The Everafter Read online

  There is a solitude of space

  A solitude of sea

  A solitude of death, but these

  Society shall be

  Compared who that profounder site

  That polar privacy

  A soul admitted to itself—

  Finite infinity.

  —EMII.V DICKINSON

  Contents

  is

  the sweatshirt

  the bracelet

  the purse

  orchids

  random acts of existence

  is

  beyond the boundaries of any one life

  daddy-daughter dance

  gathering ghosts

  is

  ghost

  the underwear

  headache

  felicity's shoe

  is

  a penny for your thoughts

  is

  rattled

  cell communication

  infected

  the spoon

  school peas

  is

  pain's greater plan

  witch's nails

  pass to class

  baby doll

  photo in the wind

  the ring

  losing myself at disney world

  is

  the pinecone

  physics

  is

  the note

  is

  un rattled

  gathering as a ghost

  am

  spirits

  am

  the end

  after the end

  epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  UNCORRECTED t-PROOf—NOT FOR SAIE

  HafflHCMifiji P y bfobss*. -

  I'M DEAD.

  Not my-parents-told-me-to-be-home-by-twelve-andit's-two-o clock-now dead. Just dead. Literally.

  I think.

  I can't fee! a body anymore. No hunger—not even a

  stomach. No fingers to wiggle, no feet to tap.

  So I pretty much have to assume that I'm . . . gone?

  No. I can't be gone, because I'm here.

  I won't say that I ve "passed on" or "passed away." I don't

  remember passing anything on the way here. For that matter,

  I don't remember dying, either. There's some saying

  about people "dying of curiosity." But I'm just curious about

  how I died.

  Curious and . . . frightened. This place—wherever it

  is—surrounds me with vibrations. It j u s t . . . Is.

  Loneliness and mystery hum through me. I feel like I

  just woke up in a dark room that has no clock. And even

  worse: no people. Where is everyone I knew when I was

  alive? Who are they, and do they miss me? What if I'm in

  Hell? Maybe instead of fire and brimstone, hell is just the

  feeling of loneliness. I don't remember much about being

  alive. I don't even remember my name. But loneliness being

  hell? That much I remember.

  Ahead I see a bright pinprick of light. Can I reach it? It

  seems my only chance for company. The prospect of reaching

  that light has replaced the throbbing ache of loneliness

  with a quivering hope.

  I attempt to move toward the light, but the space that

  is . . . Is.. . cloaks me in thick, clinging darkness. It sticks to

  me like a disgustingly damp pair of jeans two sizes too small.

  I fight it out with Is, pushing against its boundaries, discovering

  I can get the bubble around me to expand if I try hard

  enough. But just as my space begins to grow, a cloud of loneliness

  surrounds me. I discover there's a reason the dead are

  stuffed into cozy coffins and small urns. This large empty

  space I've created makes me feel even more isolated.

  I stop pushing against the boundaries of Is, and it shrinks

  into a small bubble again. All the energy that is me beats

  comfortably against the boundaries. Now that I am dead, I

  guess I have a soulbeat instead of a heartbeat.

  • • •

  Maybe some time passes. .Maybe it doesn't. Hard to tell

  in this place. But one way or the other, I discover the problem

  with small, safe places.

  They're boring.

  I can't decide if my curiosity or my fear is the stronger

  emotion. And I don't quite understand how I can be feeling

  both if I'm dead. They chase each other around, circulating

  and percolating in me. Haunting me.

  How is that possible? I mean, if I'm the one who's dead,

  how can something be haunting me? I'm supposed to be the

  one doing the haunting.

  Finally, curiosity chases fear to the perimeter. It's time

  to explore.

  Not that there's much to investigate. Just that bright

  pinprick of light.

  I push against Is and expand the bubble of my space

  again. This time I discover I can intensify my soulbeat until

  it fills the bubble's space with energy. I ride the pulse of my

  soulbeat into the ever-expanding bubble as I approach the

  light.

  It is a ring glowing in the dark. It shines against the

  midnight black of space like an X-ray. An image of a bracelet.

  What is it doing here?

  As I get closer to the bracelet, I find myself floating

  right through the glowing circle of light. Photons scatter

  everywhere. I feel less lonely somehow with all this light

  swirling around me.

  And because I can see now that there are more pinpricks

  of light.

  They are little stars amid my dark existence, scattered

  across space at great distances. A spoon. A pair of socks,

  hair clips, pieces of paper, peas, a cell phone, keys, flowers,

  a handbag, a doll's shoe. More and more. They are artifacts

  of a life.

  Mine?

  ! don't know why, but they seem to link me to all the

  people I sense I should be with.

  I find still more: beads, photographs, a ring, a baby's

  rattle, and—how odd—a pair of underwear.

  All these images are company at last.

  But I need them to be closer together so I can spend

  time with all of them at once. Is there a way to click and

  drag them onto a desktop-sized spacer

  No. Apparently Is hasn't picked up on the whole wireless

  concept yet, and I will have to go to the ends of the U

  niverse to find all my companions. I'd better start now if—

  My trip has already come to an abrupt halt. I've hit the

  next object. It's a sweatshirt, and I can't bear the idea of

  moving and leaving it behind.

  I know it should make me feel warm, but its stark white

  glow fills me with longing. A sense of missing something—

  more intense chan any feeling I've yet had—pounds through

  me. And suddenly I know I wasn't meant to be here alone. I

  know I expected to find Gabriel waiting for me.

  But who is Gabriel?

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT f OR SALE

  H«Mtfift!flg&£wbfeftfiH

  the sweatshirt

  I'M NOT SURF. WHY this sweatshirt fascinates me so much.

  Maybe it's the missing smell. I sense that the most im
portant

  thing about this sweatshirt is supposed to be its scent,

  but there aren't any smells in //. I want to put the sweatshirt

  on, but I've got no body here in Is, either.

  I try to what it felt like to have a body and imagine

  mysel f pulling warm fabric over my head....

  And then suddenly everything changes. Knowledge—

  not just some strange half memory—rips through me,

  scattering me across space and darkness, through nothingness

  and shadow. I am propelled toward harsh light. The

  sound of voices swells as I come closer and closer to them.

  Metal chairs scrape across linoleum, addingan unharmonious

  musical accompaniment to the voices. Flickering specks

  of me hover, dancing in the air, and then unite into something

  not quite solid yet more substantial than I have been.

  I have a misty almost-form.

  I'm back in the world.

  In a classroom. An art classroom. I recognize myself,

  standing at a sink a few feet away. I'm trying to get red

  paint off my hands. I remember this moment: junior year,

  second-hour art class. A sense of joy at being back in the

  real world courses like blood through mv almost-being, but

  it's strangely mixed with anger: I know that I'm about to

  discover that the sweatshirt is missing.

  And then I know so much more. Suddenly I'm drowning

  in memories that take on half shape s. They fill me with

  panic as I founder around in them.

  I know my name: Madison Stanton. I remember my

  mother, her deep red hair; my father, tall and playful, with a

  baritone that rumbles comfortingly; mv house and its smell

  of eucalyptus; school; teachers; my best friend, Sandra; my

  older sister, Kristen; my pet cat. Cozy; and—Oh, God—

  Gabriel. Gabriel whose sweatshirt I am about to lose. All

  these memories threaten to pull me under a tide of grief

  and loss.

  It is the sound of my own laughter that acts as a life

  jacket. I float up out of the memories to focus on this

  moment, on myself standing at that sink. I'm laughing with

  Sandra. I can't remember what about, though. I'm tempted

  to move closer.

  But first I need to go rescue the sweatshirt. It's about

  to be stolen. And I know by whom. I left it on the back of a

  chair—so I wouldn't get paint on it—over on the other side

  of the partition that divides the room. If I can get to the

  sweatshirt before Dana does, mavbe I can keep her from

  stealing it.

  I try to move toward the partition but have trouble figuring

  out how to do it. I don't quite have a body, so the

  physics of movement as I'm used to it on Earth just isn't

  happening. But I'm also not merely a collection of light particles

  the way I've gotten used to being back in Is. Great.

  How many diflerent states of existence can there be?

  I have to figure out how to use some bizarre combination

  of floating and running to move. Just as I reach the

  partition, though, I bounce backward. Rubber-band style.

  The elastic that holds me to mv real self over at the sink has

  stretched too thin. I go shooting backward almost all the

  way to the real me over at the sink, who's still busy laughing.

  What's the matter with her? Or should 1 say "me"?

  How am I supposed to refer to the living, breathing Maddy

  Stanton? "Her" seems so not "me." And yet, she's not me.

  She doesn't even seem to sense that I'm here. And can't I let

  her know how clueless she's being about what Dana's doing

  8

  my house on Sunday, and I've been making good use of it

  ever since. Yesterday he asked for it back. Uh-unh. No way.

  He's not getting it back until it's so dirty it absolutely has

  to be washed. No use keeping it after it's lost the essential

  Essence of Gabriel.

  It's been a good few days. I'm thinking about raiding

  Gabe's dirty laundry when I have to give this sweatshirt

  back.

  But when Sandra and I return to the table, the sweatshirt

  isn't there. My book bag is still sitting on the seat of

  the chair—exactly where I left it. The sweatshirt should be

  on the back of the same chair. I glance quickly at the other

  chairs around the table, but it's not sitting on the back of

  any of them, either.

  "What's wrong?" Sandra asks as I start doing a weird

  version of Duck Duck Goose with all the chairs, sliding

  each out and checking to see if the sweatshirt has somehow

  migrated onto its seat.

  "Gabe's sweatshirt is missing," I tell her. I'm not holding

  out a lot of hope that she's going to sympathize with the

  true extent of this tragedy. She's been teasing me for the

  past two days about how my obsession with the sweatshirt

  is my subconscious attempt to have sex with Gabe.

  "It can't be missing," she says matter-of-factly. "It was

  on the back of the chair when we went to wash our hands."

  I'm cursing myself. I took off the sweatshirt so I wouldn't

  in

  on the other side of the wall?

  I try again to reach Dana, to stop her from stealing the

  sweatshirt. No luck. The living Maddy pulls me up short

  once again, only this time I get too close to her. She exerts

  some kind of magnetic pull on me. And then instantly I

  became her.

  oge 17

  The water suddenly gets too hot on my hands. "Aiya!" I

  shriek, reaching to adjust the temperature.

  Sandra turns the water off. Ever the conservationist.

  "You're not Lady Macbeth trying to wash bloody sins off

  your hands, you know."

  So Sancra. Thirty seconds ago, we were laughing about

  the way her calc teacher got a piece of toilet paper stuck in

  the waist of her skirt, then came to class and taught half

  the hour without ever realizing it was there. Now Sandra's

  making obscure references to Shakespearean tragedies.

  She handsme the roll of paper towels sitting on the counter,

  flicking water in my face at the same time. "Thanks," I

  sav, rolling my eyes.

  "Sorry," she says, grinning.

  We head back over to the table where we've left all our

  stuff. Time to put Gabe's sweatshirt back on. It smells wonderful.

  Totally him. I've had it for two days. He left it at

  9

  get paint on it. What's a little paint, though, when the alternative

  is no sweatshirt at all? I've moved on to playing Duck

  Duck Goose with the other tables.

  No sweatshirt.

  There's only one explanation for what could have happened

  to it. Dana.

  Suddenly I'm so angry that I'm afraid I might turn into

  Lady Macbeth with some bloody sins to wash off my hands

  after all.

  Sandra sees how upset I am. She grabs me by the arm.

  "Hey, Maddv, it'll turn up."

  "Dana took it. I'm sure she did. I don't know whether

  to be mad that she's trying to mess with me and Gabe, or

  creeped out by what she might be planning to do with it."

  "What do you mean, 'do with it'? What can she do with

  k?"

  I notice
that Sandra isn't trying to reassure me that

  Dana hasn't taken it.

  "What if she's going to sleep in it or something?!"

  "You mean like you do?"

  Such. A. Cheap. Shot. "He's my boyfriend," I say defensively.

  I can't even begin to express how horrified I am by

  the idea of Gabe's ex sleeping in his sweatshirt. "She can't

  get over the fact that they've broken up, and I'm sick of it."

  Sandra starts rubbing my arm. "Hey, calm down. She's

  not going to sleep in it. She's over Gabe."

  n

  Hardly. She's been a major pain ever since he dumped

  her and started dating me.

  Sandra has known me since we were live. She can see

  what I'm thinking. That's why it's worth having a best

  friend. Saves on words. "Seriously," she tells me, "this thing

  between the two of you, it's about you and her, not about

  Gabe. She doesn't want him back. She just wants to mess

  with you. It gives her satisfaction to make you miserable,

  because you made her miserable when you started dating

  him."

  I give her my best skeptical look.

  She steps back, flicks her brown curly hair over her

  shoulder. This is a sign she means serious business. The

  hands even go on her hips. She's got one of those fragile,

  thin builds (and. yes, I've been jealous of that ever since

  we were about ten and the differences in our body types

  became clear to me), but she can generate presence when

  she wants to be taken seriously. Like now. "What better way

  lo upset you than to take something of Gabe's from you?

  Then she gets to watch you go off."

  Sandra nods her head over toward where Dana is standing

  with some other girls. Dana's smirking in a way that—if

  I'm honest—actually scares me. How can someone have the

  look of a jack-o'-lantern and a model all at oncer "Look at

  her," Sandra says. "She doesn't have the sweatshirt, so she

  obviously hid it somewhere around here."

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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  the bracelet

  THOSE OBJECTS OF LIGHT . . . I know row what they all are:

  items I lost during my lifetime. They have found their way

  here, to return me to my own life, and—ohmygod—do I

  ever want to go back.

  It's strange that back in the art room when I became the

  living me, she never seemed to realize there was . . . well,

  another me—a dead one—hanging around somewhere.

  But in a way it was also nice she didn't notice me. When I

  became her, it meant I was truly . . . alive.

  I want that experience again. I want to be with the people