Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (11 page)

She hugged her jacket tighter and came to the far end of the cemetery where her brother’s grave waited. Nothing stirred around her. Not so much as a whisper of wind or falling leaf broke the fragile still.
 

Amber took a seat on the stone bench and shivered, looking around. “Toby? I came. Where are you?”

Her breath came out in cloudy puffs. She shuddered again, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. Toby’s headstone sat a few feet away, a pile of black calla lilies before it.
 

Something caught her eye. Crystals on the petals. Ice crystals. They spread along the black like a glassy, cracking fungus. They reached the grass and coated it in crisp white. They radiated from the grave so far she lifted her feet to keep her toes from icing.
 

Help me
.
 

Toby’s voice came from the grave. Amber’s brows pinched together. The frozen lilies didn’t just lay on the grave, they
covered
something on it. She slipped from the bench. The grass cracked underfoot. She fell to her knees. A chill shock hit her as she hit the ice.
 

Slowly, she reached into the lilies. Her fingers found something hard, something icy. She pulled her hand away. Red tinged her fingertips. She shook them and speared the pile, yanking whatever hid beneath the petals into the open.

Amber grimaced and blew on her fingers as she dropped what she found into her lap. She’d pulled a box from the flowers. It didn’t look like much. It was black and worn and unadorned save a dark pearl capping the lid. She bent to its level and looked for a latch or a keyhole, but found nothing.
 

“What is this, Toby?”

Her brother didn’t answer. Amber straightened. She flexed her fingers and grabbed the pearl. She pulled. The box clicked. The lid creaked open.
 

Amber threw the top back. Empty sockets of a skull stared at her. An intricate design centered on the skull’s brow radiated around the bone, covering every inch of exposed surface. Deep lines braided one another and overlaid even smaller etchings. Beneath them, even fainter patterns appeared. The skull was one grotesque, hypnotic piece of art that pulled her to it.

I’m sorry, Amber. You were the only one I remembered,
Toby whispered.

She ripped her gaze from the skull and peered into the cemetery. The light at the gate blinked on. A figure stood beneath it, then darted beyond the graves and vanished in the shadows.

“Toby!” Amber lurched forward.
 

The box hissed. Amber screamed as a snake scaled in shades of charcoal shot from an eye socket and buried its fangs into the soft flesh between her thumb and finger.
 

Fire raced through her arm and ignited her heart. Her throat closed, and she flung back, slamming her head against the ground. Each breath was like swallowing glass. Spasms wrenched her body in awful angles. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Her scream sputtered into choking, foaming gasps.

The ground shifted. The ice melted. Frigid water soaked her jacket. It covered her form. She sank into the ground as water poured down her throat and filled her burning nostrils. Deeper and deeper she sank, the moon dwindling as the watery soil encased her.
 

She reached for the moon, but her fingers couldn’t find the surface. Water pressed on her chest. Poison turned every vein into a hot knife buried in her skin. Her lungs filled with fluid. The last rubbery bubbles of air slid across her cheeks and floated away.
 

Amber’s watery grave burst into mist, and she crashed onto a hard, cold floor. Her burning veins cooled, and she gagged water from her lungs. Her sopping coat burdened her shivering shoulders. She hacked and coughed, rolling to the side as she struggled from the jacket and wobbled to her feet.

Shadows ruled the room, save for the dim, sad column of moonlight lighting her shoulders. The floor she could see was a perfectly flat, polished slate, but other than it, she saw only an impenetrable black.

“Toby?” Amber pressed her fist against her lips and coughed the last of the water from her lungs. When she pulled her hand away, she saw the snake’s bite marks, all round and red and swollen on her skin.

Tears threatened, but she sucked them back. “Toby! Where are you? I … I’m scared.”

“Don’t be frightened,” a woman cooed. Her voice echoed through the room, slow and measured and ending on a sigh.

“Where am I? What is this place?”
 

Something glided across the floor, just beyond her sight. It moved softly and circled her column of moonlight. It completed a full circle and paused before her. Warm air washed across Amber’s face and rolled over her shoulders. Two enormous red orbs appeared in the black, wet and serpentine. A fire burned deep within those eyes, and their power held her like a steel vise.

“We will do wondrous things, you and I,” the woman said.
 

“I came for Toby.” Amber tried to back away, but the eyes trapped her. “Please—Where is my brother? Where is Toby!”

“Free,” she sighed. “I am finally
free
.”

A massive snake’s jaw tore from the darkness with dripping, curved fangs and swallowed Amber.

Amber screamed, clutching at her throat. She rolled to the side and fell, smacking against a hard, cold floor. Something soft cocooned her, tied her up. She struggled against it until daylight peeked through the hot folds.
 

Sunlight cast warmth through the bedroom windowpane. The leafless branch of the tree outside her room swayed in a breeze. A sparrow perched on the branch, eyeing her as it bounced and ruffled its toffee feathers.

Amber laid back and stared at the slowly turning blades of her ceiling fan. She lifted her hand and splayed her fingers. Not a single mark or hint of red colored the skin where the snake had bit her. She flexed her fingers. She blinked. She sat up. “What the hell?”

Without another thought, she sprang from her room and bounded downstairs. The necklace sat just where she had thrown it the night before. Her jacket rested on the back of a dining room chair, exactly where she threw it when she returned from the cemetery. She stood in the kitchen and tried to make all the pieces of last night fit together in a way that made some sort of sense.

“I heard you,” she said, searching the floor with her bleary stare. “I know I heard you, Toby. Was it a dream? Did I make it all up?”

Amber raised her hand again and flexed her fingers. Nothing from last night made sense. It might have been a dream, but the wind on her cheeks, the whisper of her brother, the freezing grave, the snake’s poisonous bite, and the woman’s seductive voice were all so real, so fresh.

“It doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all.”

The distinctive click of the front door unlocking sent her heart rocketing up her throat. Amber spun out of the kitchen and ran for the door. A dark form silhouetted against the frosted glass. The deadbolt slowly twisted.

“Toby? Toby why did you—”

The door flung open. Amber skidded to a halt. Ms. Flannery stood in the open doorway with dangling key in hand. She blinked at Amber, then snapped on a smile that looked more reflexive than actually heartfelt. “Good morning, Amber! What a wonderful morning it is, don’t you think? I thought it might be nice to come check on you, see how you’re doing. You were so distraught when you left, and I thought I might’ve been rather insensitive.”

Amber swallowed, lightly placing a hand over her chest. She reflected Ms. Flannery’s smile and stepped back. “Good morning, Ms. Flannery. It’s Sunday, and I, um, wasn’t expecting you on the weekend.” Amber ran her fingers through hair, untangling the knots. “I just woke up.”

Ms. Flannery’s brows knitted with concern. She pursed her lips and flitted into the foyer. “Sweetie, what have you gotten into? I knew I shouldn’t have been so harsh on you. I just, well, I just thought it was very inappropriate to try and use that silly necklace. There’s no such thing as spirits and ghosts and it’s just best to let sleeping dogs lie. It just
is
.”

“I….” Amber shook the last of the sleep from her head and pivoted as Ms. Flannery clicked past. “The necklace, I….”

“It disappointed you, didn’t it? You tried to call the spirit of your brother, and it didn’t work. Dear, I knew it wouldn’t.” Her frown slipped into something like pity as she turned and clucked her tongue. “You poor thing. You poor, poor thing.”

Amber’s jaw tightened at Ms. Flannery’s words. She didn’t need this patronizing woman clucking around her all day, not after what happened last night. “Yes, well, thank you so much for checking on me. I’d like to get some cleaning done, and I’ve got this paper due on Monday in my Environmental Science AP and it’s so much harder than I thought,
sooo
… Mind if we talk about it over tea tomorrow? I’ll need to study if I want to keep my grades up, just like you always say! Remember?”

Eliza clasped her hands, her furrowed brows pinching closer together. “How odd. How very, very odd.” She headed into the living room before Amber could speak another word and began scouring the place. Her scrutinizing stare stalled at the scratches on the wall where Amber had smashed her phone. “Good Lord, whatever happened here?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Chris called and we sort of had a stupid argument. It’s over now. I was going to get a new phone anyway. I’ll do it tomorrow after class.”

“It doesn’t look very trivial to me if you were angry enough to fling your phone at a wall. I understand these things are expensive. Don’t have one myself and don’t think I ever will. They disconnect you from the real world, Mr. Flannery used to say.”

With robot precision Ms. Flannery bent her knees to the debris and fingered through the fragments, lips puckered into a point. She glanced at Amber from the corner of her eye, and she straightened, brushing off her hands. “What did you and Christopher argue about? Out with it.”

Amber cleared her throat and tried to the woman’s hawkish glare. “Toby. Chris didn’t come down for his birthday. He was partying instead.”

“Boys will be boys,” Ms. Flannery sighed. “It’s been many years since Toby left us. Perhaps this is how Chris moves on. He won’t forget Toby, Amber, not ever. But things change with time. Wounds heal. We’ll always carry the scars, but they fade.”

“Thank you, Ms. Flannery.” Amber swung her arm toward the front door. Hopefully Eliza would get the hint and head that way.

Ms. Flannery sighed and strolled toward her. She placed a hand on Amber’s shoulder and with the other forced Amber’s chin to her. “Did you take a drug? You can tell me. I’m here for you, for whatever you need. Just ask, and I’ll do everything in my power. I truly care about you, but you have to be honest with me. What were you on? Was it the pot they always talk about? You’re not smoking those awful reefers are you?”

Amber saw red, and her fists trembled. She ripped her chin from Ms. Flannery’s chilly fingers, shooting daggers with her glare. “Are you kidding me? You come in here, uninvited, and then accuse me of doing drugs? I’m going through a hard time right now because if you haven’t noticed my entire family decided to get as far away as they could from me on my dead brother’s birthday. And now you have the nerve to come in here when I’m trying to get some rest and accuse me of doing drugs? Get out!”

“Amber, I’m only trying to—”

“No! I said get out. How dare you accuse me of doing drugs. I’ve never so much as taken a hit of weed, thank you very much.”

“But—”

“No. I let a lot of things slide, but this is out of line. I’m eighteen. I’m an adult, same as you, and I’m tired of people treating me otherwise. Drugs?
Seriously?”
 

“Amber Blackwood!” Ms. Flannery stomped her heel on the floor, face hard as stone. “Today
IS
Monday!”

The words hit Amber like a steel brick. “What?”

“It’s Monday. School is about to begin. I came to your home as your mother instructed I do every weekday. And thank God I did! You are clearly completely out of sorts.”

“Monday? It’s really … it’s really Monday?”

“Yes, Amber. It’s nearly eight. You’ll be late as is. Maybe you should call in. Maybe you and I can spend the day together and talk.”

“What? No. It’s … Shit. I’ve got to get to class!”

“Amber!” Ms. Flannery scowled. “Language, please.”

“I’m so sorry.” Amber yanked herself away from the woman and charged upstairs. “For everything, I really am. I never should’ve spoken to you like that, but I’ve got to get ready! I’ll be late. You can wait for Jason if you want. He’ll be here to get me in a few minutes.”

“Oh don’t worry, I will!” she called back.

Amber jumped into the shower. Steaming lines of water splattered onto the porcelain tub. Today was Monday.
Monday
. She went to the graveyard Saturday. What happened to Sunday?
 

Soap bubbled between her fingers as she scrubbed at the spot where the snake bit her. The skin flushed red with rawness. “What the hell happened to me?”

The doorbell rang. Amber rinsed her hair and lurched from the shower. She readied herself as fast as she could, tying her damp hair back as she struggled into her uniform. Wrinkles crinkled the shirt and dress, and her collar refused to fold neatly. Groaning, she slipped into a hoodie and thundered downstairs.
 

Jason and Ms. Flannery stood in the foyer. When she slid around the corner, their conversation died. Jason frowned. He shared a parting glance with Ms. Flannery before flashing his polished smile. “Good morning, sweet sunshine. Did we oversleep a little?”

“Just a little.” She swung her bag over her shoulder and motioned for the door. “Let’s go.”

They funneled outside. The onset of winter noticeably chilled the weather. Thankfully, Jason had put the top up on his car. Ms. Flannery flitted down the drive. She paused beneath the elm and spun around. “You do know my number, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ms. Flannery,” Amber said.

“Good, good. Don’t be afraid to use it. I’ll be checking on you tomorrow. And the next day. And the next!”