Hereafter

With each question my smile began to grow. Before long Joshua’s face reflected mine, as if my enthusiasm for this game was infectious.

“Do you remember which flavor ice cream you liked best?”

“No.” I laughed. “I don’t remember if I even liked ice cream.”

He prepped for his next question by frowning and resting his chin on one fist for dramatic effect. “Do you remember your school mascot?”

“Nope. I don’t remember school at all. So there is something positive about being dead, right?”

He started to chuckle, then abruptly jerked upright as though he’d been pinched. Checking his watch, he swore under his breath. He jumped off the park bench and began to run toward the parking lot. If I weren’t so confused by his sudden behavior, I might have laughed when he skidded to a stop and spun around to face me again, kicking up a dramatic cloud of red dirt.

“Come on,” he yelled, and turned to run back to his father’s car. Without thinking, I obeyed the order and ran after him.

As he fumbled to unlock the driver’s side door, I cleared my throat.

“Um, Joshua? What’s wrong?”

“We’re going to be late.”

“For what?”

He ignored my question. “Lunch is over in about ten minutes.”

“And?” I asked, growing a little frustrated with the mystery.

“And we’re going to have to break about forty-seven traffic laws to get there on time.”

“To get where?” I threw my hands in the air, completely baffled.

“Class.”

The word was muffled as he ducked into the driver’s seat. Within seconds he threw open the passenger side door in front of me and leaned out.

“Come on,” he repeated.

“Come … to school? With you?”

“Of course.”

The idea made me almost rock back on my heels in shock. I wanted to argue the logic of this with him, especially the possibility of going anywhere in public together. But the urgency in his expression told me he wouldn’t be open to debate. So I too spun around rapidly—facing him, then the familiar safety of the woods, then him again.

“No time to think, Amelia. Just get in.”

“But,” I protested weakly, “I don’t even remember how to ride in a car!”

He grinned and patted the seat.

“It’s like riding a bike, I promise.”

“I don’t remember how to do that, either,” I grumbled, but I slipped into the passenger seat and let him lean over to pull the door shut beside me.

Chapter

EIGHT

Death may have stolen my old memories of riding in a car, but it certainly couldn’t take away my new ones. The farther Joshua drove, the more my initial fear of the ride, and the events to follow it, began to melt away.

As Joshua’s borrowed car flew along the steep, curved roads outside the park, I shifted forward in my seat until I’d nearly pressed myself against the dashboard. I watched the dense green woods rush by us in a panorama outside the windshield.

Although I was unable to experience the physical sensation of sitting in the car, I didn’t feel the least bit sad about this. I felt untethered, and impossibly fast—as though I were flying. I gripped the edge of the seat beneath me, and, incredibly, the sensation of its rough leather scraped against my fingertips.

“Hey, Amelia?”

Joshua’s worried voice broke into my thoughts, and the feel of the leather instantly disappeared.

“Yeah?” However much I enjoyed looking at him, I could barely tear my eyes away from the road long enough to give him a sidelong glance.

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do or anything, but would you please scoot back? The way you’re sitting, you’re putting a lot of faith in my driving.”

I laughed. “Well, it’s not like I can fly through your windshield.”

From my peripheral vision, I saw him frown deeply. The image of his car floating to the bottom of the river flashed into my mind. I shook my head at my own stupidity.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Bad joke.”

“It’s okay,” he answered with a faint smile. “But … all the same, you’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry,” I repeated, and I slid back into the seat.

I kept my eyes glued to the blurred scenery outside the windows. Still, I itched to lean forward again, so I grabbed the seat to hold myself in place and tried in vain to revive the sensation of leather against my skin.

Eventually, the woods gave way to a small town. The road wound through a sort of main street dotted with small buildings and scattered pines. A painted wooden sign along the roadside welcomed us to Wilburton, Oklahoma.

The town reminded me of a vaguely familiar photograph, one that I’d seen a long time ago but couldn’t place now. Had I passed through this particular town in my death? I’d never really taken much note of the places where I’d wandered. I couldn’t be sure, and the uncertain familiarity made me squirm in my seat.

Too soon, Joshua slowed to a few miles per hour. Next he pulled onto a side road, one lined more heavily with pines. When the trees thinned, a set of low buildings appeared. As Joshua pulled into a parking lot, I could see a few students milling around or making their way into the corridors between the buildings.

“Made it.” Joshua sighed in relief. He parked the car, then unbuckled his seat belt and reached into the backseat to scavenge for his schoolbag.

I remained focused on the redbrick buildings in front of us. I took in the sight of the flat white roofs, the dark purple benches on the lawn, the faded metal signs that proclaimed GO DIGGERS! in block letters. Something about the buildings itched at me—something I couldn’t put my finger on ….

“Good ole Wilburton High School. Shall we?”

The nearness of Joshua’s voice made me jump in my seat. He stood beside me but outside of the car, with one hand holding the frame of the passenger side door and the other gripping the bag that hung from his right shoulder. In my concentration, I hadn’t even noticed him leave the car or open my door.

“Um ….”

I began to twist the fabric of my dress, suddenly nervous again. Before Joshua, impending contact with the living world would have saddened me. Now Joshua’s awareness of me (and honestly, Joshua himself) had made the depression slink back to a remote part of my brain.

Yet the sight of those buildings, and the creeping sensation they gave me, made me a little scared. And more than a little fused to my seat.

“Move it, Amelia. You’re making me look crazy, standing by an empty door.” Joshua’s words may have seemed harsh, but his voice was playful. Although my indecision was certainly going to make him late for class, he simply smiled and held out one hand for me.

It seemed as though my bravery could stretch itself out a little farther, because I grabbed his hand and stepped out of the car. Immediately, a fiery shock jolted up my arm.

“Oh!” I cried out, and dropped his hand. As he leaned across me to close the passenger side door, he managed to gasp and laugh at the same time.

“More of that later.” He chuckled. “Now for school. Just follow me.”

He actually winked and then strode quickly past me. A smile—formed half from embarrassment, half from excitement—crept onto my face, and I followed behind him toward one of the smaller buildings. As we walked, he spoke through clenched teeth without looking back at me. I assume he did so to keep from appearing to everyone else as if he were talking to himself.

“You all right back there?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, mirroring his volume even though I didn’t need to. “This place just looks so … familiar. I feel as if I remember this school; but I don’t know why, or from when.”

“Huh. That could be … interesting.” He was silent for a moment and then, in an unsure tone, he whispered, “Will you be okay with this? I mean, I sort of forced you into it, didn’t I?”

He sounded so genuinely worried, I had to stifle a laugh. Apparently, he hadn’t thought to ask me what I wanted until the last possible second.

Aloud I said, “I’ll probably be all right.”

As I stared at his back, broad and strong beneath his light gray shirt, I impulsively blurted out my next thought.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter where we go, because I just want to be wherever you are.”

Upon hearing my words, Joshua froze with one hand on the door he was just about to open. Looking at his back, I bit my lower lip in frustration. Was I really such a moron that I’d make a proclamation like that without being able to see his response?

I could see Joshua’s hand flex against the doorknob, so I readied myself for the worst: he would tell me my very presence here was a risk, just as I suspected; he would scold me for touching him in public and would then suggest that I wait outside for him … or go away completely.

But, of course, I misread him again. Instead of fleeing from me, Joshua reached one hand behind him and, still facing forward, squeezed my hand. Then he jerked the door open wide and stepped into a classroom just as a bell rang out across the lawn behind us. I saw him clench and unclench the hand that had touched me, possibly in response to the same fire sizzling in my fingers. I took a deep breath and slipped into the classroom before he pulled the door shut behind us.

I guess I wasn’t prepared for the change in scenery, because I began to blink furiously against the sudden dimness of the room. To be fair, I didn’t have much afterlife experience with poorly lit high school classrooms, and I absently wondered if my pupils still expanded in the dark.

Joshua’s loud cough pulled me out of this reverie, fast.

The cough was obviously a warning, because an elderly woman stood right in front of me, her face mere inches from mine. Her yellowed face matched her wispy hair as well as the yellowed whites of her eyes.

Which were looking directly into mine.

Frantic, I turned back to Joshua, who had frozen in front of the first row of desks. I whipped my head back to the woman, tensing every muscle. Was she another once-dead human who could now see me, like Joshua could? Or another malevolent ghost, like Eli?

A second look into her eyes told me all I needed to know. The eyes didn’t focus fully on mine but instead gazed past me and at Joshua. She squinted, her vision possibly obscured by my form but not enough so as to make me visible to her. The woman looked through me like one looks through a wisp of smoke: distracted by it, without really being fully aware of or concerned by it. When she spoke, she confirmed my assumptions.

“Mr. Mayhew, has your brush with death given you permission to waltz in whenever you please?”

“No, ma’am, Ms. Wolters. I thought I made the bell?”

She frowned, allowing deep lines to pull her mouth into a droopy sort of scowl.

“The bell signifies the start of class, not the time for your entrance. Now take your seat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. Ducking his head, Joshua moved quickly down the aisle and slid behind an empty desk—his, I presumed.

A burly, red-headed boy, sitting at the desk next to Joshua’s, clapped him on the back and whispered, “Should have skipped sixth period, too, dude.” Joshua just nodded tensely.

Without another glance at me—or through me, really—Ms. Wolters circled behind her own desk. I caught Joshua’s gaze and ran a hand across my forehead, mouthing, Whew. He gave me the faintest smile of relief and then began to pull books from his bag.

In that moment I realized I was standing in front of a room full of living people. I suddenly recalled the stereotypical adolescent nightmare: standing naked in front of a classroom of your peers. I certainly wasn’t naked, and these living beings weren’t exactly my peers; but I still felt horribly exposed. I had the unpleasant sensation that the students were all staring right at me even though most of them just looked bored as they watched their teacher start to write on the chalkboard behind me.

Only then did I realize I hadn’t been around this many members of the living world, and all in one place, since my death. So many breathing, blushing, heartbeating people made me nervous. Made me curl protectively into myself.

I glanced up at Joshua. He too was staring around the classroom with a look of wonder. After he analyzed each classmate, he turned his eyes back to me. Wow, he mouthed. I frowned at him, confused. Ever so slightly, he rolled his head in a circle, gesturing to the entire classroom, then nodding emphatically back at me.

I understood. He was coming to the conclusion that he really was the only person who could see me. In the park, he’d listened to me and believed me … in theory. Here, the theory had been put to the test. A test that proved I was invisible—a ghost.

I nodded in confirmation. To underscore his sudden realization, I spoke aloud, “Weird, huh?”

No one but Joshua looked up at me. Wow, he mouthed again, and grinned.

That grin spoke in full paragraphs, telling me exactly what Joshua thought about his new friend’s state of being. The grin set off the warm little ache in my chest, a welcome sensation in the face of my insecurity; the grin was all the reassurance I needed.

Braver, I smiled back. I put one hand in front of my waist and bowed to my bored, unaware audience, then clapped loudly as if to thank them for their kind attention to my performance. Still, no one looked at me.

A brief memory entered my mind: that of my own voice, screaming at unseeing strangers, just after my death. Something about that remembered anguish, in comparison to this moment, made me inexplicably light-headed and almost giddy. I began to pace back and forth in front of the classroom, folding my arms behind me like a general.

“You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today,” I intoned in my deepest boardroom voice.

Joshua snorted and shook his head. “Weirdo,” he said aloud.

“What was that, Mr. Mayhew?”

Ms. Wolters’s shrill voice cut across the room as she spun away from the chalkboard. Joshua coughed and hacked, trying desperately to cover his error.

Unfortunately, some of his classmates, including the big, red-headed boy next to him, mistook Joshua’s actions as the intentional mocking of their teacher. They began to laugh, joining in the supposed fun. Ms. Wolters, believing herself to be at the receiving end of some unheard joke, stood as straight as the piece of chalk she now gripped. Her glare looked no less than murderous.

“Mr. Mayhew, since you seem to have such a keen grasp on this material, please come to the board and tell us what the order is for this differential equation.” She practically spat out the words.

Joshua shot me a panicked look. It was painfully clear from his face that differential equations weren’t exactly his specialty.

“Oh, God,” I moaned. “I’m so sorry. I’m a moron.”

He shook his head slightly, trying to tell me no despite the fact that I’d obviously gotten him into trouble. He slid out of his seat and walked sluggishly to the chalkboard, hardly looking at Ms. Wolters as he took the chalk from her thin hand.

I hurried to his side, fluttering my hands uselessly. I stared up at the complex math problem in front of him, only to see it was a tangled mess of numbers and letters and symbols. Oh no, I thought as I struggled to keep my eyes in focus while staring at the equation. Just looking at all the d’s and 3’s and x’s and y’s, I felt my breath start to mirror Joshua’s in rapidity.

He stared at the equation on the board too, his face a total blank. He seemed pretty smart … but maybe not this smart. Not without some warning. Not in the face of this monster problem.

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