Afterworlds

by Scott Westerfeld

  “They’re for writing?”

  “All my collections are.” Imogen reached toward the windowsill for more stuff, let it fall onto the bedcovers. “These paint samples are for colors. They have the best names: Candy Apple, Metal Smoke, Stone-Washed Surf.”

  “And the polaroids?”

  “What people wear, what they look like. People who aren’t in magazines.” Imogen shrugged, staring down at the scattered pieces of her collection. The spark in her eyes was fading now, weariness taking over.

  Darcy said softly, “I love you like crazy, Imogen Gray.”

  “Love you, too.” Her smile was slow and soft, and then her eyes closed, and Imogen curled around herself, wrists pressed together beneath one cheek.

  Darcy took the paint samples and matchbooks and placed them back on the windowsill. By the time the bed was clear, Imogen’s breathing was slow and even, and Darcy reached carefully into the pockets of her jeans, sliding out keys and a crumpled wad of money . . .

  . . . and Imogen’s phone, a diary wrapped in black glass and slivers of titanium. When Darcy flipped the mute button to silent, the screen lit up expectantly.

  “Never,” she whispered to it, and placed the phone carefully beside the keys and cash. Then she curled up next to Imogen Gray, her Imogen, and closed her eyes to sleep at last.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE SCHOOLHOUSE WAS EASIER TO see tonight. My flipside eyes had grown sharper. Every tile on the roof glimmered, clear and distinct in the gray moonlight.

  I crossed the parking lot, hardly noticing the transparent hulks of school buses around me. I could see only the past, luminous and real. The first time I’d come here, the school’s front steps had looked smooth and featureless, but now they were chipped and mottled with chewing gum stains.

  Yama was right. Every time I crossed over, every time I traveled the river, the ghostly world laid a stronger claim on me.

  But what did it matter? According to him, I’d been born to this. I wasn’t even sure if he wanted me anymore, or if that fight on his ocean-swept island had been our last.

  The front door of the schoolhouse was open, inviting me in.

  “This isn’t scary anymore,” I murmured. “I belong here.”

  The hallways were silent tonight. The ghostly children’s songs had faded or been frightened away, leaving my slow echoing steps the only sound. I walked carefully, because the squeak of sneakers on tile still paralyzed me. It took a few minutes’ wandering to find the place where the voice had first taunted us.

  “Are you still here?” My mouth went dry around the words.

  No answer, just the fear in my own voice. The lockers wavered for a moment, as if desert heat were rising from the floor.

  I pushed my dread down, letting the cold place inside me smother it.

  “It’s me, from the other night. You followed me home. You said you wanted an apprentice.”

  Nothing at first, but then motion flickered in the corners of my eyes, and the sound of laughter came from behind me.

  I spun around, but found nothing but a sign on the wall: NO RUNNING.

  It wasn’t the old man in the patched coat, just the ghost of some ancient infraction.

  I sighed. “You’re really annoying, you know?”

  That time I hadn’t expected an answer, but one came—the sound of a fingernail against the floor, traveling down the hallway toward me. It clicked across the cracks between tiles, slow and patient. The sound was an icicle on my spine.

  When it passed beneath my feet I jumped, feet dancing, a shiver rippling through me in its wake.

  “For fuck’s sake.” I faced the empty hallway. “I’m here to ask you for help.”

  “You want a favor?” the response came, leaking up from the floor. His voice sounded so pleased, so eager, that I almost ran for the exit. Color flitted in the corners of my vision.

  I took a slow breath to keep myself on the flipside, and said, “I need to know some things.”

  In answer, black oil bubbled up, seeping from the cracks in the floor, the spaces between the lockers. It rolled hungrily toward my feet, and a moment later I was sinking down into the river, ready to face the old man in the patched coat again.

  * * *

  He was shinier than last time, his skin luminous in the dark. Maybe that was just my eyes again, more attuned now to the gleam we psychopomps gave off. These days, I could even see the cold, wet things in the river, like scraps of shadow floating against the darkness.

  “What a nice surprise,” the old man said. “I was starting to think you didn’t like me.”

  “Feel free to keep thinking that.” My hand went to my back pocket, where the knife I’d brought along was sheathed.

  His eyes followed my motion. “A little rude, for someone asking a favor.”

  “Whatever.” I let my hand fall back to my side. “You said you wanted to teach me things. I’ve got questions for you.”

  “Questions?” he said, amused. “You mean there are things your dark-skinned friend doesn’t know?”

  I decided to ignore that. “There’s a man, a murderer. His victims are buried in his front yard, I think. They’re haunting his house.”

  “Are you offering me some little ghosts? How sweet.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t quite reach his pale eyes. “Alas, my tastes are very particular.”

  “I’m not offering you anything. I just need to know how to deal with him.”

  “Oh. You’re talking about revenge.”

  “Not really. What I mean is . . .” My next words faltered in my mouth. To say that I wanted justice sounded pompous. I wouldn’t mind if the bad man suffered, but mostly I just wanted to fix things. “I want my friend to stop being scared.”

  “Your ghost friend,” the old man said. “The little one, who was with you when we met.”

  “Yeah, the one you wanted to collect.” Saying that, I wondered why I’d come to the old man for help. But there was no one else to turn to. “He killed her, too. For all I know, he’s still killing people, and I have to stop him.”

  “Interesting.” The old man said the word like he meant it. As if none of this seemed evil or nightmarish to him, or even unusual. Just interesting.

  I had to keep talking. “I have all these powers now. I can go places, see the past. I know what he did, but I can’t prove it.”

  “You mean, you can’t change it.” He gave a little shrug. “People like us don’t change the world. We just clean up its messes.”

  “There’s no people like us. You and I aren’t the same! But you said you wanted an apprentice, so teach me how to fix this.”

  He had a way of smiling—the expression surfacing slowly, like a bubble rising in a tar pit. “Your dark friend is keeping secrets from you, isn’t he? That’s why you’ve come crawling to me.”

  I was angry enough to have stabbed him then, but instead I said, “He thinks I’m changing too fast. He wants to protect me.”

  “He’s a fool then. There’s no safety in ignorance. When you get called the first time, you’ll need all the tricks.”

  “Called?” I shook my head. “By who?”

  “Who do you think? By death.”

  I stared at him, the cold place inside me growing just a little. Every time I thought I had a grasp on the afterworld, it got more complicated.

  “What does that even mean? Death isn’t like . . . a person, is it?”

  He laughed at that, hard enough that shiny little tears leaked from his translucent eyes. “A man with a scythe, you mean? Hardly. Or if he is, we aren’t on speaking terms. Maybe death is just a force of nature, or maybe it has a flicker of intelligence. Either way, once its hooks are in, it will take you where it needs you.”

  I shook my head. “Which is . . . ?”

  “The places you’d expect. A fire, a massacre. Perhaps a war. My first time was all three of those, an entire city dying. I was not entirely prepared.”

  “Oh.” It struck me that Yama had appeared at th
e airport, just as eighty-seven people were being murdered. He probably hadn’t been there to catch a flight. “So when lots of people die, psychopomps just show up?”

  He shuddered a little. “Psychopomps. Such an ungainly word.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Do you have a better one?”

  “I think of myself as an artist.” He patted the pockets of his patched jacket. “One day I’ll show you what I mean.”

  “No thanks.” But at least the old man was telling me things I didn’t know. I would be called one day, it seemed. What else was Yama hiding from me?

  “But maybe a different word for a pretty girl like you,” he said. “Where I come from, we called them ‘valkyrie.’ It means ‘chooser of the slain.’ ”

  I didn’t answer, but I liked the sound of it. It must have shown on my face, because the old man smiled again.

  “I can help you with your murderer. I was a surgeon once.” The old man took a step toward me, his slow smile fastened to his lips now. He opened his hands wide, coming closer through the darkness. “I’m very good with scissors and thread.”

  My hand went to the knife in my pocket. “What are you doing?”

  “Showing you this.” He straightened his patched jacket. He was only an arm’s length away from me now, and I could feel him like a cold spot in the room. “I sewed it together from scraps. As you can see, it fits me very well.”

  “Why do I care?” My fingers clenched around the metal handle of the knife.

  “Because I can cut his ghost to pieces.”

  “That’s not what I . . .” My voice faded. I hadn’t really known what I wanted him to do.

  “Trust me,” he said. “It’s what you need to make your little friend happy again. I have only one condition.”

  I took a few steps back from him, and my shoulders brushed the cold things that had gathered around me in the darkness. I forced myself not to shudder.

  “What?”

  “Kill him yourself. Then I’ll do the cutting.”

  I stared at the old man, trying to measure his smile. Was he kidding? “I can’t do that.”

  He smoothed his jacket with a slow glide of his palms, as if it were of silk instead of scraps. “You can. You’re a valkyrie. A warrior-maiden.”

  “No.” It was true, the last time I’d been at the bad man’s house, I’d wanted to end him. But really killing someone? “I don’t even know how.”

  “He’s just a man. All the usual ways apply.”

  “I can’t travel with my real body, not yet. I’m just a ghost when I’m there.” I shook my head. “This is a stupid conversation. I can’t kill anyone.”

  “How disappointing,” the old man sighed. “You’re not the valkyrie I thought you were.”

  I stared at him. “So you’re not going to help me?”

  “I’m trying very hard to,” he said carefully, then slipped his hands into his pockets. “But I see more work needs to be done.”

  A moment later he was gone.

  * * *

  I walked back toward home from the ghost school, hands in pockets, breathing in the cool fresh air of the overworld. Part of me was relieved that the old man had asked for something I couldn’t give. Every moment with him was like standing in wet socks; all I’d wanted was for it to end.

  Maybe Yama was right, and helping Mindy would only push me farther into the arms of the afterworld.

  But then I saw something across the road. It glowed with bright fluorescent light, a garish white column in the darkness—an old roadside pay phone with scratched and battered plastic sides. There weren’t a lot of pay phones around anymore, and for a moment I wondered if it was a ghost of some kind. If school buildings and sounds could have ghosts, why not phones?

  This late there were no cars, no joggers, just the wind and the smell of the ocean. So I crossed the road, curious. The receiver felt hard and plastic in my hand—the phone was real. I half expected to hear nothing, but a dial tone buzzed in my ear.

  I pressed zero, as if making a call was what I’d intended all along.

  “Operator?” came a voice. It was small and tinny, like something heard from the flipside. For a moment, I expected it to ask what my emergency was.

  “I’d like to make a collect call,” I said. Before I could stop myself, I reeled off the bad man’s phone number. It tasted acid in my mouth. But I had to do something, no matter how futile.

  “Your name, please?” the operator asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “Who should I say is calling?”

  It took me a second. “Mindy.”

  “Hold please while I connect, Mindy.” Buzz and crackle, and the muffled sound of ringing. Then another distant voice said the word “hello.”

  Every muscle in my body flinched, and I jerked the phone away from my head. I was suddenly breathing hard, my sweat cold in the breeze. A bitter taste filled my mouth, and the phone felt slick in my hand. Hearing the bad man’s voice had made him that little bit more real.

  It took me a long time to bring the receiver back to my ear, so long that I was sure he’d hung up. But I heard breathing.

  “Is this you?” I said.

  “Who the hell is this?” His voice was ragged, like he’d just woken up.

  My tongue was stuck. It was all I could do to breathe.

  “I don’t know any Mindy,” came his voice. “Why are you calling me?”

  “I know what you did,” I managed. “I know what you are.”

  It was his turn to be silent.

  “And I’m coming for you.” The words were spreading a strange calm through me. “You can’t stop me. I can walk through walls.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Even your death can’t stop me. I have a friend who cuts up souls.” I didn’t know where these words were coming from, what piece of me had made them. But they tasted sweet in my mouth. “I’m going to feed you to the cold things in the river. And those little girls in your front yard are going to watch.”

  He didn’t answer, so I hung up on him. As I walked away, the pay phone’s fluorescent lights flickered inside their plastic column, the darkness jittering around me. I’d just wanted to scare him, to make him pay a little bit for everything he’d done. At least the bad man knew there was someone looking for him now.

  And then almost a minute later, at the edge of my hearing, the phone started to ring.

  * * *

  Mindy met me in my front yard, arms crossed. “You snuck away! That’s not very nice.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hadn’t told her what I was trying to do. I didn’t want her thinking about the bad man, or psychopomps, or any of this. “I had to do something important.”

  “Really?” Her expression softened. “You look sad.”

  “Just tired.” I hadn’t slept in almost two weeks now. Sleep wasn’t a part of me anymore. When I lay on my bed, the darkness behind my eyelids was full of fluttering shadows, my brain full of undreamt dreams.

  Mindy snorted. “Pomps don’t sleep. You should play with me! I’m super bored.”

  I smiled down at her. At times when the fear lifted from her, you could see how happy a child she’d been before the bad man took her.

  “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s go to New York. Like you said.”

  I stared at her. “You want to go see the Chrysler Building? I thought you were afraid of the river.”

  “Well, you want to. And it’s been really nice since you started . . . seeing me.” Her voice went softer. “Like I said, it’s boring around here.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Maybe ghosts could change. Maybe Mindy had just needed to escape from her ghostly invisibility, and she could start to grow again. Maybe she’d just needed a friend.

  “I won’t be scared with you there,” she added. “My own personal psycho-bodyguard. Just don’t leave me alone.”

  “Of course not.” I smiled as her cold little hand closed around mine. “I’ll always bring you home.
”

  * * *

  The River Vaitarna was kind to Mindy on her first voyage. Only a few cold, wet scraps of memory brushed against us, and the trip to New York was swift and calm. Maybe I was getting better at this, or maybe my connection to the Chrysler Building was strong.

  Or so I thought, until we left the river.

  We were in New York City, but the neighborhood was all wrong. Instead of skyscrapers, we were surrounded by apartment buildings and a big department store. Only one tall, curvaceous tower stood before us, wrapped in reflective glass. It took me a moment to recognize it—my father’s building.

  “Whoa,” Mindy said. “You were right. It’s huge!”

  “That isn’t the Chrysler. I think I messed up.”

  She looked at me. “Are you sure? It’s so big.”

  “The Chrysler Building’s, like, five times taller. This is where my dad lives.”

  Mindy gave a disbelieving laugh. She’d never been to New York before, or much of anywhere, I supposed. She’d spent most of the last thirty-five years within a stone’s throw of my mother’s closet.

  “Where are the houses?” she said, looking around. There were piles of gray snow everywhere. The winter up here was ten times colder than back in San Diego, but the flipside air was its usual indifferent cool.

  “They don’t have houses here. New Yorkers live in apartments.” I took her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you one.”

  She pulled me to a halt. “That whole building’s full of people? And they live there?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “That means they die there.” She planted her feet. “There must be tons of ghosts inside!”

  I sighed, wondering if we should just walk up to the Chrysler. But I was curious about why the river had brought us here. Did I have that strong a connection to my father’s apartment? I’d never felt comfortable staying there.

  “Don’t worry, Mindy. They built this place a few years ago. My father only likes new and shiny things.” She still didn’t move, and I scented the air. It was rustier than San Diego, but nothing like the bad man’s house. “Do you see any ghosts?”