by Kit Alloway
“Who’s Snitch?” Winsor asked.
“He’s a bad guy,” Whim told his sister. “Very mean to animals. But you don’t have to worry about him.”
Winsor frowned beneath her new cat-eye glasses. “Then why do you all look so scared?”
“You know how much Del loves animals,” Whim said.
Winsor had spent five months in a coma while her soul was trapped in a gas canister. Josh, Whim, and Feodor had managed to put her soul back into her body, but tests revealed that she’d suffered a traumatic brain injury. While her body struggled to build muscle that had wasted away as she lay in bed for five months, her mind was struggling to relearn the interpretation of brain signals. She was irritable, confused, and—Will secretly thought—frightened.
Will wouldn’t have tried to sell Winsor a lie in that situation, but she was Whim’s sister, not his.
On television, a reporter was standing outside a three-story brick building, speaking to another woman in a blue business suit.
“—kind of security measures exist here, warden?”
“You have to understand,” the warden said, “that almost the entire prisoner population is here for nonviolent crimes such as staging abuse, secrecy violations, and embezzlement. This facility was never intended to house offenders with the kind of violent tendencies Geoff Simbar displayed. We did our best—”
The reporter interrupted. “Are you saying that it’s the prison’s fault he escaped?”
“Geoff Simbar?” Winsor asked, as if the name rang a bell.
“I’m saying that we repeatedly informed the junta that this facility was insufficient to ensure that Mr. Simbar remained contained, and they provided no help.”
“What do we do?” Deloise asked, twisting her hands together. “Do you think he’ll come here?”
“He has no reason to come back here,” Will said, although he didn’t know if that was true. “Where’s Josh?”
“Not here,” Whim said.
“I’ll try her at Feodor’s,” Deloise offered, pulling out her phone.
Will watched the television while Deloise called. DWTV played the same clips over and over—a hole torn in an apartment ceiling, shingles and insulation all over the floor, a shot over the edge of the building showing the three-story drop.
“How did he drop that far and not break his legs?” Whim asked.
Will remembered how strong Snitch had been. Without his human soul, he’d barely responded to physical pain.
Will watched clips of gendarmes with flashlights marching through the woods around the brick building, scent hounds on leashes, a warning for dream walkers not to confront Snitch on their own.
Deloise hung up. “Josh wasn’t there, but Feodor said Snitch wouldn’t come here—”
The doorbell rang.
Deloise grabbed Will’s arm, digging her French manicure into his skin. Whim released a little scream and spun to look at the hallway door.
“Be quiet,” Winsor told her brother. “Screaming hurts my head.”
“Del, Will, with me,” Whim said, and they followed him into the foyer just the way they would have followed him into a nightmare. Will and Deloise fell into fighting stances, and Whim counted with his fingers before yanking the door open.
The guy standing on the porch was not Snitch. In fact, Will didn’t recognize him at all. College-age, he had sandy blond hair, and although he was frail and leaned heavily on a walker, his build suggested he could have been an athlete.
Or maybe had been, once.
A young woman accompanied him, obviously concerned about his ability to walk. In her, the athleticism was more pronounced, and she was dressed in a soccer jersey.
“You!” Whim said accusingly, at the same moment the stranger shouted, “Winsor!” His voice was rough and desperate. “Winsor!”
“I told you to leave her alone!” Whim said, and he tried to slam the door shut. The stranger attempted to slide through the door before it closed, but his knees buckled and he ended up on all fours, the front half of his body inside the foyer and the back half on the porch.
“You can’t shut me out forever!” the stranger cried. “You have to talk to me!”
“Whim!” Deloise cried. “You’re going to cut him in half!”
“This is the guy I told you about, the one we had to ban from the rehab center.”
“Winsor!” the guy yelled. “Please, talk to me!”
Deloise pulled the door open, and the guy collapsed on the foyer floor.
“Oh my God,” the young woman with him said, kneeling down. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea—”
“I can’t go on like this!” the guy told her. “I can’t!”
“I know,” she said. She tried to help him up, but he only stumbled farther into the house, and Will had to catch him when he fell again.
“Winsor!” the guy gasped, and Will turned his head to see Winsor sitting in her chair in the living room doorway.
“Winsor, do you know this guy?” Will asked.
Winsor trembled for a moment, then shook her head.
“You’re lying!” the guy shouted, flailing in Will’s arms. “Why are you lying? I know you remember me! Why are you lying?”
“You two need to leave,” Whim told the young woman.
“Winsor!” the guy screamed, as Winsor retreated back into the living room.
“I’m so sorry,” the young woman said. “I didn’t know he would—”
“She’s lying!” the guy insisted. “Molly, she’s lying!”
“I’m sorry,” Molly repeated. “He suffered a head injury earlier this year, and he thinks he knows your friend. Sam, let’s get back in the truck.”
Sam? Will thought.
“She has to talk to me,” Sam moaned. He was crying then, and his knees were shaking so badly that even his walker couldn’t keep him upright.
“Are you Sam Applethwaite?” Will asked.
“Did Winsor tell you about me?” Sam begged, tears running down his cheeks.
“No,” Whim said firmly. “We read about you in the paper. Now go.”
Despite his bizarre harassment, Will felt for the guy. Taking out his phone, Will said, “Give me your number, and I’ll make sure Winsor gets it, okay?”
Whim’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t protest.
“Thank you,” Sam said, clutching Molly’s arms. “Thank you.”
He gave Will his number and they helped him back to his sister’s truck, where he collapsed into the passenger seat.
“I’m so sorry,” Molly repeated. “He hasn’t stopped talking about her since he woke up from a coma a few months ago. I thought maybe they really did know each other.”
Will glanced at Deloise, who was helping Sam with his seat belt and reassuring him that they’d give his number to Winsor.
“It’s okay,” Will told Molly. “We understand.”
Whim was standing in the doorway glaring at them when they came back. “You shouldn’t encourage that guy. He’s a stalker.”
“You didn’t tell us he was Sam,” Deloise said.
“What difference does that make?”
“Winsor woke up screaming for him!” Deloise hissed, keeping her voice down so Winsor wouldn’t overhear them. “Their souls were locked in a canister together for five months! Maybe they … communicated or something.”
“So what? She doesn’t want to see him.”
“That’s true,” Will admitted. “However they may or may not know each other, Winsor doesn’t want to see him. I think we have to respect that.”
“All right,” Deloise said reluctantly. “But I am going to tell her that Will has Sam’s number if she wants it.”
“Fine,” Whim said, throwing his hands up. “Whatever my princess wants.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Deloise had dumped Whim for cheating on her. She was pretty serious about it, and Whim was pretty serious about getting back together with her. He’d even enrolled in culinary school to prove to
her that he was getting his life together.
“So what did Feodor say?” Will asked, in part to prevent them from having the princess/don’t-call-me-princess argument again.
“He said he doesn’t think Snitch will come here,” Deloise repeated. “He said he’s more likely to go back to the cabin and try to reenter Feodor’s pocket universe there, and we should make sure the Gendarmerie sends some people over so Snitch doesn’t hurt the construction workers.”
More than a year after it had burned, Deloise’s father was rebuilding his late wife’s cabin.
Deloise swallowed. “I asked him why Snitch isn’t in a coma, like Winsor—and Sam—were. He said he put the soul of a killer bee in Snitch’s body.”
“What? How is that possible?” Whim asked.
It actually explains a few things, Will thought, remembering how tenaciously Snitch had fought. He put an arm around Deloise’s shoulders, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that was comforting. Whatever he said would have been the equivalent of watching storm clouds gather while promising her it wouldn’t rain.
Malina was right, he admitted to himself. I don’t want to sit here like a fish in a barrel and wait for Peregrine or Snitch or whoever to come shoot me.
I’d rather take the fight to them.
Three
Behind the temple where the Lords of Death held court, Haley McKarr huddled in a ball and dreaded the sunset.
“Hello, little brother,” Ian said.
Haley didn’t even feel himself moving until he was throwing his arms around his brother. Ian laughed and returned the hug, and suddenly Haley was six years old, hiding behind Ian while another kindergartener threw rocks at them.
Ian was still laughing when he pulled away. “I guess you missed me.”
Even though they were identical twins, no one had ever had trouble telling Haley and Ian apart. They had the same green-hazel eyes, but Ian’s look was bold where Haley’s was shirking. Ian favored preppy polo shirts and khakis, and Haley preferred the protection of oversized cardigans and well-worn jeans. Ian’s dark curls lay cropped close to his skull, while Haley’s tumbled into his eyes like a waterfall.
Thanks to Haley’s slouch, Ian was even—
“Are you taller than me?” Ian demanded. “What the hell?”
Haley shrugged and withdrew into his shoulders, but Ian pulled him up by the arm so he could compare. “How did you grow more than an inch in—wait, how long have I been dead? A month?”
“A year,” Haley admitted—although the question was actually quite complicated—and he jumped when Ian burst out, “A year? I’ve been dead for a year?!”
Haley shrank back. Ian’s soul had been separated from his body during the fire at Josh’s mother’s cabin. While Feodor had used Ian’s body as an errand boy, his soul had haunted Haley, sometimes even possessing him, for seven months afterward. Haley had a hard time remembering everything from those months; Ian had lived large, partying, drinking, smoking. He’d even gotten a very embarrassing tattoo on Haley’s left calf. When Ian’s body died, his soul had gone on to Death, and that was the first time he and Haley had truly been apart.
“You’ve only been here for five months,” Haley said.
“Still. I knew time moved slower here, but damn. I didn’t think it had been a year—or five months.” He snorted. “Now you get to be taller than me for the rest of eternity.”
“Sorry,” Haley muttered.
“Oh, stop it,” Ian said. “I’m not really mad at you.”
Haley knew that wasn’t true, but he was grateful when Ian hugged him again.
He felt something, though, something like being poked with a screwdriver. It came not from Ian, but from his aura. Between the swirls of hot-rod red and cobalt blue, there were patches where Ian’s energy field had become dark and brittle, the movement of the energy twisted. Pulling away to look, Haley saw that a cold, dark space stood—like cooled ash—in the center of Ian’s heart chakra.
Something is wrong, Haley thought. Something is terribly wrong.
Haley had seen auras all his life. He could even see them with his eyes closed. When he looked at someone, he saw the energy fields in and around their bodies as clearly as he saw their clothing. When he touched them, he caught glimpses of their pasts, their futures. He’d learned to interpret the colors, the movement of the energy, the routes between chakras. But most of all, he just felt something when he was near them, some sense of the forces that were carrying them through life.
The first time he’d seen Josh’s aura, he’d been so scared he peed himself. He had only been three at the time, but he still remembered it.
But he had never seen anything like what he was looking at now. It was like part of Ian’s aura had died.
“So, what happened?” Ian asked.
That’s what I was going to ask you, Haley thought, but something stopped him from saying the words.
When he didn’t reply, Ian said, “You know—how did you pass away, bite the big one, kick the bucket? How did you die?” He leaned close and asked in a confidential whisper, “You offed yourself, didn’t you?”
He thinks I killed myself?
Of course he did. Because Haley had always been the weak one.
“No,” Haley said. “I didn’t kill myself.”
“Are you sure?” Ian nudged him with an elbow. “You can tell me—we’re twins.”
“I didn’t kill myself,” Haley repeated, cringing at how defensive and whiney his voice sounded. “I’m not even dead.”
Ian laughed. He had a giant laugh, one Haley had always felt sucked up all the air in a room. “I’ve got bad news for you. This is a dead-folks-only party, little brother.”
Was it strange that Ian couldn’t tell he was alive? The other dead had stared at him with curiosity, some with confusion, a few with jealousy.
“I’m not dead,” Haley repeated. “I’m here as a hostage.”
“A hostage? What does that mean?”
“Josh and—” He’d almost mentioned Will, and he wasn’t sure that was a good idea. “It’s a long story,” he said instead.
Ian snorted. “We’ve got time, little brother. We’ve got more time than we’ll know what to do with.” He clapped Haley on the back. “You can wait till later, if you want. I can tell you’re freaked out. Come on, let’s get away from here. I hate the temple.”
He strode off toward the rolling hills that seemed to make up the Death universe, but Haley hesitated to follow, wondering if he needed to stay close to the temple so that he could be nearby when his friends came back for him.
They will come back for me, he told himself, remembering how Mirren had kissed him before she left. They won’t leave me here.
“Hurry up, little brother,” Ian called, and Haley forced his feet forward.
He had to scurry to catch up to Ian, but their strides fell into unison as they crossed a stone bridge. Ian noticed and grinned, and for a few yards they walked in deliberate synchronicity.
“Where are we going?” Haley asked as they fell into a more natural stride.
“Wherever we want. There are no rules here, nobody to answer to, nothing to do, really. It’s actually like the most boring place ever.”
The description seemed odd to Haley. Death was the most boring place ever?
“Sometimes I climb trees,” Ian said. “There’s a pond where I skip stones or go swimming. I’ve even chased a couple of squirrels.”
Squirrels?
Something wasn’t right. If there was one thing Haley had felt since he entered Death, it was that this was a place of transition. It wasn’t an eternal recess where the dead just hung out.
“What are those people doing?” he asked.
He had noticed that, a few dozen yards away, the dead had gathered around a bonfire. They stood in solemn silence, and although Haley was too far away to see clearly, he caught glimpses of their energy fields moving, rising above them …
“They’re weirdos,” Ian said
. “You don’t want to get caught up with them, trust me.”
Haley’s eyes lingered on the bonfire. He thought he could make out visions in the energy above the flames, but Ian tugged him away.
“You still doing that?” he asked.
Doing that? Haley thought. How would I have stopped?
His mother had been willfully blind to his gifts. His father had refused to see them until he couldn’t see anything else, and then he’d left. Mirren had accepted them, but of course she couldn’t understand. Ian was the only one who had ever truly understood Haley. To hear him say that he’d thought perhaps Haley would have stopped seeing auras was not only unexpected, but disconcerting.
“I thought maybe it wouldn’t work without me there,” Ian added. “Like, a twin thing.”
“Oh,” Haley said.
Now that they were together again, Haley became aware of how much he had changed since Ian died. He had spent their childhood desperately grateful for Ian’s acceptance, and would once have gladly agreed that Ian’s presence was necessary for his abilities to function. Now he knew they were entirely his own.
“Come on,” Ian said. “There’s a tree with these awesome fruits—like grapefruit, but sweet. You look hungry.”
Torn, Haley glanced back at the people around the bonfire. “Can I just see what they’re doing?”
“I told you, they’re idiots.”
Haley had no desire to anger his brother, but he had a feeling that what was happening was important. “Please? Just for like two minutes?”
Ian crossed his arms over his chest and released a short, angry burst of air through his nose. “Fine. Two minutes.”
Haley didn’t wait for Ian to change his mind, just scurried toward the bonfire. The dead stood very still around it, but as he got close, he heard two of them speaking, their voices almost inaudible, their motions minute.
“Yes,” a man told the person beside him. “I think it’s quite all right.”
“This was peaceful,” the woman replied. She touched his arm, and they turned and walked away from the fire, passing Haley as they did so.
The woman smiled at him, and though there was curiosity in her expression, she didn’t question Haley or pause. He turned back to the bonfire when she was gone.