Page 84 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“My mother isdead,” he snapped. “I know she was my mother. I remember her as my mother. I remember loving her. But I’m not sad that she’s gone. I’m not even managing to be upset about it, except that it’s upsetting everyone else to see how much I don’t care. I can feel them being disgusted and unsettled and this isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I want my brain back.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Sarah. Her eyes flashed white, and she and Greg were gone, leaving Artie glaring at empty space while Annie stood beside and slightly behind him, the leg of her jeans still smoking.

“That was shitty, Arthur,” she said. “I get you’re having big feelings right now, but we all told you what happened, and you know she didn’t do any of it on purpose.”

“I just wanted to be sad,” he said, turning to look at her plaintively. “I just want to grieve for my mother. Why does that make me the bad guy?”

“Because that was a rotten way to ask for what you need,” said Annie. “Your mom just died, so we’re not going to be dicks about it, but maybe you should go back inside now.”

Artie looked to James and Sally, seeming briefly like he was going to argue. Then he turned, shoulders slumping, and began to trudge back toward the house.

I walked over to the trio. “Where’s Sam?”

“That was...a lot,” said Sally. “Someone’s going to explain all of this eventually, right? I’m not going to feel like I started reading a series in the middle forever?”

“Just store up all your questions, and I can answer them tonight when we go to bed,” said James.

The babysitter in me was stirred to say, “Sally’s going to have her own room tonight.”

“Am not,” said Sally. “Okay, maybe am, but you can’t make me stay there. Jimmy and I have a lot to catch up on.”

“And it’s not like you have to worry about her compromising my virtue,” said James, almost primly. “That ship has sailed, hit an iceberg, and pulled a Titanic all the way to the bottom of the metaphorical ocean.”

“Right, don’t try to keep the queer kids from keeping each other awake all night, what was I thinking.” I looked around, then repeated my question: “Seriously, though, where is Sam?”

“He was getting worried, so he went to call his grandmother, after he made me promise to stay here until he got back,” said Annie. “He’s such a worrywart.”

“Can you blame him?” I felt a strange snapping sensation at the back of my mind, like the sound a cathode ray television makes when turned on somehow translated into a physical feeling. I blinked.

Then, with surprising fierceness, Alex’s voice called, “Mary, I need you.” “That’s my cue,” I said, to blank looks from all the people who hadn’t been able to hear what was going on inside my head—which was to say, everyone. Even Sarah couldn’t read me casually the way she did everyone else. “Alex just convinced Megan’s mother to hire me,” I explained. “I felt the connection with Megan snap into place, and Alex is calling for me now. I’ll be back as soon as I reasonably can be.”

“Try not to be too terrifying, okay?” asked Antimony.

“No promises,” I said, and blinked out, throwing myself back toward Ohio. It was much easier, now that I had someone actively calling my name, providing me with a rope to pull myself across the void. Really, the less I thought about the mechanism that let me move around, the better. Trying to understand it too deeply just left me more confused.

Then I was standing in a double-wide trailer I’d never seen before. It was one of the ultra-fancy ones, the ones that make you question why anyone would consider living in a mobile home to be a bad thing. The carpet was thick and plush, the furnishings were well used but well maintained and clean, and the ceiling was high. There was a woman in front of me, wearing a nice blouse and a pair of fitted jeans. She would have looked perfectly normal almost anywhere in the world, if not for the snakes writhing atop her head where hair would normally have been. Like so many of the people I’d been dealing with today, she had clearly been crying, and her eyes were rimmed in red.

Alex was standing beside her, his face turned toward the wall and his back to the woman. That made sense, given I could see her eyes. She squeaked in surprise when I appeared, then fumbled for the dark glasses on the nearby counter, trying to unfold them and slide them on. I raised a hand.

“It’s fine, honestly,” I said. “I’m dead. You can’t petrify me.”

“What?”

“Hi, Mary,” said Alex, sounding deeply relieved.

I kept my eyes on the woman but smiled, and replied, “Hey, bud. Is this Megan’s mom?”

“She is.”

“Great.” I focused more intently on the woman. “Alex explained who I was when he said he was going to call me, right?”

“He did, but...”

“But you’ve never dealt with a physical ghost before, right. Okay, well, we’re immune to gaze-based effects. You’re looking at me, but you’re not looking at my body, because that’s buried in Michigan. I guess if I stared deep into your eyes for long enough, you might turn my bones to stone, but that’s about it.”

“I’m a Pliny’s gorgon,” she said, sounding ever so faintly baffled. “Our gaze isn’t petrifactive. Our venom is.”

“So you’re worried about me seeing your eyes because . . . ?”

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