Hereafter (Shadowlands) (12 page)

As we stood at the end of the bridge with the fog swirling around our ankles, Aaron looked from me to Tristan with innocent bemusement, kind of like a little kid standing outside on the playground on his first day of school, wondering if his parents really were going to leave him there alone.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

Tristan looked down at my hand. I felt the cold weight of the coin cupped inside my palm. I cleared my throat, and my eyes welled up.

“We’re here to say good-bye,” I said.

Tristan dipped his head and took a step back on the sandy, rocky road, giving us space.

Aaron looked at me quizzically. “Are you going somewhere?”

“No,” I said sadly. “You are.”

I handed him the coin, and he held it up between his thumb and forefinger, studying it. “Where am I going?”

“Someplace amazing,” I told him, my heart aching like crazy. “Someplace where you’ll be happy and…at peace.”

That was how I imagined the Light would be. The way I hoped it would be.

Aaron smiled. “That sounds fairly awesome.”

I grinned, struggling to hold back the tears, and put my hand on his back, turning him toward the bridge. “All you have to do is hold on to that and walk across the bridge,” I told him. “You’ll be there before you know it.”

Aaron took one step, then looked back at me. “I wish you could come.”

“Me, too.” I reached out and hugged him as tightly as I could, trying to solidify the feeling of him, his clean scent, in my memory. “It’s been so nice knowing you,” I whispered.

“You, too,” he told me. “Thanks for everything. I mean it, Rory. You’ve been a really good friend.”

I looked over at Tristan. It was almost as if Aaron knew where he was going. Maybe some small part of him did.

“Good-bye,” Aaron said to Tristan rather formally.

Tristan lifted a hand in a wave, and Aaron strode into the fog surrounding the bridge. The second he was gone, I dropped my face into my hands and cried, feeling guilty and selfish for it. Aaron was going to be fine. He was going to the Light. It was me I was crying for.

Suddenly I felt Tristan’s warm hand slide up my back and clasp my shoulder. “Rory,” he said, his voice full of anguish and grief and comfort and hope.

I turned toward him, knowing my face was covered in tears, knowing my nose was swollen and my eyes were red and my lips were dry and puffy. Knowing and not caring.

Tristan reached up and ran his thumb over my cheek, tilting my face so I had to look him in the eye.

“Rory,” he said again.

“I’m sorry,” I blubbered. “I just…I didn’t want…I didn’t want him to go.”

“I know,” he said, drying one cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I know.”

He took in a sharp breath, and then before I could realize what was happening, he kissed me. He kissed me so hard that I staggered backward until he tightened his grip on me to hold me up. I slid my hands up his broad back and tangled my fingers up in the soft, thick hair at the nape of his neck. Tristan kissed me like a guy who’d never kissed anyone before. Like a person who was so starved to be kissed he’d never stop. Not that I ever wanted him to. It didn’t even matter that my skin was smeared with tears. I’d never experienced a kiss so perfect. I’d never experienced
anything
so perfect.

When he finally pulled away, his hands gripped the back of my T-shirt and we were standing so close I couldn’t tell whose legs were whose. We both gasped for breath, our exhalations mingling between us.

“I thought you said—”

“Forget what I said,” he interjected. “I’m just sick of it.”

“Sick of what?” I asked, my brow creasing.

“Sick of trying to keep away from you,” Tristan said with a sigh. He held the back of my neck with one hand. “I’ve only been doing it for ten days, and it feels like an eternity.”

He kissed me again, and I smiled beneath his lips. He’d been counting the days, struggling all along to keep from wanting me, and now he was breaking the rules for me—breaking
his
own rules. Everything felt lighter suddenly. It was as if some chokehold on my heart had loosened and now it could really breathe.

Tristan broke off the kiss and wrapped his arms around me. For a long time we just stood there, folded against each other. My eyelashes were still wet, my heart brimming.

I leaned back to look him in the eye again, but then Tristan’s expression suddenly darkened. I glanced over my shoulder to see what had caught his attention. Along the side of the road, a swath of the green reeds had dried out and turned brown, bending toward the road. Some of them were broken, sticking out at violent angles, like bony fingers reaching up from a grave.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, forcing a smile. “It’s nothing.” He entwined his fingers with mine. “Let’s walk back.”

“What about your car?” I asked, glancing over at his Range Rover, parked near the foot of the bridge.

“I’ll get it later,” he told me. “Right now, I’m in the mood for a nice, long stroll. With you.”

I grinned. “I like that plan.”

Our hands swinging between us, we walked down the hill toward town. Tristan pointed out various landmarks to me—a tree he used to climb when he first arrived on the island, trying to see across the ocean; a steep hill he and Joaquin had once raced down on bikes before crashing into each other at the bottom; the spot in the park where he and Krista had picnicked when she’d first learned the truth about Juniper Landing and her role here. I sensed how much Tristan loved this place—not just his mission, but this island.

Downtown Juniper Landing was bustling, full of people headed to the docks for dinner or strolling through the park with ice-cream cones. The trilling music of a flute wafted out through an open window somewhere as screen doors squeaked and people laughed. Everything seemed so peaceful, and the grass beneath our feet glimmered from the moisture left behind by the fog.

“And this is where I was standing the first time I saw you,” Tristan said, pausing in front of the general store.

“You remember that?” I asked with a blush.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said, sounding nostalgic.

I laughed suddenly.

“What?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

“I still can’t believe you kissed me,” I said.

He took a deep breath and blushed. “I just finally decided…”

“What?” I asked, biting my bottom lip. “You decided what?”

He lifted one shoulder and looked me in the eye. “I decided that you’re more important.”

For a second I couldn’t breathe, but in a good way. There was so much meaning in that one sentence, so much surrender and trust, it actually took my breath away.

I was just rising up on my toes to kiss him when his eyes flicked past me and he tensed. I turned to see that Nadia had just walked out of the general store and now stood rooted to the sidewalk, a stunned expression on her face. My mouth went dry as her eyes slowly trailed down to our hands, still clasped between us.

“Nadia,” Tristan said.

Her dark eyes were like daggers. “Unbelievable,” she said, stepping off the sidewalk. “So much for the rules, huh, Tristan?” she yelled, throwing her hands wide as she walked backward across the street.

She grabbed a dirt bike that had been tossed on the grass in the park and quickly pedaled away, heading down toward the beach. Tristan sighed.

“I’m guessing that’s not good,” I said quietly.

“No, probably not,” he replied.

I was about to ask him about Nadia, about what exactly had happened between them and what she had meant the other night when she’d confronted me—when I glimpsed the weather vane from the corner of my eye.

Instantly, all the activity around me faded to black. All I could see was the golden swan, sitting up there fat and proud atop its arrow. The arrow that was pointing south.

My vision grayed. I grasped his arm, the dizziness hitting me so hard I thought I might go down. “Tristan,” I gasped.

He turned to look, and his jaw went slack.

“It…it can’t…” I stuttered. “It can’t be. That doesn’t mean…Aaron didn’t go to the Shadowlands.”

A line of concern formed between Tristan’s eyes. He seemed to be weighing his response. Weighing it for far too long.

“Tristan!” I shouted. A couple who was sitting at a table nearby turned to gape.

“Come here.” Tristan pulled me gently but firmly around the corner at the end of the block, away from the prying, curious eyes of the visitors. I pressed back against the shingled outer wall of the general store, my heart pounding desperately inside my chest.

“This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening,” I told him.

“I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “But it is.”

“No!” I wailed. “He’s a good person. You should have felt the regret and sorrow coming off of him tonight when he talked about his father. There’s no way he could have ever done anything awful enough in his life to warrant being sent to the Shadowlands.”

“I’m sorry, Rory, but this happens sometimes,” Tristan said calmly, soothingly. He ran a hand over my hair, then rested it comfortingly on my shoulder. “We think we know these people, but—”

“But nothing!” I shouted, flinging his hand off me and pushing away from the wall. “We have to help him. We have to get him out of there. We have to—”

“No!” he spat.

I stopped short, surprised at being shouted at. Tristan looked away, but I wasn’t sure whether he was ashamed at having barked in my face or taking a breath because he was so angry.

“We can’t,” he said more calmly.

“What do you mean, we can’t? There’s been a mistake. There must be something we can—”

“No one ever comes back from the Shadowlands,” Tristan said ominously. “Or the Light. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

My eyes brimmed. “But Aaron’s—”

“Even if we could get him out of there, we wouldn’t,” Tristan interjected, his jaw clenched. “The coins are never wrong.”

I pressed my hands into my forehead, unable to comprehend, unable to accept what he was saying. I had brought Aaron up there and told him he was going somewhere to be happy and at peace. I had sent him on his way with that trusting smile on his face. He’d told me I was a good friend. He’d
thanked
me for all I’d done. And I’d sent him straight to hell.

“No, Tristan. No!” I cried, backing away from him. “This can’t be right. We have to do something. We have to!”

“There’s nothing we
can
do, Rory,” Tristan said grimly, looking past me at the weather vane. “If Aaron went to the Shadowlands, then that’s where he was supposed to go.”

It’s happening. It’s finally, finally happening. It had to be this way, of course. He had to go. A person in my position needs a few sacrificial lambs. And isn’t it always more powerful when that lamb is special? When it’s cared for? When it will be missed?

Rory thought he was headed to the Light, whatever that means. I imagine it’s different for everyone, whatever a person’s version of heaven would be. If what you loved in life more than anything was your family, you’d spend forever in some great, big resort, surrounded by them, having huge dinners every night filled with conversation and laughter. If all you cared about was sports, you’d spend eternity attending Super Bowl games and World Series finals and Olympic events, and whomever you’re rooting for would always win.

When I picture the Shadowlands, however, there is nothing. Nothing but blackness. You’d feel alone and scared and sad and lost forever, always wondering why you’ve been abandoned, always searching for some speck of light you’ll never find. In the Shadowlands, you’d be cold. Not just in-need-of-a-blanket cold, but truly and utterly, painful-to-the-bone cold. The kind of cold no one on earth has ever felt. The kind of cold that breeds despair and desperation.

Not that I’ll ever know for sure. Because I have found a way out of Juniper Landing, out of my own personal hell. And now that it’s started, it’s just a matter of time before I am free.

Wrong. Everything was wrong. I had just started to believe in this place, started to believe what Tristan had said about us playing an important role, somehow helping maintain balance. I’d begun to believe in our purpose. But if Aaron could be relegated to the Shadowlands, then the balance was seriously off.

I plodded around the corner onto Magnolia Lane, then hid in the shadows cast by a huge peach tree, waiting to make sure the house was silent. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, afraid that I might break down and say things I shouldn’t, or start crying with no good explanation and never stop. When I finally entered the house, I opened the door slowly, to keep it from creaking, then held the knob so the catch wouldn’t click. When I let it go ever so carefully, the bolt silently slid into place. I was sure I was home free. Until I turned around and found Darcy standing at the bottom of the stairs with Fisher.

“Sneaking around?” she quipped.

“God! You scared me,” I said, my eyes darting between the two of them. Her hair was disheveled, and his T-shirt was on inside out.

“Sorry,” she said.

I started past them up the stairs, which forced Fisher to stumble down the last two steps to the floor.

“Rory, wait,” Darcy said. “Are you all right?”

I paused, wishing I could tell her everything—wishing I could tell her
anything—
but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even whitewash it and tell her I was sad because Aaron had left the island, because she wouldn’t remember that Aaron had ever existed. This was what our relationship was going to be like now. Me keeping secrets and trying to keep track of what she could and couldn’t remember.

Unless she became a Lifer.
Please let her do something self
less and earn the damned bracelet she wants so badly so I won’t
have to deal with all this alone.

I looked into Fisher’s eyes, and he shot back a questioning glance of concern. I saw his hand move to his bracelet, and he turned it around and around. He could tell something had spooked me, and he was worried about me. I would have loved to talk to him just then—to talk to any other Lifer and find out what they thought. But I couldn’t exactly ask Fisher up to my room with Darcy standing right there.

“I just have a headache,” I told her, staring at the floor. “I’m gonna go lie down.”

She started to say something else, but her words were drowned out by my heavy footsteps as I raced up the stairs. By the time I got to the third floor, the tears had started to fall. I threw myself onto my bed, pressed my fists to my temples, and tried to breathe.

“It’s okay,” I told myself aloud. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

But I was lying to myself, which just made the frustration burn hotter beneath my skin. Aaron was suffering. Right now, at this very moment, he was suffering in the Shadowlands. What if souls were tortured there? Or what if it was one, big, yawning nothing—a vast empty plane of loneliness? Was he in pain? Was he scared? Was he wondering why I did this to him?

Of course he was. He had to be blaming me, because I was the last person he had spoken to, the last person he had touched, the one who’d sent him off to eternal damnation with a tearful smile and a wave.

I rolled over onto my side, clutched my pillow to me, and cried. My stupid imagination went wild, conjuring images of fire and demons, Grim Reapers and cold graves, whispery taunting voices and empty eye sockets and yawning dead mouths—slime, muck, and tears. I pressed my eyes closed and tried not to see it, but I couldn’t. As bad as my theories were, I would never know exactly what was happening to Aaron, and that was the worst part of all. The not knowing.

“No.”

I sat up in bed, pulling the pillow onto my lap, and gritted my teeth together. There had to be a way to reverse this. It was a mistake, and it needed to be rectified. I was not going to let Aaron suffer forever, thinking I had sentenced him to a fate worse than death. I was going to make this right.