Page 60 of After Life
Exhaustion.
I rolled onto my back and saw the open maw of light where the Wreckers stayed. The two ghost ships, their wrecked bodies flickering in and out, sometimes whole and sometimes rotting wood and barnacles.
Virginia moved forward from the group, a pale figure against the glaring light, barely discernible. She held out a hand, silently offering. I looked away, into the strangeness behind me, a place that was not living or dead.
And I saw me, stretched out beside me.
Jeremiah Tibbins stared back at me, his form shifting with my body, not quite fitting since he didn’t belong. But he was trying. almost succeeding. The lines rising from the sigils in the sand shone gold and green, wrapping around Jeremiah and pressing him into my body like dough into a pan.
“No,” I growled. “No!” Moving without a body was effortless when you weren’t being dragged out of your flesh. I lunged at Jeremiah and felt the impact this time, the electric jolt of his spirit and mine passing through one another. He yelped and, for a moment, I knocked him out of my body. It was easy, slipping back home, into the vessel I belonged in. Popping in like a puzzle piece, I thought. Then Jeremiah was shoving his hands into my chest, curling and pulling, trying to move me out.
But this time it didn’t work.
This time I couldn’t be moved.
Someone shouting made him look up, and that distraction was all it took. I let myself settle in, spreading to take up my space.
And it hurt. Everything hurt. Jeremiah screamed, throwing himself down onto me, scrambling at my chest and throat.
And then...
Then it was over.
And it was dark.
And I was alone.
No, not alone. Someone was nearby. A thin presence. Like tissue paper held against a light. Almost insubstantial but just enough to make out the shape, the realness. They moved closer, a cool touch moving over my face, settling over my chest above my heart.
Who are you?
They didn’t respond. More soft touches, more hands. I wasn’t alone, wasn’t truly back yet I didn’t think.
Am I dead?
The tissue-paper ghosts pressed close, gentle as a feather. “I’m not ready,” I murmured, the sound of my voice rough and low. Sand on rocks, boots scraped on asphalt. The pain in my limbs intensified, heavy and hot and pulsing. The ghosts drew back, their cooling touch slipping away, leaving heat and prickling pain in their wake.
“Am I dead?” I repeated, this time softer, my breath thin and difficult.
“Oscar,” Julian whispered near me. “Oscar, be okay. Please?”
I tried to nod but couldn’t move. Instead, I let myself float. Let myself be home, at least for the time being.
Chapter 14 — Julian
There’s a condition called stress-induced or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. People refer to it as dying from a broken heart or dying from fright. It looks like a heart attack, but it’s not quite the same.
That’s all I could think about for several moments when I woke up to see the sigil destroyed and the other side of the bed empty. My chest ached like a weight had been pressed onto it. Like Giles Corey, I thought in a fit of historical pique. Maybe my death will become a tourist attraction too. The island can advertise a new ghost.
Stop it. Think.
Think like someone who is somehow enabling body snatching. Got it.
I groaned aloud. “Shit!”
I swallowed hard against the rising panic—How will I get Oscar back now? —and forced myself to my feet. There is calmness in routine and making myself go through a hastened morning get-ready took the edge off the pressure under my ribs, but it did not fully abate. Hurrying downstairs, I confirmed what I already suspected. The house was empty.
Maybe?
