Afterlife

Chapter Thirteen

“EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT, NOWTHATYou’re one of us.” Maxie was aglow — literally — in a golden haze of joy. “Wait and see.”

“I’ve been one of you ever since I died.”

“Not for reaL Not while you were hanging — out with the vampires. This is going to be so much better.”

I didn’t tell Maxie that I had no intention of abandoning Lucas or anybody else. It felt uncomfortably like lying, and I was beyond tired of lies. But I wasn’t ready to fully trust the wraiths just yet.

“So,” I began. “How do we do this? Finding Christopher, I mean.” I glanced around. “I don’t guess he hangs out in this attic with you.”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “Like Christopher spends any time on the mortal plane.” Then she paused. “I take that back, actually. He comes here every once in a while.”

“To the attic?”

“To the mortal plane, dumbass. But he comes here only when he has a purpose. Like trying to help a lost wraith find his way. Stuff like that.

Christopher doesn’t haunt.”

“Like you, you mean?”

I intended that to be a jab at Maxie, to point out that she hadn’t surrendered the mortal world entirely either. But she nodded, solemn and sweet. “If I know you’re coming with us, then I can let this place go at last. Even — even Vic.” She gazed down at the spot on the carpet where Vic had once sat to summon her. “That’s going to be hard, but I can do it.”

“Why me? You and I know each other, I guess, but we’re hardly best friends — ”

““ll let Christopher explain.” Maxie practically sparkled with anticipation. “Ready?”

I couldn’t answer that question without knowing what I was supposed to be ready for. “Maybe?”

“Fade out with me. Come on.”

For some reason, it was difficult for me to fade out this time, where it never had been before. Maybe it was a little like trying to fall asleep when it’s important to get some rest, so of course you lie awake for hours. But as Maxie turned into a pure glow, I managed to follow her lead. Slowly the 130 world around us turned into nothing but blue — gray mist, a mysterious haze that had no up, no down, no center, and no boundaries. Maxie’s glow twinkled slightly amid the swirling mists, then was gone.

Okay, Bianca. Her voice wasn’t something I heard so much anymore — just something I perceived without really knowing how. You have to Jet go.

Let go of what? Everything.

You mean, Lucas and my friends — No, 1mean, EVERYTHING. Of yourself just pull it all tight within yourself and then.. Jet go.

What was that supposed to mean? Without much optimism, I tried doing what Maxie said. As I tried it, though, I started to get some sense of it — and then I let go.

It was terrifying. Like discovering you had the ability to make your heart stop beating, or to make gravity stop working. To turn every law of the universe upside down. There wasn’t any blue — gray mist now; there was only total nothingness, both alien and yet weirdly familiar, like something so vast that I’d simply never been able to see it before, though it had always been around me. I floated free within my mind — or something’s mind not entirely myself any longer.

Will I ever be able to get back? At that moment, it seemed like there could be no returning from something like this. Was this what lay on the other side of the traps? Lucas, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what this would mean.

Then I heard another voice, deeper and masculine: “Be here.”

Instantly, I was myself again. I stood on ground, saw light, had a body. As I blinked, this new place took shape around me, and at first the only thing I could do was stare.

How can I describe it? I stood in the heart of a city, amid an enormous bustling crowd, that was simultaneously the most terrifying and the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. A brilliantly painted Greek temple stood in front of us, next to a squat, sturdy stone turret and, beyond that, a small grove of plum trees with thick clouds of clover beneath the branches. Beyond them were skyscrapers, houses, tents, hills, a castle, a chalet — every kind of structure and landscape imaginable, some glorious, others in ruins. Next to the cobblestone road Maxie and I stood upon wound a small, silt 131 brown river, rushing so rapidly over rocks that I felt sure, if I fell in, I would be swept away by the current. Around us thronged people in all kinds of dress, from jeans to Victorian finery to Bedouin robes to togas. They could see me — a few glanced my way — but nobody approached. My old timidity in crowds had returned a hundredfold, so I was grateful.

As I looked down at myself, I realized I Wasn’t in the pajamas I’d died in any longer. “It’s my green sweater!” I said. “I could never fmd it after we moved to Evernight.lt was my favorite — and hey, thesejeans — I loved them, too, but … didn’t I outgrow them?”

“Pretty much everything You’ve ever lost can come back to you here,” Maxie said, preening in a thick furry coat. Her hair was sleekly bobbed now, and she wore shiny silver shoes with buckles — the height of flapper fashion. This is what she’d looked like when she was alive, I realized, when she’d been at her happiest. ““ll warn you now — that includes some of the bad stuff along with the good stuff. You just never know.”

Now that I’d wrapped my mind around something as mundane as our clothes, I began to comprehend the broader implications of what we were seeing. “Maxie, are we.. no, this can ‘ t be heaven.” I felt sure heaven Wouldn’t be quite so dirty, and despite the beauty of many of the buildings around us, this place was filthy. Magnificent and yet vaguely disgusting — actually, it reminded me a lot of my first impression of New York City.

“You have not yet reached paradise,” said the masculine voice. “This is a place of refuge, I think, but I would never claim to understand it. It’s best to accept where we are on its own terms.”

I turned to see him — dressed in his nineteenth — century finery, with his long, thick brown hair. He was an adult, but not quite middle — aged yet or, at least, he hadn’t been when he died. His solid, firm — jawed face was like those I’d seen in old — fashioned paintings of great soldiers or admirals, going into battle beneath improbably beautiful skies: broad shoulders, slim waist, firm gaze, and piercing eyes.

Maxie grinned as she snuggled into her coat. “Christopher, I brought Bianca here with me. Bianca, this is Christopher.”

“We’ve met,” I said, though that was inadequate to describe the strange ways in which our paths had crossed. When he had first begun appearing to me during my junior year at Evernight, he’d threatened me so fearsomely that I’d been terrified of him; he’d also prevented Charity’s tribe from murdering me and Lucas last summer. I started at the beginning: ‘Tm pretty sure you two tried to kill me once.”

Christopher didn’t deny it; he didn’t even seem fazed. “You had only so much life to live. Sooner or later, you would have become either a vampire or a wraith. We came to you at Evernight when you were drinking blood — becoming closer to your vampire self.”

“You guys wanted me for yourselves,” I said.

“And for your sake as well,” Christopher replied. “Becoming a vampire would have been less a sacrifice for you than for most, but so much less than you have the potential to become.”

“Besides, vampires are gross,” Maxie said. I glared at her, but she just shrugged. “No offense, but come on. They’re dead bodies. Walking around. Eww.”

“I assure you, that did not enter into my decision.” Christopher looked slightly pained at Maxie’s rudeness. “Bianca, as a vampire, you would have been merely one among many. As a wraith, you have powers beyond. almost any other of our kind, and abilities you have only begun to grasp.”

“That’s why you saved me and Lucas from Charity this summer. Just to stop me from being turned into a vampire. It’s never been — personal, for you. Killing me or saving me.”

He looked amused. “How could it be personal when we have only just met?” Apparently he could see how angry that made me, because he quickly added, “When you have been dead as long as I, your perspective is altered. But no Jess true.”

Great, I had centuries of undeath waiting for me before this was going to make sense. I decided there was no point in freaking out about it, though. I’d become a wraith, and I had to deal with that reality. Christopher was the only person who could help me through it.

Not the wraith leader, Maxie had said — apparently there was no such thing. But Christopher was the most powerful among the wraiths, for reasons I hadn’t yet learned. He not only had significant power oif his own, but he also seemed to suggest that I had greater powers still waiting to manifest. Discovering my own abilities, coming into my own as a wraith, meant accepting Christopher. I decided it was a smaJJ price to pay. “Okay. Let bygones be bygones, or whatever. I just want to understand.”

“Will you walk with me?”

“Sure.”

Taking the hint, Maxie waved good — bye to us, hurrying off to something that looked sort of like an old — fashioned soda shop. One of her shiny buckled shoes caught on the cobblestone path, making her stumble — even here, it appeared, you could fall — but she caught herself. That left Christopher and 1alone in this mysterious place. “If we ‘ re not in heaven,” I asked, “how did we get.. here?”

“Those of us who have achieved clarity after death, who no longer need to haunt the mortal realms, bring that which we loved here with us.” Christopher’s wavy brown hair ruffled in a soft breeze that smelled like the seashore — simultaneously fresh and foul. On a hill in the distance ahead of us, I saw an Egyptian riding along the road in a chariot, just ahead of an old pickup truck that spewed exhaust from the tailpipe. “Not the people we loved, alas. Each individual’s soul is their possession alone. But the places that mattered to us, keepsakes of the best and worst of our lives — all of that finds us here, where everything lost can be found once again.”

The land of lost things, I thought. It seemed to be as good a name for it as anything else. “If ghosts can come here, why do they bother hanging around and haunting people? This beats lurking in somebody’s attic.”

“Not every wraith can come here.” His dark eyes could be unsettlingly intense, more so now that he was in his human form. “Most of us are created by murder. And only the foulest of murders, none committed in the heat of passion — but premeditated, selfish killings that arise from betrayal.”

Christopher’s voice grew rough, and I wondered what had happened to him, and to Maxie. To the many ghosts bustling around us on the road.

Composed again, he continued. “That kind of death is not easily overcome. Most of us awaken as wraith alone, unable to believe that we have passed away, that we have been so betrayed, or that heaven is delayed for us, perhaps forever. Sometimes we see those we thought loved us glorying in our demise. Is it any wonder that so many become — twisted? Sick inside?”

“I guess not.” The thought of it turned my stomach. “Did that happen to you? Somebody you loved — ”

“Friends,” he said quietly. “Men I thought faithful comrades had plotted against me. Of those I held dearest to me, only my beloved wife was true. And the worst fate awaited her.”

That sounded seriously bad. I wondered if the friends had killed her, too, or left her alone and broke to starve — back in those days, a woman on her own might not have been able to get a job, or maybe inherit money, though I Wasn’t sure about that. Or maybe one of the killers had insinuated himself into her life and married her, without her ever knowing that he was responsible for Christopher’s death. Any of those options seemed too terrible to contemplate, and I definitely Wasn’t going to pry further. I changed the subject, asking, “So, you’re telling me that most wraiths get stuck. They can’t get over their own murders, and it drives them crazy.”

“Essentially. If our murderers are caught, it provides some sense of justice. That helps many of us let go and ascend.” Christopher looked up above us longingly — still, after all this time, waiting for heaven. “But many are not caught, and for others, justice is not enough to heal the wounds. Those remain on earth forever, growing sicker and stranger, and sometimes dangerous. For many of them, there is no chance that they could ever be restored enough to come here. They become as evil as the forces that destroyed them.”

“I’ve heard of wraiths like that,” I said. “But the rest of you — everyone here — why aren’t they in heaven? Or whatever it is that follows this?”

“They remain anchored to the mortal world.”

“Anchored.” I’d been hearing that a lot lately. “What does that mean?”

Christopher led me around a fountain, ornate and elaborate, perhaps something from the Renaissance; instead of burbling merrily, the water inside was motionless and dank, overgrown with algae that slicked the stone. “An anchor is someone or something that ties you to the earth. The best anchors keep you sane and strong. They can be sources of deep, lasting love.” He glanced back at the soda shop where we’d left Maxie; I could just make her form out as she sat at the counter, drinking something out of a tall frosted glass. “Maxine was on the verge of leaving the mortal world behind entirely when the small boy in her house discovered her and began reading her stories.”

“Vic.”

“Yes. Her love for him has tethered her to the earth once more — much to her chagrin, I suspect.” For the first time, I heard a glint of humor in Christopher’s voice. “Although she will not admit this, she could let go of him at any time, and trust that his life will be happy and full. But she has already lingered eighty years after death; another decade, or several, will make little difference.”

“The best anchors, you said. There are other ones — bad ones?”

“Sometimes it is not love that binds us to our anchors, but obsession. Sickness. When that happens, the wraith becomes more twisted over time.” As Christopher spoke, I remembered the wraith that had haunted and tormented Raquel. No doubt this was an example of what he was talking about. “The danger of this is so great that even wraiths better anchored, such as Maxine and myself, consider any ties to the mortal world fundamentally unfortunate. Even we hope to move on someday, as hard as it will be to let our loved ones go.”

I started to ask him whether I was anchored, but I already knew that I was. Lucas, my parents, Balthazar, Vic, Ranulf, Patrice, Raquel — they kept me down — to — earth, so to speak. Even if I could let go of them, I didn’t want to. One thought occurred to me and made me frown. “Who is the ancient Egyptian guy hanging on to?”

Christopher smiled. “He helped to design the pyramids and remains rather proud of them. I believe he likes to return to Giza in the mornings 136 and watch the sun rise there.”

In the distant sky, darker clouds swirled, illuminated briefly by a flash that might have been lightning. “Okay, you guys really wanted me here,” I said. “What is it that makes me so powerful or special or whatever? Besides being able to form a body, I mean. Though that is pretty awesome.”

He faced me, serious once more. “You already know that you can travel within all our realms, and you can do so more easily than any of us — even me.”

“Maxie can do it.”

“At times, but not easily, save for when she is in your presence,” Christopher said. “You are able to sense other wraiths, something very few of us can do. Sometimes we are invisible to one another, particularly for those who remain lost and frightened in the mortal world. Once we have established communication with each other, it is easier, but it is never easy.”

I realized what he was getting at. “You want me to help you find those people. To make them let go of the sickness inside before they get permanently screwed up.”

“While they have a chance to come here and find restoration.”

“You want me to help ftnd every ghost in the whole world?”

He shook his head. “Most can fmd their way here eventually. But those who cannot — for their sakes, and the sakes of those they come to torment on earth — you have the power to reach them. To guide them. To help them ftnd their way here. You can travel between worlds, Bianca. You are a bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead.”

Those distant clouds weren’t so distant anymore; the entire sky seemed to me to be darkening, although sunlight shone down on everyone else.

The cool, damp breeze that rushed through my hair didn’t touch anybody else on the road. I realized that the skies above were, for each person here, a reflection of their spirit; as I grew more afraid and unsure, the storm came.

Christopher didn’t answer. “This work is important. It will demand much of you. But the good you could do is beyond measure.”

I agreed with him. It sounded worthwhile — more than worthwhile. Important. The kind of thing I’d wanted to spend my afterlife doing. But the 137 idea of letting go of the people I loved!held me back. “Why don’t you do it? You’re so super — powerful and everything, according to Maxie.”

“I was not born to the wraiths. I have not your natural power. My talents are meaner, and self — taught over time.”

“Why don’t you train everyone else here to do the same?”

“They are not as powerfully anchored to the mortal realm as I have been,” he said. His gaze was distant. “My connection has lasted longer than most, more intimately than most.”

Lightning flashed, and I felt rain begin to patter onto my hair and jeans, despite the fact that nobody else was getting wet. “I can’t. I’m sorry — I see that what you want me to be is a good thing — that it’s important — but I can’ t.”

Christopher didn’t look as discouraged by my refusal as I would’ve thought. “You have time to consider the matter,” he said. He was right, of course; we literally had eternity to go over this. As I edged away from him, already eager to leave, Christopher hurriedly added, “You need not be entirely separate from those you care for, even here. Your powers would allow you to hear them.”

“Really?” Not that this was that big a selling point for me — l mean, I wanted to remain with the people I loved, not just able to reach them. But knowing that those bonds survived here was encouraging, somehow.

Apparently encouraged himself, Christopher nodded. “Reach into the depths of your own spirit until you find, within, someone that you love.” What was that supposed to mean, reach into my own spirit? Then I remembered what I’d thought about the skies overhead. They were a reflection of my innermost self; I should concentrate on the darkening storm.

I closed my eyes but could still see the brilliance of the lightning through my eyelids. Cold raindrops spattered on my face, but I held out my arms, accepting the storm as part of myself.

And then my eyes flew open wide as I heard my name — as a scream.

Someone’s in trouble, I realized. My first thought was Lucas, but I realized that the voice in the thunder sounded familiar.

It sounded like my father.