Chasing Before (2 page)

Libby grimaces. “Angels were never assigned here. Humans administrate this level as we see fit. And we only very rarely get visits from celestial custodians. The last time was fifty years ago at least, and that was long before my time. We think the Morati destroyed our files so that we can’t verify anyone’s identity. We can’t track them down.”

Neil shuffles his feet. “So you saw fit to have all your records on material that could burn?” There’s an annoyed, almost accusatory edge to his voice, but the girls don’t seem offended.

“If you can believe it, they used to have rolls of papyrus.” Megan rolls her eyes, making me warm to her even more. “Normally the files wouldn’t burn. But angels can destroy what angels create.”

Libby stands up straighter. In the way she holds her shoulders, rigid but slanted forward like too much responsibility is weighing upon her, Libby reminds me of my mother, someone I was never able to get along with, no matter how
hard I tried. Libby retrieves our clipboards, dematerializes the desk, and motions for us to follow her. We pick our way through the long, dark hallway, with Megan trailing behind us. In the dim light the cabinets cast ominous shadows.

I drag my feet, dreading going any closer to Morati hell-bent on getting revenge. There must be some way to find them before they find me. “Couldn’t we track them down by searching everyone’s memories? That’d verify who they are, right?”

“In most cases, yes,” Libby confirms. “But angels and the more powerful humans here can control their memories, showing only what they want to and concealing what they don’t. That’s why we haven’t had any luck finding them yet.”

“Careful!” Neil maneuvers me away from a drawer that juts out at a sharp angle, but my foot catches on something, and I trip into his arms, dropping my towel. He’s thin, but strong—the steady presence in my life I was missing for most of my death. And for a minute I allow myself to rest on his chest and imagine we are far away from here, that his heart still beats, and that we’re still alive.

“Yes, please watch your step.” Libby looks back at me over her shoulder with a mixture of envy and pity, but she keeps walking. “The people of Level Three need you.”

I pull away from Neil, startled, and hurry after her. “What? Why?” It’s totally selfish, but I don’t want to be needed—not by anyone other than Neil. I want to be able to figure out what I want, without any pressure. And time
with Neil. That’s what post-Morati Level Two offered me. But we became restless, and the lack of privacy, as well as the promise of something exciting just beyond our reach, convinced us to move on. It might turn out to be the biggest mistake of my afterlife.

“You have a ton of potential, Felicia. You were able to bring down the Morati once, and maybe you can do it again. If you develop your skills further, we think you could be the one who can expose the Morati, by looking into their memories and seeing their true selves. And then we can neutralize their threat.” We’ve reached a door, and Libby stops in front of it. “If you survive that long,” she says, low enough that Neil doesn’t seem to hear it, but I do. Despite my potential she’s skeptical of my current value. And I can’t say I disagree with her.

Libby turns the knob. “What I’ve told you is classified, known only to the security force and a few others. If people were aware of the Morati’s presence, and that they can blend in with us, people could panic. It would only make our hunt for them more difficult. Please keep this to yourselves.” When we nod our assent, Libby throws open the door. Now that we’re both completely dry, Megan takes Neil’s towel and dematerializes it.

We walk out into a small courtyard bordered on all sides by arched walkways, and with a fountain at its center. I look up and see blue sky. The whole scene is so Earthlike, so real, it makes me want to cry. I can almost imagine I’m home again, that the artificial white surroundings of Level
Two were only a long nightmare and I’ve finally woken up.

Neil peers upward as well, and his eyes shine. He puts his arm around me and draws me close. I rest my head on his shoulder, and his curls brush against my forehead. If time could stand still in this moment, we would be perfectly happy, wrapped up in each other, regardless of what’s going on in Level Three.

“Before you go through processing, you can get an idea of the layout of this section of Level Three.” Libby waves us over to a sign that features the sort of map I remember from shopping malls, complete with a red dot proclaiming “You are here.” “Megan, please do the honors.”

Megan grins so widely that sunlight reflects off her braces. “I’d love to!” Her eagerness gives me the impression that Libby doesn’t let her do much. “We’re in Area Two, also known as the Training Center. Dorms are all between Western Avenue and Western Bridge, which leads to Area One. Oh, and then your classes will be in these buildings here to the east, past Eastern Avenue. The middle corridor includes this central administration building, where Libby’s office is, and other important buildings such as the Muse Collection Library. It’s all separated by courtyards or lawns until you get farther north.” She taps a drawing of a hill. “This is where we have all our assemblies. And then beyond that we have our sports fields. Got it? Or do you have questions?”

I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to begin. But Neil blurts, “Why do you still have braces?” It’s
a good question, if a little rude. We can materialize our appearance to the best version of ourselves, so it is unusual that Megan would keep unnecessary metal in her mouth.

Megan pulls her lips back, like she’s at the dentist, revealing a gap between her top front teeth. “When I died, I’d had these on for a whole year. Back then I couldn’t wait to get them off. But now they make me feel more like me, you know?”

I understand. I spent most of my time in Level Two in a plain white shift, and I love being able to wear my familiar clothes now.

“Libby says that once I’ve distanced myself enough from earthly things, I’ll be ready to let my braces go, and pin them on the Forgetting Tree.” Megan sneaks a glance at Libby. “Detachment is part of my training to be a muse, my chosen career.”

“They’ll hear about all that soon enough,” Libby admonishes. “Give them a chance to settle in first.”

“Wait until you see more of the campus.” Megan changes the subject and ignores Libby’s look of irritation. I appreciate it, because her chatter helps to lower my anxiety level. “We have everything a vocational training center needs. Well, except we don’t have a cafeteria, of course. Or bathrooms.”

While it would be heavenly to take a long hot shower, I’m not too bummed about the lack of a dining hall. In my book, in the competition for foods I miss the least, cafeteria offerings are up there with those cardboard-like pizza
pockets they serve on international flights.

“So we’re staying in dorms?” Neil asks. “Aren’t there tons of people here? How do you find a place for everyone?”

“Enrollment has been down as a result of the Morati keeping everyone locked up in Level Two for so long,” Libby answers. “And most of the trainees we had before that time have long moved on to their afterlife careers. It was mostly just us murder victims until about four months ago, when people were able to move up again.”

“That was four months ago?” My head feels fuzzy when I think about time. It never mattered in Level Two, and there was no way to mark it, so I lost my sense for it.

“Yes. It was chaotic that first week, with all the changes we had to make,” Libby says. “We have a larger security force now, but most of our population isn’t aware what the destruction of the records room means. And like I said, we want to keep it that way.”

We’re walking again, turning a corner and arriving at a bank of three booths with turnstiles, much like the tollgates on a major highway. This must be processing. “You go through the center one,” Megan says. She explains that the booth on the left is to process children under twelve who return to Earth to be reincarnated, and the booth on the right is for those who died on Earth at age sixty-five or above. The elderly are allowed to take up residence in the senior center in Area Three until the next Ascension Day retirement ceremony, when they can move on to the next level. Both children and the elderly have caretakers until
they leave Level Three.

Libby hands our clipboards to the attendant in the center booth, who scrutinizes us briefly and then returns our documents. It’s like passport control, only we’re entering a whole new world instead of a new country. When the attendant nods us through, Neil and I push forward, followed by Megan and Libby.

Megan steps ahead and leads us around another corner. When I look up, I gasp. Because leaning against a column is the last person I ever thought I’d see again. My former best friend, Autumn.

two

AUTUMN STARES STRAIGHT ahead, her expression blank. I take in her stiff pose, bile rising in my throat as images of her slashed and lifeless body on my bed burst through my skull.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and lean against Neil. He is aware of my horrible betrayal of our friendship—that I caused a snowstorm of bitter feelings by sneaking around with Julian behind her back. He’s never met Autumn, of course. She was murdered before I knew him. But he’s seen her in my memories of happier times. I told him all about how I was forced to move from Germany to Ohio, mainly because of my poor decisions in the wake of her death.

I picture Autumn at her most alive—on the crest of a
roller coaster at Disneyland Paris, throwing her arms up, doubling over with laughter—and only then do I dare look at her again. She wears a simple black long-sleeved T-shirt and yoga pants. Her blond hair is pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her face is scrubbed clean of the makeup she never used to leave her house without. Her feet are also bare, toes overlapping the edge of the covered sidewalk and digging into the green grass of the lawn.

Megan goes and sits down next to her on the concrete, as if she’s settling in for a long wait.

Libby makes a mark on one of the clipboards. “This is Autumn. She helps train promising candidates for the seraphim guard, and as the head of our security force, she screens new arrivals.”

When Libby finishes her introduction, Autumn finally looks our way. Her eyes widen, and I brace myself for a boiling burst of condemnation. She rocks on her heels and then closes the distance between us in three bounding strides. Before I can move, she knocks into me, tearing me out of Neil’s grasp.

I curl my shoulders in to protect myself from her blows. It takes a second for me to process that she’s not sneering and jabbing at me. She’s squealing and jumping and hugging me as if she’s
excited
I’ve crawled back into her life, as if she’s forgiven me when I haven’t even been able to forgive myself. It’s so unexpected, so undeserved, that the huge knot of shame in my chest comes undone and spills out of me in heaves and spurts.

“What’s wrong?” Autumn asks, releasing me. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

In this moment I am happy. Even if I can’t quite trust this dawning awareness that I might have the chance to win my oldest, dearest friend back. It seems too good to be true. I need to tell her how sorry I am. How much penance I’ve paid for the wrong I did her. “I’m sorry,” I blubber. “For what . . . I did. With Julian.” I stumble over the words, feel them collide in my mouth, like they’re too big to fit in there all at once.

Autumn shakes her head, and her ponytail swishes back and forth. “Oh, Felicia, it’s fine. It really is. The first thing you learn in Level Three is how to let go. Make peace with your past. I have.”

Her eyes sparkle with sincerity and joy. Level Three has obviously been good to her. I’m overcome with gratitude that the unpredictability of the cosmos has arranged this in my favor. Even if my future is uncertain, even if the Morati lie in wait beyond this encounter, at least I can die again knowing that I’m forgiven. With Autumn and Neil by my side.

Libby clears her throat, and Autumn startles, as if just now realizing that we have an audience. “Who’s this?” Autumn asks brightly. Neil laces his fingers through mine, and Autumn smiles. “Your boyfriend?”

I nod. “Neil. He’s the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.”

“And he’s cute!” Autumn winks, making Neil duck his head and blush. We all trade bemused glances, and I start to think Level Three might be okay after all.

“We should probably begin,” Autumn says with chipper enthusiasm. “Even though I know you, I still have to screen you.”

“For what?” I ask.

“Autumn and a few of the other elite members of the security force greet new trainees to make sure they’re mentally fit for service,” Libby explains. “She’ll read your memories via your palm. I assume you’ve both done memory transfers before.”

We have. After the fall of the Morati’s hive architecture and the memory chambers, touching palms was the only way to access memories. Neil and I dipped in and out of our lives on Earth with regularity in the months we spent together before coming here.

I pull away from Neil so I can lift my palm for Autumn. I hope she’s not planning to show me her death memory. It’s not that I don’t wonder who killed her—that mystery was never solved—but I don’t want to relive it with her.

Autumn leans forward and allows our palms and the pads of our fingers to connect. The instant they do, I’m sucked into a black hole. Murky images fly and scratch at me like ravens spooked from a fence. I can’t hold on to anything long enough to process it. I twist away from her, breaking contact.

“I’m sorry!” Autumn winces. “I should have warned you that memory transfers with someone as practiced in mind blocking as I am can be unpleasant. In order to assess your mental strength, I put up defenses instead of openly showing
you one of my memories. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else if I were to go easy on you because you’re my best friend.”

We all chuckle uncomfortably, even Megan, who twists blades of grass between her fingers, forming them into tiny animal figurines. So far two giraffes and a penguin stand at attention next to her on the sidewalk.

“Your turn,” Autumn says to Neil. After my reaction to the screening, Neil is understandably hesitant. But he’s never been one to question authority, so he dutifully lifts his palm and only flinches once while they’re connected.