The Everafter (2 page)

T
HOSE OBJECTS OF LIGHT
…I know now what they all are: items I lost during my lifetime. They have found their way here, to return me to my own life, and—ohmygod—do I
ever
want to go back.

It’s strange that in the art room when I became the living me, she never seemed to realize there was…well, another me—a dead one—hanging around somewhere. But in a way it was also nice she didn’t notice me. When I became her, it meant I was truly…alive.

I want that experience again. I want to be with the people I loved. To see the things that were part of my everyday life. To find out more about who I was. I can remember
parts, but not all, of my past. And, as I float here aimlessly in
Is,
I’m already forgetting more about my life.

Now. I want to go back to my life again. Now.

I propel myself through the vacuum of
Is,
looking for something else that will take me home. The closest item to me is the bracelet, so I move straight toward it.

There it is. A ring of light. A phantom wrist longs to feel that bracelet encircling it, longs for the soft tinkling of silver against silver, for the cool brush of chain link against skin.

Knowledge again tears through me. This time, as I scatter through space and darkness, I am sucked toward wind and heat, toward ticklish grass.

I am directly under a tree I have climbed many times with Sandra. I look up into the branches above me, and there she is. An eight-year-old Sandra. Curly dark pigtails ride behind her in the breeze as she maneuvers her way up the tree limbs. And that little girl next to her…is me.

Sort of. I recognize my face and crooked teeth from old photos. But it’s hard to believe that I ever moved so quickly, or with such freedom. I’m bossing Sandra around, telling her to climb one branch higher. Nothing but this moment seems to exist to that eight-year-old me. She’s cast an almost magic spell of oblivion around the whole tree.

As the younger me reaches for a higher branch, sunlight glints off a bracelet dangling from my wrist. The way
the sun enchants the charms on that bracelet is fascinating. Tinker Bell, a kitty cat, a ladybug, a silver star…

I can remember the bracelet now. It was a gift from my mother for my eighth birthday, and I lost it one day while playing…here in Sandra’s backyard.

I’m figuring out how this whole object-to-life business seems to be working: see the object I lost in life, imagine using it, go back to the moment I lost it. I just have to say, this seems like a particularly cruel joke. I mean, why all the focus on loss? Isn’t losing my life enough? Why is my only option for returning to Earth centered on
losing
something?

As I watch eight-year-old Sandra and myself, I remember the temperature—mild with a forceful wind trying to drive spring into our midst. Earthy spring scents float in my memory, too, mingling with the feel of rough bark against my hands. Sandra and I are daring each other to move as far as we can toward the end of a branch. We are about to—

Fall.

And Sandra is about to break her arm.

I have to do something to stop this from happening. I need to get Sandra’s father.

I attempt that strange floating and running movement to get to the house, but, just like the last time I tried it, I discover I’m not allowed to travel far from the living me. I try to stretch the thread of energy that connects the two of
us. I strain against it like a dog trying to lengthen its leash enough to reach a taunting squirrel.

No luck. I’m only allowed any kind of freedom of movement if I stay close enough to the living me to see and hear her. She won’t even let me get far enough away to help her best friend.

Once again, the Universe’s rules for this game suck.

Just as I realize this, the tree branch cracks under the combined weight of two eight-year-olds. We crash through branches, screaming as we fall. I land flat on my stomach. Despite all the years that have passed since this moment, despite even death, I can remember the feel of the air being forced from my lungs as I struggle to breathe.

I can’t help running back to try to help these two little girls somehow, but I get too close to the living me. She sucks me in….

age 8

My jaws have slammed together with a force that leaves my head spinning. Blood is warming my mouth as it oozes from a cut, but it takes me a moment to realize this because I still can’t breathe.

Sandra is deathly silent. Is she dead?

Now that I can breathe, I scream hysterically.

The back door opens, and Sandra’s mother comes
running. She stumbles over to Sandra. She falls down next to her and sobs. “What have you done to her? What have you done to her?”

I try to take in enough air to speak and manage to squeak out, “We fell from the tree. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Mrs. Simpson is breathing all funny. I’ve never heard anyone breathe like that. What if she and Sandra
both
die? It will be my fault.

Mr. Simpson runs up to us. He tries to get to Sandra, but Mrs. Simpson just keeps crying and breathing all funny and won’t let him touch either of them.

I want to help him pull Mrs. Simpson away. What if Sandra’s dying and Mrs. Simpson won’t let us help her?

“You must calm down, Genevieve,” Mr. Simpson keeps telling her. “You’ll have an asthma attack.”

Will an asthma attack kill Mrs. Simpson?

He’s shaking her and pulling her away from Sandra all at once. There’s finally a space big enough between Mrs. Simpson and Sandra for him to get into. He kneels by Sandra, leans over her, touches her neck, and listens to her breathing. He makes a strange sound. I think he might be choking on relief. “Sandra’ll be fine, but you have to calm down, Genevieve.”

I’m relieved that Sandra is going to be all right. If Mr. Simpson says she’s okay, then she is. I
like
Mr. Simpson.

I just don’t like
Mrs.
Simpson. And now that I know
Sandra is going to be okay, it’s fine with me if Mrs. Simpson dies of an asthma attack. Well…unless Sandra thinks it’s my fault her mom dies.

I want
my
mom. She can make things better. She doesn’t have asthma, and she doesn’t yell the way Sandra’s mom does.

I want my mom
now.

Where is my magic charm bracelet? I reach for it on my wrist, but it’s not there. Where is it? Did all this bad stuff happen because I lost it?

I want to cry but don’t dare.

“Genevieve,” Mr. Simpson says, “you have to go to the house and call 911.”

“I thought you said she’d be okay,” she protests.

Mr. Simpson whips around on her in anger. “Dammit, just go call 911,” he growls. I want to cheer.

“I can’t b-b-breathe,” Mrs. Simpson says, gasping.

Mr. Simpson closes his eyes. He looks just like Mom when she’s counting to ten as she’s ordering me to go to my room to “think about what you’ve done.” When Mr. Simpson opens his eyes, he touches Sandra’s cheek lightly—like my dad touches mine at bedtime. Then he stands up and rubs Mrs. Simpson’s arms to calm her. When he speaks, his voice is gentle and firm. “She’ll probably be fine, Genevieve, but we can’t risk moving her ourselves. Go call. Now.”

Mrs. Simpson stumbles away. I crawl around, looking
for the bracelet. Now that she’s gone, I let the tears stream down my face, but I try to hide them from Mr. Simpson.

He turns to me and sees the tears. “Are you all right, Maddy?” he asks me. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

Everywhere,
I want to say,
but mostly just in my heart.
Instead, I say, “I’m okay,” but not because I am. I’m terrified, but I can’t admit it because I can tell Mr. Simpson isn’t really thinking about me, and I don’t want him to have to.

“So is Sandra, I think,” he tells me reassuringly. “There’s a giant goose egg on the side of her head. I think she’s just been knocked unconscious. Happened to me once when I was a kid. Looks like her arm might be broken, too, but I think she’ll be okay.” He starts feeling gently along her other limbs. Then he calls into the house, as if he’s surprised to have thought about it, “Genevieve, call Maddy’s mom. She’ll have to come pick her up. We can’t leave Madison here by herself while we’re off at the hospital.”

Mommy. She’ll make everything okay again. I know she will.

Mrs. Simpson has just started out the door. She gives me a mean look, and the screen door slams shut as she moves back into the house. I don’t quite understand why she has never liked me.

Mr. Simpson coos gently to his daughter, sparing me a glance as I begin turning in circles. “What are you looking for, Maddy?” he asks me.

“Nothing,” I say, even though it’s not true.

Mrs. Simpson returns to Sandra’s side, crying. And when Sandra’s eyes flutter open, Mrs. Simpson squeals in delight. I feel the same way, but my glee has to flutter around inside where it can’t be seen or heard. I don’t dare draw Mr. and Mrs. Simpson’s attention away from Sandra. She’s alive. And groaning. In pain.

Time passes, and flashing lights speed up the road toward the house. I recognize my mother’s car right behind them. She stays out of the paramedics’ way, trailing behind them to the backyard, looking for me. She sees me, runs toward me, pulls me away from all the action, kneels down in front of me and wraps me in her arms.

My mom. She smells like apples: sharp, sweet, and natural. “Are you all right, honey?” she asks.

Now that she’s here, the tears turn to sobs. I don’t have to hold anything back. But the words I’m trying to say can’t be understood, so Mom just keeps reassuring me, “Sandra’s okay. She was just knocked unconscious.”

Finally, I am able to get out the words clearly, “I can’t find my charm bracelet.”

She squeezes me tighter. “Shh,” she whispers into my ear. “As soon as they’ve all left with Sandra, we’ll look for it.”

If she’s going to help me look for it, I know we’ll find it. She always makes everything all right.

I swallow my sobs and try to breathe deeply.

The paramedics carry Sandra off on a stretcher, and Mom takes me by the hand. We walk in circles around the tree Sandra and I were climbing until…finally…there it is…broken but shining against the grass. Mom picks up the bracelet and lovingly holds it out to me. The second its cool metal touches my skin—

I am gone. Ripped from myself. Thrown back into the abyss…formless again, wandering around in a place that just
Is.
I want my mom back. I want to see her again.

My longing to touch her, to be with her, is even greater than the ache I was left with after my first trip back to life.

T
HE FEEL OF MY MOM’S ARMS
around me has awakened a hunger beyond any I’ve ever experienced.

I wade back through
Is,
looking for the bracelet. I want to return to that scene in Sandra’s backyard. I want to feel my mother’s arms around me again—even if it means watching Sandra fall all over again. I refind each of the objects I have encountered before—all except for the bracelet. It’s gone.

Strange.

The sweatshirt is still here.

The bracelet isn’t.

Loss again. I want to scream, but…I don’t have a voice.

Is there any other object here that might lead me to my mother? I return to them one at a time, looking for a clue about which will take me where I want to go, but I can’t remember where I lost these various scraps of existence. There are the keys, but I don’t think they will take me to her. The cell phone’s in the next pocket of space. No, that’s not a gateway to my mother, either.

Then there’s the purse. It hums and glows more intensely than the other objects do when I get close to it.

Is it connected to my mother? I don’t think so, but I can’t help feeling drawn in by the intensity of the object’s presence. I want the answers it seems to be offering. Maybe those answers will ultimately lead me back to my mother…and everything else I want to reach. I muster every phantom feeling I can to remember carrying a purse. And once again those powerful feelings rip through me. I am propelled toward something…unpleasant.

I’m in an uncomfortable, stuffy environment, surrounded by the scent of urine. I realize I am in a bathroom stall at Overton High School. An alive and seventeen-year-old me is entering through the bathroom door, getting closer to me, and I am…sucked in.

age 17

When a girl has to pee, she really has to pee. I slam the door of the stall behind me and dump my purse—unusually heavy today with all the extra change in it—on top of the roll of toilet paper.

It falls off. Gross. Who knows what this floor has had on it? Taking a pee will just have to wait until I pick it up. Why was I stupid enough to bring it with me?

I’m just putting it back when voices bounce off the tiles of the bathroom wall. I recognize Tammy Havers’s voice. “Anyone in here?” she asks someone.

“I don’t think so,” comes the reply.

So I’m just unbuckling my belt when Tammy demands payment from the mystery voice. I realize what’s happening on the other side of the stall door: Tammy is selling drugs.

Damn.

Peeing is going to have to wait. I don’t dare make any noise right now.

Apparently not making any noise is one of those “easier said than done” things. Especially if you’re stupid enough to set your favorite purse on top of a roll of toilet paper for a second time and you then back into it. And if said purse has about three dollars in coins in it because you’re stupid enough to have lost your lunch debit card…well, it hits the
floor with a pretty loud thud.

The kind of thud that alerts the drug dealer there’s someone else in the bathroom.

Tammy wouldn’t kick in the stall door or anything, would she?

And why exactly couldn’t this have happened—if it
had
to happen at
all
—after I’d already gone pee? I’m dying here.

Tammy pushes on the stall door and finds it latched. “Come out of there,” she demands.

“Uh, no, thanks,” I say.

Fortunately, she doesn’t try to force it open.

Un
fortunately, she crawls
under
the partition on the left, knocking my purse into the next stall.

If I’d had any brains, I’d have realized sooner that my incredibly heavy-with-change purse would make a good weapon. I’d have already picked it up and smacked her on the head with it, hopefully knocking her out. Now it’s too far away for me to reach.

I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. The truth is I wouldn’t have actually hurt Tammy. I mean, she and I were friends until eighth grade. And not only wouldn’t I go whacking her over the head, but I can’t believe she’d truly hurt me, either.

Well, other than torturing me by sending me to another bathroom to pee. Ohmygod, would I even make it at this point?

And wasting time thinking about all this has now left me completely at Tammy’s mercy, because there she is. Standing in the stall with me. Glaring at me.

She unlatches the door, grabs me by the hair, and yanks me out of the stall. I want to scream in pain. It really hurts. But I’m too afraid to do anything more than gasp. So much for old friendship protecting me from Tammy’s wrath.

“What are you doing in here, Stanton?” She yanks on my hair for emphasis.

If she yanks on it again, I swear she’ll unleash a puddle of pee right beneath us.

“I asked you a question,” Tammy says. “What are you doing in here?”

Duh. Going to the bathroom, perhaps? But I don’t exactly want to make Tammy any angrier than she already is, so I try the less sarcastic approach. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Hear what?”

Tammy yanks again. Is she waiting for me to confess? Bravado might be my only way out. “Why are you trying to torture me?” I ask, reminding myself that I’ve known Tammy since we were in preschool.

We were never great friends when we were younger, but we always got along. Then in fourth grade, neither of us had any really close friends in our class, so we ended up eating
lunch together every day. We even shared Twinkies.

She only started getting messed up when we were in middle school. Something went down at home, and she started getting tougher and tougher. I was sad when it happened. I liked her. But she wouldn’t talk to me about what was going on.

Then, in eighth grade, after the whole Ouija board thing that happened at my sleepover, she stopped talking to me altogether. Thought I was making fun of her. But I swear I wasn’t.

By the end of eighth grade, she started getting downright scary. Once I even saw her beat the crap out of some kid during lunch. I wasn’t exactly valiant or anything. No saving the kid, jumping in front of her with fists at the ready. No. I was one of the cowards watching the whole thing. Besides, you couldn’t really get in between the two girls. Even then, Tammy liked grabbing the hair of her opponent. When the teachers came to break up the fight, Tammy almost ripped the other kid’s scalp right off her head while the adults were trying to separate the two of them.

Now, I realize, is not the time to be remembering that Jenny Wilson almost became a scalpless wonder. Think Twinkies, I tell myself. The image of a ten-year-old Tammy stuffing yellow cream-filled pastries in her mouth does help me face off against her. Even if the hairgrip is still killing me.

As she yanks even harder, I opt for the remember-when-we-were-friends approach. “Okay. Jesus. Let go of my hair. I did hear what was happening in here, but it’s not like I’m gonna
tell
anyone. Get real. We’ve known each other for ages, Tammy. It’s not as if I’m going to rat on someone I used to share Twinkies with at lunch.”

“You’d better not,” Tammy says. She gives my hair a threatening reminder of her willingness to hurt me. “ ’Cause if I get ratted on, I’m gonna know exactly who to blame.”

Adults are always wanting you to tell in a situation like this.
We can protect you. It’s for the good of everyone. Blah, blah, blah.

Right. Adults are
so
stupid. I can’t figure out how they managed to live long enough to survive high school.

“I’m not going to say anything,” I tell Tammy. I hope I sound firm, disgusted at the mere possibility. But I hear a squeak in my voice. She finally lets go of my hair, pushing me away from her at the same time. “Get out of here.”

“Umm…could I, like, just get my money first?”

She freezes me with this what-kind-of-an-idiot-
are
-you stare.

Okay, then. Guess I’ll just borrow money from Sandra for lunch. I want to kick myself. I wouldn’t need to borrow money from my best friend if I’d just admitted to my mother that I’d lost the lunch card. She’d have gotten me a
new one. But I didn’t want to listen to her harping about how I can never hold on to anything…which is irritatingly true, I realize, as I practically run the rest of the way from the bathroom. And that’s when…

Is
embraces me again.

I float for a moment, just remembering what it was like to be Maddy Stanton. It seems that I have found the corner pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but I am still trying to find all the edges. My life is lying in a heap of memories piled on top of one another, small clips of partial images carved into funny shapes. They aren’t even sorted yet. Which piece do I even start trying to build from?

Of course…

The one with the Grim Reaper on it. The one that tells me how I died. But I don’t know where it is yet. I might have to turn over a lot of pieces before I’m likely to even catch a fragment of the Reaper’s image.

It’s time to start now.

I find the purse. If that and the sweatshirt are still here in
Is,
why can’t I find the charm bracelet? I wade off in search of the bracelet once again.

Still gone.

What is the difference between the charm bracelet and the purse? Between the sweatshirt and the charm bracelet?

And then I know.

The real me, the alive me…she took the bracelet with
her when she left the scene where I saw her. But the purse and the sweatshirt…I didn’t find either of those before I left the scene. Who knows what ever happened to them? But somehow I never got them back, and so here they are in
Is,
still haunting me.

An idea hums through me: Perhaps if I don’t find the object, I can return to the moment I lost it, but if I do find it, then I can’t get back to that time.

Control.

I might have some control over what moments in my life I can return to. I just have to keep myself from finding something.

But wait. I don’t know for certain this is how it works….

Or even if I can change what happens when I return to a moment.

I realize there’s a way to find out.

I wade my way back to the purse and imagine myself holding it again.

The stuffiness of an enclosed bathroom, the scent of urine, myself walking toward me…it’s all there again. I embrace myself, and we join fluidly….

age 17

I
so
have to pee.

I set my purse on top of the roll of toilet paper, but it falls off. Disgusting. This floor could have had—well, who knows what—on it. I’m bending over to pick up the purse when I realize I’m feeling that funny thing again. It’s happened to me a couple times before. I can’t explain the feeling. It’s like I’m being spied on. It’s creepy. I tried to explain it to my mom once, and she told me she’d had creepy feelings like that before, too. Said she’d felt “someone walking over her grave.” Like that makes sense?

Unfortunately, at the moment, it does.

Shake it off,
I tell myself.

I set the bag back on the roll of toilet paper and look around, like I’m expecting to see a ghost here or something. How stupid is
that?

“Anyone in here?” someone says through the bathroom door. I know that voice. It belongs to Tammy Havers.

“I don’t think so,” someone replies.

Tammy demands payment.

Great. A drug deal. I pause in unbuckling my belt…I so have to pee, but self-preservation? Yeah. Might be more important at the moment. I think I’ll just try not to make any sound….

Thunk.

My bag. The one with about three dollars in change in it. Why did I have to lose my lunch debit card?

I really have to pee.

Someone pushes on the stall door. Tammy, I’m pretty sure, because now she’s also demanding that I come out of there.

“Uh, no, thanks,” I say. That creepy shivery feeling comes over me again. Must be because Tammy is crawling under the stall now. I look around for my purse. As heavy as it is, it might even make a good weapon at the moment.

I can’t find it. Who knows where it landed?

Then Tammy is there, standing in front of me with this totally killer glare.

She opens the stall door, grabs a handful of my hair, and tugs me out. This is
way
too much. That creepy feeling invading me, Tammy abusing me, majorly having to pee, and being
interrupted
…how much does a girl have to put up with?

“What are you doing in here, Stanton?” She yanks on my hair again for emphasis.

It’s like my hair is a pull-string attached to my bladder. If Tammy pulls on it again, I think she’ll unleash a tidal wave of pee.

“I asked you a question,” Tammy says. “What are you doing in here?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” I ask, my anger
overflowing. “I’m taking a pee. Or at least I was trying to.”

“Did you hear anything?” She starts to pull on my hair again.

“Don’t!” I tell her. “Of course I heard you. But it’s not like I’m gonna tell anyone about it. Get real. We’ve known each other for ages, Tammy. And even if I do think it’s kind of stupid to be taking drugs, and even
stupider
to be dealing them here at school—like, have you heard the word
expulsion?
—I’m hardly going to rat on someone I used to share Twinkies with at lunch.”

She seems to give this some thought. “You’d better not. ’Cause if I get ratted on, I’m gonna know who to blame.”

“I’m not going to say anything. Trust me.” Thank God I don’t sound like I’m begging.

“Get out of here,” Tammy says.

She lets go of my hair. I dash into the stall.

“What are you doing?” Tammy asks in disbelief as I begin searching under the partitions between the stalls.

“Looking for my stupid money.” I find it just inside the adjoining stall.

“Just get the hell out of here,” Tammy says.

“On my way,” I say. I grab the purse—

Back in
Is,
I search, propelling myself through miles of space, looking for the purse.

It’s gone. Just like the bracelet. The moment I touched
each, I was ripped away from life and returned to
Is.