Hereafter (13 page)

Forgotten faces. Impossibly, irrevocably forgotten. And yet, like my flashes of memory, here they were—regaining shape and form in my mind.

I wrapped my arms around my frame, hugging myself tightly. Joshua moved closer, almost touching me but not quite. We stayed like that for a while—ten minutes could have been ten hours for all I knew—until, miraculously, I felt . . . lighter.

In that lightness was the strangest, most inexplicable flood of relief.

I don’t know how it was possible, but Joshua seemed to sense the change in me. This time, he was the one to break the silence.

“So, Amelia Elizabeth Ashley,” he said quietly. Carefully. “Do you want to see your family again . . . today?”

My whispered response shocked me, mostly because it was true.

“Yes. I do.”

Chapter
Fifteen

J
oshua guessed it would take us at least twenty minutes to drive from the school to the first address he’d written down on a scrap of notebook paper. He pulled out a tiny phone. (I’d seen cell phones while alive, I was sure, but none of them could fit in the palm of your hand like this one.) From this practically invisible device, he called his mother to let her know he’d be home late. With that responsibility handled, Joshua fell quiet as he drove, casting the occasional, worried glance in my direction. I’m sure he could tell I was too lost in my own thoughts to carry on a conversation.

But, to be fair, the things in my head weren’t exactly thoughts. They were remembered images and sounds, accompaniments to the hazy, long-buried memories of my family. People who had all but vanished from my mind, until the past hour. People whom I would see, for the first time in more than a decade, in just a few minutes.

First, and most disconcertingly, I saw my father’s face. A strange haze clouded most of the memory, obscuring the setting and the other people in the scene. But there, clear and unmistakable in the center of the image, was my father. His green eyes crinkled at the corners as he ran one hand through his thinning blond hair. Then, in a blur, the image cut over to a woman. My mother. She was sitting on a threadbare recliner, the one in our living room maybe, and looking up at my father. No, not at my father. At the small, amber-colored drink in his hand. Dad liked to drink at Christmas, and my mother didn’t approve.

Soon these remembered images blurred with the scenery flying outside the car windows. The effect started to make me dizzy and, in turn, nauseated. This was an odd feeling, considering ghosts couldn’t get sick. I leaned over slightly, placing my elbows on my knees and rubbing my temples with my fingertips.

“Amelia? You okay?”

Without taking my head from my hands, I peeked at Joshua from between my fingers. While trying to watch the road, he was also sneaking as many worried, sidelong glances at me as he could without driving into a ditch.

I sighed and leaned back against the seat.

“No, I’m not okay,” I answered with a wan smile. “I just keep . . . remembering things. People, actually. My family. So, naturally, I’m terrified.”

“Yeah, me too, kind of.”

I frowned. This afternoon Joshua had been absolutely confident—confident that, in discovering my name and my family, we’d made the right choice. Now his confidence seemed shaken.

“Why should you be scared, Joshua?”

“Well, I guess I’m mostly nervous,” he said. “For you.”

I nodded, laughing quietly. “Would you be mad if I said I’m glad to hear it?”

Joshua laughed too. “Not at all. We’re kind of in this together, right?”

“I guess so,” I said with a faint smile.

“So,” Joshua went on, “do you want to talk, to distract ourselves? We can still talk about the serious stuff, if you want.”

I thought about his suggestion. Actually, a distraction from my memories sounded nice. Even if we had to talk about the memories themselves. At least then I wouldn’t be alone with them in my own head.

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Joshua nodded. He gave me a quick, worried glance, the kind he gave when he wanted to ask something tough but wasn’t sure if the question would offend me.

“Something on your mind, Mr. Mayhew?” I forced the playful note into my voice, pressing it past my tension and nerves.

“Well, I was just thinking it kind of sucks.”

“What sucks?” I asked with a smile.

“That you died on your birthday.”

My smile faded. “Oh. That.”

Joshua didn’t respond with anything but a raised eyebrow. I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t trying to push me for more answers. He just didn’t know what to say next.

“Apparently,” I said, not waiting for Joshua to find his response.

“Apparently?”

“Apparently I died on my birthday. I don’t actually remember my death.”

“But you’re starting to remember other stuff? Like your family?”

“Yeah, sort of. But not my death. Well, nothing except the actual dying part. I can’t remember why, or how, I was in the water when I drowned.” I shuddered a little and went on. “Maybe that’s just part of being a ghost. Not remembering most of the death stuff.”

“Do you even want to know about the rest of it?”

“You know, I’m not sure. Let’s see. . . .” I searched for the most apt analogy but could only find a weak one. “The closest thing I can compare it to is being in a car accident, or breaking your leg or something, and not wanting to look because it will make you sick, but really wanting to at the same time.”

Joshua fell silent for a moment. He frowned heavily, just before shooting me a wary look.

“Do you think the problem is psychological maybe?” he asked. “Instead of supernatural?”

“Huh?” I frowned too, and tilted my head to one side.

“Well, maybe you’re subconsciously blocking those memories. I mean, if other memories are coming back to you but not those.”

I twisted my mouth, pondering this suggestion. After a few seconds I nodded. “It’s possible, yeah.”

He glanced at me again, worry still in his eyes. When he spoke, he did so with hesitation. “So did you . . . um . . . kill yourself, you think?”

I lowered my head.
Of course he’d have to ask this question.

Aloud I said, “You know, I kind of always thought I did. My death seemed pretty depressing, so it wasn’t too big a stretch to think my life must have been too. But lately, since I met you, I’m not so sure. I know I fell off the bridge. Now I’m just not sure I jumped.”

Joshua surprised me by taking my hand from my lap and lacing his fingers through mine. “Maybe you didn’t. In fact . . . I’d bet you didn’t. That’s just not like you. Not at all.”

My head flew up, and I gave him a small but widening smile. The ache in my chest radiated outward in deliciously warm arcs, mimicking the heat I now felt in my hand.

So maybe Joshua was wrong. So what? Maybe I had killed myself, maybe I hadn’t. Likely, we would never know. But Joshua didn’t believe I had. He believed I was better than that, in life and now. His belief touched something inside me, something that insisted that maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t done anything to deserve this death.

Before I could tell Joshua as much, he suddenly glanced out my window and frowned. He slowed down before turning the car onto a side road.

Realizing what was happening, I stared at Joshua with a renewed sense of terror. I refused to look outside the car for even a second and kept my eyes locked on his grim expression. For the briefest moment I willed myself to go back into the fog. Just for some peace, some quiet preparation for what was about to follow. Joshua’s voice, however, forced me to focus.

“We’re here.”

To my surprise, his eyes mirrored my own panic. I gulped, clenching his hand even harder. He squeezed back to let me know that he didn’t mind if we sat like this for the entire afternoon, staring at each other instead of at the house behind us.

But we couldn’t stay like this forever.

With painful, near-creaking slowness, I let go of Joshua’s hand and turned in my seat until I faced out the passenger side window.

Across a postage-stamp lawn was a tiny clapboard house, no more than a thousand square feet in size and no less than fifty years old. The exterior’s white paint had started to peel a long time ago, and the roof sagged under the remembered weight of a half century of snow. Behind the building, overgrown grass spread out until it met the thick woods that bordered the backyard.

This was my parents’ house. My house.

Two ruts cut parallel paths in the dirt next to the house. It was a not-quite driveway, which was now free of cars.

“They aren’t home.”

The words tumbled out of my mouth before I had time to think about their meaning.

I blinked, shocked at the ease of that statement. I hadn’t seen this ramshackle little house in many years, much less seen my parents’ cars parked outside of it. Yet I suddenly remembered exactly what this house looked like when it was empty.

Joshua’s voice nearly made me jump in my seat.

“Do you want to go see it?”

I nodded without looking at him. I didn’t even tear my eyes away from the house when Joshua got out of the car, opened my door, and helped me out onto the grass. Dazed, I walked hand in hand with him across the front lawn. It wasn’t until he took one step onto the front porch that I yanked on his hand, jerking him to a stop.

“What are you going to say?” I asked. “If someone’s actually here?”

“I was just thinking about that. What do you think? Vacuum salesman?”

“You don’t have any vacuums!” I hissed.

“Fund-raising for the baseball team?”

“Better. Kind of.”

Somewhat prepared, we walked up to the front door. As Joshua let go of my hand, he turned to me and gave me his most reassuring smile, which, unfortunately, twitched with almost as much fear as I felt. Then he raised his right hand and rapped on the door.

The door immediately swung open under Joshua’s touch. We both gasped and stepped backward.

On the other side of the door, a dark, shotgun-style hallway led to the back of the house. It took us a few seconds to realize that the hallway was empty and that no one had opened the door from the inside. The door must have already been ajar. Joshua’s knocking had merely pushed it open.

I had the briefest flash—an image of that door swinging open beneath a woman’s hand.

“My mom always did that,” I whispered, nodding. “She’d forget to close the door when she went out somewhere.”

“What should we do?” Joshua whispered back.

“Let’s go in.”

I pushed past him, squeezing myself between the doorjamb and the door until it was too late for either Joshua or me to argue with this plan. After he closed the door behind us, I let my eyes adjust to the dimness inside.

We were standing in the only hallway, off of which were several rooms. To my immediate right was a living room, crammed with secondhand furniture and an old TV. The entrance to another room was just visible in the back, to the right. Across from it I could see a tiny kitchen, next to what appeared to be an even tinier bathroom. I turned slightly to my left and stared at the door beside me, which was shut tight against the hallway.

However cool I was trying to play it, I had to stifle a gasp of shock at the flood of familiarity in this house: the sound of the creaking hardwood floors under Joshua’s feet; the
tap-tap-tap
of the leaky kitchen faucet in the back of the house; the sight of the faded, pink paper
A
taped in the middle of the closed door to my left.

I couldn’t help it. A whimper escaped my mouth just as I clutched my hand to my heart. The ache that now gripped my chest was new, and not even a fraction as pleasant as the one I felt with Joshua. This ache was terrible. It tightened against my lungs until I could hear myself begin to hyperventilate.

In an instant Joshua had wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me to his chest. It was the closest we’d ever been, but I couldn’t seem to spare a fraction of my concentration to enjoy that fact.

“We can leave,” Joshua murmured into my hair. “We can leave right now.”

I shook my head.

“No.” The word was low and rough. “I can’t leave yet.”

I could feel Joshua nodding as he pulled me even closer. We stayed that way until I stopped gasping. Once my breath had steadied, Joshua released me. He looked me up and down, saving his longest look for my face.

“You know,” I said with a shaky laugh, “I think I might have been an asthmatic when I was alive. With all the gasping and stuff.”

Joshua just shook his head at my failed attempt at levity. “Do you really want to stay?”

I pressed my lips together into a tense line and nodded.

“Well . . . what do you want to see first then?” he asked.

I thought about that for a moment and then flicked my head at the door to my left.

“Could we go into my old bedroom?”

“O-kay.”

Like he always did when approaching something with caution, Joshua drew out his long
O
. He still sounded worried, still sounded as if he wasn’t sure I was ready for all of this. I kept my expression impassive and tried to look ready for anything. Seeing this (but obviously not believing it entirely), Joshua reached across me to turn the handle of my old bedroom door.

The door opened, and when it did, it released something I hadn’t anticipated.

A slight gust of warm air brushed my skin. I could
feel
it—feel its movement and its warmth. I could smell the air, stale from being trapped in the room for God knows how long, but with a faint hint of old perfume. It smelled vaguely of fruit . . . maybe peaches, or nectarines.

As quickly as the sensations had come, they were gone again, leaving me numb. But the sensations had come, that was the point. I closed my eyes briefly and savored the thought.

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find that I’d already crossed the threshold. I turned back to see Joshua hovering uncertainly in the doorframe. I smiled at him and gestured him into the room with one hand.

The room was tiny, with barely enough space for both Joshua and me to stand in it. Shoved against one wall was an old dresser and shoved against another was a twin-sized bed, which overflowed with purple and green pillows. Above the bed, a handful of gold paper stars hung from the ceiling by threads. They matched the curtains, which someone had closed against the light, rendering useless the small telescope propped against the window.

Even in the gloom I could see the only collection of items I’d ever owned: my books. Stacks of books, rising from the ground to almost waist height and running along every free inch of the tiny room. I’d found these books in used bookstores, thrift store bins, library sales. Each book had been read, reread, and then lovingly placed on top of a stack.

I pressed my hand to my heart again. This time I didn’t feel the need to gasp or sob. I felt . . . sad, yes. Deeply, deeply sad. But also glad to see all of this again. To know I had existed. That I still existed, at least in some form.