows.

When I was little, I’d always been afraid of closets. But now I

could see the appeal of a private, cozy place to call your own.

I knelt on the carpet, keeping my voice low. “Don’t be scared.

It’s just me.”

There was no response.

“I talked to that man, and he wasn’t scary. He’s an agent from

the FBI, a special agent. He’s here to make sure we’re safe.”

Still nothing.

“So everything’s okay,” I whispered. “But I get why you’re

scared. My mom told me what happened to you, back when she

was little.”

I heard a tiny intake of breath, and a moment later she spoke.

“I told you she remembered me.”

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“She does. Like it was yesterday.”

“Does it still make her sad?”

“Of course it does.” There was no answer, so I added, “But

that’s not your fault, Mindy.”

“No. It’s the bad man’s fault. He messed up everything. My

mom and dad. My friends. Me.” She sighed. “Max was the only one

who got away, because he’d been put to sleep already. He had dog

cancer.”

“That’s sad too.” I swallowed. “But the bad man can’t hurt you

anymore. You know that, right?”

“I guess not,” Mindy said, and her form began to emerge from

among the shadows. She slipped out through the hanging dresses,

which remained undisturbed by her passage.

“Do you want to come and watch us cook dinner?” I asked.

She looked at me, tears glistening in her eyes. “Are you sure? I

don’t want to bother you.”

“It’ll be fine. Just remember we can’t talk to each other.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Mindy said, then held out her hand.

I took it without thinking, but when the cool and distant tingle

fluttered across my palm, I realized what she was doing.

“I can’t cross over right now,” I said. “My mom’s waiting.”

“Just for a second?” she asked, and I tasted metal on my tongue,

and felt the floor falling away from me. The sunlight spilling into the bedroom turned hard and mean. “Please?”

I nodded and clutched Mindy’s hand harder, and a moment

later the world was colorless.

“Thank you,” she said, gathering me into a hug. She felt small

and cold, shivering like a little kid who’d just climbed out of a

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swimming pool. I was still kneeling, and her head rested on my

shoulder.

“It’s okay, Mindy,” I said softly, and she hugged tighter. “The

bad man can’t hurt you now.”

She pulled away, her hands still in mine, her eyes wide and glis-

tening. “But what about when he dies, Lizzie?”

“When he dies . . .”

“Then he’ll be a ghost too. And maybe he still remembers me.

What if he can find me, even in the closet?”

I shook my head. My heart was thumping in my chest, and

without Mindy pressed against me, the world began to shift again.

“I won’t let him touch you.” The gray was fading from the room.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She smiled, which squeezed a single tear from her eye. I reached

out, still enough of me on the flipside that I could feel it for a moment, wet against my fingertip.

I brushed her tear away, and then we were in different worlds

again.

138

CHAPTER 13

“AND IT HAS THESE AMAZING WINDOWS,” DARCY SAID. “YOU

can see the rooftops of Chinatown. It’s perfect.”

Aunt Lalana smiled. “It sounds like an exciting place to live.”

“I can’t wait to move in.” As Darcy took a bite from her burger,

she felt a guilty trickle of juice run down her left wrist. She’d

ordered without thinking. “Um, you don’t mind that I’m eating a

cow, do you?”

A laugh came from Lalana. “Darcy, I was there at dinner when

you announced you were becoming a carnivore. You were, what,

thirteen?”

“Right, but it still feels rude. Especially since I’m asking you for a huge favor.”

They were in a café in the West Village, near Lalana’s apart-

ment, which was small and prim and elegant, like Lalana herself.

She was as coordinated as always today, wearing a blue collared

SCOTT WESTERFELD

shirt under a bright yellow jacket, one dangling earring in each

color.

“It’s not your diet I’m worried about, Darcy. It’s your rent.”

Lalana glanced at the lease, which lay on the table between them.

The offending number was there on the first page. “Isn’t it a little expensive?”

“It’s more than I wanted to spend, but it’s the perfect place to

write.”

“So that’s why it’s so much. Good writing vibes. Of course.”

“My writer friend Imogen looked at it with me, and she agreed.”

Darcy imagined Nisha rolling her eyes at this conversation, and

making up new rules about saying “my writer friend.” “If it’s a good place to work, it’ll pay for itself.”

“I suppose those publishers are giving you an awful lot of money.

No offense, Darcy, but sometimes I can’t quite believe it.”

“Me either,” Darcy said with a shrug. “My agent says it was the

first chapter. She says the buyers from the big chains only have time to read one chapter. So if a book’s got a killer opening and an awesome cover, it’ll be in all the stores.”

Lalana looked dubious. “But the people who buy it, don’t they

read all those other chapters? Shouldn’t the rest be good too?”

Darcy felt a twist in her stomach, as she did every time she

thought of a stranger (or thousands of strangers) reading her novel.

But she put on a smile. “Are you saying my book sucks?”

Lalana laughed. “How can I tell? You won’t let us see it.”

Darcy didn’t answer. Of the family, only Nisha had been

allowed to read Afterworlds, and she was sworn to secrecy.

After all, Annika Patel had never told her daughters about her

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murdered childhood friend. So in return, Darcy had never told her

mother about discovering the story. Instead, she’d directed all her questions into her writing.

But it still felt strange to have borrowed her mother’s childhood

tragedy as a plot device.

“Like I keep saying, you can all read it once it’s officially pub-

lished. I just want you guys to see it as a real novel, not just some story by, like, me.”

“I can’t wait to read it, Darcy, and I’m sure you’ll write many

more.” Lalana’s eyes fell to the lease again. “But don’t you want to have some of your advance left over?”

“The important thing right now isn’t saving money. It’s making

my books as good as I can.”

Lalana finally gave up, laughing. “You’re just like your mother.

Nothing in half measures, always so certain of herself.”

Darcy wasn’t sure what to make of this compliment, if that’s

what it was. Lalana was the glamorous sister, the one who lived in New York, had a job in fashion and a revolving cast of handsome

boyfriends. To Darcy and Nisha, she was the more driven, the one

who’d always done what she wanted.

Which was why she was the perfect choice to ask for this favor.

“I’m certain about some things,” Darcy said. “Writing, and

New York, and this apartment.”

“I know you are. But certainty has a slippery side. You’re sure I

won’t get in trouble if I cosign this lease?”

“Of course not. Paradox owes me a hundred grand, any day

now. It’s just that the building management company doesn’t

believe some eighteen-year-old is getting paid that much.”

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Her aunt laughed a little. “Listen to you: ‘a hundred grand,’ like a gangster.”

“Sorry. That’s the way Nisha always says it.”

“I’m not worried about the money, Darcy. What I meant was,

will I get in trouble with your parents? Why aren’t they cosigning?”

“There’s no time to get the lease to them. Other people want the

apartment, like, yesterday.” Darcy took another bite, which muffled her next words. “But yeah, they might freak out about the price. A little.”

“More than a little.” Lalana neatly speared a chickpea with her

fork. “And if I’m the cosigner, Annika will blame me if you starve to death.”

“Nisha says I’ll have enough money.”

“She does?” Lalana cocked an eyebrow. When it came to practi-

cal math, Nisha’s word was gold. Even their engineer father had her check the family tax returns.

“Her budget says I’ve got seventeen dollars a day after rent.”

Darcy looked down at her burger, which would cost at least that

much after tip and tax. “That means I’ll be eating less meat. That’s good, right?”

Lalana shook her head. “It takes more than food to cook, Darcy.

Do you own any dishes? Any pots and pans?”

“Um . . .”

“Or anything to clean your house with? A mop? A broom?

Rubber gloves?”

Darcy laughed at the thought of herself wearing rubber gloves.

But it was true that she didn’t have any of those things. Not a single scouring pad or frying pan.

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“And what about chairs? A desk to write on? Pens and paper?”

“Nisha left room for start-up costs in my budget. Like furniture

and . . . mops.”

That last word came out flat. A mop seemed like such an

uninspiring thing to buy. Darcy had only ever spent money on

things she really wanted—clothes, food, music, beer, and books.

But lately she’d started to realize how many boring things people owned—curtains, wastebaskets, laundry detergent, lightbulbs,

extension cords, notepads, pillowcases. When she’d gone back

to pick up the lease and take one last look, apartment 4E had

contained nothing but dust bunnies and one old telephone wire

sticking out of the wall.

It was so empty, so ready to be filled with stories.

“I only need a desk, a chair, and a laptop,” she said.

“And cooking stuff. You love food.”

Darcy couldn’t argue. She and Lalana had spent the morning

in Little Italy, where the store shelves glittered with shiny metal kitchen gadgets—pasta makers and coffee machines and pizza cutters—that seemed almost edible themselves. In one shop, wheels of

cheese had been stacked from floor to ceiling, each as big as a car tire. The ones on the bottom had looked shinier, and when Darcy

knelt to investigate, she realized that the combined weight of all the other cheese wheels was pressing down on them, squeezing out a

glistening patina of oil. The store had smelled like heaven, as if all that cheese were leaking into the air.

But the wheels were five hundred dollars each. Or, as Darcy

now had to think of it, a month’s allowance.

“Of course, everyone has to learn to live on a budget some-

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time,” Lalana was arguing with herself. “Might as well be now,

before you go to college.”

Darcy nodded in agreement, but something must have shown

on her face.

Lalana looked closer. “Darcy. You are going to college once your second book gets written, right?”

“Um . . . sure,” Darcy said. If her parents had been here, even

that pause would have been fatal. “But that’s more than a year from now. It all depends on how my career is going.”

Her voice faltered a little on the word “career,” which she felt silly saying, like a kid playing dress-up again. She’d worn her black silk T-shirt for Aunt Lalana, but her jeans were threadbare in the knees.

“Well, then,” Lalana sighed. “I suppose it’s my auntly duty to

sign. I wouldn’t want you in any other apartment.”

“Thank you!” Darcy cried, then frowned. “Wait . . . why

exactly?”

Lalana produced a tiny silver pen from her handbag. “Paying

this rent, you won’t be able to stay in the city forever.”

“Oh.” It was true, every dollar Darcy spent brought closer the

day when she would have to leave New York and go away to col-

lege. But if all she’d wanted was to write as long as possible, she could have stayed at home, or lived in a cardboard box somewhere.

The point was to be a writer forever. And apartment 4E was as

essential as New York City itself to what Darcy wanted to become.

Aunt Lalana’s pen hovered above the paper. “But if I sign this,

you have to promise me two things, Darcy.”

“Sure. Anything.”

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“Don’t let yourself be distracted by the city. Get your writing

done.”

“Of course. That’s all I want!”

“And don’t keep secrets from me, even if you leave your parents

out of certain things. I want updates, understand?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Darcy promised, though Aunt Lalana

was already applying her wide, looping signature to the document.

“There.” The pen smacked against the table and Lalana lifted

her glass of iced chai. “You have an apartment now. And it’s all my fault.”

Darcy felt a smile growing on her face, though at the same time

the floor of the cafe seemed to tip dizzily beneath them. Apartment 4E was real.

Now nothing could go wrong.

“Now that we have a deal,” Lalana said. “What’s the first thing you haven’t told your parents. Any boys you have a crush on?”

“You said no distractions! And I’m all about the writing.” Darcy

laughed. “But there is one thing, kind of. And you really can’t tell my parents.”

Lalana didn’t promise, just waited.

“I missed the deferral deadline for Oberlin. It was first of June.”

“Are you kidding, Darcy?”

“I didn’t realize, and it was really hard to find on their website.”

Darcy didn’t add that she hadn’t looked until a week ago, which

had already been too late. “But it’s okay. I just have to apply again next year.”

“This is not okay.”

Darcy held up her hands. “I can use the same SAT scores, and

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I’ll whip up a whole new essay about writing novels in New York.

Do you really think they won’t want me anymore?”

Aunt Lalana turned her face to the window, then gave Darcy

a sideways look. “I suppose any college would be glad to have a

young novelist. But your parents aren’t around to hold your hand

anymore. You have to start being more responsible.”

“I will. Starting now.” Darcy raised her own glass. “Thanks for

trusting me. I promise not to mess up again.”

“I’m sure you’ll surprise us all,” Lalana said. “One way or

another.”

As their glasses clinked, Darcy wondered what exactly that meant.

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CHAPTER 14

“YOU CAN SEE GHOST BUILDINGS EASIER IN A VACANT LOT,”

Mindy said. “And at night.”

“Because it’s dark?”

“No. Because there’s not as many livers around.”

I hunched my shoulders against the cold. “Is that really a thing?

Calling us ‘livers’? Because that sounds like chicken livers.”

“Have you got a better word?” Mindy asked.

“Um . . . how about people?”

“Ghosts are people too.”

“Okay,” I said. “But dead people have their own word—‘ghosts.’

People who are alive are just people.”

“You’re being a bigot.”

“Excuse me for living.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d made that joke, and her only response was to make a grumbly noise. A jogger was headed toward us from

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half a block away, and Mindy knew I didn’t like her to talk unless we were alone.

The jogger huffed past with a little nod to me. It was past mid-

night, and we were at least a mile from my house. Normally a pass-

ing stranger would’ve given me a flutter of nerves, but nothing was normal anymore.

If anything, I was the one spreading jitters, dressed all in black, my hood up, hands deep in my pockets. It was the coldest night

all winter, and steam curled from my mouth when I talked to my

invisible friend.

“What was this place when it was . . . alive?”

“A school. It got torn down right after we moved here. Now

it’s a vacant lot full of broken trucks and rusty school buses. Like that box in Anna’s closet where she throws stuff and forgets about it.” Mindy came to a halt. “But a lot of livers must remember this school.”

She was staring at the high fence that stretched along the oppo-

site side of the street. Its chicken-wire pattern caught the streetlights, and a makeshift barrier of wooden planks leaned against the metal from the other side. Glittering thorns spiraled along the top.

“Do you see it?” Mindy asked.

“What? That shit-ton of razor wire I’m going to have to climb

over?”

“No, behind that. Behind everything.”

I squinted into the darkness, but couldn’t see anything except

the rusty yellow tops of school buses. “Sorry.”

“Here.” She took my hand, and a trickle of death traveled up my

arm. Over the past week I’d gotten used to crossing over, sometimes 148

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managing it without Mindy’s touch. But there was always a shiver

of reluctance just before, as if I were about to dive into cold water.

Something inside me didn’t want to cross over. My body knew the

scent of death.

But I needed to practice using my powers, which meant getting

over the whole death-is-scary thing.

I hadn’t called Yamaraj again. I didn’t want to be some floun-

dering girl, needing him to show me the ropes. I wanted to demon-

strate that he didn’t have to be afraid for me, that I belonged in his world, even if I didn’t know what to call myself yet. “Soul guide”

sounded too wimpy. “Psychopomp” too psycho. “Reaper” too grim.

I was still looking for something better.

As I crossed over, the moonlight shuddered around us, and the

taste of metal filled the air. The sky above went from velvet black to flat gray dotted with red stars. Mindy’s hand grew solid in mine.

“See it now?”

I nodded, still breathing hard. Rising up behind the fence was a

terra-cotta roof against the gray sky. The building was much smaller than my high school a mile up the road. Parts of the roofline were sharp and clear, but other sections had faded into translucence, like old paint wearing away.

A ghost building.

Mindy had explained that a lot of things had ghosts, not just

people. Animals, machines, even things as vast as a paved-over forest or as humble as the smell of good cooking could leave traces of themselves behind. The world was haunted by the past.

“Come on.” I headed across the street. As we drew closer, the

fence grew fainter, almost transparent. It hadn’t stood there in the 149

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old days, I guess, so it was only a ghostly presence here on the flipside. I walked up to the chicken wire and reached out. . . . My fingers passed through, then dipped into the wood behind.

“Sweet,” I said.

This was my first time using the flipside to pass through some-

thing solid, at least since Yamaraj had led me through the metal

gate at the airport. Mindy ran by me like it was nothing, straight through the fence and across the school grounds. The school buses

and city trucks, parked so tight they were almost touching, offered no resistance to her.

As I followed, the fence tugged at me, like a thornbush catch-

ing my clothing. But then I was on the other side, the school yard growing clearer before me, the buses and trucks fading.

It was like going back in time. The parking lot was tiny—I guess

kids didn’t drive themselves to school back then—and there were

no white lines, just hand-painted signs for a few teachers’ spaces.

The ghost playground looked dangerous, with its ten-foot-high

jungle gym over hard asphalt. Mindy climbed to the top, hooked

her knees over the highest bar, and hung there, upside down and

facing me.

The building itself looked more like a mansion than a school,

with its tiled roof, stucco walls, and long front porch. The windows just looked wrong. They were empty rectangles, black pits that

didn’t reflect the streetlights.

“Are there ghosts in there?” I asked.

Mindy swung her arms, her pigtails swaying. “Might be.”

“Isn’t that the point of ghost buildings? For ghosts to live in?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She reached up to grab the bar, unhooked

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her knees, and swung down to land on her feet. “Ghosts live in

normal places.”

“Like my mom’s closet?”

“Closets are nice.” Mindy stared at the school in silence for

a moment. “But a lot of ghost buildings aren’t. I don’t go inside

them.”

“You don’t have to come with me.” I took a slow breath, tast-

ing rust in the air. The ghost building shimmered before me, as if uncertain of its own existence. “But I need to know how this flipside stuff works.”

“It’s okay.” She took my hand and pulled me forward. “I’m not

scared with you here. Just don’t leave me in there.”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

As we got closer, the school grew less shimmery. The front

steps felt solid beneath my feet, and I knelt to place one palm flat against the painted concrete. It felt cold, just like stone on a cool night.

“It’s so real,” I said.

Mindy had stopped, unwilling to venture ahead without me.

“That means everyone remembers this place. Maybe something

bad happened here.”

“Or maybe everyone totally loved it.” I rose to my feet and climbed the stairs. “Whoa. How am I going up like this? I mean,

these steps aren’t here anymore. So does that mean I’m levitating?”

“The steps are here,” Mindy said. “But the flipside is a here that livers don’t see, except for pomps like you.”

I sighed. “Pretty much every word of that answer was annoying.”

“Well, maybe you’re asking annoying questions!”

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I bit back my reply. Mindy was gradually becoming my friend,

even if she was a little odd. She was helping me learn about the

afterworld, so I wouldn’t be as clueless the next time Yamaraj and I met.

I still hadn’t told Mindy about him, though. No point in scaring

her off.

“Sorry,” I said as we climbed the stairs. “I’m just nervous. Never been in a ghost building before.”

“But you’re a pomp! Ghosts should be afraid of you.”

I smiled down at her and stood straighter, trying to conjure up

some psychopompish bluster.

The front doors of the school were already open, as if welcom-

ing us in. Locker-lined hallways stretched out, empty and dark,

and a hand-painted sign pointed the way to the main office. There

were no posters on the walls, no loose papers on the floor, not even dust in the air, as if the transient details had been worn away by time. But the murmur of children’s voices lingered at the edge of

my awareness.

“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 some-

thing, it never completely disappears.”

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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 dif-

ference, 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 153

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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 to run and make

it 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.

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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 swerv-

ing 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 curv-

ing 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.”

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“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

spray 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 acci-

dents to distract me.

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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 some-

thing 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 bedspread with one finger,

not much happier. “I don’t know.”

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

Mindy only shrugged.

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“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.

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“Sleep tight, Lizzie,” she whispered.

“Thanks for taking me to ghost school.”

She giggled, and we were silent for a while, my brain search-

ing 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!”

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“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.

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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 over-

cast sky.

Darcy stared at her phone. Imogen had promised to arrive at six

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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 housewarm-

ing 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 ask-

ing 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.

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“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 trau-

matized?”

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

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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 driven up from Philly, along with a chair, some linens, and a

few dozen indispensable books, which were now in the second bed-

room 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 thought-

fully. “Did you know Stanley David Anderson was in town?”

“Really? For an appearance?”

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“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.

Darcy found herself poised between worry for Imogen and a

sense of betrayal that she still wasn’t here.

“I admire your monklike simplicity,” Johari was saying. “A

room for sleeping, one for books and clothes, one for food, and the biggest one for writing.”

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“Are you going to keep it like this?” Oscar asked. “Au naturel?”

“You mean empty?” Darcy shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not exactly

a design choice. More of a money thing.”

“Ah, yes,” Oscar said. “I was a rent slave before I moved out to

Hoboken. Had the best view of the Chrysler Building, but I had to

suck my sheets for food.”

“Enough about your personal life, Oscar.” Johari patted his

shoulder and asked Darcy, “How’s your writing adjusting to a new

space?”

“I haven’t really tried yet.” Nan’s editorial letter still hadn’t

arrived, making revisions impossible to begin, and the thought

of starting on Untitled Patel without guidance was too terrifying.

“Should I be worried?”

“Writing fairies can get grumpy in a new house,” Johari said.

“Like cats. Mine pissed on the pillows every night for a week after I moved up to New York.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Your writing fairies pissed on your

pillows?”

Johari ignored him. “I’d be worried about those mirrors. I

couldn’t write a single word if I had to watch myself at it.”

Darcy turned to the mirrored wall and regarded the three of

them. Oscar and Johari both towered over her, making Darcy in her

blue sundress look very young.

“Those are left over from when it was a dance studio. But if I

take them down, it’ll be nothing but white.”

“Like every other apartment in New York,” Johari said sadly.

“I know!” Darcy said. Back in Philly, the rooms of her parents’

house each had a signature color—pale yellow for the kitchen, for-

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est green in the dining area, and dark purple for Nisha’s bedroom

walls, a leftover from her twelve-year-old goth phase. “What is it with all the white up here?”

“It’s gallery space,” Oscar said. “Neutral background for all the

artists at work.”

“Pfft,” Johari said. “It’s boring.”

“I was in the hardware store yesterday,” Darcy said. “And they

had a whole section of white paints. But instead of ‘white,’ they all had names like Linen, Chalk, and Washed Rice.”

Oscar laughed. “My walls are Dover, I think.”

“Picket Fence,” Johari admitted.

“Maybe I’ll keep the mirrors,” Darcy said.

“Good heavens! Are we all staring at ourselves?” It was Kiralee

Taylor, whom Darcy hadn’t seen come in. Other people were work-

ing the intercom now, and even giving tours of the apartment to

new arrivals. Moxie was making drinks, and Rhea collecting money

for more beer and ice. The party had found its own momentum, its

own heartbeat.

“Thanks for coming, Kiralee,” Darcy said. They kissed each

other’s cheeks, like old friends.

“Lovely apartment. And what a handy wall of mirrors!”

“Dancers left it here,” Darcy said. “Johari thinks my reflection

will keep me from writing.”

“One’s own face is rarely as distracting as the internet,” Kiralee said. “And you seem the industrious sort.”

Darcy smiled at the compliment, but a tremor of nerves passed

through her. Imogen had forwarded the first draft of Afterworlds to Kiralee two weeks ago. Enough time for her to have read it by now.

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Darcy searched for some clue in the older woman’s expression

as to whether she had loved or hated it, or even started it at all. Was

“industrious” some sort of damning faint praise?

“That said, I spent all day worrying about my face.” Kiralee

turned to the mirrors to adjust her tie, a pulvinate double Windsor.

“Bloody photo shoot this afternoon.”

“Ah, I hate authors’ photos,” Johari said. “I don’t see why my

looks are relevant to the story!”

“Indeed.” Kiralee checked out her profile in the mirror. “I liked

my old photo, but it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Or, rather, I am.”

“And you are touching your face in it,” Oscar said.

Kiralee punched him, and Darcy looked at them questioningly.

“Beware, my dear.” Johari’s arm encircled Darcy. “When you get

your author’s photo taken, be sure not to touch your face.”

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s a mystery, but quite common. You must have seen this

one.” Oscar struck a brooding pose, his fist beneath his chin. “For the author whose brain is too heavy to stay up on its own.”

“Friend of mine got stuck with one of these for a whole trilogy.”

Johari stroked her cheek thoughtfully. “Like he was coming up with amazing ideas right in front of the photographer!”

“Yikes.” Darcy turned to Kiralee. “You did that?”

“No, I went for the dreaded temple massage. It was a long time

ago, and I had no wise elders to save me.”

Darcy tried to recall the back of Bunyip. “But I totally had a crush on that picture. You look so smart in it.”

“I look like a TV psychic.”

Darcy glanced across the room at Nan and Rhea. “Paradox

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won’t make me get an author’s photo, will they? I mean, lots of

books don’t have them.”

“Pretty young thing like you?” Johari shook her head. “I should

think it’s unavoidable.”

Darcy stared at herself in the mirror again, a familiar vulnerable feeling descending on her. Not only would her words be duplicated

thousands of times for everyone to weigh and judge and complain

about, but also her face.

She could see why it would be tempting to sneak a hand into the

frame, just for a bit of protection.

Her phone pinged, and Darcy glanced down at it—Imogen.

“Pardon me, guys.” She spun away and crossed to an empty cor-

ner, raising the phone to her ear. “Where the hell are you, Gen?”

“I’m on your roof.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone buzzed me in, and I need to talk to you alone for a

second. Come up.”

“Um, my party . . . ,” Darcy began, but as her eyes swept across

the room, she saw Johari drawing Kiralee to the window, pointing

out something below. Rhea was helping Moxie mix drinks, and

Oscar was making faces in the mirror at Max.

The party could be left alone to find its own way, and Darcy still had a confession to make before Imogen met her high school friends.

“All right,” she said. “See you in a minute.”

Darcy hadn’t been up to the roof before. But on the sixth-floor

landing she found a smaller, separate staircase leading up to a metal door that was wedged open with a piece of concrete.

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As she stepped out, the tar roof squished a little beneath her

feet, like a bouncy playground surface. It had been a hot day, and the tar was giving up its scent.

“Gen?”

“Over here.”

Imogen was sitting at the building’s edge, her legs dangling off

the side. Darcy sat next to her and leaned forward to stare down

at the street. A shimmer of vertigo traveled from her toes to her

fingertips.

“Don’t fall,” Imogen said. “I like that dress.”

“If I decide to jump, I’ll change.” The words came out a little

harshly.

“Look . . . sorry I was late.”

“Me too, Gen.” Darcy turned to her. “I spent all day shit-scared

no one would come. My friends from Philly are late, and then you

totally bailed!”

“It was a shitty thing to do.” Imogen swung her legs, staring out

at the skyline. “But I wanted to finish your book.”

Darcy blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been putting off reading it, because I really like you. But

then I realized that Oscar was here tonight and was going to ask me what I thought, and you might be standing there when I did. So I

was like, fuck it, and started reading three hours ago. But yeah, my timing kind of sucked. I would have started sooner if I hadn’t been scared to.”

“Wait. Why were you scared?”

Imogen spread her hands. “Because what if it was crap? It

would be really weird, me liking you this much if you were a shitty 170

AFTERWORLDS

writer. I mean, would you want me to tell you if I thought it sucked?

Or just politely never mention it? Because those would be your

choices. I couldn’t lie about it.”

Darcy took a slow breath. The drop into space before them sud-

denly yawned, as if the roof were tipping, trying to spill her onto the street below.

“You didn’t think I could write?”

“I had no idea. You’re awesome, but a lot of awesome people

can’t write their way out of a wet sack.”

“And . . . ?”

“And it makes things awkward! Everyone at Oscar’s parties

always talks about writing, so I’m all polite and everything, but

inside me there’s this tiny voice, like when you’re at a wedding and you know the whole thing is doomed, and you get paranoid that

when the preacher asks if anyone knows any reason why this wed-

ding shouldn’t happen, you’ll shout, ‘ Marriage of fail! ’”

“Let me try again,” Darcy said carefully. “You read my book,

and . . . ?”

“Oh.” Imogen smiled, taking Darcy’s hand. “Well, I’m late,

aren’t I?”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because I couldn’t stop. Because it was really fucking good.”

Darcy still felt dizzy. “And you wouldn’t be saying that right

now if you hated it?”

“No.” Imogen’s voice was steady, undeceptive. “If it had sucked,

I would have put it down and gotten here on time, and never men-

tioned it again.”

“And I never would have known.” A shudder went through

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Darcy, relief mixed with the rattle of fear, as if the shadow of some monstrous bird of prey had passed over her. “You know, Gen, you

could have started with the part where you liked it.”

“Not liked. Loved.” Imogen squeezed Darcy’s hand. “I love

Afterworlds.”

Darcy felt a smile prying at her annoyed expression. “Why did

you have to tell me on the roof?”

“I wanted to right away.”

“Yeah, but you could have said it down there. I mean, feel free

to make these thoughts public!”

“Even the part about liking you?”

Darcy blinked again, and for a second time said, “Wait. What?”

“I know this is a stupid way to tell you,” Imogen said, taking

both of Darcy’s hands. “But it all got tangled up today, liking

you and liking your book. So on the way over I decided to say

both.”

The roof was tipping again. “You mean . . . you like like me?”

“Yeah, a lot. Of course, it’s possible you just regular like me,

and if that’s the way it is I’m not going to storm off and stop being your friend. But you should know that I’m hot for you, and for your book, too.” Imogen was almost laughing, stumbling over her own

words now. “I’m totally hot for Afterworlds. ”

“That’s just weird.” Darcy felt a blush creeping behind her

cheeks.

“No it isn’t. Your book is smart and beautiful. I want to have

its sequels.”

Darcy laughed. “Really?”

“You take all the right stuff seriously. Like, Mindy’s backstory

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is brutally sad, and you never try to skim past it. And the way the terror of that first chapter never really fades out, Lizzie just learns to use it.”

“It’s her origin story,” Darcy said softly.

“Exactly.” Imogen took a strand of Darcy’s hair between

her fingers. Their eyes stayed locked. “And it’s not just about

the gnarly powers it gives her, it’s how other people see her dif-

ferently. Like, when anyone thinks Lizzie’s still a kid, she’s all,

‘When’s the last time you survived machine guns, dude?’ And they have to respect her.”

Darcy didn’t answer. No one had said things like this about

Afterworlds before. Those first letters of praise from Underbridge Literary and Paradox had been full of compliments, but nothing

as specific as this. Being fathomed was even better than being

flattered, it turned out. The words made her skin tingle and her

lips burn.

“I like books where magic has a cost,” Imogen went on. “The

more powerful Lizzie gets, the more she loses.” She leaned closer.

“You’ve got the juice.”

“The what?” Darcy asked.

“You don’t just write well, you tell stories.” Imogen’s voice was a whisper now. “Beautiful sentences are fine, but the juice is what makes me turn pages.”

Darcy closed her eyes. Their lips met, and she breathed in the

scent of the sun-heated tar beneath them and the salt of Imogen’s

skin. She felt the rumble of the traffic below traveling up through the building and into her spine, her fingertips, her tongue. Her

breathing slowed to match the pace of Imogen’s, steady and deep.

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Imogen’s hand moved to the back of Darcy’s neck, fingers

interlacing with hair, holding her close even after the kiss was over.

Darcy whispered, her lips brushing Imogen’s as she spoke:

“Wow. You are hot for my book.”

“Totally.”

It meant everything, but Darcy wanted more. “No criticisms?”

“Well, you know. It’s a first draft. And a first novel. And don’t

ask me if you’re hijacking Hindu gods, because I don’t have a clue.”

Darcy opened her eyes. “Okay. But what did that second one

mean?”

“About it being a first novel? Well, it might be a little bit innocent, for a book about death.”

“Innocent?” Darcy pulled back. “Is that what you think I am?”

“Good question.” Imogen drew closer, studying her. “Until ten

seconds ago, I had no idea whether you were into me or not. Are

you, like, incredibly smooth or just . . .” She blinked slowly. “Have you ever kissed a girl before?”

“I never kissed anyone before,” Darcy said in a rush, so she

wouldn’t have time to chicken out and never say it at all. “Not really.”

Imogen was silent for a moment—a little too long.

“Seriously?” she said at last.

Darcy nodded. There had been a sort of practice kiss with Carla

once during a sleepover, and an attempt at real kissing with the boy who was cocaptain of the Reading Zealots. But neither of those had counted, and this did.

“Was I okay?” Darcy asked.

“Better than okay.”

“If you hated it, would you be lying right now?”

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“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that.” A smiled curled

Imogen’s lips. “Don’t you trust me?”

Darcy had never seen anyone talk the way Imogen did about

things that mattered to her. No one could lie that fiercely, could they?

“I trust you.”

“Good.” Imogen’s eyes shone with the last band of pink in

the sky before nightfall. She leaned closer, and they were kiss-

ing again. At first Darcy’s hands clutched at the warm tar of

the rooftop for balance. Then she reached up to take Imogen’s

shoulders, to feel the muscles flexing. She drew Imogen closer,

tighter, and they stayed that way until Darcy’s phone buzzed in

her pocket.

“Sorry . . .” She pulled away, reaching for it. “My friends from

Philly might be lost.”

“Like I said, my timing sucks.”

Darcy read the message. “Crap, they’re already here! Someone

let them in and they’re down there looking for me!”

Imogen got to her feet and held out a hand. “Come on. Duty

calls.”

Darcy stood, guiltily wishing that Carla and Sagan had missed

just one more train. But it would be cruel to leave them alone in a room full of authors they idolized.

At the roof stairway, Imogen kicked the piece of concrete aside,

and the metal door slammed shut behind them. They descended

quickly, and a moment later stood before the door to 4E. The

sounds of a healthy party were leaking out into the hall.

Imogen took Darcy by the shoulders. “You okay? You look

kind of dazed.”

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Darcy was very dazed and very okay, too much of both to dis-

cuss in the hallway. Instead, she rose a little onto her toes and they kissed again.

Then she straightened herself and, still holding Imogen’s hand,

opened up the door.

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CHAPTER 16

I DRESSED QUICKLY IN JEANS AND A SWEATSHIRT, THEN CREPT

to the kitchen to get a knife.

I didn’t know if metal blades worked on ghosts, or even if the

thing in the basement was a ghost, but any weapon was better than bare hands. I chose a short, narrow knife with a fat metal handle.

Mindy was still standing on my bed, afraid to touch the floor.

Her eyes widened when she saw the knife. “We should just run

away, Lizzie.”

“And hide in my mom’s closet?” I slipped the knife into my

back pocket. “I live here, Mindy. I don’t have anywhere to run. And didn’t you say that ghosts should be afraid of me?”

“Whatever’s down there doesn’t sound very afraid, does it?”

As if in answer, the voice beneath us started up again, close enough to the floorboards that it could whisper. “Come down and play. . . .”

I shuddered, and slipped on the pair of sneakers beside my bed.

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“Please, let’s just run away,” Mindy begged.

“No. I’m going to call someone.”

She stared at me. “Who?”

“Someone I met when I started seeing ghosts. Someone I didn’t

tell you about.”

“You mean a dead person?”

I shook my head. “Someone like me.”

“A pomp?” Mindy turned away and jumped onto my desk, like

a kid playing don’t-touch-the-floor. She was headed for the bedroom door, and then my mother’s room and the safety of her closet.

“It’s okay, Mindy! He’s nice.”

She turned back to me, balanced on the dresser. “They always

say they’re nice. But then they take you away.”

I shook my head. “He saved me.”

Mindy looked at me like I was an idiot, and for a moment I

wondered why I trusted Yamaraj so much. What if he took Mindy

away from me?

But I’d seen enough horror movies to know that you didn’t

check out scary noises in the basement all alone. Especially if your house didn’t have a basement.

“Trust me.” I took a step closer and reached for her hand. “I

need to cross over to call him.”

“No way!” Mindy pulled away.

“Fine. I can do it on my own.” I took a deep breath. “Security

is responding . . .”

The thing beneath us went quiet, as if listening, and my voice

grew steadier in the silence.

“Can you get to a safe location?”

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The words made me shiver, stirring the night chill in the room.

My breathing began to slow. It was weird, saying both sides of the conversation, but I could feel the spell working.

“I can’t, and he’s shooting everyone.”

The cold became a physical thing, pushing at me from all sides.

“Well, honey,” I said softly. “Maybe you should pretend to be dead.”

As the last word left my mouth, I felt myself cross over. It hap-

pened all at once, the shadows flattening to soft grays, the bright digits of my alarm clock going flickery and dim.

But this time the air didn’t taste flat and metallic. A sugary scent, like I’d smelled out in the desert, lay heavy around me. I looked down and saw a pitch-black stain growing in the center of my floor.

It was like the ink flooding the ghost school, or the black rivers I’d seen in the desert—a pool of emptiness. It started no bigger than a spilled cup of coffee, but spread across the floor as I watched.

“Don’t let it touch you,” Mindy said.

I took a step back. “Yamaraj, I need you.”

His name suddenly sounded like “mirage,” and it seemed crazy

to expect him to hear me. He could be a thousand miles away, or a

thousand miles below . . .

But he’d come the first time I called him.

“Yamaraj, please come to me.” As I spoke his name again, heat

flickered across my lips.

The pool of nothingness was drawing closer to my feet. I

took another step away from it, and felt the wall at my back.

“What is this stuff, Mindy?”

“It’s the river,” she squeaked. “The stuff between up here and

down there.”

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The bed was close enough for me to jump to, but the blackness

had reached the toes of my sneakers, and suddenly my feet were

ice-cold. The muscles of my calves felt too weak to move.

A moment later, my sneakers were sinking into the floor.

“How do I get out of this stuff?”

Mindy was too scared to answer, and only watched with wide,

terrified eyes. I could feel the blackness creep up to my knees, as cold as winter mud. I reached out, trying to grab the edge of my

bed, but it was too far away.

The iciness crawled up my body as I sank, every inch sending

fresh waves of shudders through me. The sweet smell filled my

lungs, almost too thick to breathe.

Just as it passed my waist, the door to my bedroom opened.

It was my mother in a white nightgown. She must have heard me

arguing with Mindy before I’d crossed over.

“Lizzie?” she called softly, squinting at my empty bed.

“Mom!” I yelled, but of course she couldn’t hear me. I was on

the flipside now, hidden from her. Suddenly, being invisible wasn’t such a great superpower.

The black goo passed my shoulders.

“Yamaraj, I need you,” I cried one last time, and felt heat kindle on my lips again.

I tried to scream, hoping that my panic would pop me back into

the land of the living. But the cold ink slowed the pounding of my heart and pressed the air from my lungs. It covered my mouth, my

eyes, my ears, like liquid midnight sliding over me.

A moment later I was down in the river.

* * *

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It was cold down here, and dark.

The only sound was a low moan, a steady wind scouring a huge,

empty space. The air felt almost solid, ruffling my hair and clothes and trying to push me off my feet. But I wasn’t drowning, and at

least I was standing on something solid; my feet had settled on a

surface in the formless dark.

A glimmer of white appeared, not too far away—a man’s face.

He looked older than his voice had sounded, as old as my

grandfather, very pale with white hair. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the rest of him came into focus. He wore a long coat covered with patches, and his hands were plunged into its pockets. The hem of his coat rippled in the wind.

He was staring at me. “You’re alive.”

“No kidding.”

His hand emerged to stroke his chin, pallid fingers shining in

the darkness. His skin was pale, but not quite gray. It had a sweaty glow, like the gloss of a marble statue.

“What the hell are you doing under my bedroom?” My voice

sounded thin against the constant wind.

“I smelled a little girl.” He had the slightest accent. “Is she yours?”

“Mine?”

He raised one pale eyebrow. His eyes were colorless, almost

transparent, like those pale fish that live in ocean trenches, too deep for light to reach.

“You don’t collect?”

“Collect ghosts?”

“You must be new.” The man’s smile appeared gradually, like

something controlled by a dial. It made the basement colder.

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Then I realized that his skin glowed softly in the dark, just as

mine did.

“You’re like me,” I said. He wasn’t some monster of legend. He

was another psychopomp.

“Well spotted.” He was smirking at me. “But do you really

know what we are?”

“Yes. And I don’t collect ghosts.”

“I could teach you how,” he said, taking a step forward.

“Stay right where you are.”

He smiled again. “Do I frighten you?”

“Terrorists with machine guns frighten me. You’re just pissing

me off. I was trying to sleep.”

“My apologies.” He made a little bow. “But sleep is not some-

thing you need anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sleep is a little slice of death. And you’ve already had a big slice, haven’t you? All the cake you’ll ever need.”

“You kind of suck at metaphors,” I said.

The old man’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “English may not

be my first language, but I’m good at many other things, and I’ve

always wanted an apprentice. I can show you my tricks. All it will cost you is that little girl.”

I wanted to scream at him then, but the anger I should have

felt was missing. The cold had a firm grip on my muscles, and

the constant wind seemed to strip my emotions away.

My lips were tingling, though, a flicker of heat in all that dark.

“No thanks,” I said.

The old man’s fingers tugged at the corners of his pockets,

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which opened wider and wider. Somehow they were darker than

the basement itself, depthless and hungry.

“Don’t you want to see the things I make from ghosts?”

Finally I felt a trickle of fear, and my muscles jolted to life. I reached behind me and pulled out the knife. “Not even slightly.”

He looked disappointed. “A knife? How absurd. There’s no need

for violence, my dear. I have no interest in anyone as lively as you.”

“Then leave me and my friend alone.”

“That little ghost is not your friend. They aren’t really people,

you know.”

I didn’t want to hear this, and yet I asked, “Then what are they?”

“They’re loose threads of memory, stories that tell themselves.

And if you know how, you can weave the most beautiful things

from them.” He stroked his pockets with his palms. “Are you sure

you don’t want to see?”

The horrible things is, part of me wanted to look. Part of me

wanted to learn all the secrets of the afterworld, no matter how

terrible they were. But even listening to him felt like a betrayal of Mindy. I shook my head.

“There are lots of other tricks I can teach you. Nothing to be

squeamish about.”

“Like what?” I asked.

His smile returned. He knew that my curiosity was hooked. “How

to use a ghost’s breath to keep yourself warm here in the river. How to make the pestering ones fade. How to slice out the finest memories for yourself. You can taste the best bite of birthday cake your little friend up there ever had. Or feel what it was like to listen to her favorite bedtime story, all snuggled up in warm covers.”

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“Are you serious? Those are your nonsqueamish tricks?”

“I’m as serious as death.” He took another step toward me.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, girl.”

My hand tightened on the knife handle. Its metal flashed in the

darkness. “Stay away from me.”

“I’m offering you wonders.” He was still drifting toward me.

“Don’t insult me in return.”

“Stay away from me!” I took a step backward, and something cold and damp brushed against my spine, like wet leaves.

“What’s that behind you?” asked the old man very gently.

I wanted to turn around, but I was frozen, my fingers tight

around the knife handle. A breath of a whisper played across the

back of my neck, as if the wind had spoken.

But then something shifted in the air, the darkness growing

warm around us. My tingling lips began to burn, and whatever had

been behind me was suddenly gone.

I smiled and let the knife slide back into my pocket. “You’d bet-

ter go. My friend is coming.”

“Your little friend?” The old man looked up greedily, smooth-

ing his pockets with pale hands.

“This one’s too old for you.”

The man’s smile faded.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “I thought you liked cryptic

bullshit.”

“You’re becoming annoying, my dear.”

“Annoying? Like being woken up in the middle of the night?”

My anger was bubbling up from where the cold had tamped it down.

“Like noises under your bed? Like old men who chase little girls?”

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All false politeness had left his expression. His face was as cold as marble. “You should show some respect.”

I just smiled and looked past him. A wave of heat was sweeping

through the darkness, along with a sharp and smoky scent. From

the darkness Yamaraj strode toward us, sparks coiling around his

feet, like someone walking through embers. The pinpricks of light

scattered in the wind.

It was a magnificent sight, but the old man didn’t cower. He

turned back to me a moment, his expression curious.

“You have interesting friends,” he said, and shoved his hands

back into his pockets and spat on the ground in front of him. Then he stepped forward and seemed to fall into the earth, disappearing like a snuffed candle.

I stood there, breathing hard.

Yamaraj raised a hand, which flared hot and white. The light

scattered the darkness of the basement, confirming that the old

man was gone. At last I saw where we were standing, on a gray

plain that shone like damp earth, stretching away endless and

empty. Above us, where my bedroom floor should have been,

loomed an empty sky. A column of smoke rose up from Yamaraj’s

glowing hand, billowing wider as it climbed, bent into an arc by

the constant wind.

He looked about carefully, and then dropped his hand. We

were plunged again into a darkness that shimmered with shapes

burned into my vision.

“Are you okay, Lizzie?” came his voice.

Even as I nodded, my hands began to shake. The other psy-

chopomp might have looked like an old man in a patched suit, but

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something monstrous had lurked beneath his pale skin. I could still smell it in the sweet, heavy air around us.

“What did he want?” Yamaraj asked. I couldn’t blink away the

fiery afterimages in my vision, but I could feel him coming closer.

“He wasn’t after me,” I said. The words calmed me a little.

Yamaraj was close now, warming the air around us, which only

reminded me how cold I’d been a minute before.

“Except he wanted to show me something,” I said. “Something

made from ghosts, I think.”

“But you didn’t look?” Yamaraj’s gaze held mine. His brown

eyes cut through the darkness, and through my fear.

“No. I didn’t.”

His gaze softened. “Good. Some of us collect things, pieces of

lives. Things you can’t unsee.”

A shudder went through my body then, a mix of leftover anger

and fear. A chill clung to me, something I couldn’t shake. Part of me wanted to throw my arms around Yamaraj’s warmth, but I

didn’t want to seem pathetic. Besides, last time just touching him had thrown me back into reality.

This wasn’t at all how I’d imagined things going when we met

again. I’d wanted to impress Yamaraj with everything I’d figured

out on my own, but here I was, cold and scared and dressed like a

slob.

“Thank you for coming,” I said.

“Of course.” He looked around. “But how did you get here?”

“You mean . . . down into the river? That old man followed me

home, I guess, from this ghost building we were exploring. And he

was under my floor, and driving me crazy. I had to face him.”

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“You were exploring.” A half smile, unintended and beauti-

ful, played on Yamaraj’s lips. He was worried for me, but also

impressed.

I couldn’t take my eyes from him. I’d pictured Yamaraj a thou-

sand times in the last week, and now my memories were fitting

themselves into the sharper details of reality. That hitch in his eyebrows, like the bend of a boomerang. The hard line of his jaw, and the way his dark hair curled behind one ear, but had been tugged

free from the other by the wind.

“Did you say we?” he asked.

“Yeah, my friend. She’s this ghost that lives with me.”

His smile faded now. “Your friend? Ghosts can be hard to get

rid of, Lizzie, once you let them into your life.”

“She was already in my life. She was my mom’s best friend a long time ago, and she’s been around me since I was born. She’s

teaching me things.”

“What things, Lizzie?”

“How to see ghost buildings. How to walk inside them.” I

remembered the old man’s voice singing in the school hallway, and

shivered. “What was he? A psychopomp, like you and me, right?”

“He’s not like you and me.” Yamaraj turned away from me, his

gaze scanning the darkness. “He’s something heartless and empty.”

“He said that ghosts aren’t people.”

“Some of us see the dead that way—as objects, as toys.” Yamaraj

sighed. “But some people see the living that way too.”

“Great, psychopomps and psychopaths.”

He didn’t answer.

The heat Yamaraj had brought with him seemed to be

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fading, and I crossed my arms over my chest against the cold.

Suddenly the reality of everything I’d seen that night was crash-

ing down on me.

At least now I knew why Mindy was so afraid of psychopomps.

The afterlife had a food chain, and we were higher on it than ghosts.

“The old man wanted to teach me things,” I said.

“There are things you don’t want to know.”

I held Yamaraj’s eyes for a moment. The problem was, I wanted

to know everything, the good and the bad. Maybe being the old

man’s apprentice wasn’t for me, but this was a whole new world,

and I needed to explore it.

“So you teach me,” I said

“You’re already changing so quickly, Lizzie. I don’t want to

make it happen faster.”

I gestured out into the formless darkness. “Because that’s worse

than stumbling around down here, not knowing anything?”

There it was again, the look of longing I’d seen on his face in

the airport. However worried he was about me, Yamaraj wanted to

keep this connection between us. His lips parted once, then pressed together again.

Finally he said, “What do you want to know?”

It took a moment to answer. I wanted to know about ghosts,

about the old man in the patched coat, about everything I’d seen. I wanted to know how Yamaraj had brought light and fire with him

in the darkness, and why his touch threw me from the gray world

back into reality.

But with that vast emptiness surrounding us, I asked a simpler

question. “Where are we?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“The River Vaitarna. It’s the boundary between the world

above and the one below.”

“A river, like the Styx.”

“Everything old has lots of names.” He looked up at the empty

sky. “The overworld is up there, full of the living and wandering

ghosts. Below us is the underworld, where the dead reside. The

river is the oil between the two.”

I looked around. “It doesn’t seem like a river. I mean, where’s

the water?”

“We’re in it.”

As if to reinforce Yamaraj’s point, the wind whipped up,

like an eddying current around us. It pressed his black silk shirt against his abdomen, and for a moment I could see every cord of

muscles there.

I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Okay, next question. Where

are you from?”

“A small village, by a large sea.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s a little vague, since you’re supposed to be teaching me. You’re from India, right?”

“I suppose. But that was before there was an India.”

I nodded slowly, fairly certain that India had been around for a

long, long time. “How old are you?”

“I was fourteen when I crossed over.” His smile admitted that

he was playing games with my questions.

“You look older than that. Maybe seventeen?”

“Maybe.”

At first he didn’t say anything more, and we had a little staring

contest there in the darkness. But I liked staring at him, and I won.

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“This is the afterworld, Lizzie. We’re like ghosts, and ghosts

don’t get tired or hungry. They don’t get older, either.”

I stared at him. “You mean, I’m not going to age anymore?”

“You will in the overworld.” He looked up at the empty sky.

“Whenever other living people can see you and talk to you, you’re

getting older every second, just like a normal person.”

“So you must never leave.”

He shook his head. “I’ve spent a few years in the real world,

since I crossed over that first time. A few days here and there, but that’s all.”

“Oh.” My eyes dropped to the black expanse beneath our feet.

“So you live down in the underworld? That’s where Yami was tak-

ing all those people.”

He nodded.

“What’s it like down there?” My thoughts went to Mindy’s

fears. “Is it a good place, or a bad place?”

“It’s quiet, mostly. Only the memories of the living stir the

dead, and most of the dead have been forgotten. We do what

we can.”

“We?”

“There are many of us, living people who’ve found the under-

world. We each have our own people. We learn their names, so they

don’t fade away.”

I nodded, remembering what Mindy had said, that my mother’s

memories kept her from disappearing. “But millions of people

must die every year. How can you remember them all?”

“We don’t. Most wander lost until they’re forgotten. Some are

taken by people like that man you met, and used. The lucky ones

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find us.” Yamaraj stood a little straighter. “My people are only a few thousand, but I know all of them.”

“A few thousand, out of millions? That’s kind of depressing.”

“Death can be that way.” For a moment, he looked older.

“So I’ve noticed,” I sighed. “Is there anything you can teach me

that’s not depressing?”

Yamaraj thought a moment, then a smile played on his face

again. “How about this: The river isn’t just a boundary. It’s also a way to travel.”

He held out a hand, and I stared at it for a moment.

“Are we going somewhere?”

“Name a place you’d like to go.”

“Seriously?” My eyes blinked a few times. “Like, the Eiffel

Tower? The Great Pyramids?”

“That depends. You need a connection to the place you’re

going. Memories of having been there, some kind of bond. But yes,

the River Vaitarna connects the entire world.”

I stared at him, wondering what places I had a real connec-

tion to. I’d lived in the same house all my life. There were my

elementary and high schools, of course, but the idea of going to

another empty school building gave me the creeps. I couldn’t

exactly show up at my friend Jamie’s house, or my father’s apart-

ment in New York.

But there was always the rest of New York City. I’d always had

a soft spot for the Chrysler Building, since I was little and read a book about how the Empire State had cheated to become the tallest

in the world. I’d made my father take me during my visit. But did

that count as a bond?

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I wanted to learn how to do this. If I could travel anywhere,

being a psychopomp might be worth having ghosts in my life.

With the thought of Mindy, I suddenly knew where I wanted

to go.

“What about a family connection, like the house my mother

grew up in? She’s never taken me there, but I’ve seen pictures.”

Yamaraj frowned. “Out of the whole world, that’s where you

want to go?”

I hesitated a moment. I didn’t want to lie to Yamaraj, but find-

ing Mindy’s bad man didn’t sound like the sort of expedition he

would be happy about. “It’s part of my family history. Something

happened to my mother there when she was little. Can we go

there?”

“If the place is important to you, then yes.”

“So teach me how.”

“Of course. But one more warning.”

I sighed. “What now?”

“If you feel something behind you, don’t turn around.”

“Um, okay.” I remembered the cold, wet thing that had brushed

against me just before Yamaraj arrived. “What’s going to be behind me?”

One crooked eyebrow lifted. “I thought you didn’t want to learn

any more depressing things.”

“I guess not. So what do I do?”

Yamaraj reached out to take my hands, but I pulled away, afraid

his touch would jolt me back into the real world.

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “This is the river.”

“Which means what?”

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“You’re in too deep for panic to matter.”

I stared into his eyes. “I don’t panic. I think we established that in Dallas.”

“What would you call it then?” Yamaraj was smiling.

I didn’t tell him that his touch was electric. That it was sparks

and heat and fire. That his one kiss in the airport had lingered on my lips for the last ten days.

What I said was, “Jitters.”

“Sorry.” He pressed his hands together, bowing a little in apol-

ogy. Then he held them out for me to take.

I reached out for him, and as our fingers brushed, a trickle of

current spilled across my skin. It made my heart flutter and jump, but there was no sudden burst of color in the sky, no pulse of the overworld breaking through.

This wasn’t my bedroom. This was the River Vaitarna, the

boundary between life and death. And Yamaraj’s hands were warm

and real.

“I’m ready to go,” I said.

The reluctant smile finally spread across his face. “Hold on

tight.”

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CHAPTER 17

THE PARTY HAD GROWN. THE BIG ROOM WAS MORE CROWDED

and also more alive, or perhaps the buzzing of Darcy’s lips just

made it seem that way.

In the weeks they’d known each other, Darcy had never

thought about kissing Imogen. Attraction wasn’t something that

burned inside her, not like the forest-fire crushes that Carla went through every few months. Darcy could still list the guys she’d

thought were hot in high school, but none had ever made her heart

beat sideways. And at the beginning of senior year when Sagan had

asked her quite seriously if she preferred girls, Darcy hadn’t been able to answer him.

But now she was certain—about Imogen at least, if not about

girls and boys in general—and it was a relief and a revelation. She felt as though she’d leaped across a thousand pointless crushes and landed someplace real.

AFTERWORLDS

She also felt, now that Imogen had taught her the term, like she

was more full of juice than ever. Darcy wanted to sweep the bowls of chips and guacamole from her desk and start on Untitled Patel right now, with Imogen at her side.

But a few steps into the room, Kiralee descended on them and

swept Imogen away. There was the tiniest rip in Darcy’s heart as her hand parted from Imogen’s, but she didn’t follow them off to the

corner where Oscar was holding court. She had to find her friends.

Darcy scanned the crowd, recognizing more arrivals from YA

Drinks, a pair of publicists she remembered from a meeting at

Paradox, and then—

“Sister deb!” It was Annie Barber, with three more sister debs

in tow.

“Oh. Hi, guys.”

“Twenty-fourteen!” Annie said, and they all put up a hand.

“Right!” Darcy high-fived them all. “Listen, I’m looking for—”

“This is such a rock-star apartment!” Annie cried. “And in Manhattan.”

“You are, like, our official idol now,” said Ashley, whose book

was a dystopian on Mars, Darcy remembered.

She found it hard to answer. Her lips were buzzing, her body

still thrumming from the kiss with Imogen. She felt like a rock star, partly, but mostly she was dizzy.

“So we have a confession,” Annie said. “We all have bets on

how old you are.”

“It’s not really a—”

“No spoilers!” Annie interrupted. “We want to wait for the

reveal, like everyone else. I’ve got seventeen.”

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“I’ve got nineteen,” Ashley said. “I know, that’s probably way

too old.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Darcy said. She’d finally spot-

ted Carla and Sagan alone by the guacamole, looking wide-eyed

and terrified. “And I kind of have to deal with something. Besides, a single word might reveal too much.”

“Of course,” Annie said, and the sister debs parted for her.

“Guys!” Darcy called to Sagan and Carla as she threaded her

way across the room.

“There you are!” Carla gathered her into a hug, and they spun once in a circle.

“Sorry. I was up on the roof. There was . . . a situation.” Darcy

touched her own lips, and for a moment her first real kiss seemed

imaginary.

“I’m just glad we made it.” Carla’s eyes swept across the room.

“Look at your glamorous apartment, city girl!”

Sagan nodded at this, a corn chip in his hand. “Illustrious party

is illustrious.”

“Seriously illustrious.” Carla’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I

mean, is that Kiralee Taylor over there?”

“Yep.”

“She didn’t even have to look,” Sagan said to Carla. “You’d

think someone would check on a claim like that, Kiralee Taylor

being in their living room. But no, she just assumed it to be

true.”

“Because Darcy is, like, famous now,” Carla said. “And there

are frequently famous people in her living room.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Come on, guys. I’ll introduce you.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Introduce us?” Sagan asked, sputtering on his corn chip. “But

I didn’t bring my copy of Bunyip.”

“This isn’t a signing, Sagan,” said Carla. “It’s, like, Darcy’s living room, somehow full of famous authors.”

“It’s just my housewarming party,” Darcy said, though sud-

denly none of it seemed believable to her either. She turned to

confirm her own existence in the wall of mirrors.

“But what if I go all fanboy?” Sagan said. “Because Bunyip.”

Darcy smiled. “You should fanboy her about Dirawong instead.

Kiralee’s pretty much over Bunyip, because everyone loves it so much, and because . . .”

She left the rest unspoken, but reminded herself to ask Sagan

later about using Hindu gods for purposes of YA hotness.

“Right,” Carla said. “Like John Christopher was totally bored

of Tripods.”

Sagan nodded. “Ravel hated Boléro by the end.”

“Jimi Hendrix and ‘Purple Haze,’” Darcy said, then waved her

hand. “This game is already stupid. Come on over, guys. She’s awe-

some.”

Darcy took a step toward Kiralee, but her friends didn’t move.

“What?”

“I think we need a second,” Carla said, her gaze drifting along

the floor. “We haven’t even unpacked yet.”

Darcy saw the rolled sleeping bags shoved beneath the desk,

along with two small suitcases. “Right. Sorry. You just got here, and I’m dragging you around my party. Hostess failure.”

“We should have arrived before your party started,” Sagan said.

“The Amtrak timetable incident may have been my fault.”

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“Finally you admit this!” Carla said.

Darcy knelt to pick up the sleeping bags. “I’ll put these in your

room.”

“We’ll stay here,” Sagan said. “Your party is nervous-making,

but I don’t want to miss anything.”

“No problem.” Darcy extended the handles of the suitcases and

wedged a sleeping bag under each arm. She managed to wheel her

way through the throng without knocking anyone over, and soon

was alone in the guest bedroom.

“Crap, still no pillows,” she muttered, letting the sleeping bags

fall to the floor. She rolled the suitcases into a corner, wondering how illustrious Carla and Sagan would think she was when they

saw their room.

The makeshift bookshelf was looking particularly lopsided this

evening. Darcy knelt to adjust the cinder blocks, but instead found herself reaching for the familiar green-and-gold spine of Bunyip.

There on the back cover was Kiralee, much younger and perhaps a

little photoshopped, and not nearly as distinguished as she looked now. Worse, she had two fingertips pressed thoughtfully against

her forehead, like the poster for a mind-reading act.

The door closed behind her, and Darcy turned.

It was Imogen, beer in hand.

“Hey,” Darcy said, the word sounding loud in her ears. The

closed door muffled the party to a rumble, and suddenly she could

hear her own breathing. “What’s up?”

“I missed you.”

Darcy rose to her feet, her lips buzzing again. “Me too. Is that

weird?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“The absence of old friends one can endure with aplomb,”

Imogen said. “But even momentary separation after a first kiss is

unbearable.”

Darcy frowned. “Is that a quote?”

“Oscar Wilde, adapted.” Imogen smiled at Bunyip in Darcy’s hands. “I hear that’s a good book.”

“My friends say it’s awesome.”

Imogen knelt beside the bookshelf, sliding her finger across the

spines. “That’s the only book of Kiralee’s you own? She’ll hate that.”

“I’ve got all of them!” Darcy exclaimed. “And extra reading

copies for my first editions. This is, like, one percent of my library.

Dad was driving up some stuff, so my little sister picked these out to send along.”

Imogen turned to look up at Darcy, her eyes narrowing. “Your

dad drove them up?”

“They were in my room . . . at home.” Darcy knelt beside

Imogen, not quite meeting her eye. “So there was this thing I was

going tell you before the party started. But you were late. And I was going to tell you up on the roof, but then we were kissing, and I

forgot to.”

Imogen barely nodded, waiting. Darcy took a steadying breath,

her mind flashing through all the previous, much better moments she might have chosen to reveal her age. But as she’d felt more

comfortable here, more real as a writer and a New Yorker, the

urgency to confess had faded.

But now that they’d kissed . . .

“We went to high school together, Carla and Sagan and me.”

“You told me,” Imogen said. “But you didn’t say when.”

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“No.” Darcy’s voice dropped. “We just graduated.”

“As in, a month ago?”

“Pretty much.”

Imogen nodded slowly. “And that explains why you’ve never . . .”

“I guess. Though many people kiss in high school, I’ve heard.”

Darcy found herself talking in Sagan’s flat cadence. “I’m sorry, Gen.”

“For what?”

“For not saying that I’d just got out of high school! For failing

to mention that I’m a teenager!”

Imogen inspected her own fingernails. “I guess it didn’t come

up.”

“I think it did, a couple of times,” Darcy said. “You asked me

what I’d majored in once, and I changed the subject.”

“Yeah, I sort of noticed. So you’re, what, eighteen?”

Darcy nodded.

“Well, that’s just fucking ridiculous.” Imogen stood up.

Darcy stayed kneeling by the bookshelf, her face burning. She

couldn’t make herself look up, and so stared at the back cover of

Bunyip. A young Kiralee Taylor gazed back at her with an expression of profound contemplation.

“I mean, seriously,” Imogen said. “You wrote a book that good

at eighteen? That’s just . . . galling!”

“I was seventeen when I finished it,” Darcy said softly.

“Fuck! I was writing Sparkle Pony fan fiction when I was seventeen!” Imogen sank to her haunches again, sighing. “Actually, I still do. Just not full-time. So you’re blowing off college to write, like that’s no big deal?”

“It is for my parents,” Darcy said. “They’re shitting themselves.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“That’s funny. My dad still thinks my English degree was a

waste of money.”

“You’re mad at me, right?”

“I’m amazed by you, actually.” Imogen turned to face Darcy.

“Blowing your whole advance to live here. That’s pretty crazy. And brave, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But you might want to use that bravery more.”

Darcy shook her head. “For what?”

“For trusting me, which means telling me about stuff.” Imogen reached out to cup Darcy’s chin with her fingers. Then she kissed

her. It was less fierce than the first two times, softer and slower, but not in a way that left any doubt.

When their lips pulled apart, Darcy asked, “So you’re not mad?”

“I’m five years older than you. Maybe I’m a little . . . hesitant.”

“Hesitant? You just kissed me again!”

Imogen shrugged. “Yeah, I kind of suck at hesitating. But

maybe we should go slow.”

“Slow is okay, I guess. But you can ask me whatever you want,

right now. Any question, no matter how embarrassing. I promise

to tell you the truth!”

Imogen considered this a moment. “Okay. Do you really like

me, or are you just excited because you’ve never kissed anyone

before?”

“I really like you!” Darcy cried. “You make my hair stand up

when you talk about writing.”

Imogen raised an eyebrow.

“And also when you kiss me,” Darcy added.

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“Okay, good answer. Is there anything you need to ask me

back? Just so we’re all clear.”

Darcy shook her head, but then found a question on the tip of

her tongue, even if it wasn’t exactly relevant to the conversation.

“Do you know if Kiralee’s read it?”

Imogen looked at the book in Darcy’s hand. “Probably, seeing

as how she wrote it.”

Darcy shoved Bunyip back into its spot on the shelf. “I meant my book. As you know.”

“Oh, that.” Imogen was smirking now. “Not yet. Kiralee wanted

me to read it first. You know, in case it sucked.”

“Seriously? You were checking me out for her?”

“Sure. Don’t you ever do that for your friends?”

Darcy frowned. Among the Reading Zealots, Darcy had been a

relentless first adopter of books and movies and manga series. She was on the ARC list at her library, was immune to online spoilers, and had even sat through the notoriously crappy first season of

Danger Blonde so she could explain the story to Carla, who was skipping straight to season two.

But this was different somehow. “You guys suck.”

Imogen laughed. “Do we suck a little less if I just told Kiralee

that you have the juice, and she should read your novel?”

“Pretty much.” As she stood, Darcy felt dizzy with relief. Hiding her age had been stupid, but she’d been forgiven. No more pointless mistakes like that, she decided. “I promise to trust you, Gen, with everything.”

“Good.” Imogen opened the door. “Then I guess you should

introduce me to your friends.”

* * *

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Sagan and Carla were rooted to the same spot, Sagan eating his way through the guacamole while Carla took surreptitious photos of the party with her phone.

“Your stuff’s in the guest bedroom,” Darcy said. “And I brought

you a nonthreatening author to meet.”

“As in, not famous.” Imogen offered a hand.

As they introduced themselves, Darcy couldn’t help but notice

how young Carla and Sagan seemed beside Imogen—they were all

fumbles and tics where she was graceful and assured. And Darcy

knew that she shared her friends’ foibles. How had she tricked

everyone in New York into thinking she was an adult?

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 shoul-

der, sending the tiniest shiver through her. “She can send it to you guys if you want.”

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“That would be awesome,” Carla said. “We promise not to for-

ward 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. She wasn’t worried that it would suck, but her life in the last two weeks had been a whorl 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 this fact, Imogen squeezed Darcy’s shoul-

der 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

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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

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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.”

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“Thanks.” Darcy turned to Imogen. “Since when are you tour-

ing 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.”

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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 whis-

pering, never quite forming words against my ear or the back of

my neck. Yamaraj said they were harmless, unless you turned 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.

AFTERWORLDS

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 con-

nection 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 and 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 209

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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.

He 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 210

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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 to have 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 skid-

ding 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. For now, the River Vaitarna carries

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?”

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“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

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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 ter-

rorists. My sister and I come from a small village. A quiet place.”

“Sound nice.”

“It was beautiful, but to me and my sister it only 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,” 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.”

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“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, espe-

cially a twin. I’d imagined making up our own language, 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.

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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 little 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.”

“Come away from here, Lizzie.” Yamaraj pulled at my arm, but

I shook him off.

“I have to make sure he’s still alive.”

“You don’t want to go any closer to that house,” he said.

As I opened my mouth to ask why, one of the little girls moved.

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Her head turned slowly, the rest of her body utterly still, until her gray eyes rested on us. She was a little younger than Mindy, wearing overalls and sneakers. Her gaze lingered, her expression blank except for the barest hint of puzzlement.

Yamaraj turned to face me. “Don’t look at them.”

“But they’re just little . . .” My words faded as the other girls, all in one motion, turned their heads to stare at us. Their little gray faces regarded me with growing interest. “Okay, maybe this

is kind of weird.”

Yamaraj was already kneeling, his palm on the asphalt. He

stood up as the bubbling oil began to expand beneath our feet, and put his arms around me, his muscles tense and hard.

“You don’t want them in your memories,” he whispered as we

began to sink into the street. “Just think of home.”

Our second journey in the river seemed faster, as trips home often do. It was easy to hold an image of my own house in my mind,

because I wanted to be there so badly. But it was harder this time to ignore the wet, shivery things that brushed against us. Some part of me had realized what they were—loose memories, fragments of

ghosts who had faded away.

I kept my eyes shut the whole way, head pressed against Yama-

raj’s chest, his warmth and reality protection against the blank

stares of the gray-faced little girls.

We came to a halt on another windy expanse under a blank

sky, but somehow I could feel home just overhead. Or maybe it

was beneath us—the afterworld had confused me on the concepts

of up and down.

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But before I returned to my bedroom, Yamaraj took me by the

shoulders.

“You give this up, Lizzie. Don’t go there again.”

“I have to help Mindy. It’s what I would do for a living person.”

“But those ghosts are in your head now.”

“That’s for sure.” I shuddered, seeing their gray faces. “But why is that such a bad thing, besides the potential for nightmares?”

“Ghosts go where they can for nourishment. Think about it.

Mindy died in that house, didn’t she? Hundreds of miles from here, but she lives with you now.”

“Right. Because my mother remembers her.”

“More than anyone else in the world. More than her own

parents.”

“That’s kind of sad. And weird.”

He shook his head. “It’s not as strange as you’d think. Some-

times when children go missing, their parents can only stand to

hold on to their memories for so long. When they let go, those

children fade, unless someone else keeps them in mind.”

My mouth was dry. “But that means those little girls are

there . . . because the bad man remembers them better than

anyone else?”

“Their last days, perfectly. But what if they had you to nourish them instead?”

I imagined the five little girls on my front lawn, waiting and

wanting, and a shudder went through me. I could still see the face of the first one who’d turned to look at me—her worn overalls and

the half-dozen sparkly barrettes in her short hair.

“How am I supposed to forget what I just saw?”

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“You can’t, Lizzie.” His hands fell from my shoulders, and he

sighed. “It was only a glance, not enough to bring them here.”

“So you’re just trying to scare me?”

“You should be scared.” He was angry now, his brown eyes locked on mine. “Promise me you’ll never go near that house again.”

I turned away. I’d had enough of being afraid, and Mindy had

been trapped with her fear for decades. I couldn’t just leave her in limbo, now that I knew where the bad man lived.

I chose my words carefully. “I promise I won’t ever see those

little girls again.”

Yamaraj stared at me a moment longer, but finally he nodded.

“Thank you.”

With the anger fallen from his voice, he sounded tired. He was

probably starting to think that I was a lot of work, like a student driver who keeps crashing the car in her first lesson.

At least I knew that the bad man was still alive. Mindy was safe,

for now. We had Yamaraj to thank for that.

“It was nice of you to come and save me.”

The storm in his eyes lifted a little. “I’m not sure you needed

saving.”

“Maybe not. But it was fun seeing you chase that guy off.”

Now a smile danced at the edges of his mouth. “I was wonder-

ing if you were going to call. My sister was certain you would.”

“Oh? Does Yami have an opinion about me?”

“She thinks you might become a distraction.”

“I hope she’s right.”

He nodded. “She’s always right.”

“Yamaraj . . .” I shivered a little, saying his name aloud again.

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“Call me Yama. ‘Raj’ is only a title.”

“Really? What does it mean?”

“Prince, or perhaps lord.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean, I’ve been calling you Lord

Yama all this time?”

He was fighting a smile. “You’ve only said it once or twice.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking it in my head!” I groaned, feeling

like a ditz. “Anyway, now that I actually know your name, will that work? I can call you and you’ll come?”

He nodded. “The name is important, but it’s like traveling to a

place. There also has to be a connection.”

“You heard me tonight. So there’s already a connection.”

“There is.” He took a step closer. “But it could be stronger, just to be safe.”

“And how do we do that?” My eyes were drifting closed.

“Like this.”

As his lips met mine, something keen and buzzing flowed into

my body. It bloomed in my chest, making my breath skid and shud-

der, scattering the fear this long night had left inside me. The kiss grew hotter, fiercer as I pressed my mouth against his, hungry for more.

The wind of the river turned sharp and dry around us, filling

with pinpricks that played across my skin. My eyes opened for

a moment and I saw sparks swirling past, like when Yama had

appeared to save me, the air burning around his feet.

“Did you make those?” I murmured.

“Not just me.”

We didn’t say much more.

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* * *

An hour later I left him and descended into my bedroom, safe

and welcoming and familiar. My skin still tingled. My body felt

lighter. The cold place inside me was almost gone, burned away

by Yama’s lips.

There was just one little problem left. My mother was sitting

there on my bed, staring at her phone.

After everything that had happened tonight, I’d forgotten her

coming into my room just before I’d sunk into the river. She hadn’t seen me, of course, and I was still on the flipside, but I couldn’t stay here forever.

With Yama’s body against mine, I had felt boundless, powerful.

But now I felt like a little kid about to get grounded. If I went outside and came in through the front door, pretending to have been

taking a walk, how would my mother respond? After this week, she

might flip out. Or worse, start checking on me every night.

I didn’t even know how long I’d been gone. And I couldn’t let

her sit here any longer, not knowing where I was. I had to think of a reasonable explanation why I wasn’t in bed.

Mindy was gone, probably having scampered back to my

mother’s closet after I’d sunk through the floor. Which gave me an idea . . .

I wasn’t an expert at walking through walls yet, but the door

to my closet was open a little from when I’d changed into jeans.

I slipped inside, and settled myself on some dirty clothes on the

floor. My closet wasn’t as spacious as my mother’s, but it was big enough to huddle there and pretend to be asleep.

I took a few sharp breaths, making my heart beat faster, and

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soon my grasp on the flipside was fading. The slant of light coming though the closet door showed colors bleeding back into the world.

When I’d crossed over, I quietly slipped out of my jeans and

hoodie, then let out a soft yawn.

After a long wait in nervous silence, I was about to yawn again

when I heard my mother’s voice.

“Lizzie?”

I pushed the closet door open. It swung with a plaintive creak,

revealing my mother’s astonished expression.

“Oh, hey,” I said sleepily. “What’re you doing in here?”

“I heard your voice, and I came in to see what was up. And you

weren’t . . .” She shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, Lizzie. What are you doing in your closet?”

“Um, sleeping.” I sat up, blinking my eyes and stretching. “I

had this really scary dream. And after I woke up, it just felt safer in here.”

The sorrow on her face made me feel awful. But a made-up night-

mare was a better explanation than, Got accosted by an evil psychopomp, then went to visit an old serial killer’s house. Oh, and hooked up.

“Lizzie, I’m so sorry. Do you need to talk about your dream?”

I shook my head. “No big deal, no airports or terrorists. It was

just . . . my feet were stuck in this black goo. I was sinking.”

“That sounds awful, kiddo.”

“Sorry I woke you up.” I crawled from the closet and stood.

My mother managed a smile, and rose from the bed to give me

a long hug. When we parted, she looked down at my makeshift nest

on the floor.

“It’s funny,” she said. “You used to be afraid of closets when

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you were little. But the house where I grew up had these huge walkins. I used to do sleepovers in there with . . .”

I waited for more, but Mom was still staring. She knelt and

lifted something from the closet floor. It flashed in her hand—the kitchen knife I’d taken with me to the afterworld. It must have

fallen from my pocket when I pulled off my jeans.

I tried to smile. “Oh, yeah. I was kind of scared.”

The look on her face was so sad.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I know it seems weird.”

She held the knife carefully with both hands. “I know what it’s like to be scared all the time. After my friend disappeared, I was like that for months. You’ll do anything to make yourself feel safer.”

I nodded, an image of all those little girls flooding back into my head, and I knew for certain that, in a way, my mother understood.

And I also knew that I would be going back to Palo Alto, to make

sure that the bad man never hurt anyone again.

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CHAPTER 19

HER FAVORITE PART OF SETTING FIRES HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE

matches. She liked the way they rattled, stiff little wooden soldiers in a cardboard box, and the way they bloomed into hot flowers

between cupped palms. She loved the ripping, fluttering noises they made as they fought the wind. Even their remains were beautiful—

spindly, black, and bowed—after they’d burned all the way down to

fire-calloused fingertips.

Ariel Flint never went to school without them.

She was early today, so she headed for the smokers’ den, a hid-

den corner of the school grounds formed by two temps wedged

against the backside of the gym. The temporary buildings had been

classrooms years ago. Through their cloudy windows, you could

still see blackboards on the walls. Now they were storage for the

theater department, stuffed with old sets and props, racks of cos-

tumes with the tattered look of moth food. The temps were always

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locked, but they stood on cinder blocks and you could crawl away

beneath them in a pinch.

This morning’s pinch was already under way when Ariel came

around the back of the gym. Peterson, the school’s rent-a-cop, was on one knee in the corner, peering into the shadows beneath the

temps. He was calling threats after some escaping student, the radio in his hand sputtering and angry.

Ariel spun around on one heel, ducking her head. Once a month

or so Peterson busted the smokers’ den, rounding up everyone for

detentions and “community service,” which meant slopping out food

in the cafeteria. The thought of wearing a hairnet for a week of lunches sent Ariel into a run, heading toward the gymnasium’s rear doors.

A moment later she burst onto the basketball court. The doors

slammed behind her, filling the empty gym with echoes—booms

mixing with the squeak of her boots on the pine floor. She froze

for a moment, breathing hard and coming up with excuses, but

Peterson hadn’t followed her.

Ariel smiled and spun once at center court, miming a shot at

the basket to the applause of an invisible crowd. Capture evaded!

The year before, she’d written a paper on gambling for psychol-

ogy, about an experiment with caged pigeons who fed themselves

by pulling a lever. If the lever always produced a single food pellet, the pigeons pulled it only when they were hungry. If the device

stopped giving them food at all, the pigeons soon gave up on it. But when the lever worked like a slot machine, sometimes giving nothing, other times paying off big, the pigeons got addicted. Even when they already had plenty of food, they wanted to see what would

happen with the next pull.

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Pigeons, like people, loved to gamble.

While writing this paper, Ariel had realized that getting caught

in the smokers’ den worked the same way. Had Peterson shown

up every day, everyone would’ve found another place to smoke, or

maybe quit altogether. And if no one ever tried to bust them, smoking wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. But Peterson came

along just often enough to keep things interesting.

Of course, the smokers at Reagan High were addicted to nico-

tine, not gambling, and would’ve been fine with being left alone.

But Ariel had never been a smoker. She was there to light other

people’s cigarettes, to watch the smoke curl from their mouths,

to glory in fiery tips flaring with every drawn breath. For her, the chance of getting caught was part of the thrill of starting fires, large or small.

“What the hell, Flint?” boomed a voice from across the gym.

Ariel turned from the empty bleachers, and found a pissed-off

Erin Dale striding toward her.

“Um,” Ariel said. “Just made the winning shot.”

Coach Dale came to a halt a few yards away, crossing her arms.

She wore her usual uniform, a tight sleeveless T-shirt and sweat-

pants, her hair tied in a long ponytail. On her left shoulder, three red claws extended out two inches from beneath the shirt. No one

had ever seen the rest of the tattoo, but Ariel was somehow certain that it was a dragon curled between the coach’s breasts.

“It’s nice to see you take an interest in sports, Miss Flint. But

you’re wearing Doc Martens on my pinewood.”

“Oh, right.” Ariel looked down and saw a spiral of tiny black

marks around her feet. “Whoa. Sorry.”

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Coach Dale regarded Ariel coolly. In gym class, Ariel only

ever worked at running, jumping, and climbing—useful skills

for getting away—and was hopeless at anything involving a ball

or a score. But she had an old and smoldering crush on Coach

Dale, and wouldn’t have dreamed of smudging her basketball

court.

In a show of contrition, Ariel lifted one offending boot from the

floor and balanced there, untying its laces. Wobbling only a little, she wrangled it off, then did the same with the other.

“Good coordination and flexibility,” Coach Dale said. “Wish we

saw more of that from you in class.”

Ariel didn’t answer. The gym floor was cold beneath her stock-

ing feet, and she felt small and penitent under the coach’s gaze.

One of the rear doors swung open. It was Peterson, radio still

in hand.

“Hey, Coach,” he said, his eyes on Ariel. “Anyone come

through here?”

Coach Dale’s pissed-off expression didn’t change. “Not that I’ve

seen. Have you seen anyone, Miss Flint?”

Ariel shook her head.

Peterson didn’t look like he bought it, but he flashed the coach

a salute and went back through the gym doors to resume his hunt

outside.

After another moment of silence, the coach uncrossed her

arms. “It’s pointless telling you how bad smoking is for your lungs and stamina. But you know it makes your lips thinner, right?”

“And gives you yellow teeth, puffy skin, and wrinkles around

the eyes,” Ariel recited. “That’s why I don’t smoke.”

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AFTERWORLDS

Coach narrowed her eyes and came closer, until they were face-

to-face. Ariel tried to keep from staring at the red claws sneaking out from beneath the T-shirt.

The woman sniffed. “Is that smoke I smell?”

“Yeah, but it’s not cigarette smoke. I built a fire this morning . . .

to warm up.”

The coach raised an eyebrow. But Ariel wasn’t lying, and ciga-

rette smoke didn’t smell at all like an honest fire.

It had only been a small one. Ariel had indulged on the way

to school, in an already burned-out oil barrel behind the Shop ’n

Save. Someone had left a bundle of three-foot cardboard tubes

in a Dumpster, impossible to ignore. She’d arranged them into a

pyramid balanced on the rim of the barrel, and it had taken only a few minutes before the burning structure had crumbled, spitting a

galaxy of sparks into the air.

“Whatever you say, Flint. Follow me.”

Ariel trailed her toward the girls’ locker room, boots in hand.

The locker room smelled as it always did, like old sweat and

cheap soap. Coach Dale opened the door to the Cage, which was

what everyone called her office with its walls of metal grating. She slid open her desk and pulled out an eraser the size of a cigarette lighter, pink and new.

She tossed it to Ariel, who caught it with her free hand.

“That should do the trick. Use spit if you need to.”

Ariel stared at the eraser for a moment, and Coach Dale sighed

and reached across the desk. She plucked the boots from Ariel’s

hand, slid open a file drawer, and dropped them in. She shut the

drawer and turned its lock.

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“You get those back when I can’t find a single mark on my

court.”

“Okay, but—” The blare of the first bell cut Ariel off.

Coach Dale sank into her desk chair, picked up a clipboard and

pen, and kicked up her feet. “Fifteen minutes till first period. Better get erasing, Flint. Just remember to rub with the grain of the wood.”

Ariel started to protest again, but tasted defeat before the words left her mouth. She sighed, turned, and walked out of the Cage,

through the locker room, and back to the court. Her heart was no

longer racing from her escape from Peterson, nor with the dying

dregs of her crush on Coach Dale.

This sucked.

She knelt at center court, counting black smudges until her tally

reached twenty. She rubbed at the smallest mark with the eraser,

spitting on it once or twice, until it had completely disappeared.

Then Ariel looked up at the big sweep-hand clock over the door.

Twelve minutes left till homeroom, more than nineteen marks to

go. She doubted Coach Dale would be writing her a late pass.

That was the hitch with getting caught. One infraction led to

another until you were certified a bad kid, unsalvageable. But all Ariel could do was keep erasing little black marks and ignoring how cold her feet were.

She was less than halfway done when the first-period late-bell

rang. A moment later, a crowd of girls surged from the locker

rooms, already suited up in field hockey uniforms.

Coach Dale followed them out, yelling, “Four laps, ladies! No

cutting corners!”

Ariel made the mistake of looking up, and caught the eyes of

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the first runners in the pack. She saw their expressions switch from momentary confusion to a mix of amusement and pity.

She stared at the floor again, at her pink eraser rubbing hope-

lessly at the black marks. Ariel was an expert at keeping her head down, but that didn’t do much good here in the middle of the gym,

a score of girls running circles around her with nothing else to stare at. Her face grew as hot as her feet were cold.

“Any time now, Flint,” Coach Dale called from the sidelines. “I

need my basketball court.”

“Sorry,” Ariel muttered, just to be saying something.

She heard her last name repeated by the runners, like a whisper

traveling through the gym. She closed her mind to her surround-

ings, narrowing her focus to the black marks in front of her . . .

Then she felt it happening—the friction kindling beneath the

pink tongue of the eraser, the growing heat at her fingertips. Her awareness expanded, not outward to the titters of the girls around her, but down into the materials of the gym itself. She felt the pine under her hands and knees, sensed the oxygen trapped in the tiny

spaces of the wood’s grain, the resins and oils that gave it color. Then farther out to the dry wood of the bleachers, the banners hanging

from the walls. She could smell the iron oxide in the half-disintegrated eraser, and the hot filaments of the lightbulbs overhead.

The school was full of volatiles, wood and plaster, cloth and

plastic, cans of paint and stacks of paper.

All of it waiting for a single spark . . .

Darcy heard a bang and looked up from her screen.

But it wasn’t Carla and Sagan in the other bedroom, just a truck

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rattling over a manhole cover down on the street. Darcy stretched

her arms. The laptop had grown hot against her thighs, and her

shoulders were tight from reading.

She let them relax, breathing out the words, “Thank fuck.”

Pyromancer didn’t suck, not even remotely. And more impor-

tant, she could feel Imogen in its diction, in the rhythm of its prose, even in its hesitations, the quirks of commas and ellipses.

Darcy knew that she should get up now, shower and dress and

ready herself for a day of museums with Carla and Sagan, of prying questions about Imogen, and of blowing her budget for at least a

week.

But she wanted more Pyromancer. Not just because the sentences tasted like Imogen, but because the story had pulled her in.

These were pages that she needed to turn.

“My girlfriend’s got the juice,” Darcy whispered with a smile,

and bent her knees to read some more.

“So what’s she like?” Carla asked out of nowhere.

The three of them were at the Metropolitan Museum, in a vast

gallery built around the Temple of Dendur, an ancient shrine to

Osiris that had been shipped from Egypt in pieces and put back

together stone by stone. The room’s northern wall was made entirely of glass, and late-morning sunlight filtered through it to bathe the ancient sandstone. Sagan was inside the temple, reading centuries-old graffiti carved by soldiers. Carla had stayed outside with Darcy, who found the temple’s interior claustrophobic—too many millennia crammed into such a small space.

“You met her last night,” Darcy said. “She’s like that, mostly.”

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“She seemed pretty easygoing.”

Darcy had to frown. True, Imogen never seemed nervous, and

she had a physical grace that drew Darcy’s eye from across a room.

But “easygoing” was off the mark.

“She’s pretty intense, actually. You should see her talk about

writing, or books.”

Carla’s hands fluttered in the air, then grabbed each other. “It’s so cool that you’re both writers. I can’t wait to read her novel!”

“It’s really good.” Darcy was whispering now. “I started it this

morning.”

“So do you two, like, write together? In the same room, I mean.”

“Um, I haven’t written much since coming up here.”

“Oh.” Carla’s expression sent a stab of guilt through Darcy.

“There’s been so much to do,” she explained. “Finding an

apartment, moving, buying new stuff.”

“New friends, new girlfriends, fancy parties.” Carla sighed. “I

get it. But when I think of you up here, I imagine you writing furiously all the time. Why else would you move away from Philly and

cheat us of our last summer together!”

Carla was grinning as she said all this, but the guilt in Darcy’s

stomach tangled a little. Every day since moving here, she’d thought of her friends back in Philly less and less.

But this weekend was her chance to fix that. She had to spill all

the details.

“I didn’t even know Gen liked me until last night,” Darcy said.

Carla’s eyes widened. “That’s why you were missing when we

got there!”

“We were up on the roof. Um, hooking up, I guess.”

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Carla made a soft squee that echoed among the footfalls and murmurs filling the temple room. “Rooftop New York kissing

scene!”

Darcy laughed. “I guess so.”

“Was there dancing?”

“Imogen and I aren’t really a musical,” Darcy said. “We’re

mostly about words. And noodles.”

“Noodles? Is that some new thing I don’t know about?”

“They’re like the noodles you know, but way more expensive.

Gen’s really into food. She says that to know a city you have to

eat it.”

Carla’s smile ratcheted up a little. “Does she say that about any-

thing besides cities?”

This question paralyzed Darcy for a moment. Indeed, she

might have been frozen much longer—minutes, hours—if Carla

hadn’t burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry!” Carla managed, her titters bouncing sharply from

the marble and glass of the temple room. “But there are certain

turns of phrase.”

Darcy noticed other tourists staring, and put a shushing finger

to her lips.

“This conversation looks promising,” Sagan said from behind

her. “I assume it’s about Imogen.”

“Of course,” Darcy sighed. “Join in.”

“You weren’t supposed to have this talk without me,” he said to

Carla. “We explicitly agreed.”

“Sorry!” Carla said. “But you didn’t miss much yet. I swear.”

“Any salacious details?” he asked.

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Darcy let out a groan. Sagan’s voice was always a bit too loud,

but here in the hush of the temple room, discussing this particular subject, he was like a foghorn talking. It didn’t help that his question had sent Carla back into hysterics.

Darcy took them both by the arms and marched them toward

the American Wing. She kept moving until they had reached the

relative privacy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Room. The recon-

structed living space, with its stately geometries and stained glass ceiling, helped to squelch the sputtering noises Carla was making.

Darcy faced her two friends. “Could you guys be any more like little kids?”

“You’re the one who’s blushing,” Sagan said. “Does blushing

mean that there are salacious details?”

“Was there sex on the roof?” Carla asked.

“The roof?” Sagan turned to Carla. “So I did miss something.”

“They hooked up for the first time last night!” Carla was clap-

ping. “On the roof!”

“Sex on the roof,” Sagan said. “That sounds like a drink.”

Darcy groaned. “There was a party. We needed privacy. The

roof was private. There was no singing or dancing. There was no

sex on the roof. You’re all caught up now, Sagan.”

“Who made the first move?” he asked.

Carla giggle-snorted. “Duh. Who do you think?”

Darcy gave her friend a sideways look, but couldn’t argue.

“Did you know she liked you?” Sagan asked.

“Did you know you liked her?” Carla asked.

“Did you know you liked girls?” Sagan added.

Darcy swallowed. She hadn’t known anything, really. Last night

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had simply happened without any initiative on her part, or action, or even desire. Which seemed pretty pathetic, now that she thought about it. But it had also been magical how one rooftop kiss—almost out of nowhere—had transformed everything.

“We’ll take your silence as no, no, and no,” Carla said. “Poor little Miss Darcy.”

“How old is Imogen, anyway?” Sagan asked.

“She’s . . . ,” Darcy began, but no specific number came to mind.

“Um, she graduated college a year ago. Is that twenty-three?”

Carla shook her head. “Whatever it is, she’s totally an adult.”

“And how does this age disparity make you feel?” Sagan asked,

thrusting an invisible microphone into Darcy’s face.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, pushing his empty hand away.

“When I got here, I didn’t tell anyone my age. It never even came

up till last night. I guess she just accepted me as another writer.”

“Writing conquers all!” Carla said. “That’s so sweet.”

“Possibly too sweet,” Sagan said. “I’m detecting a lack of sala-

cious details.”

“We’re taking it slow.”

Carla patted Darcy’s shoulder. “We would expect nothing less

of you.”

“Hey! Going slow was her idea, not mine!” Darcy took a step

back from them both. “Do you really think of me as Little Miss

Innocent?”

Even as the question left her mouth, Darcy knew the answer.

She was much worse than innocent; she was oblivious. And to

make things worse, now they were both staring at her with adoring expressions.

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“Here’s what I don’t get,” Carla said. “How did someone as

clueless as you manage to write a convincing romance?”

“Actually,” Sagan jumped in, “until the early eighties romance

heroines were always virgins. Write what you know.” He frowned.

“Although it’s unclear what constitutes virginity when it’s two girls.

There is debate on the internet.”

Carla stared at him. “Exactly why were you googling that?”

“It was from the Sparkle Pony forum. You know how in episode forty-one, it’s strongly implied that Tensile-Toes has a unicorn

girlfriend? Of course, unicorns allow only virgins to touch them,

so either Tensile-Toes is an actual virgin, like Darcy here, or she’s only technically—”

“Shush!” Darcy hissed. A pair of girls in school uniforms hov-

ered at the entrance to the Frank Lloyd Wright Room, taking notes, hopefully on the architecture.

Carla’s words were soft but intense. “Darcy, we both love you

exactly the way you are. Also, unicorns avoiding nonvirgins clearly doesn’t apply to other equines.”

“Agreed,” Sagan whispered. “On both of those.”

Darcy nodded meekly. “I know Imogen likes me, for now. But

what if I mess this up? This feels really real, and dangerous. Like taking my first driving lesson in a Ferrari!”

“Ferraris are quiet safe, actually,” Sagan said. “Their high fatality rate is due to a high percentage of their owners being douche-

bags.”

“Exactly!” Carla said. “You’ll be fine as long as you go slow.”

“I’m glad everyone’s agreed on that,” Darcy said, intending

sarcasm, but she sounded earnest in her own ears. Last night at her 235

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party, she’d felt so mature and connected, fully equipped to show

off in front of her high school friends. But the truth was that Carla and Sagan knew her better than anyone in New York, and she was

still Little Miss Innocent in their eyes.

Darcy turned away and slipped past the schoolgirls, who were

muttering to each other in what sounded like French, presumably

about Darcy’s virginity. She kept walking, through the American

galleries and up a random set of stairs, with Carla and Sagan trailing silently behind.

They entered a wing of the museum with rust-colored carpets

and soft lighting, full of painted folding screens behind glass. It was almost empty here, and Darcy slowed, no longer feeling as though

the schoolgirls were pursuing them, notebooks in hand.

“Sometimes it’s like I’m only pretending to be an adult.”

Carla smiled. “I think that’s how it works. You pretend for a

while, and eventually it’s real.”

“Like playing sick to get out of school,” Sagan said. “You wind

up with a stomachache.”

“Then I’m all set. I’m great at pretending.” Darcy forced herself to smile, willing her desultory feelings to fade. So what if she was romantically clueless? So what if she was young? What she had with Imogen was real, and as long as that was certain, her other worries were meaningless.

Well, except for her worries about rewriting a book, starting a

sequel, and not spending more than seventeen dollars a day.

“Hey, check this out.” Sagan was pointing at a huge painting on

cloth. “This guy killed your romantic lead.”

Darcy stared at the painting. It was taller than her, and featured 236

AFTERWORLDS

a three-eyed, blue-skinned monster surrounded by a halo of flame,

wearing a headdress of skulls.

“Yamantaka, slayer of Yama,” Sagan said, reading from the

plaque on the wall. “The dude who killed Death!”

“Pretty badass,” Carla said. “You should use him in your sequel.”

“I’ve never even heard of him.” Darcy nudged Sagan aside to

read the plaque. “Right, because this guy’s Buddhist. I’m in enough trouble without throwing in stuff from other religions.”

“You’re in trouble?” Sagan asked.

“Kind of,” Darcy sighed. She’d been meaning to talk to Sagan

about this today, and she couldn’t ask for a better setting. “You

know the first night I was here? When I met Kiralee?”

“Darcy’s on a first-name basis with Kiralee Taylor,” Sagan said

to Carla. “It still freaks me out.”

“You shared guacamole with Standerson!”

“Guys, listen,” Darcy said. “That night at Drinks, they were ask-

ing about how I used a real god as my romantic lead. And about

all the stuff I borrowed from the Vedas. Did you find any of that

offensive, Sagan? Like, as a Hindu?”

He shrugged. “It seemed weird at first, but then I figured that it wasn’t a problem, because there’s no Hinduism in your universe.”

Darcy blinked. “What?”

“Well, you know when Lizzie’s trying to find a word that’s bet-

ter than ‘psychopomp,’ and she googles all those death gods? At

first I didn’t get why she never ran into the concept of Yama.”

“Because that would’ve been weird,” Darcy said. “I mean, she’s been making out with him. And he’s not a god in my world, he’s a person.”

“Exactly. So I figured that the Angelina Jolie Paradox applies.”

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Darcy glanced at Carla, who looked equally confused.

“The what now?”

Sagan cleared his throat. “You know when you’re watching

a movie starring Angelina Jolie? And the character she’s playing

looks just like Angelina Jolie, right?”

“Um, yes. Because that’s who she is.”

“No, she’s a regular person in that world, not a movie star.

But the other characters never mention that she looks exactly like Angelina Jolie. No one ever comes up to her on the street and says,

‘Can I have your autograph?’”

“Because that would mess up the movie,” Carla said.

“Exactly. So when you cast Angelina Jolie in a film, you’re cre-

ating an alternate universe in which actress Angelina Jolie does not exist. Because otherwise people would be noticing the resemblance all the time. This is what I call the Angelina Jolie Paradox.”

“You know, Sagan,” Carla said. “You could have named that

paradox after any movie star.”

“True. But as the paradox’s discoverer, I have chosen Angelina

Jolie, as is my right.”

“I accept your nomenclature,” Darcy said. “But what does it

have to do with my book?”

“Well, given that Lizzie’s been researching death gods, and yet

somehow never realizes that her boyfriend is an actual death god

for, like, eight hundred million Hindus, I assume your book takes

place in a universe in which Hinduism does not exist. There’s no

other explanation.”

“Fuck. You’re right,” Darcy said. She stumbled backward,

dropping onto a dark wooden bench in the center of the room.

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AFTERWORLDS

“Dude. ” Carla laughed and sat beside her, punching Darcy on the arm. “You just erased your own religion. That’s like going back in time and killing Buddha or something.”

“Stop laughing!” Darcy returned the punch. “This is serious!”

“Are you going to get, like, excommunicated?”

“The question is moot,” Sagan said. “ We have no one in charge

to do the excommunicating.”

“It’s still not okay!” Darcy cried, staring at Yamantaka on the

wall and realizing that she and the blue-skinned monster had

something in common—they’d both killed Yama, Lord of Death.

“I mean, are you kidding with this?”

“Granted, the Angelina Jolie Paradox is not widely accepted,”

Sagan said. “It’s more of a conjecture than a theory.”

“Also, it’s very silly,” Carla pointed out.

“But it’s in my head now,” Darcy said, because however ludi-

crous Sagan’s paradox was, she couldn’t deny that it contained a

grain of truth.

Whenever she began to type a story, Darcy felt an alternate uni-

verse inside her computer taking form. Some parts of it intersected with her own world, real places like San Diego and New York, but

other parts were made up, like Lizzie Scofield or the Movement of

the Resurrection. Those connections with reality gave stories their power, and when that realness began to fray and splinter, something broke inside Darcy as well.

She looked up at the painting. A character like Yama, someone

borrowed from the Vedas, already had his own stories out here in

the real world. And every day, Darcy grew more uncertain whether

he was hers to play with anymore.

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“You could change his name,” Carla said. “Call him Steve, or

something.”

Darcy coughed out a small cry, as if she’d swallowed a bug.

“Steve?”

“Okay, an Indian name. She could use yours, right, Sagan?”

“My name means ‘Lord Shiva,’ so not really.” Sagan struck a

Bollywood archer’s pose. “But I’m available to play Yamaraj in the movie.”

Darcy shook her head. She could no more change Yamaraj’s

name than she could Lizzie’s, or any of the characters. It was too late for that. Besides, filing the serial numbers off a stolen car didn’t mean you owned it.

“You guys are killing my brain.”

“And I haven’t even told you the paradoxical part,” Sagan said.

“The only way not to erase Angelina Jolie is to never cast her in a movie.”

Carla’s eyes went wide. “Which would also erase Angelina Jolie.”

Darcy made a small and whimpering noise.

Carla sighed, and stroked her shoulder gently. “You really think

a three-thousand-year-old death god cares what you write about

him?”

“Yamaraj is who he is,” Darcy said. “This is about who I am.”

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CHAPTER 20

JAMIE KEPT LOOKING AT MY SCAR. NOT THE ONE ON MY FORE-

head, where the stitches had almost dissolved, but the oval of reddened skin that descended from my left eye, tracing the shape of a single tear.

“Can I touch it?” She was already reaching out.

I leaned closer across the Formica table. We were eating break-

fast at a diner before our first day back at school, a celebration to mark the start of our final semester.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“No. It’s kind of like a chemical peel, a really small one.” Her

fingertip was a whisper against my cheek. “From the tear gas reacting with water. That’s my terrorism beauty tip: If you get sprayed with tear gas, don’t wash your face!”

All yesterday I’d practiced this line in my head, going for comedy in the face of tragedy. But Jamie was wide-eyed and silent.

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I cleared my throat. “Just kidding. I have no terrorism beauty tips.”

“But it is kind of pretty.” Jamie picked up her phone from the table. “You mind?”

I leaned forward, and she snapped a picture from inches away.

Now she was staring at her phone instead of my face. “It’s like

a tattoo of a teardrop.”

“That’s what it is. I cried a tear, which left its mark.”

“Whoa, deep. But only one tear? That’s some pretty crappy tear gas.”

I didn’t explain how I’d mostly avoided the gas by willing myself

to an alternate reality, one inhabited by ghosts and psychopomps and threads of memory twisting cold and wet and hungry in the wind.

Instead I said, “Can I have the rest of your bagel?”

She pushed it forward, her gaze still riveted to her phone.

Jamie was the first person I’d called with my new phone, which

had shown up the day before, arriving via overnight express. (That was classic Dad behavior: waiting for more than a week to do

something, then paying extra to make it happen faster. When I left a message thanking him, he texted back, Thank Rachel. She kept bugging me. Also classic Dad.)

Jamie had announced that she was picking me up for school

an hour early, because we had so much to catch up on, and we’d

wound up heading to breakfast here at Abby’s Diner.

This was much more fun than Mom driving me to school.

Between Mindy and Yama and having a strange new reality to

explore, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed my best friend.

“I think it’s really cool how you never went on TV,” Jamie was

saying.

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“Mom made that decision, I guess. I never even thought about

doing an interview.”

“Would you have wanted to?”

“It’s not like I’ve had time.” There’d been skills to learn, after all. Afterworlds to conquer. “I didn’t even practice my Spanish over winter break. For once Mom didn’t make me.”

“Poor Anna,” Jamie said. “She must still be freaking out.”

“Pretty much.” It didn’t help that she’d found me sleeping in a

closet two nights ago, with a knife as a teddy bear. “She’s tired all the time these days. Like she never really recovered.”

“Was it weird, her and your dad seeing each other in Dallas?”

“He didn’t come.”

Jamie froze for a second, then she placed her fork down firmly.

“What the actual fuck?”

I shrugged. My dad’s behavior was always freaking people out,

but I was used to him. “He doesn’t deal well with stuff like this.”

“Who the hell does? I know he’s weird, but that’s beyond crazy.

And after you got this close to getting . . . crap. I wasn’t going to ever say that out loud. I suck.”

“Hey, I know I almost died. It’s okay.”

“Sorry.”

I shrugged. “We’re all freaked out.”

“Not just us. Air travel’s down, like, eight percent. And when

the Feds searched the houses of those gunmen, they found all kinds of explosives and other scary shit. Like they were planning something really big. Everyone says the FBI is going to raid the cult’s big compound soon.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Been keeping up with the news?”

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“Obsessively!” Jamie cried, loud enough that heads turned. Her

gaze dropped to the table, and she began to adjust her knife and

fork. “I hope that’s not weird. It’s just that when you didn’t answer my emails, I had to get my info from somewhere.”

“I know. And you’re really awesome to not be mad at me.”

Jamie was still staring at her silverware, and I could see that she was feeling everything at once: relief that I was alive, anger that I’d taken so long to get in touch, horror that the world was so random and deadly.

“It’s my fault you haven’t had a chance to process,” I said. “It

was selfish of me, hiding like that.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re the one who was terrorized,” Jamie said

to her half-finished omelet.

“I get to be silly. And I get to hide, too. But I choose to get over myself now.” I handed her one of my french fries. “See? Selflessness.”

She took the french fry and ate it solemnly. “You can talk to me

about what happened, Lizzie. Or about anything. You know that,

right?”

“Of course.”

She reached for another of my french fries. “Your mouth just

did that thing it does when you’re lying. How come?”

I looked away from her, letting out a sigh. “Maybe because I just

lied. There are things I can’t talk to you about. But it’s only because I can’t talk about them with anyone. Okay?”

I realized why I’d waited so long to call Jamie. It had noth-

ing to do with being traumatized by terrorists or hiding from my

weird new fame. It was because of how badly I wanted to tell her

everything.

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She was my best friend, and I couldn’t say a word about the

scariest and most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I

couldn’t tell her about knowing what came after death, or the ghost that haunted my mother, or those five little girls in Palo Alto. And worst of all, I couldn’t tell her about Yama.

Being with him had changed everything. There were energies

inside me that I’d never felt before, a psychopomp shine on my skin and fire in my hands. I hadn’t slept in two days. The old man under my bedroom floor was right—I didn’t need to anymore.

I was becoming something else. Something powerful and

dangerous.

“Do you hate me?” I asked.

Jamie shook her head. “I didn’t say you had to talk to me, just that you could. But maybe you need some other kind of help.”

“Like a shrink.” Suddenly I was annoyed. Mom had also suggested

seeing someone, but it seemed different when a friend said it. “I’m okay, Jamie. In some ways, I’m better than okay. Better than I was.”

There was a glimmer of sadness in her face. “How are you

better?”

“Well, some of what I can’t talk to you about, it’s not really bad.

It’s more like, um, positive developments.”

Jamie leaned closer, her eyes interrogating mine. My fingers

went unbidden to my lips. It felt as though Jamie could see Yama’s heat lingering there.

“Holy crap, Lizzie. You met someone.”

I should have denied it, but I was too surprised. We sat there

staring at each other, every second of silence confirming what she’d said.

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Jamie shook her head. “I thought you were being kind of . . . perky.”

Something about the way she said “perky” made me giggle.

“Jamie . . . ,” I began, but had nowhere to go. I giggled again.

“Lizzie,” she said back at me. “Did this happen in New York?

No, because you would have told me about that already. So you met

someone in Dallas?”

A soft moan slipped out of my mouth, as if she were dragging

the truth from me. But what I really felt was relief at finally telling someone, along with a happy panic as I tried to figure out what to say. “Yeah. I did.”

“That’s so romantic.” Her eyes were wide and glistening. “At

the hospital?”

“No.”

“So, not another patient, and you’re being super cagey about it.

You haven’t told Anna about this, have you?”

“Hell no.”

“Aha! So he’s older than you. Or are you being cagey because

he’s not a he? Did you switch teams, Lizzie? You know I don’t care if you did.”

“I know, but he’s a he. And yeah, older.” It felt weird saying

it that way. Yama might have been born a long time ago, but he

hadn’t changed much since he’d left the real world. If Mindy was

still eleven, surely Yama was my age. “Kind of older.”

“A hot young paramedic?”

“No,” I said, smiling. Jamie’s guesses would never get her to the

truth, of course, but for some reason it felt good to have her trying.

It felt normal. “He was just somebody who helped me. And we have

. . . a connection.”

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“That’s sweet, but ‘just somebody who helped you’? You suck

at hinting.”

“Who says I’m hinting?”

She reached across the table and punched me. “I say you are!

More hinting, now!”

“Okay,” I said. But what could I tell her that would even make

sense? “He knows how to deal with tragedies.”

“Like a grief counselor?”

This was probably as close as she would ever get, so I nodded.

“Deep.” But then she frowned. “Isn’t that kind of unethical?

Swooping in on someone who’s totally traumatized?”

“It’s not . . .” I groaned. “He’s not an actual grief counselor, Jamie.”

“You just said he was.”

“Not officially or anything.” This conversation was getting too

specific, so I went for vague. “He’s just someone who gave me what I needed to survive all this. When nothing else made sense, he saved me. He’s why I’m not falling apart right now.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay, I like him so far. But he must be in

Dallas, right? You know long-distance relationships mostly suck.”

“He’s here sometimes. He travels a lot. Um, for his job.”

“His job? Lizzie, what is he?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Soul guide? Psycho-

pomp? Guardian of the dead?

“It’s a secret,” I spluttered. “His job is a secret.”

There was a long pause as Jamie considered this, while I con-

templated the epic corner I had painted myself into. Maybe this was why I hadn’t called Jamie, because she always made me tell her more than I wanted to.

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“Wait,” she said a moment later. “He’s some kind of spook,

isn’t he?”

“Um, what?”

“It’s obvious.” Jamie started ticking off points on her fingers.

“Secret job. Travels a lot. Was at terrorist attack. Good at dealing with tragedies. Age inappropriate.”

“Not that inappropriate. He looks really young.”

“You’re hooking up with a government agent!” she cried. “And

how old he looks is what you’re focused on?”

I looked around, wondering if anyone in the diner had man-

aged not to hear Jamie’s outburst. Nobody I recognized was there, but my mom’s friends came to Abby’s all the time. Plus, my face

had been on the news a lot lately.

“We should stop talking about this now,” I whispered.

“Because you can neither confirm nor deny.” Jamie checked her

phone. “Plus, we should get to school. I’ll pay.”

A little later we were in the car, watching the road slip past in silence.

This was what I got for opening up. I was stuck with a lie, and

a ridiculous one. But if I denied that my secret boyfriend was some sort of secret agent, Jamie would just start asking questions again.

And there wasn’t anything true I could tell her that would make as much sense.

For that matter, how much truth did I have to tell? What did I

really know about Yama? I had only the vaguest notions about how

old he was or where he was from. He’d never even had a chance to

finish his story about becoming a psychopomp. Something about a

donkey, was all I remembered.

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I didn’t know the answers to any of the questions Jamie prob-

ably wanted to ask. But I had to say something.

“I know this all seems weird.”

“Yeah, it does.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

“Part of me wants to believe that you’re just straight-up crazy. Like, you invented a secret-agent boyfriend to make yourself feel safer.”

“Why would you want to believe that?”

“Because then no one’s taking advantage of you,” she said.

I stared at her, my breakfast twisting in my stomach. “He’s not

like that.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t seem that way, Lizzie. Because in every action movie the girl hooks up with the guy who saves her, like

that’s supposed to be normal. But in real life it’d be a pretty

messed-up way to fall in love, because your emotions go all hay-

wire when you’re getting shot at. Isn’t it called Stockholm syn-

drome or something?”

“Um, I think that’s when you fall in love with the terrorist, not

the good guy.”

“Right. That would be worse. But you didn’t just hook up with somebody because you were scared, did you?” She pulled her eyes

from the road to stare at me.

I shook my head. “It’s not like that at all. In fact, he kept saying it would be better if I forgot the whole attack, even if that meant forgetting him. But I couldn’t. We’re connected, since the first

moment I saw him.”

Her eyes were on the road again. “By which you mean, he’s

hot.”

“Yeah, he is.” For a moment, I didn’t know where to start,

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though my body was singing at the thought of describing him

aloud. “Brown eyes. Brown skin, too. He’s tall, kind of wiry.” I

could still feel the way his muscles moved beneath silk.

“Wiry? You mean he works out?”

“No. He’s more like someone who grew up on a farm.” As I said

the words, it fell into place. There’d been lots of manual labor all those years ago.

“Wiry. Okay.”

Suddenly I wanted to tell Jamie everything, or at least every-

thing that would make sense to her. “He’s got this twin sister who’s really important to him. It’s like they have a bond.”

“That’s weird, but cool.” Jamie sighed. “So you hooked up in

Dallas? Like, while you were in the hospital?”

“No. It was here, two nights ago. That’s the first time we . . . the first time anything happened.”

“He was here in San Diego? Not stalking you, I hope.”

“No. He just happened to be here. And I’m the one who called him.

Like I said, we have this connection. Just trust me on this.”

She turned to stare at me, and it was a long moment before her

eyes went back to the road. “Okay. I trust you, Lizzie. And I’m glad someone was there for you. Just be careful.”

“I will be.” Of course, that was a lie. Being careful would mean

taking Yama’s advice and forgetting all about the five little girls in Palo Alto. But I couldn’t do that. Mindy needed to know for sure that she was safe from the bad man. And I needed to know that everyone

else was too.

I reached out and put my hand gently on Jamie’s, wanting to

say something that wasn’t a half-truth. “I’m really glad we talked 250

AFTERWORLDS

about this. It all seems more real to me now, just from saying it out loud to you.”

She gave me a smile, our hands parting as she turned the wheel to

guide her car into the student parking lot. It was already swarming, groups of friends clumping together, excited to see each other again or mutually depressed about being back at school. It all looked so normal and of-this-world that it made my heart twist a little.

Like I didn’t belong here anymore.

It was strange. When I was in the gray world, I looked out of

place, shiny and full of color. But this school parking lot felt foreign as well, too full of life for a psychopomp like me.

That word sucked. I’d started searching online for something

better to call myself, but had found only the old standbys like “soul guide” and “grim reaper,” and lots of gods and goddesses with

names like Oya, Xolotl, Pinga, and Muut, plus two from Chinese

mythology called Ox-Head and Horse-Face.

For obvious reasons, I was still looking.

Jamie drove us carefully through the throng and pulled into an

empty spot. The moment I stepped out of the car, people were eyeing me with furtive looks of recognition, a few of them pulling out their phones. But at least there were no TV cameras or reporters. The winter break had lasted just long enough for my survivor fame to recede.

But as Jamie and I headed for the school’s front entrance, I saw

a black sedan parked in the street, a lone figure inside watching the students file past.

“Hang on a second,” I said to Jamie, and crossed the strip of

lawn between parking lot and street.

The driver’s-side window hummed down as I approached.

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“Hey, Special Agent.”

“Good to see you, Miss Scofield.” Elian Reyes was wearing his

usual dark suit and sunglasses, and his tie was bright red today.

“It’s good to see you too. But, um . . .”

“To what do you owe the honor of this visit?” His smile gleamed

for a moment in the morning sun. “Nothing serious. My agent in

charge was concerned about your first day of school.”

“Anything I should know about?”

He gave a little shake of his head. “No new intelligence, Miss

Scofield. Simply an abundance of caution.”

“That’s nice of you guys. But my friend saw something about

that death cult on the news. Like, the FBI is going to raid their headquarters or whatever.”

“That’s a rumor, Miss Scofield.”

“Right.” I smiled. “Which you can neither confirm nor deny.”

“One I can’t give you any inside information on. Down here

in Southern Cal we mostly deal with drug trafficking. A little high-glamour terrorism is always exciting, though.”

“Glad I could help with that.” Behind me, the first bell rang. I

turned to look back, and saw Jamie watching us with widened eyes.

“Oh, crap.”

“Friend of yours?” Agent Reyes asked.

“Yeah. And now she probably . . .” I groaned at my own stupid-

ity. “She probably thinks that you’re my new boyfriend.”

He lowered his sunglasses a little, his brown eyes narrowing.

“Your new boyfriend?”

“My secret boyfriend that I just told her about. Long story,

highly awkward.”

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“I agree. Feel free to disabuse her of this notion, Miss Scofield.”

“I’ll get right on that.” The beginnings of a blush were creeping

across my cheeks. “Um, that was the bell. I have to go to school now.”

He nodded. “Let me know if you see anything unusual today.”

“I already put your number in my phone.” I saluted and turned

away.

As I started back toward the front door, I noticed that more

people than just Jamie had watched me talk to Special Agent Reyes.

Just perfect.

“Hot indeed,” Jamie said as I reached the door, a leering smile

on her face. “But you said you hadn’t been practicing your Spanish.”

“No way! I mean, maybe he is kind of hot. But he’s not . . .”

“Hispanic?”

I groaned. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

She hooked her arm through mine and led me inside. “Right.

He’s some other hot secret guy in a totally government car who happens to be following you around.”

“Yes! That’s it exactly.”

“Sure, babe.”

A clump of sophomores was watching a little too keenly as we

walked past, and I heard my named whispered, but Jamie silenced

them with a hard glance.

“Neophytes,” she muttered.

I thought about trying to convince Jamie of the nonboyfriend

status of Special Agent Reyes again, but there was no point. She’d seen him with her own eyes, after all, which beat an invisible psychopomp any day. At least now she wouldn’t think I was crazy

enough to make someone up.

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“Thanks, Jamie.”

“For what?”

“For listening to me. For trusting me.”

She squeezed our linked arms tighter. “I repeat: Just be careful.”

I nodded, content to let Jamie guide me to our first-period act-

ing class.

It was strange. Our conversation might have been littered with

half-truths and misunderstandings, but talking to Jamie had helped me make sense of everything that had happened. I’d never understood why Yama had been so hesitant at first, saying that I should forget him. But maybe brand-new ghosts became attached to him

all the time, like ducklings imprinting on their mother. And he’d

been worried about those little girls imprinting on me . . .

But that wasn’t what had happened between us, was it?

From the first moment I’d seen him, Yama had been so beau-

tiful, so necessary. Not because I was traumatized, but in spite of the awful things happening around us. From our first kiss in the

airport, he’d become a part of me. I could still feel his lips against mine, and he’d heard me when I’d called his name.

Our connection was real, and talking about it with Jamie had

only made it more real, no matter how many times I’d had to lie.

254

CHAPTER 21

IT WAS ONLY TEN DAYS AFTER HER FIRST REAL KISS THAT

Darcy Patel received her first real editorial letter. It seemed fitting that she share both with the same person.

“It’s here!” she shouted into her phone.

“Hang on,” came Imogen’s sleepy voice, then the sound of teeth

being brushed, then spitting. “You mean your ed letter? About

time.”

“I know, right? This book comes out in 428 days!”

“How do you even know that?

“Nisha texted me this morning.”

Imogen laughed. “That’s handy. What did Nan’s ed letter

say?”

“I haven’t read it yet. I need you here!” Saying this made Darcy

feel pathetic, and a little annoyed that she had to ask: “Can you

come over?”

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“I might be able to squeeze you in,” Imogen drawled, but then

added: “Forward the letter to me. See you in five.”

Fifteen minutes later, they sat on the roof of Darcy’s building,

phones and muffins in hand. Darcy was still in pajama bottoms and

a T-shirt, but Imogen wore a crisp white shirt and a full comple-

ment of rings on her fingers, having proclaimed that editorial letters were serious business. She’d brought two coffees and muffins

from the Chinese-Italian café downstairs.

“So far, so good.” Darcy was scanning the letter’s opening para-

graph. “She still loves the first chapter.”

“Nan always starts with praise.” Imogen flicked her thumb

across the screen.

“Hey! That’s my praise. Don’t scroll past it!”

“Save the praise till you need it. Dessert goes last.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Says the person eating a muffin for

breakfast. Why are we doing this on the roof, anyway?”

“To maintain perspective,” Imogen said, gesturing toward the

skyline.

Darcy didn’t even ask what that meant. She had eyes only for

the email. The next paragraph was about chapters two and three,

when Lizzie was in Yamaraj’s underworld palace after the airport

attack.

There was a distinct lack of praise.

“Crap. She hates it.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“She says it’s all exposition!”

“Well, that’s kind of true.” Imogen wadded up her empty muf-

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fin paper and placed it beside her coffee. “But I like Yamaraj’s origin story. Revengeful donkeys are awesome!”

“Thanks,” Darcy said softly. The donkey story was one of the

few things in the book that she had come up with on her own. It

had nothing to do with Yamaraj of the Vedas, or her mother’s mur-

dered friend. It had come out of nowhere, it seemed, a tale from

another era.

But Nan had a point. For two whole chapters Yamaraj and Yami

sat in their palace explaining the rules of the afterworld to Lizzie, a giant block of exposition, just like every writing how-to book told you not to do. How had Darcy not noticed it before now?

She felt a tremor in her hand, and felt a fight-or-flight reflex in her stomach. Suddenly she hated those two chapters.

“Maybe if they explain things later,” she said slowly, keeping

the quaver from her voice. “Then Lizzie has to figure the afterworld out on her own, and it makes Yamaraj more mysterious at first.”

Imogen nodded “Mysterious is good. He’s a death god, after

all.”

“Yeah. About that . . .”

It took a moment to say more. Darcy wondered when exactly

she’d decided to borrow a character from her religion. Maybe

those stories from the Vedas had always been in her head. Maybe it hadn’t even been conscious.

But at some point Yama had gotten mixed up with all the other

stories in her head, and he had blended with Bollywood models,

manga boyfriends, paranormal romance hotties, and even the

handsome princes from Disney movies. . . .

“Shit. That’s it.”

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“What is?” Imogen asked.

“The fact that Yamaraj takes Lizzie to his palace. It’s dorky.

Dudes with castles are so Disney.”

“He’s a raja of the afterworld,” Imogen said. “What else would

he live in, a bungalow?”

Even in her anguish, Darcy made a note to herself that she liked

the word “bungalow,” even if she wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

“Okay, he does have a palace,” she admitted. “He’s got a whole

city. But Lizzie can’t just hang out there and drink tea. Not till later, when everything’s going wrong, and the underworld is serious and

scary and weird. Yama has to be a proper death god.”

Imogen looked up from her phone. “Does this have to with

what Kiralee said?”

“Not just her. My friend Sagan kind of freaked me out.” The

Angelina Jolie Paradox seemed too silly to explain to Imogen, but

Darcy had to try. “By making Yamaraj a character, it’s like I’m erasing him from scripture. But getting rid of him would erase him too.

So all that’s left is making him real. I owe him that much.”

“You owe every character that much,” Imogen said simply.

“Right, sure.” The strange thing was, from that first day of

writing last November, Darcy had imagined Yamaraj’s beautiful

underworld palace. But she’d never been to India, and her vision

had been cobbled together from movies, cartoons, and websites for

fancy hotels in India. “I really loved that palace scene. But it’s too dorky, isn’t it?”

“Kill your darlings,” Imogen said, reaching out to trace a line

down Darcy’s bare arm. It sent a shiver through her, a kind of

relief, the feeling of a broken darling leaving her system.

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She switched her phone to a notes app and typed with one

thumb: Exposition later. Palace scarier. Yama more mysterious. Her hand still trembled a little, and her breath was short, but it was no longer a fight-or-flight reflex. It was the buzz of ideas burning in her head, and of being here with Imogen in the spot where they had first kissed.

Canal Street rumbled with authority below, and the city seemed

huge and steadfast around Darcy.

She kept her voice even. “This was a good idea, working on the

roof.”

Imogen answered with her lips, brushing them lightly against

the side of Darcy’s neck. She smelled of coffee and ginger, and a

touch of starch from her crisp white shirt.

The kiss set off another shiver in Darcy’s stomach, which

tangled with the flutter of anxiety and caffeine. She wanted to turn and kiss Imogen full on the lips, but there was a momentum in her

thoughts, and in her body, that she couldn’t squander.

“So I have to figure out where Yamaraj takes Lizzie. Where

would they go, if not the underworld? Somewhere dark and scary.”

For a long moment, neither of them said a word. Darcy thought

of all the settings in the book—the ghost school, the windswept

island, the mountaintop in Persia. Which was the bleakest and scariest, most befitting an introduction to a death god?

It was Imogen who broke the silence. “Why do they have to go

anywhere?”

“You mean . . .” Darcy’s voice faded. Everyone loved the airport

scene, so maybe she didn’t have to leave it behind. “But there’s a terrorist attack going on.”

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“If you want scary, that’s a good thing. And if Lizzie’s thought

herself over to the flipside, she’s invisible, and bullets can’t touch her.”

Darcy closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the scene:

Lizzie waking up with bloody bodies on the floor around her,

the terrorists blazing away at TSA agents and SWAT teams.

She’d panic and bounce back into the real world. And get shot.

Unless, of course, Yamaraj was there to keep her calm.

“Of course, Lizzie has to know she’s in another world,” Imogen

said. “Otherwise there’s no genre transition.”

Darcy’s eyes opened. “No what?”

“You know, that moment when Lizzie realizes she’s not in

Kansas anymore, and the reader does too. Your book starts as a terrorism thriller, but then Lizzie wills herself into another genre. For me, that was the first moment that had the juice.”

Darcy felt herself relax a little, happy to be back in the land of praise.

“Give me a second,” she said. She closed her eyes again and let

herself sink down into the experimental theater in her brain, the

place where she imagined scenes. She saw the airport attack again, with Lizzie right there in the middle of it, but this time in the gray of the flipside.

As the silence stretched out, Imogen remained quiet, long past

when Nisha or Carla would have spoken up to offer advice. And

gradually Darcy let the certainties of what she had already written fade into smoke and mist, until finally her eyes popped open and

she said . . .

“Tear gas!”

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Imogen kept her gaze level, staying silent.

“When the police get to the airport, they start by shooting in

tear gas. So when Lizzie wakes up, she’s in a cloud.”

“So she’s coughing?” Imogen asked carefully.

Darcy shook her head. “The flipside has its own air. So Lizzie

thinks she’s in heaven, until she sees Yami staring at her through the mist.”

“Creepy little sister in heaven. Nice.”

Darcy smiled, her mind’s eye still in the scene. “But what looks

like heaven is really hell—dead bodies all around her, half hidden by the mist.”

“And before she sees them and freaks out, Yamaraj is there to

help!”

“And he says exactly the right thing.” Darcy took a drink of

coffee to pull herself back into the real world, her mind ringing

with possibilities. But what she’d envisioned wasn’t just a fix, it was a whole new chapter. “Shit. So Nan points out this problem in one paragraph, and I have to write thousands of words to fix it? That’s not fair!”

“All’s fair in love and art.”

“And this letter has five more pages!”

Imogen was laughing now. “Guess that’s why you get paid the

big bucks.”

They kept going all afternoon, for another hour on the roof and

then down in the big room, at the desk with both their laptops

open. Thankfully, most of the Nan’s comments didn’t demand as

much work as the first one. Some were positively niggling.

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“Do I really use the word ‘veins’ too much?” Darcy asked.

“Kind of.”

Darcy frowned. “Where the fuck else is Lizzie’s adrenaline sup-

posed to be? In her armpits? And why do you keep agreeing with

Nan?”

“She’s a good editor.” Imogen held up her hands in surrender.

“But it’s your book. You get the final say.”

“I asked Moxie about that once, and she said it depends.”

“Only on how brave you are,” Imogen said. “If you disagree on

something big, Nan can threaten not to publish your book. And I

guess she could actually not publish it. But remember: She can’t make you write a different novel.”

“That’s reassuring. Kind of.”

“Don’t worry. No one’s going to cancel your contract on the

‘veins’ issue.” Imogen tapped at her laptop keyboard. “Here we go .

. . search and replace ‘veins’ with ‘penguins.’ Oh, look: ‘187 replace-ments made.’”

“I used ‘veins’ 187 times? Are you serious?”

Imogen was laughing. “Yeah, I think my protag had anger

coursing through his veins last night too. You got into my head,

girl!”

“Sorry. I suck at writing.” Darcy frowned. “Um, exactly why did

you replace it with ‘penguins’?”

“So when you do the rewrites, you won’t miss it.” Imogen

tapped her trackpad, and the swoosh of sent mail sounded. “You’re welcome.”

Darcy reached across to take Imogen’s hand, and felt the

warmth of her skin, the cool metal of her rings. “Thanks. Not for

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the penguins, but for being here. You make up for bad writing

humiliation that’s coursing through my penguins.”

“One more page to go.” Imogen’s eyes flashed. “Will it be a last

dollop of admiration? Or a final devastating edit?”

Darcy groaned as she scrolled to the final page of the letter.

It was half-full, containing a single paragraph that looked forbiddingly dense.

“This better be praise,” she said, and began to read.

A moment later Imogen leaned back and sighed. “Thought that

might happen.”

“Don’t tell me you agree with her!”

“No, I hate the idea.” Imogen drummed her fingers on the desk.

“But I was worried this might happen.”

Darcy read the paragraph again. It was a long and rambling

explanation, more about sales and sequels than storytelling. But

there was a firmness to it, a certainty in Nan’s convictions that

made Darcy feel young and small and defenseless.

Her editor wanted a happy ending.

“Crap. I thought I nailed those last chapters.”

“I thought so too.” Imogen was staring at her laptop.

“Then why did you expect this?”

“Happy endings are popular. Do you not watch movies?”

“Yeah, but that’s movies,” Darcy groaned. “Books are above all that!”

“No business is above money.”

“But I never thought I’d have to . . . Wait, hang on. The ending

of Pyromancer is way darker than Afterworlds. Did Nan ask you to change it?”

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“No. She loved it.”

“Crap! Is this because I’m younger than you? So Nan thinks she

can push me around?”

“I doubt it.” Imogen’s pointed at her laptop screen. “See what

she says here? ‘We have very high expectations for this book,

Darcy, but we won’t be able to live up to them without Sales fully on board.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they’re paying you three hundred thousand dollars,

and now they want their happy ending.”

They lay together on Darcy’s futon, Imogen holding her from

behind.

Their bodies fit perfectly like this, two continents pulled apart eons ago but now rejoined. Though her head still spun from the ed letter, Darcy could feel every detail of Imogen behind her—the leanness of her arms, the pulsing ghost of her breath. Lying here like this was new enough to be sublimely distracting.

But it was impossible for Darcy to surrender to her body,

because her brain buzzed with strategies—arguments against Nan’s

dictates, a dozen possible happy endings, tragic speeches to give if her book were canceled. And under the rest, the hum of worry that

this was all her fault.

“It’s because I’m a hack, isn’t it?”

Imogen shifted, tightening her arms around Darcy. “What’d

you say?”

“Pyromancer is edgy right from the beginning. And Ariel just gets more gnarly and complicated as you go, all the way to the ending.”

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“So you read it?”

“Yes! Sorry!” Darcy cried, realizing that in her excitement

this morning, she had forgotten to say so. “Finished it, right after Carla and Sagan left. It was amazing, and gritty, and real. And

nobody randomly shows up to save Ariel when she gets in trouble.

Especially not some dorky death lord who lives in a palace.”

Imogen chuckled. “You’re going to fix the palace.”

“It’s too late now. Nan sees this as a happy-ending book, and

so does Sales.” Darcy burrowed backward into Imogen’s warmth.

“You get to keep your messy ending, because your characters are

messy and complicated, and you don’t borrow death gods and

make them dorky. Because you’re a real writer.”

“Seriously, this again?”

“You know what I mean. Nobody expects Pyromancer to have

some big Disney ending.”

“Because nobody expects it to sell a million copies, no matter

how it ends. Sales doesn’t worry about working-class pyromaniacs

who lust after their gym teachers.”

“Then they’re stupid. You’re going to sell millions.”

“Shush,” Imogen said, pulling Darcy closer.

“But it’s so awesome.”

“Thank you, but shush.”

They were silent for a while, Darcy wondering what to do next.

Call her agent? Fight to the death? (The death of her contract? Her career?) Or did she really have to start writing a happy ending for Lizzie and Yamaraj?

“Doesn’t Nan understand that my book is about death?”

Imogen’s sigh was warm against the back of Darcy’s neck.

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“Maybe that’s why. You start with so much tragedy, she wants it to end happily.”

“That’s stupid.”

“All happy endings are kind of stupid.” Imogen pulled down

the collar of Darcy’s T-shirt and kissed the top of her spine, sending a shiver through her. “Except in real life, where they’re nice.”

Darcy squirmed in Imogen’s arms till they were face-to-face. “Do

you think we’re going to have a happy ending? Or would that be stupid?”

“We as in us?” Imogen considered the question, a wary look on her

face. “I think it might be too early to think about endings.”

“I wasn’t thinking about endings,” Darcy said, which had been entirely true until a moment ago. But now that she’d started, it was hard to stop. What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, “They lived happily ever after,” and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year.

What were her chances of spending her whole life with the first

person she’d ever really kissed? Darcy rolled away and brought her knees close, wrapping her arms around them.

“Fetal position, huh?” Imogen said. “Thought this might hap-

pen, so I saved you some good news.”

“Glad to hear I’m so predictable. What’s the news?”

“When Pyromancer comes out, I’ll be touring with Standerson.”

“Seriously?” Darcy sprang out of her ball and rolled over to face

Imogen again. “He’s going on tour with you?”

“Well, technically I’m going on tour with him.” Imogen’s smile was growing as she spoke. “Not all twenty cities, of course. But we’ll be on the same stage every night for a week.”

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“That’s amazing!” Darcy leaned forward and they kissed prop-

erly for the first time that day. The pressure of Imogen’s lips, the play of her tongue, all of it soothed the tightness in Darcy’s stomach. She wondered why they’d waited so long.

When their mouths parted, Imogen was still smiling.

“I can’t believe you!” Darcy shook her head. “You kept that

secret from me all day?”

“Like I said, thought you might need it. Dessert goes last.”

“You do realize that dessert-goes-last and happy-endings-are-

stupid contradict each other, right?”

Imogen shrugged. “One’s a strategy. One’s a philosophy. No

contradiction.”

“Whatever,” Darcy sighed. “But you and Standerson! All

because of my party!”

“Glad I showed up,” Imogen said. “For that and other reasons.”

As Darcy laughed at this, a fugitive memory crossed her mind.

She’d been a little drunk, and so much else had happened that

night. But in the three days since, one moment of the party kept

popping back into her head.

“You said something weird that night.”

“That I was hot for your book?”

“Weirder. You said that ‘Imogen Gray’ was your pen name.

You were just kidding, right?”

Imogen’s smile faded at last. “No. It’s true.”

“So that’s not your real name?”

“Not the one I was born with.”

Darcy frowned. “But it’s something close, right? Like, Imogen

Grayson?”

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Imogen shook her head. “There’s no point guessing. I don’t tell

people my real name.”

Darcy sat up. “Why the hell not?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Then tell me what it is!”

Imogen let out a slow groan. “Listen, Darcy. Back in college I

wrote a lot of stuff for this indie blog. It was basically a diary: everything I was thinking, everything I was doing . . . every one I was doing.

And after Paradox bought my book, they asked me if I wanted to use a pen name. When I googled myself that night, I didn’t love what I saw. So I decided to keep all that separate from my novels.”

“Okay, sure. But separate from me too?”

“For the moment, yeah.”

Darcy sat there, wide-eyed, until Imogen took her hand.

“That’s not who I am right now, is all.”

“But you didn’t change your self,” Darcy said. “You just changed your name.”

“At first, maybe. But it’s a chance to start over, without having

to go into witness protection or whatever. Having a pen name gives me a new identity: novelist Imogen Gray. And now that identity is

me. Why are you staring?”

“I don’t know.” Darcy dropped her stare to the futon cover, but

had to look up again. It was as if Imogen had announced she was an alien, a shape-shifter, or a flat-out impostor. “This is so weird. I’ve been calling you the wrong name this whole time.”

“No you haven’t. Imogen Gray is my name.”

“So you changed it legally?”

Imogen groaned. “No, but it’s my name.”

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“If I promise not to google it, will you tell me what your real

one is?”

“No. And it’s not any more real than this one.”

“I thought you wanted me to trust you!”

“You can trust me, even if I don’t tell you my name.”

“Can you hear how weird that sounds, Imogen? Or whatever

your real name is!”

“Listen, Darcy.” Imogen let out a slow, exasperated sigh. “You

know how it hurts when characters die?”

This felt like a trick, and it took Darcy a moment to say, “Sure.”

“That’s because characters are real. Because stories are real, even if they’re fictions. Which means pen names are real too,

because novels make their writers into different people. So Imogen Gray is real. That’s who I am. Okay?”

“It still feels like you’re hiding something.”

“Not any more than you are.”

“Me?” A laugh bubbled up in Darcy. “I never even kissed any-

one before you, Gen. There’s nothing to hide!”

“Really? So how come when you showed up in New York, you

didn’t tell anyone your age? How come you didn’t bring any stuff?

At your party Johari asked why this apartment was so empty, and

you let her think it’s because you’re some sort of mad author-

monk. But it’s because you want to start over.”

Darcy had to turn away from Imogen’s intensity, and her eyes

fell on the select and perfect row of novels on her shelves. There were no books she’d been forced to read for school, no manga series she’d given up halfway through. The bedroom walls were bare of old selfies and boy band posters, shorn of all the flotsam of childhood. Every 269

SCOTT WESTERFELD

morning when she walked out into the big room, Darcy breathed the

air of a life made from her own choices, without leftovers or hand-me-downs. Nothing here was someone else’s idea.

Apartment 4E was a blank page.

“You wanted to rewrite yourself,” Imogen said.

Darcy stared down at Imogen’s hands. They were twitching, as

they always did when she ranted about writing and books. It was

crazy to fight with her about this stuff. It was like arguing with someone’s religion.

“Okay, I get it.” Darcy took a slow breath. “But will you tell me

one day?”

“Of course,” Imogen said. “But right now I need you not to

know, because you’re part of what’s making me.”

“Making you what?”

“Just making me.” The faintest blush played across Imogen’s cheeks. “I’ve only had this name a year. I’m still a work in progress.

You’re part of that now. Maybe the biggest part of that.”

“Okay.” Darcy took one of Imogen’s tight fists in her hands,

and stroked it until the fingers opened. This had been their first fight, she supposed, and now that it was over, something was left

bubbling inside Darcy. Relief that the argument was finished, but

also a hunger that its passage had opened up. “You’re part of what’s making me too, Gen.”

“I hope so,” Imogen said, and drew her closer for another kiss,

deep and slow and fervent. Darcy felt something kindling inside

her, and for the first time wished that they weren’t taking things slow. But she didn’t want to risk two arguments in one day, so she kept that thought to herself.

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CHAPTER 22

“JUST DON’T THINK ABOUT THE WALL,” MINDY SAID AGAIN.

“You know, that might be easier if you didn’t keep mentioning it.”

Mindy frowned. “How can I not mention it? You’re trying to

walk through it.”

“Right,” I said. “And how can I not think about it when I’m trying to walk through it?”

Mindy looked genuinely puzzled by this, and I was reminded

again that she was only eleven years old. She’d never mastered the subtleties of psyching herself out. Though, at the moment, my own

mental focus was nothing to brag about.

I stared at the graffiti-covered wall at the edge of the old

playground near my house. I’d spent the last hour trying to walk

through it the way Mindy could, as easily as strolling through an

open door. But all I had to show for my efforts was a bruised knee and a short temper.

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“Maybe if you close your eyes?” Mindy suggested.

“Tried it.” I pointed at my knee.

She didn’t answer, just sat there on the wall, deftly managing to

look perplexed and smug at the same time.

Now that I’d spent the last hour trying to do it, ghosts walking

through walls made no sense. If you could go through a wall, why

wouldn’t you fall through the ground beneath your feet? And then

keep on falling through the water table, the earth’s crust, and a few thousand miles of magma until you wound up at the center of the

planet?

But there was Mindy, sitting on top of the same wall that she’d

strolled through a moment before. She seemed to make uncon-

scious decisions every second about which objects were solid and

which weren’t—the key word of which was “unconscious.” Every

time I thought about it, I wound up crashing into things.

And the problem was much bigger than my bruised knee. Here

on the flipside, I was just like a ghost. I couldn’t move anything in the real world, which meant no opening doors. Walking through

walls was necessary simply to get around.

Even if Yama had offered to teach me the ways of the after-

world, I wanted to master some skills without his help. Besides, if I was ever going to find out more about the bad man, I needed to

learn how to do this, or stand around waiting for him to open his

door to me.

“Come on, Lizzie. You’ve done it before.” Mindy was swinging

her legs, bored now. “You ran through that fence around the scary

school.”

“But that school was from the old days, when there was no fence.”

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“So maybe you should think about the past.”

“Like, I should imagine dinosaurs in the playground?”

“Not that far back, silly.”

Mindy was right—T. rex didn’t haunt. Ghosts emerged from

the minds of the living, so only things in living memory could exist in the flipside.

I turned to face the wall again. It was covered with graffiti,

mostly a long mural of a monster eating its own tail, impressive

even in shades of flipside gray. The monster wasn’t quite a dino-

saur, but it gave me an idea. I took a step closer and placed my hand against the wall, trying to imagine its surface new and untouched.

For a long moment, nothing happened that I could see. But

beneath my palm the texture of the brick seemed to change, the

smooth coat of latex paint replaced by something grittier. I pulled away.

“Whoa,” I said.

Through an outline in the shape of my hand, I could see an

older layer of graffiti, worn and softened by time. As I stared at the hole I’d made, the entire surface of the wall began to simmer

and seethe. The monster boiled away, replaced by other images—a

glowing pyramid, a laughing clown face, a giant unreadable word

in five-foot-high letters—each dissolving in turn, as if the old layers of paint were being peeled away. Across the images danced the tags of a hundred street artists, squiggled signatures piled one on top of another, all of them rewinding backward in time.

For a brief instant the wall was bare, the mortar still wet and

shiny between the bricks. Then at last it faded, and I could see

through it to the grassy vacant lot beyond.

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“That actually worked,” I murmured.

“Make sure not to look at me,” Mindy said.

I glanced up—and there she was, floating in empty space. For a

moment my brain tried to reconcile the realities of past and pres-

ent, and the bricks shimmered halfway back into place, a mirage

uncertain of its own existence.

“I said don’t look at me!”

“Shush.” I forced Mindy from my mind and strode ahead.

For a moment the wall pushed back at me, like a gust of wind

tugging an umbrella, and then I was on the other side.

“You did it!” Mindy shouted.

I turned back to her with a cry of triumph in my mouth, but

madness had erupted behind me. The whole playground was bub-

bling over into chaos. The poured rubber surface churned, shift-

ing into asphalt and then sand, weeds rippling in its cracks and

edges. I saw ghostly streaks of movement, heard peals of laughter

and cries of pain. The history of the playground rushed past in a

torrent, sounds and smells and emotions. Broken bones and child-

hood humiliations crackled in the air—everything at once, decades

jammed together.

For a moment I felt something akin to Yama’s electricity com-

ing from inside me, like a battery pressed against my tongue, sparks dancing on my skin. My heart skidded in my chest, and I had to

breathe slow and easy to keep myself on the flipside.

“You okay, Lizzie? You look weird.”

“I’m fine.” The vision was already fading, the afterworld return-

ing to its usual flat, gray stillness. But the sparks were still there, glitter on my hands.

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I wondered if the things I’d seen were actual scraps of buried

history. Were we psychopomps like psychic gravediggers, exhum-

ing memories and giving them form? Or had the vision been a

hallucination?

It had been a week now since I’d slept. The old man had been

right; I didn’t need it anymore. Sleep was just a slice of death, and I’d already eaten my fill. But my dreams were piling up undreamed, sometimes spilling out in daylight. Old taunts and jealousies lurked in the corners and stairwells of my school. I never knew which

noises were real, and which the spirit world or in my imagination.

For a moment I thought of going home, lying down, and closing

my eyes. But I was still buzzing from my vision, too full of energy.

And I could walk through walls now.

“We should go somewhere, Mindy.”

She hopped down from the wall. “Like where?”

“Someplace far away. Like the Chrysler Building!”

“But that means going down in the river. It’s too scary.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” I said. “You’re always saying how bored

you are. This would be fun!”

She shook her head.

I sighed. “The bad man’s still alive, Mindy. He’s not a ghost. He

can’t hurt you.”

“So what?”

“So what? You were so happy when I told you!”

Mindy turned away. “I was. But maybe it would’ve been better

if he’d died a long time ago. Because then he would have faded by

now.” She turned to stare up at me, her gray eyes glinting. “He must be old, right? Livers die all the time.”

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“He could also last another twenty years.”

“You mean, he might still be doing bad things?” she asked softly.

I stood there, for a moment unable to answer. Mindy had died

thirty-five years ago, so the bad man had to be middle-aged, at least.

But that didn’t mean he’d retired as a murderer.

“Look, I thought about calling the police,” I said. “But what can

I tell them? That I saw the ghosts of his victims in his yard?”

Mindy stared at the ground. She was only eleven, and didn’t

know about evidence and probable cause. She just knew she was

afraid.

“The police didn’t do anything back then, either,” she said.

“I’m sure they tried.”

She looked up at me, the usual sadness showing in her eyes. The

echoes of what had happened thirty-five years ago were wound up

inside her, as inescapable as death. The only way for Mindy to get over her fear was for someone to end the bad man.

And I could walk through walls.

The River Vaitarna was wild and angry later that night, full of cold wet things. But it knew exactly where to take me.

As my feet touched the ground, I dropped my gaze to the street,

not wanting to see those five little girls standing among the gnarled trees. More important, I didn’t want them seeing me, connecting

with me. I was already breaking my promise to Yama to stay away.

This wasn’t my first time taking the river without him by my

side. I’d been practicing all week, midnight jaunts to my old middle school or Mom’s work. But it was strange being here, a place that

really made me nervous, without him.

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I walked to the next corner and checked the street sign: Hillier

Lane. My phone didn’t work in the flipside, but I pulled a folded

piece of paper from my back pocket. I hadn’t told Mindy where I

was going, but she’d watched me print out the street map.

Eyes on the paper, I made a left turn, walked another block,

and turned left again, circling toward the bad man’s backyard. But the streets weren’t a neat grid, and the alleyways didn’t have signs.

I wandered for a few minutes, half-lost. It was after one a.m., and there were no people around, no cars . . .

Just a cat, its green eyes peering at me from down the street.

“Is that you?”

The cat blinked. I’d seen it a week ago, when Yama and I had

first taken the river to my mother’s old house.

It watched me approach with vague interest, then turned and

trotted away. I broke into a jog, trying to keep pace without scaring it.

The cat turned from the main street into a small back lane, like

the one behind our house in San Diego, but messier. There were

garbage bins lining the path, a set of abandoned dining chairs.

Grass sprouted from backyards, tall and wild.

The cat finally slipped away through a gap in a wooden

fence, and I couldn’t follow. But I had to be close. I walked along the alley, checking both sides until I was staring at a house that looked familiar. It had the same small A-frame as the bad man’s

bungalow, the same thick coat of stucco. There were no ghostly

little girls in the backyard, but I was glad for that.

I stood there, letting my breathing slow. I’d learned tonight that to walk through solid objects, I had to stay focused. The last thing I 277

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wanted was to get trapped in a panic on the wrong side of the bad

man’s walls.

As I passed through his backyard fence, its chain links tugged

at me, but gave way with little pops, like icicles breaking. The bad man’s windows were all dark, and when I climbed the steps to the

back door, I heard nothing from inside.

I didn’t have a plan, just a vague idea of finding something to tell the police about. But I had no excuse not to try. Here on the flipside I was invisible, invulnerable to anything a living person could do.

I took another slow breath and passed through his back door,

out of the moonlight and into the darkness inside.

It was dead silent in the house. The air seemed thick, the

smell of rust growing until it was a taste in my mouth. I took

slow steps forward, reaching my hands out in the blackness.

Then I realized that the windows were covered with newspaper.

“Nothing creepy about that,” I murmured, and stood still, will-

ing my eyes to adjust. The thought of stumbling into something in

those shadows made my skin crawl.

The flipside had its own glow, gray and soft. A utility room

gradually came into focus around me, the sort of place where you’d change your shoes before going into the rest of the house. Shelves of paint cans and garden tools, a few bags of soil piled in one corner. Another door stood before me. After a calming breath, I passed through it without a hitch.

Here in the kitchen moonlight flooded through the windows,

and it was cheery compared to the blacked-out room behind me.

The sink was spotless, a row of water glasses sparkling in a drying rack. The tiled floor looked freshly mopped.

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An ordinary kitchen, as far as I could see. Except for the freezer, which was too big.

White and shiny, long as a coffin, it took up a whole wall. As I

stared at it, the compressor popped on, setting the floor rumbling beneath my feet. It would be no problem to fit an adult inside, or a child.

But my body was back in San Diego, so I was stuck here on the

flipside, unable to open the door. All I could do was pass through things.

I stepped closer, placed a hand on the freezer’s cool metal

skin. Its motor trembled beneath my palm. I closed my eyes, let-

ting them adjust to darkness again, counting slowly to a hundred.

Eyes still closed, I bent over the gently humming machine, will-

ing myself through solid metal. Cold air touched my nose, then

spread across my cheeks and forehead, as if I were dipping my face into water.

The hardest part was opening my eyes again, not knowing what

would be there, inches from my face. My eyes made out something

in the gray light of the flipside, lumpy and formless . . .

Peas. Frozen peas in a bag.

There were also gray tubs of ice cream, plastic-wrapped steaks,

and a pile of gel packs, the kind my father had used after his jogging injury a few years ago.

The bad man had bad knees, it seemed.

I pulled myself back out, and stood there shivering in the pale

spotlessness of the kitchen. The freezer looked solid again in front of me, much less menacing now.

What if this wasn’t even the right house?

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Next to the kitchen was a living room dominated by a big TV.

The couch was old and musty-looking, but very neat, the pillows

plumped and fat. No pictures of family, no chairs for guests, just a folding tray for eating in front of the TV.

Past the living room was a hallway. The floorboards looked like

they would creak when I stepped on them, but here on the flipside I was as weightless as a ghost. The hallway took me past a bathroom, a linen closet slightly ajar, and two closed doors, then finally to the bungalow’s entrance.

I pressed my ear against the two interior doors. No sound from

either.

I picked one, and passed into a study crowded with an old oak

desk. A row of fancy pens lay on it, perfectly aligned with the edges.

The whole house was obsessively tidy, nothing like the chamber of

horrors I had imagined. No chains and hooks hanging from the

ceiling, not a layer of grime in sight.

The desk had four drawers, and the shelves on the back wall

were full of binders with neat labels. They didn’t seem to be full of evidence of the bad man’s murders, unless “State Taxes” meant

more than it said. In any case, there was no way to open them. To

do that, I would have to travel up here in the flesh.

My nerves were fading into annoyance. I’d been an idiot, think-

ing that he would leave evidence of his crimes lying around. This

was a man who’d gotten away with murder for decades.

The desk faced out the front windows of the house, and I could

glimpse the gnarled trees in the yard. Among them stood the little ghost girls, staring back at me. My gaze shied away, my breath

catching.

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Then I saw it on the desk—a phone bill. I stared at it, memoriz-

ing the bad man’s name and phone number, trying not to think of

the little girls outside.

There was only one more door to check out. I slipped back into

the hallway and faced it.

It had to be his bedroom. Sleeping inside was the man who had

killed Mindy and changed my mother’s life, who was the reason

she’d been afraid every minute of my childhood.

My nerves were back. But at least I could finally answer Mindy’s

question about how old he was, how close to death. I willed the

door into transparency and stepped through.

It was darker in here, the heavy curtains drawn. A large bed sat

nestled against the windows, full of a formless lump beneath gray

blankets. When I listened, I could hear him breathing.

He didn’t sound healthy. A rumble hid somewhere in his chest,

something liquid fluttering with every exhalation. On a bedside

table was a row of pill bottles, lined up as neatly as the rest of his possessions.

I knelt to read their labels: Pradaxa, Marplan, the made-up

names of drugs.

Then I saw, inches from my face, a hand sticking out from

beneath the blanket, motionless and pale. It was spotted, wrinkled.

The hand of a very old man, or a very ill one.

I wondered what would happen if he died right now in his

sleep. Would I see his spirit emerge into the flipside? Where would I guide him, grim reaper that I was?

I turned away from the protruding hand, stood up. The closet

was open, full of neatly hanging shirts, shoes lined up on a rack.

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There was nothing else to check in the room. Unless he kept some-

thing hidden under his bed . . .

I took a slow, shuddery breath. Beneath my own bed had always

been the scariest place in any house for me, worse than any closet.

But it was the last place I had to look for evidence. I knelt, my

palms on the floor, and lowered myself, trying not to imagine any-

thing peering back at me from the shadows.

At first I saw nothing but a smooth expanse of floorboards

extending into dark gray shadows. No dust bunnies, no discarded

tissues. Tidy as always. But then metal glinted deep in the gloom.

The glimmer of reflected moonlight was curved, like a smile.

I reminded myself that I was invisible, invulnerable, that ghosts

were afraid of me. I leaned on an elbow and reached into the shadows.

My fingers brushed a metal surface, cool and smooth. I

stretched a little farther—my hand found a sharp edge, and fol-

lowed it to a wooden cylinder mounted into the metal.

When I realized what the object was, I jerked my hand back.

A shovel. He slept with a shovel underneath his bed.

I lay there for a long moment, trying to remember exactly what

I’d seen in his front yard. Five girls and five gnarled little trees?

Raising myself up to the window ledge, I peeked beneath the

curtains. The five girls stood there in his front yard, next to six little trees. The numbers didn’t match.

What if the extra tree was for Mindy? He’d buried her in her

own backyard, my mother had said. But why had she been special?

I stared through the window, trying to imagine the front yard

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street. And, just as it had earlier in the playground, time began to ripple and rewind. The rest of the street was chaos, a churn of motion and construction, people moving in and out, but the old man’s yard hardly changed, the grass pulsing with the seasons. Then suddenly

one of the trees disappeared along with its ghost, then another, and another, the bad man’s deadly career reversing before my eyes.

Finally only one tree remained, the one in the middle of the

yard. No ghost stood next to it. The little girls were all gone.

Mindy had been his first. Because she had lived nearby.

I dropped my gaze to the floor, rubbing my eyes, blinking away

the vision and trying not to hear the wheezy rattle of the bad man’s breathing.

When I opened my eyes and looked out the window again, the

present had returned. But the girls shifted a little under my gaze, as if they’d felt me dredging up the past. The one in overalls was staring back at me, her head cocked to one side like a puppy’s.

I remembered Yama’s warnings, and pulled away from the win-

dow. As I did, my shoulder brushed those motionless, outstretched

fingers. The faintest spark passed between us, like when my cheek

had touched Agent Reyes’s.

The whistle of the bad man’s breath sputtered for a moment,

and a tremor passed through the gray bedclothes. I froze, staring

at them, my heart pounding sideways in my chest. Even invisible,

I felt as though any movement would wake him. I was afraid to

breathe.

Though maybe it was the little girls outside troubling his slum-

ber. They were here because of his memories, after all. What if the connection went both ways?

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I almost took another look out the window, to see what they

were doing. But what if they had come closer, and were peeking

back in through the curtains at me?

I crept backward across the floor, away from the window and

the bad man’s bed. I stood up and walked toward the door, needing

to leave this house now.

But it looked solid before me. I reached out, willing it away. . . .

My finger brushed the wood. I could feel the grain beneath the

old paint.

“No,” I breathed. “You’re gone, stupid door.”

It was still there. My slow-building panic had grown too strong.

I pulled back from the door, trying to slow my pounding heart-

beat. If I tried to walk through and failed again, it might take me all night to regain my focus. So I sat down on the floor, cross-legged, trying to distract myself with what I’d learned tonight.

I had the bad man’s name and phone number. More important,

I knew about the shovel under his bed, and the desk in the other

room with its perfect view of the gnarled little trees, and the gardening supplies in back. . . .

Maybe the bad man hadn’t been so cautious, after all. Maybe

there was evidence to tell my FBI friend about, something buried

right in the front yard. As I sat there, breathing hard, the rusty smell of death filled my lungs. How had I not noticed it before? I could smell what he had done.

Then I realized that the room had gone completely silent. The

bad man wasn’t wheezing anymore.

I stared up at the bed.

He was awake, his head risen from the bedclothes. He was

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almost bald—only a sparse fuzz of white hair glowed in the street-

lights. With one hand parting the curtains, he was looking out the window at the gnarled trees.

Maybe he couldn’t see the little girls, but what if he could feel

them out there staring back at him, soaking in his memories? Need-

ing him?

What if these moments late at night made him happy?

“Fuck this,” I said. This was more than I could bear. More than

I could live with. Not just for Mindy—this was for me now.

I stood up and walked away, my anger shredding the door like

tissue paper, the walls and furniture rippling before me. I sliced my way out of his house and was in his backyard ten seconds later.

The moment my feet left the edge of his property, I let myself

fall through the earth, out of the flipside and down into the River Vaitarna. The current was wild and furious, as angry as I was. It

flowed so fast that the shreds of lost memories were nothing but a cold spray against my skin.

As soon as I figured out how, I was going to give the police

enough evidence to bust the bad man. And if that proved impos-

sible, I’d make Yama help me, or anyone else who would. And if

that didn’t work, I was going to end the bad man myself and then

tear his soul to pieces.

285

CHAPTER 23

DARCY AND IMOGEN CONSUMED THE CITY.

They waited for ramen until the day’s writing was done, because

a food blog had claimed that noodles tasted better after midnight.

(It was true.) At a Southern restaurant near Imogen’s apartment,

they gorged on raw fluke that had been marinated in lime and

blood orange juice. They bought unknown delicacies wrapped in

lotus leaves and ate whatever was inside, no wimping out allowed.

Once they waited an hour for fancy milk shakes, because the eve-

ning’s sweltering heat demanded them.

Most days, they left Nisha’s budget in glorious tatters in their

wake.

When Darcy was being more sensible, they went to art gal-

leries instead. Imogen had worked at one for her first year here

in New York, and knew the artists, the galleries, and best of all, the gossip.

AFTERWORLDS

But it was writing together that Darcy loved most. It was as

demanding as anything she’d ever done, facing those clueless sen-

tences she’d written as a high school student. They seemed to drip with everything she hadn’t known back then, like old pictures of

herself in middle school.

And yet there was something smooth and easy about writing

with Imogen—a rightness, like arriving home. Mostly in the big

room, surrounded by windows looking out across the sawtooth

rooftops of Chinatown, but also on the familiar confines of Darcy’s futon, or in Imogen’s bedroom with her roommates on the other

side of a thin wall. It didn’t matter where, really. What mattered was the connection, the space formed between the two of them, a

slice cut from the universe and made private and inviolable.

Sharing the act made it all entirely new, the difference between

reality and a postcard, between cheap headphones and a live band in a packed house, between a cloudy day and a total eclipse.

Imogen changed everything.

“What’s that thing where . . .” Darcy’s words started as a murmur, and faded.

“More information needed.” Imogen didn’t look up from her

screen, her fingers still tapping.

“When hostages fall in love. With the bad guys.”

“Something syndrome. It rhymes.”

“Stockholm!” Darcy cried, as triumphant as a cat coughing up

a feather.

Rewriting could be huge and philosophical, a single sentence

requiring a fundamental rethink of what stories were meant to do.

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But sometimes it was more like completing a crossword, the right

letters in the right order, fitting and clicking.

“That’s the one.” Imogen was still typing. She seemed never to

stop, even on days when she claimed to have written only a dozen

decent sentences. Every thought flowed directly from her brain

onto the screen, if only to be excised a moment later. The delete

key on Imogen’s laptop was faded, worn in its center like the stairs in a monastery.

Darcy, on the other hand, preferred to gaze at her screen rather

than fill it. She thought her sentences first, then murmured and

mimed them before committing herself to keystrokes. Her hands

acted out the gestures of conversation, her expressions mirroring

her characters’ emotions. She closed her eyes when the theater in

her mind was populated by setting and characters, or when she was

merely listening for a missing word.

“Sun’s coming up,” Imogen said, and closed her laptop.

Darcy kept typing, wanting to finish off the chapter that intro-

duced Lizzie’s best friend, Jamie. Nan had asked for longer scenes with Jamie, to give Lizzie more to hang on to in the real world. But Darcy’s brain was wearying, and her gaze drifted out the window.

Down on the street, deliverymen unloaded fish in styrofoam

boxes from a rumbling truck as dawn edged into the sky. True to

her word, Imogen never wrote while the sun was up, which had

turned Darcy’s waking hours upside down. She was still amazed at

the drama of sunrise, how quickly a hint of pink overhead jolted the streets of Chinatown into busyness.

Imogen was making tea. This was ritual now, three weeks into

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should have closed her laptop at this point, or finally written a

post for her dusty and windblown tumblr. But another ritual had

established itself in these few minutes while Imogen was away in

the kitchen.

Darcy opened a search window and typed, Changed her name

to Imogen Gray. This phrase was so simple and obvious, but she’d never tried it before.

There were no exact matches, just a scattering of hits about

Pyromancer, less than two months away from publication.

“Crap,” Darcy whispered, and salved her disappointment by

looking at the images the search had found. A few unfamiliar pho-

tos appeared from a reading in Boston last year, when Imogen’s

hair had been longer.

When the teakettle began to sing, Darcy closed the window

and cleared her search history. She’d never promised not to search the internet for Imogen’s old name, but this was still a

guilty business.

It was just so strange, not knowing her first girlfriend’s name.

Some days Darcy felt as though she didn’t know anything, not

if she was a real writer, or a good Hindu, or even whether she was still a virgin. Annoyingly, Sagan had proven correct: The internet had more questions than answers. Was it a night together, fingers, a tongue, or something intangible? Or was “virgin” a word from a

dead language whose categories no longer made sense, like some

ancient philosopher, brought back to life, asking if electrons were earth, water, air, or fire?

Darcy’s hypothesis was simpler than that: The real world

worked differently than stories. In a novel you always knew the

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moment when something Happened, when someone Changed.

But real life was full of gradual, piecemeal, continuous transformation. It was full of accidents and undefinables, and things that just happened on their own. The only certainty was “It’s complicated,”

whether or not unicorns tolerated your touch.

It was hours later, in the early afternoon, that Darcy woke up.

It was still a surprise sometimes, finding Imogen beside her,

and she stared at her girlfriend, noticing new things. Two cow-

licks in Imogen’s unkempt hair that reared up at each other, like

crossed swords in a duel. The white marks left by her rings, growing gradually more pronounced as the summer tanned her hands. The

freckles rising on Imogen’s shoulders now that it was hot enough

for sleeveless T-shirts.

Maybe it was certainty enough, knowing these things.

Darcy reached for her phone and checked her email.

“Hey, Gen,” she said a moment later, nudging and prodding.

“Kiralee wants to have dinner with us. Tonight!”

The reply was gummy with sleep. “Had to happen.”

“What do you . . . ,” Darcy began, then realized: “She’s read my

book.”

Imogen rolled over, stretching her mousing wrist as she did

every morning.

“Did she tell you anything? Does she like it?”

All Darcy got in answer was a shrug and a yawn, even as

another dozen questions cascaded into her mind. How brutal were

Kiralee’s critiques? Why had Afterworlds taken her almost a whole month to read? Did she know that Darcy was already rewriting,

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that whole chapters had been replaced? Was it a good sign that

they’d been invited to dinner?

But Darcy knew that these questions were all desperate sound-

ing, so she boiled them down to the most important.

“Do you think she’ll start with praise?”

Imogen groaned and rolled over, pulling Darcy’s pillow over

her head.

Kiralee Taylor had summoned them all the way out to Brooklyn, to a restaurant called Artisanal Toast. The walls were covered with paint-ings of toast, photographs of toast, and a giant mosaic of Jesus made from actual toast. The matchbooks that Imogen had scooped up at

the entrance had pictures of toast on them.

After a few minutes of searching the menu, Darcy frowned.

“Wait. They don’t actually serve toast here?”

“Dude,” Imogen said. “This is the dinner menu, not breakfast.”

Kiralee nodded. “They aren’t fanatics. Where do you think we

are, Williamsburg?”

Darcy shook her head, because that wasn’t what she’d been

thinking. Mostly, she was nervous about what Kiralee thought of

her book, and wondering whether she would be able to eat at all. A piece of toast sounded good about now.

Waiters arrived and effected a swift makeover of the table—cop-

per chargers were removed, silverware adjusted, napkins unfolded

and placed on laps. It seemed all very crisp and efficient to Darcy, as intimidating as waiting for a critique to begin.

But it was Imogen who Kiralee questioned first.

“How are the Ailuromancer rewrites?”

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“At the spring-cleaning stage.” Imogen’s gaze drifted about the

restaurant, unmoored and unhappy. “I’ve emptied all the closets

out onto the floor. The rugs are hung and waiting to be beaten. In other words, a mess.”

Kiralee patted her hand. “It has to get worse before it gets bet-

ter. And what about that awful title?”

“Paradox is back to wanting the -mancer suffix for all three

books, but they hate everything except Cat-o-mancer. Which I hate.”

“There’s felidomancy,” Darcy said. “Which also means cats.”

“But isn’t much better, is it?” Kiralee said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something, dear. Just keep pondering and the title fairy will show up one day. Have you started book three?”

Imogen shrugged. “No pages yet.”

“Ideas? Notions? Inklings?”

“Well, I had this one . . . phobomancy.”

“Phobos as in fear?” Kiralee leaned back into her chair and took a long, silent look at the Jesus made of toast. Finally she smiled.

“You can make some serious magic out of fear. And it’s easy to

relate to. Everybody has a phobia or two.”

Darcy nodded in agreement, a little surprised, a little confused.

Imogen leaned forward now, her hands moving as she spoke.

“The setup is pretty straightforward. The protag starts off with

a bunch of crippling phobias—crowds, dolls, spiders, and small

spaces. Then one day she gets trapped in a closet, and has to face her claustrophobia head-on. Getting through that gives her the key to defeat her other fears, one by one. And as she does, she gains her magic. At first she can only see other people’s phobias, like auras or something.”

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“But eventually she can control them.” Kiralee’s eyes were spar-

kling. “Could be a ripper.”

“Really awesome,” Darcy said. “And so well thought out.”

The last words came out sharper than she’d meant them to, and

Imogen turned to her with a hint of apology in her eyes. “Yeah. I’ve been mulling it for a while.”

Darcy looked down at the table, surprised at the sharp feeling in

her stomach. First she’d spent all afternoon nervous about dinner, and now this. “It’s a great idea, Gen.”

And it was. But in their three weeks of writing together, Darcy

had run every Afterworlds decision, every worry, every inspiration past Imogen, who in return had shared the details of her own

rewrites. But Darcy hadn’t heard a single word about phobomancy.

Kiralee Taylor’s opinion was more important than her own,

of course, because Kiralee had written a half-dozen nearly perfect novels. But why had Imogen kept this idea a secret until now?

Darcy felt her hand being squeezed beneath the table.

“Some things need to stay inside for a while,” Imogen said

softly. “I don’t even realize I haven’t told anyone about them, until they pop out.”

“Sure.” Darcy willed the sting of her jealousy to fade. Kiralee

had to be thinking she was pathetic. “You should talk to my little sister. Nisha’s got some great phobias.”

“Like what?” Kiralee asked brightly.

“She’s afraid of ice skates,” Darcy said. “Raisins in cookies,

and car batteries. She says it’s unnatural for batteries to be square instead of round.”

“Whoa,” Imogen said, pulling out her phone to tap some notes.

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“This could be the beginning of a whole new trilogy,” Kiralee

said. “With phobias instead of mancies.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Imogen was still typing, her metal rings flashing.

“Nisha’s also scared of dogs in sweaters,” Darcy said. “And

socks. Not dogs in socks, all socks.” She smiled, happy to be contributing to this perfect idea. Even in her rush of jealousy, there had been something exciting, almost sensual, about having heard it direct from Imogen’s lips.

At least the other two were pretending her hissy fit hadn’t hap-

pened.

“You could combine both trilogies with a book called

Mancyphobia,” Kiralee said.

“I know you’re just trying to be annoying, but that actually

doesn’t suck.” Imogen put down her phone and raised her water

glass. “To Phobomancer!”

Darcy followed suit, but Kiralee shook her head. “Toasting with

water is bad luck, darlings. Wait for the wine.”

As they obediently lowered their glasses, Imogen mumbled,

“Talk about phobias.”

“Superstitions are an entirely different trilogy, my dear.” Kiralee opened her menu. “Now, let’s eat family-style. I’ll order, shall I?”

Just after the waiters had cleared the appetizers (barramundi risotto cakes with pickled red onions), Kiralee began out of the blue.

“I was intrigued by Anna.”

It took Darcy a moment to realize that the long-awaited cri-

tique of Afterworlds had arrived, and her voice broke a little as she asked, “Lizzie’s mom?”

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Kiralee nodded. “I love how she hadn’t told Lizzie about her

murdered childhood friend. That she had a skeleton in the closet,

literally.”

“Not literally,” Imogen groaned. “Mindy’s not a skeleton, she’s a ghost.”

“She was literally in the closet, and surely ghosts have skeletons.

Otherwise they’d be wobbly.” Kiralee turned back to Darcy. “And

Mindy is very sturdy indeed. I like that Lizzie doesn’t simply realize that the world has ghosts, she finds out that she has ghosts. Or rather, that her mother does, which is more interesting. Well done.”

“Thanks,” Darcy said, relieved that Kiralee had begun with

praise. “Actually, that’s where I got the whole idea.”

“How so?”

“From my mom. When she was little, her best friend was mur-

dered. But she never told me about it.” Darcy thought back to the

fevered musings of last October, which seemed so long ago now.

“I found out by accident, randomly googling my mom’s family

name. The case was a big deal in Gujarat.”

Kiralee swirled her wine, watching it carefully. “And did

your mother explain why she never told you about her friend?”

“I never brought it up with her. It was too weird. But I kept won-

dering about Rajani—that was the friend’s name. Did my mother

remember her? Because if she was haunting Mom, maybe she was also

haunting me and Nisha. That started me wondering what a world with ghosts would be like, and the rest of Afterworlds kind of fell into place.”

Darcy paused, realizing that she’d never said all this aloud

before. She’d always been afraid to disturb the seed that had started everything.

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She glanced at Imogen. “Sorry I never told you about this. I

never told anyone but Nisha.”

Imogen smiled. “Like I said, some ideas need to stay inside.”

“What did your mother think after she read Afterworlds?”

Kiralee asked.

“My parents haven’t read it yet.” Darcy stared at her hands,

which were neatly folded on the table, like a little girl’s. “I said they have to wait till it’s published for real, with a cover and everything.”

“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Kiralee said. “Until you’re finished with that world, maybe you need to stay haunted.”

Darcy looked up at her. “Haunted?”

“The fact that your mother’s friend was a secret is what kept her

ghost alive. When you talk about it with your mother, you’ll put

something to rest between you. So don’t have that talk yet—stay

haunted until you’re done writing about Mindy.”

Kiralee said this with a seriousness that sent a cool trickle

through Darcy.

Which was strange. Even as a little kid, Darcy had never

believed in ghosts or monsters. Her father, ever the engineer,

had always been very clear about the difference between reality

and make-believe. What Darcy liked about ghosts and vampires

and werewolves were their traditions and rules: cold spots and

holy water and silver bullets. The actual possibility of them was

just silly.

“I don’t think of Rajani that way. I’m not even superstitious. I

toast with water all the time!”

Kiralee smiled. “I’m not talking about superstition. I’m talking

about characters. How they die a little when you reach the last page.

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Try to keep Mindy out of your mother’s sight until you finish writing about her. You sold two books, I recall?”

Darcy nodded, though she hadn’t started Untitled Patel, and had no idea when it would be finished. The contract said she had

another year to turn in the first draft, which seemed both too much time and too little. The contract didn’t call for a third book, but so many fantasy series were like ghosts, rattling their chains forever, never fading.

“I can’t stop my mom from reading Afterworlds once it’s published. I mean, all her friends will be reading it.”

“My dad still hasn’t read Pyromancer,” Imogen said. “Novels aren’t his thing.”

Darcy nodded. Her own father preferred old aircraft manu-

als, but novels were definitely Annika Patel’s thing. She devoured prizewinning literary works, rubbishy bestsellers, the occasional

YA series that Nisha and Darcy had raved about, on top of reread-

ing the complete works of Jane Austen every other year. Extracting a promise from her to avoid Afterworlds until it was published had been almost as tricky as coming to New York.

“It’ll be weird when she reads it,” Darcy said. “But even weirder

if she doesn’t.”

“That’s publication in a nutshell,” Kiralee said. “Both terrifying and necessary. As long as Rajani stays with you.”

The chill came again, hearing Kiralee say the murdered girl’s

name. Darcy had never uttered it aloud before tonight. Rajani had

always been more a concept than a person, but now a presence

hung in the air around the table, like someone missing from an

empty chair.

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A moment later, though, three waiters swooped in with main

courses in hand, breaking the spell and leaving only a few wisps

behind.

Kiralee went on to dissect the book’s opening chapters, point-

ing out the same problems that Nan Eliot had. With Imogen’s help,

Darcy explained the changes she was making, and Kiralee seemed

appeased.

But then she said, “How old is your Agent Reyes? FBI agents

have to be twenty-three, it turns out.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Darcy said.

“Is your Google broken?” Kiralee tutted. “There’s a checklist

for hiring on their site. You might also want to differentiate a

bit more between the old man in the patched jacket and the

bad man. Because the bad man is rather old, and the old man is

definitely bad.”

“But one’s a normal human serial killer,” Darcy said. “And the

other has psychopomp powers. How would anyone get confused?”

“Because serial killers are the death gods of the modern world,”

Kiralee said. “That’s why they always have superpowers. Perhaps

you should give one of your bad old men a name.”

“I have a name for the man in the patched coat,” Darcy said.

“But it’s kind of obvious, so I didn’t use it.”

Kiralee raised her glass. “No one ever starved from being too

obvious.”

Imogen raised her own glass at this, and Darcy toasted with

them. Her anxiety was gradually fading into contentment mixed

with a red wine buzz. Maybe Kiralee wasn’t as scary as she liked to pretend.

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So Darcy broached the issue she’d been dreading most: “I’ve

been working on the whole religion thing, trying to make Yamaraj

more serious. Less Disney.”

Kiralee looked puzzled.

“At Drinks,” Darcy said. “You said I was using someone’s god

for purposes of YA hotness.”

“Ah. I think the key word there is ‘drinks.’ Sorry for descend-

ing on you like that. It sometimes happens when I’ve had a few.”

Kiralee gave her a sheepish smile. “You don’t need some white-

fella’s permission to adapt your own culture.”

“But what if it’s not mine?” Darcy stared at her plate. “I eat

meat. I don’t pray. It feels weird, erasing a god and using him as a mortal.”

“Maybe it is.” Kiralee considered this a moment, pressing two

fingertips against her forehead, for a moment like her old author

photo. “But speaking as an atheist, raised Catholic, who finds her only succor in the stories of the Wemba-Wemba people, how the

hell should I know?”

Darcy sighed. “So I have to figure this out for myself.”

“You write as respectfully as you can, and then you publish.

You uncover your mistakes by lobbing your books into the world.”

“But people might yell at me!”

“Yes, it’s a bit like learning French. When you open your

mouth, you risk sounding like an idiot. But if you don’t take that chance, you’ll never speak at all.”

“Yeah,” Imogen said. “But bad grammar doesn’t offend any-

one’s religion.”

“Have you met the French?” Kiralee asked.

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Darcy leaned back in her seat, letting them argue. She’d been

silly, of course, coming to Kiralee for absolution. She would find her answers in the words she wrote, in the stories she told, not by asking for permission.

“What else did Nan suggest?” Kiralee asked as they began to eat

again. “Nothing catastrophic, I trust.”

Darcy shared a long look with Imogen, and neither spoke.

“Oh dear. What is it?”

When Darcy still didn’t answer, Imogen spoke up. “Nan wants

to change the ending. Less tragic. More marketable.”

“Ah.” Kiralee gave Darcy a look of boundless pity. “That’s a

tricky one.”

“No kidding.”

“Here’s how I always look at it: You want to find an ending that

you believe in, while keeping your publisher happy. That’s not a moral crisis, it’s a writing problem. One I have faith you’ll solve.”

“Thanks.” Darcy tried to smile. “But won’t Afterworlds suck with a happy ending? Any happy ending?”

“I doubt that. There are probably a dozen perfect happy end-

ings you could write. And a thousand bittersweet ones, and at least a million that are gloriously tragic. Alas, you only get to pick one.”

Darcy stared at Kiralee. She’d expected outrage, or at least

indignation. But Kiralee was smiling, as if this was all some writing exercise or, worse, some sort of learning experience.

But this was Darcy’s first novel, which for a whole year would

be the only book in the world with her name on it. And it had

always had the same ending in her mind.

“I seem to have paralyzed you, Miss Patel,” Kiralee said.

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“No, it’s just . . . ,” Darcy began, then steadied herself with a

slow breath. “Don’t you think the ending’s good like it is?”

“It’s very good. But there are other fine endings out there, some

not quite so tragic. Maybe you can find one.”

“But don’t you think it’s annoying that I have to?”

“Do you find it annoying that your publisher wants to sell heaps

of your book?”

Darcy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Now she was

paralyzed.

“It’s awesome that they want Afterworlds to sell,” Imogen spoke up. “But less awesome that people only like happy endings.”

“And not even true.” Kiralee’s gaze stayed locked on Darcy.

“Romeo and Juliet has enjoyed some popularity. But perhaps killing Yamaraj limits your story going forward.”

Darcy stared back, examining Kiralee’s expression. Was this

a test of some kind? Was she supposed to prove herself now, not

just by standing up to Paradox Publishing but also by facing down

Kiralee Taylor, author of Bunyip, as well?

“But Yamaraj was always supposed to die. He has to die. My book is about death!”

“And death is always tragic?”

“When terrorists are involved? Pretty much.”

“Fair enough. But art can mix emotions as well as distill them.”

Darcy looked at Imogen for help.

“Wait a second,” Imogen said. “You’re not saying Darcy should

make her ending happy, you’re saying she should make her pub-

lisher happy. Right?”

“Exactly.” Kiralee was staring at the Jesus made of toast. “It’s

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your story, Darcy. Which means you’re allowed to change anything

about it, especially the parts that are most precious to you.”

“Kill your darlings,” Imogen murmured.

“Indeed,” said Kiralee. “Now, shall we have some dessert, dar-

lings?”

“She was nicer than I thought,” Darcy said as she and Imogen rode

back to Manhattan in a mostly empty subway car.

Imogen was looming over her, holding onto the horizontal

metal bar and swaying with the motion of the train. “You thought

she’d be mean?”

“Totally. The first time she heard about my book, she started

making fun of paranormal romances.”

“She was pretty harsh tonight. You’re just tougher now.”

“I am?”

Imogen let out a laugh. “Can you imagine if she’d read your

book back then, and straight up told you that half of it was expo-

sition?”

“Not half, just those two chapters . But yeah, I would have flipped out.”

“You would’ve melted on the spot, then burst into flame.”

Imogen swung closer, her knees pressing against Darcy’s. “But now

you’re an old pro with thick skin. ‘Skip the praise and give it to me straight’ is your motto.”

“Very funny. Do you think she hates me and was just being nice?”

“Kiralee’s never nice if she hates someone.” Imogen stared out

the window over Darcy’s head. The tunnel walls were strung with

construction lights that flashed with the train’s passage. “Maybe she 302

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was thinking about her own career, and wondering if a few more

happy endings might have been a good idea.”

“Right. I keep repressing the fact that she doesn’t have huge

sales. I mean, if she can’t make it, I’m doomed.”

Darcy wondered what must Kiralee have thought, reading in

Publisher’s Brunch that some teenager was getting so much money.

Some pipsqueak who had the gall to come out to Brooklyn to ask

for guidance and advice. And at the end of the meal, Kiralee had

even paid!

“She’s never going to blurb me, is she?”

“Kiralee doesn’t think that way. If she likes your rewrites, she’ll give you a blurb.”

“Really? Even though I’m hideously overpaid?”

Imogen shrugged. “She’s seen debs like us come and go. Most

careers don’t last as long as hers.”

“This is my favorite conversation ever,” Darcy said.

“Hey, this was a good night!” Imogen swung down into the seat

beside Darcy and put an arm around her. “Kiralee Taylor liked your book enough to talk to you about it, in person, over dinner! Tell

that to your three-months-ago self.”

“But every time I asked her what to do, she said it was up to me.”

“So she thinks you can figure your own shit out. Boohoo.”

Darcy sighed. She supposed that maybe it was a compliment, being told that you could find the answers yourself. But part of

Darcy—maybe even most of her—wished that Kiralee had simply

told her how to fix everything.

“Do you really think the book still makes sense if Yamaraj

doesn’t die?”

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“If you make it make sense, sure. See what happens when you write it. Maybe he’ll have to die anyway.”

Darcy nodded. For the moment, that was enough. There were

still hours of darkness ahead to write in, and two months left to pull apart Afterworlds and put it back together. And it was a year before the sequel’s first draft was due. Publishing might move slowly, but in a way its stately pace was comforting. There was time to find the right ending, happy or not.

304

CHAPTER 24

IT WAS A FEW NIGHTS LATER THAT I CALLED SPECIAL AGENT

Reyes. It was kind of late, but he didn’t sound sleepy, only a little surprised when I asked him, “What if I knew someone who’d committed a crime?”

“That depends on what kind.” He hesitated a moment. “And

how well you know them.”

“How well I know them?”

“Are you going to report your best friend for underage drink-

ing? A good talking-to might work better.”

I laughed. “Jamie doesn’t drink, and I mean a stranger. And

let’s say it was a serious crime, like, say, murder. How would I get the FBI to look into it?”

“Oh.” He sounded relieved, certain now that this was hypo-

thetical. “You’d start with your local police. The FBI focuses on

federal crimes.”

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“Murder’s not a federal crime?”

“Not usually. Maybe if the victim were a federal official.”

“Right. But in the movies, you guys are always looking for serial

killers.”

“We do.” I thought I heard a sigh in the words. “What’s this

about, exactly?”

I looked at my bed, which was covered with printouts of my

research on the bad man. A list of young girls who’d disappeared

while their families were traveling, research on the habits of psychopaths, unsolved crimes in Palo Alto. Basically, a whole lot of nothing.

Knowing the bad man’s name hadn’t helped much. He wasn’t

in any news stories I could find, and searching online had only led to a hundred other men with the same name, all the wrong age or

in the wrong city. It was as if he barely existed, or maybe his little bungalow didn’t have an internet connection.

All I really had was his name, his phone number, and my own

leftover righteous anger, which seemed to be fading every day. So I told Agent Reyes the same thing I’d told my mom:

“It’s, um, for a school project.”

“You’re a high school senior, Miss Scofield. Shouldn’t your

school projects be a little more . . . specific?”

“Right. I’m just getting to the specific part.” I tried to collect my thoughts, but it had been more than a week since I’d managed to

sleep. My body didn’t seem to want it anymore, but my mind did.

“Like, how many victims does it take to be a serial killer? Is there an FBI rule about that?”

“There are always rules, Miss Scofield. It takes three killings, at least one on US soil, to count as serial murder.”

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“Three? Great. I mean . . . this is more specific, right?”

“A little,” he said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

I hesitated. Agent Reyes was never going to believe me. Not

about a quintet of little girls buried in an old man’s front yard. So there was no point in hedging my words now. “Let’s say no one had

actually witnessed these murders, but I knew where the bodies were buried. What kind evidence would I need to get the police to dig up someone’s yard?”

There was a pause, but then he spoke with certainty. “The kind

that convinces a judge to spend taxpayers’ money to destroy private property. The very solid kind.”

“Gotcha.” I was pretty sure he thought I was an idiot now,

which somehow compelled me to add, “Any news on the death cult

front?”

“Only what’s in the newspapers.”

“Right. I haven’t been keeping up, actually. You’re moving in

on the headquarters, right?”

“As of last night, Miss Scofield. The bad guys are surrounded

by two hundred federal agents. It’s nothing you have to worry

about, of course, but given your recent experiences, have you

considered changing your school project to something less . . .

macabre?”

I stared at the mess on my bed. “I have, but I’m pretty far along

with this one. Thanks for your help, Agent Reyes.”

“Any time, Miss Scofield,” he said.

I hung up and let out a sigh. I’d managed to sound demented

without even getting to the weird parts of my not-so-hypothetical

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committed before I was born. And that the criminal lived in a city I’d never visited, except via undead astral projection. And that I didn’t know most of the victims’ names.

No judge in the world would send a bulldozer to the bad man’s

property based on my “evidence.” No wonder Yama had simply

turned away from the sight of the little girls. We were psycho-

pomps, not the ghost police.

But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I wanted justice to be done,

somehow. I wanted the world to make sense again, and I had to

start by telling Yama what I’d learned.

It was our longest journey on the Vaitarna so far, the strangest

and most varied. The river was angry at first, with touches of stray memories like a thousand cold fingertips brushing against us in

the dark. But finally it settled, and for a long time we drifted on a current as slow and still as a flat sea.

Yama and I arrived on a crescent beach of white sand and small

pebbles. The shoreline stretched away in both directions, curving

in on itself in the distance to form a large circular lagoon. The roar of heavy surf was somewhere close, but the water before us lapped

placidly at the sand. A warm wind played with my hair and rippled

the silk of his shirt.

“Where are we?”

“On an island.”

I looked at him. “Can you be more specific?”

“An atoll, specifically.” He smiled at me, as if pleased about

being his usual uninformative self.

I looked up into the night sky. There was no sign of dawn, so

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we couldn’t be too far from California time. But the stars looked

wrong. “The Pacific Ocean, right?”

Yama nodded. “About as far away from everything as it’s pos-

sible to get.”

“It’s . . . nice,” I said, though the atoll wasn’t exactly a tropical paradise. There were no palm trees, no grass or flowers up from the beach, just stunted trees in rocky soil, their broad leaves shivering in the wind.

“It takes getting used to,” Yama said, leading me away from the

water and onto stony ground. There were seabirds huddled every-

where, and lizards as long as fingers skittered beneath our feet. The land climbed for a few minutes’ walk, but as we crested a small

ridge it fell away again before us, back down toward the sea. The

whole island was like a squashed doughnut, with the still lagoon in its center and the wild ocean on the outside.

Huge waves tumbled out there, lumbering and dark. They

looked big enough to roll across us and sweep the atoll away. It was a very lonely place indeed.

“Do you hear it?” Yama asked.

I listened. Even in the muffled air of the flipside, the roar of surf was loud enough to sink into my bones. Only a few sharp seabirds’

cries slipped through its thunder.

“What am I listening for?”

“The silence. No voices at all.”

I looked at Yama. His eyes were closed, and all the worry had

lifted from his face. I reached out and traced the line of his eyebrow with my fingertip, and he smiled and took my hand.

“All I hear are waves and birds,” I said.

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“Exactly.” He opened his eyes, as happy as I’d ever seen him.

“No one has ever died on this island.”

“Oh.” I looked around at the rocky ground, the empty horizon.

“But that’s just because nobody’s ever lived here either, right?”

“I would think not. But the result is the same—silence.”

“Wait. You mean, you can hear the dead?”

“Always. Everywhere but here.”

I remembered my vision on the playground. The history of the

place flashing past in an instant, all its traumas and joys and aches.

Was that what the world was like for Yama all the time? My own powers were growing every day, and he had been a psychopomp for

thousands of years.

I could feel the ocean’s roar with every part of my body. What

would life be like with the voices of the dead as constant in my ears?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

I stood closer and linked our arms, needing his warmth. The

wind was stronger up here on the ridge. It played with my hair and sifted the sand around our feet.

Standing there, I could see the island’s desolate beauty. For me

it wasn’t about the silence of the dead, but about being here with him. It was like we’d been given our very own planet—a little bleak, but ours alone.

And there was something wonderful about the air, something I

couldn’t quite pin down.

I cupped my palm around the back of Yama’s head and drew

him closer for a kiss. It left me breathless, and the gray sky pulsed with color. For a moment this was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

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Before we pulled apart, he kissed me once on my tear-shaped

scar. A crackle of electricity stayed there, an itch for more.

“How did you find this place?” I asked, a little breathless.

“By searching for a thousand years.”

“It took that long, just to find somewhere quiet?”

“I didn’t know what I was looking for at first. But I wanted to

explore the world, so I learned to travel on the river in body, not just spirit.” His voice softened. “Everywhere I went, there were stories buried in the earth, voices in the stones.”

My hand sought his again, and squeezed. “I’ll hear them too,

won’t I?”

“I hope that’s a long time from now.” He spread his hands. “But

when you need to get away, this island is yours, too, Lizzie.”

I stared out at the gray and tumbling ocean, not sure what to

say. I didn’t want this splendid isolation yet, unless it was with Yama. The thought that this desolation could one day be beautiful

for itself scared me a little.

How long did I have? I thought of the dead girls on the bad man’s

lawn, and wondered if I was more connected to them now, more

joined to death itself. I needed to tell Yama that I’d been back there, and what I suspected about where the girls were buried.

But not yet. He looked too happy.

“Thanks for bringing me here. This is your favorite place, isn’t it?”

“In a way,” he said. “My city in the underworld is more beauti-

ful. But this island is the only place I’m really alone.”

“But now I’m here, so that’s ruined.”

Yama turned to me, his smile almost shy. “I can be alone with

you.”

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“I guess that’s a good thing?”

“More than I can say.” He drew me closer, and the sky rippled

with color again, my breath catching and shuddering in my lungs.

By the time our lips parted, I wanted to know every detail of this place. “How did you get here the first time? On a ship?”

“In the pages of a book.” He pulled us back into motion, leading

me along the windy ridge. “A Portuguese ship discovered it four

centuries ago. It was forgotten, then found again, until naturalists came here and painted what they saw.”

“So we can connect to places through books?” I asked, amazed.

Of course, I’d traveled to my mother’s old house using a photo.

Suddenly being a psychopomp didn’t seem so bad, if I could read

my way around the world.

“Partly,” Yama said. “But I also got to know a naturalist who’d

come here. He said that only two kinds of plants grow on this

island. Can you imagine?”

My eyes swept the bleak expanse. All the trees looked the same.

“It’s not that hard to believe. But you made friends with a liver—I mean, a living person? That means you left the afterworld.”

“This was worth it.” He closed his eyes again, breathing in the

salt spray. “For the air alone.”

That was when I realized what had been bugging me. “It doesn’t

smell rusty here. That metal scent the flipside usually has, it’s gone.”

He opened his eyes. “That’s the smell of death. Of blood.”

“Oh.” A shiver went through me, and I drew us to a stop and

pressed my face against his chest. Yama was always so warm, like

something was on fire inside him, but still the shudders took a

moment to subside. “It kind of sucks to be a . . .”

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I still hated the word “psychopomp,” but I didn’t have a better

one yet.

“Not always.” He put his arms around me.

I held Yama tighter, needing the solidity of his muscles, the cur-

rent of his skin. The sand beneath my feet felt slippery, the atoll so fragile in that endless gray ocean.

My geology teacher in tenth grade had always said that there

were no islands, only mountaintops that brushed the ocean’s sur-

face. 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. “Look-

ing 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.

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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 for-

gotten 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

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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 scat-

tered 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 cen-

turies 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

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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 grow-

ing 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 316

AFTERWORLDS

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 won’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.”

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“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 on your very first day.

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

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mother than to you.” He crossed his arms. “And you should prob-

ably 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?”

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“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.”

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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 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.

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CHAPTER 25

“AND HOW’S YOUR BUDGET GOING?” AUNT LALANA ASKED.

“Not bad,” Darcy said, then sighed. “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.”

AFTERWORLDS

“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 be 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

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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.”

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“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.”

Darcy felt a smile settling on her face. She had plenty of

details to share. The way Imogen’s hands carved the air when

she talked about writing. The way she collected scandalous gos-

sip about artists, even ones who’d been dead two hundred years.

How she never interrupted, no matter how long Darcy took to

finish a sentence. The rings she wore on different days.

They were together all afternoon, and in the end there was only

one thing that Darcy left out, because Aunt Lalana really wouldn’t understand the fact that she didn’t know her girlfriend’s real name.

Sometimes Imogen went out all night without Darcy.

Not that Imogen wanted to leave her behind—it was Darcy’s

idea. As much as she liked Imogen’s friends, she worried that her

fake Pennsylvania driver’s license wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny at a serious nightclub. And it was awkward, always being the youngest.

There was still so much that Darcy didn’t know, nuances of poli-

tics and gender and language that a certain kind of person learned about at college and talked about in bars. Darcy always found herself a step behind. Besides, she mostly wanted to talk about books and writing when she went out drinking, but Imogen’s friends

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came from all corners of the city, not just publishing, thanks to the jobs in art galleries and small websites she’d worked at over the past fourteen months.

Also, Nisha’s budget always came along and sat there in the

corner of the bar like a noisy ghost, sometimes laughing at her,

sometimes shrieking and rattling its chains.

So when Imogen headed out with her posse, Darcy usually

stayed home. As their lives became more mixed and intermingled,

she often found herself left behind not in apartment 4E, but at

Imogen’s, where she was free to snoop all she wanted. This was

sometimes a bad thing.

Imogen, it turned out, collected matchbooks.

She collected lots of free and found objects—transit timetables,

paint samples, discarded polaroids—but the matchbooks were her

great obsession. Darcy had seen Imogen taking them from restau-

rants and coffee shops, and had heard Gen’s laments about being

too young for the glory days before smoking bans, when every sort

of business had given matchbooks away as advertising. But until

poking around in her girlfriend’s closet, Darcy hadn’t realized how deep the compulsion went.

Imogen kept her collection in clear plastic boxes. Each box was

packed tight, carefully arranged so the commercial logos and phone numbers could be read from the outside, the interiors stuffed with duplicates and generics. There was a stack of these boxes in the

closet, enough matches to burn down the whole city. Not that

Imogen would ever light them, any more than a comic collector would cut up the pages of old issues.

As Darcy browsed the plastic boxes, she wondered what the story

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was behind this or that matchbook. When had Imogen eaten at a café out in Brighton Beach? Why had she visited a carwash in Queens?

Why on earth would a dance academy have promotional matches?

Then, while snooping one night in late August, she found

something even more intriguing at the bottom of the pile: a school yearbook from 2009.

Like any yearbook, it was full of thumbprint-size photos of the

senior class, each with a name beneath it. Darcy did a quick calculation—2009 was Imogen’s final year in high school.

Darcy slammed the book shut, breathing hard. Under one of

those photos would be Imogen’s real name. This wasn’t just inno-

cent snooping anymore.

For a moment, Darcy thought she was about to put the yearbook

back into its spot beneath the pile of matches. She even felt a surge of virtuousness flow through her, the contented rush of having done the right thing. But then she opened up the book again and began to examine the student photos from the beginning, page by careful page.

The school was mostly white kids, the boys dressed in collared

shirts for senior picture day, the girls wearing a little too much makeup. None of them looked like Imogen’s younger self, or even

like people who could be her friends and classmates. They seemed

to be from a different universe than Imogen Gray. And there were

no signatures on the photos, no inside jokes or inspirational sayings scrawled in the margins by friends.

Maybe this yearbook was simply a discarded object kept for

research purposes, a source of character names and bad Midwestern

haircuts. Or maybe it had been left here as a trap to torment a certain nosy girlfriend.

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But Darcy keep reading, noting the names beneath the blank

spaces labeled “No Photograph Available.” It would be just like

Imogen to skip senior picture day.

And then, on the very last page of photos, a familiar combina-

tion of letters arrested Darcy’s eye—Imogen.

Imogen White.

“No way,” Darcy whispered, staring at the picture.

The girl had a wide smile and big eyes, chunky glasses and black

hair. Her face was too round to be Imogen’s, her nose too small. It was a coincidence, nothing more. Imogen wasn’t that rare a name.

But White and Gray . . .

Darcy kept searching, past the senior portraits and into the

photos of activities and clubs and sports teams, looking for anyone who looked like her Imogen. Surely no one was friendless enough to escape the relentless cameras of a high school yearbook team.

Long minutes later she found the photo. It was in the Theatrical

Arts section, a shot of a crowded stage with Imogen White and Imogen Gray next to each other in old-fashioned dresses. Beside the photo was the yearbook’s only handwritten note:

Sorry to say it, babe, but you suck at accents and look

stupid in a dress.

Love forever,

—Firecat

Darcy blinked, remembering something her Imogen had said

the first night they’d met. My first girlfriend was a pyro.

It was like being punched, and at first Darcy didn’t even know why.

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Of course Imogen had had girlfriends before Darcy. This girl

in high school and a whole blogging career’s worth in college. That fact had never bothered Darcy at all.

But this was something more. Imogen White was the original

pyromancer, the spark of a whole trilogy, and when Gen had re-

created herself as a novelist, she’d taken Firecat’s first name. The jealousy she felt wasn’t about sex or love, Darcy realized. It was about writing.

She lay back on the bed, suddenly exhausted.

If she were in a detective novel, Darcy knew, she would now

go through the yearbook again, scribbling down all the names

beneath “No Photo Available,” then google them one by one with

the appropriate search terms to find the answer.

But Imogen’s old name didn’t matter anymore. It was her new

name—her real name, she always insisted—that told the story.

Darcy looked again at the picture of Imogen’s girlfriend, muse,

and namesake.

Where was she now? Was her love really forever? Had all those

matchbooks been collected for her?

Darcy knew she should be wondering something else entirely,

like how she had become such a seething bag of jealousy. This

relationship was less than two months old, and already she’d man-

aged to make herself envious of someone who’d been Imogen’s

girlfriend when Darcy was thirteen years old.

She groaned aloud. Her body ached, as if her emotions were

wired straight into her muscles. It hurt to breathe, to move, to

think. How had everything gotten so intense?

She pulled herself from Imogen’s bed and took a shower, hop-

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ing to wash away her jealousy. But the streams of water felt like

ice-hot needles.

The thought of publishing—of the whole world reading

Afterworlds—had always made Darcy feel naked and exposed, but loving had left her skinless.

Imogen got home, ruffled and drunken, an hour before the sun

came up.

“You’re awake,” she said, her smile lighting the dark.

Darcy had been awake all night, thrashing and suffering, and

by now was tangled in the sheets like a dreaming toddler. She’d

put the yearbook back into the closet hours ago, beneath carefully restacked boxes of matchbooks.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Couldn’t write either. I’m useless

when you’re not here.”

“You’re sweet.” Imogen’s voice was alluringly raw, as always

after hours of fierce conversation over loud music. She smelled like the world outside, sweat and smoke, spilled drinks and dancing.

She always smelled beautiful.

“Did you have a good time, babe?” Darcy asked.

Imogen hesitated, drunkenly wary for a moment. That last word

had slipped out of Darcy, who’d never called anyone babe in her life.

It had come from Firecat’s note, of course. But this still wasn’t some detective novel, in which a single clue revealed everything.

Imogen only nodded and sat down heavily on the bed. She

leaned over Darcy for a kiss, which tasted of coffee and chocolate.

On late drinking nights, she and her friends usually had dessert in an all-night diner before going home.

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As Imogen pulled off her shirt, Darcy knew she had to speak up

now, or she never would. She had to trust her girlfriend to under-

stand.

“Um, I have a confession. I was snooping tonight.”

The wary look again. “Snooping on who?”

“Who do you think?”

Imogen’s eyes went to her laptop, which sat closed on her desk.

“Tell me you didn’t read my diary, Darcy.”

“Don’t be silly. I’d never do that!” A pause. “You keep a diary?”

Imogen groaned and flopped back on the bed, her legs flung

across Darcy’s. “Just the notes on my phone. They back up onto my

computer, and they’re very private.”

“Of course.” Even in her worst depths of snooping, it had never

occurred to Darcy to pry open Imogen’s laptop. “I wouldn’t spy on

your writing, Gen. You know that, right?”

Imogen tiredly turned her head, raised an eyebrow. “Are you

sure?”

“Of course,” Darcy said. “I was just looking at your match col-

lection.”

A laugh bubbled, low and sleepy, as Imogen turned to face the

ceiling again, her eyes half closing. “That’s your confession? You really need to get out more.”

“Your old yearbook was in the closet.”

A sigh left Imogen, and she pulled herself back up to sitting.

“Okay, that is snooping. What’d you find out?”

“There was a picture of Imogen White.”

“Oh.” Imogen Gray rubbed one side of her face with an open

palm.

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“And one of you two onstage together. She wrote a note saying

you look stupid in dresses, but I don’t think that’s true.”

A half smile. “Me neither. But I think she meant frilly ones. We

were in that ridiculous play.”

“You both looked beautiful.”

“So you must have figured out my real name.”

Darcy shook her head. “You didn’t have a picture, and Imogen’s

was the only note in the whole book.” It was so strange, saying that name to mean someone else. “Didn’t you have other friends?”

“Lots, but I wasn’t there the week they handed out yearbooks. I

skipped the last month of school, pretty much. Early admission to

an Ivy, so I was untouchable.”

Darcy breathed relief. For the last few hours, she’d kept imagin-

ing Gen spending her high school years friendless and downtrod-

den. But instead she’d been untouchable.

“Firecat brought that yearbook home for me. I didn’t find

what she’d written till a long time later. . . .” Imogen’s voice faded, then she cleared her throat and said, “So that’s what you needed to know? Whether I had friends in high school?”

“Why did you take her name?”

Imogen turned away and stared at the closet door. “Because she

inspired my protagonist. She liked to light fires. I told you that.”

“Sure. But that’s different from naming yourself after her. Isn’t

‘Imogen Gray’ your whole new identity? The one you’re protecting by not telling me who you really are? Are you trying to become her, Gen?”

“No.” Her voice had gone soft again. “Just to remember her.”

For a long moment, Darcy listened to the sound of Imogen breath-

ing. It was heavy with weariness and alcohol, and something else.

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“Holy crap. Did she die?”

Imogen nodded, still staring at the open closet. “Suicide. We

think.”

“Shit.” Darcy sat up. “I’m so sorry.”

“It feels like a long time ago.”

“It still totally sucks.” Darcy wrapped her arms around Imogen.

“I was away at college and couldn’t afford to fly back, which

made it a lot worse. I kept forgetting, somehow. In the morning, I’d go five minutes before remembering she was gone.”

“I didn’t mean to bring all this up, I swear.”

Imogen shook her head. “I don’t mind you knowing. I wasn’t

hiding her, really. And I kind of love it that you want to know

everything.”

They drew each other closer and the room was silent for while,

except for the rumble of traffic starting up below. The light was

shifting as morning approached. Darcy felt her body shifting as

well, fitting itself against Imogen’s. The bite of alcohol and smoke softened into more familiar scents.

When they parted, Darcy said, “On a scale of one to ten, with

ten being the most insecure, how shitty a girlfriend am I?”

“You’re not a shitty girlfriend. You’re hard work sometimes, is all.”

Darcy looked away. “When I saw her picture, I was jealous. Not

because you were in love with her. Because she made you want to

write books.”

“Lots of things make me want to write books. But yeah, she

did.” The hint of a smile crept into Imogen’s expression. “And that made you jealous?”

“Of course.”

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Imogen keeled slowly backward onto the bed, like a drunken

tree falling. Her laugh was throaty and raw. “Like that night with Kiralee, when you were jealous about my Phobomancer idea.

You’re hilarious.”

“No, I’m not. I’m horrible!”

“Yeah, right. I just got home from six hours of drinking, dancing, and talking mostly about sex with a half-dozen beautiful, dauntless, smart-as-shit women. And what are jealous about? Where I got my

nom de plume!” At the sound of her own French accent, Imogen

bubbled over with raspy laughter again. “And because you didn’t get to hear my pitch before anyone else. That’s just hilarious.”

Darcy stared down at her girlfriend, wondering if she should

have waited for sobriety to have this conversation. But when

Imogen’s laughter finally subsided and her eyes opened again, they held a look of absolute clarity.

She reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Darcy’s ear.

“You’re amazing.”

“I’m a mess, Gen. I don’t know how to stop being this way.”

“At least you care about the right stuff.” Imogen gave her a

slow, catlike blink. “Do you really need to know my real name?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“It won’t kill me, I guess.”

Darcy held Imogen’s gaze for a moment. Was this the sort of

thing that normal people argued about? Names and noms de plume

and novel pitches? Surely not. “Keep it secret. You’re Imogen to me.”

The resulting smile was beautiful. “Okay, but just for now. Do

you want to come on tour with me?”

Darcy only stared at first, because the words didn’t parse. They

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were too far from this conversation to make sense. But then their

meaning fell into place, and she smiled back. “That would be nice.

Maybe someday we’ll have a book out at the same time.”

“I don’t mean someday. I mean next month.”

Darcy blinked.

“Hotel rooms don’t cost more for two people,” Imogen went

on. “And Paradox is paying for them, and for the cars that pick us up and stuff like that. And food’s cheaper outside of New York,

so we’d save money there. All you’d have to pay for is your plane

tickets, which I could help you with.”

“Wait. You mean go on tour with you . . . and Standerson?”

“Right—we should ask him first, to be polite. But he likes you, and I already talked to Nan about it. She said that prepub tours are great, especially when they don’t cost Paradox any money.”

Darcy nodded, her mind focusing at last. She’d been unmoored

since finding the picture of Imogen White, but solid ground had suddenly appeared beneath her feet. Imogen was talking about publishing, a subject that always cleared Darcy’s head.

“A prepub tour? Is that a real thing?”

“Sure. You travel around meeting booksellers and librarians,

and charm them so they’re all excited when your book comes out.”

Imogen’s smile grew. “And we’ll be with Standerson, so his rock-

star glow will rub off on us.”

“And Nan really said it was okay?”

“She loved the idea. But like I said, we’ll have to split your

plane fare.”

“I’ll pay for my own planes, silly.”

“What about your budget?”

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“Fuck my budget.” Darcy threw her arms around Imogen again.

“I get to go on tour with you and Standerson? That’s amazing!”

“You are kind of lucky, aren’t you?”

Darcy pulled away, laughing. “This isn’t about my luck, Gen.

It’s because you don’t want to leave me alone for a week!”

“God only knows what you’d get up to.”

“I promise I won’t ever snoop again.”

“Take it from a half-assed expert in obsessive-compulsive disor-

ders: You can’t stop yourself. But it’s okay, as long as you don’t look in my diary.” Imogen’s face went serious now, her voice suddenly

sharp and ragged. “My mom used to read my notebooks when I

was little, and I hated it more than anything. So don’t do that.”

“Never. I promise, Gen.”

The hard look on Imogen’s face turned swiftly back into a

smile; her moods were oiled by the alcohol in her veins. “I’m glad you like my name.”

“I love your name. Her name. I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Me too.” Imogen’s eyes drifted toward the closet. “Even if she

could be a total pain sometimes.”

Darcy followed her gaze. “Are all those matches for her? For

Firecat?”

“At first, but then I realized how useful they could be.” Imogen

reached for the half-full plastic box at her bedside. She turned it, looking at the matchbooks pressed up against the sides. “Whenever

I need a location or a random job, I use them. See? I’ve got pawn

shops and yarn stores and shoe repair places in here. Locksmiths

and carpet cleaning and tattoo parlors, and look . . . roof restorations!”

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“They’re for writing?”

“All my collections are.” Imogen reached toward the win-

dowsill for more stuff, let it fall onto the bedcovers. “These paint samples are for colors. They have the best names: Candy Apple,

Metal Smoke, Stone-Washed Surf.”

“And the polaroids?”

“What people wear, what they look like. People who aren’t in

magazines.” Imogen shrugged, staring down at the scattered pieces

of her collection. The spark in her eyes was fading now, weariness taking over.

Darcy said softly, “I love you like crazy, Imogen Gray.”

“Love you, too.” Her smile was slow and soft, and then her eyes

closed, and Imogen curled around herself, wrists pressed together

beneath one cheek.

Darcy took the paint samples and matchbooks and placed them

back on the windowsill. By the time the bed was clear, Imogen’s

breathing was slow and even, and Darcy reached carefully into the

pockets of her jeans, sliding out keys and a crumpled wad of money . . .

. . . and Imogen’s phone, a diary wrapped in black glass and

slivers of titanium. When Darcy flipped the mute button to silent, the screen lit up expectantly.

“Never,” she whispered to it, and placed the phone carefully

beside the keys and cash. Then she curled up next to Imogen Gray,

her Imogen, and closed her eyes to sleep at last.

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CHAPTER 26

THE SCHOOLHOUSE WAS EASIER TO SEE TONIGHT. MY FLIPSIDE

eyes had grown sharper. Every tile on the roof glimmered, clear and distinct in the gray moonlight.

I crossed the parking lot, hardly noticing the transparent hulks

of school buses around me. I could see only the past, luminous

and real. The first time I’d come here, the school’s front steps had looked smooth and featureless, but now they were chipped and

mottled with chewing gum stains.

Yama was right. Every time I crossed over, every time I traveled

the river, the ghostly world laid a stronger claim on me.

But what did it matter? According to him, I’d been born to this.

I wasn’t even sure if he wanted me anymore, or if that fight on his ocean-swept island had been our last.

The front door of the schoolhouse was open, inviting me in.

“This isn’t scary anymore,” I murmured. “I belong here.”

AFTERWORLDS

The hallways were silent tonight. The ghostly children’s songs

had faded or been frightened away, leaving my slow echoing steps

the only sound. I walked carefully, because the squeak of sneakers on tile still paralyzed me. It took a few minutes’ wandering to find the place where the voice had first taunted us.

“Are you still here?” My mouth went dry around the words.

No answer, just the fear in my own voice. The lockers wavered

for a moment, as if desert heat were rising from the floor.

I pushed my dread down, letting the cold place inside me

smother it.

“It’s me, from the other night. You followed me home. You said

you wanted an apprentice.”

Nothing at first, but then motion flickered in the corners of my

eyes, and the sound of laughter came from behind me.

I spun around, but found nothing but a sign on the wall: no

running.

It wasn’t the old man in the patched coat, just the ghost of some

ancient infraction.

I sighed. “You’re really annoying, you know?”

That time I hadn’t expected an answer, but one came—the

sound of a fingernail against the floor, traveling down the hallway toward me. It clicked across the cracks between tiles, slow and

patient. The sound was an icicle on my spine.

When it passed beneath my feet I jumped, feet dancing, a shiver

rippling through me in its wake.

“For fuck’s sake.” I faced the empty hallway. “I’m here to ask

you for help.”

“You want a favor?” the response came, leaking up from the

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floor. His voice sounded so pleased, so eager, that I almost ran for the exit. Color flitted in the corners of my vision.

I took a slow breath to keep myself on the flipside, and said, “I

need to know some things.”

In answer, black oil bubbled up, seeping from the cracks in the

floor, the spaces between the lockers. It rolled hungrily toward my feet, and a moment later I was sinking down into the river, ready to face the old man in the patched coat again.

He was shinier than last time, his skin luminous in the dark. Maybe that was just my eyes again, more attuned now to the gleam we

psychopomps gave off. These days, I could even see the cold, wet

things in the river, like scraps of shadow floating against the darkness.

“What a nice surprise,” the old man said. “I was starting to

think you didn’t like me.”

“Feel free to keep thinking that.” My hand went to my back

pocket, where the knife I’d brought along was sheathed.

His eyes followed my motion. “A little rude, for someone ask-

ing a favor.”

“Whatever.” I let my hand fall back to my side. “You said

you wanted to teach me things. I’ve got questions for you.”

“Questions?” he said, amused. “You mean there are things your

dark-skinned friend doesn’t know?”

I decided to ignore that. “There’s a man, a murderer. His victims are buried in his front yard, I think. They’re haunting his house.”

“Are you offering me some little ghosts? How sweet.” He

smiled, but the expression didn’t quite reach his pale eyes. “Alas, my tastes are very particular.”

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“I’m not offering you anything. I just need to know how to deal with him.”

“Oh. You’re talking about revenge.”

“Not really. What I mean is . . .” My next words faltered in my

mouth. To say that I wanted justice sounded pompous. I wouldn’t mind if the bad man suffered, but mostly I just wanted to fix things.

“I want my friend to stop being scared.”

“Your ghost friend,” the old man said. “The little one, who was

with you when we met.”

“Yeah, the one you wanted to collect.” Saying that, I wondered why I’d come to the old man for help. But there was no one else to turn to. “He killed her, too. For all I know, he’s still killing people, and I have to stop him.”

“Interesting.” The old man said the word like he meant it. As

if none of this seemed evil or nightmarish to him, or even unusual.

Just interesting.

I had to keep talking. “I have all these powers now. I can go

places, see the past. I know what he did, but I can’t prove it.”

“You mean, you can’t change it.” He gave a little shrug. “People

like us don’t change the world. We just clean up its messes.”

“There’s no people like us. You and I aren’t the same! But you said you wanted an apprentice, so teach me how to fix this.”

He had a way of smiling—the expression surfacing slowly,

like a bubble rising in a tar pit. “Your dark friend is keeping

secrets from you, isn’t he? That’s why you’ve come crawling to

me.”

I was angry enough to have stabbed him then, but instead I said,

“He thinks I’m changing too fast. He wants to protect me.”

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“He’s a fool then. There’s no safety in ignorance. When you get

called the first time, you’ll need all the tricks.”

“Called?” I shook my head. “By who?”

“Who do you think? By death.”

I stared at him, the cold place inside me growing just a little.

Every time I thought I had a grasp on the afterworld, it got more

complicated.

“What does that even mean? Death isn’t like . . . a person, is it?”

He laughed at that, hard enough that shiny little tears leaked

from his translucent eyes. “A man with a scythe, you mean? Hardly.

Or if he is, we aren’t on speaking terms. Maybe death is just a force of nature, or maybe it has a flicker of intelligence. Either way, once its hooks are in, it will take you where it needs you.”

I shook my head. “Which is . . . ?”

“The places you’d expect. A fire, a massacre. Perhaps a war.

My first time was all three of those, an entire city dying. I was not entirely prepared.”

“Oh.” It struck me that Yama had appeared at the airport, just

as eighty-seven people were being murdered. He probably hadn’t

been there to catch a flight. “So when lots of people die, psycho-

pomps just show up?”

He shuddered a little. “Psychopomps. Such an ungainly word.”

“Can’t argue with that. Do you have a better one?”

“I think of myself as an artist.” He patted the pockets of his

patched jacket. “One day I’ll show you what I mean.”

“No thanks.” But at least the old man was telling me things I

didn’t know. I would be called one day, it seemed. What else was Yama hiding from me?

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“But maybe a different word for a pretty girl like you,” he said.

“Where I come from, we called them valkyrie. It means ‘chooser of

the slain.’”

I didn’t answer, but I liked the sound of it. It must have shown

on my face, because the old man smiled again.

“I can help you with your murderer. I was a surgeon once.” The

old man took a step toward me, his slow smile fastened to his lips now. He opened his hands wide, coming closer through the darkness. “I’m very good with scissors and thread.”

My hand went to the knife in my pocket. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you this.” He straightened his patched jacket. He was

only an arm’s length away from me now, and I could feel him like a cold spot in the room. “I sewed it together from scraps. As you can see, it fits me very well.”

“Why do I care?” My fingers clenched around the metal handle

of the knife.

“Because I can cut his ghost to pieces.”

“That’s not what I . . .” My voice faded. I hadn’t really known

what I wanted him to do.

“Trust me,” he said. “It’s what you need to make your little

friend happy again. I have only one condition.”

I took a few steps back from him, and my shoulders brushed the

cold things that had gathered around me in the darkness. I forced

myself not to shudder.

“What?”

“Kill him yourself. Then I’ll do the cutting.”

I stared at the old man, trying to measure his smile. Was he

kidding? “I can’t do that.”

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He smoothed his jacket with a slow glide of his palms, as if

it were of silk instead of scraps. “You can. You’re a valkyrie. A

warrior-maiden.”

“No.” It was true, the last time I’d been at the bad man’s house,

I’d wanted to end him. But really killing someone? “I don’t even

know how.”

“He’s just a man. All the usual ways apply.”

“I can’t travel with my real body, not yet. I’m just a ghost when

I’m there.” I shook my head. “This is a stupid conversation. I can’t kill anyone.”

“How disappointing,” the old man sighed. “You’re not the

valkyrie I thought you were.”

I stared at him. “So you’re not going to help me?”

“I’m trying very hard to,” he said carefully, then slipped his

hands into his pockets. “But I see more work needs to be done.”

A moment later he was gone.

I walked back toward home from the ghost school, hands in

pockets, breathing in the cool fresh air of the overworld. Part of me was relieved that the old man had asked for something I couldn’t

give. Every moment with him was like standing in wet socks; all I’d wanted was for it to end.

Maybe Yama was right, and helping Mindy would only push

me farther into the arms of the afterworld.

But then I saw something across the road. It glowed with bright

fluorescent light, a garish white column in the darkness—an old

roadside pay phone with scratched and battered plastic sides. There weren’t a lot of pay phones around anymore, and for a moment I

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wondered if it was a ghost of some kind. If school buildings and

sounds could have ghosts, why not phones?

This late there were no cars, no joggers, just the wind and the

smell of the ocean. So I crossed the road, curious. The receiver felt hard and plastic in my hand—the phone was real. I half expected to hear nothing, but a dial tone buzzed in my ear.

I pressed zero, as if making a call was what I’d intended all along.

“Operator?” came a voice. It was small and tinny, like some-

thing heard from the flipside. For a moment, I expected it to ask

what my emergency was.

“I’d like to make a collect call,” I said. Before I could stop

myself, I reeled off the bad man’s phone number. It tasted acid in my mouth. But I had to do something, no matter how futile.

“Your name, please?” the operator asked.

“Sorry?”

“Who should I say is calling?”

It took me a second. “Mindy.”

“Hold please while I connect, Mindy.” Buzz and crackle, and

the muffled sound of ringing. Then another distant voice said the

word “hello.”

Every muscle in my body flinched, and I jerked the phone away

from my head. I was suddenly breathing hard, my sweat cold in the

breeze. A bitter taste filled my mouth, and the phone felt slick in my hand. Hearing the bad man’s voice had made him that little bit

more real.

It took me a long time to bring the receiver back to my ear, so

long that I was sure he’d hung up. But I heard breathing.

“Is this you?” I said.

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“Who the hell is this?” His voice was ragged, like he’d just

woken up.

My tongue was stuck. It was all I could do to breathe.

“I don’t know any Mindy,” came his voice. “Why are you call-

ing me?”

“I know what you did,” I managed. “I know what you are.”

It was his turn to be silent.

“And I’m coming for you.” The words were spreading a strange

calm through me. “You can’t stop me. I can walk through walls.”

“Who is this?”

“Even your death can’t stop me. I have a friend who cuts up

souls.” I didn’t know where these words were coming from, what

piece of me had made them. But they tasted sweet in my mouth.

“I’m going to feed you to the cold things in the river. And those

little girls in your front yard are going to watch.”

He didn’t answer, so I hung up on him. As I walked away,

the pay phone’s fluorescent lights flickered inside their plastic

column, the darkness jittering around me. I’d just wanted to scare him, to make him pay a little bit for everything he’d done. At least the bad man knew there was someone looking for him now.

And then almost a minute later, at the edge of my hearing, the

phone started to ring.

Mindy met me in my front yard, arms crossed. “You snuck away!

That’s not very nice.”

“I’m sorry.” I hadn’t told her what I was trying to do. I didn’t

want her thinking about the bad man, or psychopomps, or any of

this. “I had to do something important.”

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“Really?” Her expression softened. “You look sad.”

“Just tired.” I hadn’t slept in almost two weeks now. Sleep

wasn’t a part of me anymore. When I lay on my bed, the darkness

behind my eyelids was full of fluttering shadows, my brain full of undreamt dreams.

Mindy snorted. “Pomps don’t sleep. You should play with me!

I’m super bored.”

I smiled down at her. At times when the fear lifted from her,

you could see how happy a child she’d been before the bad man

took her.

“Okay. What do you want to do?”

“Let’s go to New York. Like you said.”

I stared at her. “You want to go see the Chrysler Building? I

thought you were afraid of the river.”

“Well, you want to. And it’s been really nice since you

started . . . seeing me.” Her voice went softer. “Like I said, it’s boring around here.”

I couldn’t believe it. Maybe Yama was wrong, and ghosts could

change. Maybe Mindy had just needed to escape from her ghostly

invisibility, and she could start to grow again. Maybe she’d just

needed a friend.

“I won’t be scared with you there,” she added. “My own per-

sonal psycho-bodyguard. Just don’t leave me alone.”

“Of course not.” I smiled as her cold little hand closed around

mine. “I’ll always bring you home.”

The River Vaitarna was kind to Mindy on her first voyage. Only a

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New York was swift and calm. Maybe I was getting better at this, or maybe my connection to the Chrysler Building was strong.

Or so I thought, until we left the river.

We were in New York City, but the neighborhood was all

wrong. Instead of skyscrapers, we were surrounded by apartment

buildings and a big department store. Only one tall, curvaceous

tower stood before us, wrapped in reflective glass. It took me a

moment to recognize it—my father’s building.

“Whoa,” Mindy said. “You were right. It’s huge!”

“That isn’t the Chrysler. I think I messed up.”

She looked at me. “Are you sure? It’s so big.”

“The Chrysler Building’s, like, five times taller. This is where

my dad lives.”

Mindy gave a disbelieving laugh. She’d never been to New York

before, or much of anywhere, I supposed. She’d spent most of the

last thirty-five years within a stone’s throw of my mother’s closet.

“Where are the houses?” she said, looking around. There were

piles of gray snow everywhere. The winter up here was ten times

colder than back in San Diego, but the flipside air was its usual

indifferent cool.

“They don’t have houses here. New Yorkers live in apartments.”

I took her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you one.”

She pulled me to a halt. “That whole building’s full of people?

And they live there?”

“Yeah. So?”

“That means they die there.” She planted her feet. “There must be tons of ghosts inside!”

I sighed, wondering if we should just walk up to the Chrysler.

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But I was curious about why the river had brought us here. Did I

have that strong a connection to my father’s apartment? I’d never

felt comfortable staying there.

“Don’t worry, Mindy. They built this place a few years ago. My

father only likes new and shiny things.” She still didn’t move, and I scented the air. It was rustier than San Diego, but nothing like the bad man’s house. “Do you see any ghosts?”

She peered into the marble lobby, checking out the doorman,

then swept her eyes along the streets around us. It was three hours later here in New York, not long before dawn, but there were still a few people strolling past.

“Just livers.” Mindy’s fingers tightened around mine. “But what

if that’s because there’s lots of pomps to grab them?”

I sighed. “My dad said he likes New York because he doesn’t

have to talk to his neighbors. So ghosts probably fade, right?

Or maybe they head back to their hometowns, where someone

remembers them.”

“Maybe. But stay close, okay, Lizzie?”

“Of course.” I drew her gently across the street.

Here on the flipside I couldn’t even press an elevator button, so

we took the stairs. My dad lived on the fifteenth floor, but I wasn’t breathless when we arrived. Walking around on the flipside didn’t

burn any calories, it seemed.

My nerves began to tingle as we stood before my father’s

door. I’d been a lot of places on the flipside, but this was the first time I’d used my invisibility to spy on someone I knew. It took a

moment’s concentration for me to pass through the solid wood.

Inside, the apartment was as I remembered it from a few weeks

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ago—chrome and leather furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows full

of moonlit skyline. It sparkled like the icicles dangling from the veranda rail outside, as elegant and cold.

My father’s giant TV was on, but I kept my gaze averted from

the screen. From experiments at home, I knew that televisions

looked very strange from the flipside. Turns out that cats, with their ghost-seeing eyes, are staring at TVs in abject horror. Or maybe

cats are just weird.

“Who’s that?” Mindy asked.

“Rachel, my father’s girlfriend.” The two were curled up

together on the couch, focused on the screen.

“It’s funny that he’s here with someone else. I kind of miss him,

even if he was a butthead.”

“Me too,” I said, surprising myself a little.

Mindy had never talked about my father before, though of course

she’d known him for longer than I’d been alive. She probably knew

more about my parents’ breakup than I did, and yet she stared at the couple on the couch as if puzzled by the concept of divorce.

Sometimes I wondered if my mother also missed my father. She

always seemed so tired these days, as if losing him had chopped

some vital spark out of her. Or maybe it was just those extra shifts she had to work.

My hand went to my cheek, to my scar that was shaped like a

tear. For a moment, I wanted to step from the flipside and show

my father how badass it looked, and how I didn’t cover it with

makeup. And maybe ask him why he hadn’t flown down to Dallas

three weeks ago.

That was when I realized that anger had brought me here.

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Lately it seemed like I was anger’s puppet, moving where it wanted.

I’d lost patience with a lot of my friends, and everyone except Jamie was scared of me. Anger had made me call the bad man, in a feeble

attempt to scare him.

I could still hear the pay phone ringing as I’d walked away. He

probably knew where that pay phone was by now.

I sighed and turned away from my father to gaze at Rachel.

I’d never mentioned to Mom how beautiful she was, and had

expunged it from my memory out of loyalty. Her face glowed in

the light of the TV, her large eyes drinking in the movie with the intensity of a child.

“He never tells her about that gun,” my father said, pointing at

the screen.

“Hush!” Rachel cried. “I told you, no spoilers!”

I rolled my eyes. This was my father’s favorite form of enter-

tainment: watching a movie he’d seen before with someone who

hadn’t. Like he was some kind of movie expert, and you were an

idiot for not predicting what was going to happen.

“That’s not really a spoiler,” my dad said. “But it’s something

you should pay attention to, if you really want to understand his motivation.”

Rachel groaned, and I wondered again why she was with him.

My father had lots of money, of course, and my friends at school

used to say he was good-looking, for an old guy. But both of those reasons seemed too shallow for Rachel. She was smart, and fun to

be with, and knew everything about art history. Visiting museums

with her had been my favorite thing about my trip here. And she’d

always known when I needed to get away from my father.

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She must have found a side to him that I didn’t know about. But

spying on the two of them suddenly didn’t seem like the best way

to figure it out.

“Coming here wasn’t such a great idea,” I said.

“At least there aren’t any ghosts.” Mindy was wandering off toward the bedroom. “This place is teeny. I thought your dad was rich.”

“Apartments are small compared to houses.”

“Must make it hard to play hide-and-seek.”

I laughed. “I don’t think my dad’s into hide-and-seek.”

“But there must be kids in New York.” Mindy frowned. “Right?”

“Of course.” We were in my father’s bedroom now, the only real

one in the apartment. During my visit I’d slept in his study, on a pleasantly musty leather couch. “There’s a playground near here.”

It had been full of nannies and toddlers and dotted with

splotches of chewing gum. I wondered what its history would look

like flashing past in a vision.

“But there’s nowhere to hide,” Mindy said.

“You think? Check this out.”

My father’s closet door was closed, but I walked toward it.

I didn’t try to imagine the past, just kept walking until I passed through. The wooden door offered no more resistance than a dusty

sunbeam.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw that Mindy had fol-

lowed. She stood there in the gray light of the flipside, gazing at the glass-fronted drawers and the gray suits hanging neatly in the darkness.

“Bet you wish my mom had a walk-in like this,” I said. “Pretty

luxurious for hiding in.”

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“No way,” Mindy whispered. “Someone else could be hiding in

here with you and you wouldn’t even know it!”

I laughed, but Mindy was right. The closet was almost another

bedroom in itself. Even in broad daylight the flipside was never

bright, but in the deep corners of the closet were pools of shadow that could have held anything.

I held out my hand. “If you’re scared, we can go.”

“Course not,” Mindy said, but she was standing close to me.

“Still, I wouldn’t want to live with your dad.”

“Me neither.” I remembered my uneasiness staying here.

Maybe it hadn’t been the sleek and uncomfortable furniture, or

even the fact that I hadn’t forgiven my father for running out on me and Mom. Maybe Mindy had spotted the important missing thing

here—a place to hide, to disappear.

I let my fingers drift across the sleeves of my father’s jackets,

trying to feel the silks and tweeds and linens. But like colors and scents, textures were muted on the flipside. Money didn’t matter

much when you were dead, I guess. Even the best suits wound up

gray and plain.

“I’m glad you brought me here,” Mindy said. “My parents

didn’t like big cities. I never really saw a skyscraper before.”

I looked down at her. “Let me show you a real one, then. We

can walk up to the Chrysler Building in half an hour. It’s five times taller, I swear.”

“Really?”

“Much prettier, too. It has gargoyles! Come on.”

But as I turned to leave, a whisper floated at the edge of my hearing, a half-formed word from the blackness of the closet’s depths.

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I froze. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Mindy asked.

I peered back into the darkness, listening for five slow breaths.

“Nothing, I guess.” But a chill had settled on my skin, and as I

turned to face the closet door again, it looked very solid.

I reached out and touched it. The wood felt hard and real.

“Oh, shit-stick.”

Mindy’s hand grasped mine. “What’s wrong?”

I stared at the door. From the other side, it had seemed a trivial barrier. But from here inside the closet, it felt impenetrable, suffocating. How had I ever convinced myself that solid objects could be willed away?

A cold trickle of claustrophobia was rolling down my spine, a

reminder of what it had felt like when I was little. “It’s okay. Just . . .”

I heard the whisper again, wordless and soft from the back of

the closet.

Slamming my eyes shut, I strode forward. But just as I’d

expected, as I’d known would happen, my foot collided with the door.

“Crap.” I took hold of the inside handle. I could feel the metal,

sleek and cool, but of course my ghostly body was incapable of

moving anything in the real world.

“It’s okay, Lizzie. You know how to do this. Just don’t think

about it.”

“Please don’t say anything.”

I took a deep, slow breath, and flattened my palm against the

wood. I tried to push it through, but the door remained solid and

unyielding.

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My breath grew short and fast, but panic couldn’t throw me back

into the real world. My body was three thousand miles away.

A huge and awful thought came crashing down on me. What

if I was stuck in here? My spirit cut off from my body forever . . .

Then we heard it, a noise from the darkness in the depths of the

closet, from somewhere behind the back wall. It sounded like rusty scissors opening and closing, traveling along the smooth wooden

floor beneath our feet.

It was the old man in the patchwork jacket. It had to be.

I made two fists and turned to face the darkness. “You again?

Seriously?”

The darkness didn’t answer. Not even a scratching noise. But

Mindy’s whimpering seemed to crowd the space around us.

“Please, Lizzie,” she begged. “Let’s just leave.”

I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to say aloud that the old man had trapped me here in a web of my own panic.

“It’s okay. I’m not afraid of him.” I was only afraid of the four

walls, heavy and solid around me.

But fear only made me angrier. I hadn’t brought a knife, but as

I stared into the darkness, I was ready to punch and kick and bite.

Mindy clung to me, shivering, and for a moment the only sound

was our breathing.

Then a whisper came. “I want you in my pocket, little girl.”

“Let’s just run,” Mindy said. “Please, Lizzie!”

“Just stay here beside me.” I tried to keep my voice steady,

but the air was thick in my lungs, the closet pressing in. My panic needed somewhere to go, and turned to a shudder traveling down

my body.

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“I want your secrets, little girl,” came the old man’s whisper.

Mindy’s fingers were a vise around mine, her breathing as fast

as a rabbit’s.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“I’m getting closer.” The voice was almost in my ear.

“Lizzie!” Mindy cried, pulling me backward, away from the

darkness. But the door stopped me, solid and unyielding, and

Mindy did what was natural to her.

She ran.

The moment I felt her slip away, I turned and called her name.

I beat my fists against the door, telling her to wait, to stay in here with me.

But she was gone, along with the presence that had occupied

the closet with us. He wanted her, not me.

“Mindy!” I called again, my voice raw. No answer.

I had to escape this closet, so I threw my mind back to

the first time I’d done this trick. Covering my eyes with shak-

ing hands, I imagined the tower around me unbuilt, the walls

unpainted, the apartments empty shells, the wiring and plumb-

ing exposed . . .

When I let my hands drop, there was no closet door in front

of me, no closet at all, not even a floor beneath my feet. Only the skeleton of a building, I-beams and girders in a grid, the cold gray city visible in all directions.

“Crap,” I said as I began to fall.

But I wasn’t tumbling down like someone thrown out a win-

dow. I was feather light, wafting slowly into the yawning pit of the building’s foundation. And as its blackness surrounded me, I willed 356

AFTERWORLDS

myself through the brittle surface of the world and down into the

River Vaitarna.

A moment later my feet rested on its broad, empty plain. All

my panic was gone, turned to anger, but I had no idea how to find

the old man.

Except to say, “Yama, dammit. I need you.”

357

CHAPTER 27

SUMMER FADED RELUCTANTLY, WAITING TILL MID-SEPTEMBER

before the heat no longer made garbage bags sweat and leak. But

finally cool tendrils of air crept in through Darcy’s open windows at night, and the skies turned the deep blue of autumn.

The two of them kept at their rewrites, Imogen sending

Ailuromancer to her publisher a few days before her tour. The book remained without a decent title, but Paradox had given her a deadline of early next year for that.

Darcy finished her Afterworlds rewrites, except for the new ending, the thought of which still paralyzed her. She tried writing about her troubles, if only to have something to post on her

empty tumblr feed, but it just seemed like complaining. Finally she told Moxie, and a call to Nan Eliot won her an extension till late November.

November . . . the month when Darcy had written a whole

AFTERWORLDS

novel. Of course she could manage a new ending. And in the mean-

time, touring with Imogen and Stanley Anderson would surely

clear her head.

Darcy and Imogen arrived at JFK almost two hours before depar-

ture time, dutifully wielding one carry-on bag and one backpack

each. Standerson had warned that any checked baggage would

be lost on their first flight and would never catch up. Disobeying Standerson didn’t seem like a good idea.

The first flight was the longest of the tour, all the way to San

Francisco. From there, they would wind their way across the

Southwest and Midwest, ending up in Chicago. (Standerson, of

course, would keep going for a whole month, with other hopeful

young Paradox authors joining him along the way.)

Darcy waited for departure in a state of excitement, then

demanded the window seat and stared down at the passing ter-

rain, trying to read the giant glyphs of highway cloverleaves and

radial irrigation. The country was so big. It was strange to think that tomorrow copies of Pyromancer would be emerging from

cardboard boxes in stores all across it, along with electronic copies shooting down wires and scattering through the air. And in almost

exactly a year, her own Afterworlds would do the same. . . .

Imogen was taking notes, as always, in case she ever needed to

write a scene in a plane. She’d taken photographs of the emergency evacuation card, the layout of the cabin, even the texture of the seat fabric. Watching Imogen do research—especially for a book she

wasn’t even writing yet—only made Darcy twitchier.

“Have you never been on an airplane before?” Imogen finally asked.

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“Of course. But not on tour.”

Imogen smiled, prying Darcy’s hand away from the armrest

between them. As their fingers interlaced, she said, “Save some

energy for tomorrow, and the six days after that.”

Darcy played with her seat belt, feeling sheepish and young.

“Are you still glad you asked me along?”

“Of course,” Imogen said. “But this is just the first of many.”

Stanley Anderson was waiting for them in San Francisco Airport,

having arrived from Kentucky an hour before. He was sitting near

their gate and reading a copy of Pyromancer.

Darcy found it odd to see him sitting there alone, with no one

paying any attention to him. His humblest online remark gener-

ated a hundred responses in minutes, and at her party an expectant bubble of attention had formed around him, everyone glancing

over their shoulders to check that he was real. But here in SFO he was just another traveler, dressed comfortably in sneakers, jeans, and a baggy army jacket.

He looked up as they approached. “You made it!”

“Sorry we’re late,” Darcy said.

“It’s never the passengers’ fault.” He slipped Pyromancer into an oversize coat pocket and telescoped out the handle of his luggage, a rolling carry-on bag the color of a green highlighter pen.

“Besides, I kind of like airports. All these signs telling us where to go.”

He pointed to one above his head: TAXIS AND LIMOS.

As they followed him, Imogen made wide eyes at the top edge

of Pyromancer sticking up from Standerson’s pocket. The book was 360

AFTERWORLDS

dog-eared a third of the way in, roughly the point when Ariel Flint was gaining her fire-starting powers.

“You’ll love our driver,” Standerson said. “I get the same guy

every tour. He’s been a media escort for thirty years and knows

all the gossip. Make sure he tells you about the time he set Jeffery Archer’s jacket on fire. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t an accident.”

“Whoa,” Darcy said. She’d known that they would have driv-

ers taking them around, but “media escorts”? It sounded very

illustrious.

“But there’s something you should know about Anton,”

Standerson continued. “He can’t drive.”

“As in drive a car?” Imogen said.

“Then how do we get around?” Darcy asked.

“In his car.” Standerson shrugged. “I mean, he can drive,

legally. He’s just not very good at it anymore. He’s sort of losing his eyesight, and coordination, and focus. But he’s got so many awesome stories!”

“Like a realtor who can’t use keys,” Imogen said. “But more

dangerous.”

“He has had a couple of wrecks lately, which is kind of scary,”

Standerson said, then brightened. “But it’s a well-known fact that if you die on tour, you go straight to YA heaven!”

Darcy looked at Imogen. “There’s a YA heaven?”

“Of course,” he said. They were passing down a long, tunnel-

like hallway leading to the luggage area, and the lighting was slowly shifting colors around them. It was just some sort of software company ad, but it felt very mystical as Standerson’s voice dropped low.

“It’s very nice up there. Every writer gets their own little bungalow, 361

SCOTT WESTERFELD

and they all lie around in hammocks swapping writing tips. There’s a nightly discussion about world-building. Plus lots of drinking.”

Imogen laughed. “I saw this thread on your forum. Doesn’t

everyone get their own research team, complete with historian,

martial artist expert, and consulting surgeon?”

“That sounds nice,” Darcy said as they reached an escalator

headed down. “But what if you’re not actually in print at the time of your grisly car accident? Do you still get into YA heaven?”

“That’s a tricky one,” Standerson said. “Do you have any blurbs yet?”

“One from Oscar Lassiter, and Kiralee Taylor is waiting for the

rewrites to decide.”

“Oscar and Kiralee? Goodness. Then heaven ye shall find!”

Darcy was unexpectedly relieved at this news.

The baggage claim area opened up below them, hundreds of

bags parading on a dozen carousels. It looked stressful and chaotic, and Darcy felt virtuous for having all her luggage already in hand.

She made a mental note to follow all of Standerson’s touring advice.

From the bottom of the escalator, a large man in a dark green

suit was waving at them. He held a handwritten sign that said anderson, and the two greeted each other with smiles and handshakes.

The man turned to Darcy and Imogen. “Welcome to San

Francisco. Anton Jones at your service. My car’s this way!”

They followed, and a few minutes later their luggage was in

the trunk of a large gray sedan. Standerson sat in front with Jones, and Imogen and Darcy took the backseat. Their hands stretched

out to find each other, squeezing tight. They were really here

together, on tour.

As the car left the airport, Anton Jones told them all about his

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last client, a celebrity chef who ran his book signings like a restaurant during a dinner rush. The chef shouted orders to waiting

bookstore staff behind him, who scurried forward with books that

were butterfly clipped open to their title pages, while a team of

publicists skulked about the edges of the room with trays of auto-

graphed photos and corkscrews.

It was a very funny story, but as Anton imitated the chef’s

shouts and gestures, it became clear that his bad driving was not

one of Standerson’s fantastical conceits. Jones thrust the sedan

through the late-afternoon traffic, switching lanes with abandon

and stomping alternately on the accelerator and brake, as if trying to crush a deadly ferret loose in the floorboards.

A cold sweat broke on Darcy’s skin, and her stomach muttered

the first rumblings of carsickness. She tried to swallow, but the dry air of the plane had left her cotton-mouthed.

As Jones swerved around a truck, the sedan’s lateral momen-

tum pressed Darcy into Imogen. Crushed in turn against the car

door, Imogen let out a low groan. When the car steadied for a

moment, she put an arm around Darcy.

“Tell me about YA heaven again?” Darcy pleaded.

The boys were still jabbering in front, heedless of danger, so

Imogen answered softly. “There’s a dress code. If you were a New York Times bestseller, you get to wear a black robe with red trim, like a don at a boarding school.”

“That must annoy everyone else,” Darcy said.

“Not really. The robes look fancy, but they’re really hot, and

everyone secretly covets the sparkly tiaras that only Printz winners are allowed to wear.”

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“The Printz Award’s that big a deal?”

“Of course! It’s basically a YA knighthood.”

Standerson had heard her somehow, and said over his shoulder,

“Actually, knighthoods are inferior, because they can be revoked for treason or other serious crimes. But even if you become a serial killer, they still don’t take those Printz stickers away.”

“Good point,” Imogen said. “But awards don’t matter in YA

heaven, because you get to write all day. No bills, no cooking, no cleaning. Just writing and talking about writing, and everyone has cover approval.”

Darcy closed her eyes and tried to imagine that the swaying of

the sedan was a hammock beneath her. As silly as it was, the idea

of YA heaven made her deeply happy. Often back at home, when

the writing had gone well and they’d been out to dinner with Oscar or Coleman or Johari to argue plots and words all night, Darcy felt that she was already there.

With the tour beginning in earnest the next day, Darcy had

expected not to sleep that night. But the giant and comfortable

hotel bed, combined with three hours’ jet lag, had her unconscious by midnight.

The next morning began with school visits. Anton Jones

picked them up early for a drive out to the suburbs, where the

auditorium of Avalon High awaited. Talking in front of student

assemblies had always terrified Darcy, and she was happy that this was only her prepub tour. Her job was to schmooze with librarians and bookstore people, but otherwise keep herself from view.

The morning rush-hour traffic kept the sedan below lethal

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speeds, and Standerson, who had suffered one of his frequent bouts of dyspepsia the night before, managed to fall asleep in the front seat. All went smoothly until the GPS announced that they had

arrived at the school, which was only partly true. A tall wire fence stood between the sedan and a cluster of buildings glimpsed across a well-kept soccer field.

“Can never find the damn office,” Jones said, and began to

drive along the fence. The barrier seemed to stretch forever, without any hint of an entrance.

“Brilliant security concept,” Imogen said. “Just one little

hitch—nobody can get in.”

Jones nodded. “Been this way since Columbine, which is ridicu-

lous. That was students shooting up the place!”

“Didn’t your schedule have a contact number?” Darcy asked.

“Right, the school librarian.” Imogen started searching through

the twenty-page fax of travel and event details that had been waiting at the hotel desk the night before. She pulled out her phone and tapped in digits. “Crap, it’s going to a message. He’s supposed to be waiting at the front.”

“I don’t see any front,” Jones said. “This school’s all backsides!”

“The suburban high school as impenetrable fortress,” Imogen

said grimly. “I was always so good at breaking out of these places.”

Standerson stirred from his nap and opened one sleepy eye.

“We there yet?”

“Sorry, Stan,” Anton said. “It’s one of those schools where you

can’t find the damn office.”

“Flagpole,” Standerson mumbled, then slumped back against

the passenger-side window.

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The other three leaned forward and, all at once, pointed ahead

and to the left, at the stars and stripes whipping in a crisp wind.

Ten minutes later they were onstage, facing a thousand empty

seats. Standerson seemed wide awake and not at all dyspeptic,

Imogen paced nervously, and Darcy was mostly carsick.

“High school,” Imogen said. “I thought I’d never be inside one

of these again.”

“I know, right?” Standerson inhaled deeply. “The smell of lock-

ers and pheromones, the earnest panache of handmade posters. It’s

brilliant of our publishers to make us do school visits and remind us how all this really feels.”

“I hadn’t actually forgotten,” Darcy said, though Standerson

was right about the smells. High school was rushing back into her

brain, like a memory from four days ago instead of four months.

Her relief that she wasn’t going up onstage was redoubling every

minute.

“What if we never really left?” Imogen said. “What if we’ve

always been here, and adulthood was just an illusion?”

“Nice concept,” Standerson said. “But for a trilogy or a tweet?”

“I can’t tell anymore,” Imogen said.

Darcy was still wrestling with this question when the school

librarian, who had left them for a quick trip to the office, reappeared.

He was a tall man with red hair and a precision in his consonants that made Darcy wonder if he’d grown up speaking Spanish.

“Okay, they’re about to call the classes down,” he said. “I’m

afraid there’s some testing going on, so it’ll only be about two hundred kids, grades nine and ten.”

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A nervous laughed spurted from Imogen. “Only two hundred?”

“I’ll make sure they sit down front.” The librarian turned to

Darcy. “The publicist just emailed me last night to say you were

coming. You’re a novelist too?”

Darcy felt a blush forming. “Yeah. But not in print yet.”

“And you’re how old?”

“Eighteen,” she said.

“That’s great. I can’t tell you how much my creative writing kids

will love hearing your story.”

Darcy blinked. “Wait. What? I’m not—”

“I’m sure they will too,” Standerson cut in. “Darcy’s an inspira-

tion to us all.”

“I’m not even supposed to—,” Darcy began, but at that moment

the school’s loudspeakers crackled to life, and a call for all English classes to head to the auditorium was echoing through the hallways. By the time the announcement ended, the librarian had dis-

appeared again, and a young student in a death metal T-shirt stood beside Darcy, clipping a lapel microphone onto her hoodie.

“So you wrote a book?” he said as he worked. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Um, thanks.” She looked up at the entrance to the auditorium,

where the first students were already arriving. The cold sweat produced by Anton’s driving had returned.

Somehow she had no other choice than to go onstage, any more

than the students trickling in had any choice but to watch. Imogen was right—Darcy was still in high school. She would always be in

high school.

Moments later the three of them were led onstage, where three

orange plastic chairs and a lectern waited.

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Imogen covered her lapel mike with one hand. “You’re lucky,

Darcy. At least you didn’t have time to get nervous.”

“I think I’m catching up,” Darcy whispered. The stream of

arriving students had turned into a flood, and the volume built

in the auditorium. The chatter didn’t sound like it was made of

voices, but of a primal and dangerous energy, directionless except for a posse of obvious Standerson fans gathered on the front row.

They took countless pictures of him with their phones and emitted

squees whenever he glanced in their direction.

Then a bell sounded, and as the crowd went silent, Darcy felt

herself depart from her own body, as if watching everything from

a thousand miles away. The librarian introduced the three of them, there was applause, and then Standerson began his presentation. He didn’t talk about his book at all, but spoke of the people who had inspired him to write. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, his small-town librarian, and finally a cute and bookish girl he’d wanted to impress in tenth grade. He was effortless, charming, and seemed to know when every laugh would come, where every beat would fall.

When he was done, genuine applause swept the room.

Imogen stood up next. Her voice trembled at first, just barely,

and her hands stayed locked in fists. But then she started talking about the obsessive-compulsive disorders she’d researched while

writing Pyromancer—manic hoarders, chronic hand-washers, a woman who had to check her front door locks twenty-one times

before going to bed—a host of bizarre details that held the audience rapt. Imogen’s own hands finally started to move, and soon her

passion was in full flight. Darcy found herself carried away by how beautiful her girlfriend was.

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But then, far too soon and too suddenly, she was done.

It was Darcy’s turn now.

She didn’t stand up, as the others had, just sat on her orange

chair with her hands tucked beneath her thighs. The lapel mike cast her voice into the auditorium’s sound system, making it huge and

unwieldy, as if she were typing the words with hammers.

“Hi, I’m Darcy Patel. Unlike these guys, I haven’t written nov-

els. I’ve only written one. Not novel s.”

She sat there in the rich, deep silence for a moment, astonished

that those words had sounded anything like a joke in her mind. But she had to go on, she had to keep talking. The hundreds of eyes gazing up at her would not accept silence.

“I guess that’s because I’m only eighteen. A year ago, I was a

senior in a high school kind of like this one, and I wondered what would happen if I wrote two thousand words a day for a month.

Turns out, you wind up with sixty thousand words.”

The weird thing was, people had actually laughed at this line

before. Real, adult people who lived in New York City had found

it humorous. Or at least, as Darcy realized now, far too late, those people had pretended to find it funny. Clearly they had done so as part of some misguided effort to be nice, but their generosity had left Darcy unprepared for the truth that the joke was not particularly amusing. And high school was all about the truth.

“Anyway,” she managed to continue, “it turns out that sixty

thousand words is pretty much a novel. So I sent my novel to an

agent, who sent it to a publisher, and now I write novels for a living.” As Darcy spoke, the term “novel” began to feel alien in her

mouth, like a word that had echoed with meaning in a dream, but

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made no sense upon awakening. “But here’s the thing: I didn’t

really have to write two thousand words a day. I mean, that’s like six pages, which is a lot of work. But you can write just one page a day, and in a year you’ll have a novel.”

The last word reverberated in the auditorium, having lost every

bit of meaning it had ever had.

“Anyway, people say a lot of stuff about books, and writing, and

literature, most of which sounds really complicated. But in a weird way, it’s very simple. You just type a little bit each day, and you get better and better at telling stories.”

The strange thing was, the silence had deepened as she’d spo-

ken. Almost as if they were listening.

“And that’s how every book ever got made. Thank you.”

Standerson was the first to applaud, with great swoops of his

hands that started wider than his shoulders and swung together

like cannon shots. The crowd followed him, and through some

mysterious alchemy of teenage graciousness, there were even a

few cheers mixed in. And at that moment, Darcy could see why a

million people loved Standerson with all their hearts, and why so

many people spent their whole lives trying to make other people

clap for them.

But the applause faded, and it was time for questions.

The first was asked by a tiny girl with thick glasses. She pro-

nounced each word distinctly, like a ten-year-old entrusted with

two lines in a school play. “I have a question for all three writers.

Which of the five elements of a story do you think is the most

important? Plot, setting, character, conflict, or theme? Thank you.”

Darcy looked across at the others. Standerson was stroking his

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chin, taking it all very seriously. He cleared his throat and said, “It’s a well-known fact that plot is the most important element.”

Imogen glanced at Darcy, shrugging a little.

“For example, check out this weird thing that happened to a

friend of mine,” Standerson went on. “A couple of months ago, his

girlfriend got a new job. It was a normal job at first, nine-to-five, but after a few weeks she started working later and later. She kept saying she loved the job, but never told my friend much about it.

And she was hardly ever home at all. So finally one day he got fed up and drove out to where she worked.” Standerson leaned forward, his voice dropping just a little. “And there she was, coming out the door at five o’clock on the dot. So my friend ducked down

in his seat, and when she drove away, he followed her, and found

where she’d been spending all that time . . .”

He stopped, letting the silence linger. There were a few squeaks

of the chair hinges, a smattering of whispers, but the auditorium

held its silence for second after endless second.

Finally Standerson said, “And that’s why plot is the most

important element of a story.”

A confused burble broke out, breaking the silence that gripped

the auditorium.

“But what happened?” one of the kids yelled.

Standerson shrugged. “I don’t know. I just made that up.”

A kind of roar erupted from the audience, half laughter and half

annoyance. As the librarian tried to calm the students, Darcy heard them proposing theories to each other, finishing the story on their own, as if the narrative demanded its own completion.

When the room had finally settled, Standerson leaned back and

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said, “See? That story had no setting, no theme, hardly any conflict, and two characters called ‘my friend’ and ‘his girlfriend.’ And yet you all hate me right now because you will never, ever know what

happens next. Plot rules.”

Standerson pulled his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and

dropped them on the stage.

Laughter came from the audience, still mixed with annoyance.

Darcy looked at Imogen, wondering how they were supposed

to follow that answer. Obviously, Standerson had done his whole

plot schtick before. But Imogen was smiling, already standing up.

She walked over to where Standerson’s sunglasses lay on the

stage, and looked down at them disdainfully. Then she knelt,

picked them up, and put them on.

“He’s totally wrong,” she said. “Character rules.”

The audience went silent at once, like a light switching off. This had become a competition.

“I’m going to give you a hundred million dollars,” she began,

which set off a few trickles of noise. She raised her hands. “And

you’re going to make a movie. With all that money, you can put in

whatever you want, right? Dinosaurs, spaceships, hurricanes, cities blowing up. No matter what your story is, your movie is going to

look totally real, because of all that money, and because computers can make anything look real. Except for one thing. You know what

that is?”

She waited in silence, daring them not to answer. Finally a boy

called up, “Actors?”

Imogen smiled as she took off the sunglasses. “That’s right.

You’re going to need actors, because people never look right when

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you make them with computers. They look wrong. They look

creepy. So why is that? How come special effects can make dino-

saurs and spaceships, but not people?

“It’s because everyone you love is a person, and everyone you

hate is too. You look at people all day long. You can tell from the slightest twitch when they’re angry or tired or jealous or guilty. You are all experts at people.”

God, she was beautiful.

“And that’s why character rules.”

Imogen dropped the sunglasses back onto the floor. The reac-

tion was less intense than what Standerson had produced, but the

entire audience was engaged now. Like a pendulum, huge and

sharp, their eyes swung to Darcy, whose brain began to race.

What was she supposed to do? Discuss the importance of

theme? Of setting? She suddenly hated Standerson and Imogen with all her heart. How dare they make this a contest?

And with that thought, the answer was obvious.

Darcy stood up and crossed the stage to where the sunglasses

lay. She rolled her eyes at them, and there was a smattering of

laughter. This might work.

“How many of you woke up this morning worrying about

which of the five elements of a story was most important?”

There was a little bit of laughter, and two or three hands went up.

“Right, no one cares. But for some reason you’re all waiting to

hear what I have to say. You know why? Because at some point this

became a competition.”

She turned to look at the other two. Standerson was leaning

back in his chair, smiling. He’d figured her out already.

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“You want to see who wins,” Darcy continued. “It’s like with

reality shows. Millions of people watch contestants who can’t sing, just to see who sings the least badly. Or those survival shows, where you watch total strangers competing over who can eat the most

ants. You never cared about ant eating before. But suddenly it’s

important, because you want to know who wins.”

She knelt and picked up the sunglasses, and handed them back

to Standerson.

“Which is why conflict always wins,” Darcy said. “Because con-

flict makes it a story.”

She crossed back to her chair and sat down. Her heart was rac-

ing, her body electric with a full flight-or-fight response. But the audience didn’t hate her. They weren’t applauding or laughing, but they all wanted to know what would happened next, like readers

who had to turn the page.

We’ve got the juice, Darcy thought.

“Well, okay then,” the librarian said. “Three different answers,

all very interesting. Who’s got the next question?”

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CHAPTER 28

HIS HEAT PRECEDED HIM, ALONG WITH THE SMELL OF BURNING

grass. A swarm of sparks streamed from the darkness to whirl

around me, dancing on the invisible eddies and currents of the river.

And then the beautiful sound of his voice. “Lizzie, what

happened?”

He was coming toward me, fire and warmth in the darkness.

“The man in the patched coat, he came back.” My voice still

trembled from my panic in the closet. “He took Mindy away.”

Yama came to a halt, close enough that I could feel his heat.

“I’m sorry, Lizzie.”

“We have to find her!”

He didn’t answer at first, and for a moment I thought he would

tell me it was for the best. That the last thing I needed was a little ghost dragging me into the arms of the afterworld.

But he said, “Do you know where he took her?”

SCOTT WESTERFELD

I could only shake my head.

Yama turned, surveying the emptiness around us. “So they

could be anywhere. Predators are hard to track.”

“But there must be some way to follow him. He found us, and

we were thousands of miles from home!”

“Then he has a bond with you.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

Yama took a step closer, his voice calm. “The river is made from

memories of the dead, but the bonds of the living tie it together.”

He reached up and touched my tear-shaped scar. “That’s why I can

hear when you call me. We’re connected.”

I pulled back, needing to think. “But I didn’t call that old man,

and I’m not connected to him. I don’t even know his name!”

“He must know yours,” Yama said. “Names have power here,

Lizzie.”

I remembered the first time he’d followed me home. Mindy

might have said my name in the schoolhouse, or in my room.

“Maybe.”

“But it’s not just your name. He feels something for you.”

“Are you serious?”

“He wants something, badly enough that the river carried him

to you.” Yama put his hands on my shoulders. “Tell me everything

he said.”

I looked into his eyes. We hadn’t seen each other since the fight, and Yama didn’t know I’d gone to see the old man again.

“He wanted me to kill someone.”

“To kill someone? Who?”

“The bad man.”

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It took Yama a moment to figure it out. “You met him again,

didn’t you?”

My arms crossed, covering me. “I went to find him, to see if he

could help with the bad man. This is all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t. This is his obsession, not yours. Which means he

doesn’t want Mindy. He wants you.”

My breath caught, and the darkness of the river closed in

around me, as if I were trapped in my father’s closet again. A psychopomp stalker. Perfect.

But with that trickle of panic in my veins, I saw why the old

man had taken Mindy in New York, and not in my home, where I

felt strong and safe. He’d chosen that moment in the closet because he wanted me scared.

This wasn’t about Mindy at all.

I pushed the thought away, let myself feel the warmth of Yama’s

hands on my shoulders, his current on my skin. This was a real connection. How did that crumpled old predator dare to think there

was anything like this between me and him?

“He said he was going to put her in his pockets.”

Yama’s hands tightened. “It’s only a threat. Taking her was a

way to get your attention.”

“He has it. So what do we do?”

“Nothing. He’ll come for you when he wants to talk again.”

“Can’t the river take me to Mindy right now?” I closed my eyes

and thought of her face, but Yama gently pulled me closer, breaking my concentration.

“You can’t follow a ghost, Lizzie. The river is made of them.”

I opened my eyes. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

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“You have to wait. He’ll test your will, maybe for a long time.

But I’ll stay here as long as you need.”

“Thank you.” My voice sounded so earnest in my ears, I had to

make a joke of it. “You aren’t afraid of getting death all over me?”

Yama tried to hide his smile. “I’m afraid for you sometimes. But

that didn’t stop me coming when you called.”

A shudder of relief went through me. Since our fight, part of me

had been afraid that he would stop answering.

I pulled him close, needing his heat on my lips, his body against

mine. My palms slid down his back, searching for the ripple of

muscle beneath silk. As his scent filled my lungs, the river’s current surged around us, and my hair whipped and tangled.

When our lips parted, we were silent for a long time. I won-

dered if we could stand there forever in the River Vaitarna’s

embrace, never getting hungry, never tiring, never growing old. In the end forgetting ourselves and fading, becoming part of the river.

Even here in his arms, my thoughts were so grim.

“What if it’s too scary?” I asked.

“Then we’ll go to my island,” he said simply.

“But what if it’s all too much? Ghosts, predators, the dead in every stone. What if one little stretch of sand isn’t enough?”

“Then we’ll find somewhere else. Somewhere you feel safe.”

My heart faltered a little as I realized what Yama had said. After a thousand years searching for his island, he’d just offered to set it aside and find another place for me.

Yama came closer, his voice a whisper. “This is all happening so

quickly, Lizzie. I wish I could slow it down.”

“I just wish I could fall asleep.” The thin edge of panic was still 378

AFTERWORLDS

in my voice. “The old man said I didn’t have to anymore, because

sleep is a slice of death. So I stopped, and now I can’t.”

“Ah. That happens sometimes.” He put his arms around me.

“Take me home, and I’ll show you a little trick.”

It was strange seeing Yama in my room. I’d been with him in a

bloody terrorist attack, in a river made of dead memories and the

places it had carried us, but never anywhere so mundane, so much

a part of my real life.

Thankfully I’d cleaned up the mess on my bed, not wanting

my mother to see piles of research about serial killers and missing children.

“Here we are,” I said, wishing I’d also shoved the school clothes

hanging across my chair into the laundry hamper.

Yama was gazing at the pictures over my desk. “You have so

many friends.”

I sighed. “Not these days. Since Dallas, not everyone gets me

anymore.”

“Death shows you who’s real,” he said simply, and turned to

me. “This works better in the overworld.”

“What does?”

A smile flickered on his face. “Sleeping.”

“Oh. Right.” If you couldn’t get tired or hungry on the flipside,

then sleeping there would be pointless as well.

I was already nervous having him here, so a few quick breaths

was all it took to throw myself back into the real world. The streetlights coming through the windows showed colors spilling across

the room.

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Yama closed his eyes and took a slow breath, as if savoring the air.

I reached out and touched his face. He felt solid, not like a ghost.

“Wait,” I whispered. “You’re here too? I thought you never did this.”

His eyes opened. “Call this an extravagance.”

I looked at my bedroom door. “But my mother . . .”

Yama pressed close, until he was near enough to whisper, “Don’t

worry, Lizzie. We’ll be very quiet.”

His breath brushed my ear with fingertips of air, and a little shudder went through me. For a moment, nothing pierced the sound of

the blood rushing in my veins.

A little dizzy, I sat down on my bed. Yama settled beside me,

and I leaned against him. Here in the overworld he wasn’t sparks

and fire dancing on the wind, but he was still warmer than anyone

I’d ever held.

I turned. “Okay. What now?”

“Do you usually sleep in a jacket?” His voice was still a whisper, sharpening every word.

“Oh.” I unzipped it, let it fall from my shoulders.

Of course, I didn’t sleep in sneakers either. I pulled off my

shoes and socks. And I never slept in jeans. I stood up and let them slip onto the floor. Then I crossed the room and drew the curtains tighter.

In the darkness, the psychopomp shine on our skin seemed to

grow stronger. The night air felt cool on my arms and legs.

I settled back onto the bed, stretching out beside where Yama

sat, basking in his warmth.

“Somehow this doesn’t feel very . . . sleepy.” There was a quaver in my voice.

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“There’s no rush.” He was looking down at me, his brown eyes

glittering in the dark.

I reached up and touched his right eyebrow, the little crook of it warm beneath my fingertip. I traced the curve of his shoulder, the hardness of bone and muscle beneath silk. My fingers prized open

his top button, widening the triangle of luminous brown skin.

In one supple motion, he slipped the still-buttoned shirt off

over his head.

My breath caught. I’d never been with him in the real world

before, without the soft gray light of the flipside, or the fire and spark of the river’s currents. There was no light except the shine of our skin, as if nothing existed beyond the edges of us.

He leaned forward and held his lips against mine with an impos-

sible stillness, as if the moment had frozen, time itself unraveling.

The only thing moving in the world was the breath between our lips.

Suspended in that perfect instant, I ached for more.

He brushed a fingertip feather-light against the side of my neck,

and I felt my own pulse rise up to meet his heat. My heartbeat

gradually steadied in that long, still kiss.

When finally our lips parted, my breath shuddered a little. He

stayed close, his eyes locked with mine, and for a moment the spell was too intense. I had to break it with a whisper.

“Do you ever sleep, Yama?”

“Sometimes.”

I swallowed. “What do you dream about?”

“This,” he said.

A soft cry stuttered out of me. It felt as if his fingers had found a loose thread inside me, and were pulling, making me fray and

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unravel. The leftover nervous energy from all those sleepless nights went scattering across my skin.

My hands reached up, my fingers deep in the thick waves of his

black hair. I held him there, his eyes meshed with mine, his gaze

sinking deeper into me every time a sigh trembled in my lungs.

Soon the loose thread had tangled into a knot, which Yama

drew slowly tighter and tighter. The fear that had wound itself into my muscles was burning away at last, turning to something bright

and sharp and hungry. The weight of all those undreamt dreams

pounded in my head, crashing and breaking apart, my whole body

arching against him.

In the end I nearly came apart, and for a moment all of me was

lost, shattering into countless pieces like the memories of a ghost on the river. And I didn’t care if I’d been born cursed, sullied and marked by death, because it had brought me here into Yama’s arms.

He showed me how to sleep again, like Prince Charming in

reverse, though back in the airport he had woken me with a kiss

as well.

Maybe his lips cured everything.

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CHAPTER 29

THERE WAS ANOTHER PRESENTATION AT AVALON HIGH, AND

then another at a different school ten miles away, the entrance of which was also tricky to find. So it was late afternoon when Anton drove the three of them back to the hotel for a rest before the bookstore event that night.

Perhaps it was jet lag, or the adulthood-lag of having been in

high schools all day, but when Darcy reached the hotel room she

fell onto the bed, fully clothed.

It was a solid hour later that she awoke to find Imogen beside

her, stripped down to a tank top and boxers and banging away at

her laptop.

“You didn’t sleep?”

Imogen’s fingers kept moving. “Are you kidding? Book birth-

day. Must blog. Must tweet.”

“Oh, right.” With all her morning’s labors, Darcy had some-

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how forgotten that Pyromancer was sweeping into the world

today. “You’re in print, Gen! You are a legit published and printed author.”

“I know, right? Can’t quite believe it.” At last Imogen’s typing

paused. “I mean, there were those copies at the schools today. But do you really think there are thousands of them sitting on bookstore shelves? What if there was some kind of glitch? What if it isn’t really happening?”

Darcy put a hand on Imogen’s bare shoulder. “It’s real, Gen.”

“But how do I know?”

“Um, because your publishing company told you? And they

have this, like, huge building in Manhattan.”

“Good point. That building is pretty big.” Imogen pushed a stray strand of hair out of her face and looked up at Darcy. “It’s probably just a passing case of impostor syndrome.”

“Is that a real thing?”

“Of course.” Imogen typed a few keystrokes and spun her

screen around. Among the clutter of a dozen open windows was a

Wikipedia article.

Darcy scanned the first few paragraphs. Impostor syndrome

was pretty much what it sounded like—believing that everything

you’d accomplished was luck, or cheating, or fraud. Dreading that

it would all be taken away once your fakery had been revealed.

“Crap. This isn’t you, Gen. It’s me!”

“It’s every writer.” Imogen turned the laptop toward herself

again and stared at the screen. “Okay, reading this was a bad idea.

Can you get a syndrome just from looking it up?”

“This one, you can.” Darcy reached out and gently pushed the lap-

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top closed. “But the cure is to go onstage in front of a hundred rabid Stanley David Anderson fans. They don’t let impostors do that.”

Imogen nodded at this simple wisdom. “After all, how bad can

a roomful of Standerson fans be?”

“Never bad.” Darcy pulled Imogen closer to kiss her, and whis-

pered in her ear, “Just intense.”

“Oh, Stanley texted while you were asleep. He wants to meet for

an early dinner downstairs.”

Darcy looked at her own phone. Nisha had texted with the

message: Hope you’re having a good tour—364 days till publication!

She sighed and jumped up from the bed. Her clothes felt sticky

from having been slept in. “I’ll shower first.”

They cleaned up and dressed, Imogen in a crisp white shirt and

leather jacket, lots of metal on her fingers. Darcy lofted onto her toes to straighten the shirt’s collar, which had crumpled in the suitcase. She wore her little black dress, the one she’d been given the night they’d met. Surely there was some good luck left in it still.

The hotel restaurant was decidedly nonillustrious. TVs hung from

the ceiling, blaring sports in all directions. The vinyl seat of the booth squeaked like a baby seal as Darcy slid into it, and the menu was full of dishes grandiose and generic, like “the International

Cheese Experience.” This phrase, Standerson pointed out, was

more than half a haiku.

After they’d ordered the least greasy food they could find, he

asked, “Had either of you ever done a school visit before?”

Imogen laughed. “I never thought I’d be in a high school again,

and Darcy’s barely out of one.”

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“Well, I salute you both.”

“Much as I love praise,” Darcy said, “I’m still mad at you for

volunteering me.”

Standerson held up his hands. “That was your publicist! You

think she emailed the librarian by accident?”

“I can be mad at you both equally,” Darcy said. “But it was fun,

kind of. I liked the battle of the story elements.”

“Because you won,” Standerson said.

Darcy made a pfft noise. “You got way more applause.”

“Nobody won,” Imogen said. “Because the victory didn’t go to

plot, or character, or conflict. It was all about setting.”

The other two stared at her.

“High school,” Imogen explained. “Where else would the

interlocking, interdependent elements of narrative be reduced to

adversarial comparisons, when in practice they rely on each other

to make a coherent whole?”

Darcy shrugged. “In every love triangle ever?”

“Both your points are valid,” Standerson said. “And you should

keep doing the school events with us, Darcy. There’s no better

research than interacting with our constituency.”

Imogen laughed. “Darcy was our constituency, not that long ago.”

Darcy ignored this and asked, “What’s the worst question you

ever got?”

Standerson gave this a moment’s thought, then said in a theatri-

cal voice of doom, “‘Where do you get your ideas?’”

“That one’s easy for Darcy,” Imogen said. “She steals them.”

“I do not!”

“What about my closet scene?”

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Darcy looked down at the table, her cheeks heating up. “That

was an accident.”

“Trouble in YA heaven?” Standerson asked, his eyes lighting

up. “Spill me the beans.”

“Do we have to?” Darcy pleaded.

“Yes.” Imogen turned to Standerson. “So Pyromancer’s the first book in a trilogy, right?”

He nodded. “It’s awesome so far.”

“Thanks . . .” The compliment flustered Imogen for a moment,

but she managed to continue. “The second one just went into

copyediting, so I’m starting book three— Phobomancer. It’s phobias instead of fires. The protag is claustrophobic, and it was supposed to open with her trapped in a closet. Great, right? So I tell my girlfriend here about the idea”—Imogen flicked Darcy’s shoulder—

“and she rewrites one of her scenes so that her protag gets trapped in a closet, complete with claustrophobic panic!”

“That was a coincidence!” Darcy cried.

“I thought you said it was an accident,” Standerson said.

“It was both! A coincidence because I’d already made a big deal

about Lizzie’s father’s closet being fancy, and Mindy sleeping in

closets, so using a closet made perfect sense. And it was an accident because I didn’t realize what I was doing. Plus, Gen, you admitted it was way better than my first version, where the old man just shows up and whisks Mindy away.”

“Yes, it was better,” Imogen said. “But it was my scene!”

“But your new scene is better too!” Darcy turned to Standerson.

“Now her protag starts out trapped in the trunk of a car! Much

scarier, right?”

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Imogen didn’t argue, just ripped a tiny piece from the corner

of her placemat.

“We all steal,” Standerson said. “The trick is to steal from regu-

lar people, not other novelists.”

Imogen nodded. “My first girlfriend was a pyromaniac, and I

can’t remember half the lines I stole from her.”

“Ariel was real?” Standerson leaned forward, his eyes alight.

“Tell me about her.”

Within moments, he and Imogen were in a deep discussion of

Imogen White, Pyromancer, and the intersections between the real and the fictional. Soon they were arguing character and plot all over again, and planning what to say at tonight’s bookstore event.

Darcy huddled in her corner of the booth, happy to listen. But

the shame of her scene stealing lay hot on her skin. The closet idea had been so perfect for Mindy’s kidnapping, and the writing of it

so easy. Not until she’d read the words aloud to Imogen had she

realized that the whole concept had been pilfered.

Maybe that was the price of loving someone: You lost your

grasp of where they ended and you began.

The event that night was downtown, in a smallish bookstore with

two levels. The place was already crowded by the time Darcy,

Imogen, and Standerson arrived. The ground floor was full and

there were more kids upstairs, looming over the small stage, their legs dangling between balcony rails.

Not wanting Standerson’s arrival to start a riot, the store man-

ager was waiting outside to take him around to the freight entrance.

But Imogen insisted on coming in through the front door. Nobody

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recognized her or Darcy, of course, and they were free to wander

and observe.

Of course, they went to see Imogen’s books first. There was a

pile near the door, the flame-red cover dazzling in quantity.

“See?” Darcy said, straightening the top of the pyramid. “You’re

not an impostor.”

“I could still be a really good impostor.” Imogen’s fingers glided across one of the covers, reading the embossed letters of the title like braille. “But if so, these are excellent forgeries.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and dragged Imogen away into the crowd.

Standerson’s fans were abuzz—with anticipation and with

each other. Most wore name tags with internet handles, so online

buddies would recognize them in the flesh. Spontaneous friend-

ships were popping up, lubricated by T-shirts decorated with

Standerson’s catchphrases and covers. A whole community was

face-to-face with itself at last, and seemed dizzily happy about it.

“Aren’t you nervous?” Darcy asked.

Imogen looked up from the photography book she’d been leaf-

ing through. “I always feel safe in bookstores.”

Darcy laughed. “So it really is all about setting.”

“That appears to be the theme of the day.”

“Well, I’m nervous for you.”

“As long as it’s not contagious.” There was the barest twitch in

Imogen’s eye.

“I won’t say another word.”

They mingled in silence, Darcy taking the measure of the

crowd. They were almost all teenagers, and the adults looked more

like Standerson fans than chauffeuring parents. They were maybe

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three-quarters female, and about as diverse as the students that day had been—a California mix of Hispanic, white, black, and Asian,

including a few kids from the subcontinent. But all of them had

decided to come here, to a bookstore, on a cold and drizzly Tuesday night, when they could be at home with a thousand channels or

online. When Standerson had called them a constituency, it had sounded odd to Darcy, but maybe it was the right word after all.

Ten minutes before seven, Anton appeared and took Darcy and

Imogen to the break room. The bookstore owner introduced herself,

and Anton delivered the smoothest pitch for Afterworlds that Darcy had ever heard, picked up from their random conversations in the

car and polished to perfection. The owner listened raptly and asked Darcy a half-dozen questions, none of which were how old she was,

and Darcy found herself forgiving all of Anton’s erratic driving.

And then, quite suddenly, it was time for Standerson and

Imogen to take the stage.

“Okay. Nervous now.”

“You’ll be great.” Darcy hugged her, squeezing tight for luck.

A moment later, a cordon of bookstore staff was leading the

three of them out into a rush of gasps, tears, screams, and squees.

The crowd had transformed into a conduit, an engine pump-

ing fannish fervor into the room. Darcy was placed to one side

of the bookstore’s stage, only an arm’s length away from Imogen

and Standerson. The stage was only two feet high and a few yards

across, and the crowd pressed close.

Standerson waited patiently for the noise to subside, and when

the crowd was finally settled, he nudged them back into raptures with nothing but a sheepish “Hello.” They had been primed by a hundred

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videos to know every flick of his hair, every lopsided smile. And as Standerson began to talk, each delivery of his catchphrase—“Books

are machines for completing human beings”—brought screams of

recognition from the audience, even a kind of relief. He was exactly what they had expected him to be, but better.

The intensity of the crowd had settled a little by the time he

introduced Imogen. He went about it casually, as if she were a

friend he’d met on the way to the bookstore. But his praise was

unchecked, and the audience loved her before she said a word.

She was family now, like a long-lost cousin giving a speech at a

wedding. And when she dropped a reference to frequent bouts of

dyspepsia into her usual spiel about obsessive-compulsives, they

loved her even more.

Darcy watched closely, struck with a kind of astonishment that

this was the same man she’d had dinner with, the same woman

she woke up with almost every morning. The spellbound audience

made them shinier, more than real.

Darcy tried to absorb the performance, knowing that next year

she would have to do this job herself. But she could hardly imagine any crowd so zealous for her, so full of love.

When the questions began, a surprising number were random:

Did he prefer cake or pie? Cats or bacon? Scrivener or Word?

An hour after it had all started, the bookstore manager declared

that it was time for the signing. The staff set to wrangling the crowd into some kind of line, and a folding table was hoisted onto the tiny stage.

Darcy managed to squeeze in beside Imogen. “You guys were

amazing.”

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Imogen only nodded. She was breathing hard and shallow, like

a fish on dry land.

“That was the easy part,” Standerson said. “Face-to-face is when

it gets tricky.”

“Right. I guess I should leave you guys to it?”

“Stick around,” he said. “You can be our flap monkey!”

“Um, okay.” Darcy didn’t know what a flap monkey was, but

she was certain that she wanted to be here onstage with them.

The signing line was a long and winding beast. They brought

Standerson cookies; they brought poems and fan art; they brought

still more questions about his characters, his videos, his well-known love of the semicolon. And of course they brought books to sign.

Some had his whole collection, some only a single tattered copy of his first novel. Oddly, a few brought editions of The Great Gatsby (which he was known to love) or Moby-Dick (which he famously despised).

A dozen or so of his fans bought Imogen’s book that very night.

A handful of them camped out at her end of the table, happy to chat about their own obsessive disorders, a little giddy at their proximity to Standerson. Imogen kept them entertained with her research on

how to set things on fire.

All this time, Darcy was a busy little flap monkey, taking books

from customers and tucking the flaps into the title pages, so that Standerson didn’t have to scramble for the right place to sign.

Darcy had soon learned the difference between full- and half-title pages. (The latter didn’t have the author’s name, and was therefore unsignable.) Sometimes she swapped places with the bookstore

staff working the line. There was something pleasantly third-

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grade-teacher-ish about making sure that everyone had sticky

notes with their names on them, so that their precious moments

in Standerson’s presence weren’t wasted distinguishing a Katelyn

from a Kaitlin, Caitlin, or Caitlynne.

It was a long two and a half hours, and Standerson’s patter

began to cycle and repeat. His joke about hand cramps came every

five minutes, his disquisition on smoked bacon every ten. Darcy’s

mind began to entertain the possibility that she had always been a flap monkey in this signing line. She would always be a flap monkey in this signing line. . . .

But eventually, finally, it was all over. The exhausted booksell-

ers were stacking chairs and ushering the last fans out the door. A hundred stickies littered the signing table, square yellow leaves dead and fallen. Imogen went missing, but was soon discovered lying on

the carpeted floor in the biography section. Anton guided Darcy in front of the store owner one more time, and the two shared weary

anecdotes about the night, old friends now.

Everyone was exhausted on the way home. Standerson was

silent, and Imogen lay in the backseat with her head in Darcy’s lap.

Even Anton’s driving was pacific, the roads back to the hotel dark and empty.

“Are you seriously doing this for another whole month?”

Imogen asked.

Standerson looked dazed by the question, and only shrugged.

“I mean, how you can stand so much adulation?”

“Adulation is like rain. You can only get so wet.” Standerson

turned to Darcy. “Was tonight useful for you? Did you learn any-

thing?”

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Darcy nodded, trying to find words. She felt smarter about

readers, and was astonished anew at the power of the written word.

Also, she knew the difference between full-title and half-title pages.

But something bigger had happened, a rearrangement in her

brain. Since age twelve, Darcy had wanted unashamedly to become

a famous writer. That pair of words had always called up certain fantasies for her: writing in longhand on a rooftop veranda, being interviewed by someone clever and adoring, a Manhattan skyline in

the background. All these images had been calm, even stately, com-

pletely unlike that night’s bookstore event. But now Darcy could feel her regal daydreams transforming into something louder, messier,

and full of joyous pandemonium.

“I’ll be your flap monkey anytime,” she said. “The owner can’t

wait for Afterworlds. She asked for an advanced copy, signed to her personally. I should write her name down, I guess.”

“Anton will make it happen.” Standerson saluted Anton, who

laughed. “Indispensable media escort is indispensable.”

As she smiled at this, Darcy tried to recall her first rattling

moments in Anton’s car the afternoon before. That flutter of anxi-

ety over a trifling thing like death seemed so long ago now, before her first school visit, her first stint as a flap monkey, her first glimmer of YA heaven.

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CHAPTER 30

OVER THE NEXT DAYS, I WAITED FOR THE OLD MAN IN THE

patched coat to come to me again. I hated not knowing where

Mindy was, and I kept imagining her being unraveled into flailing

threads of memory for the old man’s amusement. The only thing

that kept me sane was Yama, his presence in my room at night, his

touch, and his certainty that she was okay.

Being able to sleep again helped a lot. School was much easier,

no longer teeming with the phantoms of leftover crushes and

humiliations. The echoes of the past were still there in the hallways, of course, but they were quieter now. My last semester in high

school drifted toward normal life, almost boring after everything

that had happened since Dallas.

But the best thing about sleep was that it washed me clear.

Some mornings, I was awake for five minutes before the memories

flooded back in.

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* * *

“Any news on the secret agent front?” Jamie asked at lunch one day.

“I haven’t seen him lurking lately.”

“He’s been busy,” I said, which was probably true. Agent Reyes

had drugs to interdict, death cultists to surveil. I was thankful that the FBI had bigger worries than keeping watch over me.

“But you guys keep in touch, right?”

“Yeah, we talk most nights.” This was also true, because I had

decided that Jamie was asking about my actual boyfriend now, and

not the secret agent from her last question. It was amazing how I

never lied to my best friend, as long as I interpreted her questions flexibly.

“Most nights? That sounds serious.”

I smiled at her, because it was serious. Not just the time spent in my room, but our conversations on his windswept atoll,

and our long hikes in another of his places, a mountaintop that

seemed to be in Iran. (Yama called it Persia, because he was old-

school like that.) And we’d made plans to travel farther, even to

Bombay, once I was ready to face its excessive ghost population.

And, of course, one day in the distant future he would take me to

his home in the underworld.

“You still haven’t told your mom about him, have you?” Jamie

asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve thought about it, but she’s always too

tired for big news. She’s had enough to deal with.”

“Can’t disagree with that.” A pair of non-seniors hovered at the

other end of our table for a moment, wondering if they could sit

there, but Jamie sent them away with a glance. “You can’t keep her 396

AFTERWORLDS

in the dark forever, though. That’s just being mean.”

“Of course not.” I’d already been wondering about how that

was going to work. When do you explain to your mother that you’re dating a millennia-old psychopomp? Do you spell out the

rules of life after death? Or have him over for dinner with a cover story all prepared? “I was thinking of waiting until after graduation.

Like, maybe when I’m away at . . .”

My voice faded, because college was up in the air as well. I’d

finished my applications last semester, but did newbie valkyrie even go to college? What was the appropriate major?

“Are you okay?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah.” I gathered myself, needing a moment of honesty between

us. “It’s just been hard to think about planning my life lately.”

She didn’t answer at first, her eyes glistening a little in the

cafeteria fluorescents. Lunch was almost over, and the clatter of

dishes rushed in to fill the silence between us. “You mean, you feel like something horrible might happen again. So what’s the point in making plans?”

I nodded, though my problem wasn’t that death could strike

at any moment, but that death was all around me. In the walls, in

the air. Leaking like black oil from the ground. I couldn’t hear the afterworld’s voices all the time, not yet. But I could feel its eyes out there, watching me.

“That’s really common,” Jamie was saying. “A lot of people

who’ve had near-death experiences can’t make plans.”

I only smiled. The words “near death” seemed like an under-

statement. I was traveling on the River Vaitarna, waiting to rescue a kidnapped ghost, sleeping beside a lord of the dead.

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I wasn’t near death, I was swimming in it.

“Or maybe it’s survivor’s guilt,” Jamie said. “Feeling bad that

you made it and all those other passengers didn’t.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you buy a psych textbook or something?”

“No, that’s from Les Misérables.” She leaned closer and sang a haunting line, barely audible above the buzz of the cafeteria.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe it’s about that too.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about those Resurrection guys

anymore.”

It took me a moment. “The Movement for the Resurrection?”

“Um, yes. The guys who almost killed you. Did they slip your

mind?”

“Oh. I remembered what Agent Reyes had said on our phone

call. “There’s a big standoff at their headquarters, right?”

She stared at me. “You mean, the one that every FBI agent in

the country is headed to? I assumed you knew about it, Lizzie!

Don’t you have a boyfriend who might be shipped there sometime

soon?”

“He doesn’t do that kind of thing,” I said.

“Crap.” Jamie frowned. “I keep imaging him in a bulletproof

vest. Is that wrong of me? It wasn’t in a lustful way, much.”

I shrugged. Men with guns seemed so ordinary now.

“Okay,” Jamie said. “I’m starting to think it’s not near-death

syndrome or survivor’s guilt. You’re showing classic signs of being in denial.”

“I deny that completely,” I said, which actually got a smile

from her.

The bell rang then, and as I got up to leave, Jamie reached

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across the table and took my hand. “It doesn’t matter what you call it, Lizzie. Just as long as you know I’m still here. What happened last month doesn’t go away just because it’s not on TV anymore.”

I squeezed her hand, trying to smile. She didn’t know that what

had happened to me would never, ever go away.

That night my mother announced that we were making ravioli.

It’s not as tricky as it sounds. You have to roll the dough out

really thin, but we had a machine with little rollers for that, and we used a cookie cutter to make the pieces all the same size. For the filling my mother had decided on ricotta cheese.

“If I’d gotten home earlier, I could have made some,” she said

as we got started, giving the tub of store-bought ricotta a suspect look. Even before my father left us, she thought that buying things was sinfully lazy if you knew how make them yourself.

“We’ll survive,” I said.

Soon the dough was made, and I was sending the first wad

through, turning the machine’s little crank to spin the rollers.

My mother took the end that came stretching out, as thin as a

coin and marked with the flecks of black pepper we’d ground

into the dough.

We worked in silence for a while. This was the first time we’d

cooked together since the old man had taken Mindy from me. I

missed her ghostly presence in the corner, the way she watched us, intent but dutifully silent.

My mother started with her usual conversational gambit:

“How’s school?”

“Better,” I said.

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She looked up from the bowl of ricotta, which she was crum-

bling into pieces with a fork. “Better?”

“My friends have stopped tiptoeing around me.”

“That’s great. What about everybody else? I mean, the kids who

aren’t your friends.”

“Jamie keeps them in line.”

My mother smiled. “How is she?”

It took a moment to realize that I didn’t have a good answer.

“We mostly talk about me. I’ve been a pretty crappy friend lately.”

Mom reached up with a dishtowel and dusted flour from my

chin. “I’m sure Jamie doesn’t think you’re a bad friend. She probably doesn’t want to talk about herself. She wants to be there for you.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty good at making me spill my guts,” I said,

silently promising myself that the next time I saw Jamie, I’d listen to her problems too.

“So what have you been spilling your guts about with her?”

I gave Mom a look. She wasn’t even trying to be subtle. “Whatever I’ve been thinking about that day.”

She gave me a look back. “Such as?”

Apparently Mom wasn’t letting me off the hook. But I could

hardly tell her that we’d been discussing my secret boyfriend, and survivor’s guilt, and how near-death experiences leave you unable

to face the future. And I couldn’t tell her that my other best friend, the ghost of Mindy, had been stolen from me.

But I had to say something. “Some mornings when I wake up,

it takes a long time to remember who I am. Like, it takes a while

for everything that’s happened in the last month to download into

my brain. It’s nice, not knowing. Even if it’s just for five minutes.”

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She didn’t answer, probably because the expression on my face

didn’t match my words. I was thinking about how Yama’s lips

made sleep possible at all.

We started building the ravioli. We cut out round pieces of

rolled-out pasta dough, plopped a spoonful of filling into each,

folded them over, and sealed them with our fingers. Mom ruffled

the sealed edges with the tines of a fork, so that the ravioli looked like miniature calzones.

It was slow going, and at some point in the process I always won-

dered if it was worth all the effort. It took about half a minute to make each piece, and only a few seconds to eat it. But there was something tiny and precious about them, like furniture in a dollhouse.

“Have you talked to your father lately?”

I looked up at Mom. She never brought up Dad if she could pos-

sibly avoid it. “Not since I texted him a thank-you for my phone.”

“I don’t mean texting him. I mean really talking.”

This was definitely weird. “Mom, I haven’t talked to Dad since

I was in New York.”

“He still hasn’t called you?” Anger curled her lips. Directed at

him, not me, but I still felt like I’d done something wrong. “You two have to stay in better touch.”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“He’s your father. You’ll need him one day.”

I had stopped working by now, and was openly staring at my

mother. Her hands trembled as she worked the edges of the ravioli, showing what it had cost her even to mention Dad.

“For heaven’s sake,” she said a moment later. “We haven’t even

started the water boiling!”

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She turned away to wash the flour from her hands, and I

watched her add a long pour of salt to our biggest pot, then fill it up with water. The stovetop’s lighter popped a few times, followed by the huff of flame erupting.

Mom stared down at the water, her expression hidden from me.

“Can you finish up here?” she said brightly, then headed toward

her end of the house. “I just need a minute!”

“Sure. I won’t let the water burn,” I said, repeating an old and

stupid joke from my childhood. For a moment, I wondered if she’d

been crying. But over what?

One of her friends had probably told her that I needed family

right now, and to get over herself when it came to my dad. But did Mom really think I needed his help dealing with all this?

I had her, and Jamie, and Yama. Maybe Mom didn’t know

about the last of those, but still, I had enough. All I needed was to get Mindy back.

I folded the last piece of ravioli onto itself. It was a not-quite-circular cut, a leftover scrap that barely held a half portion of ricotta. I managed to squish it closed, then clapped flour dust from my hands.

“Done,” I said.

“Very tasty looking,” came a cold voice from behind me.

I spun around. The old man in the patched coat stood there in

my kitchen, his skin as pale as flour.

Without a word, I reached for the knife block, pulling out a

sleek boning knife.

“Now, now, Lizzie.” He spread his fingers, hands out wide. His

colorless eyes glittered in the kitchen lights. “There’s no need for that.”

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“Be quiet!” I hissed, looking over my shoulder toward my

mom’s room.

“I’m never visible, child. At my age, the overworld is bad for

one’s heart.”

I glanced at the floor—he had no shadow. But he still didn’t

belong in my mother’s kitchen.

“This is my house,” I whispered. “Get the hell out of here.”

“But we have business to conduct.”

“Not here.”

He curled his fingers toward himself. “Then come across.”

I checked the hallway again. Still no sign of my mom. My heart

was racing, though, and the knife trembled in my hand. There was

too much panic in my system to slip across to the flipside.

Unless I used the words that had first sent me over . . .

“Security is responding,” I whispered, and the knife steadied,

my panic shifting into something sharper and cleaner—an alertness

in my muscles, sparks on my skin.

“Well, honey,” I murmured. “Maybe you should pretend to be

dead.”

The floury smell of uncooked pasta changed to rust in my nos-

trils, and the flame beneath the big pot of water turned a pale and lifeless gray.

I was on the flipside, the knife shining dully in my hand.

“Interesting technique,” the old man said, as if it wasn’t. But

he’d been watching carefully.

I no longer had to keep quiet. “Where the hell is Mindy?”

“She’s waiting for you.”

“No cryptic bullshit!” I extended the knife. “Where?”

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“Shall I take you to her?”

I took a slow breath, then nodded.

He reached a hand up to his mouth. Like a child giving up an

illicit wad of chewing gum, the old man spat out a little blob of

black into his palm. I took a step back.

He made a fist and held it out, and darkness squeezed between

his pale fingers. It dribbled onto the floor, more and more of it

pooling around his feet, spreading in all directions.

“Interesting technique,” I said. “By which I mean, that’s

disgusting.”

“The river is the river.” He opened his palm, welcoming me to

step into the slick of oil he’d made.

I sighed, trying to pretend it wasn’t so different from tapping

the floor, like Yama did. “If Mindy isn’t all right, I’m sticking this knife in your eye.”

“Now there’s my little valkyrie,” he said with a smile. “But knives don’t work in the afterworld, even on the living. And I

wouldn’t touch her for the world.”

And he stepped into the puddle of black goo.

I clutched the knife, held my nose with two fingers, and fol-

lowed him down.

The River Vaitarna carried us a short distance, no more than a

minute’s journey. The passage was steady, but thick with cold and

grasping things. We emerged from the river into some kind of

basement, its concrete floors glimmering with damp. The walls were tangled with pipes and junction boxes, and the only illumination

came from flickering lights on panels full of switches and dials.

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AFTERWORLDS

“I don’t see my friend.”

“She’s here.” The old man gestured vaguely at the space around

us, as if Mindy had been boiled down and painted onto the walls.

“What do you want from me?”

He nodded happily at this, as if I’d asked the right question. As

if it were up to me to figure out what was supposed to happen next.

“Do me three favors, and I’ll give her back to you.”

My grip on the knife tightened. “You kidnapped her. That’s not

how favors work.”

“Perform three labors, then. Or grant me three wishes. What-

ever you want to call them, the first is very simple: Kiss my hand.”

He extended his hand to me, palm down, its pale flesh gleaming

with psychopomp shine. His glittering eyes narrowed to colorless

slits.

It was all I could do to suppress a shudder. “Why do you want

that?”

“To make our connection stronger. A convenience, nothing

more.”

The way he said “convenience” brought the lurking shudder

out of me. It wrinkled my body, twisting my muscles around them-

selves, forcing out a hiss of breath.

“I don’t want to be connected to you. I don’t want you to come

near me ever again.”

“You misunderstand. I can reach you at any time, Lizzie Sco-

field. But I want our connection to go both ways. I want you to be able to call me.”

A dry laugh pushed itself from my lungs. “Not going to be an

issue.”

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“You may need me one day, little valkyrie. I’m good at so many

things your dark-skinned friend is not. He may be older than me,

but I can show you tricks he’s too prim and proper for. And if I’m wrong about you, and you never call . . .” He spread his hands. “You won’t ever see me again.”

That promise was almost tempting. But three wishes and a kiss

sounded too much like a fairy tale, one of those old-school, uned-

ited Grimm stories with a horrible ending. They were always full

of arbitrary rules: Don’t leave the path. Don’t eat the faerie food.

Don’t kiss the scary psychopomp’s hand.

Not to mention, the thought of touching my lips to his pale skin

was revolting.

“What else will kissing you do to me?” I asked.

“Nothing at all.” He raised his right hand. “I swear.”

I stood there, wishing I could ask Yama. But if I called him, the

old man would disappear, along with any hope of finding Mindy.

“Listen, girl. If you don’t want to play, we can always do this

later. Say, ten years from now?”

“Ten years?”

“We can both live as long as we choose. So yes, a decade is the

price for annoying me. Or you can kiss my hand right now.”

“How do I know you won’t just keep Mindy? You collect chil-

dren like her, don’t you?”

He shook his head sadly. “Not like her. She doesn’t have what

I want.”

I remembered what he’d said the first time we met. “But what

about all those memories of birthday cakes, of bedtime stories? Are you saying Mindy doesn’t have those?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“I’m sure she does, but I’ve already had a thousand birthdays,

my dear. I’ve graduated to collecting endings. Sweet, beautiful ones that fade like sunset.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

His voice took on a singsong cadence. “You know when you

finish a book, and it feels like all of those people in it have gone away to a party without you? That ache is in my pockets.”

“What the hell does that have to do with children?”

“That’s what I take from them, Lizzie,” he said. “The ones who

died too young, the sweet way that they slip away. Those sick little children, smiling up at their parents, knowing they’re loved even as they fade into darkness.”

I could only stand there, staring at the old man. He looked so

happy, his bleached eyes radiant as they stared into the middle distance. His words had reached into the cold place inside me, the spot that had never warmed since Dallas, no matter how many times

Yama’s electricity coursed across my skin.

The old man wasn’t a child stealer, not quite. He was some

other kind of monster. Maybe there were simply no words for what

he was.

His smile had drooped. “I’m afraid your little Mindy’s end was

quite dreadful. So, no, I have no taste for her.”

“What made you like this?” I said.

“The war,” he replied simply, his hands smoothing his pockets.

“There were so many orphans. Every time I was called to another

burning city, I found their little ghosts wandering, having died in terror all alone. Hundreds of them.”

I stared at him in silence. It still didn’t make sense.

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“Knowing there are children who died loved, that helps to fight

the memories.” His face hardened. “But that’s enough of a history

lesson, girl. Make your choice.”

At that moment, part of me just wanted to start stabbing him

and not stop until my arm was too tired to move. Then I would

look for Mindy until I found her in that basement or somewhere

nearby. She was a ghost. She couldn’t starve. I would keep searching if it took a thousand years.

But the old man knew how to disappear in an instant. And was it

even possible to kill someone—another liver—on the flipside?

So I didn’t stab him. Instead, I said, “If you’re fucking with me, you will be sorry.”

I must have put what I was thinking in my voice. His eyes

widened, like translucent fish puffing themselves up to scare off a predator, and when the smile came again, it looked strained. But he extended his pale, shiny hand.

It hung in the darkness between us, one last chance.

“This sucks,” I muttered to myself, and took a step forward.

Then another step, keeping my eyes from the growing expression

of satisfaction on his face.

I took his wrist, touching only his patched coat, the knife ready

in my other hand, just in case he was lying about that too.

As I bowed my head, panicked thoughts crowded my mind.

Fairy tales again: Was this some kind of afterworld trick to play on the unwary? Was I dooming myself to eternal servitude by kissing

his bare flesh?

Of course, if that were true, then I was already Yama’s slave a

thousand times over.

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AFTERWORLDS

I forced my head to descend the last few inches, until my lips

brushed the back of the old man’s hand. His skin was as cold as

marble, as dry as paper, but carried the same buzz that I’d felt

traveling across Yama’s, or my own. The old man’s electricity was

darker, though, as bitter as a pencil tip.

I dropped his hand and stumbled back, another shudder forcing

its way through me. I gasped for air—I’d been holding my breath.

“Done. Are you happy?”

He breathed out a sigh. “Very.”

“What else do you want?”

“For my second wish, I want you to say my name.” He bowed. “I’m

Mr. Hamlyn, Miss Scofield. Pleased to meet you properly at last.”

“That’s it? Just say your name?”

He nodded. “You’ll need to know it, to find me when the

valkyrie inside you wakes up. Perhaps if you said it a few times, just to be sure.”

This was much less repulsive than kissing him, so I did what he

asked, repeating his name quickly, trying to sound offhanded. But

a fresh trickle of nerves was moving through me. Maybe he’d just

been warming up.

“Okay? What’s the last one?”

“I want you to tell your rather impressive friend something.

What’s his name again?”

“Yamaraj.”

The old man smiled. “Tell him I’m hungry.”

With those words, he flickered out of sight.

I stood there, staring at the spot he’d occupied, a sudden empti-

ness in the darkness of the basement.

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What had just happened? It had all seemed too sudden in the

end, too easy, as if the old man had been scared off by something. I looked around—there were no sparks in the darkness, nothing but

the scent of rust.

This didn’t make sense.

But then I heard a whimper, the sound of a child snuffling.

“Mindy?” I cried. “It’s me!”

For a moment there was no answer, but then a form emerged

from the shadows. Her eyes were wide, her pigtails tangled and

wild. She stared up at me through gray, teary eyes. “Lizzie?”

I ran to her and dropped to one knee, wrapping my arms

around her. She was cold and trembling, her muscles limp beneath

my grasp.

“It’s okay, Mindy. It’s me.”

Her arms hugged me in return, but timidly, as if she was afraid

I would change into something else. “You promised no one would

get me.”

I pulled back, looking into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Mindy stared back at me a moment, and then her eyes scanned

the darkness. “The bad man was here.”

“No, it wasn’t him. It was just . . .” I didn’t want to say his name.

I didn’t want to think it. “Just some pomp. He’s gone now.”

But I still had no idea why the old man had disappeared, or if he

was coming back. So I stood and took Mindy’s hand.

“Let’s go home. We’ll be safe there.”

She nodded, her hand small and cold in mine, and let me take

her down into the river.

* * *

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AFTERWORLDS

When we came up into my bedroom, I peered through my open

door into the kitchen. My mother wasn’t there, and the pot of water hadn’t boiled over yet.

I wondered how long I’d been away. Those minutes in the base-

ment had seemed like ages.

“I have to go make dinner,” I whispered. “But you can watch if

you want.”

“It’s okay. I’m going to Anna’s closet.”

I nodded, letting myself slip across into the real world. With

my heart beating so hard, it was instantaneous. Colors bled into

my room, and the smell of rust and blood faded from my nostrils.

Mindy still stood there, looking up at me.

“I’ll never let that happen again,” I said softly. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise.”

“Mindy . . . ,” I began, starting to explain that she was safe

from Mr. Hamlyn, who didn’t want little girls like her. But she was right—there were other bad men, old and young, living and dead

and some halfway between. Too many to make promises.

“But you came and saved me.” Mindy stood on her tiptoes, and

gave me a real hug this time, her cold arms tight around me. “That’s what matters.”

I heard the sound of my mother coming down the hall. But I let

Mindy stay wrapped around me even as I heard the hiss and sput-

ter of the pot boiling over in the kitchen, my mother’s arrival in the kitchen, and her annoyance that I’d left the water to burn.

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CHAPTER 31

THE TOUR CONTINUED FOR SIX MORE DAYS—INTENSE AND

insane, unreal and unforgettable. The pendulum swung from the

boundless energy of public events to the muted stasis of airports

and hotel lobbies. From exhilaration to exhaustion, from the

heights of human connectedness to sitting in traffic jams.

But then it was over, and Darcy and Imogen found themselves

at Chicago O’Hare saying good-bye to Stanley Anderson. It was as

heart-shredding as the tearful end of summer camp, and as they

walked down the jet bridge, Imogen said to Darcy, “The absence of

old friends one can endure with equanimity, but separation from

one’s new book-tour buddies is unbearable.”

The plane urged itself into the air and back to New York

City, where Imogen and Darcy fell into bed for several days,

the echoes of a thousand zealous readers in their ears. Before

long they were back to work, because there was a new ending of

AFTERWORLDS

Afterworlds to write, and both Phobomancer and Untitled Patel to begin at last.

“This is your worst idea ever,” Darcy said.

“Research!” said Imogen, walking around to the back of the

rental car. She squeezed the key fob in her hand, and with an obedient beep, the trunk popped open. “That’s weird. I don’t even know

what to call this thing.”

Darcy crossed her arms against the early November chill. “It’s

called the trunk. Duh.”

“No, this.” Imogen opened the trunk a little wider, then closed

it halfway again. “This thing in my hand, the thing that moves. Is it the door to the trunk? The hatch?”

Darcy realized she had no idea. Writing often did that—made

her aware of all the different parts of things, and how many words she didn’t know. “Great question. Let’s go home and google it.”

“Very funny.” Imogen zipped up her leather jacket. “I’ll look it up while you’re driving around. My phone should work in there, right?”

“We’re not going anywhere with you in the trunk! I haven’t

driven since I left Philly!”

“Bad driving is good. The guy who kidnaps Clarabella is drunk,

remember?”

“Bad driving is not good! I mean, do you want me to tie your

hands behind your back too? We might as well go all the way.”

After a moment’s thought, Imogen shrugged. “Didn’t bring any

rope.”

“Can’t you find someone else? At least if they kill you it won’t be my fault.”

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Imogen smiled. “It’s your fault anyway, because you stole my

closet scene.”

This statement was true enough to silence Darcy. If Phobomancer still began with Clarabella stuck in a closet, Imogen could have

researched the scene safely at home.

For two months now, she’d been complaining that her open-

ing lacked realness, because she’d never been locked in a trunk.

So tonight she’d lured Darcy out into the mid-November cold

with the promise of a new twenty-four-hour ramen place. It had

all been a ruse.

“What if I have a wreck?”

Imogen shrugged. “Just go slow. It’s safer in a trunk at twenty

miles per hour than in the passenger seat at fifty-five.”

“You’re just making that up.”

“Yeah, but I thought it sounded pretty good.”

Darcy let out a groan. Imogen would not be dissuaded by

personal danger. This was a woman who’d climbed buildings at

college, and who still rode on the shifting platforms between cars when the subway was too crowded. Darcy had only one card left

to play. “If we get into a wreck and you die, they’ll arrest me for kidnapping. Probably murder!”

“Nope. I left a video explaining the whole thing on my lap-

top. You won’t get worse than involuntary manslaughter.”

Darcy hesitated. “Does this mean I get to look in your computer

if you die?”

“Only the video folder! If you so much as peek in my diary, I

will haunt your dreams.”

With these words Imogen climbed into the trunk, and Darcy

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AFTERWORLDS

was forced to come around to the back of the car. It was one of

those roving rentals that occupied special parking places on the

street. Imogen had unlocked it with her phone and found the keys

waiting in the glove compartment. The whole process had been

dangerously efficient, too swift for the brakes of sanity to take hold.

Imogen was curled around the laughably small spare tire, her

neck at an angle that already looked broken.

“Maybe I should have gotten a sedan.”

“Imogen. Do not do this. Please.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad if this jack wasn’t jammed into my spine.”

“I am not helping you kill yourself!” Darcy shouted. A man walking a large black dog glanced at her from across the street. The dog looked intrigued, but the man only turned away and coaxed it

back into motion.

“Just a few miles. Ten minutes in here is all I need.”

“I refuse,” Darcy said. “I was promised noodles.”

Imogen shrugged, or at least tried to in the confines of the

trunk. “So you want me to ask the next person who walks by? It’s

three a.m., the hour of weirdos. I’m sure I can find someone who’d be into driving a stranger around in a trunk.”

Darcy stared at her. “I can’t believe you.”

“And I can’t believe how long I’ve banged my head against this scene!” Imogen unwound herself from around spare tire, managing

to kneel. “And it has to be perfect. If this book isn’t fucking amazing from page one, Paradox won’t publish it!”

“What do you mean? They bought the whole trilogy.”

“They can still cancel the rest of the contract.” Imogen slumped

a little. “I got a call from my agent today. Pyromancer’s tanking.”

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“That’s crazy, Gen. I saw you sign hundreds of copies.”

“Yeah, there was a spike while we were on tour. But it’s not sell-

ing at the chains, or anywhere else. They have two months of data

now, and everyone’s freaking out. My agent was at this big meeting at Paradox on Monday, with blame flying in all directions—too

much red on the cover, the weird title, the mention of cigarettes

on page one.” Imogen let out a sigh. “And of course the girls who

like girls.”

“That one kiss?”

“And the famous dribble of candle wax. But it doesn’t matter

where they put the blame. The book’s in trouble, which means the

series is in trouble!”

Darcy shook her head. “But the middle book, whatever you call

it, comes out next. Phobomancer doesn’t come out for two years. By then, everyone will have realized how awesome you are!”

“I don’t have two years. My agent wants me to give Nan a first

draft in a few months, a really solid one, to show her what she’s

fighting for.” Imogen gripped the front edge of the trunk. “And I’d be doing this anyway. This is where Clarabella starts to control her phobias.”

Darcy stood there, unbelieving. Al those booksellers and

librarians, all those Standerson fans—they’d all loved Imogen.

Since then, at least fifty rave reviews of Pyromancer had appeared online, and another half dozen in actual printed magazines and

journals. Two of them with little stars beside them!

What more had Paradox been expecting?

“Okay,” Darcy said. “I’ll do it.”

Imogen’s smile lit up the darkness beneath the trunk door, or

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AFTERWORLDS

hatch, or whatever it was called. She tossed Darcy the keys and

curled up again.

“Watch out for bumps.”

“I’ll watch out for everything.” A slow, deep breath. “You ready?”

Imogen gave her a thumbs-up, and Darcy softly closed the

trunk. She walked to the front, wondering if anyone had been

watching from an apartment window above. They must have

thought this the world’s oddest abduction.

Darcy sat for a moment in the driver’s seat. The car was much

smaller than anything she’d driven before. Her parents always said that big was safe. Though, as Nisha liked to point out, what they

meant was safe for the Patels and not the other people on the road.

But with her girlfriend curled up in the trunk, Darcy would have

been happy with that kind of safe.

The pedals seemed too far away, but the driver’s seat wouldn’t

budge. She gave up and started the car, then guided it forward at

crawling speed.

It was strange seeing the city from the front seat instead of

the back of a cab. Even stranger, driving evoked memories of high

school. Her mind flashed back to senior year, to drunken passengers and arguments over radio stations. To making people hold their cigarettes out the window, and her father checking the odometer when

she got home. To Nisha demanding trips to the mall, because with

great automotive power came great sisterly responsibility. Darcy

wanted to turn to Imogen and tell her everything.

But Imogen, of course, was in the trunk.

“Can you hear me?” Darcy shouted.

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There might have been a thump from the back. But had it been

an answer? Or was it just the death flailings of carbon monoxide

poisoning?

At the next red light, Darcy pulled her phone from a jacket

pocket. But as she brought up Imogen’s number, she noticed a car

in the rearview mirror.

A police car.

“Oh, crap,” Darcy muttered.

The police had no reason to stop her and search the trunk, of

course. She’d hardly gone above fifteen miles an hour. Could they

pull you over for driving too slow?

Of course, making calls while driving was illegal. Darcy placed her phone on the passenger seat and stared straight ahead—the

model driver.

Then she realized that the traffic light had turned green. How

many seconds ago had that happened?

Darcy eased the tiny rental forward. The police car followed.

“Okay, going a little faster now,” she murmured. Her grip tight-

ened on the steering wheel as she increased her speed to twenty-

five. What was the speed limit in the city, anyway? She’d never seen any signs. Did everyone just know?

The police car was still behind her. Not passing, not turning off.

Imogen hadn’t foreseen this little problem with driving around

in the middle of the night—there were no other cars. Darcy was a lonely and obvious target for law enforcement.

“Crap, crap crap,” she muttered.

A thump shook the car. It had come from inside . . .

“What is it?” she yelled.

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AFTERWORLDS

No answer. Darcy’s eyes darted down to her phone. Nothing.

“Are you okay?” she screamed as loudly as she could. “For

fuck’s sake, call me!”

But she didn’t dare stop. The police car was right behind her,

lurking and watching, and the wide lanes of Delancey Street were

looming ahead. Darcy turned right, because right was easier.

The police car followed.

“Fuck!” she screamed, banging on the steering wheel. Another

bump from behind the backseat came in answer. Why was Imogen

signaling?

With a massive effort of will, Darcy pulled one white-knuckled

hand from the wheel and grabbed her phone. She held it low,

touching Imogen’s name and turning on the speaker, then dropped

it into her lap.

“Dude!” Imogen’s voice answered. “It’s called a lid.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just googled that thing that goes over a trunk. It’s called a

trunk lid. Pretty stupid, right?”

“Why are you bumping the backseat?” Darcy screamed.

“Research! I wanted to know if you could hear me over the engine.”

“I thought you were dying!”

“Seriously? Relax.”

“There’s a cop car right behind me!” But as Darcy cried out the

words, a presence loomed on her left. The police car had pulled up beside her, and the officer in the passenger seat was watching her yelling to herself.

Darcy stared back at him, wide-eyed and terrified.

Imogen’s laughter filled the car. “Awesome.”

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“Shut up!” Darcy hissed through her teeth.

The officer gave her a slight roll of his eyes, and the car pulled ahead. Darcy kept the steering wheel in a death grip, driving

straight until the police car turned off an endless mile later, disappearing back toward Chinatown.

A sigh escaped her. “Okay, they’re gone.”

“Good. I think this is all the research I can stand for one night.”

“Great. Except . . .” Darcy stared ahead. Rising up before her was the Williamsburg Bridge, massive and inescapable, thanks to a row of orange traffic barrels to her right. “I think we’re going to Brooklyn.”

“Very funny.”

“No, not really.”

The tiny car was already climbing the slope of the bridge, and

Darcy saw a pair of headlights approaching fast from behind. She

accelerated, trying to match their pace. She was up to fifty miles an hour when the other car shot past.

“Dude,” came Imogen’s voice. “This feels like serious speed.

Would you not?”

“No choice!” Darcy cried. “Matching traffic!”

The bridge was carrying her up, lofting her as high as the tow-

ers of Brooklyn ahead. The car that had passed sped off into the

distance, and the sky flickered around her through a grid of suspension cables. For a moment Darcy found herself alone at the bridge’s midway point, suspended above the glistening river.

It was really quite beautiful.

“I’m sorry your book isn’t selling,” she said softly.

She wasn’t certain if Imogen had heard, but then a sigh came

through the phone. “I know, right?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Why Paradox is freaking out already? It’s only been two months.”

“Because if this book doesn’t sell, stores won’t order my next

one. Which still doesn’t have a decent title.”

For the millionth time, Darcy racked her brain for a better

name than Cat-o-mancer. She wanted so much to help. “I’m sorry I stole your scene.”

“Don’t worry,” Imogen said with a laugh. “It’s way more interesting back here than in a closet.”

Darcy allowed herself to smile. Maybe she had managed to help

a little, and at least she hadn’t killed Imogen tonight.

“We’re almost across. I’ll pull over the first place I see.”

“Thanks for doing this.”

“You’re thanking me?” Darcy asked. “Like you didn’t make me do it?”

“Did I put a gun to your head?”

“You threatened to use some random stranger! That’s emo-

tional blackmail!”

“I was kidding.”

“Yeah, right.” At last an exit had appeared, and Darcy slowed

and drifted into the exit lane. A moment later, she was on a quiet street with wide sidewalks and shop fronts covered with roller

doors. She brought the car to a halt and turned off the engine, then took a moment to flex the sore muscles of her hands, breathing

deep and slow. Her whole body was a snarl of anxious tendons.

“Feel free to let me out anytime,” announced her phone. “It’s cold back here.”

“Coming!” Darcy got out and went around to the back of the

car. She scanned the pictograms on the key remote, then squeezed.

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SCOTT WESTERFELD

The trunk popped open.

“Fuck a duck,” Imogen said, kicking the lid up with a booted

foot. She uncurled herself and sat there for a moment, cracking her neck.

“You okay?” Darcy asked.

“It’s just a crick. You didn’t kill me.”

As Imogen stood, Darcy stepped into her arms, needing the

realness of her, the softness and the muscle beneath the leather

jacket. “No, but I missed you.”

When they pulled apart, Darcy realized that the street wasn’t

completely empty. Two guys in fedoras sat on a stoop nearby, and

a young woman was skateboarding past. All three were staring.

“Never seen anyone get out of a trunk before?” Imogen muttered.

Darcy just giggled and handed her the keys.

They drove the car back to the same parking space, and

Imogen did phone magic to return it to communal use. Then she

announced something wonderful . . .

There really was a new twenty-four-hour ramen place nearby.

She led Darcy around a corner, down an alley, and up a half

flight of stairs. This late, the restaurant’s rough wooden tables were empty except for a Japanese-speaking foursome on a very giggly

double date. In the corner was a plastic good-luck cat as tall as a parking meter, tirelessly waving its paw.

Darcy ordered pork ramen with boiled eggs and bamboo

shoots, and a beer to calm her frazzled nerves.

“Thanks for tonight,” Imogen said when the waiter had left.

“It was fun, I guess. Once it was over.”

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“For me, too. Maybe I’ll finally nail this scene.”

“So what was it like back there?”

Imogen thought a moment. “It smells like a car, but greasier.

And it’s really uncomfortable. I guess we’ve spent a hundred years engineering car seats, and they soak up all that momentum pretty

well. Trunks, less so.”

“Lucky I didn’t crash, then.” Darcy spun the coaster in front of

her, wishing she had a beer to put on it. “But Clarabella wouldn’t be worried about comfort. She’s just been kidnapped.”

“Yeah, but being back there makes you feel like luggage. Scared

luggage. You can’t see out, so you’re just tossed around without any warning.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. I forced you to kidnap me at emotional gunpoint.”

Darcy smiled. “At last a confession. Did you get carsick?”

“Too much adrenaline.” Imogen rubbed her neck. “And there

was a draft in there—all that cold night air hitting me in the face.

I could hear the tires against the road, and feel how the asphalt

changed texture on the bridge.”

As the beers arrived, Darcy considered these details. They had

a realness that was missing in Imogen’s current draft.

“To research,” she toasted.

“Research!” Imogen drank and pulled out her phone, grinning

as she tapped notes to herself.

Darcy took a long first drink, wondering what research her own

draft was missing. Should she lock herself in a closet? Visit the dunes of White Sands? Go to an airport at midnight and wander the empty

corridors? Or a gun range where people were firing automatics?

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She looked around the ramen place, noticing the jar of pickled

eggs on the counter, the pale blue Christmas lights strung along

the ceiling beams. The world always had more details than you

could remember, more than you could even see, and a thousand

times more than you could ever write down. You were always

deleting and forgetting far more than you could express in words.

It was that moment that she remembered what Imogen had

told her tonight, which her mind still rejected as unreal. It seemed impossible that Pyromancer was tanking. Surely it had sold millions of copies, and this was all some accounting mistake that would be

cleared up by morning.

As Darcy watched Imogen tapping at her phone, she mulled her

outrage and disbelief, and also felt a small, formless fear growing inside her. It was the merest piece of something larger, a tentacle creeping beneath the door.

What would happen when her own book came out?

Nisha had texted today: 323 days till publication! Nervous yet?

Imogen looked up and saw Darcy’s expression. “I bummed you

out, didn’t I?”

“No. I’m just angry at the world for being stupid. And . . .” A

shuddery breath. “This might sound kind of selfish, but I’m also

scared. If your book can’t find an audience, what’s going to happen to Afterworlds?”

Imogen put her phone down and reached across the table.

“Who knows? It’s just random sometimes, I guess. Or maybe it is my superobvious flame-red cover, or the girls kissing, or the dread mention of cigarettes.”

“Ariel doesn’t even smoke!”

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“But she hangs out in the smokers’ den, as I foolishly mention

on page one. But you don’t have any red flags to worry about.”

When Darcy sighed at this, Imogen added, “And not because

Afterworlds isn’t gritty and real! It’s just that you stayed away from the obvious hitches.”

“Except an unhappy ending?”

“You’re going to nail your ending, happy or not.”

Darcy put down her beer. “This is crazy. I should be comfort-

ing you.”

“I don’t need comforting,” Imogen said. “I need a killer opening

scene. And a decent title for book two.”

“Fucking Cat-o-mancer,” Darcy said, casting an accusing glance at the giant plastic creature in the corner. The little engine inside was still making its arm wave, beckoning good luck, or prosperity, or whatever plastic cats were supposed to bring. “What’s Japanese for cat?”

Imogen thought a second, then shrugged and tapped at her phone.

“Neko,” she said a moment later.

“Neko-mancer?”

Imogen laughed. “Manga fans might get it, but Paradox’s mar-

keting department?”

They tried other languages— Gatomancer, Chatomancer,

Katzemancer, Maomancer—which produced amusement, but nothing useful, title-wise.

Two bowls of noodles arrived, steaming and fragrant. Darcy

warmed her hands against her bowl as Imogen snapped apart both

sets of chopsticks.

“At least I got noodles tonight,” Darcy said.

“And I got an opening.” Imogen lifted a piece of pork from the

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bowl and blew on it. “Maybe you should borrow all my scenes, so I

have to write better ones.”

Darcy groaned. “I’ll never steal your ideas again, I promise!”

“Once a klepto, always a klepto,” Imogen said with a shrug.

“Hey, it’s not like I hate thieves. I just wrote a whole book about a cat burglar.”

“Wait,” Darcy said, her first bite frozen halfway to her mouth.

A lighter was clicking somewhere deep in her brain, trying to ignite.

Imogen finished chewing. “What?”

“Your protagonist in Cat-o-mancer, you just called him a cat burglar.”

“He’s a thief with catlike powers. So?”

Darcy waved a hand for silence. She stared into her bowl, will-

ing her mind to penetrate the thickness of the broth, the tangle of noodles and shredded pork.

“Catlike powers . . . which he uses to steal things.”

“Did someone say your sleeper-agent code word?”

Darcy shook her head slowly, until finally her disordered

thoughts clicked into place. “Kleptomancer,” she said softly.

Imogen paused a moment, then put her chopsticks down.

“You know, that’s . . .” A longer pause. “That’s pretty good.”

“Because ‘klepto’ is a real word!” Darcy cried. “Everyone knows

what a phobia is, and what a pyromaniac is. But none of those other titles meant anything.”

“And kleptos are obsessive-compulsives.” Imogen stabbed her

chopsticks into her bowl and swore. “How did I not think of that?”

“You got too obsessed with cat ladies.” Darcy smiled at the

giant plastic cat.

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Imogen lifted her bowl with both hands and bowed. “Thank

you for your inspiration, Neko-chan.”

“Hey! No praise for inanimate objects while I’m sitting right

here!”

Imogen turned her beaming smile on Darcy. “Thank you too,

my love.”

“You really like it,” Darcy murmured, and felt her debt for the

stolen scene finally lifting. “I guess you owe me a title.”

“How about a name instead?”

Darcy shook her head. “A name?”

“Audrey Flinderson,” Imogen said softly.

It took a long, confused moment for Darcy to understand. “Is

that your real . . . I mean, your old name?”

Imogen nodded.

Darcy waited for something to change, for her inner machinery

to shift so that Imogen became Audrey. But nothing happened.

Imogen was Imogen.

“So I can look you up now? Online and stuff?”

“You can.” Imogen shrugged a little. “But you might not want to.”

Darcy stared into her ramen bowl, wondering if she could

expend an effort of will and cast the name away, like a dream for-

gotten on awakening. It didn’t seem likely.

“Were you really that bad?”

“I was mostly pretty good. But when I wrote mean things, they

traveled farther and stuck around longer. That’s kind of how the

internet works.”

“Are you trying to be cryptic?”

“No, I’m succeeding.” Imogen took a thoughtful drink. “But I

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should have told you my name earlier. I should have trusted you.

I’m sorry.”

A little stab of pain went through Darcy. “I thought you did

trust me. Like, always.”

“You were younger than me. You still are. And like I said, changing my name is one of the best things I’ve done.” She took a slow breath.

“But I’m trusting you now, that it won’t change the way you see me.”

“I promise it won’t, Gen.”

“The funny thing is, I kind of thought you already knew.”

Darcy frowned. “Your name? How could I?”

“We were on tour together for a week, on a plane almost every

day.” Imogen waited for a reaction, didn’t get one, and went on.

“And you have to fly using your legal name, you know?”

“Crap,” Darcy said. Sneaking a look at Imogen’s ticket had never

occurred to her. Of course, she’d never dug through Imogen’s wal-

let either, or hired a private detective. This was what she’d wanted.

To be told.

Imogen was trying not to laugh. “I guess it’s good you don’t

write spy thrillers.”

“Very funny.”

“You’re going to google the hell out of me, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Thought so,” Imogen sighed. “Just remember, the things we

write, they aren’t always really us.”

428

CHAPTER 32

WE SAT ON AN OUTCROP OF ROCK, BLACK AND SHARP-RIDGED,

that rose up from a white sea. The surface of the snow was frozen

into glass. Wind-borne flurries uncoiled across it, the high sun casting halos in them, like gray rainbows. The mountains tumbled jag-

gedly away in all directions, down into parched and sandy valleys.

I didn’t have a jacket, just a sweater, but from the flipside I felt only tendrils of the cold. Still, the sight of that bright expanse of snow was enough to make me shiver.

“You’ve got a thing for bleak places,” I said.

Yama smiled. “It might be bleak, but it’s almost silent.”

Almost silent. That meant a few people had managed to end

their days up here, maybe unlucky mountain climbers haunting

the peak where they’d died. I hadn’t seen any ghosts wandering

around, but Yama could hear their voices in the stones. This was

his mountaintop in Persia, one of those desolate places that Yama

SCOTT WESTERFELD

needed to stay sane. How long would it be before I started needing them too?

I shook off that thought.

“I’m worried about Mindy. She spent all day in her closet.”

“She’s been afraid for a long time.”

“This is the worst I’ve seen her.” When I’d checked on her that

evening, Mindy had been crouched in the deepest corner, behind

the dresses hung in dry-cleaning plastic. Her hair had been tangled, her clothes unkempt. “Her voice sounds softer. Like she’s fading

away.”

“She can’t fade, Lizzie. She needs your memories of her to keep

her together, and your mother’s.”

“But what if she decides she doesn’t want to exist, because it’s too scary?” I turned from the snow-bright view to face him. “Can

ghosts make themselves disappear? Like, spectral suicide?”

He shook his head. “She’ll go back to the way she was. Ghost

aren’t really affected by what happens to them. They only change

as the memories of the living change.”

“Then why is she totally traumatized?”

“Because of what happened years ago. That’s still part of her.”

I turned away from Yama. I could see what he was saying—

Mindy was still eleven years old, still afraid of the man who’d murdered her so long ago. But I hated the idea that she was trapped

with her fear forever. It didn’t seem fair to give the bad man that much power.

And if the afterworld kept ghosts frozen in time, what would it

do to me?

“We can change, right?”

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“You and me? Of course.”

“But do you feel seventeen? Or really old?”

Yama shrugged. “I’m not sure what ‘seventeen’ feels like. I was

fourteen when I crossed over, almost old enough to take a wife.”

“Now, see, that’s just creepy.”

“It was the way of my people.” He said this a lot.

“Your people and mine are different.” I said this a lot too. “But

you don’t really seem much older than me. You seem seventeen. Of

course, that’s probably what your people called middle-aged.”

His crooked eyebrow rose, carrying a challenge. “In my village,

people went from young and healthy to old and frail in a few sea-

sons. There wasn’t enough middle age to have a word for it.”

“Okay, that sucks.” It wasn’t fair to make fun of people who’d

lived in the late Stone Age, but sometimes it was just too easy.

“It takes some getting used to,” he said. “Losing time. You’re

already days younger than you should be.”

I blinked. That was a weird thought, that on my eighteenth

birthday I’d be cheating, not really as old as my driver’s license claimed. But much stranger was that I could live forever if I wanted.

“Mr. Hamlyn told me he never comes out of the afterworld.

Like, he’s worried he could die of old age any minute.”

Yama sat up straighter. “He told you his name?”

“Yeah.” I took a slow breath, realizing it was time to go into

detail about how I’d rescued Mindy. “That was one of his condi-

tions for letting her go. I had to learn his name.”

“He wants you to call him.”

“He thinks I’ll want to, for some reason.” I scratched my arms.

Mr. Hamlyn’s weird energy was still on me, like phantom insects.

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“He also made me kiss his hand, to make sure we’re connected.

Was that some kind of trick?” I tried to laugh. “I mean, does he get my firstborn now?”

Yama smiled a little, put an arm around me, and answered with

a kiss of his own. The warmth of his lips danced on my skin, eras-

ing for a moment the lingering taste of the old man. The touches of freezing air softened around me.

When we pulled apart, he said, “It was no trick, but it’s odd.

Why does he think you’ll want to call him?”

I just shrugged, not even wanting to guess. “His last demand

was that I deliver a message to you: ‘Tell him I’m hungry.’ Does that make any sense?”

“It sounds like a threat.”

“But he’s scared of you.”

“Of me, but not my people.” Yama’s voice faded a little. “I pro-

tect the dead, and he preys on them.”

I waited for more, but Yama was lost in thought. As the silence

stretched out, I started to wonder if I should go. Sometimes in these desolate places of Yama’s, I felt like an alien, a cactus transplanted to the tundra. It was midnight back in San Diego, noon here in Persia, and a jet lag fuzziness was hitting me.

“I can see why psychopomps don’t bother with sleep.” I leaned

my weight into Yama, closing my eyes.

He held me. “You still need to sleep, Lizzie. It will keep you

from changing too quickly.”

“We’ll go in a minute,” I said, but in the end it was longer than

that.

* * *

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AFTERWORLDS

When Jamie drove me home from school the next day, we found a

strange car in the driveway. It was a two-door. Sleek, dark red, and very shiny.

“Looks like your mother has company,” Jamie said as we pulled in.

“She’s supposed to be at work.” I looked up at the house. “Till seven.”

“Okay. Weird.” Jamie stared at the mystery car. “Those are

dealer plates. You think she bought a new car?”

“Are you kidding?” I stepped out, looking around for anyone

the car might belong to. No one was waiting at the front door.

Nobody was in sight at all. “Since my dad left, we haven’t even

bought new towels.”

“That’s too bad.” Jamie was out now, walking around the car.

“It’s a pretty sweet ride.”

“Yeah, but why is it here?” I pulled out my phone. “I’m going to call Mom.”

“Hang on.” Jamie reached over the hood and pulled something

from the windshield. “It’s a note, Lizzie. For you.”

She came around the car and handed it to me—a blue envelope.

My name was written on it, but nothing else.

“Open it!” she cried.

“Okay,” I said, but part of me was afraid. Something weird was

going on.

I tore the envelope open, and a single piece of paper slipped out.

It was a printed-out email, from my father to a Chrysler dealership here in San Diego. A passage in the middle was highlighted in yellow.

Dear Lizzie, this is for you, because of everything you’ve gone through . . . I had to stop there and stare at the car. Seriously?

“It’s from my dad.”

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“I knew it!” Jamie cried. “The second I saw the dealer plates, I knew that this was some kind of terrorism-related guilt gift!”

I shook my head. “No way. My dad wouldn’t do this.”

“Clearly he has. What else does it say?”

I stared down at the paper, which had turned everything I’d

thought about my father completely sideways. But as I kept read-

ing, everything turned sideways again.

. . . especially now with your mother’s diagnosis. I wish I could do more.

They’ll slip the keys under the door. Love, Dad.

“No,” I said softly.

Jamie was still laughing, her fingers stroking the curving lines

of metal. But my mind went rushing back to two nights before,

when I’d been making ravioli with Mom. What she’d said about my

father: You’ll need him one day.

This is what she’d been talking about.

“My mom’s sick.”

It took a long, twisting moment for Jamie’s laughter to fade.

“She’s what?”

I held out the piece of paper, unable to speak. Jamie pulled it

from my hand and read, her expression showing everything I was

too shocked to feel.

“What diagnosis? What’s he talking about?”

I shook my head.

“But you’d know, Lizzie! I mean, your mom would never tell

him anything before she told you.”

“She said something the other night,” I managed. “About me

needing him.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“No way.” She crumpled the paper in her hand. “He must be

fucking with you.”

I wanted to believe Jamie, but my mind was still flashing back

to everything Mom had said two nights before. Jamie doesn’t want to talk about herself. She wants to be there for you.

My mother hadn’t meant Jamie. She’d been talking about

herself.

“She thinks I can’t take it,” I said softly.

Jamie shook her head. “Even if she’s hiding something, Anna

would have told him not to tell you! Not even your dad would just

forget something like that.”

As I stood there, some cold, impassive part of my mind worked

it out. It was easier to tease apart my father’s motivations than to think about what the note had just told me.

“He wanted to spoil me.”

Jamie looked at the car. “You mean, to be nice?”

“Not that kind of spoil. This was a spoiler.” I was breathing hard now. “He wanted to show that he found out Mom was sick before

me. To make the point that he knew and I didn’t.”

Suddenly my legs were too weak to hold me, and I sat down

right there on the driveway. It wasn’t like falling, just a slow collapse into a heap. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and my

eyes closed.

A second later, Jamie was right next to me.

“It’s okay, Lizzie.”

“It’s not.”

Her hand smoothed my hair. “You don’t even know what kind

of diagnosis. It could be, like, for a root canal or something.”

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I didn’t even bother to argue with that. People don’t use the

word ‘diagnosis’ for root canals. Nor does anyone buy a car for you when your mother requires dentistry.

Instead I said, “What if it’s me?”

“What do you mean?”

“The attack in Dallas, whatever disease my mom has.”

I opened my eyes and looked at her pleadingly. She didn’t

answer.

“What if it’s all because of me?” I asked. “I’m not a valkyrie at all. I’m a fucking grim reaper.”

“You’re talking crazy, Lizzie.” Jamie’s voice was calm but stern.

“You didn’t cause what happened in Dallas. That was those guys

from Colorado. And whatever your mother has, it’s because of a

bacteria or something. Not you. ”

I shook my head. Jamie didn’t know what was inside me, the

cold place that resonated with the darkness of the afterworld. She didn’t know that I could see ghosts, could cross over to the flipside, and could see the dead histories of things dancing in front of me. She hadn’t seen the little girls, the way they looked at me, wanted me.

She didn’t know that I was part of death now.

“It’s inside me, Jamie.”

She pried one of my hands loose from my knees and held it.

“What is?”

“Since Dallas. There’s something different about me.”

“Of course there is. But nothing that can make your mom sick.

We should call her and find out what this is all about.”

“Maybe it’s always been with me.” I squeezed Jamie’s hand. “I

grew up with Mindy. She’s been here since before I was born.”

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“Wait. Who the hell is Mindy?”

Suddenly I had to explain it all. “My mother’s best friend, when she was little. She was murdered. It changed my mother’s life.”

Jamie was just staring at me. I could hear that I was barely mak-

ing sense, but somehow I couldn’t stop talking. I’d hidden so much from her, from everyone, and I had to say it aloud now.

“I think it changed me too. I grew up with the ghost of that

little girl.”

Jamie stared at me a long time. “Are you serious? That really

happened to Anna?”

“When she was eleven years old, her best friend disappeared on

a trip with her parents. But they found Mindy buried in her own

backyard. That’s why my mom’s always afraid for me.”

Jamie dropped my hand. “You mean, like on that field trip last

year, when she texted you every five minutes?”

I nodded.

“Crap,” Jamie said. “I made so much fun of you about that.”

“Mindy’s always been here, since before I was born. That’s

why I’m changing so fast.” Even if half the stuff coming out of

my mouth sounded crazy to Jamie, it was helping me to say it

out loud. I was a natural psychopomp, just like Yama had said.

Jamie squeezed my hand harder. “You know there’s no such

thing as ghosts, Lizzie. But why didn’t you ever tell me about this little girl?”

“I didn’t find out until after Dallas. Mom hid it from me.” I

looked down at the crumpled note, now on the ground. “Just like

she hid being sick.”

“Lizzie. We should call your mother.”

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“Sure.” I put my hand on the bumper of the new car, pushed

myself back to standing. I knew what I had to do now. “But not

while she’s at work. I bet she hasn’t told them either. We can’t just drop this on her.”

“But it got dropped on you!”

“That’s not her fault.”

Jamie didn’t look like she agreed, but said, “Okay. But I’m stay-

ing with you till she gets back.”

“You don’t have to.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to

smile at her. “I mean, I kind of need to be alone. Please.”

She stared at me, and I stared back. The cold place inside me

was growing, keeping me calm.

“Are you really okay?” she finally said.

I nodded and gave her a hug.

Eventually Jamie was convinced, and I watched her drive away,

smiling and waving at her. Then I walked to the front door and

opened it. There on the floor was another blue envelope. I knelt and picked it up. Metal clinked inside.

“Lizzie?”

It was Mindy, peeking out of the hallway that led to my moth-

er’s bedroom.

“Everything’s okay,” I said.

“You look funny.”

I nodded. No doubt I did look funny, like someone ready to

calmly tear the world to pieces. The blue envelope ripped in half

like tissue paper, the car keys dropping into my hand.

“I have to go away tonight. But I’ll be back tomorrow, I

promise.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Okay,” Mindy said hesitantly. “Where are you going?”

“To fix things,” I said.

The new car had a fancy GPS system, which blinked to life when I

started the engine. But instead of simply taking me to Hillier Lane in Palo Alto, the car wanted to dither and delay, to regale me with operating instructions and helpful hints and endless safety tips, as if it wanted to get to know me.

It had picked the wrong day for that. Five minutes in I switched

it off and asked my phone for directions.

The cold place inside me had made me logical, somehow, and

I had realized something. In some way—deep in his brain, in his

heart, in his spirit—my father saw me the same way that Mr. Ham-

lyn saw ghosts. The same way the two of them saw everyone, as

pieces in a game. Our emotions were just threads to weave amusing

patterns with.

I couldn’t fix my father, or what he’d done to my mother over

eighteen years of marriage. And I couldn’t fix Mr. Hamlyn either.

But I could fix the bad man.

It was almost three in the morning when I found Hillier Lane.

It shouldn’t have taken eleven hours to get there, but I’d begun

my journey at the start of rush hour, on a route that led me through the treacly heart of Los Angeles. It was also possible that I made a few wrong turns.

My phone’s battery had started to fade two hours into the trip,

so I’d switched it off and followed I-5, and then highway signs the rest of the way to Palo Alto. In the end I’d done something even

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more old-fashioned, asking a gas station attendant for help. It

hardly mattered how long the trip took. I was a valkyrie. I didn’t need sleep.

It was strange, seeing the bad man’s house in the colors of the

overworld. The bungalow wasn’t gray, it turned out, but painted a

sunny saffron orange, like runny egg yolks. But it wasn’t a cheery sight. My valkyrie eyes were like a cat’s—half on the flipside—and I could still see the dead girls paired with their gnarled little trees.

As I got out of my shiny new car, they turned to face me. But

they didn’t make me nervous anymore. I walked straight into them,

and knelt next to one of the trees.

“I’m going to fix this,” I announced, and began to dig.

My hands clawed at the neat circle of wood chips around its

base, tossing them aside. The little ghosts looked on, curious and silent, as I worked. My hands reached loose dirt, then packed soil full of stones and bugs. I wondered if there were any neighbors

watching as well, wondering what the hell I was doing. I wasn’t so sure myself. I only knew that I was driven by a burning need to find the truth buried beneath those trees.

But then my fingers were grappling with the tangled roots of

the tree, thick and gnarled and unbreakable. I swore, and looked

up at the ghost looking down at me. It was the one in overalls with sparkly barrettes in her hair.

“Don’t worry,” I said. My hands were covered with dirt, and

they ached from digging. “He’s not getting away with it.”

I rose and steadied myself, my eyes fixed on the bad man’s front

door. I willed myself across to the flipside as I climbed the porch steps. A moment later I was inside.

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AFTERWORLDS

His bedroom was as tidy as ever, and the bad man was sound

asleep beneath thick blankets. It was cold up here in northern California. I hadn’t even noticed.

I stared down at him, for the first time unsure of what to do

next.

Maybe I’d expected my anger alone to be enough. As if I could

unwind the bad man with a glance. But reality was slowly seeping

into my body. My muscles were cramped from driving all those

hours, from digging with bare hands. My head pounded from

grinding my teeth, and part of me wanted to turn my phone back

on and call my mom. She would be worried senseless by now.

Instead I stared down at the bad man, listening to him breathe.

I couldn’t just leave him sleeping peacefully. He’d done so

much damage, and every moment he lived did more. It was the bad

man’s memories that kept Mindy’s last hours alive.

I slipped my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down hard.

The pain threw me back into the real world, and color rushed into

the room. Like the outside of the house, the bedroom was full of

color now—the curtains turned yellow, the walls a light russet, the blankets were patterned in dark greens. Even in darkness, the room seemed joyful.

I remembered the shovel under the bed. Maybe I could still find

my evidence.

I knelt to peer into the shadows, and my eyes found the shim-

mer of metal. My reaching hand grasped the handle and pulled

the shovel slowly out. Its blade slid, a giant fingernail against the wooden floor.

I stood up again, the weapon in my hands.

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The bad man hadn’t moved, but I couldn’t hear his snoring

anymore.

Was he lying conscious beneath his blanket, wondering at the

sounds that had awoken him? Or had he only come halfway out of

sleep, stirring a little before he slipped back into dreams?

I waited to find out, watching him.

Then I noticed the eyes staring back at me through bottom of

the bedroom windows. The curtains hung a bit too short, maybe

so the bad man could peek out at his trees, his trophies. Lined up across this sliver of glass were five pairs of eyes, all of them peering at me, wondering what I was going to do next.

A shudder went through me, the realization that I wasn’t here

just for Mindy. It was so these little girls could fade at last, unre-membered. With those eyes on me, I didn’t have a choice anymore.

Digging up their bones wasn’t enough.

The sharp sound of a breath went through the room.

It was the bad man, peeking out from beneath the covers. Not

at me, but through the gap under the curtains. He was staring out

at his precious trees.

And he had seen the hole.

In the moonlight, it would be easy to spot that black opening,

crude and dug by hand, as if something had scrabbled its way out

from the cold ground.

“I’m here for you,” I hissed.

He spun around, tangling himself in his bedclothes, staring at

me with wide eyes, like a little kid seeing a monster in his room.

Fair enough. I was a valkyrie, after all.

“Why?” I asked him.

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He stared up at me, shook his head a little, as if he didn’t understand. Or maybe he didn’t believe in me.

“Why do things to other people? We aren’t your toys.”

He didn’t answer. The cold place was in my voice now. It didn’t

sound like me.

“We aren’t here to be played with, or kidnapped, or shot at in

airports because you have some fucking death wish!”

The bad man turned away from me. A pale hand emerged from

beneath the blankets, reaching for the pill bottles next to his bed.

I raised the shovel at last, and brought its blade down flat on the bedside table. Wood and plastic shattered with a beautiful crack, and pills shot in all directions, skittering into the shadows like insects in a sudden light.

The bad man’s pale hand hung there in midair, trembling,

searching for the pill bottles, as if he still couldn’t believe that any of this was happening. Then from his lips came a sound, a series of short little gasps.

I climbed up onto his bed, straddling the bad man, trapping

him under the blankets. With both hands on the shovel, I pressed

it down hard against his chest. The gasps grew sharper, until his

whole body shook, shock waves traveling beneath me.

Through the bottom of the window, the little girls’ eyes gleamed.

I could feel what was happening to the bad man. I could sense

it in the air, the smell of rust and blood.

After a few minutes, his shaking and shuddering passed.

“Mr. Hamlyn, I need you,” I said.

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CHAPTER 33

“YOU HAVE FAILED TO TEXT ME ENOUGH,” NISHA SAID STERNLY.

“The purpose of this call is to inquire why.”

“I text you every day!” Darcy put in earbuds and tucked her

phone into her pocket. She’d been hanging up laundry to dry when

Nisha called, an activity that made the big room look unwriterly.

But bringing home wet laundry saved quarters, and at least now

she had a distraction.

“You text with budgetary concerns, Patel, but not with all the gossip.”

Darcy laughed. “What? So you can spill the beans to Mom?”

“I do not spill the beans, Patel. I manage them, selecting only the choicest for the parental palette. I am the mistress of beans.”

“You are the mistress of bullshit,” Darcy said.

“Only when I need to be. Now spill.”

Darcy sighed, hanging one of Imogen’s T-shirts over a chair.

AFTERWORLDS

Her little sister wasn’t going to stop until she got gossip. And really, Darcy should have told Nisha about Imogen ages ago. “Okay. But

this information is for verbal discussion only. No texting.”

“I’m aware of the security issues.”

Darcy lowered her voice, though her parents were a hundred

miles away. “I’m with someone.”

“I knew that,” Nisha said.

“You did not!”

“You hooked up, like, five months ago.”

Darcy only glared at a set of her own soggy pajamas.

“Let us review the evidence,” Nisha said. “One: You haven’t

mentioned anyone. I mean, you live all alone for the first time ever, and you encounter no cuties? No one crushworthy in all of New York City? That’s weird, Patel, even for you.”

“Um, I guess.”

“Two: You never come back and visit. Which means you aren’t

missing my shining wit, the only thing better than which is . . . ?”

“True love?” Darcy ventured.

“Precisely. And three: When I asked Carla if you liked anyone,

she said, ‘No comment.’”

“Isn’t that kind of cheating?”

“It’s not cheating if you already know the answer. So I ask

myself, why the secrecy? Why are we almost whispering?”

Darcy sighed. “You must have theories.”

“Two of them. This person is older than you, right? Old enough

to squick the elder Patels.”

“Wrong! Well, maybe a little bit. But she’s only— Oh, fuck!”

Nisha’s laughter poured down the line. “She? So both my 445

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theories are correct. Is there a German word for always being

right?”

“I think it’s obnoxobratten.”

“This was so easy. You complete me, Patel.”

Darcy lowered her voice again. “You haven’t shared these theo-

ries, have you?”

“No, but you know they won’t care, right? Or has Imogen not

come out?”

“She’s totally out, but . . .” Darcy groaned. “Stop doing that!”

“Can a shark stop swimming?”

“Yes, when it is killed. How did you know?”

“Pfft. Figuring out who was the easy part, since you never shut

up about her. So was that tour thing with her real? Not just . . .”

Nisha made a suggestive noise.

“It was publisher approved!” Darcy cried, then realized that

her parents would be wondering the same thing, once they found

out. “Shit. I was going to tell you guys at Thanksgiving. But it never came up.”

“Um, I think you have to bring it up, Patel. You think Mom’s just going to ask if you’re gay?”

“I was going to, but Lalana was in Hawaii, and she kind of

wanted to be there too.”

“Wait. Aunt Lalana knows? You told her first?” A stormy

silence filled the line, and Darcy realized that she’d made a terrible mistake.

“It’s just, when she cosigned my lease, she made me promise to

tell her everything!”

“This is a serious betrayal, Patel. There will be consequences.”

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“Sorry.” Darcy lowered her voice still further. “But there’s

something I wanted to talk to you about, something Lalana doesn’t

know. It has to do with Imogen’s name.”

“Her name?” Nisha said with a snort. “No one in the family

cares that she’s not Gujarati. Well, except Grandma P., and she’ll probably be more worried about the not-having-a-penis thing.”

“No, not that. The thing is, she wasn’t born Imogen Gray. It’s a pen name, and she never tells anyone her real one.”

“That’s weird. Why not?”

“Because of stuff she wrote when she was in college. She doesn’t

want her readers finding it online. I guess she didn’t want me finding it either.”

“So you don’t know your girlfriend’s actual name?”

“No, she told me. But I haven’t looked online yet. Just in case

it’s . . . weird.”

“Aren’t you scared she’s a murderer or something?”

“Um, I think they would have arrested her. She uses her real

name to fly and stuff. Also, she didn’t have to tell me any of this.”

“So why did she?” Nisha’s voice dropped to a whisper again.

“Her fake name is Gray! What if that secretly means Graybeard!”

“What?”

“Like in that fairy tale, the pirate who gives his new wife all

those keys to the house. But there’s one she can’t use, because it’s for the room where all his murdered wives are! What if this is like that?”

“That’s Bluebeard, stupid. Greybeard is Gandalf’s last name.

Are you going to tell me she’s a wizard now?”

“No. But you should totally turn that key.” Nisha sounded dead

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serious. “And you should probably do it before you come out to the parents. You know, just in case.”

Darcy considered this. She’d thought she was being virtuous,

not snooping on whatever Imogen had put behind her. But what if

she was just being a chickenshit again?

Maybe Nisha was right, and it was better to get it out of the way.

“Okay, I’m going to look at it now. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

In the end, there weren’t that many hits for “Audrey Flinderson.”

Most of the results were from Imogen’s blog in college. Darcy

read a handful, and the only striking thing was how boring they

were. She could see glimmers of Imogen’s future style, but the sentences were shapeless, the stories rambling and uncertain.

Nearer the top of the first page were Imogen’s movie reviews, more recent and better composed, and funny in a way that Pyromancer never tried to be. They were full of profanity, but nothing Imogen hadn’t said in front of bookstore audiences. Darcy would’ve been

mystified why Imogen had hidden her old self, except for the essay sitting at the very top of the search results. It was for a shared blog, and had the title “Unpopular Opinion: My Ex-Girlfriend Is a Bitch.”

Darcy saved it for last. She read it slowly and carefully, with her heart beating slantwise in her chest.

It was brilliant, in a way. Scathing and caustic, witty and droll.

The essay was about an unnamed ex in college, someone jeal-

ous and selfish and jaw-droppingly vile. It was a deft and savage

portrait, dripping poison from every word. The essay was full of

obvious exaggerations, but somehow it made Darcy believe the

unbelievable about its subject.

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It was horrifying but, like a bloody accident on the side of the

road, Darcy couldn’t look away. She was too wrapped up in the

guilty pleasure of watching a stranger shredded in public. An awful person, who deserved it, and who somehow Imogen had loved for

a while.

When Darcy was finished, she leaned back from the screen, a

tremor in her breathing. The scary thing was, she’d seen hints of

Imogen in every sentence—her passion, her intensity. She had even

imagined the motions of her hands as the rant unfolded. This was

essential Imogen, distilled by anger and betrayal.

And she’d been rewarded for it. The essay had over a thou-

sand comments, and had been shared countless times. It would

probably always be the first result for a search on “Audrey

Flinderson.”

Darcy tried to imagine reading this five months ago, the day

after she and Imogen had first kissed. It was searing enough now.

Back then, it would have been boiling oil poured on naked skin.

At least the secrecy made sense now. As Darcy sat there, she

murmured Imogen’s warning from the other night. “The things we

write, they aren’t always really us.”

That was true, wasn’t it? Maybe this essay was partly in charac-

ter. Maybe Imogen had only been playing at being this wounded,

vicious person, like when Darcy imagined herself as Mr. Hamlyn.

All writing had some element of fiction in it, after all.

Unless, of course, it was the other way around, and Audrey

Flinderson was only playing at being Imogen Gray.

Darcy shuddered that thought away, and pulled out her phone.

It was just a scary story, she typed to Nisha. Nothing real.

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* * *

Winter spilled out its white heart on New York City. Frost spider-

webbed the windowpanes in the big room, and fallen snow shushed

the growl of trucks and cars outside. No matter how hard the

ancient radiators clanked and wheezed, apartment 4E stayed cold,

keeping Darcy in sweaters and Imogen in fingerless typing gloves.

But the two never complained, because a chill in the air was a small price for all those windows, that view of the rooftops of Chinatown sharpened with glittering icicles.

It was the ending of Afterworlds that made Darcy shudder at night.

She’d rewritten the last three chapters many times now, a dozen

tries at keeping Yamaraj alive and her romantic couple together. In some of the attempts, Lizzie gave up her human life, descending

into Yamaraj’s underworld kingdom to live forever in splendor,

cold and gray. But those endings always left Lizzie’s mother and

friends grieving somewhere in the background, and Darcy’s real-

ization that guys with castles were sort of Disney had never faded.

In other versions, Yamaraj would give up immortality to live

with Lizzie in the sunlit real world. These endings didn’t leave Lizzie’s friends and family hanging (and had no castles) but they introduced the nagging problem of Yamaraj’s people and his sister Yami. All

those ghosts were left behind, fading in the novel’s rearview mirror like thousands of unwanted puppies on the side of the road. Even

worse, in removing Yama from the underworld, Darcy would be

erasing the last traces of Hinduism from her invented world.

Darcy had to find a third way, an ending that kept both

characters’ lives intact while still resolving the story (and leaving 450

AFTERWORLDS

something for Untitled Patel to explore). She had to make Yamaraj deeper, more than just a prize to be won.

Those perfect last chapters had to be out there in the writing ether.

But no matter how many rewrites Darcy began, or how hard she stared out the big room’s rimed windows, this ending wouldn’t come.

She asked for another extension, and got it, to the end of

January. But Nan Eliot laid down the law—this was a final deadline, a drop-deadline, a line beyond which even a lord of the dead could not pass.

“My parents asked me about Christmas,” Darcy said one night

when her writing wasn’t going particularly well.

“Yeah?” Imogen didn’t stop typing.

“Well, ‘asked’ is probably the wrong word. They expect me to come down and visit them for a week. And it’s not really Christmas.

We celebrate Pancha Ganapati. It’s a five-day thing, in honor of

Ganesha.”

Imogen looked up, her fingers pausing. “I thought your family

wasn’t religious.”

“Not really,” Darcy said. “But we put twinkly lights on pine

boughs and give each other presents on the last day, which hap-

pens to be December twenty-fifth. Because the whole thing was

invented to make little Hindu kids shut up about Christmas.”

Imogen let out a laugh. “This sounds like a flexible religion.”

“It’s pretty fun, actually, and it’s not like I have a choice about going.” Darcy paused for a moment. This conversation was prov-ing harder than expected. “So I was thinking, do you want to come

with me?”

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“That depends.”

Darcy waited for more, but nothing came. “Um, on what?”

Imogen gave her a look. “Do they know about me?”

“Oh.” Darcy’s throat tightened a little. “No. I mean, I talk about you all the time, of course, so they know who you are . . .”

“But not about you and me.”

“Nisha knows.” Darcy sighed. It was always frustrating when

her new life bumped up against the one she’d left behind in Philly.

“Yeah, she texted me about that.” Imogen closed her laptop and

leaned back in her chair, which meant this conversation was serious now. “Obviously it didn’t come up when you were down there for

Thanksgiving.”

“I was going to say something, but my Aunt Lalana was with

her boyfriend in Hawaii. She wanted to be there when I told them.”

Imogen nodded, but looked a little tired. “Okay.”

“Look, it’s not okay! You’re the most important person in my life, so it’s not okay that they don’t know. I just . . .”

It was hard to explain. Darcy’s parents weren’t going to freak

out and disown her for dating a girl. If anything, they would giggle at her for having hidden it for so long.

But here in New York, everyone figured out on their own that

she was with Imogen. Most of the people they met already knew

about the two of them from the publishing grapevine. If anything

marked them out as a couple, it was the fact that they were both YA novelists. Darcy loved how the first thing everyone said was, Oh, you’re those two writers.

But in front of her parents, being in love with Imogen would be

reduced to a phase, just like her writing “career.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“I just . . . ,” Darcy started again, but it took a moment. “It

doesn’t feel right, having to tell my parents.”

“They’re just supposed to guess?”

Darcy shook her head. “It’s so easy up here. And when I com-

pare this new me to the old me back in Philly, it feels like I don’t deserve who I am. Like when I showed up in New York, they gave

me an adult card without checking. Everything gives me impostor

syndrome.”

“I think what you’re trying to say is, you’ve been lucky so far.”

“How is this about luck?”

A truck rumbled past below, its tires tempered by the snow into

a long, exhausted sigh.

“I figured out what I was halfway through high school,” Imogen

began. “I had to explain it to my father while I was still living under his roof. I had to deal with friends who didn’t like me anymore,

with teachers who were mostly assholes about it, and with a school bus full of gossips and jocks and other assorted fuckwads, every

single morning. And the cherry on the top was a vice principal who already pretty much hated me, so imagine his excitement when I

added a girlfriend with a habit of setting things on fire.”

Darcy stared at the floor. Having snooped her way through

Imogen’s high school yearbook, she should have figured most of

this out already. “That sounds pretty crappy.”

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Not all of us make it,

you know.”

The big room was quiet for a while, except for the whispers

of car tires down on Canal Street. Darcy’s hands curled into fists, because on top of her usual mix of clueless and ashamed, she was

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angry now, for what a bunch of total strangers had done years ago

to Imogen White and Imogen Gray.

It was Gen who spoke again first, her hands spreading. “But we

all have different experiences, all equally valid. I guess.”

Darcy looked up. “Even us lucky little shits?”

Imogen smiled at this, but her jaw was still a hard line.

“Do you want to come home with me or not?” Darcy asked.

“For Christmas with the family?”

“Not Christmas, Pancha Ganapati. And Carla comes over for

most of the holiday stuff, so you won’t be the only non-Hindu in

the house.”

“But I’ll be the only person who’s lying about why they’re there.”

Darcy didn’t answer. She hadn’t thought about keeping this

secret as a lie, but of course it was. She was careful how she mentioned Imogen to her parents, and often had to change details in

her emails to them.

“Is this because you looked me up?” Imogen asked. “You don’t

want them to know about me?”

“Of course not.” This was the first time either of them had

mentioned the essay aloud since the night Imogen had revealed her

name. “I haven’t thought about Audrey Flinderson much. Really,

Gen, I don’t care what you blogged about in college.”

Imogen let out a sigh. “Well, good. So this is just you being a

chickenshit.”

“It’s not about being afraid!” Darcy cried. Suddenly all that

mattered was that Imogen understand her, completely. “When I

sold Afterworlds, I didn’t just get a book deal. I got a whole new life, one that came with no assumptions about who or what I was. And

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I know how lucky that is, like winning the lottery. But it’s still my lottery ticket, and I don’t want to give it up! And part of that is not having to define myself.”

Imogen was shaking her head. “You define yourself all the time,

Darcy. You hold my hand when we walk down the street. You think

people don’t notice that? You never hear it when some homopho-

bic fuckhead says something?”

“Of course I do.” Darcy reached across the desk. “But holding

your hand is like breathing—it’s easy. It always has been. That’s the way it should be, right?”

“Of course,” Imogen said. “But it doesn’t always work out like

that. Back in the hallways of Reagan High, holding Firecat’s hand

was like setting off a bomb.”

“That sucks, but that isn’t how it’s been for me,” Darcy said.

“And I like my life the way it is. I don’t want to see my parents

being understanding. I want everything to stay exactly the way it is between you and me and our friends up here in New York. I like it in fucking YA heaven! ”

Imogen listened to all this, and then sat staring out the window

for a long time. Her fingers were twitching just a little, as if she were typing to herself.

“Sure,” she finally said. “Who wouldn’t want that?”

“So you understand?”

Imogen nodded. “This is your dream life, and you don’t want

to mess with it. But it’s not my dream life to sleep alone in your parents’ guest bedroom, or steal kisses from you when no one’s

around. I don’t want to spend Christmas being your five-years-

older secret girlfriend.”

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“Pancha Ganapati, not Christmas,” Darcy said, quite clearly.

“And what does this have to do with your being older than me?”

“It makes the whole thing more embarrassing.” Imogen stared

out the window again. The radiator beneath the desk began to tick

and wheeze, building up to another burst of warmth.

Darcy managed to smile. “Now who’s being a chickenshit?”

“You are! The chicken is officially you,” Imogen said. “But if I go along with you and lie to your parents, then I’m one too. And

I’m supposed to be older and wiser.”

“Older and wiser than me? That’s not saying much.”

“Look, we all feel like impostors sometimes, but you don’t have

to about this. If you want to make your dream life real, you have to connect the new Darcy to the old one.” Imogen’s voice dropped.

“Just like I had to connect Imogen Gray to Audrey Flinderson. I

had to tell you, even if it made you hate me.”

“Never,” Darcy said, squeezing Imogen’s hand. “That’s not

what this is about. It’s just that finishing my book, telling my parents, and the rest of growing up—everything’s taking longer than

I thought.”

The morning of Darcy’s first full day back in Philly, she and her

sister were busy stringing pale yellow lights around the Ganesha

painting that their mother had brought down from the attic that

morning. Lord Ganesha stood with one heel in the air, ready to

dance. But he was also meditative, his palms open and facing

upward. A pair of freshly cut pine boughs arched over him, giving

off a bright forest smell and shedding needles on the beige carpet.

“Twinkling or not?”

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Nisha stood back, surveying their work. “Twinkling, clearly.”

“Okay, here we go.” Darcy plugged in the lights.

After a moment, Nisha shook her head. “This is mere blinking,

Patel. It’s way too slow to constitute twinkling.”

“Maybe they need to warm up?” Darcy’s father had always been

in charge of the lights. But both her parents were in the kitchen, flooding the house with the smells of roti and coconut and sugar

at high heat. “Why is Dad cooking, anyway? I thought he wasn’t

allowed to when guests were coming over.”

“I think they want us to have quality time together.” Nisha

lifted one foot, half imitating Ganesha’s pose. “In other words, they want me to acquire gossip.”

“Seriously?”

“You should hear Annika every time I get a text from you. She

wants details. She wants analysis.”

“Ugh. I thought they were getting better.” Darcy lay back on the

carpet. “Dad hasn’t bugged me about going back to college in, like, a month. Driving me home from the train last night, he even asked

me how my career was going!”

“Yeah, I talk about your ‘career’ all the time, mostly to annoy

them. But now they’ve started saying it too.” Nisha placed her

hands in prayer position and bowed at the waist. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” Darcy said. “But can I point out that it really is a career? Like, with actual money?”

“So you say. But without my parental engineering, the elder

Patels would be visiting you once a week.” Nisha paused to wipe

away an imaginary tear. “And in return I am given no twinkling

lights.”

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It was true, the lights were still only blinking.

“But I brought you presents!” Darcy pointed to a pile of boxes

wrapped in bright orange and waiting to be deployed around the

shrine. The presents had been painstakingly selected over the last few months, because Nisha was notoriously honest about gift quality. They included a subway map phone cover, train tickets to New

York for spring break, and a T-shirt emblazoned with a death-metal version of Glitter-Mane, Nisha’s second-favorite Sparkle Pony.

“Those are mere objects, Patel. You made me guess all the good

gossip.”

Darcy rolled her eyes at her little sister. This was all because

Aunt Lalana had found out about Imogen first.

“So do you only like girls now?” Nisha asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That answer bores me, Patel. You must look at people now and then. Like, random hotties on the street. Are they ever boys?”

“I don’t look at anyone else. I don’t think about it that way.” The lights were speeding up a little, almost twinkling now. “Maybe I’m Imogen-sexual.”

Nisha snorted. “I believe the technical term is ‘adorkable.’”

“Why do you care, anyway?”

“I’m just curious. Plus, the elder Patels are going to ask these

questions after you leave. It’s my job to have the answers!”

Darcy took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I’m going to tell

them yet.”

“Don’t be a chickenshit, Patel.”

There was that word again. For a moment, Darcy wondered if

Imogen and Nisha were coordinating their attacks.

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“Seriously, it’s the first day of Pancha Ganapati,” Nisha said.

“Perfect timing!”

It took a moment for Darcy to understand. Ever since they

were little kids, she and Nisha had always focused on the last day of Pancha Ganapati, when presents were opened. She’d half forgotten

that tonight, the end of the first day, was about clearing up misunderstandings in the family, about making things right.

“When did you get all religious?”

Nisha shrugged. “I’m in it for the math.”

“What math?”

“Dude. We invented zero. And there’s this mantra from three

thousand years ago—it’s just the powers of ten, from a hundred up

to a trillion. How cool is that?”

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “It’s possible that you and I have dif-

ferent interests.”

“Listen. Dad gave me this book for Hindu kids, and it said that

if you burned every copy of the Vedas, the same truths would be

rediscovered. That only makes sense if you’re talking about the

math.”

“Huh.” Darcy glanced at the painting of Ganesha. The lights

had finally started to shimmer. “That’s what all this is to you? Just numbers?”

“Just numbers?” Nisha snorted, and her face took on a look of adamantine certainty. “The universe is math on fire, Patel. That’s my faith.”

Darcy didn’t answer, thinking of Sagan and his Angelina Jolie

Paradox. Maybe that was the point of truth—you could erase it all

you wanted, and it was there to be discovered again.

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* * *

For dinner that night, Annika Patel had gone into full Gujarati feast mode, arraying half a dozen small dishes before each place at the

table. In addition to the usual okra and chickpeas, there were curries made of ivy gourd and bitter melon. The roti was homemade,

as attested by its charred edges and the loud cursing of Darcy’s

father all that afternoon.

Even for Darcy, who had rejected the family’s vegetarianism

so long ago, the smells rising up from the table were mouthwater-

ing. And as still more side dishes arrived, she was hit with a pang of missing Imogen. It would have been wonderful to explain the

nuances to her, to help her dissect the yogurt-soaked dumplings

and steamed taro leaves, and watch her sample the sinus-clearing

chutneys.

To know a family is to eat its feasts, Darcy thought, deciding that next year Imogen would be here.

She glanced across the table at Aunt Lalana, who had arrived

just before dinner. She was looking back at Darcy with expectation in her eyes.

Great. More pressure.

“This looks amazing, Mrs. Patel,” Carla said, and Sagan nod-

ded. The two were traditional guests for the first night of Pancha Ganapati, and both were back from a semester of college looking

older and wiser. Carla’s hair was cut short and sleek, and Sagan had replaced his glasses with contact lenses. Such superficial changes, but they reminded Darcy that her friends were growing up at least

as fast as she was.

When her mother asked what courses they were taking, Carla

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launched into a disquisition on the British eighteenth-century novel.

“There was this whole genre called the supernatural explained. It’s not even the 1800s yet, but all these writers are already sick of

paranormal. So they start writing horror novels where everything

creepy turns out to have a logical explanation. Well, sort of logical.”

“You mean, like every Scooby-Doo ending ever?” Sagan asked.

“Exactly! They want the genre tropes, but they can’t handle the genre tropes.”

“Those damn kids,” Sagan said, tearing a piece of roti in half.

“I always hated that when I was little,” Darcy said. “Are the

books any good?”

Carla shrugged. “The sentences are crazy long. But it’s like

Shakespeare; you get used to it in fifteen minutes.”

“I suppose Darcy will be an English major too,” Annika Patel

said. “Imagine, getting to read novels all day long.”

There was a quick exchange of glances among the teenagers at

the table. Darcy’s college career was still a given, of course. But it wasn’t her mother’s assumption that made Darcy bristle. It was the fact that she already read several novels a week. Maybe she hadn’t plowed through any eighteenth-century gothics lately, but half of

what she read hadn’t even been published yet. Surely that was more interesting than being forced to swallow proto- Scooby-Doo.

She was about to make this point when her mother spoke again.

“Speaking of novels, I have an announcement.” Annika paused

a moment, gathering everyone’s attention, then turned to Darcy. “I finally read your book.”

There was another pause, another exchange of glances.

“You were supposed to wait for it to be published!”

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“That’s what I was going to do. But then I realized it wasn’t

coming out till next September.”

“Only two hundred and seventy-six days,” Nisha said brightly.

“I mean, really,” Annika said. “Does it take eighteen months

just to make a book?”

Darcy’s mind flooded with answers—sales conferences and

copyedits, advanced readers’ copies and cover designs—because

she’d asked the same question herself many, many times.

But what she said was: “And you read all of it?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t make it through?” Her mother

laughed. “It takes more than a little violence to scare me off.”

“She read that first chapter out loud to me,” her father said, all smiles. “Very chilling.”

“Thanks.” Darcy waited for the rest. Not more praise, but her

mother’s recognition of Rajani’s ghost.

“I loved how they could go anywhere in the world, just by wish-

ing.”

“The river isn’t exactly wishing, Mom.”

“I suppose not. But it was clever of you, using the River

Vaitarna. I didn’t know you were still interested in religion.”

Darcy blinked. She’d been thinking about her parents’ faith for

the last six months of rewrites. “So you didn’t mind that I used Lord Yama as a character?”

Her mother waved a hand. “He wasn’t really Lord Yama. He

was just some boy.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “But what about Mindy?”

Carla, Sagan, and Lalana were all watching carefully. Though

none of them knew about Annika Patel’s murdered childhood

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friend. It had been Darcy and Nisha’s secret until that night at

Artisanal Toast.

“She was cute. And funny.”

“Funny? And cute?”

“Because she was such a little 1970s kid. I could just see those braids. And corduroys!” She turned to her husband. “Remember

when you used to wear them all the time?”

He laughed. “I think I’ve still got a pair somewhere.”

“Um, but there wasn’t anything else familiar about her?” Darcy asked.

Annika Patel frowned. “How do you mean?”

Darcy sat there, not sure what to say. Kiralee had been right,

of course—it was a terrible idea to talk about Rajani aloud, at least until the series was finished. But Darcy couldn’t believe that her mother had missed the parallel entirely.

It felt like a failure of her writing. Or maybe her mother simply

wasn’t haunted by her past. Maybe she had left all that behind in

India.

“I just thought you might have noticed . . .”

Darcy couldn’t go on. Bringing up Rajani at a crowded dinner

table risked exorcising her from the quiet, gray place in Darcy’s

mind where the story had been born. It risked every page of

Untitled Patel being somehow different, somehow broken by the revelation.

But why was her mother being so clueless?

“What is it, dear?” Annika Patel asked.

The whole table was staring at her now. She had to say some-

thing, anything to protect her little ghost.

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“Um, I have a girlfriend.”

The moment of silence wasn’t very long, but it felt timeless

and huge and echoing. Everyone’s eyes shifted from Darcy to her

parents, the only two at the table who hadn’t known already. They

looked more baffled than anything else, but to be fair, the state-

ment had been a giant non sequitur. Aunt Lalana was smiling with

approval, at least.

Nisha was the first to speak. “Smooth, Patel.”

The spell broken, Darcy said, “I wanted to tell you guys. We’ve

been together for a while now. I really like her.”

In a strange way, it felt like her first performance as an author

on the stage of Avalon High School. There hadn’t been time to

get nervous, so the words she needed had simply appeared in her

mouth.

“A girlfriend? Well, I didn’t expect that.” Annika Patel’s smile

looked skittish for a moment, then settled. “You know we love you, Darcy, always.”

“Of course I know,” Darcy said, and she always had, but the

hearing of it struck her somehow. She skipped a breath, and the

lenses of two unshed tears alighted on her eyes, making everyone

at the table look sharper, clearer.

“Salubrious occasion is salubrious,” Sagan said softly.

Then a puzzled look crossed her mother’s face. “Wait. Was I

supposed to get that from reading Afterworlds? Did I miss something?”

“Not about that. It was just . . .” Darcy didn’t know where to go

from there. “Imogen’s really nice and I think you’ll like her. And I’m sorry for taking so long to tell you.”

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Her father spoke up. “You chose the perfect time, Darcy.”

She smiled back at him, as if she’d told them on the first night of Pancha Ganapati on purpose, and not just because she was a lucky

chickenshit. After all, the timing had been perfect.

She was fine with being lucky—this family, this made-up holi-

day, this certainty that she was loved.

This was her faith.

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CHAPTER 34

MR. HAMLYN WAS ENRAPTURED WITH THE LITTLE DEAD GIRLS,

until I explained that they wouldn’t be to his taste. They had not been loved at the end.

“And you leave me with that?” he asked, pointing at the ghost cowering in the corner.

The bad man’s spirit had risen up a few minutes after his body

had gone still. He was skinnier than I’d expected, in flower-pat-

terned pajamas and white socks. He’d hardly noticed me, too busy

staring out at the five little girls in his front yard. Maybe he’d always suspected they were out there, and thought his nightmares were

coming true. Or maybe he thought the nightmare was happening

now. He hadn’t said anything, just crawled into the darkest corner of the room and covered his eyes.

“Yes,” I answered Mr. Hamlyn. “I killed him. Now cut him to

pieces, please.”

AFTERWORLDS

The old psychopomp looked me up and down, at the dirt

beneath my fingernails, the shovel in my hands. His smile grew and grew, until it seemed twisted and wrong, too big for his face.

“I knew you had it in you, girl.”

I pointed the blade of the shovel at the bad man’s ghost. “Teach

me how to take his memories apart.”

Mr. Hamlyn gave a theatrical little shudder. “They’re very nasty memories. You should start with something sweeter.”

“I’m not going to make a quilt out of him. I just want him gone.”

I looked out the window at the little girls. “And to set them free.”

“He’s dead. His memories won’t hold anything for long.” A

shrug twisted his frame. “But I suppose we can hurry things a bit.”

That was when Mr. Hamlyn showed me what was in the pock-

ets of his patchwork coat.

It was a piece of memory he’d found, something awful. It was

so rare, he said, that I could travel the river for a hundred years and never feel one brushing against the back of my neck. But I would

certainly notice if that ever happened—the shiver that holding it

gave me was very particular, like an eel wrapped around my spine,

cold and squirming.

He said it was like a diamond, forged under unimaginable pres-

sures, so that it cut lesser memories to pieces. Such threads formed only when something unimaginable happened, like the death of a

whole city by fire. He had seen it happen half a dozen times.

“Be very careful with it,” he said. “Anything that can cut a ghost can cut you too, even in the afterworld.”

It was the perfect tool for psychopomps like him.

The little girls faded as we worked. The bad man had remembered

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them best of all, better than their own families, even. As his ghost parted into bright, shimmering strands, the girls dwindled and

sputtered, finally departing one by one.

Free at last, or simply gone.

I saw more than I wanted to that night, the bad man’s whole

grisly career flashing past as his threads pulsed in my hands. But as awful as those visions were, there was something elegant in

Mr. Hamlyn’s work. Like a cross between a surgeon and a sto-

ryteller, he teased out and sliced away single threads from the

tangle of a life.

But he had no desire to collect anything so foul, and in the end

we cast all those carefully cut pieces into the Vaitarna. That’s all the river was—endless millennia of human memories boiled down to

black sludge. I wondered how it could smell so sweet.

“Thank you,” I told Mr. Hamlyn when we were done.

“There’s no thanks better than being right.”

I looked at him. “Right about what?”

“That you would call me.” He smiled. “Though I admit, it was

sooner than expected.”

I started to say that there was no way I’d ever be calling him

again. But how could I be sure? My future was up in the air, both as a valkyrie and as a human being.

Everything changes when you take a life.

It would have been easy to let the river carry me home, but my real body was here in Palo Alto. I couldn’t leave it behind, or my shiny new car, for that matter.

When I turned on my phone for directions back to the highway,

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it woke up sputtering: six messages from my mother and fourteen

from Jamie.

Maybe if they’d left only one or two, I would have listened to

them. But the thought of all those voice mails growing steadily

more anxious made me switch the phone back off. But first I texted them both:

I’m okay. Will be home this morning.

The highway was easy to find, and there were plenty of signs

pointing to Los Angeles. But my timing was terrible once again.

After four hours of driving I found myself approaching LA smack-

dab in the middle of morning rush hour.

It was also breakfast time, and I hadn’t eaten since lunch the

day before. Maybe I didn’t need sleep anymore, but here in the

overworld food was not optional.

I stopped at a place called the Star Diner in North Hollywood,

choosing it for the parking spot right in front. A mercifully efficient waitress brought me scrambled eggs and toast, which I devoured in

about three minutes. Eating simple, ordinary food edged me back

toward reality.

Morning sunlight slanted in through the diner’s picture win-

dows, as if the afterworld didn’t exist. The tables were trimmed in cheery, glittering chrome. Sitting there drinking coffee, I didn’t feel like someone who’d cut apart a ghost last night. I wasn’t sure how I felt, exactly. Not angry anymore, because the bad man was gone,

but not triumphant either. I should’ve been exhausted from driving all night, but even that was missing. It was as though I’d excised some part of myself along with the bad man’s memories. Only the

cold place remained.

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Then I reached into my wallet to pay, and a business card

slipped out. It had a blue seal in the upper left corner, and the name Special Agent Elian Reyes in the center. I remembered what he’d

said to me on the phone:

You should always report murders, of course.

And that’s what I’d just done: committed murder. What else

would you call breaking into an old man’s house in the middle of

the night, waking him up, and leaning on his chest until he has a

heart attack?

It hadn’t been an accident.

The business card was frayed and soft from being in my wal-

let. I’d memorized the information ages ago, figuring that if you

have your own personal special agent, you should know his num-

ber. Learning the digits by heart had seemed funny at the time.

It didn’t seem funny now.

You should always report murders, of course.

What would happen next back in Palo Alto? Someone would

find the bad man’s body, sooner or later. The police would be

called, and couldn’t fail to notice the smashed bedside table and

the pills scattered across the floor. They would ask the neighbors if anyone had seen something strange, like a car pulling up at three in the morning. Maybe a wild girl digging up his lawn with her hands.

As I sat there staring at the dirt under my fingernails, the eggs

in my stomach began to squirm. I’d turned on my phone in front of

the bad man’s house, and sent two texts, and made that collect call from near my house. In a phone company databank somewhere

were numbers connecting me to his mysterious death.

The kicker, of course, was my fingerprints on the handle of

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AFTERWORLDS

his shovel, which I’d slid back into its spot beneath the bed before leaving.

A dry little laugh forced its way out of me. I wasn’t a particu-

larly clever murderer, was I? Nor was my defense going to be the

sanest thing ever heard in a California courtroom: “I did it to free five little dead girls, and so my ghost friend doesn’t have to worry about the bad man ever again.”

I took a slow breath, letting the fear of being caught flow

through me. It was better than feeling nothing. Better than letting the cold place grow until it swallowed up the rest.

There were so many things I couldn’t change: what had hap-

pened to those people in the airport, whatever was wrong with my

mother. Last night, at least, I’d done something rather than nothing.

And you can’t put a valkyrie in jail. We can walk through walls.

If there was a punishment for what I’d done, it wasn’t going to

come from the world of phone records and fingerprints, of laws

and prisons. It would come in the transformations taking place

inside me. As Yama had tried to warn me on that lonely island:

Whether ghosts were real or not didn’t matter, what mattered was

what we decided to make ourselves.

I slipped Agent Reyes’s card back into my wallet, and left the

waitress a big tip.

My mother was waiting on the front steps when I got home.

“Nice car,” she said when I got out. I think she meant it.

“I know, right?”

We took a moment together, amazed that my father had spent

real money on me. I sat next to Mom on the steps, still uncertain

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how to feel. In trouble seemed wrong, like something for little kids, not murderers. I couldn’t tell whether she was angry, or sad, or

exhausted. Or maybe just sick.

“Did Jamie tell you about Dad’s note?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Then what is it? Your diagnosis?”

“Not yet, Lizzie.” She held up a trembling hand. “You disap-

peared for twenty-one hours. You don’t get to set the terms of this conversation.”

Angry, then. I didn’t answer, just nodded.

“Where the hell did you go?”

“Driving.”

“For twenty-one hours?”

“Yeah, I know.” I still wasn’t tired. I wondered if I would ever

sleep again. Probably not without Yama’s lips to help me, and

would he ever touch me again after what I’d done? “Driving helps

me think. It’s a pretty comfortable car.”

Mom took a deep breath. I could hear her biting back harsh words.

“Jamie told me you have a boyfriend.”

“She did? Seriously?”

A grim smile crossed my mother’s face. “She didn’t say any-

thing until this morning, when you still weren’t home.”

I sighed. Fucking LA traffic. “Yes, I have a boyfriend. But this

had nothing to do with him. I just needed to get away.”

She gave me a long, appraising stare. But she turned away with

a sigh, as if I were something unknowable.

Fair enough. I didn’t even know myself.

“Are you going to die?” I asked.

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AFTERWORLDS

“Not any time soon. But we’ll get back to that, and to your

boyfriend.”

Not any time soon. If that counted as good news, then the world sucked.

Mom stood up and went over to the car, opened the driver’s

door, and leaned in. “Jesus. A thousand miles, Lizzie?”

“Like I said, it helps me think.”

She shut the car door and came back to the porch. She stood

over me, a parent over a child. “Where did you go?”

Only the truth would do. “Palo Alto.”

“Is that where your boyfriend lives?”

“No. I went to your old neighborhood.”

She stood there staring at me, her anger blunted for a moment.

This telling-the-truth business was oddly effective.

“You know that old photo in your room?” I asked. “I needed to

see the house where you grew up.”

She shook her head. “Why?”

“Because you never told me about Mindy. She was haunting you

and you didn’t tell me. But she was there, Mom.” I could feel the cold place retreating as I spoke, so I kept going. “Every time I played outside when I was little, she was there. And even now when I’m traveling, or when we drive anywhere, she’s there in the way you worry. Every day of my life, her ghost is with us. Every day!”

Mom didn’t answer, but I didn’t have any more words, so we

were silent for a while. I wondered if Mindy was standing on the

other side of the front door, listening.

Finally my mother said, “You don’t know what it’s like, when

your best friend disappears.”

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“Maybe that’s because you never told me about her.”

“I’m not going to apologize for that. Not today. And it wasn’t

something I could just tell my child about. They found her in her

own backyard, Lizzie. You have no idea.”

I nodded, even though I knew better than she did how horrible

it had all been. I’d seen every detail played back in the bad man’s memories. The only thing I didn’t understand was why my own

mother had hidden it from me.

“Look, I get that it was awful. But—”

“If you get it, then why would you disappear for twenty-one

hours? Why would you drive away and turn your phone off? You vanished, just like she did!” Something shuddered in my mother’s

chest. “At three this morning I got up and checked the backyard,

Lizzie, in case you were buried there!”

Her voice broke at the end, and the sound of it was awful, like

every fear she’d ever had was tangled in her lungs.

“Oh, right,” was all I could manage.

She was staring at me, waiting for more, and I wanted to say

how thoughtless I’d been, how I would never disappear again. I

wanted to break down and cry.

But I kept seeing what I’d been doing at three that morning.

“I’m sorry,” I said at last. “Really sorry.”

She nodded at that. “Good.”

“But I’m not Mindy. Okay?”

My mother thought about this, as if it were something that

could be debated. But finally she nodded again. Then an odd look

crossed her face.

“I never told you her name.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Really? Maybe I looked it up online.”

Mom shook her head. “But that was her nickname. In the news-

papers they called her Melinda.”

“Then you must have told me.”

I could see her weighing this, and not quite believing it. But it

was the only possible explanation.

“Mom, will you just tell me about your diagnosis now? Please? ”

“Okay.” She nodded and closed her eyes. “You know how I’ve

been tired all the time? My doctor thought it was anemia, not a big deal. That’s why I’ve been taking iron tablets.”

“You have?” My voice was weak. Now that she was finally tell-

ing me, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear this.

“But iron didn’t help, and my blood counts kept getting worse.

A lot of conditions can cause this, so there were a lot of tests—

lupus, hepatitis, HIV.” She opened her eyes. “It wasn’t any of those.

It didn’t make sense to tell you until I knew something for sure.”

“But you told Dad.”

She nodded. “With my blood counts, it might’ve been some-

thing that could cause heart failure. Maybe out of the blue. So yeah, your father had to know.”

“Heart failure?” I shook my head. “You said you weren’t going

to die any time soon.”

Mom nodded. “My heart’s fine. The diagnosis went in another

direction. What I have is called melody . . . crap.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Myelodysplastic syndrome, it’s called.

Everyone just says MDS.”

I took my mother’s hand. “What does that mean?”

“It means my blood’s all messed up, right at the source. They

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finally got around to testing my bone marrow. There are stem cells in there that make your blood cells. Mine are broken.”

“Broken? How the hell does that happen?”

“They don’t know. When I was a couple of years younger than

you, I worked as a house painter. We used benzene to strip the

paint back then. We should’ve worn masks, I guess.”

“And that’s what did this to you? Some chemical you inhaled, like, thirty years ago?”

“We don’t know.” She took both my hands in hers. “But the

important thing is that it’s not genetic. You don’t have to worry

about this happening to you.”

“But I do have to worry about it.” The reaper was in me,

sweeping across my life, across the lives of everyone around me.

It was in the marrow of my mother’s bones. “So what happens

next?”

“Well, nothing wonderful. Blood transfusions, maybe a stem-

cell transplant. We’re talking about years of dealing with this, and we don’t know how it’ll work out. But I’m younger than most of the people who get this disease, which is lucky.”

Lucky, like surviving a terrorist attack.

“Real luck is taking another flight,” I said softly.

My mother didn’t hear me, or she didn’t understand. “I’ve got

decent health insurance, so we probably won’t lose the house. And

this is not going to make me an invalid, so you don’t have to be

chained to your mother. You’ll be off at college for most of it.” She looked at me. “Are you following all this, kiddo?”

I shook my head. “I got lost somewhere between blood transfu-

sions and losing our house.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Right.” She took a slow breath. “I guess you didn’t sleep last

night.”

“Not at all.”

“Maybe we should go into details later. Along with that boy-

friend conversation we’re going to have.”

“I’d like to go to bed.”

My mother hesitated, just to show that she was within her

rights to make me sit here apologizing for the rest of the day, but had decided to be merciful. “Okay. But you know I have to meet

him, right?”

I nodded. “He’s really nice and I think you’ll like him.”

“I hope so.” She hugged me then, hard and long, and when we

finally pulled apart, she was smiling. “I’m glad you got home in one piece.”

I felt forgiven, at least a little, even if my mother only knew a

tiny slice of what I’d done the night before. Her absolution fell on something darker than she knew.

She held out a hand. “Keys.”

So I gave her the keys to my shiny new car, as if that made up

for everything, and told her I was going to bed.

Mom stayed outside, giving the new car another once-over, so I

slipped into her room.

“Mindy?”

No answer, and the closet was empty. I had an awful thought:

What if the bad man’s memories had been the only thing keeping her from fading? What if I had just erased my ghostly friend?

But then I heard a giggle behind me.

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I turned and saw a shadow scampering away. Following the gig-

gling to my own room, I found Mindy sitting on my bed.

“Finally!” She smiled, patting the blanket for me to sit beside

her. “I thought Anna was going to yell at you forever. She’s pretty mad, huh?”

“Yeah, she was upset.”

“You’re naughty, sneaking away like that.”

I stared at Mindy. Her hair was combed straight again, tucked

neatly into two little pigtails. She looked so happy, more at ease than I’d ever seen her. It was as if she already knew that the bad man was dead.

“You didn’t used to be bad,” she said, still smiling.

“I had something important to do. Remember how I said I’d

fix things?”

“Like what?” she asked, patting the blanket again.

I sat down, speaking softly. “Last night I went back to your old

neighborhood, and I got rid of the bad man. You don’t have to

worry about him.”

“What bad man?” Mindy asked.

It took me a moment to speak again. “What do you mean?”

“What bad man did you get rid of?” She giggled a little. “And

why was he so bad?”

“Because he . . .” I didn’t finish. “You don’t remember him?”

She made a show of thinking, squinting her eyes. “Not unless

you mean your dad. He was pretty annoying.”

Of course. The part of Mindy that had been terrified all these years had existed only in the bad man’s head. All that remained of her now was what my mother remembered, the carefree child of eleven.

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Things were fixed far better than I’d imagined.

I swallowed something hard in my throat. “Yeah, he was

annoying. But he’s gone now.”

“It’s just us three!” Mindy leaned across the bed and wrapped

her arms around me. Her embrace was still cold, but there was a

spark along her skin that had been missing before. When she pulled back, she was giggling again. “So what’s Anna going to do to you

for running away?”

“She took my car keys. In fact, I’m pretty sure she took my car.

Who knows when she’ll let me drive it again.”

“What a drag.” Mindy frowned. “Wait. When did you get a car?”

“Yesterday. Lost it pretty quick, huh?”

Suddenly we were both laughing together, not holding back at

all. After the last twenty-four hours, I desperately needed to find something funny. It was probably lucky that my mother was still

outside, out of earshot.

But there was something freaky about how happy Mindy was.

Her three decades of fear had been erased overnight. It felt almost as if Mr. Hamlyn were right, and ghosts weren’t real people after all. And if Mindy wasn’t really herself anymore, it was my fault. I’d taken away the hours that had made her the ghost she was.

I decided to test something. “You know what my mother told

me?”

“What?”

“That your real name is Melinda.”

A thoughtful expression crossed her face, and it took a long

moment until she finally nodded. “That’s right. That was my

name.”

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Was, she’d said. Mindy was her real name now, because my

mother’s memories were all that she had left.

“Did you know my mother was sick?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes she talks to doctors on the phone,

about how she’s tired all the time.”

“Okay.” Maybe stem-cell diseases weren’t an easy concept for

an eleven-year-old. “But that’s it?”

“I guess. Is Anna going to be okay?”

I nodded. “They figured out what’s wrong. And she’s going to

get it fixed.”

Mindy smiled, and I knew that lying had been the right thing to

do. If my mother died, Mindy would have no one left who remem-

bered her as a living girl. What did that mean to a ghost?

In any case, it was easier for me to pretend that my mother was

okay.

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CHAPTER 35

“SIX MONTHS!” DARCY CRIED. “I HAD SIX MONTHS TO DO THIS,

and now I’ve only got six days!”

Imogen didn’t answer. She was busy in the kitchen, filling the

house with the scent of simmering meat. It was four thirty in the

afternoon, but Imogen’s stew required hours of cooking. Of all

their experiments in the Chinatown markets, from fried whelks

to sea urchin to salted duck tongue, short rib stew had proven the most successful.

Even in her deadline panic, Darcy felt herself getting hungry.

“This is just like high school,” she muttered to herself. “I always did everything the night before.”

“That’s the curse of being clever!” Imogen called out.

“What is?”

Imogen stepped from the kitchen, her hair in a headband,

wearing an apron emblazoned with a black velvet painting of

SCOTT WESTERFELD

Shimmer-Tail (Nisha’s favorite Sparkle Pony). “All those years

of doing schoolwork the night before, and still getting an A. Now

you’re stuck with the habit.”

“That’s not fair. I’ve been trying to rewrite this stupid ending

for months!”

“Yeah, but in your heart of hearts, you know it doesn’t really

count until the night before it’s due.” Imogen smiled evilly. “If you were a little less clever, you’d have a much better work ethic.”

Darcy back stared at her. “Are you complimenting my intel-

ligence or insulting my character?”

“Just working out my own issues.” Imogen disappeared back

into the kitchen.

Darcy didn’t bother to answer that. Lately, Imogen was over-

whelmed with her own anxiety about the first draft of Phobomancer.

Two deadlines in the house at once was perhaps one too many.

Open on Darcy’s laptop screen were a dozen documents, the

twelve best versions of the end of Afterworlds. Some were dark and melancholy, some light and uplifting, and some straight-up Happily Ever After. Darcy felt as though she’d written every

possible ending for the book, and now it was simply a matter of

picking one.

“I’m a writer, not a decider,” Darcy mumbled to herself. The

words danced in her head for a while, as meaningless as the burble of boiling water from the kitchen.

Maybe she was afraid to pick an ending, because once this book

was finished, the die was cast. She would either be a success or a failure, all her realness determined by that single throw.

Or maybe it was because she wasn’t so much a writer as a thief.

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She’d stolen her little ghost from her mother’s childhood, a kidnapping scene from her girlfriend, and the love interest from her own religion. Maybe she had no perfect ending because there wasn’t one to steal.

Imogen popped out from the kitchen again, a paring knife in

hand. “What do you think of River Treeman?”

Darcy looked up. “Who’s that?”

“No one, yet. But how do you like it as a name?”

“Sounds they had hippie parents. Or is this person an elf?”

“Crap. Never mind.” Imogen disappeared again.

Darcy shook her head, staring again at her laptop screen.

If only Kiralee Taylor had just told her how to end her book, or shamed her into fighting for her original tragic ending. But she’d made the whole experience a test of skill, in which Darcy either

had to write a happy ending that went with the unhappy themes of

her novel, or an unhappy ending that kept her unhappiness-hating

publisher happy.

The word “happy” had started to sound wrong in Darcy’s head,

like a random collection of Scrabble letters.

“What about Amanda Shearling?” Imogen called from the

kitchen. “As a name.”

“Sounds like a really rich person.”

“Ugh.”

Apparently, Imogen’s mechanism for dealing with stress was

to make up bad character names and cook. Of course, both were

probably more useful than Darcy sitting here staring, as if her eyes could arrange the letters on the screen.

What if it was too late? What if she’d already written so many

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endings that she would never find the right one? Like kids who’ve

told so many lies that they can no longer remember the truth.

“Gen?” she called. “Once the stew is stewing, I think I need

you.”

It wasn’t long before Imogen emerged from the kitchen again,

pulled out the chair opposite from Darcy, and sat down.

“The ribs are stewing, the mushrooms soaking. What’s up?”

“All my endings suck.”

“How many pages are we talking about exactly?”

“The last four chapters. Lizzie’s killed the bad man and chopped

his memories up, then returned home and found out what her mom’s

disease is. But after that . . .” Darcy stared her laptop. “Maybe the book’s already over. Killing the bad man is the climax, and confronting her mom is the denouement. Maybe I’m just waffling for another ten thousand words. Maybe I’m already done.”

Imogen didn’t look convinced. “This isn’t an action movie,

Darcy. You don’t kill the bad guy and then roll the credits.”

“If it’s not an action movie, what it is? A horror-slash-romance?

A Bollywood musical? An indie film about a wilted helium bal-

loon?”

“It’s not a movie at all, Darcy; it’s a novel. And novels are messy and tangled and complicated. If you end it right after the bad man dies, then we never find out what happens between Lizzie and

Yamaraj.”

Darcy shook her head. “Maybe the book’s not really about him.

Maybe Kiralee’s right, and he’s just there for purposes of YA hot-

ness.”

“That’s not what she said. And what about the death cult? You

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want to leave that up in the air? And Mr. Hamlyn? And Anna’s

disease?”

“Maybe all that stuff can be in Untitled Patel.” Saying the non-title of her sequel filled Darcy with despair. She only had seven

months left to turn in a first draft. How had she gone from some-

one who could write a whole novel in thirty days to someone who

took half a year to rewrite four chapters?

“When you finish this book, then you can worry about Untitled

Patel.” Imogen pulled off her Sparkle Pony apron, wadded it up, and cast it aside, all business now. “You can’t forget about Yamaraj.

He’s the key to your ending. Your book is all about facing death!”

“Okay.” A little shudder of relief went through Darcy. Maybe

if she just listened to Imogen talk, she might understand her own

novel again. “What does fear of death have to do with Mr. YA

Hotness?”

“People don’t just fear death. They get hot for it too. That’s

why teenagers love slasher films—fear and excitement and lust, all wrapped up around getting killed. That’s why Lizzie wants Yamaraj.”

“Because she’s in love with death?”

“Not in love with, hot for.” Imogen was shredding the air with her hands now. “In those moments at the airport, Lizzie faces her

own mortality. And Yamaraj is the guy who’s already faced it. He

can hear it in the stones, smell it in the air. If she holds on to him, maybe death won’t be so scary! That’s why Mr. Hamlyn collects

the memories of dying little kids, because it makes him feel like he has control over death. But of course it never works. That’s why

you can’t end with killing the bad man. That isn’t even a victory, because you can’t win against death.”

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Darcy stared back, dazzled as always by Imogen’s rantings. But

behind the intensity was something subtle and true, a new facet of Yamaraj that Darcy had never glimpsed before. He was beautiful,

not because he was hot, and not only because he’d faced down his

own death.

But because he was noble. Every day, he fought a war that he

knew he would lose.

But she had to ask, “So they aren’t really in love?”

“Maybe she needed to love someone, after what happened to

her. But love isn’t always a forever thing.”

Darcy sighed at that. Even though it was probably true, it went

against everything books were for. In novels, love was perfect and without end.

“Can you just write this for me?”

A laugh came from Imogen. “Too busy making stew. And com-

ing up with names. What do you think of Ska West?”

“Ska, like the music?” Darcy shook her head. “What are

these for, anyway? Are you adding a bunch of new characters to

Phobomancer?”

“They aren’t for characters,” Imogen said. “They’re pen names.”

“For who?”

“For me.” Imogen stood up and left the table.

Darcy sat there, stunned for a moment, but then pursued

Imogen into the heat and sizzle of the kitchen. “Gen. Why do you

need a pen name?”

Imogen began to chop, her knife slicing through daikon and

scallions. “For when I have to start over. For when Paradox pulls

the plug on my series, and no bookstore ever stocks me again.”

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“That’s crazy.”

“Writers do it all the time. It’s better than dragging around a

busted sales record.”

Darcy took a step closer. The thought of Imogen writing under

another name was horrible. As if it would change her into someone

else.

“They’re not going to cancel your series, Gen.”

“I’ll be glad when they do,” Imogen said. “Like in those hard-boiled crime novels, when the criminals are relieved to be caught.”

“Stop it, Imogen! You’re not a criminal, or an impostor, and

Paradox isn’t canceling your series. And you don’t need a pen name, because Imogen Gray is going to be a famous bestselling author!”

Their eyes locked, Darcy challenging Imogen to dispute her.

There was silence in the kitchen, except for the burble in the pan.

“I’ve already got a pen name,” Imogen finally said.

“No. Imogen Gray is your real name. That’s who you are.”

“I remember when you didn’t think so.”

“I was wrong.”

Imogen reached out to brush Darcy’s shoulder, her lips playing

with a smile. But a moment later the expression soured, and she

turned back to the cutting board. “This isn’t about me, it’s about business. Books fail. Writers fail. It’s not all YA heaven.”

The last two words stung, as they had ever since the argument

over Imogen coming down for Pancha Ganapati.

“Where’s all this coming from, Gen?”

“My agent doesn’t like the new opening.”

Darcy shook her head. “You sent it to him?”

“Yesterday, to get him all excited about Phobomancer. Not a 487

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good move, it seems.” Imogen turned away to push her wooden

spoon around the pan. “He says the inside of a car trunk is the

wrong place to start a book, because there’s nothing to see.”

“But that’s the point!”

“The point is not clear.” Imogen let out a sigh. “He also says it’s not scary. Which is true, and makes perfect sense. I’m not really

claustrophobic. When you drove me around in the trunk, you were the one who was nervous. I was having a blast!”

Darcy closed her eyes. It was true—Imogen wasn’t afraid of

anything.

“I wish I could fix this for you.”

“Yeah, I know. You wish everything was YA heaven.”

There it was again, the magic words for mocking little innocent

Darcy, who thought everything was easy, because she’d never had

it hard.

She made herself swallow the insult. “Your career isn’t over, Gen.”

“Not yet. But you never know.”

“True. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” Darcy said, accept-

ing that the real world was gritty and brutal, that life could suck.

Sometimes, she wondered if Imogen’s pessimism was designed to

toughen her up. As if Darcy was a project— hard work, as Gen had said on the night she’d found out about Imogen White.

“Or a taxi,” Imogen pointed out.

“Do you want to read the opening to me?” Darcy asked.

“Sometimes out loud helps.”

Imogen looked down at her stew. “I read, you stir?”

“Perfect. And if it still sucks, I’ll think of some way to scare the crap out of you, I promise.”

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Imogen smiled at last, and Darcy gathered her into a hug.

“Let me take a shower first. Gotta wash away the stench of fail-

ure.” Imogen pulled away to face her. “Thanks for talking me down.”

“I didn’t just piss you off more?”

“Only at first,” Imogen said, giving Darcy another smile. She

handed over the wooden spoon. “Keep it simmering and skim off

any foam.”

She headed for the bathroom, pulling off her T-shirt as she went.

Darcy took a slow breath, feeling more settled than she had all

day. Helping Imogen through a freak-out had made her own crisis

seem surmountable. Six days was long enough to make an ending.

The main thing was not to panic.

Darcy focused on the simmering pot, letting her mind drift

away from the various endings of Afterworlds. Maybe her subconscious would come up with something brilliant while she skimmed

and stirred.

But her reverie didn’t last long, because watching stew simmer

was boring. Darcy went to get her laptop, propped it open on the

kitchen counter, and checked her email. There was a query from

Rhea, her editor’s assistant: Can Nan call you tonight before she leaves work? She wants to see how the new ending’s going.

It had been sent only minutes ago. Darcy sent back a yes, and a

moment later the reply came: She’ll call you in five.

The message set off a slow-building panic in Darcy, as if Imogen’s fears had leaked into her mind. Did Nan have some editor’s intuition that the work was going badly? What if the failure of Pyromancer had created a new policy at Paradox, that books were canceled before publication unless their authors could explain their rewrites in vivid detail?

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“That’s just silly,” Darcy said aloud. Nan just wanted to make

sure the new ending was on track for the deadline. But which ending?

Then Darcy realized: Her phone wasn’t in her pocket. She

hadn’t used it that day, except to read Nisha’s text informing her that Afterworlds would be published in 241 days. Where had she left it?

Darcy turned the flame beneath the short ribs down a nudge

and went into the big room. The phone wasn’t on the writing

desk, or any of the windowsills. It wasn’t on the comfy new couch

that she’d blown her January budget on. (Revised budget: accord-

ing to Nisha, her spending was well into August by now.)

Darcy went back into the kitchen and checked the counters

again. Nothing.

She flung open the door of the bathroom. “Gen!”

“Did you get bored and burn my stew?” came the reply from a

cloud of steam.

“Not yet. Do you know where my phone is?”

A pause. “Did you check your pocket?”

“Yes!” Darcy groaned, slammed the door, and headed for her

bedroom. No phone there, nor in the closet-and-bookshelf room.

She imagined Nan at her desk, tired after a long day’s work,

dialing and getting no answer. How annoying. How like those

clueless little debutant authors who knew nothing about rewriting books, only monkey typing.

The five minutes was surely up. Unless Rhea’s email had said

Nan was going to call at five . . .

Darcy went back to her laptop and checked. Nope. Five min-

utes, three of which were gone.

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“Shit, shit, shit.” She dove at the new couch again, flinging aside cushions. She found only dust, seventy-five cents, and an earring

Imogen had lost a week before.

One minute left now!

When Nan called, the phone would make itself known, unless

the ringer was off. Sitting on the desk was Imogen’s phone. Darcy

swept it up, turned it on to call her own number . . .

. . . and found herself staring at the yellow background of

Imogen’s diary.

“Never,” she murmured. But her eyes, unbidden, were already

reading the first line.

After all this hard work, another bitch.

Darcy read it again, but the words stayed separate and mean-

ingless, the letters spiders on the screen. She whispered the sen-

tence aloud, but it still didn’t make sense. She turned the phone off and placed it softly back on the desk.

As Darcy sank onto the couch, she closed her eyes. Her hand

still burned where she’d held the phone. How had she been so

stupid? Like a character in a fairy tale who only has to follow one simple rule, and fails.

Once you turn the key, you can never forget what’s in the closet.

Darcy reasoned with herself. The words could have referred to

anyone, really. There hadn’t been a name or any other clues.

But Darcy Patel was the only person who Imogen ever called

“hard work.” And “another bitch”? That was Audrey Flinderson talking.

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“Crap,” Darcy said. This was why diaries were private.

A sound reached her ears then, a muffled shrieking close by.

She sprang to her feet, turning her head to triangulate its source.

It came again, and a moment later Darcy was on her knees, reach-

ing through the dust bunnies already gathered beneath the new

couch.

She pulled out the phone answered too loudly, “Yes!”

“Nan Eliot here.”

“Of course. I mean, hi. How are you?”

“Very well, Darcy. And you?”

She was panting. Her heart was pounding and thrashing, like a

spin dryer with a brick inside. “I’m good.”

“I just wanted to ask how the rewrites were going.”

“They’re great.” In her own ears, Darcy’s voice broke and

trembled. After all this hard work . . .

“I see.” Nan paused. She’d heard the uncertainty. “You know

this deadline is very important. If you miss it, we won’t have

advanced copies ready for BookExpo America. You’re already on

the schedule there.”

“Of course.” Darcy realized that the shower had turned off.

She couldn’t face Imogen yet. She turned away from the bathroom

door, staring out at the rooftops of Chinatown. “It’s not going to be a problem. I’ve got it under control.”

There was another pause. Darcy wasn’t convincing Nan or

herself.

“I mean,” she stumbled on. “I’ve already got the ending done.

It’s just . . . there’s more than one.”

“Interesting. Do you need help choosing?”

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AFTERWORLDS

Darcy heard the bathroom door open and shut her eyes. “I’ll

know what to do.”

“It’s a little scary, isn’t it? Letting go of your first book.”

Darcy didn’t know how to answer this. Fear was part of what

she was feeling, but the uncertainty was worse. The sentence in

Imogen’s diary had exposed a fault running through her new life, a split in the sky of YA heaven.

“I’ll be okay.”

“I’m sure you will, Darcy,” Nan said. “But there’s something

I always tell my debut authors. Your first novel is like your first relationship. You won’t really understand the decisions you make

until years later.” She laughed. “And you’ll probably screw up the ending.”

“Um, I . . .” Darcy’s voice failed her. “My first what?”

“You remember your first sweetheart, right?” Nan asked.

“Sure.”

“Oh, of course.” Nan laughed again. “It probably wasn’t as long

ago for you as it was for me. So you must know what I mean. First love is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you’re doing. First novels are the same way.”

Darcy swallowed. There was a stone in her throat the size of a

thimble.

“So how do I fix that? My book, I mean.”

“You do the best you can. But remember, it’s not going to be the

most polished novel you ever write, or the wisest, or the bestselling. That would be a shame, after all, to peak with your first. We at Paradox expect great things from you, Darcy, well beyond these

two books.”

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“But even if it’s my first, I still want this to work.”

“Of course. And luckily you have one superpower right now,

something you don’t need experience to find.”

“What?”

“Honesty. Just write the most honest ending you can.”

Darcy closed her eyes again. She didn’t want anything to end.

“Can you do that for me?” Nan asked.

“What if it doesn’t have a happy ending?”

Nan sighed. “Just consider this, Darcy—real life doesn’t have

many happy endings. Why shouldn’t books make up the differ-

ence?”

Darcy stood at the window for a while after Nan had hung up, hold-

ing the phone at her head, half pretending to be in conversation.

Staring out at the bustle of Chinatown, she slowly gathered herself, until she felt strong enough for the long walk back to the kitchen.

“Sorry, Gen. Did anything burn?”

“It’s fine.” Imogen didn’t look up from the stew. “Who was so

important?”

“It was Nan.”

“Checking in on you?” Finally their eyes met. “Jesus. Is every-

thing okay?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, which was a lie, and honesty was all she was

good for.

“What the hell did Nan say to you? You look awful.”

Darcy realized she wasn’t ready to have this conversation.

“She was telling me not to sweat it, I guess.” Darcy swallowed

the hard and bitter taste in her mouth. “She said that no matter

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what, I’m going to look back on my first novel with embarrass-

ment.”

“Whoa. She really said that?”

“Not quite. It’s more like she was telling me not to panic.”

“Doesn’t look like it worked.”

“No,” Darcy said, and couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Are

we okay? You and me?”

Imogen put down the wooden spoon and wrapped her arms

around Darcy. “Sorry I’ve been so crazy. It’s not you, it’s the writing. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” She held Imogen tighter. “I know we’re good.”

More lies, but maybe lies were better than the truth.

495

CHAPTER 36

THE NEXT MORNING I SEARCHED THE LOCAL NEWS SITES FOR

Palo Alto, and the web editions of both San Francisco newspapers.

There was nothing about a murder investigation, or a man found

dead in his house.

It was weird to find nothing in the news, not a word. Of

course, the bad man hadn’t exactly been a social butterfly. It could be weeks before anyone found him in his bed. That wasn’t a pretty

thought.

Before leaving for school, I cleared the search history on my

laptop, in case Mom was checking up on me. That was enough to

keep my mother from asking questions, but what about the police?

What if there was still a clue somewhere on my hard drive? Or evi-

dence pointing back at me from those news websites?

I sighed. If anyone was doing serious forensics on my com-

puter, I would’ve already been busted in a dozen other ways. The

AFTERWORLDS

calls from my phone, maybe the data in my car’s GPS. In crime

shows, it only took a tiny clue to get the murderer caught.

But on TV there was always a clear motive. Who would imagine

that a high school student had driven all night to kill some random stranger? Unless that student was already famous for a horrific

brush with terrorism, the sort of experience that might leave someone obsessed with death.

I’d always have an insanity defense, at least.

When I got to school I looked for Agent Reyes’s car, but it wasn’t around. He hadn’t shown up since that first day back from winter

break. Which was fine. Now that I was a criminal, not being of

interest to the FBI was probably a good thing. If Special Agent

Reyes had been there, I would’ve been tempted to ask him another

string of hypotheticals about serial killers. Not such a good idea anymore.

I went to the attendance office first, to hand them a note

from my mom. It explained that she was seriously ill, and that I

might be missing some school for the next few months while I

helped her out. Mom was scrupulously honest, so the note said

nothing specific about my absence the day before. But every-

one made the expected assumptions, and they were all very

sympathetic.

I was a senior. My transcripts had already been sent off to col-

leges. People like me were supposed to blow off their last semester.

That I had a really good excuse would only make it easier.

Jamie was waiting for me in the hallway outside.

“Hey.” She greeted me with a tiny wave, looking guilty. I’d

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almost forgotten that she’d spilled the beans about my secret

boyfriend.

I gave her a hug. “Hey, yourself. Sorry I disappeared like that.”

“I get why you needed space, but Anna was totally freaked out.

I had to tell her something.”

“It’s okay, Jamie.”

“So I don’t suck for telling her about your boyfriend? It’s just, I thought it would be better if she knew you had a place to go. Instead of thinking you were driving around all night doing crazy stuff.”

A laugh forced its way out of me, because “doing crazy stuff”

didn’t begin to cover it. Jamie took the sound as forgiveness, and we hugged again.

When we pulled apart, she still look worried. “You were saying

all that weird stuff, about grim reapers. What was that?”

“Nothing.” I shrugged. “It was just the bad news about my

mom, freaking me out.”

“So how sick is Anna?”

“I’m not sure.” It occurred to me that I could have spent the

morning googling MDS instead of my own crimes. But I was about

as good a daughter as I was a criminal. “Her blood’s messed up.”

“Like leukemia?”

I shook my head. “It’s something I’d never heard of before. She

says it’ll take a long time to treat it. And a long time before we know if she . . .”

My voice faded. Saying all this aloud had made me unsteady on

my feet. The second late-bell rang, and the hallway emptied around us.

Jamie put a hand on my shoulder. “Should you even be at

school today?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Mom was pretty sure,” I said.

“Oh. You must be totally busted.”

“Yeah.” We hadn’t had any specific conversation about punish-

ment, but Mom had taken my new car to work today. I was fairly

certain that I wouldn’t be driving it anytime soon. “But, whatever.

Even if she grounds me till I’m eighteen, that’s only three months.”

Jamie smiled. “Your rebellion was well timed. She must want to

meet your mysterious boyfriend.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Does that mean I get to meet him too? Finally?”

I stared at her. “So that’s why you told her?”

“Never.” She crossed her heart. “But I’m glad I did. Anna needs

to know stuff like that, especially now.”

“I guess so.” I wondered what the chances were of Yama sitting

down for dinner with us. Especially after I’d confessed my murder

to him.

Jamie took my hand and led me toward my first class. “You two

need to stop hiding stuff from each other. You know that, right?”

I nodded, unable to say more. There was so much now that I

would never tell my mother, or Jamie, or anyone else here in the overworld. It didn’t feel as though I could ever be completely honest again.

That night Mom and I cooked together, and we talked a lot too.

Not about her disease, but about my father, the person he’d always been. The odd thing was, we hadn’t talked about Dad in any serious way since he’d left us.

“He sees people as pieces in a game,” I said at one point, think-

ing of Mr. Hamlyn, too. “Like we’re here just to amuse him.”

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Mom frowned at this, almost as if she wanted to come to Dad’s

defense. But she only shook her head and said, “I’m sorry. I was

young.”

We wound up staying up late, my mother sharing a glass of

her wine with me. We toasted to how great the rest of the year was going to be, because we’d clearly had our share of disasters already.

Mindy watched us from her corner the whole time, happy to be

part of the family, so I didn’t bring up anything about my mother’s childhood. Now that Mindy had finally forgotten what had happened thirty-five years ago, it seemed cruel to remind her.

By the time Mom sent me off to bed, Mindy was full of energy.

She wanted to take the river to New York City and spy on my father.

“Some other night. I need to see someone.”

“You mean your pomp boyfriend?” She shrugged. “He can

come too if he wants.”

It took me a moment to understand—this was the new Mindy,

unafraid of bad men. But the things I had to explain to Yama

weren’t for her ears.

“Not tonight. I’ll be back before dawn.”

Mindy grumbled a little, but finally headed off to roam the

neighborhood by herself, a fearless little ghost.

I stood in the middle of my bedroom and slipped across to the

flipside, ready to face Yama and confess what I’d done. But as the magic words from the 911 call faded in my mouth, I heard a voice

floating on the rust-scented air of the afterworld.

“Elizabeth Scofield . . . I need you.”

It sounded like a young girl, maybe Mindy’s age. My heart

froze—what if one of the five girls I’d freed still existed, and still 500

AFTERWORLDS

wanted me? But then the words came again, and I heard the faint

accent in them, like Yama’s.

It was the ghost of his sister Yami.

The river knew what to do.

I’d always wondered how Yama arrived so quickly when I called

him. But the river’s current was driven by connections, by desires.

The Vaitarna was roiling with my need to know why Yami’s voice

had called me instead of her brother’s. The moment I released

myself to the current, it took me, furious and spinning.

It had to be a simple reason, nothing horrible. Hadn’t my

mother decreed that there would be no more disasters this year?

I swirled to a halt in a part of the river that I’d never seen before.

The familiar formless plain stretched in all directions, but the sky was wrong. Instead of starry black it was the red of a fading sunset, rusty and muted. It was strange seeing a wash of color above the

boundless gray.

Yami stood there waiting, her large eyes dissecting me.

“Long time no see,” I said.

“We’ve both been occupied.” Her hands adjusted the folds of

her gray skirt. “When my brother chooses to neglect his people,

someone has to take his place.”

“Right.” Yama had said something about his sister not approv-

ing of us. “Sorry if I’ve been distracting him.”

“I doubt that,” she said.

I frowned. “I haven’t been a distraction?”

“You have. But I doubt you’re sorry.”

All my clever rejoinders foundered on the fact that she was right.

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“Yami, why did you call me? Is your brother okay?”

“He regrets that he can’t come to you. His people need him.”

She paused a moment, weighing her words. “They are besieged.”

“Wait. You mean, there’s a battle down there?” I shook my

head. “The underworld has wars?”

“Something smaller than a war, but equally deadly. A predator.”

It took a moment to understand the word. But when I did,

monsters came to mind. “Okay. That’s scary.”

“Lord Yama is not afraid, but perhaps you can . . .” She held out

her hand. “My brother will explain.”

“You’re going to take me to the underworld?”

Yami’s reaction was to raise an eyebrow, as if I wasn’t worth a

yes.

Yama had told me about his home, how beautiful it was. But the

thought of going that far down into the underworld scared me. The

few stray ghosts at school still made me uneasy. I couldn’t imagine a city of thousands.

I looked up at the strange bloodred sky. “We’re close, aren’t we?”

“This is the deepest part of the river.” When I still hesitated, Yami snapped the fingers of her outstretched hand, and a single drop of black oil fell from them. “Come, girl. Or don’t you want to go to hell?”

“Nice of you to put it that way.” I stared down at the spreading

black pool between us.

“Pardon my English,” she said with a smile. “Do you prefer

‘Hades’? It isn’t a bad place, you know. Just a quiet one.”

“With predators.”

She nodded. “At the moment. But my brother seems to think

you can help.”

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It was hard to argue with that, and I needed to see Yama and tell

him everything that had happened in the last two days.

I reached out to take her hand.

We went farther down, deeper than I’d ever gone.

The light was different here. A ruddiness infused every-

thing—the sky, the ground, Yami’s skirt and blouse—the color

almost vivid compared to the endless gray of the flipside. The air was different too. My lungs had to work hard to take it in, like

being in a small room full of cut flowers whose scent was rust

and blood.

We alighted on a balcony that overlooked a skyline of jumbled

shapes. The buildings didn’t match, more a collage than a city.

They seemed to have been plucked from every epoch, from stone

hovels to columned mansions to towering modern apartment

blocks. A panopticon of windows stared back at me, reflecting the

bloodred sky.

It was magnificent, like a city constructed over thousands of

years with nothing ever torn down. Like every city that had ever

existed on earth put together.

“Who built all this?”

“It is remembered, not built.”

Ghost buildings. Of course.

I stepped to the edge of the balcony and leaned out over the city

of the dead. We were only a few stories up, and I could see that the edges of the structures were blurred, the details indistinct. Faded memories given form.

And it was lifeless. The wide avenues stretched out empty in

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all directions. No litter stirred in the low and constant wind. There were no vehicles, no traffic lights.

“Where are all the people?”

“Where they usually are when there’s a wolf at the door. Inside.”

I turned to her. “A literal wolf? The ghost of an animal?”

Yami shook her head, but didn’t speak, as if she wanted me to

guess.

I wasn’t in the mood. “Where’s Yama?”

“Yama raj is out there, where he’s needed. He’ll return when he can.”

“You said I could help. How?”

Yami thought about this for a moment, and then she said,

“Shall we have tea?”

She went inside through the balcony doors, which were as wide

and tall as a soccer goal, leading me into a room as big as my entire house. A huge patterned rug lay at its center, surrounded by dozens of cushions. Candled chandeliers hung above us. As we entered,

men in knee-length robes and loose trousers stepped forward from

the shadows, lighting the branches of the chandeliers with smoking tapers. These servants were as gray-skinned as Yami—ghosts, of

course. They didn’t talk, though one met my eyes with an expression of disquiet, then looked away.

Yami settled on one of the cushions and pointed to the one

across from her.

“Sit, girl.”

“My name is Lizzie.”

“You should show more respect for your name, Elizabeth.

Names are important here.”

I didn’t sit down, taking in the beauty of the room around us.

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The arched ceilings were painted in russet curlicues, held up by

carved and fluted columns, and the candles in the chandeliers flickered like stars above us.

Then Yami said, “The predator takes only children.”

That made my knees buckle. I sat, unable to speak for a

moment, staring at the rug, which was woven in a pattern of zig-

zags, diamonds with interlocking vertices. It made my vision pulse with my heartbeat.

Only children.

Yami clicked her fingernails, and two servants stepped for-

ward again. Instead of burning tapers, they had silver trays in their hands, each with a steaming teapot and a small porcelain cup with

no handles. Yami watched them work, thanking each by name as

they served us. A smell like roses and burned sugar filled the room, making the air even thicker.

“The predator,” I said. “It’s one of us, a psychopomp.”

She nodded, waiting for more.

“And the children . . . they all died peacefully, with their parents caring for them. Back when they were alive, I mean.”

“So it’s the man who troubled you before.” Her words came

slowly, clearly. “The one who sent my brother a message.”

I nodded. I’m hungry—a warning.

“How did you lead him here, girl?”

“Why would I do that? I’ve never even been here before!”

“How else would he have made a connection to my brother?”

“A connection?” I tried to remember what had happened in the

basement, the night Mr. Hamlyn had given Mindy back. “I kissed

his hand, but I told Yama about that.”

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“Think harder, Elizabeth.” Yami pronounced every syllable of

my name.

I closed my eyes, and heard Mr. Hamlyn’s voice again.

I want you to tell your rather impressive friend something.

What’s his name again?

And I’d answered.

“Yamaraj,” I said. “I told Mr. Hamlyn his name, kind of by

accident.”

Yami stared at me a moment, then raised her teacup and blew

across it. Steam coiled from her lips.

I could hardly breathe the heavy, blood-scented air. Names

were important here. Mr. Hamlyn had trailed me to New York

because he knew my name.

“I didn’t know not to. Nobody told me!”

“My brother didn’t tell you.” Yami closed her eyes. “Because

you’re a distraction. Because he didn’t want to scare you with all the rules of the afterworld. Because you turn him into a fool, just by existing.”

I shook my head. Yama had told me many times that names

were important here, just not clearly enough. Maybe after three

thousand years, it seemed obvious to him. You couldn’t explain

everything to clueless novices, after all. There was too much they didn’t know.

My mouth was suddenly dry. I reached for my teacup, but it

was empty except for steam.

“Only memories,” Yami said. It took me a moment to realize

that she meant the tea. Memories were all they had in the under-

world, like when children play at tea parties with empty cups.

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“How many children?” I said.

“Three, so far.”

“What can I do?”

Yami shook her head, as if I was being as thick as the air. “You

said you kissed him, and you know his name.”

“Of course! We’re connected.” I stood up on shaky legs. “I’ll call him, or track him, or however it works.”

Yami held up a hand. “Wait for Yamaraj. This is his justice to

serve.”

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CHAPTER 37

THE DARKNESS SPILLS DOWN THE VALLEY AND ACROSS TO THE

distant hills, a blanket of midnight. No campfires are in sight, and in dry season there are no bright slivers of freshet to reflect the sky. But Darcy Patel spots a single bright coin flicked into all that velvet—a waterhole.

Her dry tongue scrapes across sorely fissured lips, but she makes

no haste, first measuring out the stars of Corvus and Crux. She has to keep a straight path to reach that patch of wet silver before the sun rises again. The last seventeen days have brought an avaricious heat, taking the expedition’s oxen, the convicts, and the freemen in that order. The native guides wisely slipped away a week ago.

Her course determined, Darcy stumbles down the ragged slope,

setting a thirsty pace. The night is long, her eagerness tempered by hard falls from watching the constellations overhead instead of looking to her own feet. Empty runnels crisscross the valley, and her muscles AFTERWORLDS

soon burn with every dusty scramble down and up again. The scent of jerky from her pack simmers in her head, but her mouth is too parched for dried meat to do her any good.

In the coldest moment of the night, just as the horizon has

begun to glow, a glimmer of water appears ahead. At first, Darcy

doesn’t dare believe in it. But the ground grows softer under her

feet, and her nose catches traces of hook-leaf and mint bush in

the air.

She hears a splash in the distance, perhaps a rock wallaby down

for its first drink of the day. But fresh meat is a concern for later—at this moment Darcy is made of thirst. She’s already running, falling to her knees in the red mud. As her face touches water, she shivers with passion. The sores on her lips finally cool, the cracks in her throat stealing the first gulps before they can reach her stomach. It is a full minute before she’s had her fill, and tries to rise up from the mud’s embrace.

But the mud will not let her go.

Darcy pushes herself up on her elbows, but that’s all she can

manage. Her arms, her legs are trapped by some insuperable vis-

cous force. Even stranger, inches in front of her face, the water is sliding away. Something huge is stirring beneath her, the land itself lifting up.

She hears splashing all around, and cranes her neck. In the rosy

light of dawn a dozen wallabies retreat in all directions, fleeing whatever the great lump of mud beneath her has become.

The sucking grip on her arms and legs softens, and Darcy man-

ages to struggle to her feet. For a moment, she stands upright on a swelling hill of mud. But suddenly the red earth beneath her turns 509

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to treacle, and she’s sinking into living, pulsing warmth. Slow and inexorable, the mud covers her knees, consumes her body, and

finally fills her lungs.

As the red earth enfolds her, Darcy hears a shudder deep

inside it, a rumble of ancient gasses at its core, a sound almost

like a word . . .

Bunyip.

Darcy woke with a start, gasping for breath, thrashing in the tan-

gled sheets. It took her long moments to realize that she was safe and sound in her own bed, not suffocating in the sacred, hungry

mud of an outback waterhole.

It had been ages since she’d had the bunyip nightmare. But

lying here in a sheen of sweat, Darcy perfectly recalled the Kiralee-inspired night terrors of her early teens. And in that moment she

realized that the black oil in Afterworlds was suspiciously similar to the living red mud of the Taylor mythos.

Funny that Kiralee had never mentioned that. Had she even

noticed? Or was she simply used to being borrowed from?

Imogen lay curled on her side of the bed, undisturbed by the

nightmare. It was only nine in the morning, hours before she usu-

ally stirred. In the five weeks since sending off Afterworlds, Darcy had stopped staying awake all night, sometimes going to bed as

early as two a.m. But Imogen still wrote till dawn, trying to make the first draft of Phobomancer too astounding to ignore. Their sleep schedules were gradually falling out of sync.

After all this hard work . . .

Darcy slid out of bed, put on a bathrobe and slippers, and pad-

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ded to the kitchen to make coffee. It was Imogen’s percolator waiting on the stovetop, Imogen’s brand of espresso in the fridge. Their possessions were entangled, their tastes entwined. But on mornings like this, when Imogen was still asleep and Darcy was alone in the early March chill, she felt fallen.

Cast out of YA heaven, and living with Audrey Flinderson.

She measured the grind, filled the percolator, and watched the

flame bloom. As she waited for the gurgle of coffee, Darcy warmed

her hands over the heat.

In some other universe, she’d chanced on another part of the

diary—a research note, a plot idea, or one of Imogen’s ridiculous

pen names. The Darcy in that world was still blissfully ignorant, no doubt excited to face a new day of writing. But this Darcy hadn’t

typed a single word of Untitled Patel.

The night before, not for the first time, Imogen had caught her

staring out the window, brooding. Imogen had closed her laptop

with a sigh and said, “There’s nothing wrong with flailing after you finish a novel. It’s just postpartum depression. But the cure is to start the next one.”

This wasn’t bad advice— Untitled Patel was due in less than six months. But Darcy was still wrung dry from her final days of rewriting. She’d thrown away all her previous efforts and gone in a new and crazed direction. She’d sent her characters to hell, sliced them up, and killed one of her favorites. And she’d left Yamaraj finally feeling like a proper death god, wounded in his heart and freighted with eternity.

The result wasn’t exactly a happy ending.

The weird thing was, both Moxie and Nan Eliot loved it. Darcy

should have been celebrating . . . after all that hard work.

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But Imogen hadn’t read it yet, not in the endless weeks since

Darcy had finished. She kept delaying, saying she needed to focus

on the first draft of Phobomancer. Once that was done, she could give Darcy’s new ending her full attention.

Or maybe she was sick of hearing about it. Sick of everything

Darcy Patel–related.

Maybe it was all just hard work now.

The coffee burbled and sputtered on the stove, promising solace

and caffeine. Darcy poured, cupped the warmth of the mug with

both hands, and joined her laptop at the writing desk in the big room.

Waiting in her in-box was an email from Rhea:

Hey, Darcy! Attached are the copyedits and style sheets

for AFTERWORLDS.

We fast-tracked these edits, and Nan says that if you can

get them back to us by Friday, the advanced copies at

BEA can be copyedited. Yay!

A glimmer of excitement stirred in Darcy, her gloom lifting.

There was something pleasingly official about being copyedited,

and frightening as well.

She opened one of the style sheets. It was a list, the names and

attributes of every character in Afterworlds.

Lizzie: 17, short for Elizabeth, white, only child, hair color

unknown

Yamaraj: appears 17 (3000?), Indian (brown skin), crooked

eyebrow, beautiful, brother of Yami

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AFTERWORLDS

Darcy frowned. The details of her protagonists seemed so

sparse and flat. Surely Lizzie’s hair color was mentioned some-

where in the book. She opened the file and did a quick search on

the word “hair,” but discovered only that Lizzie’s was long enough to push behind her ears when wet.

“Crap,” Darcy said aloud. Then she read the next description.

Jamie: 17, has car, lives with father

“‘Has car’? That’s it?” she cried out. No hair color, no brothers or sisters? No particular race? Hardly anything at all. But as Afterworlds had unfolded, Jamie had grown into someone quietly amazing. Not just a friend, but a touchstone of normal life that kept Lizzie from leaving the real world behind.

And she was nothing but a cardboard silhouette.

“Fuck!” Darcy yelled.

“Hey,” said a sleepy-looking Imogen from the bedroom door.

“Are you yelling at yourself?”

Darcy nodded. “Copyedits. Turns out I suck at characters.”

Imogen scratched her head, sniffed the air. “Is that coffee?”

They sat across from each other at the desk, perusing printouts of the style sheets.

“This timeline rocks,” Imogen said.

“I know, right?” The copyeditor had sifted through Afterworlds for every reference to time (Was it a school day? Nighttime? How many

weeks had passed?) and put them all into one place. Darcy marveled that she hadn’t made so obvious and useful a document herself.

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Another document, the Paradox in-house style guide, was more

arcane than helpful, though. Paradox demanded serial commas,

and wanted “recalled dialogue” to be set in italics. Numbers one

hundred and below had to be spelled out, but for anything higher

numerals were used. Unless the number appeared in dialogue or

was a big round number, like a million. There were so many issues

Darcy had never thought about. But these decisions, at least, had

been made for her.

When Darcy turned to the manuscript itself, she found the

tricky questions, the judgment calls. There seemed to be hundreds

of queries, several on every page. Darcy drifted through the docu-

ment, reading the copyeditor’s notes at random.

“What does this mean, Gen? ‘Can’t hiss without sibilant.’”

“Where is that?” By now, Imogen had her own copy open on

her laptop.

“When Lizzie’s in her kitchen with Mr. Hamlyn.” Darcy fol-

lowed the dotted line leading from comment to text. “The para-

graph that says, ‘“Be quiet!” I hissed.’ What the hell does ‘without sibilant’ mean?”

“It means there’s no s in ‘Be quiet.’”

“Oh. You can’t hiss something if there’s no s in it?”

“I can. Be quiet! ” Imogen hissed, her voice sinking into a fierce whisper, her neck muscles tensing, her teeth bared like a snake’s.

“Whoa,” Darcy said. “You totally hissed that.”

She created her own little comment box, and typed “stet.”

Kiralee had taught her this word, a magic spell for making edits go away.

“One down, a million to go.” Darcy read further. “Okay. Here’s

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AFTERWORLDS

a note that says, ‘You seem ambivalent about ghosts. Are they

people or not?’”

“Wait. The copyeditor queried the whole moral dilemma of

your book?”

“Yeah. But she’s right, Gen. Lizzie keeps worrying about Mindy

being a real person. But when those five little girls disappear, it’s no big deal!”

Imogen shrugged. “That’s because they’re minor characters,

like the guys in war movies who die in the background. Novelists

are evil psychopomps, basically. We treat a few characters as real, but the rest of them are cannon fodder.”

“But if the copyeditor’s asking about this, it must be confus-

ing. Maybe my book has a fundamental lack of ethical coherence!”

“Or maybe copyeditors just hate ambiguity,” Imogen said.

“Very true,” Darcy hissed, not as snakily as Imogen. “Stet.”

They read in silence for a while, Darcy still adrift among the endless queries. Tomorrow she would start at the beginning and address each in order, but at the moment sampling them was daunting enough. She didn’t want to panic and ruin this moment here with Imogen.

Darcy had missed working together at the same desk, the quiet

tap of keys, the shuffle of paper. Imogen was still in her pajamas, her hair bed-mussed and growing raggedly out of its last cut, beautifully unkempt. Maybe once Darcy was writing again, the words

she’d found in the diary would fade from her mind.

“Good coffee, by the way,” Imogen said.

“Thanks.” Darcy stared into her own empty cup. “And thanks

for doing this. I know you’re busy with Phobomancer. But I’d be going bat-shit without you here.”

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Imogen smiled and gave her a lazy cat’s-eye blink. “You should

enjoy this, Darcy. Copyedits are the fun part! You get to sit here for a whole week, poking around in the Oxford English Dictionary, pondering whether a semicolon or an em dash is better.”

“Your idea of fun and mine are somewhat different,” Darcy

said. “I mean, what does all this have to do with stories? Does a semicolon ever make the difference in a novel having the juice?”

“Dude. Semicolons bring the juice.”

“Once in my creative writing class in tenth grade, I called them

winkies.”

Imogen’s eyes widened. “Don’t ever tell Kiralee that. She will

disown you and never blurb you again!”

Darcy giggled. She’d completely forgotten about winkies. But

then she said, “Hang on. She’ll never blurb me again? Is Kiralee giving me a blurb?”

“Crap. That was a secret,” Imogen sighed. “Kiralee wanted to tell you herself, because she really likes the new ending. She called it

‘suitably brutal.’ But I’m hoping that phrase won’t be in the blurb.”

Darcy felt a smile on her face, the gloom of the last weeks lifting again. “I’m so glad you told me, Gen, even if you weren’t supposed to.”

“So when Kiralee calls, can you, like, pretend to be surprised?”

“That shouldn’t be hard. A big chunk of me is still amazed that

Kiralee Taylor even read my book, much less is going to blurb it.”

Imogen smiled. “I’d blurb it myself, but I don’t think my name

would sell too many copies.”

“But you haven’t read it,” Darcy said.

In quick succession, flickers of surprise, embarrassment, and

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AFTERWORLDS

annoyance flitted across Imogen’s face. Darcy hadn’t meant to say

it like that, or to have sounded so deadly serious, her voice breaking a little on the final word.

“Not the new ending, anyway,” she added lamely.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” Imogen raised her hands. “I’ve been crazy, I

know.”

“It feels like you’re mad at me.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m pissed at fucking Phobomancer, not you.”

Darcy tried to stop herself, but the words keep coming. “You

keep saying I’m such hard work!”

“I do?”

“Well, maybe you only said it once, when I was snooping in

your high school yearbook. But it kind of stuck in my head, because

. . .” Darcy squeezed her eyes shut. Crap. This was it, the time to be honest. “I sort of looked at your diary.”

Imogen said nothing. Darcy opened her eyes.

“It was an accident. Nan was about to call me, and I couldn’t

find my phone.”

“So you used mine.” Imogen’s voice revealed nothing. It wasn’t

angry, or disappointed, or intense. Her face was impassive, her eyes motionless. For a moment, she looked like a cardboard cutout.

Imogen: 23, white, tall, short dark hair

“I didn’t mean to look at anything, Gen, I swear. I was just

going to call my own phone—to find it. But I saw a page of your

diary by accident. And you called me hard work, and a bitch. Just

like that other girl.”

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Imogen shook her head slowly. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Now that her honesty had finally arrived, Darcy had no choice but to give it free rein. She needed to say everything.

“Do a search. Find the words: After all this hard work, another bitch! ”

Imogen drew the phone from her pocket, tapped at the screen

with slow deliberation. Darcy sat there, aware of her own heartbeat in the corners of her vision, the room warping with every angry

pulse. When she blinked, a single tear trickled from her eye.

After an endless silence, Imogen raised an eyebrow. “Huh. I

never noticed that.”

“Never noticed?” Darcy shook her head. “How could you not

notice? You typed it!”

“Not really.” Imogen’s voice was still infuriatingly flat. “That

wasn’t about you, Darcy. It was about my opening. The version my

agent didn’t like.”

“That makes no sense. Why would you say that about a scene?”

Imogen stood slowly. She was all in slow motion now, a statue

come to life.

“B is next to H,” she said quietly, and walked away across the big room.

Darcy knew that she should follow, should keep arguing until

everything was out in the open. This wasn’t about her spying on

some precious diary, it was about the two of them knowing what

they really thought of each other. It was about honesty, not secrets.

It was about whether Imogen/Audrey was writing another sav-

age screed in her head, or in her diary, this time about Darcy Patel.

But somehow she couldn’t make herself move. She was too angry,

too astonished that Imogen was responding in nonsense phrases.

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B is next to H. What the fuck did that mean? In what universe could that diary entry have referred to the opening of Phobomancer?

B is next to H . . .

Darcy’s fingers twitched, and then, quite suddenly and com-

pletely, she understood. Not with her mind, but in the marrow of

her hands, the muscles informed by the millions of words she’d

typed in her life, all the emails and school papers and fan fiction, all the discarded drafts of Afterworlds. Her fingers twitched again, spelling out the words, telling her what Imogen had meant.

Darcy stared at the open laptop just in front of her. On its key-

board the B was, in fact, just below the H. She closed her eyes, and saw the words again . . .

After all that hard work, another hitch.

Imogen’s finger had slipped and hit the B. Or one of the other letters in that little cluster— G, N, or V—and software had brought the error home.

“Fucking autocorrect,” Darcy hissed.

She stood up and made her way to the bedroom door. Imogen

had changed out of her pajamas into street clothes. She was stuffing T-shirts into a plastic bag.

“Please don’t, Gen. I get it now. It was just an accident.”

Imogen turned. “Just a hitch, I think you mean.”

Darcy tried to smile, but it felt wrong on her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Imogen said, and cleared her throat. “I could deal when

you snooped in my old yearbooks, Darcy. It made sense. You just

wanted to learn more about me. And you had every right to know my

real name. You were going to find that essay sooner or later, after all.”

“Imogen . . .”

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“And in the end, it wasn’t that big a problem that you stole my

scene. You didn’t mean to. Shit like that happens when writers live together, I guess. It was all okay, really, as long as I could have one thing that was my own. My fucking diary.”

“I know. But it was an accident.”

“How long ago? When did you read it?”

Darcy stared at the floor. “Six days before my deadline. The

night Nan called. I was just looking for my phone.”

“Sure. But you didn’t forget it. And you didn’t tell me you’d

read it for six weeks! That’s why you’ve been so depressed, right?

Because you keep thinking about that essay.”

“Yes,” Darcy said. She had to be honest from here on out.

“Because those words from my diary became the most impor-

tant thing for you, because they were supposed to be my secret.

Because they were mine. ” Imogen turned away, stuffing a handful of underwear into the garbage bag. “Nothing else I’ve said to you

in the last six weeks really mattered, did it? It was the words in that diary that you believed. The fucking typo that you trusted! Not me.”

“I trust you, Gen.”

“No you don’t! Whatever I hide will always be more important

to you than what I say and do. Whatever I give you will matter less than what I keep to myself. You’ll always want more than what’s in front of you. You’ll always want my innermost thoughts, my writing ideas, my real name.”

“Imogen Gray is your real name.”

“Not really. I’m Audrey, who wrote that pathetic, spiteful essay.

That’s how you see me.”

“I see you as Imogen.”

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“That’s just my pen name, and it might not even be that for

very long.”

“Please stop saying that. And please stop packing.” Darcy

leaned back against the wall, sliding down until she was on the

floor. “Talk to me.”

“Okay. Do you want to know what I really think? What my

diary really says about you?”

“Yes . . .” Darcy heard her own voice trail off. “I mean, except

if you don’t want to tell me. Keep any secrets you need to, Gen.”

“I never thought you were a bitch, Darcy. Never once. You’re

the opposite of that—a really sweet kid. Maybe a little lucky, a little sheltered, but smart enough that you didn’t really need the world to beat you up.” Imogen had stopped packing, but she had gone still

again, her voice flat, her face expressionless. “Smart, but maybe not as lucky as you seem. I think you got published too young.”

“Oh,” Darcy said softly. Her heart had just broken.

“Not because your writing isn’t ready, but because you aren’t.

You don’t trust me, and you won’t trust your own novel when it

gets out there and people start to write about it. Thousands of people, some brilliant, some stupid, or vile and hurtful. I’m so scared for you, Darcy. There are pages and pages in my diary about how

scared I am for you.”

“I had no idea,” Darcy said.

“That’s because I didn’t want my fears to become yours.

Because they’re mine. And I was right about keeping them a secret too, because you’ve spent the last six weeks freaking out over one fucking typo! What’ll you be like when a thousand people start

picking apart your novel?”

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“It’ll be okay,” Darcy said. “Because you’ll be there.”

“Maybe.”

Darcy didn’t understand the words. She couldn’t. She shook

her head.

“I think you also met me too young,” Imogen said. “That’s in

my diary too. You want something more epic than this relation-

ship, something fantastical and heavenly. You want us to read each other’s minds.”

“No, I don’t. I just wanted you to read my fucking ending.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that.” Imogen’s stone facade had

cracked. She looked defeated now, her hair in disarray, her face

flushed, like someone who’d lost a fistfight. “But right now my

opening still sucks, and I haven’t gotten any work done in the last month. And I really need to get my head clear, so I have to go

home. I have a book to write.”

Imogen turned away, stuffing a last few things of hers into the

plastic garbage bag—her phone charger, a handful of rings, a signed copy of Standerson’s latest from the tour, and the box of matchbooks that she’d brought over for writing purposes, full of random jobs and settings and potential fires.

Darcy tried to stand, to stop her girlfriend from leaving. But

gravity held her to the floor with an avaricious force. The air was thick, and it was impossible to speak a word.

Imogen went past without saying good-bye, leaving Darcy sitting

there, trying to breathe. For her whole life, her good luck had been a trick, a bait-and-switch, a setup. The fact was, Darcy’s luck was shit.

She had met the love of her life too young, and because of that

she would lose it all.

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CHAPTER 38

YAMA WAS BACK SOON, HIS HEAT SPILLING BEFORE HIM, SET-

ting the chandeliers flickering over our heads.

“Lizzie,” he said, and for a moment it felt good to hear my

name.

But then I had to tell him, “It was me. I led him here.”

A look passed between Yama and his sister. His was of sadness,

hers a cold expression of triumph.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

He shook his head, but he didn’t cross the floor, didn’t reach

out to me, just stared at his sister. For a moment I saw how similar their faces were. Despite his added years, they really did look like twins, except that her skin was gray, and his warm and brown.

Finally he turned to me. “I should’ve taught you more.”

“It was obvious.” My words tasted of the rusty air. “You kept

telling me that names are important.”

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“It was my fault.”

“Enough!” Yami clapped her hands, and black oil scattered

across the floor. “There’s time for penance when our people are safe.”

I nodded and held out my hand. The droplets of oil were skitter-

ing beneath our feet like black mercury, seeking one another. They joined into a single pool, as smooth and shiny as a disk of onyx.

“How do I find him?”

Yama took my hand. “Don’t say his name. It’ll only give him

warning. Just think about when you kissed him.”

A shiver went through me, but I remembered the bitter electricity

of Mr. Hamlyn’s hand against my lips, the cool dryness of his skin. I let myself hate him for tricking me, for fitting so perfectly into my murder of the bad man. For being exactly what I’d needed that night. I felt my hatred became a connection between us.

I pulled Yama into the dark pool and let the current take us.

We stepped out of the river into hell.

The sky was on fire here, too blinding to look at, crowded with

a hundred suns. The air slid into my lungs as thick as syrup, the

rust and blood a taste in my mouth now, not just a smell. A roaring filled my ears and shook my bones, and I knew that we were someplace even deeper than Yama’s underworld city.

Beneath our feet was broken pavement, cratered and pitted. In

all directions lay the remains of a modern-looking city, the buildings half-destroyed, the skyline as jagged as broken teeth.

I couldn’t see Mr. Hamlyn anywhere. It was too bright, too loud.

Yama stared at the broken cityscape, shading his eyes from the

searing sky. “These are his memories. But what are they?”

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My eyes were tearing up in the heat. “He kept talking about

a war, how whole cities died at once—adults, children, everyone.

That’s what made him like he is.”

Yama was looking up in awe. “Death falling from the sky.”

I understood it then—the thunderous drone that made the air

shiver and melt, it was the sound of a thousand propellers, the whistle of bombs falling through the air. It came from overhead, but also from the shattered ground beneath our feet, leaking from every stone.

I realized that it had to be the Second World War, and a strange

thought struck me. “He’s younger than you, isn’t he?”

“Some are old when they cross over.” Yama turned to me. “Can

you find him?”

I shut my eyes against the burning sky and felt it, the pull of

my hatred leading me to Mr. Hamlyn. He was inside the shell of

a building right in front of us. It had been six stories tall once, but only the outer walls stood, the windows looming empty.

The hot, smoky air made it hurt to talk, so I pointed. We made

our way across a hundred yards of crumbled asphalt and in through a gaping hole where a doorway had been. The interior was full of rubble, and the roar of airplanes and bombs echoed from the jagged walls.

Yama drew me to a halt. “We should be careful. The wolf is a

lion in his own den.”

I looked up. There was no roof, just more blazing sky. “You

mean, he’s comfortable here?”

“These are his memories of where he was made.”

I shook my head. By that logic, I’d be happy in an airport, the

air full of screams and the floor slick with blood. I didn’t want to imagine that place ever again.

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But the old man’s recollections were vivid, I had to admit.

“He’s up there.” I pointed at a ragged set of stairs that clung to one of the remaining walls. They led to a corner of the building that was more or less intact. As we climbed, I could feel the roar of bombs and airplanes, as if the stairs were about to crumble beneath our feet.

At the top was a landing, where a section of roof was still

attached, blocking out the fiery sky. We stumbled into its shade,

half-blind for a moment.

Mr. Hamlyn was waiting there for us. He sat on a broken block

of stone, a needle and thread in his hands. Scraps of cloth lay in a pile at his feet, the beginnings of a new patchwork coat. A shudder went through me as I realized: His clothes were patched together

from the pickings of a bombed-out city.

“Ah, you’re here.” He didn’t look up from his work. “Not just

young Lizzie but the impressive Mr. Yamaraj.”

Neither of us answered. The floor trembled beneath our feet.

“I suppose you’re upset about your missing children.”

“Are they here?” Yama asked.

Mr. Hamlyn looked up and smiled. “Only in spirit. But I’m sure

you have more for me to taste.”

Yama made two fists, and sparks began to drift from his skin.

The air grew even hotter around us.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “But I can burn you.”

Mr. Hamlyn’s eyes were bright. “You mean, we’ll be connected?”

“You’ll bear my mark. And if you trouble my people again, I’ll

find you, anywhere you run.”

The old man spread his hands, the needle still held daintily

between forefinger and thumb. “But I like it here just fine, and

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young Lizzie is welcome anytime. You, on the other hand, are starting to annoy me.”

Yama didn’t answer, walking toward him, sparks cascading

from his clenched hands. Mr. Hamlyn only smiled up at him.

That’s when I started to worry. The old man had fled in an

instant when Yama had confronted him before, and had even

seemed scared of me. But here in his own private hell, Mr. Hamlyn

was unmoved by threats.

He placed the needle carefully beside him, and reached for a

tangled ball of thread at his feet.

At last I saw the pattern of shimmering lines crisscrossing the

floor. They were threads of memory stretching from wall to wall.

Each glistening strand led to the tangle at Mr. Hamlyn’s feet.

“Yama!” I cried, just as the old man’s hand clutched the ball of

thread and pulled hard. The crisscrossed lines on the floor sprang into the air, suddenly taut, a shimmering spiderweb leaping into

form around us.

One of the strands bit into my thigh, cutting deep. I staggered

away, but two more went taut across my path, and I barely stopped

myself in time.

I didn’t dare move. The threads were all around me, vibrating

with the sound of the airplanes overhead. Yama was trapped in the

center of the web. His hand was bleeding, his black silk shirt sliced open in half a dozen places.

“Don’t move!” I cried. These were the same cutting memories

I’d used on the bad man’s spirit. The souls of people who’d watched their entire city burn in one night, countless yards of them wrapped around us.

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“You should listen to our young friend,” Mr. Hamlyn said. Blood

dripped from his hand that held the ball of thread, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Funny that you haven’t seen this little trick before. I suppose they didn’t have incendiary bombs in your day.”

Yama just stared down at the glittering lines that trapped him,

astonished.

“Meet the population of my hometown.” When Mr. Hamlyn

spoke, the threads shimmered around us like plucked strings.

“Funny what watching everyone you know die can do to a ghost,

and what the threads of that ghost can do to us.”

The old man pulled the ball of thread tighter. The glowing lines

closed around Yama.

He could barely move now, but his voice was steady. “What do

you want?”

The old man laughed. “Everything! I want all those ghosts

you’ve been collecting for me. Thousands of them! Especially the

ones who died young and loved.”

“Stop!” I cried. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

Mr. Hamlyn turned his colorless eyes on me. “You I would

never hurt, my little valkyrie. But you heard your friend. He’s very angry with me, and very dangerous.”

“I’ll never bring him near you again, I promise!”

“But I need his people, Lizzie. All those memories tended

through the centuries, just waiting for me.” The old man shook his head slowly. “Think of what I could weave from them.”

Yama growled, and a spray of sparks shot from his clenched

fist. The old man pulled the threads tighter, and new cuts opened

on Yama’s flesh.

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“Stop it!” I cried, and they both looked at me. A glowing strand

shuddered inches from my face.

“Get out of here, girl!” Mr. Hamlyn said. “I don’t want to hurt

you. I want to teach you things.”

“To hell with you!”

“Lizzie. You should leave.” Trickles of blood were pooling

beneath Yama’s feet. He stood in an awkward position, trying to

keep the glowing lines from cutting deeper.

“Yes, go,” Mr. Hamlyn said. “Before I get bored.”

I hesitated. Here at the periphery of the glowing spiderweb,

there just was enough space to make my way out. But if I did, the

old man would slice Yama to pieces.

“Okay,” I said softly. “Just a second.”

I visualized my way through the web before I moved, catalog-

ing every deadly thread. Then all at once I took three steps—each

awkward and dangerous—closer to the center.

The old man sighed. “You think you know more tricks than

me, girl?”

“I don’t know any tricks.” I reached out a hand and placed it

on Yama’s shoulder. “But if you want to kill him, you’ll have to kill me too.”

“Lizzie,” Yama whispered. “Don’t.”

A growl came from Mr. Hamlyn. “What makes you think I

won’t?”

I locked my eyes with his. “Because I want to learn from you.”

The words came out as if I meant them, because some part of me

did. I wanted to know how he made the sky burn, and how the raz-

ing of a city decades ago could be woven into a deadly web of light.

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The old man stared back at me, and he saw that I wanted

everything.

“You tempt me, girl.”

“I won’t bring him here again. And even if I did, I’m sure you’ve

got more tricks.”

“Flatterer.” He smiled at me. “You’ll keep him under control?”

I nodded. At that moment, I didn’t care about the ghosts the old

man had taken. I just wanted Yama to live.

“For you, then,” the old man said. “And because I need him

alive to keep his ghosts from fading. Be careful with him. Cuts are tricky, down here in the afterworld.”

I ignored him and snapped my fingers—a drop of oil slipped

from them. It fell through the shimmering lines and splashed into

Yama’s blood. Slowly it expanded, turning the dusty stone beneath

us black.

We began to sink into the floor, and for a moment Mr. Hamlyn

looked as though he was about to pull his web tight and cut us into pieces. But in the end he didn’t, and a few long moments later we

were in the river.

When we reached his palace again, Yama collapsed into my arms.

His shirt was in pieces, and he bled from countless cuts.

I set him gently on the cushions, looking around. No servants

in sight, and his sister was gone.

“Yami!” I called, then turned back to her brother. Blood pooled

beneath him, soaking into the gray pattern of the rug. It was bright red, and there seemed to be too much of it. Had the old man’s web

sliced open an artery?

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Then I felt the trickles on my own body, and looked at my arm.

The blood was flowing too fast, like water from my veins. A wave

of light-headedness swept over me.

“Yami!” I cried again.

“We have to go,” Yama murmured. “Home.”

“We’re there. But something’s wrong!”

“Not my home. Yours. Quickly.”

A blur of gray servants flickered in the corners of my vision,

and I heard Yami’s voice. “What happened? Yama!”

“The old man was setting a trap.” I stared at my arm, from

which the blood still flowed. “He cut us. Something’s wrong.”

“Take my brother to the overworld,” Yami cried. “Now!”

I looked up. “What? Why?”

“You can’t heal here, you idiot girl!” She clapped, and black

droplets fell like rain from her hands. “Your body is halted!”

I stared at her—and it slowly started to make sense. We didn’t

grow old, or tired, or hungry in the underworld, nor could we heal.

Our blood wasn’t coagulating.

Yama’s skin was growing pale. We were both bleeding to death.

“But this isn’t even my real body,” I murmured. “I thought this

was some sort of astral projection.”

“My brother has been able to travel in his own body for three

thousand years,” Yami said. “And you’re much stronger than you

know. Now go!”

A moment later we were in the river again, its current spinning

out of control and purposeless, a reflection of my panic. I

couldn’t think of any hospital I was connected to—all my

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memories of childhood accidents were too fuzzy, and my head

was light from blood loss.

But I remembered what Yama had asked earlier, for me to take

him home. I thought of my bedroom, willing us there. Maybe I

could stop the worst of his bleeding on my own, and then drive

him to a hospital.

At first the current obeyed me, taking us steadily up toward the

overworld. My arms stayed wrapped around Yama, protecting him

from the river’s needy wisps of memory.

But then, all at once, a new force shook the current, something

stronger than my will, and yanked us in another direction.

“Yama,” I hissed in his ear. “What’s happening?”

“The river’s calling you.” As he spoke, tendrils of his blood car-

ried into the raging current. “It’s sooner than I thought.”

I screamed into the river. Whatever disaster was happening in

the overworld, it couldn’t happen now.

Yama’s head rolled back, and his muscles went slack against

me. I held him tighter, as if that would keep his blood inside.

It was long minutes later that the river finally set us down . . .

. . . into chaos.

Gunfire and blinding lights came from every direction, and

smoke filled the air. We were deep in a forest, surrounded by pine trees that climbed into the sky, their branches laden with snow.

It was nighttime, but searchlights lanced through the smoke and

mist. Among the trees sat squat little cabins. Black-clad figures ran among them, stopping to fire rifles into the trees.

Why had the river brought us here? This didn’t look like any-

place I’d ever seen before, or anywhere I’d ever imagined.

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But Yama was still bleeding. He had to cross over into the real

world now, or I’d lose him. There was only one scrap of safety that I could see—a corner where two of the cabins had been built next to each other. I dragged him across the snow and into the shadows there.

“You have to cross over,” I whispered in his ear.

He didn’t answer. His face was as pale as the snow on the dark

ground.

“Yama!” I cried. Still no response.

I remembered what Yami had said: You’re stronger than you

know. And, of course, I was bleeding too. Which mean my real body had been down there in Mr. Hamlyn’s war zone.

Maybe I could do this . . .

I wrapped my arms around Yama and shut my eyes, focusing

on the crack of rifles around us, the panicked shouts.

“Security is responding,” I muttered to myself.

A moment later I felt it happen, both of us breaking through

the bubble of the flipside. The fresh air of the overworld surged

into my lungs, along with the half-remembered smell of tear gas

and gun smoke. It was suddenly freezing cold, my breath coiling

in front of my face. The sound of gunfire turned sharp and deadly.

But I had done it, traveled on the river in my real body . . .

Straight into a battle.

I didn’t have time to worry about bullets. I pulled at the places

where my shirt was already sliced, tearing off strips of cloth to bind Yama’s wounds. The gashes looked deep and brutal, but at last the

red was thickening, flowing like blood instead of water.

By the time I had tied his cuts as best I could, I was half-naked. I pressed myself shivering against him, trying to keep us both warm.

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The gunfire had tapered off, but shouts and the roar of vehicle

engines came from all around.

Then I saw the body in the shadows beside us.

It was a young man, probably in his twenties. He lay faceup, both

his hands wrapped around his own throat. Blood trailed away from

between the motionless fingers, red and thick in the snow. He’d been shot in the neck. His eyes stared straight at me, as if he’d been trying to speak, to get my attention in his last moments.

As I stared back at him in horror, his spirit stirred.

I’d seen this before, when the bad man had died. But I’d been

ready for that, and this caught me by surprise. A second version of the young man, pale and stone-faced, pulled itself up from the body on the ground.

He turned and looked at me, strangely calm.

“You’re dead,” I said to him, because that was the only thing I

knew for sure.

He nodded, as if this made all the sense in the world.

A shudder went through my frame. The cold was seeping in.

I turned from him, and saw more of them. More ghosts, spir-

its freshly torn from their bodies and set wandering loose on the

snowy ground.

“I think I’m here to help you,” I said.

Psychopomps were needed here, and the river had brought us.

“You’re an angel, then?” the ghost asked.

I had to laugh at this. In my shredded shirt, I probably looked

more like a madwoman than a heavenly creature. I was certainly

no valkyrie.

“I’m just a girl.”

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“But the prophet said there would be angels to greet us. Angels

of death.”

A chill went over me as I realized the obvious. The river had

brought me to the mountains of Colorado, to the home of a certain

cult with an Armageddon mentality, an isolationist dogma, and a charismatic leader. A place that had been surrounded for the last week by two hundred federal agents—a massacre just waiting to happen.

But right now I didn’t care much about souls who needed guid-

ance to the underworld. What I cared about was keeping Yama alive.

And, strangely, the dead cultist had just given me a glimmer of hope.

There were FBI agents here. They had to have doctors with them.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said, pulling myself gently from Yama’s side.

He opened his eyes, nodding weakly, but awake again. The

overworld and my crude bandages had helped a little, at least.

The ghost was kneeling now, his hands clasped together in

prayer. I ignored him and stepped from the shadows into the

searchlights sweeping the compound. My arms were wrapped

around me in the cold, but I pried them loose and forced myself

to hold my hands in the air. Freezing cold was better than bullets.

“Hello!” I called into the darkness. “I need help!”

A moment later a dozen flashlights pointed at me from the

trees, like the glimmering eyes of beasts.

An amplified voice called back at me, “Down on the ground!”

I hesitated, staring at the snow and wishing I was wearing more

than a shredded shirt. But the voice had sounded impatient, and I

dropped to my knees, then face-first into the snow.

“My friend needs help!” I shouted. “He’s bleeding!”

They didn’t answer, and it seemed to take forever before boots

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thudded across the hard ground, surrounding me. Rough hands

pulled my arms behind me, and the click of handcuffs reached my

ears. By then I was too cold to feel the metal against my skin.

They pulled me up into a sitting position, and finally I could

see them. Six men and one woman in bulky vests with FBI in bright

yellow across them.

“My friend’s bleeding, unconscious, unarmed,” I said through

chattering teeth, and jerked my head toward the cabins. “Please

help him!”

“Check it out,” someone ordered, and three of the men headed

toward Yama.

I looked up at the man who’d spoken, trying to utter some

kind of thanks, but the words died in my mouth. Behind him was

another agent. He stood among his fellows, looking a little con-

fused. His raid jacket was full of bloody holes, and he cast no shadows in the floodlights angling through the trees.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

He looked at me, a little surprised that I wasn’t ignoring him

like all the others.

I wanted to tell him it was okay, that there was more beyond the

veil of death. That some of the underworld was sane, well tended,

even civilized. But the cold had frozen my tongue by then, and a

moment later someone shoved me back down into the snow.

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CHAPTER 39

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE, PATEL. YOU’RE TEN MINUTES LATE!”

Darcy sighed. “Nice to see you too, Nisha.”

“This place is terrifying.”

Darcy looked around, shrugged. Penn Station was a bit cold,

and crowded, and the marble floors were streaked with rain tracked in from the streets outside, but it wasn’t scary at all.

“Is it the sandwich shop that frightens you, little sister? Or the Lox Factory?”

“It’s everything.” Nisha presented her duffel bag to Darcy, and

took the handle of her rolling suitcase for herself. “The general

ambiance distresses me.”

Darcy smiled. She’d never thought of herself as tougher than

Nisha, or tougher than anyone, really. But it was true that almost ten months of living in New York had left her with no dread of

shabbiness, underground tunnels, or crowds.

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Then the weight of the duffel bag hit. “What the hell, Nisha?

You’re only staying a week. What did you bring, bricks?”

“Books. You know, in case your fancy friends want to sign

them. At my cocktail party.”

“What cocktail party?”

“Carla and Sagan got a party.”

Darcy let out a groan. “That was my housewarming. And I

haven’t been doing parties lately.”

“All the more reason to have one now.” Nisha headed off

through the crowd.

Darcy followed, wondering why the heavy books weren’t in the

rolling suitcase, and why she’d been stuck carrying the duffel bag, and how Nisha had, annoyingly, chosen the exact right direction

out of the warren that was Penn Station.

Half an hour later they were in apartment 4E’s guest room. Nisha

was unpacking her suitcase, displacing Darcy’s dress jackets from

their hangars in favor of a wide selection of gothic attire.

“That looks like a lot of clothes for seven days.”

Nisha paused. “Are you having second thoughts about my visit,

Patel?”

“Of course not,” Darcy said, though her conversation with their

mother the night before had been somewhat daunting. Phrases like

“in loco parentis” had been thrown around. Phrases like “cocktail

party” had not.

“You don’t look very happy, is all.”

Darcy shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“I mean, you’ve got an apartment in New York, your first

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novel coming out in five months, and me visiting for a whole

week! You should be as happy as a unicorn fully jacked on Zoloft,

all rainbows and bliss. But you look like someone just drowned

your bag of kittens.”

“Way to mix your metaphors,” Darcy said.

“Those were similes. I though you writers knew that stuff.”

Darcy stared at her little sister, wondering why she was being

so clueless. Nisha knew everything that had happened a month

before, thanks to dozens of texts and emails and three long phone

conversations. It seemed cruel of her to pretend ignorance, unless she simply needed to hear it in person.

Maybe the subject was unavoidable. These days, the breakup was

measured not in the weeks since it had happened but in the minutes after awakening, before Darcy remembered that it was real.

“I miss Imogen.”

Nisha nodded sagely. “You still haven’t seen her?”

“Only by accident, last week on Canal Street. We talked and

were polite and everything. She hugged me at the end.”

“Hugs are good, right?”

“Hugs are crap! Hugs are zero.”

“Yeah, hugs are the worst,” Nisha dutifully agreed. “But I

thought you guys were still emailing each other.”

“We are. But not the screeds we should be writing. Just these

stupid little notes that say nothing—hugs in email form. Imogen

says she has to focus until she’s done with her book. We used to

work together, but I’m no longer conducive to work. I am drama.

I am turmoil.”

Nisha listened to this quietly, then sat down cross-legged on the

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floor, her position of wisdom. “But she hasn’t written a savage and lengthy essay about your faults, has she?”

“No. She wouldn’t do that.” Darcy had always been certain of this.

“For that matter, she hasn’t even officially dumped you.”

“She says it’s just until she finishes her book. She’s trying to be nice, I think, but it’s just taking longer and hurting more.” Darcy flopped back on the guest futon and stared at the ceiling. “Like

jumping off the Chrysler Building and hitting all the flagpoles and gargoyles on the way down.”

“Why would she do that, Patel?”

“Because I’m too young for a proper dumping! Imogen thinks

I’m too young for anything.”

“Yeah, that is kind of a general problem with you.”

Darcy raised her head to glare at Nisha. “You are younger than me, you know.”

“Not for my age.”

“Crap,” Darcy groaned, her head falling back onto the futon

again. “You’re probably right. I fucked up everything. I snooped

on her all the time, and I didn’t tell her when I was upset, or listen when she needed space.”

“So you told me in great detail.” Nisha drummed her fingers

on the floor a moment, then asked, “But snooping isn’t a dumpable

offense, is it?”

“I guess the really bad thing was not trusting her.”

“So trust her now.”

Darcy sat up. All these questions were making her restless.

“How do I trust someone who barely talks to me? What’s there to

trust?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“The one thing she’s telling you: That this isn’t the end. That

she just needs space to write.”

“But that’s what we did together,” Darcy said. “That’s who we were.

If we can’t write together anymore, what’s the fucking point?”

Nisha was silent for a long moment, as if she was really consid-

ering this. Her supercilious tone had shifted into something else.

Something more mature.

“Did Imogen say she never wants to write with you again?”

“I guess not. She claims it’s just this book making her crazy. But it was me making her crazy, Nisha.”

“Not if you trust her, Patel. Don’t give up just because she can’t be with you right now.”

Darcy didn’t answer. She wasn’t giving up. Not in a hundred

years.

But she was ranting in despair at her little sister, who’d only

walked through the door ten minutes ago, which was pathetic. The

weird thing was how calm and collected Nisha looked, as if events

were unfolding exactly as she’d planned.

“Is this how you wanted to spend your time in New York?”

Darcy asked with a sigh. “Listening to my misery?”

“I’m here to learn. And what you have taught me is to avoid

love as long as possible.” Nisha rolled her empty suitcase into the corner. “Is there food anywhere?”

Darcy managed a smile. “This is Manhattan. There is food.”

Their first stop was the ramen restaurant with the giant cat statue. It was one of the places where Darcy had lurked back in the lonely days just after the breakup, hoping to bump into Imogen. Things had never 541

SCOTT WESTERFELD

worked out that way, but Darcy still felt a little trickle of hope whenever the bell above front door jangled.

Also the noodles were exceptional.

“I named a book here,” Darcy said after they’d ordered.

Nisha looked up. “Untitled Patel finally has a name?”

“Alas, it remains untitled,” Darcy said. It remained mostly

unwritten as well, except for a few rough ideas. “But this is where I came up with Kleptomancer. That’s the name of Imogen’s second book. Pretty good, huh?”

“Dude.” Nisha shook her head. “Can we talk about something

else?”

“Sure. Whatever. How about my budget? That should be fun.”

“Indeed.” Nisha produced her phone and flicked at the screen,

always happy on the familiar ground of numbers. “I have all the

details right here.”

What followed was unpleasant.

It wasn’t just the prodigious rent of apartment 4E, nor

the many one-way plane fares purchased while tagging along

on Imogen’s tour. There were also the clothes that Darcy had

bought for the tour, and various furnishings acquired over the

last nine months, and her curious inability to keep her daily

expenses under seventeen dollars. (Food was so delicious. Beer

so necessary.)

But the worst thing, it turned out, was the fact that she hadn’t

kept any of her receipts for business expenses, and her first-ever income tax return was due in a week, along with a titanic check.

According to Nisha’s calculations, Darcy was almost an entire year ahead of schedule when it came to running out of money.

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“Why so surprised, Patel?” Nisha said when her presentation

was done. “Sooner or later there had to be a reckoning.”

“Yeah, but it’s all reckonings these days.” Darcy snapped her

chopsticks apart, and splinters flew in all directions. “I think my whole life might be reckonings from here on out. I just got my lease renewal form. My rent’s going up, starting in July. Ten percent.”

“Whoa.” Nisha made notes on her phone. “I told you to sign a

two-year lease, Patel.”

“I think Lalana would’ve noticed.”

“What are you going to do?”

Darcy shrugged. “I still love my apartment. But it isn’t like it

was.”

“So find a cheaper place. Or come home!”

“Nisha, I love you guys, but I have a sequel to write. I’m not

going to get anything done sitting in my old bedroom.”

“You wrote Afterworlds in your bedroom. In thirty days!”

“That was easy—I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Nisha shook her head. “Patel, you’ve got almost three months

left on your lease, and you have no love life anymore. So why not

get writing for real and see what you can do? I mean, after you’re done entertaining me this week.”

“Maybe.” It seemed like a decent idea.

“You know,” Nisha said. “The elder Patels still think you’re

going to Oberlin in September.”

“That’s unlikely. The application deadline was three weeks

ago.”

Nisha blinked. “I thought you had a place saved?”

“Yeah, I missed that deadline too. Like, almost a year ago.”

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“You’re pathetic, Patel.” Nisha laughed a little. “Not that it matters. Your financial aid is a smoking crater anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t just look at this year’s income, Patel. They look at

this year’s tax return. Which shows the money you made last year.”

Darcy swallowed. “You mean, the money that’s mostly gone?”

“You’ve got more payments coming in for publication, and for

Untitled Patel, but those will be an issue if you apply to Oberlin next year. As your accountant, I advise you to stick with the plan of being a writer for three years.”

“Um, could you have mentioned this earlier? Like, back at the

start, before I tossed away my college career?”

“You said that’s what you wanted! And I didn’t know you were

going to blow your advance on rent and noodles.”

Darcy slumped down into her seat. She was doomed.

The food came then, but Darcy found no solace staring into the

murky and expensive broth of her ramen. First Imogen’s phone and

autocorrect had conspired to destroy her life, and now her landlord, the IRS, and her future college were joining in. It was only a matter of time before the entire universe was arrayed against Darcy. Even her chopsticks were misbehaving, letting the udon noodles slip away, flicking broth into her face as they slapped the surface.

But the ramen’s taste was exquisite, and soon the two sisters

were talking about less depressing things: Nisha’s classes at school, her plans for college, the foibles of the elder Patels. Darcy filled her in on all the gossip from Carla and Sagan, whom she’d talked to

almost daily since the breakup, one of the small silver linings of the last month.

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AFTERWORLDS

Darcy wondered if she should look for more silver linings.

Nisha was right about her not having a life. Perhaps writing was

something she could still do alone.

“I just wish another idea would hit me,” Darcy said. “Something

big and weird, like when I found out about Mom’s friend getting

murdered.”

Nisha looked up from her empty bowl. “Oh right, about that.

You know how she didn’t say anything when she read your novel?”

“Yeah? Did she talk to you about it?”

“Not a word, ever. So I did some research, and it turns out that

was a different Annika Sutaria.”

Darcy stared at her sister. “What?”

“It turns out that India is, like, really populated. As a result, many people share the same name. The Annika who knew that

murdered girl is a month older than Mom. You suck at research.”

“Fuck,” Darcy said. The little ghost had never been hers at all.

Or maybe this meant that Mindy really was hers, because she’d invented her from a case of mistaken identity. Or perhaps it meant she’d used a tragedy she had even less right to steal. And what if by now that other Annika was also dead, and Darcy was the last person to remember Rajani at all, the last keeper of her ghost?

Darcy knew only one thing for certain: A ghost with a mistaken

identity wasn’t a bad idea for Untitled Patel.

“Can we go to a bookstore?” Nisha asked.

Darcy’s mind clicked back into the present. “You know, I’ve

sort of been avoiding the publishing thing.”

“You’ve got a book to write, Patel. How can you avoid the pub-

lishing thing?”

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“That’s the writing thing,” Darcy sighed. “The publishing thing is book blogs, YA Twitter feeds, mock Printz Awards, reviews. I’ve been offline for weeks.” Everything reminded her of Imogen.

“Yeah, well, bookstores are the reading thing. Come on.”

Book of Ages was one of the last big indie bookstores in Manhattan, more than half its floor space dedicated to young people’s lit. The walls were covered with vintage children’s art, the shelves thick with YA and middle-grade. There was a graphic novel section the size of half a tennis court, centered around a red-and-white-checked Tintin rocket as tall as Darcy. A visit to the Ages had been a highlight of every family trip to New York when the two sisters were little.

“So are you, like, a rock star here now?” Nisha asked as they

passed through the doors.

“I am a rock star nowhere,” Darcy said. “I don’t even have a

book out yet, remember?”

“A hundred and sixty-eight days and counting! So they won’t

recognize you? Will there be no discount?”

Darcy glanced at the woman behind the counter. She wasn’t

one of the handful of Ages employees that Darcy had met. “Sorry.

Full price.”

“No books for you then, Patel. As your accountant, I declare

you officially penniless.”

“Can I charge you a dollar every time you say ‘as your accoun-

tant’?”

“I doubt it would help.” Nisha said, then came to a halt, star-

ing at an end cap display of a dozen paperbacks, all with the same flame-red cover. “Hey, isn’t that . . .”

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AFTERWORLDS

Darcy nodded. It was Pyromancer.

“Weird,” she said, picking one up. “This wasn’t supposed to be

out in paperback till summer.”

“Is that good or bad?” Nisha asked.

“Not sure.” Darcy turned the book over. On the back was

the old blurb from Kiralee, and also the starred reviews, all the

mountains of praise that had never seemed to sell any copies. “But Paradox is still trying, I guess.”

Whatever the meaning, it felt good to see Imogen’s novel here

in quantity at the front of the store. Darcy turned to the author

photo on the back cover: Imogen looking happy, her hands

tucked safely in the pockets of her leather jacket to prevent head touching.

A stone formed in Darcy’s throat as she remembered the day

of the photo shoot. The Imogen in this picture had spent every day with Darcy by her side.

“Knock yourself out with that,” Nisha said, and headed off

toward the Sparkle Pony pop-up section.

Darcy opened to the first page.

Her favorite part of setting fires had always been the

matches. She liked the way they rattled, stiff little

wooden soldiers in a cardboard box, and the way they

bloomed into hot flowers between cupped palms. She

loved the ripping, fluttering noises they made as they

fought the wind. Even their remains were beautiful—

spindly, black, and bowed—after they’d burned all the

way down to fire-calloused fingertips . . .

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The words shivered on the page, just as they had the first time

she’d read them. She heard the author’s voice in the cadence of the sentences. For a moment, she expected Imogen to walk up behind

her and lay a hand on her shoulder, or a kiss on the back of her neck.

“Good timing, huh?” came a voice.

Darcy spun around. It was Johari Valentine.

“Oh, hi.” They embraced, pulled apart again. “It’s been ages!”

“I’ve been back home in Saint Kitts.” Johari shook her head.

“Couldn’t stand another winter up here. Bad enough, writing about

the cold without living in it!”

“Oh, right. When does Heart of Ice come out?”

“October.” Johari rapped her knuckles against the wood of the

nearest shelf, a little spell to ward off doubt.

“Mine’s late September,” Darcy said. She glanced at the end

cap. “What did you mean, good timing?”

“Imogen’s paperbacks, they came out just in time.”

“For what?”

Johari frowned. “You know, the president’s daughter? The

photo?”

Darcy shook her head. “I’ve been kind of . . . out of it.”

“Mercy, girl. I must have been out of it too!”

Johari looked astonished. Nobody must have told her about

the breakup. It seemed strange that there could be anyone left who didn’t know.

“What happened?” they both asked at once.

After a moment of standoff, Darcy sighed and went first. “I

haven’t seen Imogen for a while. We’re taking a break, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, darling. You two were so sweet together.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“We are sweet. It’s just for a while.” Darcy took a steadying breath, trying to heed Nisha’s advice to trust Imogen’s word. “No

big deal. But did you say something about the president’s daughter?”

Johari’s eyes widened. “Yeah, someone took a picture of her

walking to the helicopter, and she was carrying Pyromancer. It was easy to tell, because of that red cover.”

A startled laugh jumped out of Darcy. “That’s kind of funny.”

“It was, at first. But then some political blog made a big deal out of it, because of the ‘questionable content.’ You know. Girl starting fires, kissing other girls.” Johari chuckled, shaking her head. “Then some news channels followed along, and for a while, everyone was

talking about Imogen.”

“Seriously? How did I miss this?”

“It was only three days ago? Four? The silly people have moved

on to talking about something else by now. But I suppose people who read novels have longer attention spans, because it’s still selling.”

“Whoa. What a lucky little shit she is.”

This set Johari, who never swore at all, laughing again.

Darcy laughed along, already composing a congratulations

email to Imogen, and wondering if her good luck was still around

after all. Maybe Imogen had just borrowed some of it for a while.

549

CHAPTER 40

THIRTY MINUTES LATER I WAS SITTING IN A MAKESHIFT CAMP

half a mile from the compound. The air buzzed with radios and the

rumble of a generator, which powered huge floodlights shining into the trees. The lights were hot enough to melt the snow in the pine boughs above, and a soft, glistening rain misted down into their beams.

Sitting on my crate, I was close enough to benefit from the

warmth of the floodlights, and was wrapped in two mylar blankets.

My cuts had been bandaged, and pronounced too minor for me to

be taken to the medical tent. I had a mug of coffee nestled between my hands, which a very kind FBI agent had given me. My walking-through-walls magic had made short work of the handcuffs, but

nobody seemed worried about that. Maybe it was because I was a

half-frozen, half-naked young girl, or maybe because the situation was secure, with no gunfire for the last fifteen minutes. Whatever it was, everyone had stopped pointing guns at me.

AFTERWORLDS

Soon I would slip away, down into the river and back to my

warm bedroom. But not until I was certain Yama was okay. I didn’t

know where the wounded were being treated. I was afraid to ask, in case someone noticed I was free and handcuffed me again, which

would mean taking my hot coffee away. So I sat there just waiting, numbed by all I had seen.

The freezing cold had reached all the way inside me, joining

with the place that had been there since Dallas. I wondered if I

would ever be warm again.

Then I realized that someone was staring at me. I looked up

from the depths of my coffee.

“Oh,” I managed, my heart sinking. The grim reaper that had

swept through my life had kept on going.

“Miss Scofield. How odd to see you here.”

I nodded. “I guess everything must seem a bit odd to you right

now.”

Special Agent Elian Reyes stared at me, uncertain, confused.

But after a moment, he sat down on another crate, and we stared off into the trees together. The cold place inside me, and the real-world cold that had joined it, was dampening my reactions. It all seemed very normal, somehow, sitting with him.

Of course, comforting the dead was my job now.

“I forgot you might be here,” I said.

“I almost wasn’t. It’s only been four hours since I landed in

Denver.” He looked down at his hands, as if he didn’t recognize

them. “Last one here, first one through the door.”

I nodded. “It’s all about timing. You miss your flight, and

everything turns out different.”

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“You know, I almost did, but for once there was no traffic on

the way to LAX.” His laugh was short and dry. “Or maybe if I’d

been a little faster on my feet.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Agent Reyes. Everyone blames

themselves.”

He looked at me. “Are you okay, Lizzie?”

“Really cold, is all.”

“Cold? So you’re not . . . like me, are you? But you can see me.”

I shook my head. “I can see ghosts, because of what happened

in Dallas. It changed me. This is my new calling.”

Agent Reyes was thoughtful for a moment. “You seem a bit

young for that job.”

I nodded in complete agreement, wishing that I was eleven

again, not knowing anything about how the world worked. Not

about bad men, or the secrets of death, or even that my father

would be leaving us soon.

But there was no going back.

“I’m supposed to guide people, I think. I’m not quite sure how

exactly, but I’ll try to help you. Though maybe . . . you could help me first?”

“Of course, Lizzie. I always wanted to help you more than I

could.”

“I guess I knew that.” It took a moment to speak again. “My

friend was here, another guide, and he was hurt. They must have

taken him wherever the doctors are.”

“I was just at the med tent.” Agent Reyes pointed into the

distance, at another glow among in the trees. “Your friend will be there, unless they’ve airlifted him out. I’ll take you.”

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He held out his hand, and as I took it, I let myself slip across. It wasn’t as cold on the flipside, and now I had a ghost to guide me.

Special Agent Reyes and I found Yama in the medical tent, his

wrists handcuffed to the metal rails of a stretcher. He still looked pale, and a bag of plasma hung from the IV stand beside him. His

wounds were hastily bound in white gauze, with black stitches

peeking out from the sides.

But his eyes were open. “Lizzie.”

I stepped forward, took his hand. My voice wasn’t working.

For a moment, it was tricky keeping myself here on the flipside.

The tent was full of wounded agents and handcuffed cultists, and

two bodies lay in the corner, sheets pulled over their heads. Agent Reyes’s gaze drifted toward them.

“Thank you for saving me,” Yama said.

A strangled laugh forced its way out of me. “I led you into a trap.”

He shook his head. “That was my mistake. We’re even now.”

A medic lingered by the stretcher, probably wondering why

Yama was murmuring to himself. He fell silent as she flicked a light into each of his eyes, checked the IV bag, and took his pulse.

“Do you get used to being invisible?” Agent Reyes asked me.

“Sort of.” I stared at Yama. He had saved me in the airport, and

now I’d saved him, but my stupidity had cost the afterlives of three of his people. It didn’t feel even to me.

The medic moved on.

“Have the doctors said anything? Are you going to be okay?”

“They don’t say much to me.” Yama rattled his handcuff against

the stretcher rail. “I appear to be in disfavor.”

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“On behalf of the bureau, I apologize.” Agent Reyes looked genu-

inely sorry. “We don’t have any protocol for spirit guides, I’m afraid.”

“I won’t be here long.” His eyes turned to me. “I have a city to

protect.”

“Of course,” I murmured. Without Yama to guard them, his

people were easy prey. “Can I do anything to help?”

He nodded weakly. “Yami will call you.”

I wondered for a moment what Agent Reyes was making of our

conversation. But he was staring at the sheet-covered bodies in the corner of the medical tent.

I turned back to Yama. “I’m not afraid of Mr. Hamlyn.”

“You don’t need to be. I think he likes you.”

My breath caught. Yama had heard the truth in my voice when

I’d said I wanted to learn from Mr. Hamlyn. The man who had

taken his people.

“I know he’s bad.”

“One can learn from monsters, Lizzie. After all, I wasn’t the best teacher.”

“Don’t talk in the past tense, please. You’re not going to die!”

“No, but I’ll have to stay in my city now. The predator won’t

leave my people alone.”

“You’ll have to stay there . . . all the time?”

“Every minute I’m away, he’ll hunt them.”

I shook my head. All those hours we’d spent together, on bleak

mountaintops or his windy atoll, were suddenly precious.

“And my sister was right,” he said. “I’ve been lazy.”

I swallowed something hard in my throat. “But it’s okay if I

visit, right?”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Lizzie, you can do more than visit. You can come and live with

us.” A slow and beautiful smile overtook his face as he spoke, but I couldn’t answer it.

Yama’s city was magnificent, but also gray and silent, and I was

already so cold inside. I could think myself into the afterworld, and smell rust and blood in the air. Death had been with me from the day I was born, and on top of all that, I was a murderer now.

What would living in the underworld do to me? Would I forget

what sunlight felt like? Or start to hear the voices of the dead in every stone?

There was so much I’d meant to tell Yama tonight, but there

hadn’t been time. Around us, the medical tent was growing busier

as more wounded were brought in.

I reached out my hand and brushed his cheek. With him in the

real world and me on the flipside, the electricity of his touch was only a fleeting thing.

“My mother needs me now.”

“There’s no rush for you and me,” he said.

Of course not. Yama planned to live forever. He could wait a

hundred years, until my mother was a distant memory, my oldest

friends all dead and buried.

But I couldn’t wait for him. Not for a hundred years, not for a hundred days. Since when was love something you didn’t rush? I

leaned forward and kissed him, and the spark of his lips was still there, even through the veil of the flipside.

But when I pulled away, he let out a gasp.

“Lizzie. What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

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“You did something.” His voice had gone soft and harsh, and the

shouting and bustle of the medical tent came rushing into the quiet.

He knew. He had tasted it on me.

“The bad man. I went back to his house.”

Yama shook his head. The color was draining from his face, as

if his wounds were flowing again.

“He was keeping those little girls there. And his memories were

inside Mindy, making her scared all the time. But I fixed it. He’s gone, cut to pieces.”

“By the predator?”

“Yes, by Mr. Hamlyn.” My gaze fell to the dirt floor again. It

was glistening beneath my feet. The space heaters in the medical

tent were melting the frozen ground. “But it was me who killed

him.”

Yama closed his eyes, his face twisting with pain. A hard and

bitter moan seemed to leak out from his whole body.

I opened my mouth to say that it had been an accident. But I’d

driven up to Palo Alto with a purpose, and Yama had sensed my

murder on me.

I’d become like the stones that smelled of blood, and whispered

with the voices of the dead. Stained, like the rest of the world, except for that moon-shaped sliver of island in the great southern sea.

“You’ve never killed anyone, have you?” I asked.

“Of course not.” His eyes opened, glistening with tears. “Don’t you understand, Lizzie? Whatever comes after, life is priceless.”

I stood there, silent. Almost dying had, in fact, taught me that,

but it had taught me too many other things at the same time. All

of it was jumbled in my brain now, a mess of strange rules and

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unexpected horrors. In the end, my anger won out over the rest of

what I’d learned.

Yama had kept his hands clean for thousands of years, and it

had only taken me a month to kill someone.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Yama gave me one last look of horror, and turned his face away.

“You should go help Yami.”

“Of course.” I would have done anything for him. But when I

closed my eyes and listened to the still air of the flipside, there was nothing. “It’s just . . . she hasn’t called me yet.”

“She will soon.” He closed his eyes again. We were done.

I took a step backward, away from his stretcher. A medic rushed

past, running to help with a wounded agent being carried through

the open tent flaps. As she went through me, I felt the spark of her intensity, her resolve to save the man’s life.

I turned from Yama and walked away.

Committing murder was so much worse than giving away

his name, because it had changed me. All he’d ever wanted was a respite from death. For a few hours on a mountaintop, or a

few moments when our lips touched. And now that was gone

between us.

“Lizzie.” It was the ghost Agent Reyes, following me out of the

tent. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, still walking.

“Your friend, I overheard the medics. He’s going to be fine,

once he’s got some plasma in him.”

“Thank you.” My voice sounded broken.

Agent Reyes stood in front of me, forcing me to stop. “I heard

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what you were saying to him, about a bad man. That’s why you

called me, isn’t it?”

It took a moment to understand that he didn’t mean a call on

the current of the Vaitarna River, or the way this gun battle had

called me here to Colorado. He only meant a phone call.

“Right. When I asked you about serial killers.”

He nodded. “That wasn’t hypothetical.”

His gaze was too steady, his gray eyes too sharp, and I had

to look away. “I guess you’re not an FBI agent anymore, right?”

“No. The bureau doesn’t employ ghosts.”

I nodded. “Well, there was this serial killer, and I helped chop

him into pieces.”

“Is that part of your calling now, Lizzie? Avenging the dead?”

I shook my head. I had no calling, no purpose. I wasn’t a

valkyrie or a spirit guide. All I wanted was to go home. “It was just a mistake, an awful one. But it’s okay. My fingerprints on are on

the murder weapon, and I texted someone from right in front of

his house. They’ll catch me.”

At that moment, I wanted to be caught. To be punished, not for

what I’d done to the bad man, but to Yama. To us.

Special Agent Reyes’s hand took mine, just for a moment, his

expression sad and steadfast.

“We don’t catch everyone,” he said.

I spent all night in the flipside, sleepless, numb, waiting for Yami’s call.

Mindy was still full of energy, and took me on a tour of the

neighborhood, regaling me with all the gossip she’d picked up over years of spying. She didn’t notice how quiet I was.

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AFTERWORLDS

It was unsettling, unreal almost, how much of her personality

had disappeared when I’d killed the bad man. As if the deepest

parts of her had been erased.

As if she wasn’t a person anymore at all.

The hours passed and dawn drew near, and I started to

worry about Yami. I knew she didn’t like me very much, but

I was all she had to protect her brother’s city. Why hadn’t she

called by now?

She had died young and slowly in that field of bones thousands

of years ago. Maybe Mr. Hamlyn wanted the threads of her life, and had already taken her.

I thought about going back to Colorado, to tell Yama that

she hadn’t called. But if his sister was in danger, he would leave his bed in a heartbeat, and that would be the end of his healing. I didn’t want to imagine him guarding his people, pale and stitched

and bloodless, like some zombie king in a gray palace.

But finally, just as dawn broke over the Andersons’ yard, I

heard a faint call on the winds of the flipside.

Elizabeth Scofield . . . come here.

It was Yami’s voice. She hadn’t said, “I need you,” like the first time she’d called. This was a command.

I didn’t hesitate, didn’t even say good-bye to Mindy, just let the river take me. It was a short and furious trip, much quicker than

my first journey down to the underworld. And when the black oil

of the river passed from my eyes, there was no gray palace to greet me, no red sky.

Just a too-familiar street in Palo Alto.

Yami was waiting for me on the bad man’s lawn. Around her,

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the gnarled and stumpy trees marked where the little girls had

stood for so long. It was strange to see them gone.

“What is this?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I have news for you.” Yami sat down on the grass, cross-

legged. “Come and join me, girl.”

I took a few steps closer, but didn’t sit.

“Don’t be afraid, Elizabeth. It’s only dirt.”

“Do you know what’s buried down there?”

“The dead are buried everywhere.” Yami stroked the gray

blades of grass. “The earth is a graveyard.”

I supposed she was right, but I stayed on my feet. The place I

had dug away with my own frantic fingers was smooth now.

“Yami, what did you do?”

“We buried the past.”

I took a step backward, looking up at the house. The bay win-

dows of the front bedroom stared balefully down at me. “You bur-

ied . . . the bad man?”

Yami let out a sigh. “Don’t be absurd, Elizabeth. He’s far too

heavy. And if the police found him in the ground, it would cause

a stir.”

“Heavy? But you’re a ghost. You can’t carry anything.”

“Of course not.” Yami opened her palms on her knees, as if she

was meditating. “Mr. Hamlyn was most helpful.”

My heart beat sideways once. “Mr. Hamlyn?”

“Sit down, girl. You don’t look well.”

I finally obeyed her. I didn’t feel well either.

“After you left Yamaraj, my brother called me to his side,” Yami

began. “You managed to save him from the predator, it seems.”

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AFTERWORLDS

“Um. You’re welcome.”

She arched an eyebrow at this, and continued, “He told me to

return home, and to call you down to help protect our city. Obvi-

ously I did not. There was work to be done there in Colorado. Souls to be gathered.”

I stared at the ground, realizing that I’d done nothing to help

the ghosts at the gun battle. I was a crappy psychopomp on top of

all my other failings.

“There was an FBI agent there,” I said. “Elian Reyes. Did you

help him?”

Yami was smiling now. “We helped each other. He told me

what you’d done, chopped someone to pieces. It was obvious that

the predator had helped you with that. So when I returned to our

city, I waited. He came soon enough, hungry, as promised.”

“But why didn’t he just . . .” My voice faded as Yami placed her

hand firmly on mine. “Sorry. Go on.”

She set to rearranging the fabric of her skirt across her knees.

“Fortunately, Mr. Hamlyn is not the sort of man who rushes things.

I was able to explain what Agent Reyes had told me. About your

fingerprints, your phone messages, your general incompetence.”

I stared at her. “It was my first murder, you know.”

“And a very useful one, Elizabeth. I let Mr. Hamlyn understand

that if your crime were ever found out, you would have to flee

the overworld. Which would mean you coming to live with my

brother.” She shook her head slowly. “Neither of us wanted this to happen.”

I shook my head. “Why does Mr. Hamlyn care?”

“Think harder, girl. If you come to live in the underworld, my

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brother has no reason to leave his city unprotected. So the predator loses his prey.”

“So Mr. Hamlyn covered up my crime, hoping that I’ll distract

Yama?”

“Exactly.” Yami smiled again. “Whereas I know that my brother

will stay where he is needed. Because he loves his people more than he loves you.”

I didn’t answer that. After what I’d done, she was probably

right.

In the corner of my eye, I noticed the cat, the one that lived

nearby, watching us. It was crouched in a hunter’s pose behind one of the gnarled little trees—chest and forepaws down in the dirt, its rear up in the air, muscles bunched and ready to spring. But in that way that cats sometimes do, it just stood there frozen, never coming after us.

I looked at the unsettled ground. “So what did Mr. Hamlyn

bury here?”

“A few smashed bottles of pills, evidence of a struggle. When

they find your victim, he’ll be an old man who had a heart attack

in his sleep, rolled out of bed, and landed hard. Nothing worth

investigating, and even if they dust for fingerprints, Mr. Hamlyn

polished the shovel. He and I have a wager. Will my brother choose his people, or you?” Yami sighed. “Mr. Hamlyn thinks rather highly of your chances. I’m not sure why.”

I stared at her. “But why did he bother making a bet with you?

Why didn’t he just . . . eat you?”

“His tastes are rather specific.” She held out her hand, show-

ing me a soft scar in her gray skin. It was a half-moon shape, and 562

AFTERWORLDS

I remembered the shard of bone that had cut through her. “I may

have died young, but it was in terrible pain.”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, receiving it like an apology that was her due. Then

she reached out and brushed my scar, the tear-shaped one on my

cheek. Her fingertips had a fiery spark, like a snap of static electricity, sharper and meaner than her brother’s.

“It’s unfortunate, this path you’ve taken, Elizabeth.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“You’ve made a few.” Yami sighed gently. “Sometimes I wonder

whether my brother was right to follow me. My parents lost two

children that day.”

“But you want him to stay with you now?”

“Lord Yama chose his path.” She stood. “Choose yours, Lizzie.

Life is priceless.”

She snapped her fingers, and droplets fell to the grass around

us, glittering like black diamonds.

Before she could depart, I said, “You’re probably right. He

won’t abandon you, or his people. Not for me, anyway.”

Yami stared at me a moment, then shrugged before she slipped

away.

“If I knew the answer for certain, it wouldn’t be a proper bet.”

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CHAPTER 41

IT STARTED SLOWLY AT FIRST, LONG DAYS OF STARING AT HER

computer screen with nothing to show for them. But Darcy forced

herself to stay at her desk, hour after hour, until the words at last began to come. For a week they dripped, like water from a broken

tap, but gradually they came faster, until whole chapters flowed

onto the page each day. She reached the terrific speeds she had

back in that fateful November eighteen months before, and then

surpassed them.

In the end Untitled Patel consumed her, drowning out her

own dramas in the clamor of Lizzie’s continuing story, and that

of a ghost who was mistaken for someone else. Darcy lost herself

in scene structure and syntax and semicolons, in plot and conflict and character, the elements of story contesting with each other for space on the page. She sprang up in the middle of the night to write, not because she was afraid she would forget her ideas, but because AFTERWORLDS

her head would explode if she didn’t write them down. She wrote

straight through her nineteenth birthday, and hardly noticed.

The month passed quickly in the end, at such a gallop that she

hardly felt the absence at the center of her days, the empty chair across her writing desk. She never grew weary of store-bought

ramen, or worried about money and the other fleeting details of

real life. And as the middle of May approached, she found her-

self completing the first draft of her second novel, the sequel to Afterworlds. It was messy, downright chaotic at the end, and still untitled, but there was time to fix all that.

As far as Darcy could tell, it was a real book, or close enough.

There were even flickers of the juice. And a week before BookExpo

America, she emailed it to Moxie Underbridge and collapsed into

several days of sleep.

Books were free here. It was magic. It was huge.

Darcy had woken up early, anxious about her first public event

for Afterworlds, a signing of advanced readers’ copies at BEA. Her nerves had only sharpened when a chauffeured car arrived to take

her uptown and deposit her in front of the Javits Convention Center.

Inside, the main hall was vast and buzzing. The ceiling was a

hundred feet above her head, and the rumble of thirty thousand

booksellers, librarians, and publishing pros shivered in the air.

Darcy felt small and overwhelmed.

But books were free here.

Some were piled in modest stacks of twenty, and some laid

like bricks to form book forts big enough to hide inside. Some

were handed to you if you showed a flicker of interest, and some

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were arranged in spirals, almost too pretty to ruin by taking them.

Almost.

Half an hour before her signing, the empty duffel bag that Darcy

had brought was already overloaded, and she cursed herself as a neophyte. She could have brought a duffel bag full of duffel bags instead.

Of course, how would she lift all those books? How would she

even read them all?

Still, they were free. Not just the YA novels she’d been able to

scam out of her fellow authors over the last year, but historicals and cookbooks and category romances, thrillers and science fiction and even graphic novels. All of their publication dates were months away, and they all had that beautiful freshly printed smell.

By the time Rhea called her and told her it was time to meet at the Paradox booth for the signing, she had almost forgotten to be nervous.

At one end of the cavernous hall was the signing area, a cattle yard of stanchions guiding hundreds of people toward a long row of

authors. Giant numbers hung above each aisle, lending a stamp of

order to the industrial-size muddle of the crowds.

Debut author Darcy Patel, signing her novel Afterworlds, had been assigned aisle 17. She approached the signing area in the tow of Rhea, who had kindly stuffed the duffel bag full of free books into the nether regions of the Paradox booth. Darcy was wondering how

many Paradox bags she could scam.

“There are self-pubbed romance writers on both sides of you,”

Rhea was saying. “They’ll have long lines, but nothing crazy. You

were supposed to be next to this former child actor signing his self-help book, but we managed to get you moved.”

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“Because his huge line would embarrass me?” Darcy asked.

Rhea shook her head. “We just don’t like movie stars next to

our authors. It’s distracting. Their heads are too big!”

She led Darcy behind a giant black curtain, into the setup

area for the signings. Boxes were piled everywhere, and a fully

loaded forklift whirred past as they made their way toward the

rear entrance to aisle 17. Darcy was wearing the cocktail dress her mother had given her on that first day in Manhattan. The dress

had always brought her luck, but it felt out of place here among the freight and scurry of backstage.

“Good news: Your books made it.” Rhea pointed at a stack of

boxes covered with Paradox logos and the words Afterworlds—

Patel. “What kind of pen do you sign with?”

“Um.” Darcy tried to remember the sage advice that Standerson

had given her last year. “Uni-Ball . . . something?”

“Vision Elite? Jetstream? I prefer Bic Triumphs.” Rhea was

rummaging in her bag. “Take three of each, and a Sharpie for casts, show bags, and body parts.”

“Thank you.” Darcy meekly accepted the handful of pens.

“We’ve got five boxes to get through. That’s a hundred copies,

give or take.” Rhea knelt and slid a box cutter down a seam of tape.

The folds leaped open, revealing the familiar cover, which now

wore both Kiralee’s and Oscar Lassiter’s blurbs.

Darcy knelt beside Rhea. A single advanced copy had arrived

at apartment 4E a week ago, but it was staggering and wonderful

to see her novel in quantity. The real books didn’t come out until September 23, four whole months from now, but these advanced

copies were somehow more precious. Each was marked: Not for Sale.

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“A hundred of them?”

“Yep. That’s about thirty seconds per customer.”

Darcy looked at Rhea. “Am I really going to have that many

people? I mean, who’s heard of me?”

“A ton of people downloaded the galley. There’s buzz.” Rhea

smiled. “And these are free, after all.”

Darcy swallowed. What if you gave away your books for noth-

ing, and still nobody came?

The appointed time arrived, and Darcy found herself in front of

the black curtain, perched on an unusually high chair behind a signing table. Rhea was at her side, stacking up copies of Afterworlds, and in front of Darcy stretched a line of people who actually wanted her signature.

But it wasn’t a very long line—maybe twenty-five people. Not

a hundred, surely.

“Ready to go?” Rhea asked, and Darcy nodded dumbly.

The strange thing was, a lot of them had already read Afterworlds.

“I downloaded that galley the first day,” said a librarian from

Wisconsin. “My teens just love anything with terrorism. Can you sign it, ‘Congratulations Contest Winner’?”

“Great first chapter,” said a bookstore owner from Maine. “But

I was hoping there’d be more about the death cult. Those cults are a real problem, you know?”

“I love ghost romances,” said a blogger from Brooklyn. “Lizzie

should have got with that FBI agent, especially after he died. Which was kind of her fault.”

There were more comments and suggestions, and much polite

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AFTERWORLDS

praise. But already the reactions were so varied, and sometimes a

little strange.

“There’s a sequel, right?” asked a bookseller from Texas. “Lizzie

and Mindy should start solving other people’s murders. It would be so cute.”

Darcy smiled and nodded at everything that was said to her,

signing her name with the new autograph she’d been practicing all

week. The D was huge and sweeping, sprawling across the full title page, swelling with pride.

But signing here in this convention hall somehow had the

feel of business, with none of the glamour, intensity, or love of

Standerson’s events. Not that Darcy had earned such adulation yet, but part of her was impatient for actual teenagers to start reading her novel. These were gatekeepers. She wanted zealots.

And there weren’t enough of them. Only twenty minutes into

Darcy’s hour, the line trickled down to nothing. She tried to keep the last man talking, but he hadn’t even wanted a dedication, only a signature, and soon he was gone. For an uncomfortable moment

Darcy and Rhea stared at each other, saying nothing.

“Crap. Should I just sneak away?”

“Of course not! Just don’t sign so fast. More people will show

up. They’ll drift over from the other aisles.” Rhea smiled. “In fact, here’s two more.”

It was two of Darcy’s sister debs, Annie and Ashley. They wore

matching T-shirts emblazoned: 2014!

“Hey,” Darcy called as they approached. “Sister debs!”

The smile crumpled on Ashley’s face. “My book got bumped till

next spring. I’m not really your sister deb anymore.”

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Annie put a comforting arm around her. “I told you, you can

still wear the shirt.”

“I’m so sorry,” Darcy said. “But thanks for sending me Blood Red World. I loved how complicated the politics were. And those make-out scenes on Mars! Would low gravity really work that way?”

“I hope so.” Ashley was staring at Darcy’s pile of books. “How was your signing? You must have been mobbed!”

“Mildly,” Darcy said. “But everyone was really nice.”

“Your cover’s so great,” Annie said, picking up a copy of

Afterworlds. “I love the whole sleepwalking thing!”

“Black-and-white is the new black,” Ashley added.

“Thanks.” Darcy wondered if their covers were out. She hadn’t

kept up with any cover releases in the last two months, nor had she ever pursued the promised interviews with Annie, or put anything

else on her tumblr. She was a bad sister deb, and felt a sudden need to make up for it. So she said, “I’m nineteen, by the way.”

“That was my guess!” Ashley began a dance. “Score!”

She looked so happy that Darcy didn’t point out that she had

been eighteen back when the sister debs had laid their bets. Instead, she signed their copies of Afterworlds.

As they headed off, Kiralee Taylor and Oscar Lassiter came

winding through the empty corral of stanchions.

“I’ve been told there’s some sort of Hindu death-god book

available here?” Kiralee called. “Can such a thing be true?”

Darcy laughed. She hadn’t seen Kiralee in person since the

blurb had been bestowed. “Very true, and it’s free for famous

authors!”

“Having fun?” Oscar asked.

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AFTERWORLDS

“I was. Then business tapered off.”

“More will come,” said Kiralee. “For the moment, you’ve got

some stiff competition down the way.”

“You mean Big Head?” Rhea frowned. “My sister and I always

hated his show.”

“Not him,” Kiralee said. She was wearing a mysterious smile.

“And don’t worry, I’ve tweeted your august presence. Prepare to be positively swamped.”

Rhea slid Darcy a book, already opened to the full title page.

For a moment, Darcy froze, the Uni-Ball Vision Elite a thick and

clumsy thing in her hand.

“K-I-R—,” Kiralee began.

“Hush!” Oscar said. “She’s thinking.”

This was only partly true. There was a glimmer of cognition

in Darcy’s head, which might have been translated as, Oh shit, I’m signing a book for Kiralee Taylor. But really it was nothing but a buzzing in her ears.

The book splayed out before her was real. Kiralee standing

there waiting for a signature was real. The rumble of the crowds

and the smell of freshly printed and bound paper was real. Darcy

Patel was a published author now.

“Well, this is a bit awkward,” Kiralee said a moment later.

“Ignore her,” Oscar said gently. “Take your time.”

And Darcy suddenly knew what to write.

Thanks for all the nightmares of red mud.

She signed it with a flourish, and then moved on to Oscar’s.

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Writing is a lonely business, except for Drinks!

The two of them were very kind about what she’d written and,

still kinder, they stuck around until the line built up again, attracting strays from the other aisles and a handful of Kiralee’s followers.

Soon Darcy was signing again, careful never to rush, pausing to talk to everyone, at least until more people waited behind them. The

line ebbed and flowed, until, quite suddenly, the hour was done and Rhea was packing things away.

“Great job,” she said. “Only a box and half left!”

Darcy was stunned. It hadn’t felt anything like seventy people,

but her right hand was marvelously sore.

“Oops, two more. You sign, I’ll pack.” Rhea dropped a pair of

books on the table and began to kick-slide the leftover box away

behind the curtain.

Darcy looked up. It was Carla and Sagan.

“Where did you guys come from?”

“From our dorms, where we live,” Sagan said. “We decided to

road trip down this morning.”

“Road trip!” Carla yelled. She was hugging a dozen books to her

chest already.

“How did you get in?”

“Imogen weaseled us day passes from Paradox,” Sagan said.

“Like, in case you needed friendly faces at your signing.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Carla said. “But the free is strong in this place!”

“Wait. Imogen got you in?” Darcy blinked. She hadn’t checked

the schedule, but of course Imogen would be here somewhere. It

was strange, how on busy days Darcy could go for hours without

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noticing the missing pieces of her heart. But when memories did

come, they hit all at once.

“Why the sad face?” Carla asked.

“She didn’t come to my signing.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Carla fumbled a book out of her hoard.

Its cover was filled by a black cat, the eyes shining a familiar

flame-red . “She’s busy down on aisle 2. That’s why we’re late.”

“Seriously?”

“We went to tell her thanks,” Sagan said. “And she had this

huge line! It took us forever to get over here.”

Darcy pulled the advanced copy of Kleptomancer from Carla’s hands. She’d read the first draft almost a year ago, but had never seen the cover. “I forgot these would be here. Did I ever tell you how I—”

“Named that book?” Carla and Sagan said in unison, then burst

into giggles.

“You guys suck.”

“Oh, really?” Carla snatched the copy of Kleptomancer back. “Is that why we haven’t heard from you lately.”

“I was madly writing. I got a whole draft done!”

“In a month?” Sagan said. “That’s, like, old-school Darcy behavior.”

“So what are your plans now?” Carla asked.

“Hang out with you guys, obviously. After the Paradox party.”

“Not tonight,” Carla said. “Now as in . . . the future. Are you

going to Oberlin? Staying here forever?”

“Yeah,” Sagan said. “You never told us what you did with that

lease renewal.”

“Oh,” Darcy said softly. “I kind of forgot about it.”

“So you get kicked out on July 1?”

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“I guess so.” Over the last month, Darcy hadn’t focused on

her apartment situation, or the future in general. The first draft of Untitled Patel had consumed her mind and soul, along with certain household details like laundry, cleaning, and paperwork.

“Smooth,” Carla said with a laugh. “I’m glad that living on your

own has made you so mature.”

Darcy sighed. She’d tried hard to grow up a little in her time

alone in apartment 4E. But maybe she was doomed to be forever

adulthood-challenged.

She opened one of the books on the table. “How about, ‘From your

loving high school best friend. Thanks for all the maturity advice’?”

“Sucks!” Carla and Sagan said in concert.

“You guys have to stop doing that. Talking together is creepy-twins.”

“I have an idea,” Carla said. “How about you write—”

“No! I have expertise in this now. This is my job.” Darcy stewed in silence for a moment, then lifted up her pen.

Without you guys, all that reading wouldn’t have

been half as fun.

She wrote the same in Sagan’s copy.

“Time to saddle up,” Rhea said from behind her. “The next

author’s waiting, and the party’s in half an hour.”

“Sorry!” Darcy leaped up from the seat. It belonged to someone

else now.

“By the way, can we stay with you tonight?” Carla asked.

“Duh. See you later,” Darcy said, and handed over her keys.

* * *

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AFTERWORLDS

The Paradox party was only a half-hour walk away, but it was a hot day, and the broad expanse of Ninth Avenue offered no shade at

all. Darcy was sweating in her little black dress by the time she and Rhea arrived at the bar.

“Guinness, right?” Rhea asked as she headed away.

“Yes, please!” Darcy called after her. It was mercifully cool and

dark here, but she was in serious need of a drink. The restaurant

was crowded with Paradox authors and editors and people from

marketing, publicity, and sales. All of them were important to her future, and most she’d only met for the first time today. Luckily, they still had their name tags on.

But she lingered at the edge of the crowd, not yet ready for more

small talk after her hour at the signing table. Darcy found herself glancing at the restaurant doors, wondering if Imogen was coming.

She wouldn’t spurn her own publisher just to avoid an ex, would she?

“Darcy! How did your signing go?” said Moxie Underbridge,

sweeping from across the room.

Darcy winced a little. Since sending off her first draft of Untitled Patel, she’d begun to wonder if it wasn’t a bit too first drafty, a lot too chaotic. Moxie hadn’t responded to it yet, which seemed like a bad sign.

“Pretty good, I guess. Maybe sixty people?”

“Seventy-three!” Rhea corrected as she sailed by, depositing a

cold Guinness in Darcy’s hand, not waiting for thanks.

“Not bad for your first signing,” Moxie said.

“Better than I expected. Weird too. People have actually read

me now, which was kind of scary. They had opinions.”

Moxie laughed at this. “Opinions mean they want a sequel. Which is in lovely shape, by the way. Just finished the draft last night.”

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“It’s okay?” Darcy took a steadying drink. “I was thinking you

might find it a bit . . . shaky.”

“Shaky?” Moxie shook her head. “It’s so much better than the

first draft of Afterworlds. You’ve grown a lot.”

“Are you kidding? It doesn’t feel that way.”

“You probably don’t even remember how Afterworlds started.

Those two chapters at the beginning, in the silly underworld palace, and that maudlin last scene on Yamaraj’s deathbed? Nan was worried you’d never get the ending right.”

Darcy blinked. “You never told me that.”

“Well, it’s not my job to frighten you, darling. Debutants need

careful handling.”

“But if Nan was worried, why did Paradox give me so much

money?”

Moxie shrugged. “Because they knew it might be a huge book.

And Sales loved that first chapter.”

“That’s all they liked?”

“Of course not. But it showed great promise, so Paradox com-

mitted. And now it’s paying off! You’ve got great buzz, and it’ll only get bigger after today.” Moxie patted Darcy’s shoulder, but then

sighed. “Of course, we probably wouldn’t get that much money

these days. It was a different era.”

“Um, it was only a year ago.”

“That long? Good heavens.” Moxie fanned herself and took a

long swig of her martini. “It feels as though you’ve been with us

forever, Darcy.”

Darcy smiled. On good writing days it did feel that way, as

though she’d been born in New York City, or had somehow risen

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AFTERWORLDS

up through its sun-baked asphalt, a fully formed novelist. But most of the time, she still felt like a kid.

“Hey, you.” The familiar voice went fizzing through Darcy, and

she turned.

It was Imogen, of course. She was dressed up for her signing, in

a crisp white shirt, her fingers strewn with sparkling rings. A black jacket was slung over one arm from the heat of the walk here, and

she had a sweating beer in her other hand.

There was always a part of Darcy’s brain that expected to

run into Imogen—on the streets of Chinatown, in the subway, at

some restaurant they’d both loved. So over the last two and a half months, she’d crafted a hundred artful versions of what to say next.

But what she said was, “Hi.”

This greeting seemed to please Imogen. “Good signing?”

“It was great. Yours?”

“Pretty decent.”

“Decent? Carla and Sagan said your line was huge.” Darcy

laughed, because she could tell by Imogen’s embarrassed expres-

sion that it was true.

“Weird, huh? Just some random photograph, and everything

changes.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything if your book wasn’t great,”

Darcy said, then cringed inside at the earnest tremor in her voice.

She took a drink, pulled herself straighter. “Thanks for getting my friends in. I didn’t even know we could do that.”

Imogen’s smile returned. “Writerly superpowers, tiny but potent.”

Neither said anything for a moment, but the chatter of the

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to hover in place, shielding the two of them from interruption.

Moxie had simply disappeared.

“I loved your ending,” Imogen said at last.

A rushing sigh escaped Darcy, as if she had been holding her

breath for a long time. “Really?”

“Yeah. You totally brought the darkness.”

“I was feeling dark that week. Kind of gritty and real.”

A laugh bubbled up out of Imogen. “And brave too, with Kiralee

Taylor herself telling you to write a happy ending. I’m proud of you.”

Darcy’s eyes opened and closed, a deliberate blink to test if this were the real world—it was. In fact, this bubble of conversation

with Imogen was the only world. None of Moxie’s praise for the

first draft of Untitled Patel mattered, nor did the kind words she’d heard at her signing. Not next to this.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“It was suitably brutal.”

Darcy laughed. Kiralee had actually used those words in her

blurb, and she hadn’t let Marketing edit them out. “Speaking of brutal, I just finished the first draft of Untitled Patel. Did it in a month!”

“That’s great, Darcy.” Their glasses met with a sharp, bright

sound. “I got worried when you weren’t writing. You aren’t

designed for not writing.”

“Yeah, I kind of suck at it. I won’t make that mistake again.”

They held each other’s gaze, and again Darcy was only half

aware that there were other people in the room.

“So Untitled Patel still doesn’t have a title?” Imogen finally said.

“Don’t I owe you one of those?”

“I stole your scene. I think we’re even.”

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AFTERWORLDS

Imogen still smiled, but she looked away. “I’m sorry I had to leave.”

“But you had to.” Darcy wanted to keep going, to explain that

she understood everything now, even if she hated every minute of

being apart. That she could need Imogen with every scrap of her

being and still give her room for her secrets, or the space to stay away. But that was too much too soon, and wanting too hard had

been Darcy’s problem from the start.

So she said, “How’s Phobomancer going?”

Imogen breathed a little a sigh of relief. “Really well. I’m

almost done.”

“Tell me it still starts in the trunk of a car.”

“Of course. My agent loves that part now! He says it’s finally got some actual fear in it.”

Darcy felt herself shiver. “I knew you’d nail it, sooner or later.”

“It was easy once I figured out what I was afraid of.”

“You’re not afraid of anything, Gen.”

Imogen didn’t answer this at first, and Darcy felt earnest again,

like someone flailing their way through their very first relationship.

This was not the moment to be young and foolish.

But then Imogen took a step closer, her voice almost fading into

the hubbub of the party. “Turns out, I was afraid you wouldn’t wait.

That you’d give up on me.”

“Never,” Darcy said at once. “I trust you, Gen.”

“I didn’t mean to make it some kind of test. I just wanted to

get my book right before dealing with us. But it was selfish, staying away this long.”

Darcy had only heard a single word of this. “You said was.”

“What?”

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“You used the past tense, Imogen. It was selfish to stay away.

Does that mean you’re not anymore?”

Imogen nodded, took her hand.

“Oh,” Darcy said, her heart unbroken in her chest.

There was so much more to fix—her apartment situation, her

muddle of a first draft, her disaster of a budget, her absence of a college career. And there was, as Nisha had pointed out in a text that morning, the small matter of maintaining her sanity for the hundred and seventeen days until Afterworlds came out. And the possibility that people had better things to spend their money on than a debut novel by an unknown teenager.

It was also possible that she and Imogen had changed that

much in the last two and a half months. In real life, transformations were reluctant, piecemeal, and slow.

Imogen still needed her secrets. Darcy still needed everything.

“I’m running out of money,” she said.

“I’m suddenly in demand,” Imogen said.

“I won’t have an apartment in two months,” she said.

“We can write together anywhere,” Imogen said.

“I might go to college. Somewhere cheap.”

“That might be a good thing. I’ll visit.”

Darcy nodded. Maybe the trick was not to panic. In life, as in

the bewildering business of writing stories and flinging them out

into the world, you had to focus on the page in front of you.

“I’m sorry I dropped the ball,” she said.

“The ball bounces.”

“You don’t think happy endings are stupid anymore?”

“Your question is irrelevant,” Imogen said. “This isn’t the end.”

580

CHAPTER 42

A WEEK LATER I FOUND MYSELF IN A HOSPITAL AGAIN. NOT IN

a field tent in the snow, but a bright and shiny chemotherapy ward in Los Angeles.

My mother wasn’t getting chemo—not yet, anyway. She was

hooked up to a blood bag, which was filling her with extra red

blood cells. She had to do this once a week until her tests looked better, merely the beginning of a long process with many more

treatments and tests and machines.

After the nurse had set everything up, he left us alone and we

were quiet for a while. Mostly I was trying not to look at where the tube went into my mother’s arm. The doctors had put a piece of plastic in her, called a shunt, which let them slip an IV in without making a fresh hole. I didn’t mind needles, but the thought of Mom needing a permanent valve in her skin gave me the creeps.

She claimed she liked it, because it made her feel like a cyborg.

SCOTT WESTERFELD

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Not really. The most annoying thing is, I can’t eat red meat

for a while.”

“That’s weird.”

“With all this red blood getting pumped in, I have to watch out

for something called ‘iron overload.’” My mother laughed. “Sounds

kind of heavy metal.”

“Which is so you,” I said, doing a quick search on vegetarian recipes on my phone. “Okay. How about I make a cauliflower frit-tata tonight?”

“Seriously? We don’t have to be vegetarians. Just no red meat.”

I scrolled some more. “Maybe some kale stew?”

“Are you trying to kill me? Kale has more iron than beef! Pars-

ley is also deadly.”

“Wow. ‘Parsley is also deadly.’ I bet no one’s ever said that

before.” To test my theory, I typed the phrase into my phone. The

top result was something called the Parsley Massacre, in which

twenty thousand people had been killed. Everything was about

death if you looked closely enough.

I put away my phone.

Another patient was brought into the chemo ward. He was much

older than my mother, and shuffled past with a young nurse on his arm.

His hair was wispy, his skin stretched tight over the bones of his face.

Walking behind him was a young girl. Her flowery dress looked

old-fashioned, and no shadows played in its folds. She seemed not

to notice me and my psychopomp shine. She kept her head down,

smiling a little, like a child at a somber ceremony trying not to

giggle.

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My mother and I watched in silence as the nurse hooked the old

man up. When she was done, he put in headphones and lay back with

his eyes closed. His hands twitched in time to the music in his ears. The ghost girl watched, tapping her feet as if she could hear the music too.

I took a steadying breath. “I’ve deferred college for a year.”

My mother stared at me, the muscles of her arm gone tight. For

a moment, I thought the IV was going to pop out of her skin.

“You can’t do that, Lizzie.”

“It’s done.” My voice stayed firm. “The call has been made.”

“Call them back! Tell them you’ve changed your mind.”

“That would be a lie. And I can’t back out now, anyway. They

already gave someone else my spot.”

My mother groaned. “Lizzie, you don’t have to do this. I can lie

here with a tube in my arm without your help.”

“You don’t want me here?”

“I want you in college!”

“For now,” I said, readying my mental list of arguments. I’d

been preparing myself for this conversation since my first college acceptance letter had arrived. “But once you start chemo, you’ll

need someone to drive you up here. And to help you remember

which pills to take.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not senile. Just sick.”

“But some of your meds affect short-term memory. And you’re

not going to feel like cooking for yourself most days. And because the deferment’s for medical reasons, my spot is a hundred percent

locked in. And don’t forget, you won’t have much income for a

while, so my financial aid app will kick ass next year. There’s nothing but upside.”

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She stared at me for a long moment. Across the ward, the other

patient was humming along with his music. The ghost was sitting

motionless, hands folded.

“You’ve thought about this way too much,” Mom said.

“By which you mean, my logic is irrefutable?”

“By which I mean, you could have included me sooner in your

thinking.”

“You’d’ve told me not to think about it at all.”

My mother sighed in defeat, staring off into space. “Okay,

Lizzie. But only one year. You can’t give up your life for me.”

I took her hand. “Mom . . . this is life. Right here in this room, with you, is life.”

My mother surveyed the room—the blinking lights of the

transfusion machine, the fluorescents in the tile ceiling, the tube in her arm—and gave me a droll look. “Great. Then life sucks.”

I didn’t argue. Life sucked all right. It sucked hard, because it

was random and terrifying and too easily lost. Life was full of death cults and psychopaths, bad timing and bad people. Life was broken, basically, because four assholes with guns could kill an airport full of people, or some microscopic error in your mother’s marrow

could take her from you far too soon. Because you could made one

mistake in righteous anger, and lose the person you most loved.

But everything that sucked about life also proved that it was

priceless, because otherwise all of that wouldn’t hurt so bad.

“I want to be here for you,” I said.

My mother smiled. “That’s sweet. But are you sure this isn’t

about staying near your boyfriend?”

My reaction must have showed on my face.

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“Oh. He’s not your boyfriend anymore?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

On our way out to the hospital parking lot, we went through the

waiting area for the emergency room. My mother had to stop and

pee, so I was alone for a moment in a crowded, bustling hallway.

I leaned against the wall watching the floor, hoping not to see any more ghosts.

But something must have made me look up.

A paramedic was passing by, pushing an empty folding wheel-

chair. He was young and handsome, with a freckled shaved head and

a whisper of a mustache. A radio was slung over one shoulder, and his uniform was rumpled, like he’d been working a long shift.

He looked up at me as he passed, our eyes catching for a

moment, and he slowed. His skin shone, luminous even under the

harsh fluorescents in the hospital hallway.

A smile cracked his tired face. He’d seen my shine as well.

“Need any help?” he asked.

It took me a second to realize what he meant.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just here with my mom.” I glanced at the

bathroom door.

“Gotcha. It’s just, you look like you caught a gnarly one.” He

took a quick look both ways down the hall, and lowered his voice.

“Round this place, you can run into some pretty fucked-up wraiths.

Some real Do Not Resuscitate assholes.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” A shiver passed through me. “But it’s cool.

It’s just been a tough few days.”

“Ain’t they all,” the paramedic said, and placed his hands on the

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wheelchair’s handles again. “Hope your mom’s okay. Let me know if

there’s any wheels you need greased around here. I’ve got connections.”

“Really?” I finally managed to smile. “Thanks.”

He winked. “Us shines, we gotta to stick together.”

With a grin, he turned and pushed the wheelchair toward the

ambulance bay, and it occurred to me that most of his days were probably tougher than most of mine, whether his patients lived or died.

And I realized I finally had a better word than “psychopomp.”

As we drove back to San Diego in my new car, Mom talked about all

the stuff she was going to do when she stopped working. She wanted to paint the garage and remodel the kitchen, start an herb garden in the backyard. I didn’t ask where she would get the money, much less the energy, to do these things. I didn’t point out that she wasn’t an actual cyborg now. I didn’t want to kill her buzz.

We cooked together that night, with Mindy watching, a strange

but happy little family. All the futures I’d imagined for myself

might be closing down, but somehow that made the present more

precious, more real.

It must have been exhausting for my mother, or maybe the

transfusion had taken something out of her, because she went to

bed early. From her bedroom door she called, “You really thought

about how my illness would affect your financial aid next year?

Well played, kiddo.”

After I’d cleaned up the kitchen, Mindy was still bouncing, so

we went for a walk. I decided to steer us past the ghost school, just as an experiment.

Strangely, it had faded since I’d seen it last. The line of the

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terra-cotta roof was indistinct against the gray sky. Maybe someone who’d gone to school here had died in the past week, leaving one

less living memory to hold its shape.

“Remember this place?” I asked.

“Of course, silly. We went in there once.” Mindy took my hand

and squeezed. “It was pretty scary.”

“Yeah, no kidding. What did that voice say again?”

“I can heeeear you up there,” she sang softly, and collapsed into a fit of giggles.

It was weird. Mindy knew exactly what had happened here, but

she sounded like someone retelling a scary movie, not a little girl talking about a man who’d kidnapped her. It still seemed like part of her was missing.

I shivered a little myself, recalling the sound of the old man’s

fingernail traveling across the floorboards of my room.

Mr. Hamlyn hadn’t troubled me since our visit to his private

hell. Maybe he was keeping his promise to wait for me to call him.

And maybe one day I would need his knowledge again. For the

moment, though, the scars his web had left on my arms and legs

were reminder enough of who and what he was.

“How was Anna today?” Mindy asked as we headed home.

“Was she grumpy about having a transfusion?”

I looked down at Mindy. She might not remember her own

awful past, but she kept careful track of my mother’s illness now.

“She was grumpy, but not about the treatment. I told her about

putting off college.”

“You’re in trouble,” Mindy sang, and threw her arms around

me. “But I’m glad you’re sticking around.”

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“Me too. As long as Mom doesn’t call the admissions office and

find out I was totally bluffing. I’ve got sixty days to change my mind.”

“You always were a fibber,” Mindy said. “Like that time you

convinced Jamie that there were two moons in the sky, but one was

invisible.”

“Huh. That was, like . . . eight years ago.”

“Yeah, but did you know Jamie only pretended to believe you?

I heard her tell Anna about it the next day. They were both laugh-

ing at you!”

I came to a halt, stung a little by this bygone humiliation, but more astonished that Mindy could remember it. She’d never said anything like this the whole time she’d been afraid of the bad man.

Maybe the part of her that had been emptied by his death was

slowly filling up again, but with less horrible things.

When we got home, Mindy wanted to go exploring. She was

officially bored with our neighborhood, and had started spying on

the people who lived on the next block over. She was hungry to

make her world larger, so I let her go on alone.

I stayed awake in my room, lingering on the flipside, hoping to

hear a voice on the currents of the river. Yama had to be back in the underworld by now. He had a city to protect, after all.

I stared at my hands, wondering if someday I would be able

to smell the blood on them. Maybe, as my shine powers grew, the

murder I’d committed would slowly become visible, like the black

stain of squid ink on my palms.

Did Yama still think about me? Did he wish he could leave his

gray city unprotected and take me someplace windswept and silent

and alone?

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His absence was a new cold place in me, a hunger on my skin,

a fissure in my heart. Without his lips to calm me, I didn’t sleep much anymore, and my world seemed smaller than it ever had. The

walls of my bedroom had shrunk around me.

So when, just after midnight, a voice reached me on the rusted

air of the flipside, at first I didn’t believe that it was real. But then it came again.

“Lizzie, I need you.”

It was Yamaraj.

By now I knew the moods of the river well enough to know that

it wasn’t taking me down to the underworld. The voyage was too

quick, the current too calm and steady. So he wasn’t inviting me to his gray palace. I could deal with that. Anyplace was fine with me.

When I alighted, it wasn’t another windswept mountaintop. It

was somewhere I’d been once before, definitely a place to which I

was connected.

Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

Yama waited for me beneath a wall of blank television moni-

tors. We were just beyond the metal gate that had stopped everyone from escaping that night. It was two hours later here than in San

Diego, well past midnight, so the gate was rolled down, just as I

remembered it.

My heart beat sharply in my chest, and flickers of color pulsed in the corners of my vision. But I kept myself under control.

“Why here?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. This must be hard.” His voice was ragged,

like he’d been arguing with someone all night. “But you’re needed.”

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I stared through the gate, at the place where so many had fallen.

It looked almost the same as it had just before the attack. A few dozen people waited, bored and restless, for their flights to be called.

There was only one addition. Just outside the security gates was

a gray block of stone enclosed in a glass cube about ten feet across.

It was blocked off with scaffolding, still under construction.

A memorial for the attack, I remembered now. When the

design had been published, some reporter had called Mom to see if

I had a comment about it, and she’d told them that I didn’t.

“Are you sure I’m needed here? It feels like all of this has gone

ahead without me.”

“Not all of it,” Yama said.

I stared at him. He looked older, as if the short time he’d spent in the overworld to let his body heal had been much longer. A scar lay across his cheek, looking fresh and pink, and his skin was a little pale.

He was still beautiful, though. My skin was thirsty for him, my

head dizzied by his presence. Tsunamis of black oil didn’t faze me anymore, but Yama did.

“There’s someone I need you to meet,” he said. “But only if

you’re up to it. We can do this later.”

“Now is fine.” To be here, the setting of all my nightmares, with

him was better than being anywhere else alone.

He held out his hand, and I reached for it. The heat of him, the

fire on his skin, came surging into me. The cold places inside me

grew warmer for a moment.

I had to say something to keep from sobbing. “Aren’t you afraid

Mr. Hamlyn will visit while you’re gone?”

Yama shook his head. “He hasn’t been snooping around for a

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week. He’s playing a long game, waiting me out, thinking I’ll grow lazy again. And this will only take a few minutes.”

“Oh.” Only a few minutes.

I focused on the feel of his hand in mine, the way his silk shirt

moved across his skin.

As we passed through the gate where I’d almost died, a trickle

of remembered panic went down my spine. But the metal grid was

as flimsy as smoke in sunbeams. I could walk through mountains

now, if I wanted.

We reached the security area, the place where it all had started.

This late, the metal detectors and X-ray machines were mostly shut down. A few bored TSA agents waited around, and two National

Guardsmen in body armor stood watching, backs against the wall.

The bloodshed in Colorado was still recent, and Jamie had told me

that security was high everywhere. Maybe a little more so here.

I didn’t look at the memorial. It was for the other eighty-seven

people here that night, not me.

“I still don’t get it. Why do you need me?”

Yama answered with his eyes, glancing at a boy my age waiting

in one of the big plastic chairs. I’d hardly noticed him there in the corner. He was muttering to himself, his cap down low over his

face, almost huddled in his football jersey.

He was gray-skinned and shadowless. But he looked so crisp,

his outline clearer than any ghost I’d ever seen. And I realized that millions of people still remembered who he was, what he had done.

I’d tried to forget every detail of that night, but even I knew his name.

“Travis Brinkman,” I said.

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He looked up at me, a little alarmed, a little defiant, like a kid caught doing something suspicious. “Do I know you?”

I shook my head. “We never met. But I was here that night.”

“You were?” He thought for a long moment, and shrugged.

“Don’t recall you. Guess that was a bad night for making friends.”

“It was bad for everything.” I looked back at Yama, won-

dering how I was supposed to help. He gave me a soft smile of

encouragement.

“Don’t know what else I could’ve done,” Travis said. “Nobody

was doing anything. Just letting those guys shoot.”

“Yeah. It didn’t seem real at first.” It was strange, talking to

someone who’d actually been there, something I’d thought would

never happen. “No one was moving, because it didn’t make any

sense. And everyone being frozen just made it more unreal.”

He clenched his fists. “I know, right? But when those guys were

out of ammo, I thought everyone would move. So I moved.”

I sat down next to Travis. I’d gone through what had happened

that night so many times in my head, imagining myself calling for

help faster, or leading the crowd in a safer direction, or simply

missing my plane from New York and not being here at all.

How must it have felt for Travis, who’d actually done something? Who’d come so close to stopping them?

“Too bad it was just you,” I said.

“Nobody else helped.” He was muttering to himself again, his

hands jerking a little with every word. “But if I could’ve got one of those guns . . .”

“At least you tried.”

“Didn’t make any difference. They got me. They got everybody.”

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I stared at him. Probably ghosts didn’t read newspapers. Maybe

he hadn’t heard the whole story about the symbol of hope.

“Travis. They didn’t get me.”

He looked up, face wide open, his hands still for the first time.

“You kidding?”

I pointed at the metal gate. “I was over there when it started,

on the phone with my mom. And while everyone else was getting

shot, I called 911.”

Can you get to a safe location? The words flickered like static through the air around me, making my breath catch. Color trembled through the world. But I had to stay here. I had to keep telling Travis my story.

“The operator told me to play dead, and right that second a bul-

let went past my head. So I fell down.”

“You played dead?” He stared down at his hands. “Damn. Wish

I’d thought of that.”

“It wasn’t my idea. The woman on the phone told me to.” I stared

at him, recalling how close I’d come to being shot. “My brain was

barely making sense of everything, and she told me what to do just in time. That’s time I wouldn’t have had, except for you.”

Travis gave me a hard, disbelieving look, then jerked his thumb

at Yama. “That guy tell you to say all this?”

“No. I was here that night, for real.”

Travis didn’t look convinced. “He always used to come around

here and argue with me. Kept telling me I was a hero.”

“You are.”

He rolled his eyes. “Even he got bored of saying it. Hadn’t seen

him for a while.”

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“It doesn’t matter what you want to call yourself,” I said. “The

guy was aiming straight at me when I finally realized what I had to do. It was all down to those last few seconds . . .”

He stared at me, and I could see how deep his disbelief ran.

He’d been sitting here for months with that fixity of mind that

ghosts had, thinking he’d failed somehow. That was the story that

the papers had told—he was the hero who’d died bravely, but in

failure—and it was how the living remembered him.

No one had ever realized that I’d needed Travis Brinkman to survive.

Not even me.

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything I have now.”

“You sure I helped?” he asked softly, and I saw it in his eyes

then, a bright shard of hope that lingered there. The same one that had sent him running unarmed against the guns.

“I’m sure. Maybe you only delayed them a few seconds, but if

you hadn’t, I’d be dead.”

“Hell, had to do something.” Travis glanced at Yama. “He an all-right guy?”

I nodded.

“What about where he wants to take me?”

“It’s kind of weird, but beautiful. And a lot better than this

airport.”

“Yeah. I hate airports.”

“Me too,” I said. “They suck.”

“Yeah.” His hands slapped down onto his knees, and he stood

up and looked around. “I guess I’m about ready to get out of here.”

“Okay, good. But, Travis, do you mind if I talk to my friend

first?”

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* * *

For a long moment Yama and I were silent. It was too hard for me to

speak, and he was probably worried about his sister, his city.

But finally he said, “Thank you for doing this, Lizzie.”

“I owed it to Travis. You must know that.” I looked up at him.

“Why didn’t you bring me here before?”

“You weren’t ready.”

“Maybe not,” I sighed, looking around the airport. “But how’s

that any different from everything else that happens to me?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Lizzie.”

I stared at him, unsure what to say, whether to apologize or beg

forgiveness. I just didn’t want him to go away yet. “How’s Agent

Reyes?”

Yama gave me a sad smile. “Very much in charge of our city

watch. He hasn’t faded at all. He must be well remembered among

the living.”

I swallowed. “Please thank him for me, for everything. And

your sister, too, I guess.”

Yama nodded rather somberly at this, and I realized that

he knew what my thanks were for—covering up the murder I’d

committed.

My vision started to pulse with color. “I’m sorry, my love.”

“Me too.” He touched the tear-shaped scar beneath my eye.

“Is this forever, the way you feel about me?”

“Only death is forever, and even it changes over time.”

I stared at him, wondering what that meant. That the scent of

my murder would fade? That there was something I could do to

erase what had happened?

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But Yama didn’t make it easy for me. He didn’t give me any

straight answers, just kissed me once, kindling a fire on my lips.

“I will see you again,” he said, and for the moment that was

enough.

On my way home, I had a realization: I couldn’t face my bedroom

again. It was too empty, too small. For the last week I’d been

huddled there waiting for Yama’s call, avoiding everyone except

my mother and Mindy. But it was time for a change. Not just of

scenery, but of everything.

So I gave myself over to the river, letting it listen to my subconscious and take me where it wanted. For a moment it spun, slow

and directionless, but then something firmed inside me, and a few

swirling minutes later I had reached my destination. It was some-

where the river had never brought me before, but a place I’d been

connected to for a long time.

Jamie’s room was in its usual state of disarray, her physics home-

work piled on the floor, her clothes draped over the chairs, shiny brochures from half a dozen colleges spread out across the bed.

She sat at her computer, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. I saw

that she was cropping a photograph of herself, and quickly turned

away. I had vowed never to use my powers to spy on my friends. I

walked through her bedroom door to the other side, passed into the real world, and knocked.

“Yeah, Dad?”

I opened the door. “Hey.”

“Oh, hi.” Jamie blinked. “Did my dad let you in?”

By reflex, I almost lied to her then. But I had an idea why the

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river had brought me here, why my own mind wanted this, and it

had to do with being honest.

“No, I let myself in.”

Jamie laughed. “At this hour? Creeper. What’s up?”

“Not too—” I stopped myself again, took a slow breath. “A lot,

actually.”

She turned her chair around, and made a clear space on her bed

for me with a sweep of her arm. The smiling faces of excited college freshmen wafted to the floor like leaves.

I sat down hard, feeling a little weak in the knees. Maybe I

didn’t have the right to say all this out loud, to burden someone else with what I knew. But I couldn’t keep doing this alone.

“I should have called you,” Jamie said.

I looked up. “What?”

“You’ve been so bummed all week. But I didn’t want to pressure

you. I didn’t know what to do. Sorry.”

“Oh.” I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been

great. Through everything, really. It’s just that things got worse this week.”

“Your mom? Or your secret agent?”

A pang went through me. “Not secret, special. Yeah, it’s partly

about him. But that’s not all.”

“So did you guys break up?”

“We were never . . .” I took another breath. “That is, I broke

up with my . . . boyfriend, but the special agent was someone else.”

Her eyes went wide. “Dude. There were two of them? No won-

der you’ve been so stressed!”

“No!” I raised my hands, wishing I’d thought this story out

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before starting to tell it. That was the problem with letting your subconscious make decisions for you. But it was too late to back

out now.

“Take your time,” Jamie said. “It’s going to be okay.”

I tried to smile. Everything was so muddled between Jamie and

me, I didn’t know where to start. I only knew where I wanted to

wind up.

“Can I show you something?” I asked softly. “It’s kind of weird.”

She nodded solemnly.

I closed my eyes, murmuring the words I never thought I would

utter before a normal living person. “Security is responding.”

The slightest sound came from Jamie, her breath catching in

confusion.

I ignored it. “Can you get to a safe location?”

“Lizzie?” She sounded scared now.

“Wait,” I breathed, then, “Well, honey, maybe you should pre-

tend . . .”

I felt it happen, the soft and certain passage over to the flipside.

The smell of rust and blood, the flattening of sound. The strange

feeling that I belonged here now, just as much as I did in the real world.

And a soft utterance from Jamie: “What the actual fuck.”

I took a sharp breath, letting my heart beat wildly with all my

misgivings, my uncertainties about doing this. I opened my eyes,

and color bled back into the world, the clutter of Jamie’s room suddenly bright and welcoming again.

She was staring at me in horror.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I didn’t know how else to start.”

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“What the hell was that? What did you just . . .”

Jamie shuddered in her chair, but then she gathered herself.

Her lips pressed firmly closed, and she made a guttural sound, like the determined clearing of her throat. “Okay, Lizzie. You’ve had

your fun. Now you need to fucking spill.”

As I opened my mouth to speak, something about her expres-

sion made me incredibly happy. She didn’t look scared, or aston-

ished, or even confused that I’d just turned myself invisible before her eyes.

In fact, she looked thoroughly annoyed at me.

How perfect.

“It’s called the flipside,” I said. “It’s where the dead walk, and I’m going to tell you how it works, and about the underworld,

and shines, and ghosts. From now on, Jamie, I’m going to tell you

everything.”

599

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their wise words, anecdotes, and writerly suggestions: Holly Black (whose research ethic inspired the trunk scene), Debbie Chachra,

Deborah Feiner, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Alaya Dawn Johnson,

Maureen Johnson, Justine Larbalestier, E. Lockhart, Anindita Basu

Sempere, and Robin Wasserman.

For perspective given and lines stolen: Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s, by Marijane Meaker (also known as M. E. Kerr); Manhattan, When I Was Young, by Mary Cantwell; Goodbye to All That, edited by Sari Botton; and the essay of the same title by Joan Didion.

And for making the world of YA so awesome: every bookstore

that has ever put me onstage; every teen librarian and tireless zealot; you readers young and old, lovely and cantankerous; my steadfast

agent, Jill Grinberg; my wise publisher and editor, Bethany Buck

(who has never demanded a happy ending); and the amazing team

at Simon Pulse, who have supported me since the early days.

Table of Contents

EBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42