Afterworlds (2 page)

Then the worst noise of all: tennis shoes squeaking on wet tiles, taking slow, careful steps. I remembered him shooting the wounded, making sure that no one would escape this nightmare.

Don’t look at me. I’m dead.

My heartbeat thudded, hard enough to shake the whole airport. But somehow I kept myself from breathing.

The squeak of tennis shoes began to fade, crowded out by a soft roar in my head. My lungs were still now, not fighting anymore, and I felt myself falling softly away from my body, straight through the floor and down toward someplace dark and silent and cold.

It didn’t matter if the world was crumbling. I couldn’t breathe or move or think, except to remind myself . . .

I’m dead.

Behind my eyelids, vision went from red to black, like spilled ink spreading across my mind. Cold filled me, and my dizziness became a slow swaying, a feeling of stillness.

A long time seemed to pass with nothing happening.

And then I woke up somewhere else.

CHAPTER 3

THE MANILA ENVELOPE FROM THE
Underbridge Literary Agency was as thick as a college acceptance package. But instead of forms, booklets, and brochures, it contained four copies of the same document—a publishing contract—and a return envelope that was already addressed and stamped.

Darcy Patel had learned all this from an email a week ago, and had read the contract at various stages of its drafting. There was no mystery about the envelope’s contents at all. But the act of slicing it open still seemed momentous. She had appropriated her father’s Princeton letter opener for the occasion.

“It’s here,” she said at her sister’s door. Nisha threw her book aside, sprang out of bed, and followed Darcy to her room.

They were quiet going down the hall. Darcy didn’t want her father reading through the contract again and offering more legal advice. (For one thing, he was an engineer, not a lawyer. For
another, Darcy had an agent already.) But Nisha had to be here. She’d read
Afterworlds
last November, as it was being written, sometimes aloud over Darcy’s shoulder.

“Close the door.” Darcy sat at her desk. Her hands trembled a little.

Nisha obeyed and padded in. “Took long enough. When did Paradox say they wanted to buy it? Three months ago?”

“My agent says some contracts take a year.”

“That’s seven today, and it’s not even noon!”

By mutual agreement, Darcy was allowed to use the phrase “my agent” no more than ten times a day in front of her little sister; any overages cost a dollar each. This seemed generous to everyone concerned.

Darcy faced the envelope, hefting the letter opener in one hand.

“Okay. Here we go.”

The blade cut smoothly at first, but halfway through it caught on something inside, a staple or a butterfly clip perhaps. It began to stutter, tearing instead of slicing.

Then it was stuck.

“Crap.” Darcy pushed a little harder.

The opener moved again, but in its wake a ragged little filigree of white paper emerged from the slit.

“Smooth, Patel,” Nisha said, now standing directly behind her.

Darcy slid the contracts out. She had torn the top of the first page.

“Great. My agent’s going to think I’m a dipshit.”

“That’s eight,” Nisha said. “Why do they need all those copies, anyway?”

“I guess it’s more official that way.” Darcy checked the rest of the envelope’s contents. She hadn’t
destroyed anything else. “Do you think this one counts, now that it’s ripped?”

“With a massive tear like that? Frankly, Patel, I think your whole career is canceled.”

Something sharp levered itself between two of Darcy’s ribs, as if the errant letter opener had slipped again. “Don’t even say that. And stop calling me by my last name.
Our
last name. It’s weird.”

“Pfft,” Nisha said to this. She developed new verbal tics about once a week, which was often useful. The protagonist of
Afterworlds
had borrowed a lot of her eccentric cursing. “Just put some tape on it.”

Darcy sighed, sliding open her desk drawer. A moment later, the contract was taped together, but somehow it looked even more pathetic now. Like a fifth grader’s art project: My PubLisHing ContRact.

“It doesn’t even seem real anymore.”

“It’s a disaster!” Nisha fell backward on Darcy’s bed, bouncing in her death throes and pulling the blankets askew. People were always saying how much older Nisha seemed than her fourteen years. If only they knew the truth.

“
None
of this seems real,” Darcy said softly, staring at the torn contract.

Nisha sat up. “You know why that is, Patel? Because you haven’t told them yet.”

“I will. After graduation next week.” Or maybe later, whenever Oberlin’s deferral deadline was.

“No,
now
. Right after you drop those contracts in the mail.”

“Today?” The thought of her parents’ reaction sent a cold trickle down Darcy’s spine.

“Yes. Telling them is what makes all of this real. Until then, you’re just some little kid daydreaming about being a famous writer.”

Darcy stared at her sister. “You remember I’m older than you, right?”

“So act like it.”

“But they might say no.”

“They can’t. You’re eighteen. That’s, like, an adult.”

A laugh erupted out of Darcy, and Nisha joined in. The idea of the elder Patels recognizing their children’s independence at eighteen—or any age—was hilarious.

“Don’t worry about them,” Nisha said once they’d recovered. “I have a plan.”

“Which is?”

“Secret.” A crafty smile settled onto Nisha’s face, which was about as reassuring as the shredded contract.

It wasn’t only her parents’ reaction that was making Darcy nervous. There was something terrifying about her plans, something absurd, as if she’d decided to become an astronaut or a rock star.

“Do you think I’m crazy, wanting to do this?”

Nisha shrugged. “If you want to be a writer, you should do it now. Like you keep saying,
Afterworlds
could tank and no one will ever publish you again.”

“I only said that once.” Darcy sighed. “But thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome, Patel. But look—that’s a binding legal contract. Until your book officially bombs, you’re a real novelist! So would you rather blow all that money as a writer in New York City? Or as some freshman churning out essays about dead white guys?”

Darcy dropped her gaze to the torn contract. Maybe it had ripped because she wanted this too much. Maybe her hand would always slip at the last moment, tearing what she desired most. But somehow the contract was beautiful, even in its damaged state. Right there on the first page, it defined her, Darcy Patel, as “The Author.” You couldn’t get much realer than that.

“I’d rather be a writer than a freshman,” she said.

“Then you have to tell the elder Patels—
after
those are in the mailbox.”

Darcy looked at the return envelope and wondered if the Underbridge Literary Agency provided stamps for all its authors, or only the teenage ones. But at least it made sending off the contract as easy as walking to the corner, which took less effort than resisting Nisha. If her little sister had a plan, there would be no respite without compliance.

“Okay. At lunch.”

Darcy lifted her favorite pen, and signed her name four times.

*  *  *

“I’ve got something to tell you guys,” she said. “But don’t get upset.”

The expressions around the table—including Nisha’s—made Darcy wonder if she should have started differently. Her father had paused in midbite, and Annika Patel was staring wide-eyed.

Lunch was leftovers from takeout the night before—fried red peppers, chickpeas cooked with tamarind, all of it swimming in garam masala and served straight from the styrofoam containers. Not an auspicious setting for important announcements.

“The thing is, I want to defer college for a year.”

“What?” her mother asked. “Why on earth?”

“Because I have responsibilities.” This line had sounded better in her head. “I need to do the rewrites for
Afterworlds
, and write a sequel.”

“But . . .” Her mother paused, and the elder Patels shared a look.

“Working on books isn’t going to take
all
your time,” her father said. “You wrote your first one in a month, didn’t you? And that didn’t interfere with your studies.”

“It almost killed me!” Darcy said. She’d dreaded coming home some days last November, because she knew that two thousand words of novel awaited her, on top of homework, college application essays, and studying for the SATs. “Besides, I didn’t write a book in a month. I wrote a
draft
.”

Her parents just stared at her.

“There’s no good writing, only good
re
writing,” she quoted, not quite certain who’d said it first. “Everyone says
this
is the hard part, turning my draft into a real novel. According to the contract, I have until September to turn in a final draft. That’s four whole months, so they must think revisions are pretty important.”

“I’m sure they are. But September is when college starts,” Annika Patel said, all smiles. “So there’s no conflict, is there?”

“Right,” Darcy sighed. “Except once I finish
Afterworlds
, I have to write the sequel, and then revise that. And my agent says that I should be promoting myself already!”

Nisha held up both hands, her fingers silently indicating nine “my agents.”

“Darcy,” her father said. “You know we’ve always supported your creativity. But wasn’t the main reason for writing the novel so you could put it on your college applications?”

“No!” Darcy cried. “Where did you get that idea?”

Annika Patel placed her palms together, as if praying for quiet. When she had everyone’s attention, her look of long suffering softened into a sly smile.

“Is this because you’re afraid of leaving home? I know that Ohio seems a long way away, but you can call us anytime.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, realizing that her announcement was incomplete. “I’m not staying
here
. I’m moving to New York.”

In the silence that followed, all Darcy could hear was Nisha chewing on a samosa. She wished that her little sister would at least
try
not to look so amused.

“New York
City
?” their mother finally asked.

“I want to be a writer, and that’s where publishing is.”

Annika Patel let out a slow, exasperated sigh. “You haven’t even let us read this book, Darcy. And now you want to give up college for this . . .
dream
.”

“I’m not giving it up, Mom, just deferring it for a year.” The right words finally came to her. “A year of studying the publishing industry. Learning all about it from the inside! Can you imagine what
that
would look like on a college application?” Darcy waved her hands. “I mean, except I won’t need to apply again, because I’m only deferring.”

Her voice took on a guilty quaver at the end. According to the Oberlin student manual, deferment was allowed only under “exceptional circumstances,” and the definition of “exceptional” was up to the school. They could say no, and then she’d have to start all over.

But being under contract to write a novel was pretty exceptional, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know about this, Darcy.” Her father shook his head. “First you don’t apply to any universities in India, and then—”

“I’d never get into a good school in India! Even Sagan couldn’t, and he’s a math genius.” Darcy turned to her mother, who actually read novels. “You guys thought it was awesome when my book sold.”

“Of course it’s wonderful.” Annika Patel shook her head. “Even if you won’t let us read it.”

“Just until I do the rewrites.”

“That’s up to you,” her mother said. “But you can’t expect every novel you write to make this tremendous amount of money. You have to be practical. You’ve never lived alone, or paid your own bills, or made your own food. . . .”

Darcy didn’t trust herself to speak. Her eyes stung, and her throat was tight. Nisha had been right—now that she’d uttered her dream aloud to her parents, it had become real. Too real to lose.

But at the same time countless other things had become real, all the nuts and bolts of food and shelter. Darcy had never even done her own laundry.

She looked pleadingly at her little sister. Nisha placed her fork down with a little tap, just loud enough.

“I was thinking,” she said as everyone turned to her. “Moneywise, it might be better if Darcy takes a year off.”

No one said anything, and Nisha played the silence for a moment.

“I was looking at Oberlin’s financial aid forms. And of course the main thing they ask is what the parents earn. But there’s another place where they ask for
the student’s
income. Turns out, whatever Darcy makes comes straight off the top of any aid they offer.”

Still no one spoke, and Nisha nodded slowly to herself, as if she were realizing all this just now.

“Darcy’s going to make more than a hundred grand this year, just by signing that contract. So if she starts college now, she won’t get any financial aid at all.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. Her two-book advance was about the size of a four-year education. By the time she’d finished college, every penny would be gone.

“Well,
that
doesn’t seem fair,” her father said. “I mean, maybe there’s a way to change the contract and delay the—”

“Too late,” Darcy said, marveling at her little sister’s deviousness. “Already signed and mailed it.”

Her parents were staring at each other now, communing in some unspoken parental way, which meant that they would discuss the matter in private, later. Which meant that Nisha had opened the door a tiny crack.

Now was the time to seal the deal.

“New York’s a lot closer than Oberlin,” Darcy said. “I’ll only be a train ride away, and Aunt Lalana lives there, and there’s a much bigger Gujarati community than in—”

Annika Patel raised her hand, and Darcy stammered to a halt on the word “Ohio.” Maybe it was best to save a few arguments for later, in case this battle went to round two.