by Jenn Burke
I had a vague plan to saddle up Sparky when the sun rose to start exploring. Maybe I could find my way into another realm of the beyond. I didn’t know if it would be better or worse than this one, but it was better than doing nothing.
I flipped on the light in the bedroom and jumped back with a scream while I flung the straw hat I’d retrieved from the porch swing at Michael’s head. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He caught the hat and set it aside. “Waiting for you.”
“That’s not creepy.” I pushed the door wide instead of slamming it like I wanted to. No way was I closing myself in my bedroom with him. At least he wasn’t glitchy anymore. “You couldn’t come see me when I was sitting on the porch?”
Michael brushed his hands over the modern, luxe duvet covering the king-size bed. “So this is where you grew up?”
“Without all the twenty-first-century stuff, obviously, but yeah.” I crossed my arms and leaned on the doorjamb. “Why are you here?”
“I need to tell you not to try to go back on your own.”
I bristled. “I figured that out already, thanks.”
“If you use your magic to tear through the veil, everything you fixed will be undone.”
“I’m not an idiot.” But that effectively killed the small hope I had that I’d guessed wrong. “Why the fuck would anyone want to be a god? If I can’t even use this power—”
“It was different. A long time ago, I mean,” Michael said softly. “So many minor gods and they all had believers. There was no need for the gods to reach into the beyond for power—their worshippers supplied it.”
“What, like they were suctioning power off the people who followed them?”
“Not suctioning, no. It was freely given.”
Good to know, but completely useless. I mean, if the big-G God could barely inspire people to worship Him these days, what chance did I have? I wasn’t even a god of anything.
Michael looked at the bed coverings, tracing the vague pattern left by the stitching. “You and me...we’re completely done, aren’t we?”
The sudden change of topic—and the topic itself—made my breath hitch. “You shot me. You killed me, Michael.”
“You agreed.”
I had agreed. That didn’t make it okay.
“Do you know what it was like to find out that you’d killed yourself weeks later? Well after you were caught?”
“No. I—No.”
I wanted to punch a wall, but I held my clenched fists at my side. “Did you plan to kill me and walk away?”
He jerked his head up. “No. No. I meant—I intended—But you were lying on the floor, bleeding, dead, and I couldn’t move. Then people rushed in the door and—”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth! I swear to god, Wes.”
I stepped away from the door and gestured at it. “Out.”
“But—”
“No. Out. I don’t—” I swallowed hard. “I can’t talk to you right now.”
Michael got up from the bed and walked toward me. I kept my eyes on the floor, unwilling to witness whatever expression he had on his face. I wouldn’t feel guilty, damn it. Not for making him leave, not for accusing him of murder, not for anything.
He paused in front of me. “I’m sorry you thought—”
I couldn’t deal with this. Not now. Maybe not ever. “Get out of my fucking house!” The house shook—hell, it might have been my entire portion of the beyond that resonated with my shout.
He lifted his hands in surrender and disappeared. Why he got to do a vanishing act and I didn’t, I had no idea. Right now, I couldn’t bring myself to care. He was gone.
I let my knees crumple and take me to the floor.
* * *
I dreamed of Hudson.
Not a sexy dream—which I was almost glad for. As much as I missed his touch and his kisses as we made love, I didn’t think I could bear revisiting that while knowing I’d never have it again. No, in my dream, Hudson was pacing. His surroundings were vague shadows, and I couldn’t make out any other people around him, but Hudson himself was clear as day. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes, and I wanted to smooth the skin with my thumbs to erase the signs of fatigue. His hair was mussed and looked greasy, as though he hadn’t showered in a few days, and his stubble was thicker than I’d ever seen it.
He paused in wearing a rut in the floor and said something to someone. I couldn’t hear his voice, but I could sense the force behind his words. He wasn’t happy, if I hadn’t guessed that already from his appearance. I wanted to cup his cheeks, tug until he looked down at me, and press a soft, reassuring, grounding kiss to his lips.
But I couldn’t. Because I wasn’t there.
I awoke with a gasp. My hands covered my face as I tried to rein in the emotions roiling through me—grief, sorrow, loss. I shook with the force of it all and a scream pushed at my lips. I restrained it, then realized it was pointless.
So I let it out.
The scream bounced off the walls and fed back to me all the pain and anguish in my heart. When I stopped, my throat raw, I didn’t feel much better. Just empty.
I got up and dressed, not bothering with a shower, and since my stomach wasn’t insisting I eat anything, I didn’t hunt down breakfast. I popped the straw cowboy hat on my head as I exited the house and headed for the barn.
Saddling Sparky was easier than I thought it would be. My hands and body remembered everything I had to do, so I shut my brain off and carried out the tasks on autopilot. By the time I led him out of the barn and hoisted myself up into the saddle, the sun had risen enough to cast long shadows across the yard. I reflected that it should be chilly, given that it seemed to be early summer—the nights still had the bite of winter at this time of year, as I recalled. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t hot and it wasn’t cold. I was active and awake, but I wasn’t hungry. Hell, I’d used the toilet this morning more out of habit than any real need.
Another reminder that this wasn’t life.
Was it a reward, like I’d sarcastically said to myself yesterday? Or was it a punishment?
With a sigh, I nudged Sparky with my knees and we started our exploration. Like the farm and the barn, the land was the same as I remembered. It looked flat, but I knew that was an illusion—the prairie was actually rolling, with dips and gentle rises. There were no trees, and the air was scented with wild roses, an aroma I’d forgotten I missed. The sun rose slowly and steadily to bake the fields that had started to sprout growth. I expected to feel it burning my skin and making sweat bloom everywhere, but no matter how far it rose into the sky, I stayed pleasantly warm.
I didn’t like it.
I reached the lone tree I’d noted last night at sundown. Its gnarled and twisted trunk was a silent homage to the tenacity required to grow in a place that looked gentle at the moment but could be harsh and unforgiving. On the other side of the slight rise was a tiny creek. Suddenly, I remembered being out here so damned clearly—I’d named the tree Sentinel, since it stood over the creek like a guardian. The flow of water was barely enough to cover my feet back then, and it looked to be about the same now.
I tethered Sparky to the tree, though I suspected there was nothing that could make him run off. I hadn’t seen a single gopher, or hawk, or snake, or anything to prove there was life in this place beyond me and my horse. Or, well, “life.”
If I was going to think deep thoughts, I probably should have stopped to make coffee.
I pulled off my boots and socks and wandered down the slope to the creek. The water should have bit into my skin with sharp, stinging cold, but all I felt was a cool, satiny touch. Refreshing, but not what I wanted. I wanted to feel, damn it. I wanted it to be real. With a sigh, I kicked at the water, then kicked again...and again. A shimmer over the water caught my eye,
and I stopped. A heat illusion? Except it wasn’t that hot. Tentatively, I stuck out my hand toward where I’d seen the distortion—and met a nearly invisible barrier. The air seemed to grow thicker against my fingers, and I suddenly realized that despite seeing the plains stretch until the horizon, this was as far as my bubble of the beyond went. And the harder I shoved against the barrier, the more solid it felt.
So I punched it.
As I sat in the creek, holding my throbbing hand, I conceded it wasn’t the best-thought-out plan, but my anger wouldn’t let me sit still. I jumped to my feet and kicked water at the barrier, yelling. I grabbed handfuls of the stuff to fling at it. Then I moved on to scooping up rocks from the creek bed and threw those at the damned thing, as hard as I could. They connected and fell to the ground, all the energy contained.
“Fuck you!” I screamed at the sky. “Fuck you!”
I didn’t believe in God. Christian, pagan, or otherwise—I had no desire or inclination to follow any sort of organized religion, because it was all bullshit. It was men making up stories to control other people, and I wanted no part of it. So I didn’t believe that there was a greater power, a divine being, who controlled our lives. It made no sense that there would be, because how could a loving God allow the monstrosities he did? Like the murder of Amrita, a ten-year-old girl whose ghost I’d found months ago, still lingering at her burial site? How could he allow her killer to go undiscovered and unpunished? And that was only one example of the unfairness a truly caring divine would prevent. So therefore, one didn’t exist.
But I had a hard time accepting that the universe would bring me and Hudson back together and allow us only a few short months with each other when I thought we’d have centuries. Millennia.
My rage exhausted, I staggered over to the bank and sat down heavily, my knees bent, and my arms draped over them. “Is this a lesson?” I asked the grass between my toes. “Is this what I get for assuming I had forever with him?” I ran a hand through my hair, knocking off the cowboy hat that had stayed put all the way through my tantrum. “It’s not fair.”
That last bit came out petulant and whiny, but fuck it. That’s how I felt. It had finally seemed I was living these past few months—and yeah, I’d made some poor decisions, decisions I regretted, but I’d generally been happier than ever before despite the annoyance of my magic. Hudson and I had been making it work, mostly. We’d been learning how to be a couple again. We’d been building a foundation for our life—with a few cracks, maybe, but we were going to patch those together.
I lay down, reached over my head to grab my hat, and placed it over my face to block out the sun.
I slipped into the dream without knowing I’d fallen asleep. It was of Hudson again—because of course it was. This time, I could make out a little more of his surroundings. He sat at a two-person bar-height table, leaning forward to get close to the person on the other side of it. He looked better than he had in my last dream—his skin was still pallid but he’d shaved and styled his hair. My palm itched to rub his smooth cheek.
I caught a flash of red from the person across from him and realized it was Ren. His hair was as bright as ever. Like in the last dream, I couldn’t hear anything, and the surroundings beyond the table were vague and undefined. But it was easy enough to see the woman who stepped up to their table—she was statuesque, blonde, with her hair caught up in a messy updo, and she wore a skirt and tank top tight enough to advertise her curves. She walked up to Hudson with a smile and tilted her head to the side. I could see the faint evidence of bite marks along her neck, and my gut clenched.
Feeding Hudson was my job.
Except it wasn’t anymore, was it? Clearly I’d been gone longer than I thought, if Hudson was looking for a donor. And what about Evan? Was he surviving on animal blood or had he managed to get over his aversion to the human stuff? I watched disconsolately as the woman clasped Hudson’s hand and led him toward the back of Ren’s bar.
When I woke up, there were tears on my cheeks and Michael was sitting beside me.
“I’m sorry,” he said as I sat up, ready to give him both barrels. I deflated slightly, and he took it as a sign to continue. “I’m sorry. I should never have made that decision for you. I should never have pulled the trigger. If you couldn’t do it, you couldn’t do it. I shouldn’t have.”
Amazing how you could go eighty years and not know how badly you needed something. Michael’s apology filled cracks in my chest I hadn’t even realized were there.
“I’m sorry I was too cowardly to face punishment for what I did,” Michael went on. “I’m sorry I ruined all the wonderful memories we’d made together. I wasn’t strong enough to live without you, and I wasn’t strong enough to live with you.”
“I loved you.” I didn’t know what else to say—didn’t know if that would help or hurt. “I honestly did. Or I thought I did,” I corrected gently. “After meeting Hudson—”
“I understand.” He brushed at his face, trying to clear away the evidence of his tears. “I think if what we had was—was real, or more real or—I don’t know. I think maybe I would have been brave enough to carry through on our dreams.”
“Or maybe not.” I offered him a sad smile. “It was a different time. I don’t know if I was brave enough. Maybe that’s why your plan appealed.”
“Forgive me, Wes. Please.”
A shitty, vindictive part of me wanted to say no. He’d ended my life. Without his sister bringing me back, I’d be well into whatever afterlife had once awaited me. My existence had been irrevocably changed.
But because of him, I’d met Hudson. I’d seen so many amazing things—and not just magical ones. I’d seen the first man walk on the moon. Computers—first room-sized ones, then ones that could fit in your pocket. Self-driving cars. Things were changing, some for the better, some for the worse, and god—I was going to miss the chance to witness it all.
Michael should be experiencing that, not living in this purgatory with me.
“I forgive you.”
He crumpled in on himself, crying again, and I scooted over to him to awkwardly hug his shaking shoulders. I didn’t say anything for a long time, but simply let him cry it out. It struck me that he had been caught in the past as much as I had, needing absolution that he couldn’t get until now.
When his sobs subsided, I asked, “Is reincarnation a thing?”
He looked up, blinking. His eyelashes were stuck together in clumps and his eyes were red-rimmed. “I—I don’t know.”
“I hope it is. You should be living in this age. There’s so much more freedom and acceptance—and no, it’s not perfect by any means, but men can marry men now, Michael. In Canada, at least. A few other places too. They can adopt children and be fathers. They don’t have to live in the closet and they don’t have to marry women they don’t want to marry for the sake of image. I want you to experience that. I want you to live that.”
“But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’d be here all alone.”
Oh yeah. That. I summoned up another smile from somewhere, an expression I didn’t feel. “Don’t worry about me. I can experiment with making this what I want it to be.”
“I don’t want you to be lonely.”
“I’ve got Sparky.”
“Wes—”
“I’ll be okay. I had my second chance. You deserve yours.”
Michael grabbed a spear of grass and twirled it in his fingers. “What if reincarnation isn’t a thing?”
“I get the sense that the beyond has room for all sorts of theologies.” Or else I’d be shoved in someone else’s idea of heaven. Or maybe this was my hell. Who knew? “So if you want reincarnation to be a thing, maybe it can be.”
“That easy, huh?”
“Probably not, but isn’t it worth a try?”
He huffed out a laug
h and shook his head.
I grabbed his hand. “Live a good long life this time, okay? Find happiness.”
The smile he gave me was tremulous. “Thank you, Wes.”
And he was gone.
I let my hand fall back to my lap and stared at the space where Michael had been. I hoped he’d find a new life, a better life, for himself. One with fewer mistakes.
I pushed myself to my feet and brushed grass off my pants. Up by the tree, Sparky nickered. The sky overhead remained cloudless and birdless, but the soft, dancing breeze kept the tableau from feeling too stagnant.
A whisper drifted by on the edge of my hearing.
I spun around, but I saw only what had already been there—the brook, the tree and horse, the rolling prairie and new grasses. “Hello?” I called.
I waited, keeping my breath shallow so I wouldn’t miss a response, but none came.
Shaking my head, I started in Sparky’s direction, only to have the whisper halt my feet again. It teased my senses, but it wasn’t loud enough to differentiate words—if even it was words. Maybe I had dreamed up a bird with a weird call, what with my thinking about the lack of birds in the sky. That had to be it.
I was reaching for Sparky’s reins when I heard another sound. Or...felt it. It was a rumble in my chest, a growl in the air. I looked around and it took me a minute to find what seemed to be the source—a disturbance in the middle of the creek where I’d fought with the barrier between my bubble of the beyond and the rest of it.
My heart leaped, full of hope. Had whoever—whatever—governed the beyond heard my cursing? Okay, that thought was a little scary, but maybe I’d be able to plead my case. I could be charming and convincing when I wanted to be.
Or—an even better thought—maybe Hudson had found a way to reach through and pull me out?