The Edge of Over There

by Shawn Smucker

  © 2018 by Shawn Smucker

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1399-7

  Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  To Mom and Dad.

  Thank you for all the books.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part 1: An Unexpected Visitor

  1 Samuel

  2

  Part 2: Ruby’s Disappearance

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Part 3: The Curtain

  10 Samuel

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  Part 4: Into the Grave of Marie Laveau

  16

  17

  18

  19

  Part 5: Through Doors We Should Not Open

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Part 6: There Is a River

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Part 7: The Tip of the Blade

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  Epilogue

  45 Samuel

  An Excerpt of The Day the Angels Fell

  Notes

  About the Author

  Books by Shawn Smucker

  Back Cover

  MARIE LAVEAU—Marie Laveau is a prominent person in American folklore, yet her history lies in shadow. Rumor has it she was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1794, her father a white planter, her mother a black woman. Her death was announced in the New Orleans newspapers on June 16, 1881, which is of great interest considering she continued to be spotted in the town long after her supposed death. She was laid to rest in the Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans.1

  THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GATES—According to legend, there are seven gates through which souls can travel to the afterlife. Each continent has its own gate: Africa’s gate lies under the paw of the sphinx; Asia’s gate is near the Temple Mount; Europe’s gate lies at the Père Lachaise Paris Cemetery; South America’s gate is hidden beneath the Christ the Redeemer statue; Antarctica’s gate sits at the South Pole; Australia’s gate is in the vicinity of the Rookwood Cemetery; and North America’s gate is situated at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, inside the grave of Marie Laveau.

  THE TREE OF LIFE—There is a famous oak tree in Audubon Park in New Orleans that has received the nickname “The Tree of Life.” It is a rather famous oak, having been registered with the Live Oak Society and officially named the Etienne de Boré oak. The tree’s circumference is just under thirty-five feet and was number 13 on Dr. Edwin Lewis Stephens’s list of forty-three original inductee trees into the Live Oak Society. A tree this size could possibly be five hundred years of age or older.2

  Prologue

  ABRA COULD ALMOST FEEL THE RAIN, even though it was only a dream. She was surrounded by leaves and branches. The drops clattered down through them, all around her. That’s when she realized she was up in a tree, up in its highest branches, and immediately she was afraid. She clung to the branch she was on, a branch much too thin to hold her. It broke, and she fell. She grabbed for anything she could hold on to, finding another thin branch. She dangled there, looking down between her feet at the ground far below.

  She watched a huge wolf-like creature pick up a small girl in its jaws and toss her aside. She watched as a boy grabbed on to a small sword, cried out in pain before swinging it again and again. She watched as the sword found its mark and the huge animal listed to the side like a boat preparing to sink. When the creature fell, the boy collapsed.

  She twisted and turned where she hung from the branch, wondering if the girl was okay. Wondering where she was. That’s when she saw a streak of light, and a man, or something in the shape of a man, knelt beside the girl. He put his hands on her head and closed his eyes, and Abra knew, in the way that you can know something in a dream, that the man was bringing the girl back to life. Or calling her back from wherever it was her soul was heading.

  Suddenly she could hear through the girl’s ears. She was still dangling there in the air; she was still feeling the soft patter of rain on her head and bare arms, the drops tickling her face; she could still feel the thin branch slipping ever so slowly from her grasp. But for some reason her hearing was now the girl’s hearing, and she heard the man whisper.

  “Abra, this is very important. I have a few things I need to tell you . . .”

  But as the Abra hanging from the tree realized the girl on the ground was her, and as she thought she was going to hear something very important, her fingers slipped from the branch.

  I should have hit the ground by now, she thought. She looked down. The ground was rushing at her, and she caught her breath.

  Abra woke in the hospital bed and took a long breath, trying to calm herself. There is a kind of silence only experienced in hospitals in the middle of the night. It is never a complete silence—there is always the beeping of empty IV bags, the humming of air conditioners, the rolling of wheels over waxed tiles. But in between all of those noises is a kind of medicated silence, a waiting to see what will come next. At night, a hospital holds its breath.

  A nurse crept in and out of Abra’s room, and she pretended to be asleep, but her heart pounded and her eyes twitched under their closed lids.

  It was just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream.

  But something had brought her out of her sleep, she was sure of it—some sound. Someone who needed her. She heard it again: a whimper, or a quiet gasp. Was it coming through the ceiling? Was it slinking through the air ducts?

  Was it Sam?

  The nurse walked out into the hall, and the door latched behind her. Abra’s eyes flicked open. She looked around, but that’s also when the pain returned, a deep ache from the center of her abdomen, a pain that radiated out to her ribs, her pelvis, her neck, her legs. Her foot throbbed. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and wrapped her right arm gingerly around her stomach, trying to hold every painful thing in place. Her pain medication was wearing off.

  The space where her father had been sitting, the small armchair in the corner of the room, was empty. There was still the impression of him in the cushion. Maybe he had gone looking for her mother. Maybe he had gone on yet anot
her search for a decent cup of coffee. In any case, he was gone, and Abra was alone.

  She lifted her legs and turned until she sat on the edge of the bed. She listened, and again she thought she heard it. The sound came from far away, but it drew her, even through her pain. She glanced longingly at her pillow. Maybe she should stretch out on the bed again, go back to sleep.

  But what if Sam needs me?

  She carefully placed her feet on the cold tiles and leaned forward, sliding off the bed. Oh, the pain! With each fragile step, the traction strips on the bottom of her hospital socks made a barely audible peeling sound on the floor, like a Band-Aid pulling away. She was attached at the back of her hand to an IV that in turn was attached to two bags holding clear liquid, both hanging from a sort of coatrack on wheels. She pulled it along beside her as she walked, and the wheels squeaked a rhythm. It was the middle of the night, and her hospital room was dark.

  The door that led from her room to the main hallway was a heavy wooden door with a metal push bar on the inside. She leaned slowly against the bar, gritting her teeth at the loud sound the bolt made when it opened, but no one seemed to have heard. She peeked through the crack in the door toward the nurse’s station. The on-duty nurses were occupied. She didn’t see anyone, so she crept into the hallway and snuck toward the elevator.

  The doors opened. She slipped inside. The doors closed. She pressed number 4.

  Inside the elevator, she lifted her hands to her face, feeling the tug of the IV. Her skin still smelled of smoke from the fire she and Sam had barely escaped. She grimaced at the strong odor, wondering what it would take to wash away the memory of what had happened only that morning. Could it be not even an entire day had passed?

  The Amarok.

  Mr. Tennin, falling.

  Mr. Jinn’s leering words.

  She shivered and pulled the garment closer around her body, realizing even it smelled of smoke. She had to see Sam. She had to make sure he was okay. She had to talk with him about what had happened, if only to assure herself it hadn’t been a dream. For a moment, she thought the elevator doors would open to the psychiatric ward of some faraway hospital—maybe everything had been a series of hallucinations, and now they were trying to treat her as she teetered on the edge of insanity.

  The pain again. It raced through her body, and with it memories she could not have made up. She recalled being shaken in the mouth of the Amarok, feeling like a rag doll. For one brief instant, she recalled the breaking of her own bones, and she almost cried out right there in the elevator, the pain escaping from her in tiny, wordless whimpers. But there was another memory hidden, a memory of healing she could only find traces of. Was it just a dream, or had Mr. Tennin brought her back from some deep place?

  She shivered again. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out, fully prepared to be questioned by a nurse, reprimanded, and sent back to her room. But it was another empty floor. It was late at night, but it still seemed like there should have been patients walking around. Why was it so quiet? Where were all the nurses and doctors?

  She didn’t know exactly which room Sam was in—only that he had been placed on the fourth floor because of the burns on his hands. She looked down at her own hands, smelling them again. The smoke. The weight of the blade as she had lifted it. The way it had picked up speed as it had flown toward Mr. Jinn. How was it possible? How could she have even thrown the sword that far?

  The shiver went through her body again, and it felt like shock setting in. She stopped, wishing the wheels of her cart weren’t so loud. She lifted the clear bags off of where they hung and carried them, one in each hand, and left the cart behind. The bags were heavy and slippery and warm. Now she could move without making a sound.

  She went from room to room, carefully peeking inside each one, hoping to find Sam. She wasn’t sure what she would say if she found him. What was there to say? Confirmation, that’s what she thought she was looking for. Friendship too. The old friendship. For the first time since they emerged from the burning forest, she thought of Sam’s mother. She felt tears gathering.

  Abra looked in the next room and retreated quickly, putting her back against the wall. Sam was in the room. But there was someone else. A nurse, maybe. Or a doctor.

  She looked again, trying to stay out of sight. The woman standing there was dressed like an employee of the hospital. Except for her shoes. Most of the nurses wore white tennis shoes, and this woman had on shiny black heels. And her hair wasn’t up in a bun or a ponytail but instead fell down around her shoulders. She was asking Sam questions, but Abra couldn’t hear the words. Sam was sitting up, his back off the bed.

  He shook his head. He said something. He shook his head again.

  Abra gasped and looked closer. Was that Sam’s mom? It couldn’t be. Unless . . . Had the Tree of Life somehow brought her back? From behind, even from the side, the woman looked exactly like Lucy Chambers. But Sam slid backward, farther up his bed and away from the woman. He looked terrified. Abra knew in that instant it was most definitely not Sam’s mom.

  Abra was about to go in and interrupt whatever was going on, but something terrible kept her at bay. The woman carried a darkness about her, not tangible, but it gave Abra the shivers. She looked up and down the hall, suddenly hoping for a nurse to appear. Where was everyone? Where was someone who could intervene?

  She watched as the woman walked around to the head of Sam’s bed and bent down, her face close to his. Abra knew for sure this was no nurse, and just as she was about to go in or shout for help, the woman straightened up. She turned to walk toward the door.

  Toward Abra.

  Abra shuffled as quickly as her painful body would allow, slipping behind the open door to Sam’s room. There was just enough space for her there if she straightened her shoulders, if she pressed herself against the cold wall. Pain radiated out again from her center, and she bit her bottom lip so hard it bled. A tear ran down her cheek. She knew she could not let this woman see her. Somehow, she knew this.

  Through the wide crack in the open door, Abra saw the woman stop and stand in the doorway. She looked up and down the hall, apparently trying to decide which way to go. She was about to walk away when she stopped again, suddenly tense, looking this way and that. Then the woman did something strange, something Abra wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t seen it.

  The woman tilted her nose into the air, closed her eyes, and sniffed. Like a dog that has caught the scent of its prey.

  Abra held her breath. The woman stepped away from the doorway, and Abra couldn’t see her anymore. Which way had she gone? Was she about to swing the door away from the wall and reveal Abra?

  But she walked in the other direction, away from Abra. As she left, Abra could hear her humming a tune, something she didn’t recognize, a few simple notes that for some reason filled Abra with dread and fear and a kind of darkness she couldn’t understand or explain.

  And then the woman was gone.

  Abra crept out from behind the door and peeked into the room. Sam was asleep. That seemed fast. But she knew if she was in a bed right now, she’d fall asleep in three seconds flat. She considered going over, waking him, asking him all the questions she wanted to ask, but her pain had begun radiating without end, and it was exhausting. Besides, he looked so peaceful lying there. She knew he needed the rest. They both did. There was always tomorrow.

  Another thought entered Abra’s brain, one that eclipsed her concerns for Sam, her worries for herself, even the physical pain. The sword! The sword was still in her room! What if the woman had gone looking for it?

  She hobbled as quickly as she could down the hallway, still holding the two IV bags with their clear liquid. She put them back on the cart and kept going. The pain was searing through her with each step, but all she could think about now was the sword tucked in her bag of possessions, the sword that somehow everyone had overlooked. She was beginning to realize it could hide itself when it wanted to—it could blend in, become l
ike a seam in her jeans or a shadow in the corner. But if the woman was looking for it, would she see it?

  The floor came alive just as Abra slipped into the elevator. Nurses walked the halls again, a patient wandered to the water fountain, a doctor stood in the corner staring at charts. Abra found it odd—it was like someone had flipped a switch, waking the hospital up again from some kind of unnatural sleep.

  That woman did it, she thought. Somehow that woman made everything stop.

  She pushed the number 2 in the elevator and willed it to move quickly.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Abra whispered. Ding. The elevator stopped at level 3. The doors opened. Abra tried to look confident, like she was on the way to somewhere she was supposed to be.

  A nurse came in and gave her a strange look. “It’s late, honey,” she said in a kind voice. “You shouldn’t be wandering around at this hour.”

  Abra nodded, tried to smile, but what she saw next made her eyes open wide. She could feel an old fear jolting through her in pulsing waves.

  Behind the nurse, also entering the elevator, was the strange woman from Sam’s room. She stared hard at Abra, her eyes narrowing down to slits. Then she smiled, a slight, subtle smile filled with satisfaction. She crossed her arms. She glanced at the lit-up number 2 on the elevator panel.

  Ding.

  The nurse walked out.

  Abra followed her.

  The strange woman followed Abra.

  Abra limped down the hall, looking over her shoulder. The woman wandered behind her, staying a fair ways back.

  The pain! It shot through Abra like knives. She would get to her bed and hit the red button to call a nurse. They would save her from whatever this woman wanted.

  Abra turned to go into her room, but the strange woman grabbed her shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a quiet, hissing voice.

  Abra didn’t turn to look at her. The woman’s hands were ice-cold, a new kind of pain.

  “I think you have something I’m looking for.”

  Abra didn’t move. She wanted to cry out, to call for help. The pain from her injuries was so intense that a blackness encroached on the corners of her eyesight. She was about to pass out. The room began to spin.