Hereafter (Shadowlands) (17 page)

“Right. Right. Sorry,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Fisher offered, putting his large hand on the small of my back. “I’m going that way anyway.”

“Okay.”

We left Krista, turning north up Main Street and headed for Freesia Lane. We’d only taken two steps when I saw something out of the corner of my eye—something that stopped my blood cold. Darcy.

She was standing near the fountain at the center of the park in her favorite sundress, glaring at me. Me and Fisher. The boy she was falling for had just put his arm around me.

“Darcy!” I called. But she just turned on her heel and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Darcy wasn’t home. I’d gone back to the house, ready to explain, but she wasn’t there. And my dad was tapping away at his laptop, as always. Even with the sun shining brightly through the windows, the place felt desolate, and I spent the entire morning on edge, waiting to hear the door open downstairs. Anticipating the confrontation. But Darcy had never returned. Which meant she was seriously pissed.

She still wasn’t home when I left for Krista’s. As I cut across the park, I twisted my hands together in front of me, trying to ignore my mounting fear of going to the mayor’s house. Instead, I focused on Tristan and what I was going to say to him to get him to believe me about the usherings.

I understand why you’re scared, but I can’t accept this
, I thought.
Aaron doesn’t belong in the Shadowlands.

I shook my head, laughing tersely at myself as I passed the fountain. I’d only said the exact same thing a million times yesterday. Why would his response be any different? Maybe…

I understand why you’re scared, but there clearly
is
something
wrong around here
,
I thought.
Don’t you want to help us figure
out what it is?

I bit my lip. That might work better, keeping Aaron out of it.

I was just squaring my shoulders and starting to psych myself up for this whole walking-into-the-lion’s-den thing when I saw them. Pete and Cori, straddling their dirt bikes not ten feet away, glaring at me.

My steps automatically slowed as frustration burbled up inside me.
What?
I wanted to yell.
What’s your problem
with me?

But then Officer Dorn and Chief Grantz strolled over to join them. And then Yoga Woman from the park. And the grocer. And two other people I didn’t recognize. I stopped in my tracks, adrenaline and fear surging through me. All that was missing was Nadia and her piercing black eyes.

Dorn leaned toward Grantz’s ear, and they both fixed their angry gazes on me. The others seemed to shift as one, as if primed for an attack.

Tristan’s voice echoed in my mind:
Once angry people get
together and are out for blood, they’re not satisfied until they
get it.

I ducked my head and kept walking, faster and faster and faster, until I reached a sprint at the top of the hill. I had to get to Krista, to my friends. It wasn’t until I saw the weather vane creaking overhead that I froze, a new wave of terror crashing over me.

How stupid an idea was this, going to the mayor’s house right now? All night I’d been waiting for the ambush. What if it was waiting behind Tristan’s front door?

Suddenly, Krista walked around the side of the house, her face creased with concern. She was wearing a lavender sundress and her hair was pulled back at the sides. There was a streak of flour on her cheek and when she saw me, her eyes brightened.

“There you are!” she said, reaching for one of my hands with both of hers. “I was just about to go down to your house to check on you.”

“Why?” I felt light-headed.

“You’re late,” she replied. “And Joaquin said something about keeping an eye on you. He seemed like he was worried.”

“Um…yeah. I guess I’m just a little freaked out about everything that’s been going on around here lately,” I said, glancing one last time over my shoulder. “Is Tristan inside?”

“No, he left a little while ago,” Krista replied. “Nadia came by, and I think they went out surfing or something.”

My stomach fell into my toes. “What?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Krista made an apologetic face. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I tasted bile in the back of my throat. It
wasn’t
nothing. If the two of them were out somewhere alone together, Nadia was definitely trying to convince him of my guilt. Trying to make him believe he was just letting another girl pull the wool over his eyes. And considering that the last time I saw Tristan we’d yelled at each other, I couldn’t trust that he would take my side.

“Come on,” Krista said, tugging me toward the house.

We were just passing the dead garden in front of the porch when a shout sounded from inside, followed by a door slamming. A bevy of crows took off from the roof of the house, cawing angrily.

“Um, maybe we should just sit out here for a while,” Krista suggested, clutching my hand so hard it hurt.

“What about Bea and Lauren?” I asked, clutching her right back.

“They’ll live.”

We looked at each other and shared a strained laugh over her choice of words. Cautiously keeping an eye on the front door, Krista led me up the porch steps and over to a wicker bench facing the bluff and the wide-open ocean beyond. As soon as she sat down, Krista deflated, hunching back against the puffy cushions in a very un-Krista-like way.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking about what Joaquin said yesterday,” she told me, picking at a broken piece of wicker on the arm of the bench. “You know…why are we even here if everything can go so wrong?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Krista sighed and crossed her slim arms over her stomach. “Do you ever miss it? Your life?”

My life. Considering everything that had gone on in my new life the last few days, I hadn’t had much time to think about my old one. And it was almost impossible to focus on it now, knowing that Tristan and Nadia were out there somewhere, talking.

But after a moment, I realized that unless I counted school, there wasn’t all that much to miss. I’d had friends, but no extremely close ones. I’d already been missing my mom for years, so that hadn’t changed, and Darcy and my dad were still with me. My mind flashed on an image of Christopher, but I could hardly remember what he looked like. When I thought of him, I felt a pleasant hum inside my chest, but nothing more.

“Not really,” I told her. She gave me this doe-eyed look that was sad, like she’d been expecting another answer. “But I guess I haven’t been here long enough to really miss it.”

“That’s true,” she said with another sigh.

I gazed at her petite frame. She seemed so fragile in that moment, so breakable. “Krista,” I started gently, “do you want to tell me…I mean, do you want to talk about how you…”

“Died?” she asked, her voice breaking. “I killed myself.”

“Just like Joaquin,” I said.

She laughed harshly. “Not exactly.
I
didn’t mean to do it.”

“What?” I gasped, startled.

Krista turned her hands over and over in her lap. “I just…my boyfriend, Andreas…he broke up with me, and I only took the pills because I figured I’d pass out and then he’d find me. And when he found me he would realize how much he loved me. It was a whole Romeo and Juliet thing. We were supposed to go to prom together, and I had a dress, and I just wanted him to want to take me. But instead, I ended up here. It was all supposed to be perfect, and I ended up here. Without him.”

She pressed her face against my shoulder, dissolving into tears. I wrapped one arm around her and let her cry, thinking how awful it must have been for her, knowing she could’ve just gone to prom with someone else and gotten on with her life. If only she hadn’t taken too many pills.

It was kind of how I’d felt about taking the shortcut through the woods that day. If only I’d gotten a ride, if only I’d taken the long way around, Mr. Nell would never have had the opportunity to attack me. My sister, my father, and I would all be alive back in Princeton. Back in “the other world.” I wouldn’t have to worry about the angry mob or the mayor or the Shadowlands or Oblivion or where Tristan was right now and what I would say to him when I had the chance.

Maybe I did miss my life.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “I’m really sorry. I’ve just been thinking about this a lot lately, with the one-year anniversary coming up and everything…but for some reason it just feels worse today.”

“It’s okay, Krista,” I told her, rubbing her back. “Hey, what was your selfless act?” I asked, hoping that might cheer her up.

“Oh. That.” She laughed and looked down at her fingers in her lap. “It was so lame. Not like saving a life or ridding the world of an evil maniac, like some people.”

I smirked. “Tell me.”

“I saved a doll.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes slightly, but smiled. “I’d been here for three days and I was down at the beach with a couple other people who moved on ages ago, and there was this family there. A mom, a dad, and two little kids. I found out later they died in a car accident.”

“Wow,” I said, the wind knocked out of me.

“Anyway, the little girl left her favorite doll near the shoreline and it got swept out to sea,” Krista continued. “She completely lost it, crying, screaming, and her dad was basically like, ‘Too bad. You have to learn to take care of your things.’ I mean, the girl was, like, three years old.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Yeah. Real nice,” Krista agreed. “All I could do was watch this soggy pink doll bobbing out on the ocean and the little girl crying, and it reminded me so much of me when I was little. I had this Raggedy Ann that I would take with me everywhere. By the time I gave it up in fourth grade it was falling apart and probably totally diseased.”

She smiled again, looking nostalgic. “So even though I was never a great swimmer, I dove into the ocean and swam out there and saved the doll for her. I thought I was gonna die by the time I got back to the beach. I was panting so hard I was seeing stars. But she got her doll back.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “What did her dad do?”

“He basically grunted at me,” Krista replied. “But the little girl was so happy… They moved on that night.”

I swallowed hard, hoping that that family, even the grumpy dad, had made it into the Light. We both sighed at the same time, looking out at the sun glinting on the ocean.

“You know what this is, Krista?” I said finally. “It’s just a bad day.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her blue eyes were shot through with red.

“It’s something my mom used to say. One day everything can look okay, and the next day everything looks so grim, even though nothing has really changed,” I said. “On bad days you have to remember the okay days, and then you’ll know that things will be okay again, eventually.”

“But something
has
really changed,” Krista protested, sitting up straight, pulling away from me. The bench groaned as she shifted her weight. “I liked how I had this important job, ushering people to their eternal destiny. But if that’s getting all screwed up, then what else do I have? No one here even likes me.”

“That’s not true!” I replied emphatically. “Tristan loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t. He thinks I’m annoying,” Krista said, looking at her lap. Her pert nose was red, and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. “Imagine how you’d feel being an only child for two hundred fifty years and then suddenly getting stuck with a sister.”

“Well, the girls adore you,” I said.

“Please,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Um, two of them are inside right now, baking cupcakes for your anniversary party, while you’ve been MIA for at least fifteen minutes,” I reminded her. “If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is.”

Krista bit her lip. “I bet Lauren is separating the sprinkles by color and driving Bea bonkers.”

“Probably.” I laughed. We both stared out over the ocean. “I think you just have to find your thing, your place, how you’re going to fit in for the long run,” I said, thinking of Tristan, of my odd new relationship with Joaquin, and of the very slowly blossoming friendship with Krista. “We all do. But it’s going to take time.”

“And we have nothing but that,” Krista muttered.

A soft knock sounded behind us, and I glanced back at the mayor’s office windows. Two clear blue eyes stared out at me through parted wooden slats. I caught my breath. The mayor held my gaze for a long, long moment before snapping the blinds shut.

I turned back to Krista, an awful feeling spreading through my gut that my time might be running out.

Joaquin was silent as he walked me home from Krista’s later that afternoon, beadily eyeing the Lifers at the center of town like he was my own personal bodyguard. He’d shown up out of nowhere as we’d finished the last batch of strawberry-scented cupcakes and had ever so casually offered to escort me back to Magnolia Street. Now I knew why. He thought I needed protection.

I wasn’t sure if that made me feel safer, or a lot more terrified.

“So…” I said finally, as we reached the far side of the square and the ever-present shadows on Freesia Lane. “How about those Yankees?”

“What?” Joaquin snapped.

I blushed, hard. “Sorry. It’s just something…my dad always says that when there’s an awkward pause in conversation. It’s like a thing.”

“Oh.” It was his turn to blush. “I guess I’m a little tense.”

We started down the hill, passing by the tall, imposing Victorian houses, their eaves decorated with intricate carvings, their porches lined with pretty potted flowers—although some of these had begun to wither and brown. The overgrown park at the center of the lane was as deserted as ever, and I averted my eyes from the eerily creaking swing.

“Did you see Tristan at all today?” he asked suddenly.

I shook my head, my heart skipping a beat. Every time a door had closed or a floorboard settled inside Krista’s house, I’d been sure it was the mayor coming for my head, but it was always nothing. Apparently, wherever he and Nadia were, they were having a good time together.

“Krista said something about him going surfing with Nadia,” I replied.

Joaquin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Tristan and Nadia are like… What two elements explode when they’re mixed together?”

“Well, there’s oxygen and phosphorus.… There’s—”

“Then they’re like that,” he interjected, gazing at the ocean in the distance. “If they’d spent any kind of time together, we’d know, because the island would have been obliterated.”

I smirked, feeling a little better. Joaquin, after all, knew Tristan better than anyone.

“He’s probably just off on one of his thinks.”

“His thinks?” I asked.

We emerged onto Magnolia and turned toward my house. Overhead, the sky was just beginning to darken, the lowering sun shading the clouds violet and pink. Joaquin sighed.

“Every once in a while Tristan… He just disappears,” Joaquin explained, glancing down at a dying sunflower that drooped all the way to the sidewalk. He stepped over it with a wide stride, like it might suddenly come to life and bite him. “Doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going. Just vanishes for a day or two, and when he gets back he won’t talk about it. One time I finally got him to tell me what he’d been up to, and he said, ‘I was thinking.’ That was it. So now we call them his thinks.”

Something inside of me sank. All along, Tristan had been bent on protecting me. Postponing telling me the truth about my new existence, making sure I didn’t hear about things dying for the first time ever, not telling me about Jessica and Oblivion. But now, when I really needed protection, it was Joaquin walking me home from the mayor’s, not him. He was off alone somewhere, thinking. But I supposed it was better than the alternative.

“Well, here we are,” Joaquin said as we arrived at my front gate. “Home sweet home.”

“Yeah.” I paused with my hand on the latch. “Thanks, Joaquin,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I appreciate you going out of your way.”

“Eh, I was gonna go for an evening swim anyway,” he said, shrugging me off. Then he smiled. “I’ll come down and get you for the meeting tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, even as my blood ran cold, remembering the looks on the faces of Nadia’s crew that afternoon.

“Just for now,” he said. “Until we figure it all out. Which we
will
do.”

I nodded, trying to feel as confident as he seemed. “Okay.”

I went to push the gate open, but he didn’t move. When I looked up at him, I could have sworn he caught his breath. “You sure you’re all right?”

My palms began to itch, and there was a slight hitch in my pulse, but I ignored it. This was Joaquin. He was a player. He’d screwed over my sister. And I was with Tristan. Wherever
he
was. I heard a loud caw and saw them coming, five dark splotches against the purple sky. The crows swooped in and landed on the apex of our roof, one, two, three, four, five. Overhead, the seagull circled and bleated, but it was clearly outnumbered. It finally turned and soared out to sea.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’ll see you later.”

I shoved the gate open, forcing him to take a step back, and strode inside without a second glance. As soon as I inhaled the familiar, musty scent of the house, I started to relax. I was home. I was safe.

Then I spotted Darcy at the kitchen table, and my heart froze. Maybe I wasn’t so safe.

“Hey, Darcy,” I said casually, hoping that if I acted like nothing was wrong, she’d follow suit.

But Darcy just made a grunting, scoffing sound in the back of her throat and pushed her chair back.

“Darcy,” I implored her.

“Leave me alone,” she said, one foot already on the bottom step.

My pulse started to race in that sickly way it did whenever Darcy was mad at me, but there was no way I was going to let a misunderstanding about a guy get between us. Not again. Not now, when Nadia was busy turning everyone on this island against me. I caught up with Darcy just as she was about to slam the door to her room. I flattened my hand against it and stopped her, jamming my wrist.

“Darcy, if this is about Fisher, there’s nothing going on,” I said.

She groaned again and walked farther into her room, tossing a book onto the bed. It flapped closed, and I saw the ancient silver writing, faded, on the cloth cover.
Wuthering
Heights
. Impressive.

“Did you or did you not sneak out of the house to have breakfast with both the guys I like?” Darcy demanded.

I paled. She’d seen Joaquin, too? “It’s not like I—”

“Answer the question!” she fumed.

“Okay, yes,” I stated. “Yes. I did. But do you really think I’m going to go after Joaquin? Or Fisher?”

She flopped down on her window seat, turning her palms up atop her thighs.

“No, I don’t think you’re interested in either one of them. Not really,” she said. “But do you have any idea how this feels? It’s like you’re
trying
to hurt me. You. My own sister.”

She drew her legs up, facing away from me with forced casualness, as if she were fine and not vibrating with 5,000 megahertz of anger and sorrow. My chest heaved, desperate to just tell her the truth. Desperate to fix things between us however possible.

But I couldn’t. Because if I told her the truth, I would damn her to the Shadowlands. I so wished she’d just perform a selfless act already, so this would all be a done deal. What I wouldn’t give to slap a Lifer bracelet on her wrist and tell her everything. But all I could do was keep my mouth shut and hope that it would happen. And soon.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, quietly. “I guess I’ll just go.”

“Fine,” she spat. “Go!”

I turned on my heel but paused at the door, my fingers curling around the beveled trim.

“But, Darcy, there is one thing you should know,” I said, looking halfway over my shoulder.

She sighed. “What?”

“I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you,” I said. “Never.”

Then I slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind me.