by Eden Maguire
“And Bob Jonson?” I murmured.
“He came to join us instantly. He died the moment he hit the water. I saw the breath leave his body and I called Jonas to me. I said, ‘Your killer is dead. And your father too.’ Jonas understood why his father had to die. He turned and called Bob’s name in the darkness. Out of the endless, unlit space of limbo, Bob Jonson appeared. Father and son embraced. Together they traveled on.”
A question formed on my lips. Where did they go?
“Don’t ask.” Phoenix read my mind. “Nobody here knows. Only that they went together, hand-in-hand.”
“And you succeeded in your first task,” Hunter added.
“You believed,” Summer murmured, coming up and offering me the hug she’d been longing to give.
“You’re tougher than I thought,” Arizona said.
“This is too much,” I protested. “I did what I could, that’s all. And I’ll do it over again.”
Hunter nodded and some of the old sternness crept back into his voice. “All in good time, Darina. For now you must go home and rest.”
“Not right away. Please.” More than anything, now that the Jonas thing was resolved, I wanted to be with Phoenix.
“Hunter…give us a little time.” Phoenix kept his arm around my waist. It gave me a strong, steady feeling as the overlord looked at us and considered his next move.
“You have an hour,” Hunter proclaimed.
Sixty whole minutes! I spun and flung my arms around Phoenix’s neck. He lifted me off my feet.
Summer and Arizona laughed, Hunter gave his almost smile. Then the Beautiful Dead turned and walked into the barn.
“Let’s go,” Phoenix said, dragging me through the pale yellow grass to the bank of the creek. He went ahead, picking his way carefully between the rocks, then leaping onto our favorite boulder.
“Bare feet!” I insisted, and took off my shoes. I dangled my feet in the cool, crystal water. “Look, I can see specks of gold in the sand.”
Phoenix leaned sideways and dipped his finger in the water. He scooped up tiny grains of glittering metal and examined them on his fingertips. “Iron pyrites,” he announced.
“What’s that?”
“Fool’s gold.” He laughed.
“Oh! I like my version better.”
“I love your version. I love everything about you.”
Try embracing on a smooth boulder in the middle of a fast running stream. It’s not easy, but we made it. A gentle hug, a tender kiss that lasted forever. Then we crossed the stream and walked barefoot though the grass, hand-in-hand.
“You forgot your shoes,” Phoenix reminded me when we reached the top of the hill. There was no shadow from the tall water tower, only a slight stirring of wind through the golden aspens.
I shrugged then glanced back down at the house and barn—the rusted red roofs, the weathered log walls, and the door still left to bang, open-shut, open-shut. It looked, as it had in the beginning, as if no one had disturbed the place in a hundred years.
I know the human heart is mechanical—made up of muscle chambers, valves, and tubes. I’ve sat through science class, seen it on medical dramas on TV, red, raw, and pumping.
So where does the feeling I had on that ridge come from, holding fiercely to Phoenix in those last moments before our hour was up?
A feeling so strong it swept me away, kissing him and feeling him so close, knowing that he meant everything in the world to me and always would?
We were part of that wild hillside. Our spirits were in the wind and the sky, the rustling leaves.
Phoenix didn’t speak. His lips touched mine one last time, his embrace slackened. He left me with a look so full of longing that my heart melted and it was all I could do to stop myself from running after him.
But I heard wings beating softly—Hunter’s warning. I stayed where I was, watching Phoenix go, knowing I would soon be back.
The story continues in Beautiful Dead: Arizona.
Coming soon…
I drove with the top down and the wings fluttered around my head in a feathery flurry, more a reminder than a warning now. Do you know how many times I’ve driven out to Foxton lately? Yeah, I guess you do.
I stopped at a red light and glanced sideways.
“Phoenix!” He was sitting in the seat Zoey had just vacated, waiting with his crooked smile.
“Jeez!” I cried.The light turned green and I eased the car across the junction, too slow for the guy behind me, who almost rammed my back fender. “Phoenix, don’t do that!”
“So you want me to go away again?” he asked in that lazy, mumbling voice. “I can do that.” He got ready to open the car door.
“No, don’t! Listen, you almost gave me a heart attack. Let me turn off the road.” I fumbled with the controls, finally jerking to a stop in a small parking lot outside a general grocery store.
“Hey, Darina,” he said.
I put my hand out to touch him, to check he was—you know, real.
He grabbed my hand. “Long time, huh?”
“Forever,” I breathed. I’d been counting the days, the hours, and minutes. But now Phoenix was here. I was having trouble finding something meaningful to say. Instead I stared down at our two hands, his big and broad, mine smaller and smoother, enjoying the feel of his thumb stroking my palm.
“Hunter made us stay away,” he told me. “You know how he is.”
“A control freak,” I muttered.
“Yeah, I could make a zombie joke about him being heartless…”
“Don’t.”
“Bad taste?”
I nodded. No feelings, literally no heart—that’s how it was when you came back from the dead. And a skin so pale it looks like sunlight never touched it. Phoenix’s beautiful, smooth face made my own heart beat fast enough for two of us.
“I’m here now,” he said softly. Then he made me move out of the driver’s seat and he took my place. Without a word, he drove onto a road that led out of town so that five minutes later we’d left the houses behind and were heading down the dirt track that led to Deer Creek.
As the car bumped and jolted, I stared up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight, no breeze. Good, no storms. Nothing to interfere with my time with Phoenix.
He parked the car by the creek, near a bunch of thick, low-growing golden willows. Again he grabbed me by the hand, this time to pull me out of the car and lead me past the willows to a rocky ledge overlooking the water. We stood side by side, arms around each other’s waists, staring down.
The water was so clear you could see each pebble resting on the bed of the creek. It flowed smoothly, carrying the first leaves of fall on its eddying surface.
Then we sat on the rock to catch the last rays of the sun, Phoenix with his long legs crooked and offering me space to sit in between, resting my back against his chest. His arms encircled me.
“I missed you,” I murmured. I twisted around to see his face—features that didn’t quite fit the beauty stereotype, though his high forehead and cheekbones missed it just barely and those big, blue-gray eyes hit it right on target. No, it was the mouth that made him different—just that downward turn at one corner and the way his lips moved around those laid-back, drawled words.
He leaned forward to kiss me.
Again. Again. My body sighed. It was all I wanted. Nothing else mattered, lips to lips, seeing him up close and blurred through a fringe of dark lashes.
Phoenix pulled me back against a bank of long, dried grass and kissed me harder. I went headlong with the surge of love, stronger and more dangerous than the current of any mountain stream.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked, refusing to let me move away. “I mean you, Darina. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But you always surprise me, like I’m looking at you all over again for the first time. You always catch me off guard.”
“And you the mind reader,” I kidded. I felt myself falling away swiftly into the dark, lonely place and h
eaved myself back by switching the topic. “So tell me how come Hunter permitted you to show up at last?”
Phoenix shrugged. “He never gives reasons. The truth is, he only showed up again earlier today. I don’t know where he’s been hanging out since the Jonas thing.”
“So where were you and the others?” I asked. Not at Foxton, I was certain.
Phoenix uneasily looked away. “Arizona took control. She said we had to leave Foxton for a while, let things get back to normal around there.”
“So where did you go?” I insisted.
“A couple of places I’d never been before—I can’t tell you exactly.”
I clucked my tongue. “You mean ‘won’t.’ As in, it’s another of Hunter’s rules.”
“All I know is Hunter went off and Arizona took care of us and warned us not to ask any questions.”
I sighed. “OK, you don’t need to answer, but let me take an educated guess. Hunter went back to limbo to update whoever or whatever it is he answers to—like, an overlord-overlord. He left the Beautiful Dead in some secret hiding place, kind of hibernating until he made it back to the far side.” I studied Phoenix’s face for a reaction but didn’t find one, which meant I was right. “That’s interesting. There’s someone or something telling Hunter what to do. And listen, Phoenix, I don’t want to hear you telling me not to worry about it, OK?”
“As if that would do any good.” He leaned back and rested his hands behind his head.
“So what was it like, taking orders from Arizona?” There was an edge to this question, I admit.
“Arizona’s cool. She’s real smart.”
“Should I be jealous?” I only half kidded. After all, I knew dozens of boys at Ellerton High who’d been into Arizona’s looks and style, even if her hostile personality had been about as inviting as skinny-dipping in an icy lake. Like Phoenix, they all admired her.
“Please,” he said. “But seriously—you don’t want to mess with her, OK?”
“No, I only have to save her zombie soul.” I reminded him of the baseline reason we were here. “A lot of people are turning their attention to Arizona since the mystery surrounding Jonas was cleared up. Zoey is, for one.”
Phoenix sat up straight. “She’s asking questions?”
“Yes, and don’t worry, I didn’t share any secrets.”
He relaxed again.
“Zoey is saying she doesn’t believe Arizona drowned herself, and she doesn’t think it was an accident either. And I guess she must be right.”
“You do?” Mister Cautious gave nothing away, reminding me there were things he couldn’t share, even with me.
“Yeah. Otherwise why would Hunter choose her?” I knew the overlord only dealt with injustice and doubt—the random shooting of Summer Madison by an unknown gunman, Phoenix’s death by stabbing in a fight between gangs. A straightforward, explicable death didn’t deserve all this attention. “She’s Beautiful Dead because there’s a mystery.”
We sat in silence for a while, watching the endless flow of water at our feet.
“Darina, you really don’t have to do this.” When he spoke, Phoenix had moved away into some remote headspace. “There’s a good chance we can find out what happened without you.”
I reacted like I’d been stung. “Yeah—like the Beautiful Dead have had ten whole months to do that already, and how far did you get? You only have two months left, remember.”
How could we forget? A soul could exist for twelve months in the undead community, not a day more.The end.
“You still don’t have to do it.”
I stood up and balanced, arms wide, right at the edge of the rock. “What are you saying—that I can have my memory zapped by your superpowers and walk away from here as if you never existed? Good—thanks!”
“The alternative—maybe it’s too much to ask.” Phoenix offered me an exit from the craziness but I could see in his eyes that he didn’t expect me to grab it. He knew better.
“When did I ever walk away?” I murmured.
He kissed me gently this time and stroked the back of my neck. “So you’ll help Arizona the way you helped Jonas?”
“Like I will for Summer and for you.”
“Then it’s time,” he said, taking me by the hand.
About the Author
Eden Maguire lives part of the time in the United States where she enjoys the big skies and ice-capped mountains of Colorado. Eden Maguire’s lifelong admiration for Emily Brontë’s timeless classic, Wuthering Heights, ties in with her fascination for the dark side of life and informs her portrayal of the restless, romantic souls in The Beautiful Dead. Aside from her interest in the supernatural and the solitary pursuit of writing fiction, Eden’s life is lived as much as possible in the outdoors, thanks to ranch-owning friends in Colorado. She says, “Put me on a horse and point me toward a mountain—that’s where I find my own personal paradise.”
