Afterlife

Chapter Seventeen

I FOLLOWED LUCAS TO MRS. BETHANY’S CARRIAGE house. Although I could have called out to him again, to try and stop him from doing this, I didn’t.

We need to know, I told myself. If she really can help him, then I should Jet her do it.

Was I resisting only because I was jealous that Mrs. Bethany could give!him something that precious — something I couldn’t? How petty. How small. No wonder Lucas felt he could trust her, if I was so weak by comparison.

I would listen, and watch. Maybe I would hear that Lucas could be free from the blood hunger. If so, then I promised myself I’d never say another bad word about Mrs. Bethany again.

As Lucas knocked on the door, I cautiously took my now — familiar place at her windowsill, relieved to sense no traps nearby — then was startled. Someone already sat in front of her desk: Samuel, no doubt being taken to task for the fighting earlier. Probably Lucas wouldn’t get a chance to have a serious conversation with Mrs. Bethany about anything. I couldn’t decide whetJ1er I was happy about that or not.

But when Mrs. Bethany opened the door and saw Lucas, she said, “What excellent timing, Mr. Ross. Please, step inside.” Lucas didn’t look any happier to see Samuel than Samuel did to see Lucas. “Is this about our altercation earlier?”

“Not exactly.” Mrs. Bethany gestured toward a chair in the corner of the room. “I was just having a conversation with Mr. Younger about his many disciplinary difficulties this year. There is another matter — one I had planned to bring up with you later, Mr. Ross — but upon consideration, this seems as good a time as any.”

Mr. Younger, aka Samuel, drew himself up, obviously offended. “Since when does that Black Cross scum have anything to do with running this place?”

“I alone am the authority here.” Mrs. Bethany walked toward her desk, long dusty — violet skirt swirling around her. As she laid one hand upon her 180 desk, I noticed again the framed silhouette she’d always kept nearby. Christopher: She still looked at his face every day. Kept him close. That made me wistful, and for a few moments I felt that I might have judged her wrong from the beginning. She continued, “As the authority at this school, I notice that you have been reprimanded by multiple instructors for offenses ranging from talking in class to bullying.”

Samuel had always looked like an average thick — headed jerk to me, but his expression hardened, and for the first time I could see the ancient monster within the boy. “This isn ‘ t actually a school, or did you forget? I don’t need to study algebra. I need to figure out how to pass for human. Everything else here is a waste of my time.”

“Harassing the human students seems, to you, a better use of your time?” Mrs. Bethany arched one elegant eyebrow.

“Why are they even here?” Samuel shot back. “If you didn’t bring them in to serve as our dessert tray, I don’t see the point.”

She smiled, just a little, her eyes darting briefly toward Lucas, who looked as confused as I felt. “You don’t see many things, Mr. Younger.”

“I’vehad enough of this.” Samuel rose as if to go, but Mrs. Bethany’s withering glare pinned him in place.

She steepled her hands upon her desk and spoke slowly and carefully. “I asked human students to this school because they were necessary to fulfill a.. pet project of mine. An interest of Mr. Ross’s as well.” Mrs. Bethany looked directly at Lucas as she said, “The elimination of the bloodlust of our kind.”

Samuel snorted. “So leave me out of it. I don’t want to be free from bloodlust. I like bloodlust. Best thing about being what we are.”

“You enjoy being a vampire too much, I think,” she said. “You’ve forgotten the alternative.”

“So what ifl have? As far as I remember, being human kind of sucked. I was weak, I had to eat vegetables, plus don’t forget having to go to the bathroom, what, like, multiple times every day? What a waste of time.”

Mrs. Bethany cocked her head, taking his measure as she took something from one of the drawers of her desk — a small metal container. A trap. And yet I felt no pull toward it. “We shall see.”

“What?” Samuel said. But she wasn’t paying any more attention to him. To Lucas, she said,;Do you know what this is?”

“A trap,” Lucas replied. His gaze was fixed on the box. “For a wraith.”

I realized that ice flaked the metal container, meaning that a ghost was already trapped inside. That was why it had no power over me; the trap was full.

“Very good, Mr. Ross.” She rose to a standing position. “Now, observe.”

Mrs. RP.th;my whispP.rP.ci somP.thing in T. tin ts shP. opP.nP.ci thP. hox. ThP. wrtith within r.tmP. out — ts hol t of light thtt strur.k StmuP.I squarP.ly in the chest. He collapsed onto the floor, twitching violently; the wraith seemed to be circling him, stuck to him, a writhing vapor going over each limb, covering his face, trying to get away but unable to move.

“What the hell?” Lucas rose to his feet, obviously trying to figure out how to help Samuel, if that was possible. But Mrs. Bethany shook her head no.

Fascinated, I stared as Mrs. Bethany withdrew a long knife with a black blade — obsidian, I realized. Despite the barrier of the house’s walls, the obsidian seemed to push me back.

Then she stabbed downward — through the wraith, into Samuel. Silvery blood mingled with red, and both of them screamed.

The wraith suddenly sank within Samuel, clearly being absorbed by him. Samuel twitched one moment more, then sucked in a deep breath. Then another. He pushed himself up on his elbows, staring at the oozing wound in his arm. The blood was pulsing out Pulsing — He has a pulse, I realized. A heartbeat.

Samuel stared up at Mrs. Bethany. mute with shock. His eyes were wild and vacant. She straightened. throwing back her shoulders and smiling so brilliantly that she looked younger for a moment. Beautiful. Terrible. Lucas took a halting step backward, then sat heavily in the chair, like his only 182 alternative would’ve been to fall down.

“It works,” she whispered.

“I’m — ” Samuel kept patting himself down, like that would make sense of it. “Oh, God, I’m human.” Mrs. Bethany began to laugh. “You’re alive.”

My mind seemed to blank out, like where I should ‘ve had thoughts, there was only white light and static. What I’d just seen was impossible — and yet, I’d seen it.

“Make it stop. Make it stop.” Samuel clawed at his uniform sweater, like he was trying to rip through his own chest to tear out the beating heart. Lucas had to open and close his mouth a couple of times before he could say, “What — what did you do?”

“The wraith and the vampire represent two halves of death, Mr. Ross.” Her voice was again crisp and professional, but the hot light in her eyes hadn’t faded. She stepped closer to Samuel, who was by this point writhing on the floor, his living body apparently excruciating to him. “And yet, we also represent two halves of life. The flesh. and the spirit. Unite them once more. and the result is … resurrection.”

“I never heard of anything like that,” Lucas said. “Black Cross never told us this.”

“And yet they are among the very few who have ever known it. It was among Black Cross documents I stole that I discovered this.” Mrs. Bethany leaned over Samuel. His distress did nothing to diminish her delight. “Why didn’t they share the knowledge? You would think anything that resulted in fewer vampires — but no. Black Cross didn’t merely want safety for humans. They also wanted vengeance. And what vengeance could they have had in giving vampires renewed life?”

“Make it stop,” Samuel repeated. His voice was reedy now, which made it almost unrecognizable. It was like coming back to life had driven him crazy.

Lucas took a step toward Samuel, but he didn’t know how to help any more than I did. He said, “This can’t be real.”

“Feel his pulse!” Mrs. Bethany grabbed Samuel’s wrist; he whimpered but didn’t resist her. Then she let go, visibly steadying herself. “Forgive 183 me. I have known the theory for nearly four years, but this is my first successful test.”

Then Lucas lifted his head, awareness dawning. “Bianca,” he said, and for a moment I thought he was talking to me. But he continued, “Bianca was created when her parents made a deal with a wraith — ”

“Another way for the combination of wraith and vampire to create life,” Mrs. Bethany said. “Though there, the result is the creation of a third, independent being. Here, we take the energy of a wraith and unite it with the body of a vampire. Ideally, the wraith’s consciousness is erased, leaving the energy to resurrect the vampire as the person he or she once was.”

The wraith’s consciousness was erased? When you were a wraith, all you were was consciousness. Mrs. Bethany wasn’tjust trapping the ghosts.

She intended to kill them, a sacrifice so that vampires could live again.

And Lucas hadn’t yet walked away.

He’s in shock, I told myself, and I knew it was true; I was in shock myself. But I also knew how profoundly Lucas hated being a vampire. If he had a chance to live again — to be fully human — what might he do to make it happen?

Lucas had focused again on Samuel, who had begun thumping his head against the floor. It should ‘ ve looked funny, but the disjointed, jerky way he moved was too unsettling for that. “What’s wrong with him?”

Mrs. Bethany sighed. “As I feared, using an unstable spirit results in an unstable human. This one I had thought was a superior specimen, far more cogent than most of the wraiths we’ve managed to ensnare thus far — and yet, obviously, not steady enough.”

“Please,” Samuel whispered. He’d started to cry, and I realized that in his fists were strands of his own hair; he ‘d pulled it from his own scalp. I saw that the wraith’s insanity had become a part of him now, as much as his blood or his bone. Mrs. Bethany had restored him to life, but she had also wrecked him.

“You just — ” Lucas glanced at her. “Did this as an experiment.”

“I didn’t intend to go first myself,” Mrs. Bethany said, “and Mr. Younger had serious behavioral problems. I have better uses for my time than hosting detention.”

Lucas frowned in a way I recognized as a sign of growing anger. As much as he’d suffered from Samuel, he obviously never would have wished this on him. “Seems like you could’ve warned the guy.”

“I thought there was a reasonable chance he’d be restored to life and health,” Mrs. Bethany said. She opened the front door, and Samuel stumbled to his feet and ran for it. His steps were unsteady, and he didn’t go toward the school; instead, he streaked toward the woods. Somehow I knew we would never see him again. Mrs. Bethany came right to my window. so close I shrank myself within the branches of the nearest shrub. and watched him go. “Who can say? In a decade or so, he may gain some stability.”

“Shouldn’t we go after the guy?” Lucas demanded. “And if that’s the best you can manage, you shouldn’t have tried it on him in the first place.”

“Angry, Mr. Ross?” Mrs. Bethany looked more amused than anything else. “Why so? Though I have no reason to doubt your good intentions, I cannot imagine your outrage is solely on Mr. Younger’s behalf.”

“You just — destroyed him! To test your theory!”

The angrier he got. the warmer Mrs. Bethany’s smile became. “You’re upset because it didn’t work, not in a manner you ‘d wish to experience.

Because you think I don’t have the answer I promised you.”

“That is not — ”

“Isn’t it?” She put her hands on his shoulders. They were face — to — face now, so close. “We can rise from the dead. I have proved it. We can trap the wraiths. I have proved that, too. Now it is only a matter of finding suitable wraiths — those who are especially strong. especially stable. Connected to the world in a meaningful fashion. If we can only find such wraiths, and trap them, you and I will live again.”

Lucas’s face was a mask of rage, and yet her fmal words, Jive again, made him shut his eyes tightly.

Her voice became lower, softer, sweet. “I see how you look at the human students. I know your hunger — it’s something we share. I traded my human life to a vampire for the sake of love, and revenge, and two centuries later I remain trapped in the prison of my corpse. It’s so heavy, isn’t it? Carrying around your own dead body? Knowing yourself to be a monster and hating every urge you feel? But it’s almost over, Lucas. We’re almost free.”

He opened his eyes. They looked deeply at each other for a long second, and I thought, in desperation, I’ve lost him. For real, this time.

“Join me,” she said, “and live again.”

Lucas flung her hands from his shoulders. “No.”

Mrs. Bethany stepped back, one hand to her throat. “Mr. Ross — ”

“You threw that guy away like he was nothing,” Lucas said. “You trashed him, and it doesn’t matter to you one bit. You’ll destroy the wraiths like they ‘ re nothing, including — including the ones most like living things — and that doesn’t matter to you either. I can’t do that, not ever, not even to.. . You know, I don’t care what magic you work. Even if you pull it off, even if you give yourself a heartbeat, you ‘II still be dead inside.”

Silence. They stood there, regarding each other as though they were strangers. Mrs. Bethany looked — sad. Crushed. At last she said quietly, “I had hoped you would be a part of this.”

“I had hopes,” Lucas said. “But I’d never be a part of this.’ He ran for the door and out onto the grounds.

How could I have doubted him, even for a second? Lucas had stood by me. He had kept my secret. In the face of the ultimate temptation, he had walked away without any doubts. Amid my astonishment and horror, I also knew a deep, powerful joy. I raced after him, a breeze high above the grounds, shaking down red and gold leaves from the trees so that they scattered behind me.

Lucas ran into the forest, and at first I thought he must be going after Samuel, though I couldn’t imagine what we could do to help him. Instead, as 186 soon as the trees concealed him from the school — in a small glade that I recognized as the place we’d first met — he collapsed to the ground, on his hands and knees. His breaths came raggedly, and I realized he was on the verge of tears.

I took form slowly, giving him time to tell me to go, if he wanted to be alone. But he fumbled in his pocket, grabbing my brooch, and handed it to me. As soon as I felt the jet, my body became entirely solid, and Lucas clutched me to him with all his strength.

“There’s a way out,” he gasped. “There’s a way out, and I can never take it.”

I held him tighter. Why hadn’ t I realized how much worse this would be for him? He’d been promised a release from an existence he considered worse than any jail — and it was true; every one of Mrs. Bethany’s promises was true. It was the doorway out, and he would never walk through it.

Then I considered that. A small, scared feeling quivered inside me, but I didn’t let it take me over.

I held Lucas as he buried his face in the curve of my shoulder, his whole body shaking with suppressed emotion. Until I was sure, I couldn’ t speak.

Finally I said, “We could do it.”

Lucas shifted back, enough to see my face. “Do what?”

“The ritual. What Mrs. Bethany did.” I steadied myself. “I could bring you back to life.”

“No. You’d be giving up whatever life or existence you have left, and then you ‘d be gone forever.”

“You offered to do the same for me,” I said. “Remember?”

“And you were brave enough to die in my place.” Lucas brushed his thumbs across my cheeks and cradled my face in his hands. “I’m not gonna give you anything less.”

I hugged him again, and he sank against me like he was exhausted. Mrs. Bethany would never hold power over him again, I knew, and yet his burden was heavier than ever. It would never get any easier. Neither of us would ever die, or ever live again.