Chasing Before (8 page)

“I have something for you.” He practically skips over to his desk and opens the top drawer. He pulls out a long, flat box and hands it to me. “Birthday gift number two.”

I pull the lid from the box and find a mini Maglite, like the one Neil was carrying on the night of our first kiss in the forest.

“It doesn’t work here,” he says, “but it reminds me of one of the happiest days of my life, so I thought you might like to have it anyway.”

I place the package on Neil’s bed and lean into his waiting lips, closing my eyes and picturing the looming trees and the way the light bounced through the darkness. I let the memory of that faraway kiss wash over me, intensifying the closeness of this moment.

Neil’s door creaks open. “Ready to go?” Autumn calls from the doorway. Neil releases me from his embrace but laces his fingers through mine.

“Ready.” Neil says it more convincingly than I could right now.

“Muse orientation meets in Hall One,” Autumn says.

The trek to Hall One is short. We join a stream of other students on the way to their classes, over the avenue and through the grassy courtyard where Neil nearly died yesterday. Neil tenses as we walk past the spot where he fell, but he doesn’t say anything. There’s none of the chatting and joking we saw yesterday. Instead people hurry with their heads down and their shoulders hunched.

Autumn leads us into Hall One and into a corridor with a row of orange doors, each a richer hue than the last. She stops in front of the first one, painted an orange as pale as the first tinges of sunset. “This is where they hold orientation.
Miss Claypool will call everyone in soon. I’d wait with you, but I have to make sure everyone goes to class.” She gives me a quick hug and leaves.

Neil and I wait with a group of about thirty other applicants. He retrieves the brochure from his back pocket and pores over it, like there’s going to be a pop quiz or something.

“I wonder when they’ll finally let us in,” says a male voice beside us.

When I turn, the guy smiles ruefully at me. He looks like he’s in one of those hipster rock bands, with longish dark hair that falls over one eye, a fitted long-sleeved T-shirt, and skinny jeans slung low on his hips. The awkward way he stands, though—sort of like a junior high kid who isn’t comfortable with his height yet—makes me think he’d be the bassist rather than the lead singer.

Something about his manner sets me at ease. “Well, until they do, at least we can read over this amazing brochure.” I elbow Neil in the side.

“I’m Moby. Nice to meet you.” He tosses the hair out of his eye and sticks out his hand.

Both Neil and I look at his hand awkwardly and mumble our names. Then, hoping I don’t piss him off, I say, “Uh, I think it’s the custom to bow here. Shaking hands is too intimate because you might slip up and let the other person look at your memories.”

Moby shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, pulling them down dangerously low. “Makes sense. Do
you know anyone else in the muse program?”

“We used to,” Neil says. A haunted look comes over his face. “Her name was Megan. She played the tuba, and made animal sculptures out of grass. But she died in the bombing.”

With the side of his black boot, Moby kicks at the baseboard that runs along the hallway. “I also lost someone. He was this strung-out roadie who used to work our shows. I don’t know anyone else here.”

I guess I was right about Moby being in a band. “Now you know us.” He seems nice, and obviously he could use some friends.

Moby nods. “God, I wish I had a cigarette. Maybe I could materialize one. But it’s not the same.” So far I haven’t seen anyone smoking. I’m not sure it’s even possible.

Neil looks at him curiously. “Did you consider other afterlife positions, other than muse?”

“Not really. I thought with my background . . .” He trails off.

“Yeah.” Neil points out a section at the top of the second page of the brochure. “But I’ve been thinking that healer might also be interesting.” He reads aloud from the brochure. “Healers tend to the perceived physical wounds of recruits who are still adjusting to afterlife physiology, as well as provide psychological counseling. Prerequisites include: one, honesty and integrity; two, demonstrated compassion; and three, agreement to a strict adherence to healer-patient confidentiality.”

The scene in Neil’s bedroom last night flashes before my eyes. I’m grateful for the healer’s work, but I don’t want him to be one, or to be one myself. “If we joined the healers, you’d likely end up with Nate on your couch. He’s messed up enough to need counseling.” This statement earns me a dimpled smile from Neil, so I snatch the brochure. “Let’s see what else there is.”

I scan the text for another alternative. “Listen to this. Seraphim guards are part of an elite force that performs highly secretive and sensitive missions. Prerequisites include: one, a strong mind; two, a highly developed sense of loyalty; and three, ability to follow orders.” I materialize a highlighter and mark prerequisite one with fluorescent green. “Kiara said you have a strong mind, Neil,” I say pointedly.

Moby whistles under his breath. “Seems like a sweet gig. Bet you have to be as tough as nails to get through that training.”

The door opens, revealing a woman in a high-necked black dress with an orange lace overlay. She looks like she stepped out of Victorian England by way of a Halloween jack-o’-lantern. Her gray hair is streaked with orange too. “Come in, come in.” She waves her arms. “Time’s a-wasting.”

The room is a typical lecture hall, with benches arranged to face a lectern and chalkboard. We all find a place to sit and murmur expectantly as our teacher writes her name—“Miss Claypool”—on the board with orange chalk.

She tilts her head upward, raising her fingers toward the
ceiling. “Repeat after me: We invoke thee, oh patron muse.”

We repeat the muse slogan after her, like a chant: “We invoke thee, oh patron muse.”

“Today I will introduce you to the art of being a muse. It’s more than merely a job; it’s a profession that will allow you to truly suck the marrow out of your afterlife,” Miss Claypool says.

Neil scoots closer to me on the bench so that our shoulders touch. I shift my weight toward him. What would he consider would be getting the most out of his afterlife? Does he long to restore his lost memories as much as I do? We haven’t gotten the chance to talk about it yet.

“To become a muse you will attend training sessions. At the end of the term, those who have earned enough credits, who excel at their audition in their chosen track, and who pass their detachment test will apprentice with career muses on their missions to Earth.”

A girl raises her hand but asks her question before being called on. “What’s the detachment test for?”

“Muses can be tempted to go rogue,” Miss Claypool explains. “A muse’s job is to inspire or help with memorization of text. But sometimes muses might feel the urge to give more story to their own lives or to right perceived wrongs. And to do this they might convince a writer to add them as a character to their movie or novel. The detachment test minimizes that risk.”

It’s not that I want to add more story to my life—it’s that I want to know how my story continued after the car
accident. It seems unfair that my natural curiosity might put me at risk for failing the detachment test.

Miss Claypool outlines what will be expected of us. She reveals that the course work consists of cultural immersion, for which we will have access to a curated collection of memory editions, which are readings of books or viewings of movies and art from the memories of people who experienced them on Earth.

This captures my full attention. “How do you get all the memories into the collection?” I ask. “Wouldn’t the person who donates the memory edition have to be hooked up to the library for you to access it?” That’s how it worked in Level Two. In order to rent a memory from someone else, that person’s hive had to be part of the network. That’s why I could never find Neil’s memories, since his hive was isolated.

“Not at all,” Miss Claypool says. “When a work is deemed worthy for inclusion, the memory holder allows it to be voluntarily harvested for the good of the program.”

“But don’t they lose it, then?” Neil asks.

“Not exactly. They can come back to the library and refresh their short-term memories with the material anytime they want. And when they retire, they can petition to have it returned to them in full. Once you get a library card, you can plug yourself in to access the memory editions.”

That makes it sound like there is a way for human memories to be taken and packaged. Maybe that’s what happened to my lost memories and to Neil’s. If those memories
are sitting around in someone’s collection, though, I can’t imagine why ours were chosen. Of course, it’s also possible that the memories still exist in our heads somewhere, waiting to be unlocked.

The orientation goes on for hours and hours. At the end of our class, Miss Claypool hands out a workbook to everyone and tells us that we can skip class tomorrow if we’d like to check out the career fair. I want to ask her more about the memory extraction process, but my classmates mob her with questions, and Neil nudges me out the door.

Neil takes my hand and we start walking back to the dorms, Moby beside us. While crossing Eastern Avenue, my neck prickles, like someone’s watching me. But when I turn, no one is looking my way. In fact, the few stragglers out at this time seem to be deliberately avoiding eye contact with anyone and curling into themselves to be as inconspicuous as possible. Still, I can’t shake the feeling, and I shudder.

“What is it?” Neil asks, jumping behind me like a shield. He plants his feet wide, as if bracing for another attack. Moby goes on high alert too, scanning the rooftops of the row of buildings we just left. I guess we’re all a bit jumpy right now.

“Nothing,” I say. If I make a big deal out of it, I’ll freak myself out. “How was it to go on tour, Moby?”

Moby relaxes and launches into a story about his tour bus breaking down. He might look like your typical mysterious loner dude, but it turns out he’s quite the entertainer. He continues to regale us with self-deprecating anecdotes
from his life on the road, and we find ourselves slowing our pace to snail speed to avoid parting ways.

Inevitably Moby excuses himself. “Thanks for cheering me up.” He punches Neil and then me lightly on our arms. He holds up his tattered brochure and grins. “Time to go back to my room to decide what I want to do with my afterlife.”

After Moby leaves, we run into Kiara and Keegan on Western Avenue. Kiara has a protective arm around her brother. His hat is pushed all the way down, so that the brim hides most of his face.

“Everything okay?” Neil asks. When even the healers look worried, it’s not a great sign.

“All good.” Kiara forces a smile. She elbows Keegan in his side, and he looks up at us and nods a somber greeting. “Want to come by tomorrow during the career fair?” she asks. “We don’t get many visitors at the healers’ booth. Might be nice to see friendly faces.”

“Of course,” Neil says. “We’d love to.”

I touch her shoulder. “I wanted to thank you again for what you did for Neil. We’re so grateful that you and Libby were there.”

“What did Libby do?” Neil asks. I never told him about my own injuries.

“She fixed my hearing. The blast was so loud, I thought I went deaf.”

“Libby used to train as a healer before she switched over to administration,” Kiara says like it’s an afterthought,
and hitches up her long skirt. “See you tomorrow, then.”

Kiara shuffles away with Keegan, and Neil and I exchange uneasy looks. The atmosphere of Level Three has changed so completely since yesterday. Now it’s like a ghost town.

As we cross the street, I try to recapture some of our earlier lightheartedness. “Moby sure had some crazy stories of life on the road, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, and he has such a vivid way of telling them. It was like watching a movie.”

“That was hilarious how that girl threw a bouquet of flowers onstage and then the bees flew out and stung the lead singer.” I mime a bee buzzing by his ear.

He swats my hand away. “You didn’t think it was so funny when you got stung by a bee, did you?”

I tense. Is Neil scolding me? But then he smiles and I realize he’s teasing. “It’s not funny he got hurt,” I say. “It’s funny to picture all these bees lying in wait between the flowers, calculating the perfect time to strike. What was your favorite story?” We reach the double doors of our dorm, and he ushers me in.

“Not any one in particular. I enjoyed hearing what it’s like to be a professional musician. That could have been me,” he says wistfully as we make our way through the foyer toward the stairs.

“Maybe it was.” It’s the perfect opening to discuss getting our memories back. “I mean, we know now that we didn’t die in that car accident. Think of all we might have achieved.”

Neil takes the stairs two at a time, and I struggle to keep up with him. “Well, short of forcing memories out of Nate, or having the luck of finding someone else who knew us after, we’ll never find out, will we?”

“We could always ask Nate again to share them with us.”

At the mention of his brother’s name, Neil’s face puckers like he’s eaten a rotten orange. “Keep your distance from Nate.” We reach our hallway.

“Why? Because you think Nate might tell me all your deep dark secrets?” I’m half teasing, half probing.
Because he might tell me about you and Gracie?

He whirls around to face me, his inside battle for control clearly showing in his eyes. “Nate’s a jerk, and the only memories he’d likely be willing to show us are the bad ones.”

“You must want to know what happened to us after the crash.” He does. I heard it in his voice.

“Of course it bothers me,” he confirms. “But in the end does what we did or didn’t do on Earth really matter? We’re here now. We’re together. What more could we want?”

He’s right in a way. Wanting to be reunited with Neil was the one thing that got me through Level Two. But that might not be enough for me anymore. I need to figure out who I really am. After all, we are nothing more than a collection of our memories. And if our memories are incomplete, we can never be complete people.