The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Willow Rose

  “That is the problem Mick. It’s too much. You love me too much.” I turned my back and started floating toward the door. I had to leave now. I couldn’t take anymore.

  “Don’t you love me?” He grabbed my arm again and made me turn. I felt a knot of guilt in my stomach when I looked into his eyes.

  “I do love you.”

  He let go of my arm. “You just love him more?”

  I sighed deeply before I spoke through tears: “That’s what I need to find out.” I pulled him close and gave him one last kiss before I turned to leave. I was going to miss kissing him.

  Mick called my name as I was halfway out through the door. I stopped and turned. My heart jumped when I looked at his face torn in hurt and desperation. What kind of a person would do this to someone they love? I asked myself. It felt like my whole world had just tumbled to the ground. Like everything was ripped apart. I could only guess as to how it felt inside of Mick. He spoke with that gentle voice that I loved so much.

  “I will wait for you, Meghan. Always … for eternity if I have to.”

  Chapter 11

  The news spread fast at the Academy. Like fire in a dry forest, it was shared to anyone who cared to listen. And by lunch time when I entered Hornam Hall with my classmates, I immediately sensed a change. The looks, the whispering as I walked past a table, the shaking heads.

  “What’s going on?” asked Abhik as we sat down at our usual table. “Why is everybody staring at us like that?”

  “Me. They are looking at me,” I said with a sigh. Not only did I have to deal with my own feeling of guilt, now I had to be reminded of what I had done every time I looked at someone at the school. Every time I left my room.

  “Why are they looking at you?” Abhik asked.

  “She called off the wedding,” Mai answered. She had just arrived at the table and stood in front of me with a book in her hand. She looked at me with contempt and sat down. “I just heard it from someone I know at another table. They are all talking about how selfish you are.”

  Mai sat down. I felt everybody’s eyes on me.

  “You called it off?” Abhik looked like I had killed someone.

  “Why?” asked Nigel.

  “I had my reasons,” I mumbled.

  “Because of Jason, you imbecile,” said Mai. I couldn’t figure out if she was against what I had done or if she defended me. With Mai I never knew.

  In that same second the food arrived. Everybody stared at their plates and then back at me. It was porridge. An indescribable gray mass on everyone’s plate.

  “You have got to be kidding,” said Frederic Cornwell.

  “I am not eating any of this,” his sister added.

  I hid my face in my hands. This was horrible. I was a horrible person. Mick was depressed because of me and now all he could make for us to eat was porridge. No one knew how long this would go on and all they could do was to blame me.

  “You have got to do something,” Alexandra Cornwell hissed at me.

  “I am sorry …”

  “Why? asked Abhik. “Was it really because of Jason? Because he is coming here?”

  All my classmates stared at me like they expected me to somehow explain this to them, like they wanted me to at least justify my actions if I couldn’t reverse them. I was not going to do that. I didn’t owe them anything. “Partly,” I said. “But there were other reasons too.”

  “What reasons?” asked Acacia while poking her porridge with a spoon. “What could possibly make you break up with Mick? He’s the greatest guy ever, so handsome, madly in love with you, and so nice to you and only wants what is best for you.”

  “Yeah, you two are like the perfect match,” said Mai. “The perfect couple.”

  “Nothing is ever perfect,” said Abhik. “We don’t know why their relationship broke up. We don’t know what has been going on between those two. But at least we could try to be real friends. I think Meghan needs it right now. We are all she has, since the whole school will blame her for this. Let’s just stand by her.”

  If nothing else, he at least managed to make them quiet for awhile. I felt his warm hand in mine. I looked into his eyes. Abhik, my best friend who had stood by me through everything since I got here at the school. “Thanks, ” I whispered, as I picked up my spoon and tasted the porridge. It was horrible. Way too salty to eat.

  “Maybe he made it from the his salty tears or something—it sure tastes like it,” grumbled Alexandra Cornwell after tasting the porridge as well.

  “So why did you do it?”

  Abhik and I had gone for a fly in the afternoon after class was over. It had been a horrible day. No matter where I went, people stared at me and whispered behind my back. I knew what they were saying, and I tried not to care. Everyone’s sympathy went toward Mick because I had broken it off, and because I had done it because of someone else.

  “Why I called off the wedding?” I asked as we sat on a cloud and stared at the castle beneath us. Not far away the rainbows towered like huge mountains. I had to learn to balance on them soon. I was the only one in my class who hadn’t even tried it yet. “Well, I … First of all I don’t think I owe anyone an explanation. I am only following my heart and it tells me I have to wait. I have no idea how I’m going to react once Jason gets here. Maybe I don’t have feelings for him anymore and maybe he won’t have any for me and then it is settled. I will marry Mick. But I feel like I have to wait and see. It’s not only for my own sake, but also for Mick’s. I don’t want to marry him and then regret it. That would be the real tragedy.”

  Abhik nodded and stared into the air. “But you were so happy together, why throw that away? As you said yourself, you don’t even know if you have any feelings left or if Jason does either.”

  I sighed. “Well … that … I might have a sense that he does still have feelings for me.”

  Abhik turned his head quickly with a gasp. He stared at me with his brown eyes wide open. “What are you saying?”

  “I saw something. In the book. When I went to see when that woman in my assignment is supposed to die.”

  “The book of meant-to-be?”

  “Yes. I saw Jason. I saw how he died.”

  “So?”

  “So he said something. He mentioned me.”

  “He said your name?”

  “No, he said he wasn’t afraid of dying, because he knew someone was waiting for him on the other side, someone he loved and really missed.”

  I looked at Abhik who shook his head slowly. “That could have been anyone; maybe it is his grandmother!”

  “I don’t think it was. I think it’s me.”

  Abhik held a hand to his head. “Please tell me you are joking! You threw away this great relationship, your marriage, everything, for this?”

  “I guess.” I shrugged. Then I sighed deeply. The doubt was getting to me. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Jason could have meant someone else.

  “I think you made a mistake, if you ask me,” said Abhik with concern in his voice. “You are doing this to yourself again. Ruining everything for that guy you hardly know. I was afraid this was going to happen.”

  “I did this because I felt it was the right thing, because my heart told me to do it.”

  “Feelings can be very deceitful.”

  “I know, but this is right. Trust me on this.”

  Abhik sighed. “It is your life and you do with it what you want. But I will not tell you that this is a good decision, because it is not. Not based on what you tell me here. There must have been something else that caused it.”

  “There was one thing that made me really angry.”

  “What was that?”

  “Mick knew. He knew Jason is coming here and he didn’t tell me. He was afraid that I would call off the wedding if I knew, so that is why he pressured me to set a date for the wedding. He was desperate for us to get married before Jason came.”

  Abhik nodded pensively.

  “He made me feel real
ly horrible, like it was my fault that we hadn’t set a date yet, like I didn’t even want to get married at all,” I added.

  “Can I be honest with you?” Asked Abhik.

  “You know you can.”

  Abhik took in a deep breath like he wanted to find the courage to say this to me. “Admitted that wasn’t very thoughtful of him, and you have every right to be angry about that, but I somehow understand why he would do it. Given your history with Jason and all.”

  “What? Whose side are you on anyway?”

  “Yours, you know that. But you have to admit that Mick was right in suspecting that you might call off the wedding if you knew about Jason. Am I wrong?”

  “I guess not,” I shrugged.

  “Of course he was scared of losing you,” Abhik continued. “He knew he would eventually when Jason showed up.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s crazy. I’m not even sure that I love Jason that much anymore. We only shared one kiss several years ago.” I paused and glanced at the beautiful blue sky above us for a second. “But there is just something about him. I have longed to be with him for so long. I have dreamed about touching him again.”

  “I am really afraid that you might have loved the idea of Jason more than you actually love him,” said Abhik.

  I avoided his look and kept staring into the empty air. His remarks really hurt me. Thoughts flickered through my head. Could it be? Had I made a mistake? Maybe Jason wasn’t at all what I expected him to be. I had this picture of him in my head, but that was from so many years ago. Would he even be the same person? He had gone through so much. Being homeless, taking drugs, and going through rehab. Those things could change a person a lot. Was I just in love with a picture? Had I put him on a pedestal and made him into something he wasn’t? Was I fooling myself and just always wanting what I couldn’t have? Was I one of those girls who just couldn’t be satisfied? With Mick I had everything I could possibly want.

  “I am sorry, but that is what I think. I am not a true friend if I am not honest,” he added.

  I nodded. I knew it was only because he cared about me, but it made me feel really awful. “It still hurts,” I said.

  Abhik put his arm around my shoulder. “I know.”

  Neither of us spoke for quite a while. Two eagles played in the air, looking like some mating dance. We both followed them with our eyes. It was quite the unusual courtship ritual. The two birds locked talons together at a high altitude and then they tumbled and somersaulted toward the ground fast and then they finally broke apart at the last minute. It was intense to watch.

  “What we need to do now is to figure out how we are going to get you through the next couple of days.” Abhik broke the silence as the birds were back in the air and repeated the act. “You are not popular at the school, and I think it is going to be tough on you. Everybody was looking forward to the wedding in the Phoenix Garden, everybody loves Mick, and now that they know the story about what happened with that Russian girl fifty years ago, they hate you for doing this to him again. You are the monster here, they think. Mick is the victim.”

  I felt heartbroken. Abhik was right. I had called it off exactly two days before the wedding just like Nadja had. Mick had to be hurting so bad. I bowed my head and covered my face with my hands. How could he ever forgive me? How could I forgive myself? And for what? Because of Jason who would come here in four weeks. What if Abhik was right? What if he wasn’t even talking about me in that scene in the book? It could be anyone else. We hadn’t seen each other in several years, how could he remember me? Remember what we had? I looked at the horizon where the sun was about to set. No. I knew in my heart that he remembered me. I just knew it. He had to. He just had to.

  Chapter 12

  The following Saturday I left the castle all day. For numerous reasons. But mainly to not be reminded of what was supposed to happen that particular day. I didn’t want to accidently run into Mick or anyone else for that matter. So I left.

  I went to earth to visit Rosey, my assignment, for the first time. Salathiel had asked us to get to know our human, so that was what I intended to do. I devoted myself to my assignment and I wanted to pass this one with a good grade.

  I followed the directions in my folder and found her at a mental institution where I remembered I had seen her in the book, on the day she was supposed to die. The place was filled with nurses and doctors in the corridors walking among each other clearly showing on their faces that they were only visiting from the outside. They smiled and greeted each other and glowed with all the life and fresh air that belonged outside of these walls.

  Then there were the patients. Even though some of them wore white clothes like the nurses, I could immediately see that they were in fact patients, by the look on their faces and the pace at which they conducted themselves. They walked like they were in slow motion while all the doctors and nurses were in fast-forward with their red cheeks and healthy posture. To someone like me who came in from the outside, it was so obvious who belonged to the world of the living and who did not. The patients were like sleepwalkers in the corridors, all medicated in a daze in which they became manageable. They walked with their heads bowed and had gray, lifeless faces.

  I sighed and felt sorry for these people who were locked in here behind thick bars on the windows and heavy security guarding the exits. I realized that this wasn’t a normal mental institution, if you could ever use the term “normal” about such an institution. This was a place that they were never meant to leave once they were put in here. This was a prison for mentally ill criminals, for those who were sentenced to a life in treatment. Those who were too dangerous to have running around in the streets. It was a high-security psychiatric hospital something I—when I was a kid—would have called a lunatic asylum.

  So I realized that my human had to be dangerous in some way, and I had to admit that it made this assignment a little harder on me. Maybe she had done something awful. But then again, I thought to myself, they wouldn’t let her go to the Academy, would they? Would they let her into Heaven? As I made myself invisible to the human eye and flew across the corridors, I agreed with myself that she might have been wrongfully convicted, and that was why she chose to take her own life.

  I found her in an activity room. A couch and a few chairs filled it along with some small tables, some with games on them, like chess or checkers. Plastic plants in unbreakable plastic containers were in the window sills. All windows had bars and big locks. I recognized her pink bathrobe from the picture in the book. It hung on her skinny body like a dress on a hanger in the closet. Nothing underneath filled it out. Her skin was porcelain pale like she hadn’t seen the sun in years, which I guessed she probably hadn’t. She wore no makeup but somehow she still managed to be beautiful. The years had been hard on her; I could see that clearly on her face. Wrinkles almost like a withered walnut, deep lines that looked like dark parentheses around her lips. A face that showed life hadn’t been easy on her. And yet still she managed to stand out among the rest of the patients. Somewhere in spite of it all, she had managed to keep that aura of someone who had once been on top of things, someone who had lived a normal life. But again, I could be wrong. I didn’t know anything about her yet.

  Rosey sat in a wheelchair in the corner when I approached her slowly. She wasn’t doing anything; she just sat there, staring at the window that was elevated just enough for her to not be able to look out. Around her, other patients were playing games, doing puzzles, or watching an old broken TV hung up high that kept switching on and off. But its viewers didn’t seem to care.

  I sat down in a colorless plastic chair next to Rosey and began observing her. She didn’t move her body or even her hands. She hardly even blinked. It wasn’t until I got up and floated in front of her that I realized the only thing moving on her was tears running slowly down her cheeks. Almost as symmetrical as beads in a necklace. She didn’t make a single sound or one small movement. Only the tears rolling revealed that s
he was in fact still alive.

  She sat like that for hours, while I watched her, and every once in awhile a nurse would come to her and wipe off the tears with a tissue, only to leave her again and just before new ones would arrive. The quiet time with Rosey made me start thinking about my own situation and soon I felt the tears piling up in my eyes as well. Running from problems didn’t solve anything—they had come with me to earth—and in a split of a second I wondered if I should go and see Jason instead of hanging out here. But I was afraid of making things even more complicated by doing so. A big part of me wanted the feelings to go away. The sensible part of me said that I had to forget him and go back to Mick. Visiting Jason might just stir up something that shouldn’t be stirred. It was hard to see how it could make anything better.

  But it did help me in some way to be sitting there with Rosey all day. In some selfish way I started realizing that there was always someone who had it worse than I. A lot worse. My problems became insignificant next to hers.

  Rosey was stuck in this place with her sadness and no one was going to help her out of it. How she would ever get her hand on those pills in a place like this with this kind of security on everything, I had no idea. But according to the book she would soon put an end to her miserable life, and I couldn’t blame her. Sitting with her in that desolate activity room made me fully understand her decision. The only thing I didn’t understand was what I was supposed to do. Where was the assignment in this? I was glad to help her out of this life and into the next, where she could finally become alive again. It wasn’t hard and that troubled me greatly.

  It was supposed to be.

  As the day went by I noticed that Rosey never touched any of her food when it was served and she didn’t even drink the water they brought her.

  “Rosey, you’d better eat something or we have to tube feed you again,” the nurse sitting at the patients’ table said during dinner.

  But Rosey still didn’t utter a word. It became apparent to me that maybe she was already trying to kill herself simply by not eating.