Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (10 page)

Eliza prodded Amber from her home, practically pushing her onto the porch. Amber swung around and shoved her foot in the screen door before Ms. Flannery could close it. “Even if it was silly, I’d like to know. I like to know the history of things, just like your husband did.”

“Amber,” Ms. Flannery sighed, smiling sadly, “You remind me so much of him sometimes. Always curious. Always stubborn.”

“Then for him, tell me.”

She started turning inside, but stopped, her demeanor shedding some of its warmth. “It was just some silly nonsense about speaking with spirits of loved ones departed. Nothing you need to dabble in and certainly nothing you need to get any fancy ideas about.”

“You mean about trying to speak with Toby?”

“Yes, dear. You need to let him go. Trying to commune with spirits, well, it’s just not healthy. We all have to move on. Trust me when I say I know how you feel. You’re not the only one who’s suffered loss. You’re not the only one who feels alone sometimes. The thing is, we have a choice. Do we stay alone and dwell on our loss, or do we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and do our best to fill the hole that loss left behind? It’s time you move on.”

Amber slipped her foot from the front door. She stepped back from the screen and let it shut between them. “Thank you for the tea.”

Ms. Flannery fidgeted in the gap. “Amber, please. This is just a way for you to hold on. Let go, and I swear it will make you feel so much better. I want what’s best for you, I really do. I’ve never asked for the money your mother left behind. I don’t need it. I watch you when I can because I care about you. If you care about me, you’ll do this for me, too.”

Amber winced at the words. “The money? Ms. Flannery, I—”

“
Shh
, no need to speak of it. Like I said, I want what’s best for you. We’ll keep it our little secret.”

“I didn’t mean to steal from you.” Amber’s gaze dropped to her toes. She felt six inches tall and covered in dirt. “I’m sorry.”

“Make amends by leaving the necklace alone. That’s all you have to do. I’ll see you for tea again soon, sweetie.”

The door clicked close. Amber turned and headed down the sidewalk. She reached into her pocket and gripped the necklace. Getting caught in the lie stung, and she hated it. Yet knowing Ms. Flannery had kept the knowledge in her back pocket and waited to use it until she wanted to extract something from Amber dulled the sting beneath a ripple of anger washing through her chest. “Once is all I’ll try, Ms. Flannery. Just once, and never again.”

Amber sat on the bench beside her brother’s grave. The moon was a bruised, milky disc wreathed by a silvery crown. The breeze that comforted her while the sun shone grew teeth once it set and bit her cheeks, sending a shiver down her spine whenever it whistled through her hair.

She unraveled the scarf around her neck and tapped her fingers on the agate stones of her necklace. For the third time, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Toby, can you hear me? It’s Amber. I—I wanted to….”
 

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what I wanted to do.” A giggle bubbled from her lips, and she threw head back. “What the hell am I doing out here? I look like a total idiot in a cemetery at night. Mom would kill me if she knew, you know that? Ms. Flannery’s probably hiding behind a tree somewhere taking notes on how I lied to her. Ms. Flannery? You there? Come out and sit with me!”

The agate chilled her sweaty palm as she clenched it and sighed. “I guess I just wanted to talk to you. I don’t have anybody but Jason these days, and I feel bad because I know half the time he’s around it’s because he feels sorry for me. At least it’s my last year at St. Luke’s, right? Jason wants us to go to New York, but I don’t know. I’ve thought about LA. I think the warm weather would be nice. I could get out of the cold and the wind, maybe even find Dad one of these days.”

The thought of running into her father knotted her stomach. Amber looked to the stars, leaning back on the bench. “I feel like I’m going insane. I swear I can hear you sometimes, when I’m alone. I want to help if I can.” Amber’s gaze fell to the gravestone. “Toby, let me know what kind of help you need. I’ll do anything.
Anything
. You know that.”

Amber waited. She pressed a palm to the necklace and stared at the polished gravestone. Nothing came. No otherworldly spirit floated before her, no glowing apparition of her departed brother sparkled from the ether. She was alone. At night. In a cemetery. Like a fool.

“I’m such an idiot for doing this.” Amber lurched from the bench and stalked through the crunchy grass. “What was I thinking? Ghosts aren’t even real, and why would you want Toby to be one? Amber, you’re going nuts. You’re more likely to get mugged or killed out here than to see your brother. Stupid.
Stupid
.”

The gate appeared beneath a blinking fluorescent streetlamp. She wriggled between the iron bars and threw her scarf around her neck, hiding the necklace beneath its soft folds. The walk home was brisk and silent.

Each time the wind rattled through the trees or sent browned leaves rolling in swirls around her ankles, she would stop and stare into the shadows. Every movement was a stranger, every creak of a branch a voice. The foolishness of her trip sunk into her thoughts. A young, unaccompanied woman on an empty road outside town, in the middle of the night?

“Mom would explode if she knew,” she huffed. Amber paused and rolled her eyes. “Or cared.”

She came near Ms. Flannery’s home on the corner of their block and paused beneath the shadow of a knotted elm. A single window on the second floor cast gold onto the otherwise dark street. Every so often, a shadow would flit across the thin curtains covering the pane.
 

Amber waited. The movement stilled. Ms. Flannery’s light blinked out. Amber flipped her collar up and stole toward home, leaving the twinkling lights of Portsmouth behind her. Her keys jangled as she unlocked the door and shouldered it open. In less than thirty seconds, the scarf hung on the back of a dining room chair. She unclasped the necklace and tossed it on the counter without a second look.

Her pocket buzzed. Amber jumped, hand slapping her chest. “What’s Jason bugging me about now?”

She swayed around some furniture and undid her ponytail, shaking out her hair as it fell in waves over her shoulders. The couch swallowed her as she tossed herself onto the cushions and pulled out her phone. When she saw the screen, she frowned. “Great.”

The phone buzzed again. She stared at the name, heat rising in her cheeks.

It buzzed once more. Amber rolled her eyes and answered the call. “What do you want?”

“Nice to hear from you too,” Chris said.

“You’re lucky I answered the phone at all.”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong with you, Amber? Cut the crap for once and be a normal girl, I swear. I just called to check up. Ms. Flannery coming by in the morning? How you doing?”

“You’ve got a real pair to be calling me now, Chris. Maybe next time you upload some photos from your stupid parties you’ll make sure I can’t see them.”

The silence on the other end told her all she needed to know. He sighed, long and hard.

“Listen, Chris, I honestly don’t care about you not coming,” Amber said.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well, fine, okay I might care a little. But that’s not what really hurts. You never miss Toby’s birthday, and the first year you do it’s because you wanted to party? At least it looks like it was fun. Did you have fun? Get totally wasted?”

“Amber.” Chris’s tone hardened. “I’m your older brother. I hate it when you try and parent me. You’re not Mom, and I can make my own decisions. Toby’s been gone for nearly ten years now. We have to move on. It’s
time
to move on. Dwelling on what happened isn’t healthy for you.”

“I think I’m the only one who’s actually trying to move past it while the rest of you run away. Doing something simple for him once a year isn’t dwelling on shit, Chris, and you know it.”

“Now that’s not fair. You’re being hysterical. Just stop it for a second.”

Amber caught herself shaking. What an asshole. He partied while she cried. She needed him, and here he was on the phone making her sound like she had some sort of mental issue. Her eyes closed, and she tightened her grip on the phone until her hand stilled.
 

“I’m being hysterical?” she asked, her voice low and utterly flat.

“Now don’t freak out—”

“Screw you, Chris. Never call me again.”

Amber flung her phone. It zipped across the room and smashed against the wall, exploding into a bunch of sparking shards by the living room TV. Her nails dug into her palms. She clenched and unclenched her fists.
 

Their landline started ringing, but Amber ignored it. Her brother tried calling once more before giving up.
 

Generally fed up with her crappy evening, she cleaned up and changed for bed. Amber headed from the bathroom to her room, but paused at the stairs. After talking to Chris, she would never be able to fall asleep, but her mom had a prescription that might do the trick.
 

Amber headed downstairs to her mom’s bathroom and rifled through the medicine cabinet until she found the sleeping pills. The lid clicked as she popped it open. Her palm opened. She tipped the bottle. The pills caught at the rim, collecting just at the lip.
 

Frustrated, she angled the bottle a little farther, and the contents dumped into her hand. Twenty or so little pink pills piled in her palm. Twenty or so nights of decent sleep. Or one night of a very, very, long sleep. A sleep she might not ever wake from.

Amber shifted the pills around, wondering what swallowing all of them at once might do. Ms. Flannery wouldn’t find her until Monday. Chris wouldn’t call. Jason might, but he would just think she unplugged her cell for the weekend. No one would know or care enough until it was too late.

To close her eyes and see black. To drift. To sway in a gentle nothing. Amber clenched the pills. She opened her eyes and her hand, shaking her head. “What are you doing?”

She grabbed the pill bottle and cupped her full hand over its mouth. When she unclenched, pills stuck stubbornly to her sweaty palm.

“Get off!” Amber shook her hand. The pills unglued, but they missed the bottle and clattered all over the tiles.
 

Groaning, she threw the container into the sink and stomped from the bathroom. The pills could wait until the morning. Right now, she needed sleep.
 

Steps creaked under her weight as she trotted upstairs. In her room, she streamed
Jerry Maguire
just quietly enough so she couldn’t understand the dialog and just loudly enough to make the house feel like someone other than her lived within its four walls.
 

Her downy comforter cocooned her, the warmth of her body swelling beneath the plush cover. The mattress hugged her, enveloping Amber’s frame like a springy cloud. Her lids grew heavy. She blinked. The world blurred, and sleep took her.

Help me
.

Amber rocketed up. “Toby?”

Help me
.

The voice came from just beyond her bedroom door. Amber’s heart battered her ribs, her pulse thundering in her ears. She whipped out of the covers and yanked the door wide. “Toby? Is that you?”

Help me
.

It came from the first floor now. A shadow flitted across the wall at the base of the stairwell. Amber bolted downstairs and swung around the bannister. A dark swath shifted in the kitchen.

“Toby!” Amber raced into the room. Frigid wind ripped through the open back door, swinging it wide. The world beyond waited, its vibrant colors extinguished by the night.
 

Help me
.

His voice echoed from the yard. Amber shifted on her feet. “This is insane. Insane! Toby, I’m scared. I can’t follow you out there.”

Help me
.

“Okay, okay. Amber, you can do this. Maybe. Okay. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God….”

Help me.

“I’m coming!” She bolted to the dining room and grabbed her jacket. She passed the necklace and hesitated, her fingers wagging over the gaudy jewelry.
 

She nearly left it. Nearly. At the last possible moment, Amber snatched the necklace and shoved it in her pocket, tying her hair back as she vaulted through the door and into the bitter night, running around the house to the wide drive with its old elm.

Something dark flitted beneath the single streetlight on their block. The form turned the corner at Ms. Flannery’s house and vanished.

“What am I doing? This is stupid. Go to bed, Amber.” She shut her eyes. “Go to bed.”

Cold breath washed across her cheeks.
Help me
.
 

Her eyes shot open as she recoiled. Nothing stood before her, but she knew something waited beyond the streetlight. She felt it, felt him.

Amber took a parting glance at her house before sprinting down the street. She passed beneath the light and rounded the corner, chasing a shadow that led her closer to the city.
 

“No, not the city,” she whispered, spinning around a wide curve. Ahead, the cemetery’s gate swung wide. The fluorescent light blinked out, and a night lit only by the moon remained.
 

She reached into her pocket and clenched the necklace. The metallic frame holding the center stone bit into her trembling palm.
 

Help me
.

His whisper came from beyond the gates. Amber swallowed and edged forward. “Toby, I’m scared. It’s dark. This is a freaking cemetery.” One foot stepped uneasily before another. “I’m alone. I’ve got nothing but a jacket and a cheap necklace. But I’m going to help you if I can. Toby? Toby!”

She reached the gates and squeezed the necklace. Amber took a deep breath and stepped into the cemetery. Toby didn’t call her again, but she didn’t need his voice any longer. Wide eyes casting about, she hurried through the graveyard’s winding paths. Still angels lorded over cracked obelisks. They looked at her, watched her. Some reached out. Others smiled. Still others mourned.