The Everafter Read online

  Samhain and the Celtic folklore associated with

  Halloween until Gabe brought it up, but so what? He can't

  be smarter :han I am about evoyibingi can he? "You stick

  with physic; and calculus and stuff like that."

  He laugis. As he opens his book and pulls his assignment

  from it, he pushes aside my carton of french fries

  a little too quickly. I he wind whisks away my half-done

  homework. *Aahh," I say, trying to leap up from the picnic

  table. My left foot gets stuck under Gabe's leg and I start to

  lose my balance. Laughing, Gabe grabs my arm to keep me

  from nose-diving into the table, but Gabe makes the mistake

  of letting go of his own homework.

  The wind seems to mock both of us as it picks up his

  paper and sends it fleeing in a different direction from mine.

  We each run off, laughing, in search of our homework.

  ,'ji

  UNCORRECTED E-PflOOF—NOT FOR SALE

  I HAVE A STRANGE SENSE about that moment with Gabe at

  the picnic table. It's somehow essential. I don't know why

  it is, but it's the centerpiece of the puzzle of my existence.

  If I could just figure out what pieces are supposed to be

  attached to it, maybe I could . . .

  W a i t . . . I do know one of the reasons that moment is

  so essential.

  Gabe is there.

  I mean, the dead Gabe. I could feel his presence there

  just like 1 did when we lost our keys. Ic makes sense that he'd

  be there, too. After all, he also lost his homework when we

  were sitting at the picnic table.

  iCJ

  I suppose it should be comforting to have him there—to

  have the company. But it's not,

  Because Gabe's there, but I can't reach him.

  I go in search of my physics homework. Is it still here? It

  should be. I remember now that we never found our homework.

  But one failing grade in physics . . . well, it just didn't

  seem that important after we'd gotten back together.

  That's all I remember about that day, though. And

  it's. . . so near the end. I do know that.

  Kristen was in labor that day, and I never found out

  whether the baby was a boy or girl. I'm sure of that. If I'd

  ever known who that baby was, it would have changed me

  somehow, become part of me. I mean, Kristen's my sister.

  There's a connection there that can't be broken, even by

  this death thing. I'm convinced I'd have the same connection

  to her child.

  So exactly what did happen that day?

  My physics homework is waiting for me, so I return . . .

  and return and r e t u r n , . ..

  But learn nothing.

  Frustrated, I start flinging myself randomly back into

  all the moments of my life that I still have access to.

  But nothing's changed in any of those moments. It's all

  still the same.

  Until about my tenth time returning to the picnic table

  scene....

  ; j i

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HMRetCMiO J..?Ait?JSdKB

  the note

  age W

  I'm so intent on my misery, I don't notice at first that I've

  been playing with my necklace . . . the one Gabe gave me

  last summer. It's silver, and at the center it has block letters

  that say FOREVER.

  Yeah . . . so much for that. We aren't even talking now.

  Tears blur mv eyes, and I look down to see the words /

  need to talk to yon written in strange handwriting. Definitely

  not mine.

  How did that get on this piece of paper?

  I'm startled by a soft touch on my shoulder, and I whirl

  around, gasping.

  Gabe...

  ,L!

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  lia.tB.e^9.HlPJ.PubJAlb.?.f.J.

  15

  THE SONG OF MY LIKE has changed again. Even though I

  can't now remember what happened on my earlier trips to

  that picnic table, I can tell that a significant shake-up has

  happened. Something is fundamentally different in my

  world because .. . because Gabe left me a note on that piece

  of paper, and it wasn't the living Gabe who did it. It can't be.

  A ghost has been messing with that moment, and it doesn't

  feel like it was rne. The other ghost in that moment was

  Gabe.

  And he wants to talk to me.

  I'm thrilled and full of longing but frustrated, too. I

  can't figure out how Gabe managed to leave me a note. My

  ghost can't go around leaving notes for other people. The

  i-JS

  only change I've ever managed to make to my life in a revisit

  is finding an object.

  For a moment, I'm envious. Why does Gabe get to be a

  more advanced spirit than I am?

  Maybe it's because he was better at physics than I was.

  Maybe it takes some kind of understanding that I don't have

  of quantum mechanics . . . all that simultaneous-communication-and-observation-of-subatomic-particles-changingreality

  stuff.

  Maybe. But probably not. Me always did figure out life

  foster than I did (well, except when it came to his dad and

  the whole drinking thing). I shouldn't be surprised that he

  managed to figure out death faster, too.

  So what's he doing differently than I am? I try to recall

  how my journeys back to life began. They started with the

  sweatshirt. Then there was the bracelet.. . which I found.

  Can't go back there to find the answer.

  At least not the way I'm used to going back to

  moments.

  But I can remember that moment. I have a nagging feeling

  that something was different about that visit than about

  the many others I've made since then. What was it?

  Then it comes to me.

  Ohmygod. It's been so obvious the whole time.

  And I've missed it.

  I don't have to be me when I'm experiencing those

  iti

  moments. I can stay separate from myself... like I did the

  first few times I returned to mv life. On my original visit to

  the sweatshirt, I stayed back and watched for a few minutes.

  I did the same thing when I used the bracelet. It was only

  when I pushed myself too close to, well, myself, that I was

  drawn back into the experience. Drawn like a magnet to a

  lodestone. I could have kept my distance. But I liked living

  too much. So every time I returned to a moment of my life,

  I lived it again instead of observing it.

  For the first time ever in //, I laugh. At least, I think

  that's what I'm doing. It's like every subatomic particle in

  my being is dancing with delight.

  My mother was right. About everything.

  The whole object attachment thing?

  Right. Even in death, I've still been attached to those

  objects.

  The whole you-have-trouble-with-change speech she

  gave me when I started middle school?

  Right again. I haven't been able to let go of life.

  My mother knows me so well that she even knows who

  I am when I'm dead.

  It's time to experiment with observing instead of living.

  Who knows what will happen?

  I know just the right
experience to start with.

  : j . '

  UNCORRECTED E-PfiOOF—NOT fOR SALE

  ttaBsCsUios-SubSsfesra

  unrattled

  KEEP BACK . . . KEEP BACK, I remind myself. If I want to

  watch this all happening, I have to keep my distance from

  that baby in the bouncy seat on the kitchen floor. It's difficult

  to do. There is a natural pull drawing me closer. I have

  to work hard to resist it, but, surprisingly, the longer I do,

  the easier it gets.

  When the force dragging me tapers off enough for me

  to notice what's actually going on in the room, my first

  thought is, Ofmiygpd... its Mom, and she looks so young.

  My second thought is, Lose the outfit, Mom. Totally eighties

  and it's well into the nineties. And the hair. Mom? Definitely

  has to go. It s long and curly and, well, bushy.

  • CS

  be scared of," she reassures baby me. "It was just a breeze

  knocking over the plate."

  Ha. Just a breeze. As mom puts baby me back in the

  bouncy seat, she chucks me under the chin, then moves

  toward the kitchen sink where she starts peeling carrots. I

  miss her already. Loneliness emanates from a tiny me and,

  like smell and sound, floats across the boundary between

  us, reaching me in the form of an echo.

  Baby me starts fussing, jerking around in the bouncy

  seat, and knocks the rattle onto the floor. It slides under the

  cabinet. My crying brings Mom rushing over. She says, in

  a singsong voice, "What's the matter with my baby? Is she

  wet?"

  Oh, get real, I want to tell her. I just lost my rattle. Mow

  hard is it to notice that?

  Apparently, pretty hard. She picks me up, checks my

  diaper, realizes it isn't messy, and then starts trying to nurse

  me . . . nurse me?! Ohmygod . . . this is so sick. I have to get

  out of here. Now!

  But how? I have to wait until my body moves a certain

  distance from the lost object, don't I?

  Thank God the baby me isn't having anything to do with

  the whole nursing thing. I keep pulling away, and finally

  Mom decides to take me for a little walk down the hallway.

  Released. Sent back to //.

  Thank God. Or the Universe. Or Whatever.

  . -}

  Being here but not being me (at least the original me)

  is way weird. This is a Mom that I've seen in pictures but

  don't actually remember. She is cooing at the baby me, who

  (by the way) stinks. I've never been able to stand the smell

  of baby. Eau de spit-up, baby powder, and plastic diaper?

  Yeah, no, thanks.

  Smell, I notice, is a lot different for me in this hovering

  spiritual state. It's not as real as when I'm living the

  moment. I can still smell things, but it's like all those scents

  are coming from a great distance, like they have to cross

  some kind of invisible boundary to get to me. That's the

  way sounds seem to work, too.

  Mom doesn't care that the baby me smells so bad. She's

  leaning close, talking nonsense to me and rubbing noses.

  It's a habit she didn't get rid of until I was older, so I have a

  clear memory of doing a lot of nose rubbing with her.

  I wonder if my spirit has any power over things in this

  moment. Can I, for instance, knock over that plate balancing

  precariously on the edge of the counter? I sort of. . .

  will it to happen.

  And it does.

  Mom, startled, whirls around. "Whew . . ." she says as

  she realizes there's no immediate danger. She goes to the

  closet to get a broom. She cleans up the mess (I can't help

  feeling proud of myself for creating it) and then goes back

  and picks me up, snuggling and cuddling me. "Nothing to

  m

  For the release, but also for graduating me to a new

  level in the spirit world. The Universe has actually given

  me more power than I thought it had. I can create changes

  in my original life from a ghost state, too.

  Except...

  Maybe this zipping around in and out of life as a spirit

  isn't such a cool idea after all. There are some things that we

  are not meant to know, understand, or see. Like my mom

  trying to nurse me, for example.

  Besides, interfering in that moment has changed my

  original life again. I'm starting to feel that strange shifting

  of self. "It was just a silly plate I broke!" I find myself wanting

  to shout at the Universe.

  Not that it would care, anyway.

  The Universe just doesn't make the best of companions.

  I long for something more than it's giving me. I recall the

  note that Gabriel left at the picnic table: / need to talk to

  you.

  Realization tingles through me: I've been too focused

  on how Gabe managed to leave me that note. Too focused

  on his desire to see me. I've been missing a possible implication

  of his words: Maybe we can talk.

  I try to imagine how this would be possible. If I return

  to a moment that another ghost shares with me, and stay in

  the state I used for observation, will I encounter that other

  ghost?

  I onlv know of two possible moments I share with

  another ghost and that I still have access to—the picnic

  table scene, and the Ouija board one. I consider both.

  What if I'm wrong? What if I can't communicate with

  a ghost?

  Better to have that happen when I'm expecting to

  encounter Tammy than Gabe. If it doesn't work, I'll be less

  disappointed.

  Where's that hair clip?

  r i

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF-NOT FOR SALE

  gathering as o ghost

  RETURNING TO THE NIGHT of the Ouija board is completely

  different from my last spiritual expedition. For one thing,

  we're in a basement. The humidity makes the air heavier,

  and it's harder for me to move around with this not-exactlycorporeal

  body.

  But the big difference? That would be sharing space

  with another ghost. I mean, a real ghost. Tammy's ghost.

  I'm watching things from a distance when she startles me

  by more or less saying, "Thought you were never gonna show

  up. I was starting to wonder if you were avoiding me."

  I say "more or less" because it turns ont that ghosts don't

  actually talk to each other in the same sense that living

  ili

  humans do. I'm not sure what you'd call it. Certainly it's

  some form of communication. And clear enough commuaication

  that I know what she's telling me. It's just that there

  aren't any, well, words. There're j u s t . . . ideas. I'm not sure

  how to respond to her, because how can you talk to someone

  when you aren't really talking?

  Turns out I don't have to worry about it. I'm confused

  by her "Thought you were never gon na show up" statement

  (since I've been here what seems like a million times) and

  think, What's she talking about? She immediately tells me,

  "You. Coming here. As a spirit. So I could actually have a

  conversation with you."

  It's like . . . whatchamacallit—telepathic communic
ation.

  We're communicating telepathic ally, and whoa . . . not

  such a t>ood thing. I mean, what if somehow she reads my

  mind and I'm thinking something that I don't really want

  her to know?

  "Oh, in time you'll learn how to keep some ideas back

  from other spirits. It's just that you have to learn all over

  again how to communicate . . . both the truth and lies."

  Great. Like learning to communicate the first time

  wasn't hard enough?

  "Doesn't talce all that long. You'll catch on quickly. This

  must be your first attempt at communicating with another

  spirit."

  ..'

  "Well, yeah. It's not like I've experienced many moments

  where I lost something at the same time some other dead

  person I know did. In fact, I've only discovered two other

  moments like that, and one of them I can't get to anymore.

  I lound the stupid keys that would take me there."

  "Oh. Don't worry," Tammy reassures me. "You'll find

  more moments like that. You have eternity to do it."

  Not exactly reassuring.

  "And the more experience you get hanging out with

  other spirits, the belter you'll communicate with us."

  "Well, my only practice so far has been when I was thirteen

  and talking to you through the Ouija board."

  "Oh, yeah, sorry about that."

  "1 hat reminds me. The whole thing where you used the

  Ouija board to apologize? Do you think you could be a little

  clearer about that? I mean, what are you sorry for?"

  Neither of us has a body. I know this misty whiteness

  next to me is Tammy because . . . well, I just do. The same

  way I know what she's saying to me. When I ask her that

  question, it's like all her whiteness becomes brighter, and I

  know this is a form of laughter. I don't find anything here

  particularly funny.

  "Did you kill me? Is that why you're sorry?"

  The glow of laughter disappears. She darkens with what

  seems like . . . regret. Just when I'm thinking I have the

  answer to my question, she surprises me.

  M

  "Of course I have regrets. But they aren't about killing

  you. I mean, how could you even think it? . would never kill

  someone who had once been my friend."

  I don't know if I'm more stunned by the loyalty she's

  expressing or the way she's kind of left open the possibility

  that she might kill someone who wasn't once her friend.

  She interrupts my thoughts: "Don't even go there. Of

  course I wouldn't kill anyone. I might have made my mistakes,