Radiance

by Элисон Ноэль

  6

  I reached for the handle, eager to get the heck out so I could track him down and really let him have it.

  And I’d almost succeeded, when someone called out from behind me and I turned, scowl planted firmly in place, dreading even a moment’s delay, only to find myself face-to-face with what I assumed to be an angel.

  An incredibly beautiful, glittering angel.

  The first one I’d seen since I’d arrived Here.

  “Riley?” She looked at me with eyes so kind, I immediately eased the frown from my face. “You are Riley Bloom, right?”

  I nodded. It was all I could do. I was so awed, so struck by her appearance, the way her long curly hair shimmered and shone, transforming from yellow to brown to black to red before starting the sequence all over again, while her skin did the same, converting from the palest white to the darkest ebony and everything else in between. And her gown, her beautiful, blue, sparkly gown, swished all around, gleaming in a way that made it look like it was woven from generous piles of stardust and long yards of lace. The only thing missing were wings, or if she had them, they weren’t quite visible to me.

  She smiled, beckoning for me to come closer, and I instantly followed without thinking twice. Because the truth is, she was so mesmerizing, so stunning, I just couldn’t refuse. Radiating a light so brilliant, so vibrant, so deep, so — purpley — it made cheerleader girl and dorky guy seem like burned-out bulbs in comparison. And though I was sure I’d never met her before, she somehow seemed strangely familiar.

  And the moment she smiled, her kind eyes studying mine, I knew why — she was like every fairy-tale princess come to life.

  “We’re so very glad to see you,” she said, hands folded before her.

  We?

  I blinked, once, twice, amazed to see the seats that had sat empty just a moment ago were now occupied by a small group of robe-clad people. But even though they glowed too, not one of them shined nearly as brightly as the beautiful angel before me.

  “I’m Aurora,” she said, and to be honest, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. If anyone could pull off a name like that, it was her. “And this here is Claude.” She motioned toward a guy with a long, dark ponytail that pretty much matched the long, scraggly beard that hung almost to his waist. “And Royce.” She nodded toward the guy next to Claude who, with his wavy brown hair, dark skin, and glinting green eyes, was definitely hot enough to be a major movie star back home on the earth plane. Samson was the guy sitting to his right, and honestly, he looked so old, he almost looked young again, like he’d come full circle or something, even though I know that doesn’t really make any sense. And next to Samson was Celia, who was so petite, she seemed almost like a person in miniature, and her creamy silk robe was covered in the most beautiful embroidery of bright blossoming flowers and long, spindly vines.

  But despite how kind, welcoming, and completely non-threatening they all seemed, despite how they glowed in varying shades ranging from Celia’s cornflower blue to Aurora’s vibrant purple, I still couldn’t ditch this increasingly uncomfortable feeling that lived inside me, though it’s not like I could place it either.

  Nor could I come up with one good reason for having it in the first place. All I knew, as I stood there before them, was that something was up.

  Something big.

  And even though now, looking back, it all seems pretty obvious, at the time, I didn’t have even the slightest clue of what I was in for.

  From everything I’d seen up to that point, it didn’t even occur to me that that kind of thing could actually be true.

  “We’re members of the Council,” Aurora said, as though that somehow made sense, smiling as she took her seat among them. “Do you know what that is?”

  I shook my head and bit down hard on my lip, unable to speak, unable to even think for that matter.

  Pretty much unable to do anything more than stand there and gape. My eyes darting around as I took in the room once again, gut practically going into spasms when I suddenly realized what the stage was for.

  Why it just sat there all empty.

  What this was really about.

  “No worries,” said the hot one, who I thought was named Royce but I was too freaked to be sure.

  “Nothing to worry about. You’re perfectly safe. None of us bite,” said Samson, which, for some strange reason elicited a big laugh from everyone present.

  Well, everyone except me.

  I was about as far from laughing as a person could get. Because the truth is, I was too busy looking for a way out. Completely overcome by this horrible, sinking feeling, now that I had a pretty good idea of what my immediate future would bring.

  And yet, that hard slab of fear in my gut was really no match for the rising wave of annoyance. The overwhelming feeling that I’d been Punk’d.

  Sucker punched.

  Set up in the most unfair way.

  Remembering how just a little while earlier, my parents had simply hugged me good-bye as they sang

  “have a nice day!” as though everything were perfectly normal.

  As though I wasn’t about to be faced,ambushed really, with this.

  No warning. No heads-up of any kind. Just tossed into a den of lions, with no ammo, no defenses, no tips on how to survive.

  My gaze moved over them as I sighed and shook my head.

  This was it.

  Judgment day.

  It was me against them and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Not the least bit surprised when I suddenly found myself standing center stage even though I’d arrived there through no will of my own.

  Watching in complete and total horror as they all leaned forward in their seats, eagerly waiting for the show to begin, as the drapes slid open behind me.

  7

  Claude, the bearded guy, got up from his seat, went over to the ginormous bookcase that lined the far wall that I somehow missed in my initial nervousness, and withdrew a small, slim book he casually flipped through. Proceeding to make a series of clicking sounds as his tongue hit the inside of his cheek, only to finally slam the book shut, place it back on the shelf, and return to his seat.

  “Well, it seems someone’s lived a very interesting life,” he said, arranging his robe over his crossed legs as he looked at me. “Why don’t you tell us a bit about that?”

  I gaped, the eye-bugging, jaw-dropping kind of gape. Shooting him my best you’re crazy look, sure that he had to be joking, even though the glint in his eyes assured me he was anything but.

  They were waiting. All of them patiently waiting. Eager to hear the extremely short story of my over-before-I-knew-it twelve years of life.

  And the truth is, the longer they sat there, waiting for me to begin, the more annoyed I became, until the anger bubbled up so high inside me it boiled right over and spilled out when I said, “Are you kidding me

  ?” I paused, waiting for someone to cop to it, to let me in on the joke, but when nobody did, I shook my head and continued. “How interesting could the story possibly be when I didn’t even make it to thirteen

  ?” I pressed my lips together to keep them from quivering in an embarrassing, visible way. Crossing my arms tightly across a chest that, now, thanks to the fact that I was sent Here, would stay stubbornly flat for, well, for eternity as far as I could tell. And when my eyes started to sting, and my throat went all hot and tight, it just made it all seem that much worse. I mean, the one thing — the only thing I ever really wanted was to be a teenager — and these people had yanked it right out from under me.

  “So, is it accurate to say that you feel — shortchanged?” Royce asked, head cocked to the side, eyes all squinty. Studying me like he was the scientist and I his most interesting rat.

  “Is that why you lingered so long on the earth plane?” asked Celia, in a polite, demure way, though I wasn’t fooled for an instant. Not with the way her eyes roamed over me, not missing a thing.

  And having them all staring a
t me like that, well, it just made it worse.

  Made me feel like I was some kind of sideshow.

  Some kind of freak.

  Even though they were all striving to appear calm and thoughtful and friendly, as though they had all the time in the world for me to get my bearings and give them the big reveal of how I spent my twelve, pathetically short, years, I wasn’t fooled for a second.

  These people knew everything. It was all in the book. They just wanted to hear it from me. They wanted me to own up to it.

  An afterlife test.

  That’s what this was.

  There was no doubt in my mind.

  “It’s true that we know everything,” Aurora confided, confirming what I’d already guessed. “But you have nothing to worry about, there’s no judgment here. We just want to give you a chance to explain it, that’s all. To tell us what motivated you to make the choices you did. We’re interested in your input, to hear your side of things, so we can best decide where to place you.”

  I squinted, my gaze moving over them,all of them, but they were too good at this, too well practiced, and I couldn’t glean even the slightest clue to what she might’ve meant by that.

  “Everyone has a place,” Celia said, her tiny hands smoothing the sleeves of her gown. “It is our task to find yours,” she added, as though that should somehow mean something, as though that should make perfect sense to a newbie like me.

  I shook my head, feeling completely annoyed, upset, and, well, mostly annoyed, saying, “Listen, I’m not really all that into this, so I’m wondering if we could maybe, um, catch up another time or something. I mean, since you already know all there is to know, I don’t really see the point of all this. And, the truth is, I feel a little creeped out having to stand here on this stage. But fine, if you insist on knowing, then, okay, I guess the top two items on my short list of sins would probably be: One, sometimes, on certain occasions, I used to hog the mic when I played Rock Band on the Wii with my friends—” I stopped, hearing my own voice in my head saying,Really? You’re seriously going to lie about that? Here, of all places? And clearing my throat when I added, “Um, okay, I might’ve actually hogged it more than sometimes, but that’s only because I was practicing to go on American Idol, which, you probably don’t know, but it’s this really popular show on—” I shook my head, knowing I needed to keep it moving if I wanted to get out of there anytime soon.

  “So, anyway, what else? Okay, well, I guess number two would be that one time, back in fourth grade, when we had that substitute teacher and someone, er, I mean I, changed the seating chart all around, so that all the girls had boy’s names and all the boys had girl’s names — but, again, I’d like to make it clear that there were extenuating circumstances in that case too. For starters, it wasn’t entirely my idea. In fact, it wasn’t my idea at all. But anyway, the only reason I even agreed to go along with it is because Felicia Hawkins dared me. And just in case you’re unfamiliar with her, well, she is majorly mean. Seriously, she was one of the meanest, nastiest, snobbiest kids in the school, and, by the way, that includes all of the fifth and sixth graders too. So, with that in mind, I think it’s fair to say that I really had no choice but to prove that I wasn’t the least bit afraid of her, the substitute, or anyone else. Otherwise she would’ve been all over me for the rest of the year, if not longer. So, if anyone should be punished Here, it’s Felicia Hawkins,not me. But nooo, she’s still living, still breathing, and last I saw, still terrorizing her classmates, with no consequences whatsoever, while I’m the one who gets stuck Here, standing on some dumb stage, in some dumb room, defending a few dumb acts. I mean, seriously, how unfair is that?”

  I stared at them, all flushed and red faced, but even though the question wasn’t nearly as rhetorical as it may have seemed, not one of them answered. They just all leaned forward, practically in unison, like they’d rehearsed it or something, completely ignoring my overly emotional outburst that left me more than a little embarrassed, as their eyes focused on the screen just behind me. A screen that suddenly flickered to life, showing a stream of images of Well Me.

  Me, at home in Eugene, Oregon, not even a year old and crawling after my big sister Ever who was just four years older and from what I could see, already mourning the loss of her privacy.

  Me, a few years later, pedaling furiously on my new purple bike with the training wheels attached, doing my best to keep up with Ever, whose bike was lime green and a heck of a lot faster than mine.

  Me, a few years later still, sneaking Ever’s clothes and wearing them to school without her knowing, even though they didn’t exactly fit and I had to roll up the hems and the sleeves.

  Me, just last year, not long before the accident, spying on her and her old boyfriend Brandon with a mixture of fascination and revulsion as they kissed on the couch in our den when our parents were having one of their “date nights” and she was supposed to be babysitting me.

  And honestly, I have no idea what the Council might’ve been thinking, but as for me, I was mortified.

  Unable to tear my eyes away from the screen of horrors that unfolded before me, and cringing with embarrassment as I watched an unmistakable pattern of behavior I’d never realized before.

  A pattern of behavior I actually swore, time and again, didn’t actually exist.

  Having successfully convinced myself it was Ever who wouldn’t stop bugging me, who practically lived just to torment me, and wouldn’t leave me alone no matter how much I complained.

  But at that moment, watching the no-holds-barred, well-documented truth play out before me — well, there was no denying the fact that I’d spent the majority of my ridiculously short life stalking her, spying on her, copying her, and pretty much bugging her to the point of harassment.

  Over a decade spent in one, long, pitiful attempt to be just like her.

  My insides churned as fresh new images filled up the screen, each one that streamed past as equally humiliating as the one just before it. Causing me to wrap my arms around my waist, wanting to make myself smaller, to disappear, to be anywhere but there in that room, on that stage. Feeling all nauseous and clammy, like that time I got seasick at the lake.

  My whole life had been a lie.

  Not at all what I’d thought.

  And there was just no hiding from that fact anymore.

  Sure there were other moments mixed in, ones where Ever was off somewhere with her friends while I hung out with mine. But, for the most part, well, it was completely unbalanced, and there was just no getting around it.

  As far as little sisters went, I was your everyday, garden-variety, textbook, pain in the bum.

  “Are these like — edited — or maybe even, um, you know, Photoshopped, or something?” I asked, my voice going all high and screechy, in what my mom used to call myliar’s voice. The one I used when the last cookie was gone and I was under suspicion, or the house was a mess and I’d been the only one home. And don’t think the members of the Council didn’t notice.

  I hung my head low and turned away from the screen, knowing there was nothing more to do. Nothing more to say. It was all over now, and all I could do was sit back and wait to learn just what would become of me.

  8

  It wasn’t over.

  It seemed like it should’ve been.

  I wanted it to be.

  But noooo. Not even close.

  Just as I was awaiting the verdict to come down, this scratchy, staticky kind of sound came at me from all four walls, and I couldn’t help it, no matter how much I didn’t want to see it, I looked. Peering over my shoulder, and seeing the way the images suddenly changed, going all hazy and misty as the light dimmed to a yellowy glow I immediately recognized. My insides curling in on itself like a fist, instinctively knowing that no matter how bad it had seemed just a few moments before, things had just taken a major turn for the worse.

  They’d caught me in Summerland too.

  That mystical dimension between the earth plane
and this one where I lingered for — well, let’s just say I stayed there for much longer than I was supposed to.

  And so I watched.

  Watched what they watched.

  Me, newly dead, but still up to my old tricks as though my early departure hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference. Hadn’t hampered me in any way.

  Hadn’t changed a single thing.

  If anything, being dead had just made me even worse. Granting me the kind of access I could’ve only dreamed of before.

  It was like having a backstage pass to not only my sister’s life, but everyone else’s as well. Spying on old neighbors and friends, former classmates, favorite and not-so-favorite teachers, even a few well-known celebrities — just maximizing my invisibility for all it was worth. And just like before, back when I was alive, I’d spent the bulk of my time spying on my sister, completely unaware that I was being spied on as well.

  My entire existence, my birth, my death, and beyond, had been documented and studied, and now I was expected to find a way to explain (if not justify), what clearly amounted to a heckuva lot of wasted time.

  But the truth is, I had no idea what to say for myself.

  I was the most surprised person in that whole entire room.

  And, when we got to the part where I sneaked into the Viewing Room on my way to school — well, I just sank right down there onto the cold, hard stage, not even bothering to manifest a comfortable chair for myself first. Anxiously waiting for this horrible show to finally end, so that they could determine my place.

  The whole room went silent as the screen went blank, and I knew it was up to me to make the first move.

  “Well, I think the footage speaks for itself, no?” I tried to smile, but it felt all sloppy and wrong. So then I tried to give them my big-eyed, sad look, the one that always worked on my dad — but still, nothing.

  They just sat there, so silent and still it was clear I’d have to do much better than that.

  I wouldn’t be let off so easily.

  So I cleared my throat and focused hard on my shoes, saying, “Okay, so maybe I was a bit of a brat.” I shrugged, trying to keep it casual and relaxed. “But the thing is, last time I checked that wasn’t exactly listed as one of the sins, right?” I looked up, desperate for a little confirmation, understanding,something