Page 36 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“I knew you loved that skirt, but I didn’t know you remembered it,” I said.

Jane lifted her face. She was every bit the angelic little girl she’d been when she was actually seven years old, daughter of the early seventies, with her hair cut in a severe bowl cut that her children would later mock, looking at her childhood pictures. But her eyes were older than they had ever been during her actual childhood, old and wise and stolen from her adult face.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“I...” I stopped. “The crossroads are gone, Jane, and the anima mundi isn’t a resurrectionist. If we knew where the man who built Martin was, but...we don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t think anythingcanbe done.”

“Figures.” She plucked one of the little flowers, looking at it critically before crushing it between her fingers, letting out a sweet scent somewhere between cinnamon and honeysuckle. Then she looked back to me. “Did I get him?”

“What?”

“The bastard who shot me. I fired as I was falling. Did I get him?”

“I think so. Someone did, and it was the first gunshot I heard, so I think it was you.”

She nodded, looking pleased. “Good. Glad I got at least one of the bastards.”

“I can’t...” I paused, swallowing. “I can’t bring you back to life, but you’re my responsibility.”

“Is you being my babysitter the reason I’m a kid right now? Because you’ve always seen me like this? I guess I should just feel grateful you didn’t like me better as a toddler. At least I had some autonomy by the time I was seven. I could run around the carnival without Laura chasing after me, as long as she knew where Kevin was and that you could go right to me if I got into trouble.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You never stopped being my responsibility.”

Jane laughed, and she was a gawky twelve, hair grown out and braided to either side of her head, skirt replaced by bellbottoms and a loose blouse in paisley swirls. There was no transition or transformation: she was one thing, and then she was something else, and there was no contradiction there. The starlight worked the way it liked.

“Guess that’s true,” she said, looking at her larger hand with approval. “I’ll always be your problem.”

“Janey, I can’t...I can’t help you be alive again, but if you were planning to go back, I can help you get there faster than you’d be able to manage on your own.”

“Nah,” she said, calmly.

I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘nah’?”

“I mean, nah, no thanks, I don’t need the help.” She shrugged. “I’m dead. Let me be dead.”

“You don’t haveanyunfinished business?”

“Are you kidding? I have loads. This is going to mess Ted up forever. Kevin’s not going to take it too well either. I want to see Elsie figure out what she wants to do with her life, and find a nice girl, and be happy. I think there’s something seriously wrong with Artie. I want to see him get to the other side of it all, whatever that means, and become the man he was always meant to be. I want to be there for my family, and I want to see us win this damn war. I have so much unfinished business. None of it’s special. None of it means I should get to stick around when most people don’t have the option. I think I’m done.”

I hesitated. “You didn’t mention your parents.”

“Ah, Mom. That’s what you meant, right? I don’t feel like I have any unfinished business with Dad—I don’t know him, it wasn’t his fault, getting to know him now wouldn’t change that, and getting to know him as a ghost seems a little mean. ‘Sorry, guy, you took too long, and now your kid—who looked older than you already—is dead, hope you enjoy chatting about creaking hinges in doorless chambers.’” She snorted. “Mom, though...I know her. And I feel like I know her even better after today. But I also feel like I’ve heard her whole apology. She doesn’t have a better reason for what she did, and she’s not going to find one, because she told me the truth.”

Jane shrugged again as she looked at me. “Saying ‘sorry’ isn’t like casting a magic spell. Even if you do it with all the sincerity in the world, it doesn’t fix the things you broke. It doesn’t undo what you did. Did she do the right thing when she left us? She knows herself better than we ever got to know her, and I believe she believes she did the right thing. No way to know for sure now. Maybe there never was. She’s said her sorrys, and I’ve accepted them as much as I can, and I spent my whole life mad at her. I don’t feel like spending my death the same way.”

“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” I asked, almost desperately.

“Most people don’t get the chance. Why should I be any different?” She climbed out from under the table, and when she straightened, she was twenty-five, young and brash and beautiful, the way she’d been when she came home and told us she was getting married. I followed her, awkwardly getting to my feet. Our eyes were almost level with each other.

“I have all the unfinished business in the world, but none of it’s unique enough to justify staying here when no one else is allowed to. I’m not a special kind of ghost. I don’t have a job I feel compelled to do, and I don’t want to stick around long enough to get one. If I hadn’t managed to shoot the guy, that might be a compelling reason to try. Good thing I was such a good shot, huh?” She quirked a little smile, and reached over to smooth my hair away from my face, tucking it back behind my ear. We were both ghosts. I felt her fingers just as if she were alive. They were even warm.

“Tell them you found me, and tell them I’m okay; tell them I loved them so much it hurt sometimes,” she said. “But tell them I’m not coming back. Dead is dead and done is done, and I’m dead and I’m done, and I’m going to go now.”

She began to turn away. Almost desperately, I blurted, “Wait!”

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