Afterlife

by Fairleigh, Lindsey

  I stood, careful not to wake any of my slumbering companions, and made my way to the tiny window at the front of the house. I pulled the curtain to the side and stared out into the woods. It still looked as though it was late afternoon, the light streaming through the trees casting the forest in a golden haze.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, digging my fingers in deep, wishing it would do more than temporarily relieve the tension in my shoulders. Stretching my neck from side to side, I wondered what would happen to me if we never managed to wake the First . . . if we never found Isfet . . . if my body was never revived. If Nik never pulled me out of Aaru.

  Out there, in the real world, Nik would reach the point where the bonding withdrawals made him lose consciousness in increasingly long increments, until finally, the withdrawals knocked him out for good. Soon after, he would die. But what would happen to me in here? Would I start to lose consciousness too? Or would I remain awake, the lack of a physical body forcing me to suffer through the agonizing pain? There was no way to know; I was a pioneer in this, forging a new path, and it was scary as hell.

  That train of thought was more than a little unsettling, and I shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself, hands gripping my upper arms. Like so much else, it was probably best not to think about those kinds of things. After all, it wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it.

  Outside, among the ferns and other forest shrubbery deep within the woods, something moved.

  I squinted, bringing my face as close to the window as possible and holding my breath so I didn’t fog up the glass. Dom had made it sound like there were likely others lurking about in the woods, watching and listening. Had I just spotted one of these Peeping Toms?

  Movement drew my eye to another part of the forest. Someone was definitely out there. It annoyed me that somebody thought it was fine to just creep around in the woods surrounding Dom’s cottage. I snuck around and spied on others; they didn’t sneak around and spy on me.

  I glanced back at my companions, curled up on the floor and chairs throughout the cottage, then back out through the window. Again, I caught a hint of movement deep in the woods.

  I straightened my back, my hands balling into fists. I was on a razor’s edge from the combination of the withdrawals and the anticipation of the impending task, and my annoyance at this forest lurker was only making it worse. I needed an outlet, some way to expel at least a little of this anxious energy.

  My feet were carrying me to the front door before I even realized I’d decided to go outside and track the stalker down. I retrieved my sword and harness from one of the hooks on the wall by the door and eased the door open, slipping outside and shutting it as quietly as possible. Shrugging into my sword harness, I stood on the stoop and scanned the woods.

  But there was no sign of the lurker now.

  I crossed the stone path, making a beeline for the edge of the woods, eyes ever searching. I would find whoever was out there, and I would explain to them none too nicely why it wasn’t okay to sneak around outside of Dom’s house.

  I moved like a cat, keeping my footfalls quiet and taking care when picking where to place my feet, and made my way into the woods. I reached over my shoulder, curling my fingers around Mercy’s handle, but I thought better of it and released the hilt without drawing the sword. Holding Mercy would only make my movement through the woods more awkward.

  My hand was still raised when I heard the snap of a twig off to my left. I spun that way, eyes searching, but at the sound of movement behind me, I spun around again, fingers gripping my sword hilt. I drew Mercy in one smooth motion, and the At rang out in warning.

  When I saw what had made the noise, I froze, sword held out more like a shield than a weapon.

  It was the mist. It was rolling in, dense and shimmering. The Beast’s slithering tentacles crept along the edges, flicking out periodically, almost like a snake’s tongue scenting the air.

  I took a backward step, then another . . . and another. My heart hammered in my chest, and my stomach twisted into knots. In my mind, I could distinctly hear Susie telling me that the Beast almost never ventured out of the mist plane. Almost never.

  I risked a quick glance over my shoulder as I backed away from the mist-bound Beast, making sure I was heading back toward the cottage.

  My eyes opened wider. There was no sign of the cottage behind me. There was only more of the mist. More of those creeping tentacles. The Beast had me surrounded.

  Sword extended in front of me, I turned in a slow circle. My breaths came faster, my eyes frantically searching for a break in the mist. But so far as I could see, there was no way out, and the Beast was closing in all around me.

  I gulped. I was trapped.

  “What do you want?” I asked, voice thready. I cleared my throat and took a deep, shaky breath. “I won’t hurt you if you just let me go.”

  Abruptly, the ambling approach of the mist stopped and the Beast withdrew until I couldn’t see any part of it, leaving me standing in a clearing just wide enough for me to turn around in a full circle without touching the mist with the tip of my sword.

  After a tense what-the-fuck moment, shapes appeared in the mist’s glittering depths. Not more snakelike tentacles, but shadowy human forms. As one drew closer to the edge of the mist, it grew more distinct. It was a woman, her features becoming clearer with each step.

  She wasn’t just any woman—she was my mom.

  My mouth fell open. “What the hell?” I whispered.

  My mom stopped at the edge of the mist and stared at me, the light in her brown eyes soft and warm. Slowly, her lips curved into a gentle smile.

  “Mom?” I said, voice barely audible.

  Had she somehow found a way to follow me into Aaru from Duat? I hadn’t thought anything like that was possible—she was made of soul-energy, after all, and she belonged in Duat—but then, she had been right there when Mari and I made our descent into the land of the dead.

  I took a step toward my mom, lowering my sword, the Beast completely forgotten. “Is it really you?”

  She held my stare for a few more seconds, then turned partway, looking over her shoulder.

  I followed her line of sight.

  She was watching another of those human-shaped shadows move closer. This one was very distinctly male, and as its features became clearer, my heart plummeted. It was Carson. My mom’s murderer.

  I watched, feet cemented to the ground, as Carson drew closer to my mom. She turned to face him, and almost in slow motion, he raised a gun to her head.

  “No!” I screamed, instinct to save my mom sidelining my fear of the Beast. I lunged into the mist, lashing out at Carson with my sword.

  The second my blade sliced through his shoulder, tearing down through his body, he seemed to melt into a writhing mass of slithering, silvery tentacles. They lashed about, leaking amber goo where my blade had cut through them. But, surprisingly, they didn’t attack. Rather, they retreated.

  I spun around to face my mom, but she was gone. All that was there now was the mist and a few more retreating tentacles.

  My sword arm drooped, and I stood there, surrounded by the mist. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and my chest heaved with each breath.

  The Beast could mess with your head. I’d been told that, but I hadn’t understood what it meant. Until now.

  My mom hadn’t been real. None of it had been real.

  But even though I knew it wasn’t real in my mind, I didn’t feel it in my heart. Awareness of the situation didn’t make the emotions dredged up by the dreadful scene any less raw or potent. They were overflowing within me, shredding my self-control.

  I gripped my sword hilt tighter and sucked in a deep breath. And then I screamed into the mist, venting my pain and anger. My rage. I screamed again and again, and as I let it all out, I vowed that if I ever crossed paths with the real Carson during my time in Aaru—or rather, if I crossed paths with his putrid soul—I would make him suffer for what he’d done t
o my mom.

  Like my screams were blowing it away, ever so slowly, the mist retreated, and the Beast left with it.

  I stood out in the woods until the final tendrils of the mist were gone. Once there was no longer any sign of it, I turned and picked my way back through the underbrush to the trail and headed back to the cottage. Just as I was easing the door shut, the hour hand struck twelve, and the clock started to chime.

  It was time to go.

  9

  We trekked through the woods for hours, the never-changing late afternoon light growing more and more irritating with each passing second. I hated not being able to estimate how much time had passed based on the change in the sun’s position. I had to rely on the pocket watch Dom had lent me to tell when to pull out the compact mirror for a quick on-the-go chat with Nik.

  “This way,” Dom said, stopping at a fork in the trail and holding his arm out toward the right-hand branch.

  We passed him in single file, first the twins, then Anapa, Re, and Mari, and then me. Dom fell into step behind me shortly after I passed him. He’d led the way the whole time, silently guiding us in this direction or that when the trail split. The fact that he was giving up his lead position raised my hopes that we were closing in on the anchor point and that soon we would travel to the next section of Aaru.

  The trail sloped upward at a somewhat steep incline, and I leaned forward, embracing the burn in my muscles. It kept my focus off of the pain in my head and ache in my joints. It kept my thoughts away from Nik . . . away from everyone who was still alive. Away from wondering how much longer until the Netjers found them and they joined us in Aaru. I focused on the burn, on placing one foot in front of the other. On feeling the forest air gliding in and out of my lungs.

  And ever so slowly, my worries faded into the background.

  “I see it!” Susie called from up ahead, snapping me out of my semi-hypnotic hiking state.

  I picked up the pace to a jog, only slowing when a rough stone archway came into view positioned near a ledge at the top of the hill. There was a small clearing off to the left of the arch where a fallen log and a few overturned tree stumps had been arranged around a fire pit. I figured it was there to give people a place to hunker down while they waited for the anchor points to shift.

  As I drew nearer, I focused on the archway itself. Like before, there was a symbol carved into the keystone, but this one was different—two zigzagging horizontal lines, one directly atop the other—and I wondered if the symbol represented this anchor point or the one on the other side.

  The scene visible through the archway was idyllic—a pristine, white sand beach stretching as far as the eye could see, waves from the turquoise-blue ocean gently crashing onto the sand, only to withdraw a moment later. I smiled to myself, thinking I definitely wouldn’t mind traversing that beach for a couple hours.

  “Might as well sit down,” Dom said, bypassing the archway and heading for the fallen tree near the fire pit. He sat and stared at the ground beyond the tree’s broken end. A moment later, a stack of perfect firewood appeared, a tiny pile of kindling right next to it. “Kat, would you mind grabbing a handful of hanging moss?” Dom said as he bent over to pick up the kindling. He crouched closer to the fire pit and started arranging the sticks in a roughly teepee shape.

  “But aren’t we going through?” I asked, pointing to the archway. I could smell a hint of ocean in the air, and the scent made me instantly homesick. The others seemed just as drawn to the tropical paradise as they all huddled around the archway, faces filled with subtle longing.

  “We’re a little bit early,” Dom said without looking up. “We have to wait for the next shift. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  I sent one last lingering glance through the archway, then reached up, yanking a large chunk of hanging moss from the branch stretching over my head. “How long do we have to wait?” I asked, walking over to Dom and handing him the moss.

  He tucked the moss into the interior of the small twig teepee. “There’s no way to say for sure,” he said, pulling a book of matches from his trouser pocket. He lit a match and touched the flame to the moss. The moss lit on fire almost instantly, and within seconds, the sticks were starting to burn. “This connection usually lasts about an hour,” he said, pointing to the archway with his chin. “But since we don’t know when the last shift was . . .”

  “Could be minutes, could be an hour,” I said, finishing his explanation.

  He nodded.

  Reluctantly, we all gathered around the fire. Dom had it roaring along in no time. I sat beside him on the fallen tree, Mari on my other side. The twins shared one of the broad overturned stumps, and Anapa claimed the other. Re opted to stand, clasping his hands behind his back, his expression alert as he stared off into the woods behind us, almost like he was watching for something.

  After about fifteen minutes, there was a harsh, grating sound. The ground trembled, and I planted my hands on the rough bark on either side of me, looking at Dom in alarm. “What’s happening?”

  “The anchor points are shifting,” Dom said. He stood, an arm outstretched to steady himself, his attention snapping to the archway.

  In a blink, the scene visible through the archway changed, the mesmerizing ocean giving way to an endless sea of sand.

  “We must hurry,” Dom said, striding toward the archway. “This connection will not last for long.”

  We joined him, crowding in around the arch.

  “I liked the last one better,” Mari said, a slight grumble to her tone.

  Silently, I agreed with her, and I’d have bet anything the others felt the same.

  Dom chose to ignore Mari’s comment. “Now remember,” he said, looking around at each of us, “you cannot truly be injured here, at least not in any lasting way. Any pain is only temporary.” And with that cryptic statement, he stepped through the archway.

  The rest of us exchanged worried glances, mouths turned down in frowns.

  “Come along,” Dom said, placing his hand on the interior of the archway from the other side to keep the anchor points from shifting again and leaving the rest of us stranded on the wrong side. “Best not to waste time.”

  Right, I thought, time. We didn’t exactly have an endless supply of it.

  The twins walked through the archway, as did Anapa and Re. Mari paused, eyes meeting mine, then shrugged and stepped through too.

  I moved closer to the archway, looking up just a moment before stepping through myself. The symbol on the keystone had changed. Now, it was a simple triangle. Guess that answered my question—the symbol was tied to the connecting section of Aaru.

  The moment my boot touched the sand on the other side, I understood Dom’s warning about pain being temporary here. The air was blisteringly hot, and the sun hanging high overhead beat down relentlessly. It would take more than a few minutes here for the heat to become unbearable.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. It’s not real, I reminded myself. It can’t really hurt me. It’s not real . . .

  Even so, I couldn’t help but think how appropriate it was for at least part of the land of the dead to burn like hell.

  10

  Agony is slogging through an endless desert, weaving around and between towering sand dunes, the sun beating down from high overhead. I should know. That had been my life for what felt like an eternity. Really, it had only been the Aaru equivalent of an hour.

  I’d long since removed my leather coat and was carrying it tucked behind my sword. My entire body was a sweaty, sunburned mess, so it hardly mattered that the coat turned my back into a wellspring. Strands of my ponytail stuck to my neck and shoulders, and my tank top was entirely soaked through.

  From the looks of it, none of my companions were faring any better. In fact, Anapa looked the most miserable of all. Probably because he’d never really been subjected to the miseries thrust upon us flesh-and-bone beings. I kind of felt bad for the big guy.

  Dom led th
e way through the desert, choosing what seemed to me to be a haphazard route winding between the sand dunes. I could only hope he actually knew where he was going. Mari walked with him, asking him question after question about the physics of Aaru. I trailed several dozen dozen paces behind them, half listening to their conversation between alternating bouts of misery and self-pity.

  Dom was currently explaining how he knew which way to go to reach the next anchor point. Something about the position of the sun. In the back of my mind, I supposed that made sense. After all, in this place, the sun never moved. It was as solid of a reference point as anything, especially here, were the dunes looked the same in every direction for as far as the eye could see.

  I was so out of it that I jumped when someone touched my arm. Instinctively, I pulled away and reached over my shoulder to grab my sword hilt.

  Re held up his hands in placation and backed away a step. “Apologies,” he said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  I released Mercy’s handle and lowered my arm. “No worries,” I told him and continued on through the desert.

  For a short time, he walked along beside me, saying nothing. His silent presence quickly made me anxious.

  I glanced at him sidelong. “So . . . what’s up?”

  He cleared his throat, continuing to stare ahead. “I, ah, followed you . . . last night.”

  My brows drew together, and I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Into the woods,” he said. “Into the mist . . .”

  My heart skipped a beat, and I looked at him, searching his moonstone eyes. How much had he seen? My mom? Carson? Had he seen me lose my shit?

  “I, well . . .” Re paused, taking a deep breath. “I feel that some of the responsibility for what happened to your mother rests on my shoulders,” he finally said, expression oddly sympathetic. Sympathy—or understanding of any kind—wasn’t something I was used to getting from him. “I wanted to apologize,” he added. “I’m terribly sorry that the events I set into course thousands of years prior led to your mother’s death.”