Between

by Jessica Warman

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jessica Warman

  Imprint

  For M. C. W.

  Because we fit.

  This living hand, now warm and capable

  Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

  And in the icy silence of the tomb,

  So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

  That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

  So in my veins red life might stream again,

  And thou be conscience-calmed – see here it is –

  I hold it towards you.

  —John Keats

  One

  It’s a little after two a.m. Outside the Elizabeth, things are relatively quiet. Boats—yachts, really—are tied to the docks, clean white buoys protecting their fiberglass and porcelain exteriors from the wood. The slosh of the Long Island Sound, water beating against boats and shore, is a constant in the background. In most of the other boats—with names like Well Deserved, Privacy, Good Life—there is peace.

  But inside the Elizabeth, there is persistent unrest. The boat is a sixty-four-foot cruiser, equipped with a full kitchen, two baths, two bedrooms, and enough extra space to sleep a total of twenty people. Tonight there are only six, though. It’s a small party—my parents wouldn’t have let me throw a big one. Everybody is asleep, I think, except for me.

  I’ve been staring at the clock for twenty minutes now, listening to this annoying thump, thump, thump against the hull. It’s late August. The air outside is already cool, and the water is undoubtedly frigid. Connecticut’s like that; the water gets warm for a month or so in July, but near the end of the summer it’s already cold again. Sometimes it seems like there are only two seasons around here: winter and almost winter.

  Regardless of the water’s temperature, I’m pretty certain there’s a fish out there, stuck between the dock and the boat, pounding against the fiberglass, trying to free itself. The noise has been going on for what feels like forever. It woke me up at exactly 1:57 a.m., and it’s starting to drive me nuts.

  I finally can’t take it anymore. Thump. Thump-thump. If it’s a fish, it’s a stupid fish.

  “Hey? Do you hear that?” I say to my best friend and stepsister, Josie, who’s sleeping beside me on the fold-out couch in the front of the boat, her highlighted dirty-blond hair plastered against the side of her face. She doesn’t respond, just continues to snore softly, passed out since a little after midnight from an alcohol-marijuana combination that sent us all to bed before the late show came to an end. That’s the last thing I remember before falling asleep: trying to keep my eyes open, mumbling to Josie that we had to wait for 1:37 a.m., which is exactly when I was born, before we fell asleep. Nobody made it. At least, I know I didn’t.

  I stand up in the near darkness. The only light in the boat is coming from the TV, where there’s an infomercial for the SuperMop! running with the sound turned off.

  “Anyone awake?” I ask, still keeping my voice low. The boat rocks against the waves coming in from the Long Island Sound. Thud-thud-thud. There it is again.

  I look at the clock. It’s 2:18. I smile to myself; I’ve officially been eighteen for over a half hour.

  If it weren’t for the thumping, the rocking of the boat would feel like being tucked inside a lullaby. This is just about my favorite place in the world. Being here with my friends makes it even better, if that’s possible. Everything seems peaceful and calm. The stillness of the evening feels almost magical tonight.

  Thump.

  “I’m going outside to liberate a fish,” I announce. “Somebody please come with me.”

  But nobody—not one of them—even stirs.

  “Bunch of selfish drunks,” I murmur. But I’m only kidding. And anyway, I can go outside by myself. I’m a big girl. There’s nothing to be scared of.

  I know it sounds hypocritical, since we’ve been drinking and smoking, but it’s true: we’re good kids. This is a safe town. Everyone onboard has grown up together in Noank, Connecticut. Our families are friends. We love each other. Looking around at all of them—Josie in the front of the boat, Mera, Caroline, Topher, and Richie in sleeping bags on the floor in the back—life inside the Elizabeth feels like a hazy dream.

  Elizabeth Valchar. That’s me; my parents named this boat after me when I was six years old. But that was a lifetime ago. A few years before we lost my mother, before my dad married Josie’s mom. My dad got rid of a lot of my mom’s stuff after she died, but he was always adamant about keeping the boat. See, we have so many happy memories here. I always felt safe here. My mom would have wanted it this way.

  Still, it can be eerie so late at night, especially outside. Other than the sloshing of the waves, the dull thumping against the hull, the night is dark and silent. The smell of ocean salt water, algae dried onto all the thick rock formations this close to shore, is so overwhelming that, if the wind catches it the right way, it can almost make me nauseated.

  I’m not particularly keen on trying to figure out where the mystery noise is coming from all by myself, even though I’m almost certain it’s just a fish. So I give Josie one more try. “Hey,” I say louder, “wake up. I need your help.” I reach out to touch her, but something stops me. It’s the oddest feeling—like I shouldn’t be disturbing her. For a minute, I think that I must still be drunk. Everything feels kind of fuzzy.

  Her eyelids flutter. “Liz?” she murmurs. She’s confused, obviously still asleep. For a second there’s a flash of something—is it fear? Am I freaking her out?—in her gaze. And then she’s out again, and I’m standing by myself, the only person awake. Thud-thud-thud.

  The docks are like a wooden jigsaw puzzle. Waves break in from the ocean, and by the time they reach the Sound they’re usually gentle enough, but tonight they seem stronger than normal, rocking us all to sleep like a bunch of babies. Despite my attempts to be brave, I feel small and afraid as I tiptoe out the open sliding glass door, my shoes making light clacking sounds against the fiberglass deck of the boat. Each arm of the docks has only two overhead lights: one at the middle and another at the very end. There is no visible moon. The air is so chilly that I shudder, thinking what the water must feel like. Goose bumps rise on my exposed flesh.

  I stand on deck, frozen, listening. Maybe the noise will go away.

  Thump. Nope.

  It’s coming from the stern, between the dock and the boat, like something heavy and alive, persistent, stuck. We’re the last boat on this arm of the dock, which means the back of the Elizabeth is almost fully illuminated by the light. I don’t know why I feel the need to be so quiet. The noise from my shoes against the deck is jarring, every footstep making me cringe, no matter how carefully I step. I make my way along the side of the boat, holding tightly to the railing. Once the sound is directly beneath me, I look down.

  Wet. It’s the first word that comes to mind
before I scream.

  Soaked. Waterlogged. Facedown. Oh, shit.

  It isn’t a fish; it’s a person. A girl. Her hair is long and so blond that it’s almost white, the pretty, natural color shimmering beneath the water. The wavy strands, moving back and forth like algae, reach almost to her waist. She’s wearing jeans and a short-sleeved pink sweater.

  But that’s not what’s making the noise. It’s her feet; her boots, actually. She’s wearing a pair of white cowgirl boots, encrusted with gemstones, steel-toed decadence.

  The boots were a birthday gift from her parents. She’d been wearing them proudly all night, and now the steel toe of her left boot is lodged awkwardly between the boat and the dock, and with each passing wave it’s kicking against the side, almost like she’s trying to wake people up.

  How do I know all this? Because the boots are mine. So are the clothes. The girl in the water is me.

  I scream again, loud enough to wake everyone for a mile around. But I get the feeling nobody can hear me.

  Two

  I’ve been sitting on the dock for how long—hours? Minutes? It’s hard to tell. I stare down at myself, stuck in the water, my body waiting for someone living to wake up and discover me. It’s still dark.

  I’ve been crying. Shaking. Trying to come up with any possible explanation for what’s happened tonight. For a while I tried to wake up myself, convinced I was having a nightmare. When that didn’t work, I went back through the open door of the boat—making no attempt to be quiet this time—and tried to wake everyone else. I stood in their faces and shouted. I tried to shake them, to slap them; I stomped in my boots and cried for someone, anyone, to open their eyes and see me. Nothing. When I touched them, it was like there was a thin layer of invisible insulation between my hand and their bodies. Like I simply could not reach them.

  Now I’m outside again, looking at my body. I’m officially freaking out.

  “Elizabeth Valchar,” I say out loud, in the sternest voice I can muster, “you cannot be dead. You’re sitting on the dock. You’re right here. Everything is going to be okay.”

  But there is doubt in my voice, which trembles as I say the words out loud. I feel so young and alone, so incredibly helpless. It is beyond a nightmare. It’s like a hell. I want my parents. I want my friends. I want anyone.

  “Actually, it’s not going to be okay.”

  I look up, startled. There’s a boy standing beside me. He can’t be older than sixteen or seventeen.

  I put a hand to my mouth, jump to my feet, and clap my hands in excitement. “You can see me! Oh yes! You can hear me, too!”

  “Obviously,” he says. “You’re standing right in front of me.” He looks me up and down. “You were always so hot,” he says. Then he glances at my body in the water. In a voice that almost makes him sound pleased, he says, “But not anymore.”

  “Excuse me? Wait—you can see her, too?” We both stare at my body. All of a sudden I feel exhausted and very cold. Beneath the light on the dock, I can make out enough of the boy’s face to realize that I know him. But for some reason, I can’t remember his name. My mind is fuzzy. I’m so tired.

  “Obviously,” he repeats.

  I bite my lip. It doesn’t hurt. I take a deep breath and try to blink away my tears. As I’m doing so, the action feels ridiculous. I’ve already been crying. Something awful is happening; why am I embarrassed for this boy to see me crying? If there was ever a time to cry, it’s right now. “All right. Obviously something strange is going on. Right?”

  He shrugs. “Not strange, really. People die every day.”

  “So you’re saying … I’m”—I can barely force the word from my mouth—“dead.”

  “Obvi—”

  “Okay! Okay. Oh Jesus. This is a nightmare. It has to be. This isn’t really happening.” I stomp my foot in frustration laced with panic. My boots are a shade too tight; pain shoots up my calf, stinging all the way to my hamstring. Pain! My feet hurt! I must be alive if I can feel it, right?

  “I can’t be dead.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “My feet are aching. I feel it. And I can feel you. I couldn’t really feel them in there,” I say, meaning everyone on the boat. “Can you feel me?”

  “Obviously.” He kind of flinches away from me. “I’d actually prefer that you don’t touch me, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “You don’t want me touching you?”

  “Obvi—”

  “Say ‘obviously’ one more time. Go ahead and do it.” I try to give him a mean look, but my heart isn’t in it. He’s the only person who can see me. And the emotion feels confusing; why do I want to be mean? Isn’t he trying to help me? But he doesn’t want me to touch him. What is his problem?

  He just stares at me, his expression blank. He has messy brown hair. His face is young and smooth, his eyes a penetrating shade of gray. Why can’t I remember his name?

  “You’re Elizabeth Valchar,” he says.

  I nod. “Well, actually, it’s Liz. Everybody calls me Liz.” As I’m speaking, I get the strangest feeling—it’s like I’m not exactly sure about anything, not even my name. I have this sense of uncertainty, and it occurs to me that I don’t remember much about the night before. I’m sure there was a party; that much is clear from looking around the boat at all the empty beer bottles, the half-eaten birthday cake. But the details are unclear. Did I really have that much to drink?

  Before I can question the boy about any of this, he says, “And that’s you down there in the water. The very cold water.”

  I stare at the girl in the water. That’s me. I’m dead. How? When? I was in the boat all night, wasn’t I? I am so frustrated that I can’t remember exactly what happened. My memory of the previous night is broken into many bits and pieces, each so small and fleeting that I can’t force them into any cohesive whole. I remember blowing out my birthday candles. I remember posing for a photograph with Caroline, Mera, and Josie. I remember standing alone in the bathroom, trying to steady myself as the boat rocked in the water, taking deep breaths, like I was attempting to calm myself down. But I can’t remember what I was upset about, or if I was even upset about anything at all. Maybe I was just drunk.

  When I speak, my voice barely breaks above a whisper. I can feel myself starting to cry again. “It would appear that way. Yes.”

  “And you’re not moving. You’re not breathing.” He leans forward to peer at me in the water. “You’re white. I mean corpse white.”

  I look at my bare arms. Standing there beside him, I’m not nearly as horrific a sight as the girl in the sea. I am still put together, still beautiful. “I always had such a great tan.”

  The thought doesn’t make sense to me. Why do I remember being tan? And who needs to be tan at a time like this?

  He nods. “I remember. Those are some killer boots, too.” He pauses. “So to speak.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just … they’re so pretty.” And somehow I feel certain they were very expensive. “You know, I learned in history that the Egyptians used to bury their dead with lots of personal possessions to take with them to the afterlife. Can I take them with me?” I pause. “Is there an afterlife?” I look down at my pricy footwear as I stand there next to what’s-his-name. “I’m already wearing them,” I murmur. They’re so pretty? Who cares? They’re only boots, for God’s sake. And they’re pinching the hell out of my toes. I don’t want to keep them; I want to take them off.

  But they look so good. I feel disoriented, overwhelmed, almost like I’m going to pass out. Before I can focus on anything else, the thought continues. They totally complete the outfit.

  I feel unsteady, like none of this is really happening. It can’t be. It’s like I barely know who I am. I feel a flicker of new hope that this is all just a bad dream, that I’ll wake up, wiggle my bare toes as I lie in my bed, and later on my friends and I will go out for coffee together and we’ll all laugh about the crazy nightmare I had.

  Except maybe not. The boy shakes his head. “
Slow down. You’re getting way ahead of yourself.” He takes a breath. “I don’t want to talk about boots. First of all, aren’t you curious as to why I can see you? Aren’t you wondering why I can talk to you?”

  I nod.

  “Take a guess,” he says.

  I put my face in my hands. My palms feel cool and clammy against my cheeks. “Because I’m not dead. Because this isn’t happening.” I peer at him from between my fingers. “I’ll do anything. Please. Just tell me this isn’t real.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”

  “Then what happened? I’m not dead. Do you understand?” I take a step closer to him. I scream as loud as I possibly can, loud enough to wake everyone on the boat, to wake everyone who might be sleeping on all the neighboring boats. “I am not dead!” Something occurs to me. “There were drugs. We were doing drugs, I think. Yes, I remember—we were smoking up. Maybe I did some hallucinogens. Maybe I’m all tripped out, and this is just a side effect.”

  He raises his eyebrows. He clearly doesn’t buy the possibility. “Did you do any hallucinogens last night? Really?”

  I shake my head in disappointment. “No. I wish I had, now. I wish I’d eaten more cake, too.” I frown. “I don’t know how I remember that. I can hardly remember anything. Why is that?”

  “You can see me,” he says, ignoring my question, “because I’m dead.” He adds, as though to drive the point home, “Like you.”

  A gentle feeling of sleepiness washes over me as he speaks. For a moment, the penetrating cold leaves my body and I feel warm everywhere. Then, just as quickly as the feeling came over me, it’s gone. And suddenly I recognize him.

  “I know who you are,” I tell him. The realization excites me. I want to hold on to it tightly; every new thought making me feel more steady, more in control. It’s funny; of course I know who he is. I don’t know why I didn’t remember his name immediately. He’s gone to school with me since kindergarten. “You’re Alex Berg.”

  He closes his eyes for a minute. When he opens them, his gaze calm and even, he pronounces, “That’s right.”