Afterlife (20 page)

For some reason, it was difficult for me to fade out this
time, where it never had been before. Maybe it was a little like trying to fall
asleep when it’s important to get some rest, so of course you lie awake for
hours. But as Maxie turned into a pure glow, I managed to follow her lead.
Slowly the 130 world around us turned into nothing but blue — gray mist, a
mysterious haze that had no up, no down, no center, and no boundaries. Maxie’s
glow twinkled slightly amid the swirling mists, then was gone.

Okay, Bianca. Her voice wasn’t something I heard so much
anymore — just something I perceived without really knowing how. You have to
Jet go.

 Let go of what? Everything.

You mean, Lucas and my friends — No, 1mean, EVERYTHING. Of
yourself just pull it all tight within yourself and
then .
.. Jet go.

What was that supposed to mean
?
Without much optimism, I tried doing what Maxie said. As I tried it, though, I
started to get some sense of it — and then I let go.

It was terrifying. Like discovering you had the ability to
make your heart stop beating, or to make gravity stop working. To turn every
law of the universe upside down. There wasn’t any blue — gray mist now; there
was only total nothingness, both alien and yet weirdly familiar, like something
so vast that I’d simply never been able to see it before, though it had always
been around me. I floated free within my mind — or something’s mind not
entirely myself any longer.

Will I ever be able to get back? At that moment, it seemed
like there could be no returning from something like this. Was this what lay on
the other side of the traps? Lucas, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what this would
mean.

Then I heard another voice, deeper and masculine: “Be here.”

Instantly, I was myself again. I stood on ground, saw light,
had a body. As I blinked, this new place took shape around me, and at first the
only thing I could do was stare.

How can I describe it? I stood in the heart of a city, amid
an enormous bustling crowd, that was simultaneously the most terrifying and the
most beautiful place I’d ever seen. A brilliantly painted Greek temple stood in
front of us, next to a squat, sturdy stone turret and, beyond that, a small
grove of plum trees with thick clouds of clover beneath the branches. Beyond
them were skyscrapers, houses, tents, hills, a castle, a chalet — every kind of
structure and landscape imaginable, some glorious, others in ruins. Next to the
cobblestone road Maxie and I stood upon wound a small, silt 131 brown river,
rushing so rapidly over rocks that I felt sure, if I fell in, I would be swept
away by the current. Around us thronged people in all kinds of dress, from
jeans to Victorian finery to Bedouin robes to togas. They could see me — a few
glanced my way — but nobody approached. My old timidity in crowds had returned
a hundredfold, so I was grateful.

As I looked down at myself, I realized I Wasn’t in the
pajamas I’d died in any longer. “It’s my green sweater
!
”
I said. “I could never fmd it after we moved to Evernight.lt was my favorite — and
hey, thesejeans — I loved them, too,
but …
didn’t I
outgrow them?”

“Pretty much everything You’ve ever lost can come back to
you here,” Maxie said, preening in a thick furry coat. Her hair was sleekly
bobbed now, and she wore shiny silver shoes with buckles — the height of
flapper fashion. This is what she’d looked like when she was alive, I realized,
when she’d been at her happiest. ““ll warn you now — that includes some of the
bad stuff along with the good stuff. You just never know.”

Now that I’d wrapped my mind around something as mundane as
our clothes, I began to comprehend the broader implications of what we were
seeing. “Maxie, are we
. ..
no
,
this can ‘ t be heaven.” I felt sure heaven Wouldn’t be quite so dirty, and
despite the beauty of many of the buildings around us, this place was filthy.
Magnificent and yet vaguely disgusting — actually, it reminded me a lot of my first
impression of New York City.

“You have not yet reached paradise,” said the masculine
voice. “This is a place of refuge, I think, but I would never claim to
understand it. It’s best to accept where we are on its own terms.”

I turned to see him — dressed in his nineteenth — century
finery, with his long, thick brown hair. He was an adult, but not quite middle —
aged yet or, at least, he hadn’t been when he died. His solid, firm — jawed
face was like those I’d seen in old — fashioned paintings of great soldiers or
admirals, going into battle beneath improbably beautiful skies: broad
shoulders, slim waist, firm gaze, and piercing eyes.

Maxie grinned as she snuggled into her coat. “Christopher, I
brought Bianca here with me. Bianca, this is Christopher.”

“We’ve met,” I said, though that was inadequate to describe
the strange ways in which our paths had crossed. When he had first begun
appearing to me during my junior year at Evernight, he’d threatened me so
fearsomely that I’d been terrified of him; he’d also prevented Charity’s tribe
from murdering me and Lucas last summer. I started at the beginning: ‘Tm pretty
sure you two tried to kill me once.”

Christopher didn’t deny it; he didn’t even seem fazed. “You
had only so much life to live. Sooner or later, you would have become either a
vampire or a wraith. We came to you at Evernight when you were drinking blood —
becoming closer to your vampire self.”

“You guys wanted me for yourselves,” I said.

“And for your sake as well,” Christopher replied. “Becoming
a vampire would have been less a sacrifice for you than for most, but so much
less than you have the potential to become.”

“Besides, vampires are gross,” Maxie said. I glared at her,
but she just shrugged. “No offense, but come on. They’re dead bodies. Walking
around. Eww.”

“I assure you, that did not enter into my decision.”
Christopher looked slightly pained at Maxie’s rudeness. “Bianca, as a vampire,
you would have been merely one among many. As a wraith, you have powers beyond.
almost
any other of our kind, and abilities you have
only begun to grasp.”

“That’s why you saved me and Lucas from Charity this summer.
Just to stop me from being turned into a vampire. It’s never been — personal,
for you. Killing me or saving me.”

He looked amused. “How could it be personal when we have
only just met?” Apparently he could see how angry that made me, because he
quickly added, “When you have been dead as long as I, your perspective is
altered. But no Jess true.”

Great, I had centuries of undeath waiting for me before this
was going to make sense. I decided there was no point in freaking out about it,
though. I’d become a wraith, and I had to deal with that reality. Christopher
was the only person who could help me through it.

Not the wraith leader, Maxie had said — apparently there was
no such thing. But Christopher was the most powerful among the wraiths, for
reasons I hadn’t yet learned. He not only had significant power oif his own,
but he also seemed to suggest that I had greater powers still waiting to
manifest. Discovering my own abilities, coming into my own as a wraith, meant
accepting Christopher. I decided it was a smaJJ price to pay. “Okay. Let
bygones be bygones, or whatever. I just want to understand.”

“Will you walk with me
?
”

“Sure.”

Taking the hint, Maxie waved good — bye to us, hurrying off
to something that looked sort of like an old — fashioned soda shop. One of her
shiny buckled shoes caught on the cobblestone path, making her stumble — even
here, it appeared, you could fall — but she caught herself. That left Christopher
and 1alone in this mysterious place. “If we ‘ re not in heaven,” I asked, “how
did we get
.. .
here
?”

“Those of us who have achieved clarity after death, who no
longer need to haunt the mortal realms, bring that which we loved here with
us.” Christopher’s wavy brown hair ruffled in a soft breeze that smelled like
the seashore — simultaneously fresh and foul. On a hill in the distance ahead
of us, I saw an Egyptian riding along the road in a chariot, just ahead of an
old pickup truck that spewed exhaust from the tailpipe. “Not the people we
loved, alas. Each individual’s soul is their possession alone. But the places
that mattered to us, keepsakes of the best and worst of our lives — all of that
finds us here, where everything lost can be found once again.”

The land of lost things, I thought. It seemed to be as good
a name for it as anything else. “If ghosts can come here, why do they bother
hanging around and haunting people? This beats lurking in somebody’s attic.”

“Not every wraith can come here.” His dark eyes could be
unsettlingly intense, more so now that he was in his human form. “Most of us
are created by murder. And only the foulest of murders, none committed in the
heat of passion — but premeditated, selfish killings that arise from betrayal.”

Christopher’s voice grew rough, and I wondered what had
happened to him, and to Maxie. To the many ghosts bustling around us on the
road.

Composed again, he continued. “That kind of death is not
easily overcome. Most of us awaken as wraith alone, unable to believe that we
have passed away, that we have been so betrayed, or that heaven is delayed for
us, perhaps forever. Sometimes we see those we thought loved us glorying in our
demise. Is it any wonder that so many become — twisted? Sick inside?”

“I guess not.” The thought of it turned my stomach. “Did
that happen to you? Somebody you loved
— ”

“Friends,” he said quietly. “Men I thought faithful comrades
had plotted against me. Of those I held dearest to me, only my beloved wife was
true. And the worst fate awaited her.”

That sounded seriously bad. I wondered if the friends had
killed her, too, or left her alone and broke to starve — back in those days, a
woman on her own might not have been able to get a job, or maybe inherit money,
though I Wasn’t sure about that. Or maybe one of the killers had insinuated
himself into her life and married her, without her ever knowing that he was
responsible for Christopher’s death. Any of those options seemed too terrible
to contemplate, and I definitely Wasn’t going to pry further. I changed the
subject, asking, “So, you’re telling me that most wraiths get stuck. They can’t
get over their own murders, and it drives them crazy.”

“Essentially. If our murderers are caught, it provides some
sense of justice. That helps many of us let go and ascend.” Christopher looked
up above us longingly — still, after all this time, waiting for heaven. “But
many are not caught, and for others, justice is not enough to heal the wounds.
Those remain on earth forever, growing sicker and stranger, and sometimes
dangerous. For many of them, there is no chance that they could ever be
restored enough to come here. They become as evil as the forces that destroyed
them.”

“I’ve heard of wraiths like that,” I said. “But the rest of
you — everyone here — why aren’t they in heaven? Or whatever it is that follows
this?”

“They remain anchored to the mortal world.”

“Anchored.” I’d been hearing that a lot lately. “What does
that mean
?
”

Christopher led me around a fountain, ornate and elaborate,
perhaps something from the Renaissance; instead of burbling merrily, the water
inside was motionless and dank, overgrown with algae that slicked the stone.
“An anchor is someone or something that ties you to the earth. The best anchors
keep you sane and strong. They can be sources of deep, lasting love.” He
glanced back at the soda shop where we’d left Maxie; I could just make her form
out as she sat at the counter, drinking something out of a tall frosted glass.
“Maxine was on the verge of leaving the mortal world behind entirely when the
small boy in her house discovered her and began reading her stories.”

“Vic.”

“Yes. Her love for him has tethered her to the earth once
more — much to her chagrin, I suspect.” For the first time, I heard a glint of
humor in Christopher’s voice. “Although she will not admit this, she could let
go of him at any time, and trust that his life will be happy and full. But she
has already lingered eighty years after death; another decade, or several, will
make little difference.”

“The best anchors, you said. There are other ones — bad
ones?”

“Sometimes it is not love that binds us to our anchors, but
obsession. Sickness. When that happens, the wraith becomes more twisted over
time.” As Christopher spoke, I remembered the wraith that had haunted and
tormented Raquel. No doubt this was an example of what he was talking about.
“The danger of this is so great that even wraiths better anchored, such as
Maxine and myself, consider any ties to the mortal world fundamentally
unfortunate. Even we hope to move on someday, as hard as it will be to let our
loved ones go.”

I started to ask him whether I was anchored, but I already
knew that I was. Lucas, my parents, Balthazar, Vic, Ranulf, Patrice, Raquel — they
kept me down — to — earth, so to speak. Even if I could let go of them, I didn’t
want to. One thought occurred to me and made me frown. “Who is the ancient
Egyptian guy hanging on to?”

Christopher smiled. “He helped to design the pyramids and
remains rather proud of them. I believe he likes to return to Giza in the
mornings 136 and watch the sun rise there.”

In the distant sky, darker clouds swirled, illuminated
briefly by a flash that might have been lightning. “Okay, you guys really
wanted me here,” I said. “What is it that makes me so powerful or special or
whatever? Besides being able to form a body, I mean. Though that is pretty
awesome.”

He faced me, serious once more. “You already know that you
can travel within all our realms, and you can do so more easily than any of us —
even me.”