Page 183 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“Do you think there are sunsets wherever I’m going next?” Liv asked, her voice more reverent and softer than I was used to hearing.
“They’ll be far more beautiful where you’re going, Liv,” Ellis said, perching on the bench near her.
Jedd glanced down.
“Liv wanted to know if there will be sunsets as amazing as this wherever she’s going next,” I supplied, and he gave me a small smile.
“I hope there are,” he murmured. “She loved a good sunset.”
It wasn’t dark enough for stars yet, and the ocean stretched before me like a glimmering golden sheet. The cool wind bit at any exposed skin it could find, and guilt suddenly jabbed at me as a thought crossed my mind.
Ida.
She should have been here, even if she did think she had made her peace already.
She should have been swatting my arm and telling me I was squeezing Margaret too hard, or yelling at Jedd about life jackets, or rolling her eyes at me and kissing my forehead in the same breath.
I was being selfish.
I set the box down by my feet and pulled out my phone, skimming through my contacts until I found Ida. I tapped the video icon to FaceTime her rather than just call. The usual pulsing beep filled the air, then whooshed as she answered, the screen opening to reveal Ida, her half-moon spectacles balanced on the bridge of her nose as she looked down at the phone, which I knew she was holding far away with an outstretched arm.
I could see the shop in the background—the jars of herbs, the pendulum case, the vibrant lamp with the beaded fringe.
“Dove!”Ida shrieked with excitement.“Oh, how exciting! I was expecting a text message, kid. How are you, my feral earth traveler?”
I laughed at her words, a wave of homesickness washing over me as tears filled my eyes.
“Hi, Ida,” I said with a wide smile. “I’m good. I’m really good.”
“That’s good, love,”Ida said softly, settling into the seat behind the counter before squinting at me.“Where are you exactly?”
“I’m on a boat, actually,” I told her with a soft laugh, glancing behind me at the dark line of coast slowly creeping up on us. “I’m on a boat on the Pacific Ocean. And we’re about to scatter Margaret… with the fireworks.”
I glanced at Ellis over the phone as I spoke, her lips fighting a smile while Liv watched with interest. Jedd continued to steer, scanning the horizon.
I angled the phone down toward the box of fireworks. The camera wobbled in my hand as the boat crossed a wave. Idamade a small “ooh” at the sight, and then I turned the camera back to me.
“Jedd helped us,” I added. “A friend we met. He’s also our boat guy.”
“Well,”Ida said with a heavy sigh,“every great ash scattering is best supported by a boat guy or a getaway driver. Oh, Dove, she would be so proud of you. You know that, don’t you? And you know this isn’t the end of her.”
I nodded, my vision blurring as I wiped my cold nose. “I know,” I murmured as Ellis came over and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “I know. She said death was a door, that we only think it’s a wall because we can’t see the other side of it.”
Ida nodded gently.
“Our darling Margaret was both a menace and a mystic,”Ida said fondly.“If anyone was going to pick the loudest and most scenic way to go out into the afterlife, it would be her.”
I laughed in agreement and sniffed.
The boat suddenly slowed and shuddered as the engine dropped out. I glanced up from the phone and saw night chewing further at the edges of everything, lights along the coast slowly flickering on to join the others glittering in the distance, the ocean now a dark sheet.
“This is it,” Jedd called as he stepped down from the helm to the deck. The wind had roughed his hair, and his smile was soft as he eyed the box. “We can set up here. The water’s calm, and there’s no traffic. No one to scare.”
My hands shook a little, but I took a calming breath, trying to ignore the splitting halves of my chest. Ellis’s hand found the back of my neck, her fingers resting at the nape and gently toying there, quieting the roar in my mind.
“Ida,” I said, clearing my throat. “Do you want to stay? I can prop you up somewhere.”
“Absolutely, kiddo,”she said with a beam down the line.
