Page 26 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“Bon’s en route,” said Apple. “If you’re catching a ride with her, get moving.”

One by one, the windows winked out, until the screen was dark.

• • •

While it was natural for almost everyone to want to check on the carnival where Kevin and Jane grew up, the people who’d been the first to stand made the most sense. Jane was still in close, regular contact with the carnival; Antimony had trained there, and so had Alice, although her training had been years previous. Sam, meanwhile, was the grandson of another carnival’s owner, as well as being ridiculously strong and fast. As a group, they were the best equipped to go.

Even if it did mean putting Jane in a car with her mother for six hours, which seemed like a good way for somebody to wind up dead. Neither of them looked happy about it. Really, everyone looked distressed. Even the mice weren’t cheering. Seeing the proof that we and our allies were being hunted down wasn’t precisely comforting.

“I’ll be right back, I’m riding to Boise with you all,” I said. Jane looked relieved. Antimony just nodded.

I disappeared.

Sarah was still out by the firepit with Greg and Olivia. Me knowing where that was, plus multiple family members being there, meant that when I aimed for it, I hit my destination, blipping from the living room to the edge of the dirt-and-gravel ground. The grass had been cleared back from around the central bonfire, and from the logs, creating a decent firebreak. Not that they needed it much these days, not with Annie standing by and ready to shut any runaway sparks down with a wave of her hand.

Sarah was sitting on one of the logs and Olivia was on the ground near her feet, both of which were normal. The shape Olivia was snuggling up to was a lot less normal, by Earth standards. Oh, it was a standard-enough design, fuzzy, with eight legs and too many eyes, but the size was daunting. Not that many jumping spiders the size of bears locally.

None of us has ever been able to figure out how he stays alive. It’s not just that he’s more than pushing the upper limits of how long we know jumping spiders can live; it’s that the laws of physics should be looking to have a word with him. Annie swears he must have lungs in there somewhere, to explain how he doesn’t suffocate, but his legs are normal spider legs, and the square-cube law says they should shatter in Earth’s combination of gravity and atmosphere. Apparently, extradimensional spiders get their own laws of physics.

That, or even the universe is afraid of what would happen if they killed a cuckoo queen’s emotional support animal. Even if it is a fuck-off enormous spider. Sarah was stroking his head with one hand, her head bowed so that her hair fell all around her face and masked it from view.

I walked cautiously closer. Greg caught sight of me and turned his body slightly in my direction. Spiders don’t have necks, so this was a more involved motion than it would have been coming from a mammal. His pedipalps waved, a gesture that looked more like a friendly greeting than a threat. He knew me, after all. Not that it would have mattered if he’d been threatening me. I don’t particularlywantto be mauled by a giant spider, but being dead means I don’t have to worry about that kind of thing very much. He had one arm tucked around Olivia, which was far more of a concern. I’d be fine, and she would be dead.

“Sarah? Honey?”

“They’re going, aren’t they?” She didn’t lift her head. “Running off to join the carnival.”

“Are you all right?”

“I can’t read minds as far away as the people everyone was talking to,” she said. “Not unless I’m really trying, and I don’t like to really try. It makes my brain feel buzzy, like it’s been carbonated, and sometimes I’m scared there’s still more changing to come. I don’t want to change more than I already have.”

“Only way to stop changing is to die,” I said, walking over to settle next to her. “And honestly, even dying doesn’t stop it completely. When I died, I would never have wornpantsin front ofboys. I didn’t know what a mobile phone was, or how many episodes ofCriminal MindsI could watch in one sitting. And I didn’t know you. Knowing you is a change I would hate to have missed.”

“It’s not the same for you,” she said, still petting Greg. “You were human when you died. Technically, you’re still human now, just human and dead. I’m not human. I’m an insect, and insects metamorphize under the right conditions. I’ve already done it once. I don’t want to do it again. What if next time my skin splits open and a big bug comes out, like happened in that oneResident Evilgame? I don’t want to be a giant wasp.”

“Okay, you’re right; biologically, you have some concerns that I don’t share. But I don’t understand how they apply right now. Can you explain it to me?”

Sarah sighed heavily and raised her head, looking at me. That white film was covering her pupils again. It struck me, and not for the first time, that none of us was really equipped to help her. The best we could do was listen, and try.

“I can’t read minds as far away as Boise or New York,” she said. “I’m not like you. I don’t hear my family calling even if they’re on the other side of the world.”

“Until we broke my tie to the crossroads, I wasn’t like me, either,” I said.

“I know.” She ducked her head. “I’m worried because a bunch of you are going to go away and I won’t be able to get to you if something goes wrong.”

“Okay. So let’s try to find a way around that.” I shrugged. “Every hour, call for me in your heart, just as loudly as you can. You’re family. I’ll hear you, and I’ll be able to come. If I can’t come for some reason, like if we’re still in the car, I’ll ask Annie to text you. And then once I come, I can tell you what’s been going on, and if we need more help, I can ask you to do your space-bending trick and join us.” I waggled a hand like I was trying to illustrate her mechanism of teleportation. “Although, about that...if you’re worried about stretching to read minds that are too far away from you, isn’t hopping around like distance is irrelevant just as bad?”

“Distance is a sort of math,” said Sarah. “Nothing is any farther away from where we are right now than anything else. It’s...it’s hard to explain? It’s like I’m a fixed point, and all I’m doing is moving myself. It doesn’t feel any more like stretching than taking a step does. It’s all moving. I can’t make the same trip too many times in quick succession without twisting the numbers, and that’s bad for reality, and I can’t transport people unless I have the time to line up the equations, but I can come to you if you need me.”

I nodded, no more sure what she was talking about, but substantially less worried about hurting her by mistake. “Okay, sweetie. You’re going to be okay staying here with Art—with Arthur?”

“I have to be.” She sighed deeply. “He’s not Artie anymore, and I know it’s not my fault, but it is, and Elsie’s right to be so angry with me. I still love him. Isn’t that silly? He thinks he loves me too, and that’s the worst part of all, because I love a dead man and he loves a patchwork girl made up of other people’s memories. Some of them were mine. I don’t think I left him any choice. Once I broke him down and put him back together again, I became inevitable, whether or not that was fair.”

“It’s not fair, to either one of you.” I stood. “I love you, you know. And not because you made me.”

“I know, Mary,” she said, and smiled at me, sweet and sad. “Apple said she’d send a routewitch. Well, the routewitch is here. You should go.”

A bare second later, I heard Antimony’s silent call. I nodded to Sarah and popped out, outside at the top of the driveway, where a black minivan that looked like it belonged in the hands of a suburban soccer mom was stopped, engine idling. Roughly half the family was outside, Jane and Antimony each equipped with backpacks, while the others were empty-handed. Jane was talking quietly with Ted, and Alice with Thomas, the two women forming a doubtless unintentional mirror of one another. Annie and Sam were a few feet away, being addressed by Kevin and Evelyn.

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