Page 45 of After Life
Hey!
Mister! Where are we?
Why can’t I find Rilla?
Do you know where my dog is? I thought I’d see him after.
What time is it? I’m supposed to be home by dark. I think I got hurt.
Mister! Hey! Hey!
They were loud, bleeding together, overwhelming me as I reached the edge of the dug-out sand.
Sobs as fragile and delicate as tissue paper drifted from over the water. Creaking, snapping canvas.
Choking gasps, thick and desperate.
I tripped at the edge of the dug-out sand. The figures tensed, moving closer together. Something was in the middle of the triangle, something on the ground.
My head throbbed, knife-sharp pain exploding behind my eyes.
Hey, mister! Come here! Down here! Hey!
Please, please! Oh, god! Please help me!
Diana murmured, “I loved my tulips. Do you think they still grow?”
“I doubt it.” Johnathan sighed. “It’s been so long.”
The fires flared bright, moving again, and the figures were suddenly clear. Sandra, Delia, Ray-Don. A very scared looking Kelly and Marilla.
And me.
The shape on the ground was me.
I wished I was witty enough to say something sharp and cutting, something morbidly funny.
I wished I was quick enough to put it all together. But my thoughts were slowed by shock and confusion.
I lay in the middle of a sigil, one of the ones Julian had found in the book. What was that one for?
Sandra and Ray-Don were staring out at the water, their mouths moving and voices distant and thick. Delia was busy with something between the fires, moving from one to the other, checking I assumed, adding something to them.
Kelly and Marilla were still, quiet. For a moment, I thought they were ghosts, but I realized the girl was crying, the boy comforting her. The old man was the one who saw me. His lips quirked sadly. Sorry, he mouthed.
Jeremiah’s hands closed over my shoulders. I startled—I could feel him! He squeezed hard enough to make my body ache as he leaned in and whispered, “This is harder than I thought. But also... right? I feel good again. I feel again.” He laughed softly.
“Jeremiah—”
“I’ve been wary for so long,” he murmured. “I resisted this. And suffered for it, really. But it’s hard to remember why. Why did I try to stop them?” He shook his head, frowning in confusion. “I thought it would be awful but right now, all I know is that I can feel again. I can breathe when I’m in your body. And taste!” He shook me gently, an expression of grim wonder twisting his lips into a smile “Maybe it’s time,” he muttered. “Maybe it’s been long enough?” His grip on my arms intensified. I bucked, struggling to get away but unable to tear my eyes from the sight of my own supine form. “I wonder if you can reach into the light, or if you’ll stay with us,” Jeremiah mused.
He spun me around, back toward the water. I saw Diana then, and Johnathan. Pale against the dark sky, washed out by the years. Whatever definition they’d had in life was long gone, leaving them mere smears of faded color and the intense sadness and anger that came with some ghosts—loss, confusion, envy of the living, deep and abiding grief for their own passing and the years they never got to see for their loved ones. Others were there, too insubstantial for me to see but I could sense them moving along the sand, in the near water. And they were all focused on me now.
“You’re not like us,” Jeremiah continued. “You’re not truly dead. You’re a light shining in a dark house, a candle in a hurricane.” He chuckled at his own analogy. “We’d hoped your gift would remain when we pulled you free, but it looks like it stayed with you.”
I swallowed, my mouth and throat dry and hot. “Julian would love to know that,” I muttered. “He’d make a note in his spreadsheet, I’m sure. Medium’s powers do not remain with body but follow the spirit. Rather like car insurance, isn’t it?” I was babbling, words pouring out as if I could stop what was happening through sheer force of chatter.
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Jeremiah said, then shoved me hard. I didn’t fall but rather found myself being dragged forward, toward the stark white glow between the two ships. Something was moving out of the light toward us, long and thin and almost arachnid in their shapes. I tried to scream but only burning came, like I had swallowed fire.
