Chasing Before (36 page)
Authors: Lenore Appelhans
So many maybes. So many ways for things to have gone differently. So many versions of the story that will never be told.
I touch his arm, and his fist relaxes.
“It’s okay. We’ll be fine.” I can’t be sure whether he’s finally telling me the whole truth or merely his understanding of the truth, but in the end I don’t care. I can accept Julian for who he is, bad and good and everything crazy in between. “Friends?” I ask. It’s the most that I can offer.
“Friends,” he says.
Julian and I walk together to Assembly Hill, where a crowd has already gathered. There’s an air of celebration as Area Two prepares to send off the twelve chosen candidates for the seraphim guard, including Brady and Moby. Over in Area Three they are bidding farewell to the retiring Careers and the people older than sixty-five, who get an automatic pass to Level Four.
There’s a barrier put up between the ascension site, where the graduates stand, and the rest of us. I join Neil in the front row. Brady comes up and hugs me. “Bye, Twitchy,” Brady says. “I don’t know where in creation I’m going, but I reckon it’ll be exciting.”
“Aww! I’ll miss you,” I tell him, “but I won’t miss that nickname.” We both laugh.
The portal opens. It’s a door leading to a staircase, one that looks more like it goes up to a dusty attic than the heavens. Furukama and Libby stand to the side and bow to each graduate as they ascend. Both Moby and Brady turn and wave at us as they pass through, and my eyes fill with happy tears.
The last graduate walks through the portal, and it closes behind her. Libby throws her arms up, and confetti and glitter rain from the sky. She twirls and twirls, laughing, until she bumps into Neil and me. I’ve never seen her so unburdened. She winks at us. “I used to be fun, you know,” she says.
She continues dancing through the crowd, and all at once I imagine I see my mother the way my dad used to see her. I wait for the sting of rejection to pierce my heart like it usually does when I think of her sending me away, but it doesn’t come. And that’s when I realize I’ve finally forgiven her.
After the ceremony Neil and I go to the Forgetting Tree.
I’ve thought about this moment a lot over the past few weeks. If memories make you who you are, then the Morati killed a version of me by stealing them. I’ll never know how I actually died. I’ll never know if Neil and I stayed together on Earth or not. I may never know the fates of my family and friends. But maybe my best memories are just waiting
for me to make them. Whatever is in store for me, I can’t stop it. I’ll take the days of my afterlife as they come.
I materialize a scrap of paper and a pen and then write “My stolen memories” on it. Neil stands close by as I pin the paper to the tree. And then he takes hold of my hand.
Now I understand what letting go means. It means not allowing anyone else to define you, and that includes past versions of yourself. It’s not about throwing away keepsakes, or distancing yourself from the people who matter, but about accepting that you’re a person who’s going to make mistakes sometimes, and that’s okay. Mistakes don’t define you. It’s what you learn from them that does.
We don’t erase the past. Our triumphs, our failures, our loves, our betrayals—they all provide the clarifying context that makes life more meaningful. Without our roots we might be carried off by the first wayward wind.
But we also need to realize we can fly.
© Vania Stoyanova
Lenore Appelhans
has been blogging about books since 2008. After reviewing hundreds of them, she decided to write one. She is the author of
The Memory of After, The Best Things in Death
(an e–short story), and
Chasing Before.
Lenore also wrote
Chick-o-Saurus Rex,
a picture book illustrated by her husband, Daniel Jennewein. She lives in Frankfurt, Germany, but loves to travel, so you can often find her on planes—at least until she learns how to teleport. Visit her online at
presentinglenore.blogspot.com
and on Twitter
@lenoreva
.
Simon & Schuster • New York
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Also by Lenore Appelhans
The Memory of After
The Best Things in Death
(an e–short story)
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Lenore Appelhans
Jacket photograph copyright © 2014 by Ali Smith
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Book design by Lizzy Bromley
Cover design by Lizzy Bromley
Cover photo by Ali Smith
The text for this book is set in Janson Text LT Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Appelhans, Lenore.
Chasing before : book 2 of the memory chronicles / Lenore Appelhans. — 1st edition.
pages cm — (The memory chronicles ; bk. 2)
Summary: Four months after Felicia saved Level 2 from the Morati, corrupted angels who trapped her and her boyfriend Neil in the afterlife, she learns some shocking truths about her life that make her question whether she should continue the fight on Level 3.
ISBN 978-1-4424-4188-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4424-4190-3 (eBook)
[1. Future life—Fiction. 2. Death—Fiction. 3. Angels—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A6447Ch 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013040677
Contents