The Dark In-Between

by Elizabeth Hrib

  Red waves off her question. “We’ve been called many things across the centuries. Messengers. Guardians. Deliverance. Angels.”

  At that she laughs. It happens suddenly, the disbelief shooting out of her. “Give me a break.”

  “Turn here,” he says, gesturing to a side road.

  Casey glances at him questioningly, but turns, some part of her working on automatic as she tries to process the last twenty minutes. Then she hears the sirens. Of course he wanted off the main road, with its unexplainable, gaping hole, while he’s still inconveniently caked in concrete dust in her passenger seat.

  Red turns his neck from side to side as he settles into the seat. A terrible cracking noise sounds, but his sigh is one of relief.

  Casey can’t help but worry. On the outside, he appears fine, but that doesn’t mean his insides aren’t damaged, his organs floating in a stew of blood and broken bones. “Do you need a ride to the hospital or something?”

  “I’ll be fine in a while,” he says. “Always takes a bit to work out the kinks.”

  Casey pulls into the small parking lot behind JoJo’s, one of the oldest diners in town. Bad idea, she thinks. This is a bad idea. She can’t be feeding strange boys that fell out of the clouds. What is wrong with her? What if someone she knows sees her? Oh, God, what if it’s Evan and the guys, getting that burger he was craving so badly earlier? How the hell is she supposed to explain this?

  Red studies the building and the customers inside the diner through the window. The booths are packed. They always are. “It’s probably better that we don’t talk inside.”

  She notes his clothes again—thin, ratty, and covered in bits of gravel. “Right,” she says, taking her keys and wallet from the center console. “You stay here. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t even look at anyone. Understand? I’ll be right back.”

  Casey looks back twice—once as she steps out of the car and again from the sidewalk—just to be certain she hasn’t imagined the whole thing. “There’s a boy sitting in my car,” she mutters to herself. “He fell out of the sky.”

  She blows out a rough breath as she opens the door to the diner, which is famous for its all-day breakfast and burgers. Inside, a scrawny kid with bony arms and floppy hair stands behind the counter in a green apron. He greets her with a wave, showing off his braces as she hurries past cherry-red booths packed with families. A pair of condiment-wielding children rush past her, brandishing ketchup and vinegar bottles like toy swords.

  “Can I help you?” the kid yells over the noise when she reaches the counter.

  She looks up at the menu in a daze, then back to the car outside. “Uh, yeah, can I get combo one, please.”

  “All right. Would you like fries or onion rings? For a dollar more you can also upgrade to—Miss?”

  She looks back at the car again, leaning around an elderly couple standing in her way. Red’s still seated in the passenger seat, looking dutifully out the window.

  “Miss?”

  “Uh, one of each. Whatever. It’s fine.” She shakes her head and fishes in her wallet for a twenty-dollar bill. She tries to smooth it out as she places it beside the cash register. “Also, that’s to go, please.”

  The couple behind her gawks as she cranes her neck to check on the car one last time. She plays it off like a stretch.

  A few minutes later, the boy places an oily, brown paper bag on the counter. It smells heavenly. She grabs it and bolts for the door.

  “Miss, you forgot your change!”

  “Keep it,” she calls over her shoulder. A weird sense of relief envelops her when she sees Red in the car, still waiting. It confirms she’s not dreaming.

  She pops open the door and climbs back inside.

  “You look worried,” he says.

  “I’m—” Casey frowns at him. “Honestly, I thought you might have tried to steal my car or something.”

  Red grins. “I’m hungry, not a car thief.”

  “Right.” Casey drops the greasy paper bag in his lap. “Enjoy, I guess.”

  “This smells amazing.” He opens the bag and hunts around inside, popping a couple of fries into his mouth. “I’d forgotten.”

  “So … what do we do now?” she says.

  He turns to her, cheeks stuffed, and states, “Now I help you.”

  Casey wants to laugh again—not just at the comical contrast of his chipmunk cheeks and serious eyes, but also at the absurdity of the statement. What could he possibly do to help her? Unless he turned out to be a certified grief counselor as well as whatever else he believed he was, Casey didn’t figure very much.

  Red swallows and swipes his arm across his mouth. “You’ve been different since that night, Casey. I know you’ve sensed it.”

  She goes cold, her body responding to his observation, and she doesn’t know what to say. What night was he talking about exactly? The accident? But he couldn’t know about that. And what did he mean by ‘different’? A flash of the vision in the bathroom catches her off guard and she has to work to push it away. She has to push them all away. All the strange dark pictures that unfurl like movies in her mind. The ones that started after the accident.

  “This is ridiculous,” she says out loud. She needs him to hear it. She needs to hear it.

  Red nods in agreement, but doesn’t try to explain away anything. Instead he says, “I can help you.” He pops another fry into his mouth. “If you’ll let me.”

  “If I’ll let you,” she repeats.

  “I know what’s been happening. The odd, flashing visions. The voice that echoes in your head, too real to be memory.”

  She tips her head back against the seat, trying desperately to ignore how closely his words resonate, feeling like an idiot for even entertaining him. But … a small What if? circulates her thoughts. Because how could he know what the darkest parts of her grief looked and sounded like? How was he even alive after a fall like that?

  People don’t fall out of the sky. It’s not possible. Except … he’d called himself an angel.

  Casey rubs the heels of her palms against her eyes. “All right, then,” she says, swallowing down a lump of emotion before giving him her full attention. “Let’s say you can help me. Spill. Start with the weird, flashy visions. What am I seeing? And why can I hear the voice in my head?”

  She doesn’t say that it’s Liddy’s voice because there’s a small part of her that isn’t ready to accept the implications of that.

  “Because you died,” Red tells her, as if it was the simplest answer in the world.

  “I didn’t die,” she says, jaw clenched. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m sitting right here.” She waves her hands over herself dramatically. “Very much alive as far as I can tell.”

  “You did,” Red argues gently. “That day, beneath the water.”

  Casey bristles, her entire body flushed. “Excuse me?”

  “The accident killed you.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Your heart stopped, Casey.”

  “They got it beating again,” she insists.

  “In the moments between, when it lay still, you were dead.”

  She shakes her head, starts the car for lack of anything better to do, and tries not to stare at him.

  “Where are we going?” he asks, grabbing the roof handle to steady himself as she zips out of the parking lot.

  “I’m going home. And you’re going to be quiet for a minute. I need to think.”

  This is a lot to process—Red’s too much to process, spouting weird things every other second and badgering her about the accident.

  … And did he really come plummeting out of the sky? That definitely happened, right?

  She stops at the next intersection as the light turns from yellow to red, her brain stuck on an endless loop of What if?… What if?… What if?

  “It’s called a Limbo-walker,” Red says casually.

  “A what? What is?”

  “It’s what you are
now. Someone who can navigate Limbo, the space that exists between the living and the dead.”

  “Because I … died?”

  “And then came back,” Red says, “on your own. That’s the important bit. It wasn’t the paramedics on that beach that brought you back to this world. It was you.”

  “Why can I … Can others…?” She shakes her head as the light turns green.

  “Because for a time, you were one of them, Casey.”

  “One of what?”

  “A lost soul.” Red gestures with a fry. “When a person dies, sometimes their soul doesn’t move on right away. Sometimes it gets trapped in Limbo. After a time, that soul finds its way out—to the light or the dark. But there are rare instances when a soul doesn’t move on, but instead finds its way back to the physical plane of its own accord. This is what happened to you.”

  “That sounds impossible.”

  “As impossible as people falling out of the sky?” he asks. “You saw that with your own eyes.”

  Six minutes later, Casey pulls into her driveway. She’s been watching the dashboard clock with more attention than she’s been giving the rest of the road, half expecting Red to disappear each time the numbers change.

  He doesn’t, though. He simply sits next to her, watching each pass of her hands over the wheel, each flick of the turn signal, like they’re in a silent standoff. Each of them waiting to see who caves first, who laughs and yells Just kidding!

  She fiddles with her phone in her pocket, wondering what Evan would think of all this. Would he even believe her?

  Who am I kidding? I don’t even believe this.

  Casey looks from Red to the front door, and without speaking, he seems to understand, following her up the porch steps and into the house.

  Inside, he looks around with a curious eye, some kind of vague familiarity softening his features. His hand trails over furniture as they walk: tables and chairs, sofa cushions, even the delicate lampshades that warm the living room with hues of lilac.

  Casey heads for her room, hearing Red keep pace behind her. He pauses in the doorway, doing a generous sweep with his eyes. Casey regards her strange guest, masking the paranoia and nerves in the hard clench of her fists.

  Red takes a few tentative steps inside her room, perusing the assortment of trinkets and keepsakes that have amassed on her shelves over the years. He pauses by her desk, placing the bag from the diner carefully on the edge. “Who lives here?”

  “Me and my aunt.”

  “Your aunt?”

  Casey nods. “I’ve been with her since I was nine. Since my parents passed away, I guess.”

  “And this is Liddy?” He points to the corkboard above her desk. It’s jammed with pictures of her and Liddy and Evan. Their burgundy school uniforms are featured in some. But mostly it’s a collection from their summers spent at the beach.

  Casey takes a photo off the board and studies it. Liddy’s very blond hair and bright smile are gleaming, her eyes squinting against the sun. It’s a candid shot, but utterly perfect.

  Casey lifts her head. “How did you know about her?”

  “You weren’t the only one who died that night.”

  “Do you know—” Something beeps in the house and Casey recognizes it as the sound of her aunt’s car locking up. “Oh, crap!” She lurches forward and takes Red by the shoulders. “You can’t be here.”

  She hears the garage door open and Aunt Karen drop her bag on the kitchen table.

  “What?” Red asks.

  She shoves him toward the closet, pushing on his chest until he thumps against the wall. “Stay here and keep quiet. No talking. No moving. No … anything. Okay?”

  “But, what if—”

  “I mean it,” Casey warns. Red presses his lips together and she rolls the door closed.

  “Case?”

  She looks over her shoulder just as Karen’s head pops around the door. She’s dressed in blue hospital scrubs, her stethoscope strung around her neck. The ID badge pinned to her top reads N.R.T. Nursing Resource Team. Beneath that it says KAREN, RN. Auntie K, Casey used to call her, back when her parents were still alive. She’s too old for that now.

  Karen sits on the chair by Casey’s bed, running a hand through her hair. It’s the same dark brown Casey’s mom’s had been, with the same freckled cheekbones and dark lashes. Only their eyes are different. Her mom’s had been warm and rich, like heated honey, but Karen’s are light and piercing, the same blue as the sky after a summer rain. Her eyes are so like Evan’s, calculating and curious.

  Casey wonders if everyone looks at her like that now, like she’s a problem that needs a solution. The closet door starts to slide open and Casey jams it closed again, hand clamped around the jiggling knob.

  “That door giving you trouble again?”

  “No. It’s fine.” She raps on it hard with her fist and growls at the flecked white paint, “It’s fine!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, good. Fine,” Casey babbles, somewhat breathless. “Today’s been … fine.”

  Karen frowns. “You sure?”

  Her aunt’s curious eyes move from the doorknob to her face, and Casey knows she’s staring down years of stealthy prying and chronic need-to-know disease. If she’s ever going to become adept at lying, now is the time.

  “Everything good with you and Evan?” Karen asks with a measure of practiced disinterest.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “He called and told me that you ran out on the memorial service tonight.” She waits, letting Casey absorb that. “He said he couldn’t get ahold of you after. That you wouldn’t answer your phone. He was worried. It made me worried. You see how these things go.”

  As Karen gets up from the chair and draws closer, Casey’s entire body stills, praying that Red doesn’t make a sound. Karen presses a hand to her cheek. “I didn’t know you’d decided to go.”

  “I … wasn’t as ready as I thought, I guess.” She decides that in this instance, a dose of the truth is the fastest way to ease Karen’s concern. “I heard some of the girls from school talking and taking photos like it was junior prom and not Liddy’s memorial. I couldn’t handle it anymore and I just left.”

  “It’s normal to miss her, Casey. No one can fault you for that. Or for needing some time to get your head straight.”

  “I know. People keep telling me that. I get it. I’m allowed to miss her. I’m allowed to cry and be angry and punch my pillow or whatever works.”

  “And you’re allowed to go out into the world again.” Karen drops her hand and instead wraps her arm around Casey’s shoulders, drawing her away from the closet. “It’s not up to you to fix other people or make excuses for Liddy’s death. But if you want to talk to someone else, I can make that happen.”

  Casey shakes her head. “I did counseling after Mom and Dad died. I don’t think it helped.”

  “Okay. Just … keep it in mind.”

  “I will,” she lies.

  Karen kisses the side of her head and leaves. Casey closes the door after her.

  Behind her, the closet door peels open very slowly, the metal tracks creaking; Casey resists the urge to turn around and kick it closed again.

  Red’s head pops out of the dark space between the edge of the door and the frame. “Is the coast clear?” he whispers.

  “Barely,” Casey hisses. “You’re like the annoying brother I was fortunate enough to never have.”

  “I came from a large human family. Four brothers between us. Trust me, I’m not that bad.” He rolls the door open farther and steps out of the closet. Casey tenses, listening for the telltale squeak of the hardwood in the hallway to signal Karen’s coming back. She draws closer to the door until her ear is pressed against it.

  Downstairs, the water in the kitchen turns on, and Casey sighs.

  “What are you doing?”

  Casey spins around. Red’s leaning so close they almost knock heads. “Don’t do that!” she hisses through her teeth. />
  “I’m sorry.” His mouth pulls into a tight line. “I’ll remember all these things soon. Just give me some time.”

  “What things?”

  “Human things.”

  Casey gives one slow nod. She’s been trying really hard not to freak out. Granted, there’s a lot to freak out about when a boy falls from the sky claiming he’s an angel.

  Red kneels, snatching up one of the feathers that have fallen from his pocket.

  White feathers, Casey thinks, remembering the feathers in her car earlier that day and the one Evan had plucked from her clothes.

  Red glances at her. “The heavens didn’t leave me much to work with.”

  The heavens?

  Casey pushes that thought away. “What’s the deal with the feathers?”

  “How else am I meant to protect you?”

  “Right,” she mutters. What a weirdo, inner Liddy says. She hears Karen move downstairs and Casey presses her finger along her mouth, hushing Red.

  “We have more to discuss,” he whispers. “There are some things you need to understand.”

  Casey crosses her arms. “Then talk. Tell me why exactly I’m hiding an angel in my bedroom. Why are you here besides to tell me I was dead and now I’m not? Because that part I probably could have lived without knowing to be honest.”

  “I’m here to make sure you don’t make a mess of things. Especially things you don’t understand yet. And—”

  The floor creaks on the stairs, then retreats, like Karen had changed her mind about coming up.

  “So, you’re what?” Casey says. “The angelic janitorial squad?”

  “No, more like your divine babysitter. They have enough to do upstairs. We don’t need to be running around after a power-tripping Limbo-walker. But if you must know—”

  “I must.”

  His brows lift at her interruption. “I’m here because of Liddy.”

  It feels like a punch to the gut, and Casey wants to double over. Before, when it had just been about her, she could wave away the ridiculousness of it all. But now Liddy’s part of it, too? “What about her?”

  “Specifically, because of your connection to her.” He holds up two fingers. “When two people die together—same time, same place—it creates a commonality between them as their souls occupy the same bit of Limbo. A link forms between them. Like a thread. Usually this isn’t a problem. The souls cross, going on their way. But your case is special. You didn’t cross over. You came back.”