Silence (37 page)

The dead didn’t need to breathe, of course, but maybe they’d forgotten they were dead. Her feet were the first to touch the steps.

As she ascended, they folowed. They were much more orderly than a concert crowd; they didn’t push and didn’t shove and didn’t swear at each other. But then again, they didn’t have to. She thought, for a moment, that they might not need to touch the stairs at al—and wondered if what she was “seeing” was entirely something created for her own benefit.

But it didn’t matter. She could climb stairs, and the dead could climb whatever it was they saw in their individual, unconnected worlds. She rose, and they rose, until she was at the top of the steps on a platform that led to a single door.

It wasn’t a fancy door; it wasn’t pearly gates. It was a simple, It wasn’t a fancy door; it wasn’t pearly gates. It was a simple, thick wood of a kind you didn’t see much anymore. It had no handle, no doorknob, no knocker, no bel. It was just there.

She put Andrew down, and then she reached out to touch the door. Her hand stopped an inch away from its surface.

“You’re not dead,” Andrew told her calmly. He reached out with considerably smaler hands, and his hands did touch the wood. He frowned, though, and looked as if he might cry. “I can’t get through.”

“Wel, no. You have to open it first.”

“Open what?”

So, she thought, it wasn’t just the stairs that were for her benefit. Her father had said he could see light, and Emma demonstrably couldn’t. It should have worried her, but she found it oddly comforting. The closed door was like another metaphor, and al she had to do was open it.

Without being able to actualy touch it.

She shook her head, and reached for the surface of the door again.

“Emma—”

“Hush, Andrew. I’m not dead—but right now I’m not exactly alive either. I’m here, I’m with you, and with al the others.”

He looked up at her for a moment and then nodded. “You brought my mom to me.”

“She wanted to come.”

He nodded. “She was sad.”

“Yes. She’s been very, very sad. I think seeing you has made “Yes. She’s been very, very sad. I think seeing you has made her happier, though. Now, let me try this.” This time, when she reached out with her palm for the door’s surface, she pushed.

The inch between her hand and the flat planks gave way very, very slowly, and even as it did, she felt her hands begin to tingle and ache. It was a familiar sensation, but it grew stronger as she pushed.

She looped the lantern around the crook of her elbow, and she freed up her other hand. She applied that one to the invisible barrier as wel, and it continued to give slowly. Sweat started to trickle down her neck, although she felt it at a great remove.

The inch became half an inch, and then a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth. Every tiny increment required more power, and she took the power that was there, gathering it as if she were breathing it in and exhaling it through her hands.

But when she finaly—finaly—touched the door, she knew.

She felt it, and she felt what lay beyond it, so clearly she could almost see. She heard the faint, attenuated cries at her back, and she knew that what she could almost see, they could clearly see.

They had given her this, and it had robbed them of the power of their voices, muting them.

She pushed hard.

The door gave slowly, fighting her every inch of the way.

But it gave, and when it did, she renewed her efforts because she could see what they saw: the light, the sense of comfort, of home, of belonging. The sense of perfect ease, of place. She felt it like a blow, and she felt herself, somewhere, stagger back at the force of it.

the force of it.

It was like the very best parts of loving Nathan, and it tore at her because she had thought they were gone forever and she wanted them so badly. Badly enough to hold that door against the force that was trying to keep it closed. As she struggled, she felt the dead begin to pass by her. Andrew was the first to go, and this felt right to her, but he was only the first.

The others streamed past as wel.

She couldn’t count them. She didn’t try. She became the struggle, and she knew that al she had to do was keep it open for long enough. How many of the dead would pass through, she didn’t know. Not al of them, unless she could somehow wrench the door wide open, and free of al restraint.

But she didn’t have to do that. Al she had to do was hold it for long enough, and then?

She could go, too.

She could go to the light, and the peace, and the lack of pain and loss, and she could find comfort there, and she could give over al grief, al numbness, al of the horrible gray and guilt and anger that had clouded the last months of her life.

Emma!

It would be so easy. It would be so much easier.

The last person slipped through, and her hands now ached with effort, and with cold. She knew she’d run out of power; there was no one left to give it to her. But she could— Could go. But Nathan, she knew, would not be there. He hadn’t been among the dead; she would have known him anywhere. His name, his face, the sound of his voice. Even if she anywhere. His name, his face, the sound of his voice. Even if she couldn’t touch him without the cold. She could pass through this door, and he would be trapped here, and she would spend eternity without him.

And, she thought, she would be dead, and she wouldn’t have to care.

She swalowed, her fingers slipped, and she moved an inch forward.

And then, clear as a bel, she heard a familiar, quiet voice, uncertainty and fear etched into every word. Emma, I don’t want you to die. Michael’s voice.

She knew that he would be fidgeting, that he would be in that physical state that was one step short of out-and-out panic, and she knew that if she walked through this door, the one short step would be crossed the minute he understood that what he wanted didn’t matter.

She didn’t love Michael the way she’d loved her father. She didn’t love him the way she’d loved Nathan. But she accepted the responsibility of the love she did feel for him, and she let the door go, weeping. Understanding, as she did, that the Maria Copises of this world were doing the same thing.

The door slammed shut with so much force it should have shattered, and while Emma watched it reverberate, it grew eyes.

Shadowed, dark eyes, scintilating with color the way black opals did. They were not—quite—human eyes, although something about them implied that they might have been once, and they were rounded with effort and, Emma thought, fear.

I will kill you for this.

She heard the voice and knew that it was the second time she had heard it. The first time had been in Amy’s house, when Eric had spoken to an image in the mirror.

She should have been afraid. Later, maybe. Right now she was too caught up in grief, and when she opened her real eyes again, she was weeping. In public. She couldn’t even find the strength to tel anyone that she was fine.

Eric drove her home. She left him at the door when Petal emerged, barking in his stupid, loud way. She’d run out of Milk-Bones, and anyway, feeding Petal was not exactly what she needed at the moment.

But need it or not, it was what she had to do, and she walked into the kitchen and found a can of dog food, a can opener, and his dish.

“Emma.” She looked up, and she saw Brendan Hal standing in the kitchen, where in any real sense he would never stand again. She’d recovered just enough that she could turn her face away. She did, but then she turned back to her father, as if she were eight years old. She had nothing to say, and he waited.

“You didn’t leave,” she whispered, when she could speak at al.

He shook his head. “While the door is closed,” he told her, his voice heavy with worry and yet somehow warm with pride, “I’m staying.”

“Why?” She had to ask, because she’d come so close to not “Why?” She had to ask, because she’d come so close to not staying herself, and she, at least, was alive.

“Sprout,” he said quietly, and Petal looked up and barked. It wasn’t a “strangers-at-the-door-man-the-cannons” bark, which was his usual form of noisemaking; it was tentative and hesitant.

Brendan Hal bent and stroked his dog’s head. His hand passed slightly through fur, and he grimaced. “Because,” he told his daughter, not looking at her at al, “you’re here.”

She nodded, and then she reached out blindly for him, and he hugged her. His arms were cold, but she didn’t mind.

Her mother was in the living room.

Emma discovered this when she at last let her father fade into whatever world he occupied when he wasn’t with her, and she tried to walk, stiffly, up the stairs. She needed to remove a dozen splinters from her palms, and she needed to change. She probably also needed to burn or dispose of the clothing she was wearing, because it looked as though she’d already tried and had done a truly bad job.

But when her mother caled her name, she froze, one hand on the rail. Petal, always hopeful that any spoken word meant food, came out of the kitchen and tried to tangle his blocky body around her legs. She grimaced, looked down at her clothing, and then turned. “Mom?”

Her mother rose. She was pale, and she had that I’ve-got-a-headache look. Emma realized belatedly that she’d been sitting on the same spot on the couch that Emma often occupied when she was thinking about Nathan. Or thinking, more precisely, she was thinking about Nathan. Or thinking, more precisely, about his absence.

The headache look, on the other hand, vanished as Mercy Hal approached her daughter. “Emma!”

Emma started to tel her mother she was fine—because, among other things, it happened to be true—but she stopped.

“There was a bit of fire,” she said instead.

Her mother’s brows rose most of the way up her forehead.

She glanced at the hal mirror. From this angle she could see only a quarter of her body. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she added quickly. “But I would like to get changed.”

“What happened?”

“There was a fire,” she repeated. “We were—we tried to help.”

“Who is we?”

“Aly, Michael, me. Eric and his cousin, Chase.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

How to answer that? “No. No one was hurt.” Lie. She should have felt guilty; she didn’t. “Let me get changed,” she added.

“And showered. And maybe you could help me take these splinters out of my hand before—”

“They get infected?”

“Something like that.”

Mercy Hal folded her arms across her chest, and her lips thinned. But she drew one sharp breath and nodded. “I swear,”

she said softly, “It was so much easier when you were two.

Then, I had to keep my eyes on you al the time. Now? I never know what’s going to happen.”

know what’s going to happen.”

Emma, who had walked away from death and its peace, nodded. Her mother would worry—but her mother always did that. What her mother wouldn’t have to do, not this time, was stand by a grave and bury her only child. She thought of Maria, then, and she turned and surprised her mother: She wrapped her in a tight, tight hug.

“I am fine, Mom,” she said, when she at last puled back.

Her mother’s eyes were filmed with unshed tears. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier—”

Emma shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said quietly. Knowing that her mother was thinking about her father. And missing him.

Emma wanted to cal him out then, to cal him back—but she had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t actualy listen. He’d always believed he knew what was best for both Emma and her mother.

But he was gone, at least for the moment; Emma and her mother were stil here. They had each other. “I’l come back after I’ve showered. Maybe you can find the tweezers?”

Monday at 8:10, Michael came to the door.

Emma, her bag ready, her hair brushed, and her clothes about as straight as they were going to be for the day, opened the door, waited while he fed Petal a Milk-Bone, and then joined him on the front steps.

The good thing about Michael was that she didn’t need to apologize for anything. Whatever had happened, they’d both survived it, and he held nothing against her, not even her near survived it, and he held nothing against her, not even her near death. He did ask a lot of questions, but she answered them as truthfuly as she could, often resorting to “I don’t know” because it was true.

They picked Alison up on the way to school. Alison looked surprisingly cheerful, but it was the kind of forced cheer that hid worry.

“I’m fine, Aly,” she told her.

“You’re always fine,” Alison said. “But are you okay?”

Emma nodded. “Mostly,” she added, mindful of Michael.

“Maria left you her phone number. She had to get the kids back.”

Emma winced. “I’m surprised she’d ever want to speak to me again. She almost died there.”

“You almost died there as wel.”

“Yes, but I can’t get away from me.”

Alison laughed.

They made it to school, and when they did, Emma saw that Eric and Chase were waiting for them on the wide, flat steps of the school. Although skateboarding was strictly prohibited, people were skateboarding anyway. Business as usual.

But Eric came down the steps to meet them.

“I’m fine,” she told him, before he could speak.

“You’re always fine,” he replied.

She glanced at Alison and surprised herself by laughing.

Alison laughed as wel.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Eric asked her.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Eric asked her.