The Afterlife of Mal Caldera E-Book

Nadi Reed Perez

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Mal's life is over. Her afterlife is only just beginning… By turns irreverently funny and deeply moving, this debut contemporary fantasy is perfect for fans of They Both Die at the End and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Mal Caldera—former rockstar, retired wild-child and excommunicated black sheep of her Catholic family—is dead. Not that she cares. She only feels bad that her younger sister, Cris, has been left alone with their religious zealot of a mother, picking up the pieces Mal has left behind. While her fellow ghosts party their afterlives away at an abandoned mansion they call the Haunt, Mal is determined to make contact with Cris from beyond the grave. She manages enlists the help of reluctant local medium Ren, and together, they concoct a plan to pass on a message to Cris. But the more time they spend together, the more both begin to wonder what might have been if they'd met before Mal died. Mal knows it's wrong to hold on so tightly to her old life. Bad things happen to ghosts who interfere with the living, and Mal can't help wondering if she's hurting the people she loves by hanging around, haunting their lives. But Mal has always been selfish, and letting go might just be the hardest thing she's ever had to do… Funny, emotional and life-affirming, The Afterlife of Mal Caldera will have readers laughing one minute and sobbing the next.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for The Afterlife of Mal Caldera

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Stage One: Denial

One

Stage Two: Guilt

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Stage Three: Bargaining

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Stage Four: Reinvesting

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Stage Five: More Denial

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Stage Six: Sex

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Stage Seven: Hope

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Stage Eight: Depression

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Stage Nine: Adapting

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Stage Ten: Acceptance

Coda

Resources

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise forThe Afterlife of Mal Caldera

“The Afterlife of Mal Caldera is a profound unravelling of a life through loss, trauma and family that leads to a bright and vivid afterlife packed with characters to die for!”

ROSIE TALBOT, AUTHOR OFSIXTEEN SOULS

* * *

“It feels somewhat impossible that this book hasn’t existed before now, as it felt so intimately familiar, like meeting an old friend. The Afterlife of Mal Caldera brings a heady mix of tender truth and searing wit to the party, where it speaks to the central hunger of the human condition: connection… Mal Caldera is the emo anti-hero we all need, in a queer love story that extends beyond romantic love.”

COURTNEY SMYTH, AUTHOR OFTHE UNDETECTABLES

* * *

“For a book about the dead,The Afterlife of Mal Caldera pulses with life. Vivid, warm, and dancing between deep heart and heartbreak, humor and sorrow. The familiar ghost story finds a new spirit thanks to Perez’s fresh and thrilling voice, with characters conjured up by their wry and witty prose… I’m glad Mal got to haunt me for a while.”

NATHAN TAVARES, AUTHOR OFA FRACTURED INFINITY

* * *

“Provocative, funny, tragic, honest, and profound. The Afterlife of Mal Caldera will haunt me forever… in the very best way.”

ANGELA MONTOYA, AUTHOR OFSINNER'S ISLE

* * *

“Oh, this book aches. Beautiful, messy, and incredibly human, The Afterlife of Mal Caldera will unstitch you and pull you back together again. This breathtaking debut comes at the tangled-up pain of loss from both sides of living, but it's also a celebration of life, love, healing, and friendship. I can't recommend this one highly enough!”

JULES ARBEAUX, AUTHOR OFLORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES

* * *

“A wholly original imagining of an afterlife full of sex, ghosts, and rock and roll, at once shatteringly personal and sweepingly profound. Reed Perez’s debut tenderly conjures to life the messy, hilarious, heartbreaking Mal and a host of characters living and dead, all of them indelible. The ultimate afterparty readers won’t want to miss.”

LEANNE SCHWARTZ, AUTHOR OFA PRAYER FOR VENGEANCE

* * *

“The Afterlife of Mal Caldera is a warm, cozy burial shroud of a book, full of haunting atmosphere and a phantom found family that is simply to die for. Mal is addictively charming, the perfect companion on this hopeful, heartbreaking journey through a richly imagined afterlife.”

CODIE CROWLEY, AUTHOR OFHERE LIES A VENGEFUL BITCH

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The Afterlife of Mal CalderaPrint edition ISBN: 9781803367767E-book edition ISBN: 9781803367774

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UPwww.titanbooks.com

First edition: June 202410 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Gregory Orr, “To be alive: not just the carcass” from Concerning the Book That Is The Body of The Beloved. Copyright © 2005 by Gregory Orr. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Doc Luben for their permission to reprint an excerpt of “14 Lines from Love Letters or Suicide Notes”, from The Diesel Powered Rag Doll.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Nadi Reed Perez 2024.

Nadi Reed Perez asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To my younger self—you didn't miss out; we've only just begun.

How can something be thereand then not be there?How do we forgive ourselvesfor all the things we did not become?DOC LUBEN

To be alive: not just the carcassBut the spark.That's crudely put, but…If we're not supposed to dance,Why all this music?GREGORY ORR

ONE

It didn’t bother me much, being dead. I hadn’t really been living anyway. At least now I’d never have to do the dishes in the sink, or worry about the bills piled on the table, or nurse any guilt about staying in every night. Nothing urged me to get out of bed anymore. It felt like I’d been rehearsing for this a long time—how to be a ghost.

But I couldn’t haunt my apartment forever. No doubt it would be back on the market soon, despite being cramped and badly lit, the walls always thumping with aggressive bass, often accompanied by the banshee wail of sirens. My presence would be easy to clear out: just secondhand furniture, piles of laundry both dirty and clean, empty bottles of whiskey and packs of cigs. No decorations, like I’d barely moved in. I hadn’t gotten around to buying plants, or finding art that spoke to me, or making enough friends to showcase on the fridge.

I could linger for however long the place remained unoccupied. But after that, I didn’t really want company. If the next tenant walked around naked, or hosted lots of overnight guests, or brought a bedmate along with them, I didn’t want to see it—well, unless they were hot. I had to wonder how many ghosts had once ogled me in the shower, or on the toilet, or getting busy. I liked to think they’d paid me the same respect I’d give anybody now, not looking.

If I’d been successful enough to afford a house in life, I could’ve stayed longer. Maybe forever, if I didn’t mind someone moving in eventually. There would’ve been way more room, enough for me and them. I could’ve kept to an attic or basement if I wanted privacy, coming out to wander the halls at night. Then again, if I’d been better off, I might not have died so young.

It might’ve been days since it happened. I had no way to keep track, and nothing to do to pass the time, since I couldn’t touch anything. I failed to make the curtains float, or knock the unopened mail off the coffee table, or force the lights to flicker. It felt like weeks already, but it couldn’t have been that long, because someone ought to have shown up for my things by now.

The cops had probably found my purse on the scene, used my driver’s license to identify the body. From there, they could look up my birth certificate to find my next of kin. They’d have no way of knowing my mother and I hadn’t spoken in years, that she shouldn’t have been the first to find out.

I wondered how it went down. If they’d woken her in the middle of the night and, once again inconvenienced by my existence, she’d asked what I’d gone and done this time. It didn’t hurt much. Just a quick sting, like a muscle twinge, an accidental regression to my young and tender self, before I remembered and calloused up again. I’d been dead to her for years, anyway.

But I tried my best not to think about my sister. I would rather have nobody in the whole world give a shit than remember I had just one person who’d care.

Well, probably. We used to fight a lot.

The sound of the lock turning in the door made me jump. After leaving my body, my mind hadn’t gotten the memo, supplying phantom limbs in its place. Hopefully it would just be the cops again, or my landlord.

I hauled myself up from bed, as heavy as if I still had bones. My chest thumped with the figment of a heartbeat.

Cris hovered in the doorway, reluctant to come in uninvited. Her eyes stared right through me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and shot her some finger guns. “Hey, sis.”

She didn’t reply, of course. I barely dodged in time to avoid her walking through my incorporeal form.

I threw up my hands. “Make yourself at home.”

It didn’t feel like I’d gone anywhere. More like I’d said something to piss her off, make her slam the door on her way in, give me the silent treatment. And yet, my stomach twisted with a chilly sense of dread, like the feeling of being watched. As if she were the otherworldly presence, not me.

Or maybe I couldn’t accept the reality of being separated by so much more than a couple of feet.

Cris’s makeup looked a little smudgy, hastily done, or redone. We looked only somewhat alike, with the same deep, dark eyes, and admittedly good cheekbones and chin, but not much else. She had a flatter nose, way more lip, not to mention actual curves. Lately, she’d gotten more sun than me, tanning almost as brown as our mother, while I’d only gotten paler, like my late dad. She bleached our near-black hair blonde, though she’d skipped straightening it today.

It made my chest tight with nostalgia to see those waves bouncing as she drifted around. I used to tug them to hear her indignant squeak. Later on, I’d braid them.

When we met again as adults, I’d told her outright that I hated her new hair.

“You look like hell,” I said, as if I looked any better. But I didn’t have a reflection to check anymore. Not to mention, the state of the entire apartment made me cringe. Even without any acknowledgment from her, I went through our usual motions and deflected attention from myself. “Late night?”

If she could hear me and see my wink, that would’ve gotten a scoff. She’d always been such a prig, easy to provoke. But her face was unmoved, stone cold as a porcelain saint. The same old family mask our mother and I used to wear just to get through a conversation without yelling. I’d never seen my little sister try it, but she must’ve been a natural.

“Tough crowd.”

It wasn’t so fun trying to tease her without any reaction. But I couldn’t help it. I had to fill the silence.

She kept circling the apartment. At first, I thought she must’ve been appraising the mess, taking inventory of all the stuff she’d have to pack up and give away. But then she started a second round, turning on the lights, rifling through the junk on the counters and coffee table, going through drawers.

“Whatcha looking for?” I asked. I couldn’t touch the kitchen counter, but I propped my elbows over it anyway, suspended in the air, pretending to lean. “If you want drugs, all you have to do is ask.”

Actually, I didn’t have any. I’d gotten pretty boring in the last couple of years. No prescriptions, either, though I probably could’ve used some.

Cris picked up my trash can and dumped it on the floor.

“What the hell?”

She unfolded every crumpled-up piece of paper, squinting to read, before balling up the old résumés and overdue notices again and tossing them across the room. Through her teeth a strangled noise escaped, like the tea kettle shriek she used to make when we fought as kids. It made me cringe in instinctive terror, as if she were about to scream, bring our mother’s wrath down upon me.

The ceiling lamp flickered.

Somehow, she reined it in, shaking but stony-faced. Apparently, she had an idea. She grabbed the notepad left on my kitchen table, scrawled with the half-hearted notes I took to look attentive at job interviews. After flipping through older scribbles, she turned to the next blank page. Then, she used a pencil to fill up the whole thing. There were no pale indentations revealing words I’d drafted, only to change my mind and tear out the page.

The notepad and pencil ended up across the room as well. She buried her face in her hands. Good, because I couldn’t bear to see the look on it.

Last time she dragged me out to dinner, I told her I’d been doing better. That I’d gotten hired at another call center, and I’d text that guy at her church for a date, and I’d even drop by one of the charity bingo nights or cake walks or whatever else she helped organize, in lieu of going to Mass with her.

She must not have believed me. Not if she was looking for a suicide note.

My eyes stung. I never thought I’d feel that again.

It had been bad, for a while. I couldn’t deny that. But I’d gotten so close to turning my life around.

“I didn’t—” I dug my nails into my palms, clearing my throat like I couldn’t let her hear me choke up. “You don’t think I’d actually—?”

Both of us flinched as the light flickered again—once,twice—and then blew out.

All this time, I’d been working so hard to get a reaction out of my surroundings, interact with the world like I used to do. I hadn’t been trying that time.

“My bad?”

Cris didn’t read into it. She just opened the blinds for what little sun the room could get.

She finally got with the present and headed for my bedroom, grabbing my old laptop from the nightstand and perching on the bed. I climbed up behind her, looking over her shoulder as she set it up on her lap. She twisted her hair as she frowned at the password screen. I would’ve bet the cops hadn’t tried all that hard to get in.

After warming up with the obvious, my birthday, “qwerty” and “password123,” she guessed her own birthday. Damn it. Then she checked all my folders, opening every document she found, no matter the name. It mostly consisted of old job stuff, renter’s insurance, nothing personal.

“What are you hoping you’ll find?” I asked.

It didn’t take long before she’d opened literally everything. She gave up, and went to my browser history.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “I’m not an amateur.”

Whenever I browsed for porn, or researched whether certain below-the-belt medical symptoms could flare up during a dry spell, or looked into the prognosis of various mental illnesses I might’ve inherited, I always did it incognito.

Finally, she slammed the laptop shut. I bristled, like she’d snapped at me.

“I didn’t plan anything,” I said. “It was an accident.”

Cris shot up and went to rifle through the clothes hanging in my closet and even more still piled in a laundry basket. It didn’t take her long to sift through all my boring old work blouses and skirts, none of which were fit to wear for my trip six feet under.

She picked nearly at random, then swept back out of the apartment as quickly as she’d come. I returned to my bed, and the silence, with a sigh—only to scramble up again as the lock clicked. She threw the door open without closing it this time.

“Did you forget something?”

She went back to my room, opening my underwear drawer, the only one she’d just eyed rather than raiding earlier. But they couldn’t bury me without underwear. So she gave in and rooted around. I couldn’t watch.

“You’re not gonna like what you find,” I said through my fingers.

Sure enough, once she’d figured out the purpose of the toy she’d found among the fabric, she shrieked. I almost laughed, but it didn’t quite have enough momentum to leave my throat.

“It’s not real. Your purity pledge is still intact.”

She went to wash her hands, as if I wouldn’t have kept it clean. After that, she gingerly peeled off the first bit of faux satin her fingers touched and a bra from the top of the drawer, hid them between the blouse and skirt she’d picked, and hurried off again.

I considered following, just to see the look on her face when she handed my clothes to the funeral home and found she’d grabbed a thong. I hadn’t worn one in about three years. Now, I’d be wearing it forever. Too bad she wouldn’t find it funny.

While I’d been floating around the apartment in a daze, she’d been busy. I’d left her a body to bury. She wouldn’t be shoveling the dirt herself, but she still had a lot of work ahead of her. People to call, paperwork to fill out, arrangements to make. All the while believing I’d put her in this position on purpose.

I’d barely come back into her life, and already, I’d disappeared again. For good this time. But I hadn’t meant to leave her alone, especially not with our mother.

I needed her to know that.

TWO

When I stepped out of my apartment building, the lack of air rushing past me felt odd. The gray sky and damp leaves caught in the crook of the curb made me rub my arms on instinct. The autumnal chill of my last moments still seemed to linger, freezing my bare feet.

I wasn’t sure what to do when I got to the back entrance of the nearest hospital, since I couldn’t touch anything. But I had to try looking, at least. There’d be paperwork about my death, perhaps a physical certificate. I just wanted to know how the coroner had ruled the cause, why my sister had literally gotten her hands dirty digging through my trash. Had she been looking for evidence I hadn’t offed myself—or confirmation?

As I passed through the closed doors and wandered through the eerily bare, almost unlit hallways, I still had it in me to shiver. I didn’t like hospitals. Especially not this lower floor, underground, practically a basement. If the frantic rushing to and fro on higher levels stressed me out, I didn’t expect the lack of it to be even more harrowing. No patients, no hurrying nurses and doctors. There weren’t any emergencies down here. The morgue attendant pushing a gurney in front of me had no cause to rush.

There probably shouldn’t have been two people sitting by the side of the hallway—on the floor, since there were no waiting room chairs on this level. One of them held a notebook and pen, with a messenger bag slouched by her side.

They were talking without looking at each other, the writer scribbling away while the speaker droned on. What had sounded like a conversation from a distance now struck me as more of a litany, with occasional commentary.

“Thomas… Thirty-six… Episcopalian…” he said.

“You’d think I’d be able to spell that by now,” she replied.

They looked pretty normal, even comfortable, sitting on the floor—the stout strawberry-blonde girl tucked into herself, and the lanky brown guy, still tall even hunched over. She wore a faded sweatshirt with pajama bottoms, her short hair pinned into a stub of a bun. He had on a jacket and jeans covered all over with patches and pins, curly hair bleached and dyed orange. I could’ve sat beside her in my college library during finals, bumped into him at a show back when I still ran in the scene.

The gurney took a turn, pirouetting on a stuck wheel, and passed right through both of them. They didn’t even stop talking.

“This isn’t happening,” he recited. “I’m dreaming.”

She sighed, or it might’ve been a yawn, if we could still do that. “If only.”

The writer must have died with that notebook and pen, taking her bag along with her clothes to the other side.

Once the morgue attendant righted the gurney and moved on, at last, the two of them looked up at me.

The speaker interrupted his own recounting. “We’ve got a live one.”

“So to speak,” said the writer, with barely suppressed excitement. “Can you see us?”

I shrugged. “You really need to ask?”

They turned to exchange eager glances, before she shoved her notebook at him, and they scrambled to their feet. I backed up as she drew closer.

“Hi there,” she said, her eyes alert, but voice a little flat, over-rehearsed. “We’re conducting a survey regarding your experience on this extranatural plane of existence. If you wouldn’t mind, we’d like to ask a few questions.”

My chest swelled up with a laugh. I swallowed it back down in surprise. “What the fuck?”

The speaker elbowed her. “Don’t just jump in.”

“Sorry,” she said irritably. “I forgot.”

He apparently had to demonstrate how to talk to a stranger. “I’m Carlos,” he said. “This is Danny.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Danny tried.

“Or, well, not so nice,” admitted Carlos. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I would rather he didn’t remind me. “Why sorry? Did you push me?”

He just laughed, like he hadn’t caught the edge in my tone.

Danny couldn’t wait any longer. “Now could you answer our questions?”

I crossed my arms. “So… you guys aren’t waiting on your own autopsies? This is like ambulance chasing, but way worse.”

Carlos muttered something in her ear. It sounded like, “Told you so.” He turned to me. “I know, we’re a little short of the welcome party you might’ve expected.”

“Where else are we supposed to find an adequate sample size?” asked Danny. “There’s no better place to meet people than the morgue.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t just get here,” I said. Not to mention that I hadn’t been all that bothered, at least not as much as someone following their body down here out of separation anxiety. “What kind of answers are you even getting out of baby ghosts?”

“More than you might think,” said Danny. “If all our experiences are consistent, that’s worth documenting. With enough data, we might be able to draw some reliable conclusions regarding the nature of our new state of being.”

She sounded practically academic. Like I was back in college, taking part in a psych department study.

“Are you sure you’re not on the clock, professor?”

Her face went a touch pink. “Actually, I’m still working on my master’s.”

“Still?”

“Well, no one’s going to hand it to me on a piece of paper, but I’d like to think I’ll earn it, anyway.”

So she’d found something to do with herself on this side. I couldn’t begrudge her that. Some other wandering souls might appreciate this sorry little welcoming committee. Better than thinking they were all alone.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I have zero qualifications,” said Carlos, holding up his hands to surrender any possible responsibility. “I’m only here to look pretty.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. He did, in fact, look pretty.

And maybe they could help me out.

“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s make it quick.”

Danny grinned, then smoothed out her face and voice professionally. “So, ideally, I would have gotten to perfect this questionnaire with some more resources before field-testing it, but, well, these aren’t ideal circumstances, so bear with me. These are all open-ended questions, by the way, so feel free to elaborate, all right? Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Taking her notebook back, she cleared her throat. “Tell me what you think is happening to you right now.”

“I’m dead.”

Her lips pursed, like that hadn’t been as elaborate an answer as she’d hoped. “Did you witness your separation from your body?”

What a nice way to ask if I’d watched myself die. And I had, my soul splitting off early enough for me to see the whole thing.

“Uh-huh.”

At least she didn’t want any more details on that. “Let’s talk about where we are in terms of metaphysical location.”

That gave me more to chew on. It felt like I’d been called on during a lecture and had to bullshit an answer on the spot. “I guess we’re on another plane of existence. Souls wandering around like—what’s it called in the Bible? I think it’s ‘heavenly bodies’?”

After eighteen years of Mass every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, not to mention Catholic school, I still remembered perfectly, right down to the verse: 2 Corinthians 5. I wished I didn’t.

“Though we’re not in heaven,” I added. “Obviously.”

Danny couldn’t hide a slight smile, so that must’ve been a meaty enough response for her. “Any thoughts on our apparent bodies?”

“That’s it, exactly.” I found myself waving my hands to demonstrate. “They must be apparent. Apparitions. Based on our memories, or something. You ever heard of phantom limbs?”

“Isn’t that how you explained it?” asked Carlos.

She elbowed him. “Shh, shh, she doesn’t need my theories, we need hers.” Then she moved on. “Is it possible to ‘cross over,’ and if so, how is it done?”

“I hope we’re not going anywhere,” I said. I really didn’t want to follow that line of questioning to its conclusion.

“But do you think there is another destination for us?”

My fists bunched up involuntarily, but I slowed my exasperated hiss down to an innocent exhale. “Well, otherwise, we’re stuck here, right? Only, it’s not jam-packed, from what I’ve seen. All the other billions of people who have died over human history had to go somewhere. If it splits into the usual above and below, I know which direction I’m going—not up.”

That got a smirk from Carlos.

Danny took a while to catch up writing. I envied her having something to touch, the scratching such a satisfying noise. After her pen went still, she stalled the next question, clearing her throat nervously. “Would you describe any people you may have met on this plane as… disturbed?”

“Come again?”

“We’re still workshopping that question,” said Carlos.

“What do you mean ‘disturbed’?”

His eyebrows flickered up. “You’d know.”

Danny tapped the end of the pen against her lips. “Now, would you mind giving us some, you know, statistical information? Name, age, religious affiliation.”

“Mal,” I said. “Twenty-seven. I used to be your typical bitter, agnostic ex-Catholic.”

I used the past tense on account of not feeling so agnostic anymore, post-mortem.

She didn’t ask me to elaborate any further, turning toward her companion. “Did you get all that?”

Carlos cleared his throat. “I’m dead, uh-huh, I guess we’re on another plane…”

“Didn’t you just write that down?” I asked.

Danny gave her notebook a shake. “We have to rewrite all the data we’ve collected.”

“Why?”

“It goes back to blank pages every day. Nothing here lasts. If you die with, I dunno, some gum in your bag, and you try to chew it, eventually it’ll disappear and turn up back in its wrapper. It all goes back to the time of death.”

Carlos echoed my words again to himself, looping until they could get the chance to write it down. “I know which direction I’m going…”

I shivered. “Well, good luck with your research.”

“Thank you so much for participating,” said Danny.

Carlos smiled and waved, still muttering to himself. “Mal, twenty-seven…”

That was quite enough socializing for me. But I had a question for them. “How do I touch?”

“Hmm?” Danny barely looked up, already sucked back into her writing.

“I mean, are we able to touch anything? On the other side?”

I remembered the way she’d elbowed him. For a moment, I’d forgotten what we were, how significant it was that they could still touch each other, if nothing else.

Carlos held out his palms apologetically. “We can’t.”

“Not as far as we know,” said Danny.

“Oh, I tried,” he added. “I didn’t get anywhere.”

Well, shit.

“And you haven’t met anybody who can do it?” I asked. “Never thought to put that in as a question?”

Carlos turned to her with a thoughtful shrug. Danny nibbled her pen. Even if they took my advice, though, that wouldn’t exactly help me right now. And I’d been patient enough.

I couldn’t keep from rolling my eyes. “Thanks for nothing.”

Before they could react, I turned and walked through the wall—straight into the autopsy suite. After a brief eyeful of naked corpse and shiny surgical buzz saw, I put my head down and kept walking.

On the other side, I found a small, cluttered office. There were tons of filing cabinets, full of potentially relevant documents and a computer. But sheer need didn’t make my fingers any more solid. My hands disappeared through the manila folders as if I’d dipped them in murky water. I couldn’t get the computer to spark to life, either, like a TV in a horror movie.

At this point, I could safely assume I had about a fifty-fifty chance of my death being either correctly ruled as accidental, or lazily written off as a suicide. If they did a toxicology report, the tiny bit of alcohol in my system could’ve pointed to either. It might come down to how much paperwork the cops had bothered to do.

So I couldn’t rely on any authorities to comfort Cris. For all I knew, she didn’t believe the official cause, anyway, looking for her own answers. Nobody could convince her but me. I had no clue how to go about piercing the veil when I couldn’t so much as lift a pen to try and communicate, but I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

As a good Catholic, she still believed in hell. And suicide was supposed to be a mortal sin—first-class boarding.

All things considered, I didn’t mind being stuck in the terminal for now.

THREE

Nightfall looked different when I headed back to my place. I couldn’t see shadows anymore. The world simply lost its color, the gray broken up here and there by halogen light. I could see in the dark just as well as daylight.

As I walked through my door, my skin prickled, hairs standing on end. I never thought I’d get to feel goosebumps again.

The silhouette of a man wandered my living room in the dark. His pale skin flashed bright as he drifted in and out of the moonlight slicing through the window blinds. He hadn’t turned on any lights.

It didn’t surprise me when our eyes met.

“Malena Caldera,” he said, with surprisingly good Spanish inflection. It startled me when he continued, speaking too fast for my already slippery grasp of my mother’s language.

I cut him off. “I don’t fucking speak Spanish.”

That wasn’t wholly true, but he’d caught me off guard, reminding me just how far the apple had fallen from the family tree.

“My mistake,” he said in English. Now his voice lilted with the echoes of a fading British accent. “I said I’ve been looking for you.”

I hoped he couldn’t see my gulp. “How the fuck do you know who I am?”

He looked like he could be Death. Between his timeless double-breasted vest and trousers, old eyes in a young, symmetrical face, and wide grin like a scythe. Not to mention his multilingual fluency. Perhaps he’d run late to our appointment.

“I always read the obits,” he said. “You never know who’s just arrived.”

“So you’re not here to drag me to hell?”

His teeth flashed bright as he laughed. “I’m flattered, but you have me mistaken for someone else.” He kept circling around me, rhythmically, restlessly, casting a sweeping glance over my apartment. Then he looked back to me, over his shoulder. “You live like this?”

“Not exactly.” I shrugged in affront. “I’m dead.”

“So am I. That’s no excuse.”

“I didn’t think I’d have company.”

“You sound disappointed.” He turned and tilted his head at me with a sympathetic pout. “Not so happy to find you’re not alone on the other side?”

“I’ve been enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“Or you’re resigned to it.”

I crossed my arms. “Look, you can skip to the part where you tell me what you want.”

It wasn’t like I had much to offer. He and I couldn’t possibly have use for money anymore, not that I’d had much in life. And I hadn’t died with anything on me to give. Though apparently, we could still touch each other. I had to hold myself back from wandering too far down that line of thought. It had been nearly a year since I’d last gotten laid.

“Just delivering some good news,” he said. “If you haven’t noticed, our eternal judgment appears to have been postponed. So why not celebrate?”

He slowly turned up his palm in offering.

I didn’t know who or what he might be, where on Earth or elsewhere he might mean to take me. Even if he weren’t an angel or devil or intermediary, only another ghost, something about him felt off—uncanny. At the very least, he had to have been here a lot longer than me. Too long.

But I hadn’t touched anything for what already felt like forever. There were so many little things I’d never given a second thought in life, not realizing how much I’d miss them. No more alarm clock, toothbrush, shower, towel, clothes, coffee, cigarette, keys, doorknob, rinse and repeat. Let alone a hand, something warm and alive—or lifelike, anyway.

Even if I didn’t care for this guy’s evangelical tone, I did like the way he’d undone a few shirt buttons, no tie, and rolled up his sleeves, showing off his forearms.

So I took his hand. I reeled back at the feeling, not just skin, but something more. Like I’d touched an electric fence, some force pushing or pulling against me.

He winked. In a blink, we weren’t in my apartment anymore.

* * *

Something pulsed. It started as if from inside me, from my phantom heart pounding in my ears. It branched through my veins, my body shivering rhythmically.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Close, but not there yet,” said the stranger.

Above us glowered a dark mansion. I didn’t have to look twice at the broken windows and creeping vines to recognize it as haunted, and not only by the two of us. The pulse tugged like a tide, growing louder and louder.

“Are you ready to join the afterparty?”

He didn’t wait for my reply. I couldn’t tell if he pulled me after him, or if the pulse itself strung me along. My feet fell in time to the beat.

Before us stood boarded double doors, stained with an orange watermarked sign reading:

CONDEMNEDDO NOT ENTER

We passed straight through it.

Moonlight flooded through the glassless windows, glinting on the shards among the dirt and dead leaves beneath our feet. Glowing marble flowered into the columns and arches of a foyer, framed on each side by a grand staircase. All the crumbling plaster of the walls went from gray to blue where they weren’t covered with vines, their leaves quivering in time to the music.

That pulse lapped at my skin like a heartbeat. Wave upon wave of an undulation not quite in the air, not quite in my blood, but somewhere between.

“What is this place?”

He swept out a hand with pride. “Welcome to the Haunt.”

Across the foyer, we reached doors thrown open to let out a column of light. I lifted my hand, trying to shield my eyes as we swept inside. My fingers glowed. So did all of the ghosts.

Around us bloomed the remains of a ballroom, full of dancers. They flickered through the silver light like phantasms, all different eras of the dead. Skirts flowed through the floor and slowly rose up and up, past the ankles, past the knees. Suits loosened up and slimmed down again, finally losing the jacket and becoming slacks, turning into jeans. There were top hats, bowler hats, newsy caps. Bare heads with pompadours and mullets, bobs and beehives. Some of them looked modern, like me.

None of them clashed, despite their different eras and styles of dancing. Some danced with their feet, their arms, others their hips and shoulders. Arm’s length from their partners, or arms entwined. Everyone mingled and blended perfectly, as if rehearsed. It must have been the band.

They were floating at stage height. In each of their hands, they held something even more intangible than they were, appearing with every pluck of a harp string, throb of a violin, strike of a drum, like a flash of gossamer and shadow. Even the pipes of a church organ flickered along the wall, as if illuminated by lightning. They played on the ghosts of instruments.

At last, I turned to the stranger, who watched me and waited as I took it all in.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m the host,” he said, like I ought to have figured that out already. “They call me Alastair.”

Somehow, I got the feeling that he hadn’t given me his real name.

He held out his palm again. “Come and dance.”

I wanted it. Of course I did. My feet were already tapping, my shoulders shaking almost involuntarily with the slightest echo of a shimmy. Not to mention the sight of my potential partner, with that ethereal face and infernal smile, went down like wine.

But I’d just died. It bothered me more than I cared to admit, now that I’d seen how it affected Cris. I couldn’t just shake that off with a little boogie.

Besides, this guy knew my name. No way he’d brought me here out of the kindness of his dead heart. I dreaded in the pit of my stomach what else he knew about me.

His grin made me shiver. “Or you could play.”

It felt like I’d just been shoved on stage. Lights in my eyes, making shadows of all the faces surrounding me, my bandmates waiting at my side for me to tap the cymbals. Once, I never felt more alive than in the breath of silence before an opening riff, sticks poised to strike.

My bandmates were gone now. I wasn’t supposed to be alone, standing there with no kit. I’d never had stage fright before, but my hands were shaking, eerily empty with nothing to clutch.

“We’re in need of a drummer,” said Alastair.

No fucking way. I couldn’t go back up there. It hurt my dry mouth to even speak, still tongue-tied just from imagining it.

“You already have one,” I said, gesturing toward the stage, or lack thereof. The moonlight wasn’t any more inviting, nor all the spectral faces.

“All the players take shifts, for a turn to dance.”

Well, this explained a lot. Contrary to what he said, I’d apparently already crossed over, straight to hell.

“I have to admit…” He looked me up and down, measuring the length of my gray chiffon skirt, counting the buttons done all the way up on my gauzy white blouse. I’d put it on for an interview, the morning of my last day. My final and forever outfit, delicate and prim, nothing like me at all. “You don’t look like a drummer.”

I nearly choked up. “Because I’m not.”

At last, I forced my feet to shuffle in the other direction, toward the doorway. He appeared before me so abruptly, I couldn’t help but flinch back. Even if he was only another ghost—who’d happened to die in an impeccable suit—he still gave me the screaming mimis.

His face twisted up in injury, suddenly not so pretty. “How on earth can you turn down this chance? As if you could possibly have anything better to occupy your time on this side?”

“You don’t know my ”—I almost spat the wrong word—“afterlife.”

But I really did have something more important to do, and he seemed like the knowledgeable type. So I chanced the truth. “I need to get a message to the other side.”

His laugh made me tense up. “Why bother?”

I barely kept my mouth from falling open in indignation.

“No need to occupy yourself with the past,” he said. “It’s as dead to you as you are to it.”

“I can’t just stand aside and watch my sister fall apart.”

Admittedly, she’d been keeping it together so far, but I didn’t want to find out just how much she could bottle up before she finally popped.

He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Then don’t watch.”

I opened and closed my fists, tempted to slap him, find out whether either of us would feel it. I’d been trying to curb my impulsive, destructive tendencies these past few years. And I didn’t want to burn this bridge just yet. So I just said, “I don’t dance.”

That worked even better than striking him, from the disbelief he struggled to conceal on his face. I permitted myself a moment to enjoy watching his cool facade fall apart.

Then, smoothing out his face save for the twitch of a smirk, he said, “Your mother didn’t teach you that, either?”

Luckily for him, I didn’t care to defend her honor. If I kept trying to have the last word, I’d be here all night. Instead, I laughed.

In the brief beat between songs, I managed to tear myself away.

“You shouldn’t wander alone,” he insisted. “No one will be around to help you if you start to go geist.”

I slowed, not turning around. “Geist—you mean poltergeist?”

“Have you seen any yet? That’s what happens if you spiral too far into your grief. It eats you from the inside.”

That must’ve been what the guys from the morgue had been talking about when they asked if I’d ever met anyone “disturbed”.

“I’ll take my chances.”

He called after me, just a hint desperate. “You’re going to regret it.”

Without looking back, I said, “That’s never stopped me from doing anything.”

I kept walking toward the front entrance. When I peeked to see if he was still watching, he’d disappeared. I grinned. I’d gotten the last word, after all.

There were plenty of other spirits here. I just had to wait until they weren’t so occupied. Surely I wasn’t the first to try piercing the veil.

I doubled back through the foyer and rushed up the left side of the grand staircase, my feet floating above the marble. Down the hallway on the second floor, I ducked through the nearest open door. I found myself in what looked like a bedroom, judging from the grand four-poster bed. It might’ve been the only bit of furniture in the room original to the mansion. Everything else looked modern, or at least, made in the last half century, mismatched and secondhand. As if some squatters had tried to get comfortable in the decay, covering the crumbling walls with posters, piling stacks of records and cassettes and CDs among the dust.

I lay down on the bed, the sheets beneath me forever made from lack of real use. Even if I could still sleep, I wouldn’t have been able to drift off with the noise reverberating through the walls. At least a lifetime of insomnia had given me plenty of practice staring at the ceiling, waiting for dawn.

But I struggled to keep my hands quiet. I still caught myself drumming sometimes, my fingers dancing with imaginary sticks, haunted by songs that could have been. Except on this side, they didn’t stay imaginary. Coalescing like plumes of smoke, my beloved old sticks became solid in my palms. The wood caressed smooth against callouses I’d lost years ago.

In my surprise, I dropped them. Rather than fall, they faded away to nothing.

If only I could do the same.

FOUR

By morning, it had fallen nearly silent in the Haunt. The pulse still whispered from a distance, but much more faintly, like a resting heartbeat. Piano notes lilted somewhere nearby, but they didn’t pull at me like the pulse did. Through the wall beside me burst laughter I could nearly feel, like the rhythm of the dancers, making my stomach flutter.

My left slipper had come back, appearing on my foot as it had every day of my afterlife so far, no matter how many times I kicked it off. Going back to the time of death. I kept forgetting to pay attention to whether or not it faded into the ether, or sat around like an echo in the immaterial plane. I’d lost the other one right before dying, so I hadn’t taken it with me like the rest of my clothes.

I lobbed the slipper under a chair. Then, just to see if I could do it, I shut my eyes and imagined the cool ceramic of a mug handle gripped in my palm, the aroma of steaming hot coffee. In my other hand I positioned my fingers as if I were holding a cigarette, recalling the taste of smoke, the rush of nicotine.

Nothing happened. No phantom from my memory manifested. Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d had a particular mug I’d loved, or an old-fashioned tobacco pipe whose feel I could recall better than any single disposable cigarette.

My drumsticks had felt like a part of me, once. Digging into my very skin, marking me with callouses, like an extension of my soul. I might as well have died holding them.

I gave up on my old morning ritual and headed out. Someone around here had to have some answers.

In the hallway, I jumped when a door slammed. Through the walls, voices mingled as shadows moved behind the slits of not-quite-closed doors. Under one came a dappled blue glow like a TV, along with the swell of a soundtrack. As the hallway widened into a landing, I stared up to find the skeleton of a skylight, nothing but a web of metal now, letting in a column of sunlight that illuminated the spiraling dust motes. As I floated down the grand staircase, I couldn’t help but time my steps to the plink of the piano, drawn to it as if I’d heard a brook somewhere in a forest.

I never would’ve imagined that a haunted mansion could be so welcoming. Though I couldn’t feel it, I could tell from the shivering leaves and free-falling light that the air wasn’t stuffy and musty and full of cobwebs, flowing easily in and out through the broken windows and gaps in the walls. Though none of that sun could warm my skin, it still glowed golden through my hair, the same as all the dancing dust.

Not far from the foyer below, down one of the hallways near the ballroom, I followed some laughing voices. Aside from the vines, there were grasses growing here and there in patches of dirt accumulated on the floor, moss replacing the old carpets. Somebody had been keeping potted plants alive near every broken window.

I peeked into a parlor room, still furnished with faded velvet and embellished wood, covered in dust. Pretending to sit on those old chairs, surrounding a much newer cheap plastic table, a gathering of ghosts laughed. They were playing a card game. By the look of it, nobody had died with a deck on their person. Those were physical cards they were manipulating on the other side.

So, we could still touch things, after all.

One of them took notice of me, a lady in a bustle dress with a parasol lying across her lap. “Hello there,” she called out. “Care to join us?”

They were all staring at me as I trod closer. Something in their glances gave me a chill. They looked more like proper ghosts than I did. Or it might’ve been something about their eyes.

A silver-haired, mustachioed man tipped his bowler hat to me. “You look fresh.”

“A graveflower?” asked a girl with flowing hair and a long white dress. I’d thought she must’ve been about as old as the other two, or someone who’d died in a nightgown, but under the table, her swinging feet were clad in go-go boots. Just a hippie, then.

“Uh, I had some questions.” I pointed to their playing cards. “How are you still touching anything?”

“You have to forget you’re dead,” said the bustled lady.

Well, that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. I couldn’t just pretend to still have a body, that I hadn’t been separated from the whole world—and from Cris.

I had to ask, just in case. “How do I do that?”

“Give it time,” said the hippie girl.

The three of them had certainly lingered on Earth for a while. I shivered at the thought of sticking around that long.

“Sit down,” said the man in the bowler hat. He gestured at the air beside him as if pointing to a chair. “Let us take your mind off it.”

If it took having to settle in and unwind just to learn how to touch anything, I could be here for a long time.

“Maybe later,” I said. “I’m in the middle of something.”

Back to my original query. For some reason, even though I knew what I wanted to accomplish, I couldn’t remember how to phrase it. I hadn’t paid attention to the horror movies and bad TV dramas. Or Hamlet, though I had a feeling that this term hadn’t been coined by Shakespeare.

“What’s it called, when we have something left to do on the other side? From before we died, and we can’t rest until it’s done.”

They barely looked at each other for answers, like they didn’t expect to produce one for me. Perhaps they were too old to even attempt understanding.

“You’d do well to ask Alastair,” the bustled lady said.

Bowler hat agreed. “If anyone would know, it’s him.”

“And he could show you around,” said the hippie girl. “If he hasn’t already.”

Bustled lady gave a smile that I wouldn’t have expected of someone from a supposedly genteel age. “He’ll give you a very warm welcome.”

“Or you could stay,” said bowler hat. “And we’ll welcome you.”

They all laughed wickedly. What… thefuck.

“No thanks.” I started walking backward, a little nervous to turn away. “Have fun with whatever weird shit you get up to around here. I’ll pass.”

I gathered up my skirt and gave them a wobbly farewell curtsey. At least I didn’t have to go all the way to the door. Instead, I slipped straight through the wall.

Funny how much I’d changed. Back in the day, I would’ve at least given the weird shit a shot.

* * *

In the next room, I found what I think would have been called a conservatory, judging from the large empty frames that used to be windows and a dinosaur of a telescope, overgrown with vines. In the corner of the room played the pianist.

Her fingers were dark against the old, yellowed keys. Beneath a rosy pink headscarf, her coily hair rolled over her shoulders like dark clouds as she lost herself in the bittersweet melody. Under the stool, her sock-covered toes pointed as if in dance.

That was why the music didn’t pluck my veins, like the otherworldly beat from the ballroom. She was playing an actual piano. Her lament couldn’t reach my soul the way the pulse did, but it still moved me the old-fashioned way.

Then, her hands slipped on the keys. I cringed at the jarring cacophony of notes as she gaped up at me with a squeak of surprise.

She looked barely twenty, with a round face and big, sleepy-lidded eyes, her full curves smothered under her shapeless gown. It must’ve been a hospital gown, white with tiny blue flowers. Someone had covered up the open slit at the back with a long black tailcoat, too big for her.

I laughed as I stared back into her wide doe eyes. “My bad,” I said, with a grin. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

Her little smile was shy. “I shouldn’t be so easy to spook.”

She might’ve been a bit young for me, but my dead heart still stammered anyway. I liked the faint freckles dotting her brown skin.

“Are you newly dead?” she asked.

I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at that expression. It sounded so glib. She noticed, shaking her head in apology.

“Sorry, I mean—um, how do they usually word it in the obits—recently passed?”

“Come on,” I said, trying to hitch my lips up again. “It’s not like you’re breaking the news.”

She gave a sheepish half-shrug. “I try to be sensitive, just in case. It’s like nobody else here remembers how it felt.”

I didn’t want to admit that it hadn’t broken me up all that much. Not at first. Then I remembered my sister, her stony face and shaking hands.

This girl looked more contemporary than any of the other ghosts so far. She’d probably watched all the same movies and shows as me. “What’s it called?” I asked. “When you die, but… you’re not done yet? There’s something you have left to do?”

Her eyes widened in horror before I even got through the question. “You mean unfinished business?”

“There’s no such thing,” said Alastair.

She lit up as he approached. I groaned.

“Mal,” he said. “Back already?”

I didn’t dignify him with an answer, crossing my arms.

“Coming in,” he said. She looked bashfully down while he gave her a quick kiss on top of her curls. His voice turned chiding. “Evie. There’s no call for coddling.”

She looked up at me with a rueful smile. “How am I supposed to break it to her?”

“If it’s about crossing over, I don’t care about that part,” I said. “In fact, I think I’d rather not.”

“Then why bother?” Alastair asked. “There’s so much more we could offer you here.”

I huffed an indignant laugh. “I don’t know how long you’ve been dead, and all your loved ones—if you had any—but mine are still kicking.”

Evie pressed her lips together in sympathy, but didn’t say anything. Alastair, on the other hand, began ranting as he paced, feet moving like they were still compelled by the pulse.

“So what’s your plan, then? At your grandmother’s funeral, did she come back to give you a proper goodbye? Did she finally make up with your auntie-in-law about that thing that happened at the wedding? If everyone could do it, they would. We’d all put off our issues to resolve until we could have the last word as ghosts.”

Once he finished, I unclenched my jaw, my cheek sore from catching in my teeth. “But since there are ghosts, and that’s us, why don’t we ever do that?”

“You know already. Don’t ignore the dread creeping in your gut. It’s there for a reason. You’re a lot more attuned to the universe than you used to be, without a body between you and all the rest. Even if you don’t know the reason, you know you shouldn’t trespass any boundaries. There’s a natural cycle of life and death you’re not meant to disturb.”

I cursed my guts for betraying me. They did gnaw.

“What about a medium?” Evie suggested.

“What’s that?” Alastair demanded. Not like he hadn’t heard—just giving her a chance to take it back.

Evie winced, but she still spoke up. “What about a medium to help her out? I mean, we haven’t had any deliveries in a long while, anyway. I’d like to read something new, if it’s not too much to ask.”

Alastair tried to split a glare between the both of us. As he sighed, I gave him a big grin.

“So I can’t talk to my family, because that’s too risky, but you’ve contracted a psychic to bring you the latest paperbacks?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not for nothing we haven’t brought in any breathers lately. They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”

For a moment, they both went quiet, staring pensively as if into the same unfortunate memory. I might’ve thought they were giving an intentional moment of silence in honor of someone’s passing, except that they didn’t seem to have the same reverence for death on this side.

Alastair recovered with a shrug. “I’d tell you not to even think about it, but honestly, it’s not as though you’d ever find a medium on your own.”

“Watch me,” I said.

“Why not stay here?” He canted his head playfully. “If you’d rather not dance, you’d be in good company.”

Evie took his offered hand. He pulled her up, like in spite of what he’d just said, he intended to twirl her around. But he didn’t.

“Do me a favor and show her around, would you?” he asked her. “I think you might have a bit in common.”

With that, he disappeared like mist in the sun.

As soon as he’d gone, she reached for my sleeve, like she could see me tensing in concentration, trying to leave.

“I wouldn’t follow him,” she said. “It’s best to keep a kind of bubble, anytime you spirit to somebody. It’s like a courtesy here, you know, for privacy.”

On second thought, he’d already proven to be impossible, anyway. But even if she was loyal to him, a sweet kid like her would be way easier to work over. And she already seemed to like me, for some reason. Bad judge of character.

“What happened to your last medium?” I asked.

She couldn’t hide a guilty fidget, adjusting the sleeves of her strange coat. “I’d rather not say. I mean, nothing good. That’s not to say it’ll always end badly, though.”

I tried not to think about it. “So, could I walk into a metaphysical shop and ask for business as usual?”

“I don’t think everybody who claims to see us actually does,” she said, a little cheeky. “But—”

She dropped whatever she’d been about to say, going quiet.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

I’d always had trouble turning on the waterworks, so I tried the next best thing.

“Look.” I didn’t have to fake the lump in my throat, my voice going rough. I never spilled my guts if I could help it. “It’s for my sister. I just need her to know, I didn’t—”

My mouth went dry. The vines on the walls rustled. I thought there must be a breeze, but only the leaves beside us quivered. Something fell from the ceiling. We both jumped as a sliver of plaster fell between us, crumbling as it hit the floor in a cloud of powder.

“My bad?” I asked.

Those brown doe eyes of hers went heavy with sympathy. “There’s someone I used to know…” She sighed. “I can’t promise anything, but maybe…”

“Could you point me their way?”

She stood and held out her hand. “You’ll wanna brace yourself. Since we don’t have the physical barrier of bodies, we’re kind of, well, just raw emotion and thought and memory walking around.” Her nose wrinkled, like she’d grossed herself out with that phrasing. “Know what I mean?”

That must’ve been why the dancing last night had been so heady, like a collective drunkenness—we didn’t have skin to hold back everything we felt from each other.

“So, um, don’t peek in my head, and I’ll do the same,” she said.

I did as she instructed, trying to put up mental walls as I took her hand. She kept her thoughts to herself, but I did catch unfolding in my stomach a shy bloom of excitement, too tender to be my own.