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Authors: Lenore Appelhans

BOOK: Chasing Before
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“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe I do have some sort of amnesia.”

Us newbies compare our testing order and find out that we’re all very close together, with Zhu Mao being first.

The conversation moves on to other topics, but I’m only half listening. Instead I focus on the action at the front of the gym. Furukama has arrived and begun testing.

The screening appears simple enough. Autumn whispers instructions into each candidate’s ear. The candidate steps up and touches his or her palm to Furukama’s. Evaluations take anywhere from ten seconds to two minutes. Afterward Furukama points to either the left or the right. Considering there are so few to his right, I’m guessing those are the ones who have passed. Those to the left don’t leave but simply take a seat on the hardwood floor.

Finally, after an agonizing wait, Autumn calls Zhu Mao’s number. She takes her test and is sent to the right. Then Maria Lucia has a turn. After her test she shuffles to the left,
her shoulders drooping. When Moby finishes his test, he is sent to the right.

When Autumn calls my number, my throat constricts. If I pass, I can build up my skills and have a chance to expose the Morati. I’ll have a choice about whether to serve or not. But if I don’t pass, the choice is taken from me, just like my memories were. I make my way past the seated candidates who now take up most of the left side of the gym. Autumn approaches my ear and cups her hand over her mouth. “Find the horse.”

Furukama gives me a slight smile as he holds out his palm. The second I connect, a bright white light pierces my consciousness and hard surfaces press up against me from all sides. I panic. It’s like I’m back in the Morati’s mainframe and everything I’ve experienced since being captured by the Morati has been an elaborate fantasy.

I reach out with my mind to try to latch on to Julian’s brain waves. Nothing. I try again with Neil, but I can’t find him, either.

The walls start to crush me, and I push down the scream rising in my throat. A horse. Look for a horse. I reach deep into myself and pour all that I am into one thought: horse. Slowly the pressure on me lessens, and I’m rocked in a gentle side-to-side motion before being jolted upward and then smacking down hard. I’m riding a horse bareback, speeding through a bamboo forest, with arrows whizzing past my head. I squeeze my legs together so I can sit better. Just as my horse is about to leap over a narrow stream, I’m
pulled out of Furukama’s memory and back into the gym. He points to the right, and my head spins. I passed.

While Autumn breaks the bad news to those on the left, I concentrate on staying upright. Being inside Furukama’s head was even more disorienting than being inside Autumn’s, almost like he knew my fear and tried to use it against me. I’m not sure I really want to train with him if it will continue to be like this. But I repeat my pledge to track down the Morati for the good of Level Three. Seraphim guard training will not be easy, but I have to try.

Amidst groaning and complaining, the failed candidates exit the gym. That leaves thirty candidates who passed previously—including Autumn, Cash, Wolf, and Brady—and ten new recruits, including Zhu Mao, Moby, and me. Forty candidates vying for twelve spots. Well, thirty-nine, since I don’t ultimately want to ascend. Not without Neil.

After the long day Furukama dismisses us with the guard’s motto “Seraphim reign supreme.” He reminds us of the curfew and tells us to come back tomorrow. He bows, and we all bow back. Before we leave, those of us who passed today pick up a huge binder with our syllabus and required reading.

While everyone chats animatedly about what their tests entailed, I make a beeline for the door and slip out.

Autumn catches up to me. “You did great in there!”

“You’re not mad?” I ask. I know she wasn’t superkeen on me trying out for the seraphim guard.

“No way,” she protests. “It will be fun to spend more time together. I didn’t get to see much of you yesterday.”

I saw her only briefly at the healers’ booth crime scene and defending Julian when he was arrested. “Thanks for putting in a good word for Julian. Do you know where he is now?”

“He’s under house arrest while he recovers. It’s unfortunate that Libby insisted on jailing him. Now we can’t get anything coherent out of him.”

“But you don’t think he’s guilty?”

“Not of the stuff he’s accused of, at least,” she says flippantly. Something in her tone makes me wonder if she’s really over Julian. Perhaps it’s best not to discuss him. No need to pick at old scabs.

“I’ll have to build up my strength to make it through training. Are there some techniques you can teach me?” The more I can learn from her, the better equipped I’ll be to survive whatever the afterlife throws at me next.

“Concentration and practice are the main tactics.” Autumn holds out her palm to me. “Try to read my memories again. But focus.”

“Okay.” I suck in a breath and let my palm connect to hers. Like the first time right after my arrival in Level Three, I’m plunged into an inky blackness and I find myself spinning out of control. I grab on to an image fragment as it speeds by, and I hold tight, but I can’t quite get inside the memory to experience it. Instead I merely get a glimpse. Autumn and Julian are at the movies. She’s laughing as Julian throws kernels of popcorn at her. He starts to
say something, and then the scene shatters into a million shards, and I’m thrown out of Autumn’s mind.

She stumbles slightly when we break apart, surprise showing in her face for an instant before it’s gone. “You’re getting better at this. We can practice more later.”

“Thanks. I’m lucky to have you as a friend.”

Autumn laughs. “Damn straight you are!” Then her eyes narrow. “Hey, where’d you get that?” She reaches out and touches the skep charm. It must have come loose from under my shirt when I was trying to get inside Autumn’s mind.

“Neil gave it to me for my birthday. Right before our car crash, actually. It’s one of the last memories I have.”

“Oh. Sure looks like what we call an obol. In ancient Greece, obols were coins that were buried with the dead so that their souls could pay passage on the river Styx into the underworld. But our obols are shaped like your beehive instead of coins.” She taps her foot, her classic tic for when she’s pondering something.

I shrug and hide the charm beneath my shirt. Megan mentioned obols and said they were what Careers used to travel back and forth to Earth. So if this
is
an obol, I guess that explains why Nate had one. It’s a strange coincidence that it looks so much like the skep charm that Neil gave me.

“So I’ve been meaning to ask how you met Neil.” She has this breathless vulnerability in her voice that makes me want to confide all my secrets. We stayed up late so many times in the glow of the television, whispering in our sleeping bags about boys. Until Julian.

“If you can believe it, I met him at church.” I give her a few highlights—the day when I first admitted to myself that I was crushing on him, the walk in the woods that led to our first kiss, and the numerous times that he pulled out his guitar to sing me a song to cheer me up.

She listens with rapt attention, nodding, laughing, and oohing in all the right places. “He sounds too good to be true.” She’s right. The Neil I’m presenting to her is the idealized version, the one I want him to be all the time. The other version of Neil, the side I’m seeing a lot more of lately, is closed off emotionally, stubborn, and can be a little too self-righteous. I don’t want to talk about that Neil.

“How about you?” I ask instead. “Anyone here you like?”

“Me? Not really.” She shrugs and looks away. She must have boy trouble that she doesn’t want to talk about either.

“I’m dropping off my binder. Want to come with?”

“I wish. But I have a security team meeting with Furukama-Sensei in a few. Stay safe.”

“You too.”

I race back to the dorm. When I get there, I materialize a desk and dump my binder onto it. First I’ll check on Neil, and if he’s not back, I’ll look for Julian.

As I turn to leave, my whole body goes on alert. There’s a small table next to the door, and sitting on top of it is an orb glowing with a white light, set into a base that makes it look like a snow globe. I draw closer, wary. In front of it is a note that reads, “Felicia Ward: Memory #35025.”

eighteen

THE SOFT LIGHT of the orb draws me in, and I’m compelled to reach out for it, much like Aurora couldn’t resist the call of the spindle that doomed her to one hundred years of sleep. Does a similar fate await me? Or is this more like Eve’s apple, a gift that will forever wake me up to certain truths?

I force myself to pause. I need to report this, because if this is really one of my stolen memories, it could have only come from one of the Morati. The security team will want to examine it for clues. Then it will probably be entered into evidence, and my one chance to view it will be gone.

Or at the very least I should tell Neil about this. After all, it’s probably one of our joint memories, so it concerns him as well. But Neil would take it to Libby.

Why does the Morati want me to have this memory? It
must come with strings attached, and I already owe Nate a favor.

But all my concerns fade into the background as the orb grows brighter and more tempting. This is mine. I deserve it.

I poise my fingers over the surface, shiny and as smooth as glass. As my skin comes into contact with the orb, the surprisingly thin membrane pops like a soap bubble. The room fades and crackles around me, and in a rush of icy water I’m pulled into my memory.

“Ramen noodles for the sixth night in a row. Yum.” I grab the only two bowls I own off the drying rack and pour in the dry wormy noodles, the orangey powder from the spice packets, and boiling water. I pop a spoon into each bowl and carry them over to the tiny white table in the corner of the cramped kitchen.

“Lucky for us it’s pizza night tomorrow.” Neil pokes at his ramen listlessly.

“You don’t have to eat with me. Maybe your parents don’t want me over for dinner, but you’re still welcome at your own house.”

“I told you. They ban you from dinner, they ban me.” He dunks the noodles with vigor now. Neil’s parents made it clear that they held me responsible for Neil giving up the worship leader position at church, for him deferring college for a year, and for the car accident, too. It’s no wonder they don’t want to make small talk with me over pot roast and carrots.

“At least my dad likes you.” I sit down. On the phone Dad was going on and on about how helpful Neil was with
Grammy’s move and the estate sale. “Today he said, ‘Hold on to that one, Felicia.’ ”

“Your dad gives excellent advice.” Neil smiles broadly. Seeing his dimples makes me realize how little he smiles anymore. Working so much overtime to save up for college on top of all the physical therapy for his leg has caused shadows to creep into his face.

“Sometimes,” I tease.

We both stir our unappetizing noodles a few minutes longer until they are finally soggy enough to eat.

I choke down the ramen. The faster I eat it, the less I’ll have to taste it. The rapidity with which Neil shovels his ramen into his mouth tells me he has the same idea. “Oh, you should apply for a passport,” I say casually.

“Why?”

“My dad is being sponsored by some French arts organization to put on his
Prancing Goat
Symphony in Paris in a couple of months. And they’re going to pay to fly me over to play the piano.”

“That’s awesome.” The chair squeaks across the floor under him as Neil gets up to pull me into a congratulatory hug. “I’m sure your neighbors will be thrilled to hear all your practice has paid off. Maybe they’ll even stop beating on the ceiling with broomsticks.”

“Very funny.” I tap him on the chin with the end of my spoon. “The broomsticks are for the kids, not me.” To pay for my apartment and living expenses, I give twenty hours of piano lessons a week.

He retrieves his bowl from the table, slurps up the broth, and rinses it out with water. “You done?”

“Yeah.” I hand him my bowl, and his eyes narrow in that silently reproachful way he conveys so well. He pours the liquid remains of my ramen down the drain. “What? I ate the noodles.”

I lean against the counter as he washes our bowls. “Imagine it. We’re sitting at a sidewalk café on the Champs-Élysées eating
soupe à l’oignon
and drinking a Beaujolais wine . . .”

“Ooh la la!” Neil does an exaggerated French accent and bats his eyelashes at me.

“I can show you my favorite paintings at the Louvre, and we can go with my dad to our favorite restaurant. It serves the best escargot.”

“You mean snails? Gross!” Neil makes a face.

“Trust me, they taste light-years better than ramen noodles from a package.”

“I can’t.” Neil puts the bowls on the counter and throws a dish towel at me.

“You can at least try them.” I dry the bowls in two smooth motions and slide them onto the shelf with the other dishes. I wish Neil would be more open-minded when it comes to food. He sticks his nose up at anything spicy or the least bit exotic. “I’m not suggesting you eat cockroaches or anything.”

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