The In-Between

by Rebecca K. S. Ansari

  “Her? What have I done?” Cooper yelled back in disbelief. Panic threatened to consume his sanity as the house shrank even farther away. “I didn’t do anything. Just make the house come back, and I’m out of here, I swear.”

  “I can’t just make it come back.”

  “Well then, who can?” Cooper plowed his hands through his hair and turned away from Elena, only to find that a dizzying ledge, one that hadn’t existed seconds before, was mere inches from his toes. A raging white-capped river churned hundreds of feet below, extending in both directions. “Whoa!” he yelped, and hurried away from the brink, stumbling and falling hard on his already bruised rear. The sound of the rushing river, imperceptible a moment ago, was now all around him.

  Cooper closed his eyes. Maybe this was all an incredibly intense dream. He counted to three, hoping that when he opened them, he might find himself back in his own room, worrying about Jess’s blood sugar, or his dad, or Zack. The only thing that changed when he reopened them, however, was that the sun was now directly overhead in a bright blue sky. Paradoxically, the temperature of the air dropped as precipitously as the cliff edge. He squeezed his lips closed and pinched them with his teeth, trapping the scream that threatened to burst out of him.

  Elena either didn’t notice the seemingly impossible changes around them or didn’t care. She charged to where Cooper sat and towered over him menacingly. “How did you get here?”

  “How did I get here?” he said, his pitch rising. “All I did was walk through your front door!” Cooper felt like a trapped animal. He desperately wanted to scoot away from her—or stand up and run screaming in the other direction—but the other direction was now a swan dive into a chasm. He stood up on shaky legs and stared her right in the eye. “Elena! Where are we?”

  “I can’t tell you that! You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I agree! But since I am standing in the middle of wherever here is, I think you probably need to fill me in.”

  They stood, nose to nose, for a long moment, Elena taut as a stalking tiger. The raven, still hanging impossibly in the air above them, cawed distantly. An echo from what he and Jess had read in Elena’s letter, however, told Cooper that he might already know where he was.

  Elena drew in a slow breath, took a step back, and said in a near whisper, “You’re in the In-Between.”

  21

  The In-Between.

  Elena had written about this place in her letter. It was, presumably, where she awoke after each of her deaths.

  “In-between what, exactly?” Cooper sputtered, his mouth so dry he could barely utter the words.

  She pinned him to the spot with a gaze so sharp it stung. “In between life and death.”

  Cooper let out a small squeak. “Life and . . . ? Am I . . . ?” He held his hands out before his eyes, examining if they appeared different in any way, ghostly or transparent. He didn’t remember dying. You’d think that would be a fairly memorable event, but maybe—since he had never died before—this was how it worked? Maybe it was as simple as walking through a doorway, out of the living world into this . . . this place.

  Elena shook her head. “Cooper. You’re not dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very.” She again turned toward the house in the distance, one hand on her hip, the other on her forehead. Then she dropped both hands heavily to her sides and tipped her head up with a low groan. Disappointment and frustration were etched on her features.

  Cooper cleared his throat and said, “Well, if I’m not between life and death, then what am I doing here?”

  “I’m glad we can agree that that is the real question.”

  Cooper laughed, once, darkly. “No, the real question is—Who are you? And what is going on? You show up in your crazy house with your freaky raven jacket, apparently invisible to just about everyone, and you live in some alternate dimension between life and death! And don’t think I don’t know that every time that crest on your jacket has appeared, it’s come with a trail of dead bodies.”

  Elena shook her head, as if she could repel Cooper’s words by force of refusal. “You can’t know that. You can’t know any of that! You’re going to ruin everything.”

  “Ruin everything? You mean stand in the way of your plan to kill yourself and hundreds of other people?”

  She gaped at him, motionless. “Is that what you think?”

  Cooper returned her stare, daring her to contradict him, as he began counting off his conclusions on his fingers. “Here’s what I think. I think you’re a ghost. I think you’ve died over and over again, and I think you bring tragedy with you wherever you go.”

  Elena stood stock-still, her eyes still razor-sharp, but her lack of denial told him everything he needed to know.

  “So what’s the deal?” he continued. “Why do you do all these things? Are you, like, the grim reaper or something? Some sort of death curse?”

  Elena wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. As Cooper waited for an answer, time played tricks on his mind again—hours seemed to pass as he stood there, thinking and waiting for Elena to explain herself. The empty air was suddenly filled with a chorus of caws, startling him and nearly causing him to lose his footing off the ledge.

  An oak tree that hadn’t existed seconds earlier now stood beside him—half of its gnarled roots protruding above the ground, like it was trying to climb free of the dirt. Three large, beady-eyed ravens perched on a low branch, their heads all tipped quizzically to the left, then, in unison, flipped to the right, their eyes never leaving Cooper.

  Elena made a mournful sound and turned her back on Cooper. He took the opportunity to step away from the ledge, only to notice that the cliff edge had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  When he looked back toward Elena, an antique table and chairs that matched the decor of the freestanding door had materialized, the tall grass tickling the underside of each seat. She was now sitting with her elbows on the table, her head shaking side to side in her hands. She seemed smaller, all her ferocity gone. The whole scene was shaded by a second new oak tree.

  Cooper felt a momentary pang of guilt for upsetting her, then balled up his fists. He walked slowly toward the table, testing each step beneath him. For all he knew, another gaping fissure might open beneath his feet and swallow him whole. He tried not to flinch when the still sky-bound raven swooped down and perched on the corner of the table.

  As Cooper sat across from Elena, the raven moved her hair gently with its beak, then tilted his shimmering purple-black head back at Cooper, reproachfully.

  “Elena,” Cooper said hesitantly, lowering his head toward the table to catch her gaze. “Look, if my theories are totally wrong, I need you to tell me the truth. Because, at the moment”—he pointed at the house on the horizon, no bigger than a green Monopoly piece—“it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  The raven turned from Cooper to Elena, and when she didn’t respond, it pecked the back of her hand. When she still didn’t move, it pecked her a second time, harder. Finally, on the third hearty jab, she dropped her hands and looked up. Her face was newly lined with worry. “Okay, okay!”

  At that, the bird hopped off the table and, with a flap that fanned Cooper’s face, joined the other three ravens on the branch. Cooper could feel their stares like a drill to his forehead. He slowly leaned toward Elena and whispered, “They’re listening to us, aren’t they?”

  Elena looked at the tree, then back to Cooper with a lifted eyebrow. “Cooper. They’re birds. Don’t be silly.”

  “Oh! Right! Because that would be silly.” Cooper’s voice cracked on the final word.

  Elena reached across the table and gripped his hand. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and her eyes were grave. “I am not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt anyone. I don’t understand how or why you know the things you do, but you’ve got it all backward and upside down.”

  “So, if I’m wrong about what you’ve done at the Triangle Shirtwais
t Factory, at the train crash, at the mall in Sampoong, then why are you always there? You have to tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I. Can’t,” she said, as if she were etching the words into stone with her voice.

  Cooper couldn’t tell if she meant she wasn’t allowed to tell him or if she was physically unable to do so, but one thing was clear: Elena was desperate. Afraid, even. Her words were a plea. Her touch, her eyes, her voice; they were bare, raw, and earnest. He, Jess, and Gus had it wrong. Elena was not someone to be afraid of. He sat back in his chair and said slowly, “Okay. I believe you.”

  With this, something in Elena changed. The corners of her mouth lifted almost imperceptibly, the fire in her eyes receded, and her forehead smoothed.

  “Is there anything more you can tell me, though?” Cooper said. He looked again at Elena’s house in the distance and let out a grim laugh. “We appear to have some time to kill.”

  Elena turned to her bird friends and then back to Cooper. “Maybe I can tell you how I came to be here.”

  Cooper nodded, as did the four ravens. Then the birds lifted off as one, cawing three times each. The tree, as if made of sand, blew away by the breeze created by their downy wings, and as soon as they were in the sky, a flurry of light and sound erupted around them.

  The field, the table, and the sun were gone in a blink, and Cooper was now seated on a bench at the end of a short pier with a dark ocean expanse stretching out before him. Elena sat beside him, and a gray cloud-glutted sky pressed down upon them. Ships with tall masts, billowy sails, and large crews of sailors bobbed gently in the water. A salty mist coated his lips and cheeks. The ever-present golden door continued to lurk off to their left, standing incongruously upon the water.

  “Whoa,” Cooper said, surprised that he could still be surprised. “Where are we now?”

  Elena spoke above the shouts of men. “We are where it all started.”

  22

  Cooper felt so disoriented, he was sick to his stomach. It was like whoever designed this place—the In-Between—had decided they needn’t enforce any of the laws of physics. He listened to the voices of the sailors around him; from their accents, he guessed they were somewhere in England, but who knew if clues like that applied here?

  “I used to be like you,” Elena said. She sat, chin lifted, drawing in the smell of the sea. “I was thirteen years old. I had a family, a home. A life.”

  Cooper assessed the antiquated suits and dresses of the people walking the wharf. It appeared to be over two hundred years in the past.

  “Time’s funny here,” she said, as if speaking directly to his thoughts. “It loops and contracts, but this is a specific time, the moment when it started for me.”

  Cooper turned and watched a few couples walk past on the docks, the women with their hands nestled in the crooks of men’s elbows. “Are any of these people your parents?”

  “No. My parents . . . ,” Elena said, seemingly lost in thought and staring far off with a sad smile, “were truly remarkable people. They spent their lives exploring the globe, trying to better understand themselves by meeting people the world over. Unfortunately, that is exactly what led to the terrible situation my sister and I found ourselves in.”

  Elena’s expression turned as dark as the water before them, and Cooper waited quietly for her to continue.

  “I was twelve when my parents left for South America, a journey my mother had dreamed of for as long as I could remember. The night before they set sail, my mother ordered a grand dinner, all of my sister’s and my favorite foods, including pumpkin pie for dessert. But I couldn’t eat. Fear filled my belly. I tried to buoy myself with my mother’s passion for her trip, but instead I sank with a terrible sense of foreboding. The next morning, my mother stroked our cheeks and kissed us both on the tops of our heads. She assured my sister and me that they’d be home in a few short months. We were left in the care of our governess, Madam Ghast. She was a hearty Christian woman who believed, as so many said, that children should be seen and not heard. No matter how much my sister and I tried, she seemed resolved in the belief that our childish ways—for we were children, after all—were proof of the devil in us.

  “A few months came and went, and then things at the manor began to change. My mother’s letters stopped arriving. I longed for her words and her comfort, but everyone else on our estate longed for the payments those envelopes had carried. As I held myself in my room, trying to catch the fading scent of the perfume my mother had sprayed on her previous letters, the workers faded away as well—first the gardener, then the stable hands, then many of the house staff. The details I could recall about my father’s face and laugh began to disappear as surely as our dinner portions. After six months, I knew. I didn’t need the letter that finally arrived, the one that spoke of yellow fever. I sat on my bed with an empty stomach, crying noiselessly into my pillow, knowing my world had ended.”

  Cooper’s throat tightened. He could relate to the feeling of having lost his family, but he had experienced nothing like this.

  “My sister and I became a burden, it seemed. We knew it was only a matter of time before we grew too onerous for Madam Ghast, and sure enough, one evening, she told us to pack our bags to travel the next day to the mainland. She said we were going to stay with relatives, which I knew was a lie because we had none—our parents were only children, and their parents had passed. We woke the next morning and donned our travel coats with the horrible certainty we would never see our home again. We gathered our things by the door early, and before Madam Ghast could join us, I removed a ribbon from my hair and, with quill and ink I had pocketed from the study the night before, I wrote Beloved Mother on it and handed it to my sister. She added Dearest Father.”

  A tender memory softened Elena’s features. “She misspelled ‘dearest,’ I remember, but I didn’t correct her. We then raced to the garden my mother had loved so deeply. There was a raging storm pouring down upon us, and the garden had become overgrown and thorny, but we didn’t care. Once we were beside my mother’s favorite rosebush, I tied the ribbon to a sturdy stem, and we bowed our heads for the only funeral our parents would ever have by those who loved them. Then, hand in hand, we left to face our fate with Madam Ghast.”

  There were now dark circles under Elena’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Where did she take you?” Cooper asked.

  “After she bellowed at us for our saturated state and reiterated that we were hopeless, she packed us in a carriage to travel here, to this pier.” Elena looked to her left and pointed, as if watching a scene play out before her. “Right there, we watched as Madam Ghast handed a small purse to a gruff and burly man. With a satisfied nod, she told us, ‘Go on then. You’re with him now.’”

  “And where was he taking you?” Cooper asked.

  “I never found out. Our ship departed an hour later, straight into the jaws of that storm.” Elena moved her extended finger to the horizon. As if on cue, a massive cloud formed, alive with lightning. “We sank right out there. Just far enough away to be unsalvageable. Madam Ghast had long since left the pier, and no one else knew my sister and I were aboard. We weren’t missed by one living soul. We simply vanished, forgotten by the world and everyone in it. And that is how we landed here, in the In-Between. No place on Earth and no place in the Beyond.” Elena stared intently at the gilded door.

  Cooper followed her gaze. “Is that where that door leads? Beyond?”

  She nodded slowly. “Sometimes I can hear them—my parents—on the other side, but they don’t seem to be able to hear me.”

  “What do they say?”

  “I can never make out the words, but there’s laughter, sometimes, and warmth. Like they are having a grand afternoon tea. Nevertheless, it is locked, and sits there, all the time, taunting us. I can only get away from it when I reenter the living world. And every time I return here, I try the knob, hoping we might have finally earned our way through, but . . .” She trailed off.

 
; “What happened to your sister?”

  “Oh, she’s in the In-Between too.”

  “Where?” Cooper glanced around the busy pier.

  “She’s . . . out in the living world right now. On a quest, like me.”

  “A quest. You talked about that in your letter. What does that mean, exactly?”

  Elena released a long breath accompanied by a small head shake. Cooper had apparently asked too much again. He decided to try it from another angle. “How many of you are here? In the In-Between?”

  “Just the two of us.”

  “But what about all these people?” He pointed at a clutch of passing sailors.

  “Oh, they’re simply echoes of my memory,” Elena said, and then, to prove her point, she waved a hand dismissively at the closest man, who immediately became nothing more than a man-shaped mass of dry and brittle leaves that collapsed and blew away.

  “But in the Charfield train accident”—Cooper pointed to Elena’s crest—“the unidentified child wearing that was a boy.”

  The pier vanished as quickly as it had appeared, flickering in the same manner as Elena’s house had a few days prior. A few days. Was that all it was? To Cooper, it seemed like years ago. When everything around him came into focus again, he was back in the grassy field, back at the table. The ominous storm cloud remained as the sole souvenir of their visit to the pier, still lurking on the horizon. It had deepened almost to black and was on the move toward them. The table now supported two steaming cups of fresh tea on saucers painted with dainty vines and pink flowers. Elena was gone. Across from Cooper now sat a young boy in a crisp uniform and paperboy hat.

  Cooper startled and gripped the table’s edge with both hands. Was this another “echo” from Elena’s memory? “Umm, hi?” Cooper said.

  With another flicker, the boy morphed. Where he had been, Elena now sat, reaching for her cup.

  “Wha—?”

  “I can appear to you however I want, Cooper. However I need. Like the yellow house.” She sipped her tea.