Afterworlds

by Scott Westerfeld

  “Ah.” Kiralee gave Darcy a look of boundless pity. “That’s a tricky one.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Here’s how I always look at it: you want to find an ending that you believe in, while keeping your publisher happy. That’s not a moral crisis, it’s a writing problem. One I have faith you’ll solve.”

  “Thanks.” Darcy tried to smile. “But won’t Afterworlds suck with a happy ending? Any happy ending?”

  “I doubt that. There are probably a dozen perfect happy endings you could write. And a thousand bittersweet ones, and at least a million that are gloriously tragic. Alas, you only get to pick one.”

  Darcy stared at Kiralee. She’d expected outrage, or at least indignation. But Kiralee was smiling, as if this was all some writing exercise or, worse, some sort of learning experience.

  But this was Darcy’s first novel, which for a whole year would be the only book in the world with her name on it. And it had always had the same ending in her mind.

  “I seem to have paralyzed you, Miss Patel,” Kiralee said.

  “No, it’s just . . . ,” Darcy began, then steadied herself with a slow breath. “Don’t you think the ending’s good like it is?”

  “It’s very good. But there are other fine endings out there, some not quite so tragic. Maybe you can find one.”

  “But don’t you think it’s annoying that I have to?”

  “Do you find it annoying that your publisher wants to sell heaps of your book?”

  Darcy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Now she was paralyzed.

  “It’s awesome that they want Afterworlds to sell,” Imogen spoke up. “But less awesome that people only like happy endings.”

  “And not even true.” Kiralee’s gaze stayed locked on Darcy. “Romeo and Juliet has enjoyed some popularity. But perhaps killing Yamaraj limits your story going forward.”

  Darcy stared back, examining Kiralee’s expression. Was this a test of some kind? Was she supposed to prove herself now, not just by standing up to Paradox Publishing but also by facing down Kiralee Taylor, author of Bunyip, as well?

  “But Yamaraj was always supposed to die. He has to die. My book is about death!”

  “And death is always tragic?”

  “When terrorists are involved? Pretty much.”

  “Fair enough. But art can mix emotions as well as distill them.”

  Darcy looked at Imogen for help.

  “Wait a second,” Imogen said. “You’re not saying Darcy should make her ending happy, you’re saying she should make her publisher happy. Right?”

  “Exactly.” Kiralee was staring at the Jesus made of toast. “It’s your story, Darcy. Which means you’re allowed to change anything about it, especially the parts that are most precious to you.”

  “Kill your darlings,” Imogen murmured.

  “Indeed,” said Kiralee. “Now, shall we have some dessert, darlings?”

  * * *

  “She was nicer than I thought,” Darcy said as she and Imogen rode back to Manhattan in a mostly empty subway car.

  Imogen was looming over her, holding onto the straphanger’s metal bar and swaying with the motion of the train. “You thought she’d be mean?”

  “Totally. The first time she heard about my book, she started making fun of paranormal romances.”

  “She was pretty harsh tonight. You’re just tougher now.”

  “I am?”

  Imogen let out a laugh. “Can you imagine if she’d read your book back then, and straight up told you that half of it was exposition?”

  “Not half, just those two chapters. But yeah, I would have flipped out.”

  “You would’ve melted on the spot, then burst into flame.” Imogen swung closer, her knees pressing against Darcy’s. “But now you’re an old pro with thick skin. ‘Skip the praise and give it to me straight’ is your motto.”

  “Very funny. Do you think she hates me and was just being nice?”

  “Kiralee’s never nice if she hates someone.” Imogen stared out the window over Darcy’s head. The tunnel walls were strung with construction lights that flashed with the train’s passage. “Maybe she was thinking about her own career, and wondering if a few more happy endings might have been a good idea.”

  “Right. I keep repressing the fact that she doesn’t have huge sales. I mean, if she can’t make it, I’m doomed.”

  Darcy wondered what must Kiralee have thought, reading in Publisher’s Brunch that some teenager was getting so much money. Some pipsqueak who had the gall to come out to Brooklyn to ask for guidance and advice. And at the end of the meal, Kiralee had even paid!

  “She’s never going to blurb me, is she?”

  “Kiralee doesn’t think that way. If she likes your rewrites, she’ll give you a blurb.”

  “Really? Even though I’m hideously overpaid?”

  Imogen shrugged. “She’s seen debs like us come and go. Most careers don’t last as long as hers.”

  “This is my favorite conversation ever,” Darcy said.

  “Hey, this was a good night!” Imogen swung down into the seat beside Darcy and put an arm around her. “Kiralee Taylor liked your book enough to talk to you about it, in person, over dinner! Tell that to your three-months-ago self.”

  “But every time I asked her what to do, she said it was up to me.”

  “So she thinks you can figure your own shit out. Boohoo.”

  Darcy sighed. She supposed that maybe it was a compliment, being told that you could find the answers yourself. But part of Darcy—maybe even most of her—wished that Kiralee had simply told her how to fix everything.

  “Do you really think the book still makes sense if Yamaraj doesn’t die?”

  “If you make it make sense, sure. See what happens when you write it. Maybe he’ll have to die anyway.”

  Darcy nodded. For the moment, that was enough. There were still hours of darkness ahead to write in, and two months left to pull apart Afterworlds and put it back together. And it was a year before the sequel’s first draft was due. Publishing might move slowly, but in a way its stately pace was comforting. There was time to find the right ending, happy or not.

  CHAPTER 24

  IT WAS A FEW NIGHTS later that I called Special Agent Reyes. It was kind of late, but he didn’t sound sleepy, only a little surprised when I asked him, “What if I knew someone who’d committed a crime?”

  “That depends on what kind.” He hesitated a moment. “And how well you know them.”

  “How well I know them?”

  “Are you going to report your best friend for underage drinking? A good talking-to might work better.”

  I laughed. “Jamie doesn’t drink, and I mean a stranger. And let’s say it was a serious crime, like, say, murder. How would I get the FBI to look into it?”

  “Oh.” He sounded relieved, certain now that this was hypothetical. “You’d start with your local police. The FBI focuses on federal crimes.”

  “Murder’s not a federal crime?”

  “Not usually. Maybe if the victim were a federal official.”

  “Right. But in the movies, you guys are always looking for serial killers.”

  “We do.” I thought I heard a sigh in the words. “What’s this about, exactly?”

  I looked at my bed, which was covered with printouts of my research on the bad man. A list of young girls who’d disappeared while their families were traveling, research on the habits of psychopaths, unsolved crimes in Palo Alto. Basically, a whole lot of nothing.

  Knowing the bad man’s name hadn’t helped much. He wasn’t in any news stories I could find, and searching online had only led to a hundred other men with the same name, all the wrong age or in the wrong city. It was as if he barely existed, or maybe his little bungalow didn’t have an internet connection.

  All I really had was his name, his phone number, and my own righteous anger, which seemed to be fading every day. So I told Agent Reyes the same thing I’d told my mom:


  “It’s, um, for a school project.”

  “You’re a high school senior, Miss Scofield. Shouldn’t your school projects be a little more . . . specific?”

  “Right. I’m just getting to the specific part.” I tried to collect my thoughts, but it had been more than a week since I’d managed to sleep. My body didn’t seem to want it anymore, but my mind did. “Like, how many victims does it take to be a serial killer? Is there an FBI rule about that?”

  “There are always rules, Miss Scofield. It takes three killings, at least one on US soil, to count as serial murder.”

  “Three? Great. I mean . . . this is more specific, right?”

  “A little,” he said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

  I hesitated. Agent Reyes was never going to believe me. Not about a quintet of little girls buried in an old man’s front yard. So there was no point in hedging my words now. “Let’s say no one had actually witnessed these murders, but I knew where the bodies were buried. What kind of evidence would I need to get the police to dig up someone’s yard?”

  There was a pause, but then he spoke with certainty. “The kind that convinces a judge to spend taxpayers’ money to destroy private property. The very solid kind.”

  “Gotcha.” I was pretty sure he thought I was an idiot now, which somehow compelled me to add, “Any news on the death cult front?”

  “Only what’s in the newspapers.”

  “Right. I haven’t been keeping up, actually. You’re moving in on the headquarters, right?”

  “As of last night, Miss Scofield. The bad guys are surrounded by two hundred federal agents. It’s nothing you have to worry about, of course, but given your recent experiences, have you considered changing your school project to something less . . . macabre?”

  I stared at the mess on my bed. “I have, but I’m pretty far along with this one. Thanks for your help, Agent Reyes.”

  “Any time, Miss Scofield,” he said.

  I hung up and let out a sigh. I’d managed to sound demented without even getting to the weird parts of my not-so-hypothetical problem. Like the fact that at least some of these murders had been committed before I was born. And that the criminal lived in a city I’d never visited, except via undead astral projection. And that I didn’t know most of the victims’ names.

  No judge in the world would send a bulldozer to the bad man’s property based on my “evidence.” No wonder Yama had simply turned away from the sight of the little girls. We were psychopomps, not the ghost police.

  But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I wanted justice to be done, somehow. I wanted the world to make sense again, and I had to start by telling Yama what I’d learned.

  * * *

  It was our longest journey on the Vaitarna so far, the strangest and most varied. The river was angry at first, with touches of stray memories like a thousand cold fingertips brushing against us in the dark. But finally it settled, and for a long time we drifted on a current as slow and still as a flat sea.

  Yama and I arrived on a crescent beach of white sand and small pebbles. The shoreline stretched away in both directions, curving in on itself in the distance to form a large circular lagoon. The roar of heavy surf was somewhere close, but the water before us lapped placidly at the sand. A warm wind played with my hair and rippled the silk of his shirt.

  “Where are we?”

  “On an island.”

  I looked at him. “Can you be more specific?”

  “An atoll, specifically.” He smiled at me, as if pleased about being his usual uninformative self.

  I looked up into the night sky. There was no sign of dawn, so we couldn’t be too far from California time. But the stars looked wrong. “The Pacific Ocean, right?”

  Yama nodded. “About as far away from everything as it’s possible to get.”

  “It’s . . . nice,” I said, though the atoll wasn’t exactly a tropical paradise. There were no palm trees, no grass or flowers up from the beach, just stunted trees in rocky soil, their broad leaves shivering in the wind.

  “It takes getting used to,” Yama said, leading me away from the water and onto stony ground. There were seabirds huddled everywhere, and lizards as long as fingers skittered beneath our feet. The land climbed for a few minutes’ walk, but as we crested a small ridge it fell away again before us, back down toward the sea. The whole island was like a squashed doughnut, with the still lagoon in its center and the wild ocean on the outside.

  Huge waves tumbled out there, lumbering and dark. They looked big enough to roll across us and sweep the atoll away. It was a very lonely place indeed.

  “Do you hear it?” Yama asked.

  I listened. Even in the muffled air of the flipside, the roar of surf was loud enough to sink into my bones. Only a few sharp seabirds’ cries slipped through its thunder.

  “What am I listening for?”

  “The silence. No voices at all.”

  I looked at Yama. His eyes were closed, and all the worry had lifted from his face. I reached out and traced the line of his eyebrow with my fingertip, and he smiled and took my hand.

  “All I hear are waves and birds,” I said.

  “Exactly.” He opened his eyes, as happy as I’d ever seen him. “No one has ever died on this island.”

  “Oh.” I looked around at the rocky ground, the empty horizon. “But that’s just because nobody’s ever lived here either, right?”

  “I would think not. But the result is the same—silence.”

  “Wait. You mean, you can hear the dead?”

  “Always. Everywhere but here.”

  I remembered my vision on the playground. The history of the place flashing past in an instant, all its traumas and joys and aches. Was that what the world was like for Yama all the time? My own powers were growing every day, and he had been a psychopomp for thousands of years.

  I could feel the ocean’s roar with every part of my body. What would life be like with the voices of the dead as constant in my ears?

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

  I stood closer and linked our arms, needing his warmth. The wind was stronger up here on the ridge. It sifted the sand around our feet.

  Standing there, I could see the island’s desolate beauty. For me it wasn’t about the silence of the dead, but about being here with him. It was like we’d been given our very own planet—a little bleak, but ours alone.

  And there was something wonderful about the air, something I couldn’t quite pin down.

  I cupped my palm around the back of Yama’s head and drew him closer for a kiss. It left me breathless, and the gray sky pulsed with color. For a moment this was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

  Before we pulled apart, he kissed me once on my tear-shaped scar. A crackle of electricity stayed there, an itch for more.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked, a little breathless.

  “By searching for a thousand years.”

  “It took that long, just to find somewhere quiet?”

  “I didn’t know what I was looking for at first. But I wanted to explore the world, so I learned to travel on the river in body, not just spirit.” His voice softened. “Everywhere I went, there were stories buried in the earth, voices in the stones.”

  My hand sought his again, and squeezed. “I’ll hear them too, won’t I?”

  “I hope that’s a long time from now.” He spread his hands. “But when you need to get away, this island is yours, too, Lizzie.”

  I stared out at the gray and tumbling ocean, not sure what to say. I didn’t want this splendid isolation yet, unless it was with Yama. The thought that this desolation could one day be beautiful for itself scared me a little.

  How long did I have? I thought of the dead girls on the bad man’s lawn, and wondered if I was more connected to them now, more joined to death itself. I needed to tell Yama that I’d been back there, and what I suspected about where the girls were buried.

  But not yet. He lo
oked too happy.

  “Thanks for bringing me here. This is your favorite place, isn’t it?”

  “In a way,” he said. “My city in the underworld is more beautiful. But this island is the only place I’m really alone.”

  “But now I’m here, so that’s ruined.”

  Yama turned to me, his smile almost shy. “I can be alone with you.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing?”

  “More than I can say.” He drew me closer, and the sky rippled with color again, my breath catching and shuddering in my lungs.

  By the time our lips parted, I wanted to know every detail of this place. “How did you get here the first time? On a ship?”

  “In the pages of a book.” He pulled us back into motion, leading me along the windy ridge. “A Portuguese ship discovered it four centuries ago. It was forgotten, then found again, until naturalists came here and painted what they saw.”

  “So we can connect to places through books?” I asked, amazed. Of course, I’d traveled to my mother’s old house using a photo. Suddenly being a psychopomp didn’t seem so bad, if I could read my way around the world.

  “Partly,” Yama said. “But I also got to know a naturalist who’d come here. He said that only two kinds of plants grow on this island. Can you imagine?”

  My eyes swept the bleak expanse. All the trees looked the same. “It’s not that hard to believe. But you made friends with a liver—I mean, a living person? That means you left the afterworld.”

  “This was worth it.” He closed his eyes again, breathing in the salt spray. “For the air alone.”

  That was when I realized what had been bugging me. “It doesn’t smell rusty here. That metal scent the flipside usually has, it’s gone.”

  He opened his eyes. “That’s the smell of death. Of blood.”

  “Oh.” A shiver went through me, and I drew us to a stop and pressed my face against his chest. Yama was always so warm, like something was on fire inside him, but still the shudders took a moment to subside. “It kind of sucks to be a . . .”

  I still hated the word “psychopomp,” but I didn’t have a better one yet.

  “Not always.” He put his arms around me.

  I held Yama tighter, needing the solidity of his muscles, the current of his skin. The sand beneath my feet felt slippery, the atoll so fragile in that endless gray ocean.