Hereafter (Shadowlands 2)

I glanced up at Bea, who laughed. “She’s anal-retentive,” she explained.

“All righty, then,” I said. I pulled the box of beads toward me, grabbed a spool of the heavy-duty string, and got to work, wondering if I could broach the subject of Aaron’s ushering.

“Where did all this come from?” Joaquin asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

“Would you believe it was all in the relic room?” Krista asked. There was a lightness about her this morning. The wispy, light fabric of her dress made her tan skin glow, and she hadn’t stopped smiling since I arrived. She suddenly tossed her head as if something funny or pleasing had just occurred to her, but she didn’t share.

I wished I were in her mood, wherever it had come from. “What’s the relic room?” I asked.

“It’s this big bedroom downstairs that Tristan converted into a storage closet,” Bea said, idly flipping a page. “It’s where we put all the visitors’ stuff once they move on.”

“And we kind of go shopping in there whenever we need anything,” Lauren added.

I gulped, feeling suddenly hot around the collar of my T-shirt. I knew the room they were talking about. I’d stumbled in there accidentally the previous week and seen the guitar strap that had belonged to the musician from the park, hanging from a shelf. I wondered if all of Olive’s and Aaron’s stuff was down there now—her guitar and his windsurfing gear, her flowy sweaters and his preppy jeans—just waiting to be picked over and claimed.

“You’re kidding,” Joaquin said. “When did we have Barbie’s circus come through here?”

Bea snorted. Joaquin glanced at my blank face. “At least someone around here thinks I’m funny.”

“Pink-pink-white-pink-pink-yellow,” Lauren muttered under her breath as she strung each bead.

Joaquin reached for a bag of feathers and tore it open. It exploded all over everything.

“Joaquin! I’m trying to concentrate!” Lauren chided him, dusting a pink feather off her leg. A white one fell directly on top of my head, the end hanging down to touch my nose. I blew it off, annoyed. I couldn’t believe I was there doing this while Aaron was trapped in the Shadowlands.

“Sorry,” Joaquin shot back. He looked Krista up and down as she pushed a needle and thread through the center of one of the flowers. “What’re you doing?”

“Making flower leis!” she replied happily.

“And you?” he asked Bea.

“Resting my arms after carrying all that crap up here,” she said, not looking up from her magazine. “And I just learned how to do the perfect cat-eye with gray shadow and black eyeliner,” she added in a wry tone. I doubted she’d ever worn eye makeup in her life.

“So then I guess I should—”

“Have you guys ever sent a soul over the bridge and then found out they ended up in the wrong place?” I blurted.

Bea stopped page-flicking. Lauren stopped muttering. Joaquin stared.

“Are you kidding? Never,” Krista said, her knee bouncing as she tied off the end of the thread on the lei she’d just finished. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved at that answer or more confused. When no one else chimed in, she looked around at the group. “But then, I haven’t been here that long. Why?”

Everyone else was still gazing at me, and I started to feel exactly how I didn’t want to feel—stupid. Joaquin’s attention was somehow more intense than the others’, his brown eyes sharp, like my question hadn’t just startled him, but scared him.

“Yeah, why?” Lauren asked.

“No reason,” I said, lifting a shoulder. My fingers trembled as I reached for the next bead. “Just trying to learn the trade.”

“It happens,” Bea said finally, sitting up. “It sucks, but it happens.”

“Usually it’s someone you think is supposed to go to the Light who ends up in the Shadowlands,” Lauren said. The tiny pink end of her tongue stuck out as she started to concentrate again. My stomach clenched.

“Really?” I said.

“Some people are just very good at hiding their true natures,” Joaquin confirmed, gathering up the fallen feathers around him and shoving them back into what was left of the plastic bag. He did it more vehemently than necessary, and his fist suddenly tore another hole in the back of the bag, rendering it useless. He tossed the whole thing aside, making an even bigger mess. Lauren sighed, but Joaquin didn’t seem to notice. “But the really bad ones are pretty obvious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone I was convinced was bad end up in the Light. Only the other way around.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s…interesting.”

So maybe Tristan was right. Maybe Aaron had me totally fooled. But I just couldn’t wrap my brain around that.