Afterworlds

by Scott Westerfeld

  “No, it wasn’t him. It was just . . .” I didn’t want to say his name. I didn’t want to think it. “Just some pomp. He’s gone now.”

  But I still had no idea why the old man had disappeared, or if he was coming back. So I stood and took Mindy’s hand.

  “Let’s go home. We’ll be safe there.”

  She nodded, her hand small and cold in mine, and let me take her down into the river.

  * * *

  When we came up into my bedroom, I peered through my open door into the kitchen. My mother wasn’t there, and the pot of water hadn’t boiled over yet.

  I wondered how long I’d been away. Those minutes in the basement had seemed like ages.

  “I have to go make dinner,” I whispered. “But you can watch if you want.”

  “It’s okay. I’m going to Anna’s closet.”

  I nodded, letting myself slip across into the real world. With my heart beating so hard, it was instantaneous. Colors bled into my room, and the smell of rust and blood faded from my nostrils.

  Mindy still stood there, looking up at me.

  “I’ll never let that happen again,” I said softly. “I promise.”

  “You can’t promise.”

  “Mindy . . . ,” I began, starting to explain that she was safe from Mr. Hamlyn, who didn’t want little girls like her. But she was right—there were other bad men, old and young, living and dead and some halfway between. Too many to make promises.

  “But you came and saved me.” Mindy stood on her tiptoes, and gave me a real hug this time, her cold arms tight around me. “That’s what matters.”

  I heard the sound of my mother coming down the hall. But I let Mindy stay wrapped around me even as I heard the hiss and sputter of the pot boiling over in the kitchen, my mother’s arrival in the kitchen, and her annoyance that I’d left the water to burn.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE TOUR CONTINUED FOR SIX more days—intense and insane, unreal and unforgettable. The pendulum swung from the boundless energy of public events to the muted stasis of airports and hotel lobbies. From exhilaration to exhaustion, from the heights of human connectedness to sitting in traffic jams.

  But then it was over, and Darcy and Imogen found themselves at Chicago O’Hare saying good-bye to Stanley Anderson. It was as heart-shredding as the tearful end of summer camp, and as they walked down the jet bridge, Imogen said to Darcy, “The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity, but separation from one’s new book-tour buddies is unbearable.”

  The plane urged itself into the air and back to New York City, where Imogen and Darcy fell into bed for several days, the echoes of a thousand zealous readers in their ears. Before long they were back to work, because there was a new ending of Afterworlds to write, and both Phobomancer and Untitled Patel to begin at last.

  * * *

  “This is your worst idea ever,” Darcy said.

  “Research!” said Imogen, walking around to the back of the rental car. She squeezed the key fob in her hand, and with an obedient beep, the trunk popped open. “That’s weird. I don’t even know what to call this thing.”

  Darcy crossed her arms against the early November chill. “It’s called the trunk. Duh.”

  “No, this.” Imogen opened the trunk a little wider, then closed it halfway again. “This thing in my hand, the thing that moves. Is it the door to the trunk? The hatch?”

  Darcy realized she had no idea. Writing often did that—made her aware of all the different parts of things, and how many words she didn’t know. “Great question. Let’s go home and google it.”

  “Very funny.” Imogen zipped up her leather jacket. “I’ll look it up while you’re driving around. My phone should work in there, right?”

  “We’re not going anywhere with you in the trunk! I haven’t driven since I left Philly!”

  “Bad driving is good. The guy who kidnaps Clarabella is drunk, remember?”

  “Bad driving is not good! I mean, do you want me to tie your hands behind your back too? We might as well go all the way.”

  After a moment’s thought, Imogen shrugged. “Didn’t bring any rope.”

  “Can’t you find someone else? At least if they kill you it won’t be my fault.”

  Imogen smiled. “It’s your fault anyway, because you stole my closet scene.”

  This statement was true enough to silence Darcy. If Phobomancer still began with Clarabella stuck in a closet, Imogen could have researched the scene safely at home.

  For two months now, she’d been complaining that her opening lacked realness, because she’d never been locked in a trunk. So tonight she’d lured Darcy out into the mid-November cold with the promise of a new twenty-four-hour ramen place. It had all been a ruse.

  “What if I have a wreck?”

  Imogen shrugged. “Just go slow. It’s safer in a trunk at twenty miles per hour than in the passenger seat at fifty-five.”

  “You’re just making that up.”

  “Yeah, but I thought it sounded pretty good.”

  Darcy let out a groan. Imogen would not be dissuaded by personal danger. This was a woman who’d climbed buildings at college, and who still rode on the shifting platforms between cars when the subway was too crowded. Darcy had only one card left to play. “If we get into a wreck and you die, they’ll arrest me for kidnapping. Probably murder!”

  “Nope. I left a video explaining the whole thing on my laptop. You won’t get worse than involuntary manslaughter.”

  Darcy hesitated. “Does this mean I get to look in your computer if you die?”

  “Only the video folder! If you so much as peek in my diary, I will haunt your dreams.”

  With these words Imogen climbed into the trunk, and Darcy was forced to come around to the back of the car. It was one of those roving rentals that occupied special parking places on the street. Imogen had unlocked it with her phone and found the keys waiting in the glove compartment. The whole process had been dangerously efficient, too swift for the brakes of sanity to take hold.

  Imogen was curled around the laughably small spare tire, her neck at an angle that already looked broken.

  “Maybe I should have gotten a sedan.”

  “Imogen. Do not do this. Please.”

  “Wouldn’t be so bad if this jack wasn’t jammed into my spine.”

  “I am not helping you kill yourself!” Darcy shouted. A man walking a large black dog glanced at her from across the street. The dog looked intrigued, but the man only turned away and coaxed it back into motion.

  “Just a few miles. Ten minutes in here is all I need.”

  “I refuse,” Darcy said. “I was promised noodles.”

  Imogen shrugged, or at least tried to in the confines of the trunk. “So you want me to ask the next person who walks by? It’s three a.m., the hour of weirdos. I’m sure I can find someone who’d be into driving a stranger around in a trunk.”

  Darcy stared at her. “I can’t believe you.”

  “And I can’t believe how long I’ve banged my head against this scene!” Imogen unwound herself from around the spare tire, managing to kneel. “And it has to be perfect. If this book isn’t fucking amazing from page one, Paradox won’t publish it!”

  “What do you mean? They bought the whole trilogy.”

  “They can still cancel the rest of the contract.” Imogen slumped a little. “I got a call from my agent today. Pyromancer’s tanking.”

  “That’s crazy, Gen. I saw you sign hundreds of copies.”

  “Yeah, there was a spike while we were on tour. But it’s not selling at the chains, or anywhere else. They have two months of data now, and everyone’s freaking out. My agent was at this big meeting at Paradox on Monday, with blame flying in all directions—too much red on the cover, the weird title, the mention of cigarettes on page one.” Imogen let out a sigh. “And of course the girls who like girls.”

  “That one kiss?”

  “And the famous dribble of candle wax. But it doesn’t matte
r where they put the blame. The book’s in trouble, which means the series is in trouble!”

  Darcy shook her head. “But the middle book, whatever you call it, comes out next. Phobomancer doesn’t come out for two years. By then, everyone will have realized how awesome you are!”

  “I don’t have two years. My agent wants me to give Nan a first draft in a few months, a really solid one, to show her what she’s fighting for.” Imogen gripped the front edge of the trunk. “And I’d be doing this anyway. This is where Clarabella starts to control her phobias.”

  Darcy stood there, unbelieving. All those booksellers and librarians, all those Standerson fans—they’d all loved Imogen. Since then, at least fifty rave reviews of Pyromancer had appeared online, and another half dozen in actual printed magazines and journals. Two of them with little stars beside them!

  What more had Paradox been expecting?

  “Okay,” Darcy said. “I’ll do it.”

  Imogen’s smile lit up the darkness beneath the trunk door, or hatch, or whatever it was called. She tossed Darcy the keys and curled up again.

  “Watch out for bumps.”

  “I’ll watch out for everything.” A slow, deep breath. “You ready?”

  Imogen gave her a thumbs-up, and Darcy softly closed the trunk. She walked to the front of the car, wondering if anyone had been watching from an apartment window above. They must have thought this the world’s oddest abduction.

  Darcy sat for a moment in the driver’s seat. The car was much smaller than anything she’d driven before. Her parents always said that big was safe. Though, as Nisha liked to point out, what they meant was safe for the Patels and not the other people on the road. But with her girlfriend curled up in the trunk, Darcy would have been happy with that kind of safe.

  The pedals seemed too far away, but the driver’s seat wouldn’t budge. She gave up and started the car, then guided it forward at crawling speed.

  It was strange seeing the city from the front seat instead of the back of a cab. Even stranger, driving evoked memories of high school. Her mind flashed back to senior year, to drunken passengers and arguments over radio stations. To making people hold their cigarettes out the window, and her father checking the odometer when she got home. To Nisha demanding trips to the mall, because with great automotive power came great sisterly responsibility. Darcy wanted to turn to Imogen and tell her everything.

  But Imogen, of course, was in the trunk.

  “Can you hear me?” Darcy shouted.

  There might have been a thump from the back. But had it been an answer? Or was it just the death flailings of carbon monoxide poisoning?

  At the next red light, Darcy pulled her phone from a jacket pocket. But as she brought up Imogen’s number, she noticed a car in the rearview mirror.

  A police car.

  “Oh, crap,” Darcy muttered.

  The police had no reason to stop her and search the trunk, of course. She’d hardly gone above fifteen miles an hour. Could they pull you over for driving too slow?

  Of course, making calls while driving was illegal. Darcy placed her phone on the passenger seat and stared straight ahead—the model driver.

  Then she realized that the traffic light had turned green. How many seconds ago had that happened?

  Darcy eased the tiny rental forward. The police car followed.

  “Okay, going a little faster now,” she murmured. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as she increased her speed to twenty-five. What was the speed limit in the city, anyway? She’d never seen any signs. Did everyone just know?

  The police car was still behind her. Not passing, not turning off.

  Imogen hadn’t foreseen this little problem with driving around in the middle of the night—there were no other cars. Darcy was a lonely and obvious target for law enforcement.

  “Crap, crap crap,” she muttered.

  A thump shook the car. It had come from inside. . . .

  “What is it?” she yelled.

  No answer. Darcy’s eyes darted down to her phone. Nothing.

  “Are you okay?” she screamed as loudly as she could. “For fuck’s sake, call me!”

  But she didn’t dare stop. The police car was right behind her, lurking and watching, and the wide lanes of Delancey Street were looming ahead. Darcy turned right, because right was easier.

  The police car followed.

  “Fuck!” she screamed, banging on the steering wheel. Another bump from behind the backseat came in answer. Why was Imogen signaling?

  With a massive effort of will, Darcy pulled one white-knuckled hand from the wheel and grabbed her phone. She held it low, touching Imogen’s name and turning on the speaker, then dropped it into her lap.

  “Dude!” Imogen’s voice answered. “It’s called a lid.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just googled that thing that goes over a trunk. It’s called a trunk lid. Pretty stupid, right?”

  “Why are you bumping the backseat?” Darcy screamed.

  “Research! I wanted to know if you could hear me over the engine.”

  “I thought you were dying!”

  “Seriously? Relax.”

  “There’s a cop car right behind me!” But as Darcy cried out the words, a presence loomed on her left. The police car had pulled up beside her, and the officer in the passenger seat was watching her yelling to herself.

  Darcy stared back at him, wide-eyed and terrified.

  Imogen’s laughter filled the car. “Awesome.”

  “Shut up!” Darcy hissed through her teeth.

  The officer gave her a slight roll of his eyes, and the car pulled ahead. Darcy kept the steering wheel in a death grip, driving straight until the police car turned off an endless mile later, disappearing back toward Chinatown.

  A sigh escaped her. “Okay, they’re gone.”

  “Good. I think this is all the research I can stand for one night.”

  “Great. Except . . .” Darcy stared ahead. Rising up before her was the Williamsburg Bridge, massive and inescapable, thanks to a row of orange traffic barrels to her right. “I think we’re going to Brooklyn.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, not really.”

  The tiny car was already climbing the slope of the bridge, and Darcy saw a pair of headlights approaching fast from behind. She accelerated, trying to match their pace. She was up to fifty miles an hour when the other car shot past.

  “Dude,” came Imogen’s voice. “This feels like serious speed. Would you not?”

  “No choice!” Darcy cried. “Matching traffic!”

  The bridge was carrying her up, lofting her as high as the towers of Brooklyn ahead. The car that had passed sped off into the distance, and the sky flickered around her through a grid of suspension cables. For a moment Darcy found herself alone at the bridge’s midway point, suspended above the glistening river.

  It was really quite beautiful.

  “I’m sorry your book isn’t selling,” she said softly.

  She wasn’t certain if Imogen had heard, but then a sigh came through the phone. “I know, right?”

  “Why Paradox is freaking out already? It’s only been two months.”

  “Because if this book doesn’t sell, stores won’t order my next one. Which still doesn’t have a decent title.”

  For the millionth time, Darcy racked her brain for a better name than Cat-o-mancer. She wanted so much to help. “I’m sorry I stole your scene.”

  “Don’t worry,” Imogen said with a laugh. “It’s way more interesting back here than in a closet.”

  Darcy allowed herself to smile. Maybe she had managed to help a little, and at least she hadn’t killed Imogen tonight.

  “We’re almost across. I’ll pull over the first place I see.”

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “You’re thanking me?” Darcy asked. “Like you didn’t make me do it?”

  “Did I put a gun to your head?”

  “
You threatened to use some random stranger! That’s emotional blackmail!”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Yeah, right.” At last an exit had appeared, and Darcy slowed and drifted into the exit lane. A moment later, she was on a quiet street with wide sidewalks and shop fronts covered with roller doors. She brought the car to a halt and turned off the engine, then took a moment to flex the sore muscles of her hands, breathing deep and slow. Her whole body was a snarl of anxious tendons.

  “Feel free to let me out anytime,” announced her phone. “It’s cold back here.”

  “Coming!” Darcy got out and went around to the back of the car. She scanned the pictograms on the key remote, then squeezed.

  The trunk popped open.

  “Fuck a duck,” Imogen said, kicking the lid up with a booted foot. She uncurled herself and sat there for a moment, cracking her neck.

  “You okay?” Darcy asked.

  “It’s just a crick. You didn’t kill me.”

  As Imogen stood, Darcy stepped into her arms, needing the realness of her, the softness and the muscle beneath the leather jacket. “No, but I missed you.”

  When they pulled apart, Darcy realized that the street wasn’t completely empty. Two guys in fedoras sat on a stoop nearby, and a young woman was skateboarding past. All three were staring.

  “Never seen anyone get out of a trunk before?” Imogen muttered.

  Darcy just giggled and handed her the keys.

  * * *

  They drove the car back to the same parking space, and Imogen did phone magic to return it to communal use. Then she announced something wonderful. . . .

  There really was a new twenty-four-hour ramen place nearby.

  She led Darcy around a corner, down an alley, and up a half flight of stairs. This late, the restaurant’s rough wooden tables were empty except for a Japanese-speaking foursome on a very giggly double date. In the corner was a plastic good-luck cat as tall as a parking meter, tirelessly waving its paw.

  Darcy ordered pork ramen with boiled eggs and bamboo shoots, and a beer to calm her frazzled nerves.

  “Thanks for tonight,” Imogen said when the waiter had left.

  “It was fun, I guess. Once it was over.”