The Twilight Prisoner (4 page)

Jack opened his eyes and let go of Cora.

“Ouch!” she shouted as she landed on her backside on the dirty floor.

Leaning against the wall of the passageway, her arms crossed over her chest, was a pale girl in a plaid skirt and blazer. She had a small, tightly pursed mouth and a dirty-blond ponytail that jutted from her head.

At the sight of her, Austin froze.

“Euri!” Jack exclaimed.

He immediately wanted to tell her everything, to erase the weeks and months they had spent apart. But something was different: Euri looked shorter than Jack remembered. It took him a moment to realize that he had just grown taller. He was older than she was now too, fifteen. He wondered if Euri had noticed the change. He expected her to rush up to him, but she stayed where she was, coolly reclining against the wall.

Suddenly, Austin turned on his heels and began to run.

“Austin, wait!” Jack called after him. “She's a friend!”

Austin stopped and looked back at Euri with a pained expression. “I've got to go,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Hold on!” Jack said. “Take this!” He reached into his pocket and tossed Austin the ghost repellent pouch. The noxious smell filled the tunnel as both Euri and Cora held their noses.

Austin obediently caught the pouch and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he took off back down the passageway, disappearing around the bend.

“Who was that?” Euri asked.

“Austin Chapman,” Jack explained. “A friend of ours from school.”

“Chapman?” Euri repeated. “What a wimp!”

“Do you know him?” asked Cora.

“Why would I know him?” Euri snapped. Jack was taken aback by her tone. Either she had been offended by Austin's reaction to her, or was in a horrible mood, or both.

“Maybe we should go after him?” Cora said as she stood up and rubbed her backside.

“He'll be fine,” said Euri dismissively. “Who are you?”

“I'm Cora. Who are you?”

Euri ignored the question, arching her eyebrows in Cora's direction. “Lucky for you, you have padding.”

Cora's face turned red.

“This is Euri,” Jack weakly offered.

Euri turned to him. “Where have you been?”

The excitement Jack had felt when he first saw her was vanishing fast. “Where have
you
been?”

“That doesn't really matter.” Euri shot a glance at Cora. “You've clearly been busy.”

Jack felt annoyed with her. It wasn't his fault that he was alive, and that he had continued to grow, or that he had a crush on a living girl who could grow and change with him. But he wasn't the only one upset. Cora's arms were also crossed over her chest, and she was giving Euri the once-over. He had never seen her look so angry.

“What's with the uniform?” Cora asked.

Jack cringed. If there was one thing that Euri was sensitive about, it was having died in her school uniform. Euri clenched her fists and Cora jutted her jaw. But before either of them could say anything else, a piercing howl echoed through the tunnel.

Cora gave Jack a worried look. “What was that?”

“The guards are around,” said Euri.

“You mean the janitor?” Cora asked. “Does he have a dog?”

Euri turned to Jack and shook her head. “You didn't tell her, did you?”

Cora looked from Euri to Jack. “What?”

Euri burst into laughter. She laughed so hard, she clutched her stomach, then curled into a ball and began to float.

Cora grabbed Jack's hand. “What's going on?Whycan she fly, too?”

Jack wasn't sure how to answer.

“You're both playing some trick on me. Thanks a lot, Jack. I'm going to go find Austin,” Cora said. She turned around and headed back toward the stream.

“Wait!” Jack called after her, but she didn't turn around. He scowled at Euri.

“Okay, okay,” she said, pretending to wipe tears from her eyes. “We'll get her.”

Jack ran after Cora and Euri flew alongside him. “Would you stop flying?” Jack whispered to Euri just before they reached her.

To Jack's relief, Euri floated back to the ground. They flanked Cora. “What do you want?” she asked.

“You can't leave just yet,” Euri said.

“Why not?”

“Because there's a three-headed dog waiting to eat you, if you try to go back now.”

“Subtle,” Jack mumbled.

But Cora just grinned. “Ha-ha. You must be taking Latin, too.
Cerberus canus Inferorum est
.” She looked at Jack. “You're both in on the joke, right? You really got Austin, but not me....”

“He got out in time,” Euri remarked. “You two aren't so lucky.”

As if to punctuate her point, a series of barks sounded in the darkness ahead. “They're getting closer,” said Euri. “You can follow me or . . . hey, if you want to get eaten . . .” She turned away from them and began to float deeper into the tunnel.

As soon as Euri was out of earshot, Cora turned to him. “Who is that girl?”

Jack peered nervously into the darkness ahead. “I can explain . . .”

Farther down the tunnel, a pair of unblinking red eyes locked on to Jack's. Slightly above the eyes, another pair blinked on, and then a third.

“. . . later,” Jack squeaked.

Cora followed his gaze over her head. “What are you looking—?”

She gasped and shrank back as Cerberus's three heads began to bark and gnash their teeth simultaneously and pull at a leash.

“Get them!” a low, angry voice shouted.

Jack grabbed Cora's hand, took a few running steps, and flew into the air. They shot through the passageway, the stone walls blurring into gray, Jack's heart furiously pumping in his chest as he gripped Cora's hand. He was flying so fast that they nearly hurtled into Euri, who was floating calmly ahead of them, down a passageway cluttered with moldering mattresses and rusty gurneys.

“I guess you changed your mind,” she said as they screeched to a halt behind her.

“Cerberus,” Jack panted. “Go! He's coming.”

Euri turned and peered back down the passageway. “I don't see anything.”

Jack pointed behind them, but Euri was right—there was no one there, and he could no longer hear barking. The beast must have run in a different direction.

Cora looked frantically from Jack to Euri. “Cerberus,” she panted. “We're in hell?”

“I prefer to call it the afterlife,” said Euri. “It's got a better ring to it.”

“Am I dead?” Cora cried, turning to Jack.

“Here we go again,” Euri muttered under her breath.

“When we crossed over that stream, we entered the underworld,” Jack explained. “But you're not dead and neither am I. I promise. And we can go back. But if Cerberus catches us . . .” He looked over his shoulder and then imploringly at Euri.

“Okay,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “Euri to the rescue.”

“Thank you,” said Jack. He noticed that Cora didn't look very relieved by this offer of help. She was staring at Euri, her eyes widening as she took in their savior's pale skin and the cobwebs on her uniform. But just when Euri had agreed to help them, he didn't want to put her in a worse mood by explaining to Cora that, yes, Euri was indeed dead. “Where are we?” he asked before Cora could say anything.

“In Bloomingdale,” said Euri. She turned to Cora. “And don't get your hopes up for a better outfit. It's not the department store.”

Cora seemed too rattled to register the insult. She pointed to one of the gurneys. “It's a hospital?”

Euri snorted. “It's an insane asylum. And I've been stuck here for months.”

“How are we in an insane asylum?” Cora asked. “I thought we were at Columbia.”

“Columbia bought up the asylum and built over it in the1890s,” Euri said in an impatient voice. “Butyou're in the underworld, remember? And here Dr. Earle still runs Bloomingdale for the dead.”

On the word “dead,” Cora turned to Jack. “Are you sure there's a way out of here?”

“Of course,” said Jack. “We just need to wait a little while till the guards and Cerberus go away. Then we'll go back across the stream like Austin did.”

“Isn't there another way out?”

“We have to go back the same way we came in,” Jack explained. “But we'll be able to do that in just a little while. Right, Euri?”

Cora turned to Euri for affirmation, and Jack silently prayed that she wouldn't say anything alarming.

“Sure,” Euri said. “You can hang out with me in one of the classes.” As she led them into a wider part of the passageway, she added cryptically, “You could definitely use some lessons.”

A moment later, Euri put a finger over her lips. Jack and Cora nodded to show they understood. The faint beat of an orchestra drifted through the tunnel, then the screech of a needle being dragged over a record, followed by another burst of music. “Just act like everyone else,” Euri whispered, “and try not to look anyone in the eye for too long. It's your eyes that give away that you're alive.” Pointing at Cora, she added, “You in particular. And if you need to fly or float or anything, you need to hold someone's hand.” She vanished through a closed door that Jack hadn't noticed before.

“How did she do that?” Cora whispered.

“She's a ghost,” Jack said, now that Euri was out of earshot. “We're going to have to go through it, too, otherwise someone might think we're still alive.”

Cora pressed her fingers against the door. “But it's solid. How can we?”

“I'm going to pull you through.”

“But you're not a ghost.”

“No, but in the underworld I can do ghostlike things—flying and going through walls and—”

Cora jumped as Euri's head popped back through the door. “Are you two going to stand out there all night?”

“Sorry,” said Jack. He turned to Cora. “As long as I hold your hand, you can do these things, too.” Then, before she could ask him anything else, he flew at the door, pulling her along.

With a gasp, Cora closed her eyes. She and Jack sank into the door, which felt as soft as a mattress before it gave way and dumped them out into a surprisingly cavernous room. Cora opened her eyes and gazed at her arms and legs to make sure they were still there. Jack remembered the feeling himself the first time he went through a solid wall. “You okay?”

Cora nodded, and Jack, satisfied that she still seemed to be in one piece, looked around. Standing in pairs in front of them were about twenty ghosts of all ages and from all eras. A bearded man in a waistcoat and top hat stood across from a woman in a miniskirt and chunky platform heels. A woman in a high-collared, floor-length gingham dress stared awkwardly at a man in a fedora and broad-shouldered gray suit. A girl in jeans and a T-shirt loosely held the hand of a man with a Mohawk who wore nothing more than a loincloth made of animal skin.

In the corner, a tall ghost in a flouncy white shirt, knickers, and high-heeled shoes bent over a record player with an enormous hornlike speaker. “Technology,” he muttered to himself. “You can never keep up with it.”

“Are they all ...
exanimus
?” Cora whispered.

Dead.
Jack nodded at the Latin word.

Cora shuddered. “Why can I see them, then?”

“Because you're in the underworld.”

“And they can see me?”

Jack nodded. “But remember, don't stare too long, because they might notice that you're not really dead.”

Just then a diminutive African American man, barely up to Jack's shoulder, strode through the door. He wore a pair of plaid pants, white shoes, and a white-collared shirt.

Euri floated up to them. “The weekly guest instructor,” she said flatly.

The tall ghost stopped fiddling with the record player and clapped his hands with excitement. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “We have a very special guest for you today, the inventor of the greatest dance in all of eternity—George ‘Shorty' Snowden!”

A weak scattering of applause echoed through the room as the small ghost held out his arms, beaming. “We're going to do the Lindy Hop,” he explained, “the dance I invented myself at the Savoy Ballroom. So get yourself a partner if you don't have one already.”

Jack turned to Euri. “This is a dance class?”

Euri shrugged. “It's part of the therapy. Dr. Earle likes us to stay active.”

The tall ghost floated up to Jack. “Looks like you have one partner too many,” he remarked. Turning to Cora, he held out his hand. “You remind me of a girl I knew when I was alive. Shall we?”

Cora gave Jack a worried look.

“Sorry,” Jack explained to the ghost. “But I'm sure Euri would love to . . .”

Euri glared at Jack as the tall ghost bowed and offered her his hand.

“All right,” said Shorty, lowering the arm of the record player. “And a one, two . . .”

On three, the orchestra struck up, and pairs of ghosts shot into the air, kicking, hopping, shaking, sliding, and spinning each other in a mad mixture of waltzes, lambadas, jigs, break-dances, fox-trots, and disco. As Jack floated into the air with Cora, he concentrated less on dancing and more on avoiding a kick in the face.

“We have some work ahead of us,” Shorty observed.

“That's an understatement,” Euri muttered as she whirled by on the arms of the tall ghost, who seemed to be doing some sort of minuet.

“So this is what happens after death?” Cora whispered. “Bad dancing?”

Jack was relieved that she seemed a little more relaxed. “I hear everyone's a lot better by the time they reach Elysium.”

For a brief moment, Cora smiled. Then her expression grew serious. “You said you could do all these ghostlike things in the underworld. That means you've been here before.”

Jack took a deep breath. Then he whispered the story of how he had been hit by a car and started seeing ghosts. He explained how he had met Euri at Grand Central Terminal and how she had led him to the underworld. He told Cora about the search for his mother and how he had helped her move on to Elysium, the place of eternal peace, which was likely in the Hamptons. He told Cora about how, even when he wasn't in the underworld, he could still see ghosts at night.

“How come? What's wrong with you?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he said. “I would have told you all of this sooner, but I figured you'd think I was crazy.”

Cora's eyes surveyed the ghosts dancing around the room. “I probably would have. But I still kind of think you're crazy now.”

Jack's face felt hot, and he looked over her shoulder so she wouldn't see. He was relieved he hadn't sent her his letter. It was painful enough telling her the truth now. He watched as Shorty floated from couple to couple, correcting their steps—often a difficult matter as one ghost was doing a Viennese waltz, and the other the Macarena. Behind him, he noticed a few chairs set against the walls. Just above one of them floated a grizzled peg-legged ghost reading a newspaper called
THE UNDERWORLD TIMES
. Jack could just make out a large banner on the front of it that read MANN DOWN EXCLUSIVE!!! and beneath it a headline:
LIVING AVENGER STRIKES AGAIN!!! CENTRAL PARK VICTIM SAYS, “MOST TERRIFYING MOMENT OF MY DEATH.”

Jack nearly crashed into the man with the Mohawk. He was too far away to read the rest of the story, but he could make out a panel of photos accompanying it. There was one of Bigfoot, another of the Loch Ness monster, and the third was a primitive sketch of a pair of glowing eyes set in an alien-shaped face. A caption below read
LIVING AVENGER: MYTH OR MENACE?
Jack tried to dance closer to the newspaper, but before he could make out anything more, Shorty flew up to them.

“You're too stiff,” he observed.

“Well, we
are
dead,” Jack said with a forced laugh.

Shorty clapped his hands, and someone dragged the arm of the record player across the record so the music screeched to a halt. “If you fine people are going to learn to Lindy Hop,” Shorty announced, “then you're going to have to loosen up. Time to limbo!”

“Hooray!” shouted the tall ghost, releasing Euri's hand and pumping his long arms. Euri took the chance to flee back to Jack and Cora. “Welcome to limbo,” she said to Cora with a roll of the eyes. Then she turned to Jack and hissed in his ear, “Thanks for that last dance.”

Jack could tell she was hurt. He hadn't imagined their reunion going this way at all. But he needed to protect Cora and make sure she got out of the underworld quickly and in one piece. “Cora couldn't dance with one of the others,” he explained gently. “They might figure out who she is.”

Euri picked at her skirt. “So?”

“Let's get into a single file line,” Shorty instructed. He flew over to the record player and slipped a new album out of its jacket. The steel drums and rattles of calypso flooded the room. The man with the Mohawk and the woman in the floor-length dress produced a pole and floated ten feet into the air with it. Jack and Cora exchanged alarmed glances. “Go to the back of the line,” Jack whispered. He let go of Cora's hand and watched her walk to the back.

“Let's start with you, miss,” Shorty said, pointing to Euri.

As Euri levitated, Jack was surprised she was being such a good sport. But then, instead of floating under the pole, she danced through it. “That's cheating,” murmured the woman in the miniskirt, and Euri stuck her tongue out at her.

“Let's have good clean fun here,” the tall ghost said with a disappointed look at Euri. “You, young man, are next.”

“Me?” said Jack.

“Time to limbo,” said Shorty.

Jack closed his eyes and willed himself a few feet up into the air. Then he floated stiffly under the pole.

“Great!” said Shorty, although Jack knew he was probably the least animated dancer in the history of the limbo. “Let's mix up this line, get some of the shy folks up here.” He pointed to Cora. “How about you?”

Cora stood firmly on the ground, looking anxiously up at the pole.

“Go ahead, miss,” Shorty said.

The crowd of ghosts stared quietly at Cora as she turned frantically to Jack. He bit his lip and glanced helplessly at Euri. Cora closed her eyes and began to flap her arms. “What on earth is she doing?” murmured the woman in the floor-length dress.

Just then, Cerberus, dragging a thick-necked guard behind him, barreled through the door. Over the cheerful beat of calypso, ghosts flew helter-skelter through the room, screaming, as Cerberus dashed this way and that, sniffing and growling. The tall ghost shouted to the guard over the din, “Get that beast away! He's not part of the moral treatment! He's upsetting the patients!”

Jack ran up to Cora and grabbed her hand. But as he pulled it, he realized that someone else was pulling her in the opposite direction. It was Euri. “Quick, through the wall,” she whispered. Cora winced as they careened toward the brick and into the next room where a small group of ghosts was listening to what appeared—from the title written on a chalkboard—to be a lecture on “Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Beauty.”

“As Aristotle argued . . .” a bug-eyed ghost at a lectern was saying.

“Cerberus and the guards are rampaging through Bloomingdale!” Euri shouted.

The room erupted into shrieks as the ghosts shot into the air and several flew out the door. “Calm down!” begged the bug-eyed ghost. But a burst of barking through the wall just increased the pandemonium. Screams began to echo from other parts of the asylum as newsspread. “This is perfect!” Euri said, picking up speed as she flew them toward another solid wall. Cora clenched Jack's hand even tighter.

“Are you crazy?” Jack said.

Euri looked as if she was seriously considering the question. “Well, I am in an insane asylum.”

For a moment, Jack wondered if Euri really had gone mad. But even if he could wrench Cora from her grip, he had no idea where he would go or how they would escape Cerberus. He wasn't even sure he could find the way back to the stream without Euri's help. It seemed as if they were flying away from Bloomingdale.

“Don't worry,” said Euri, looking at the panicked expression on his face. “I'm not really crazy. It's just that you've given us the perfect opportunity to escape.” They tumbled through another wall.

“Back to the stream?” asked Cora eagerly.

Euri turned to her. “And get eaten?”

“No, but ...”

“The guards and Cerberus are going to be all over Bloomingdale for the next few hours. The safest place for you to be till they leave is aboveground.”

Cora turned to Jack, a bewildered look on her face. “But wait, if we go aboveground, won't we already be back? Then we'll be safe?”

Jack shook his head. “The dead stay underground during the day, but they're allowed to go up into the city at night. In order to get back to the living world, we can't just join them aboveground, we have to go back the same waywe came.” He squeezed her hand. “Butit's okay. We'll just go up for a couple of hours, till everything settles down, and then we'll go back to the stream. It'll be fine.”

Cora looked skeptical. “How are we supposed to get aboveground? I'm not seeing any stairs.”

Before Jack could answer, Euri led them around a corner of the tunnel and flew into a small, dimly lit circular room with earthen walls. On a stool in the middle of it sat an elderly ghost with combed-back white hair and dark eyebrows, reading a book titled The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent. Without even looking up, he pressed a clicker three times. “‘What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have,'” he murmured to himself.

“Whatever that means,” said Euri. She waved goodbye and was instantly sucked into a pipe overhead.

Cora looked at Jack in astonishment. “Just keep holding my hand,” Jack shouted as they rose in the air, their bodies flattening as they whirled up through the green copper pipe.