Chapter 8. Reed
Reed
I’m dead. Gone. Done. Finito.
Here lies Reed Walker.
Literally, here I lie under some cobweb-encrusted chandelier, sprawled out on the ballroom floor of the van der Born mansion. My new home away from home.
After Tessa stormed upstairs, all the fight drained out of me. I collapsed in the middle of the floor and began counting the crystals overhead before the panic consumed me. It’s my third pass. There’s 1,114.
I’ve been dead less than twenty-four hours. At least, I think I have. There are no clocks in this shithole. And if this is any taste of the afterlife, it’s going to be one boring fucking monotony.
It’s almost unfathomable that yesterday evening I was strumming my guitar, joking with Kira and Santiago about how legendary the party was going to be as we drove up to the estate.
Hell, I even played beer pong with Tessa freakin’ Sinclair.
For a moment there, I actually felt lucky.
I thought it was my night. This girl who both fascinated and frustrated me all these years was giggling at my jokes, smiling at me rather than scowling.
Not anymore. I’m back to public enemy number one as far as she’s concerned.
You’re a shitty person, Reed, and the last guy on earth I’d ever choose to be here with.
Well, it’s not like I chose to be here. Though a part of my brain keeps thinking if I close my eyes, then I can somehow choose to wake up back home, shake off this strange nightmare.
But there’s a deeper part of me, the side that festers in doubt, that knows my life’s always been a shit sandwich so I probably should have seen this coming.
My hopes were always destined to be flushed down the toilet.
Ugh. Don’t think about the toilet. I shut my eyes, pressing my palms tightly against them. Why did I let myself go there? Now I can’t shake the image of myself lying face down in a pool of vomit in the bathroom upstairs. The most unglamorous way to die, like in the history of ever.
Is my body still there now? I shiver, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, as if my eyes can bore straight through.
I’d be right overhead. How can I be both there and here?
Because I feel like I’m here. I’m dressed as I was.
I can feel the hardwood floor pressed against my shoulder blades.
Regret and guilt gnaw at my stomach—there’s no mistaking that.
The ache is palpable; my limbs are heavy with it.
Guilt. Guilt. And more guilt. How could I put my mom through this?
Again.
It’s too much. I can’t sit here with all my failings anymore. It’s goddamned depressing.
I need a distraction. I push up off the floor for the first time in what feels like hours.
It’s getting late. The sun’s set, but that strange fog still hovers around the property.
The way it billows against the windows in the fading light sends goose bumps prickling over my skin.
How could Tessa want to walk outside in that?
I can still see her rattling all the locks, trying to get free of the house.
Just to be sure, I cross to the wall of glass facing the garden terrace and try the French doors myself. They won’t budge.
Well, if I’m truly stuck here, I may as well find out what that means. I get to be king of this castle, after all, or at least my corner of it.
I make my way under the large, ornate archway leading to the foyer.
It’s empty, eerily so. It must be later than I thought.
Which is odd, because I could have sworn I heard whispered voices moments ago.
I peer out the window onto the grounds in case the police are still here, but the place is truly abandoned, except for the girl who hates me upstairs.
There’s caution tape strung across the entrance gate outside, but not much else to betray the chaos of earlier.
So, I wander, a specter gliding through sitting rooms left mostly unfurnished, save the occasional couch draped in a white sheet or paint-chipped end table.
There’s the sprawling kitchen with bottles of alcohol and crushed beer cans abandoned on the countertop, as if people were enjoying their night until news broke of the tragedy unfolding upstairs.
I walk through studies and smoking rooms with their high-backed chairs covered in torn upholstery.
There’s even a decrepit library rimmed with empty shelves.
It’s a cathedral of dust and spiderwebs, with slivers of moonlight slipping through broken shutters that rattle in the breeze—a sad collection of discarded relics.
And now I’m joining their ranks, soon to be faded and forgotten like all the rest.
After a thorough search of the downstairs, I find two rooms are out of reach as I’m unable to open doors.
If a door wasn’t left open from the partygoers or cops, I can’t get in now.
Eventually I land in the dining room, still filled with the echoes of our battle against Jenny and Yannick.
A couple of Ping-Pong balls remain flush against the baseboards, the only evidence that we were here, hearts beating, not so long ago.
I slide down against the wall covered in peeling wallpaper, drop my face in my hands, and full-on ugly cry.
What was it all for?
I knock my head against the wall behind me.
Sorry, kid. All those dreams you had, all that work you put in to ace your tests, captain the robotics club, teach yourself Python late into the night, get into Harvard. Guess what? It was for nothing.
You’re nothing.
No one.
Not anymore.
My chest heaves through body-wracking sobs as the weight of my new reality takes hold.
With the soft light of morning, I decide I’ve had enough moping. I’ve also had enough isolation. How can Tessa stand it? I was sure she’d get spooked last night, with the branches scratching against the windows, or the wind rattling the walls, and come back downstairs. There’s safety in numbers.
But no, I guess Tessa’s perfectly happy to spend the night in a haunted house—if she’s the one haunting it. Still, are we really going to spend eternity cowering in our respective corners? It’s absurd.
I head upstairs. The police are back, but there’re far fewer of them now: I take care to skate by without walking through anyone like Tessa did. That looked uncomfortable. I race past the second story—there’s no way I’m peeking in there—and tiptoe up to the third floor. Tessa’s nowhere in sight.
Did she actually leave, somehow? I wander through bedrooms until I hear her swearing under her breath in the back room facing the gardens. I sneak over, peering around the doorframe.
I don’t know what I was expecting—probably Tessa huddled on the floor and crying her eyes out like I’ve been doing—but no.
She’s focused on a pair of candlesticks like they hold the secrets of the universe.
She’s also managed to find, by far, the sweetest room in the house.
It has a kind of faded 1920s vibe. A stately mirror hangs over a fireplace that’s intricately carved with dancing nymphs, while a moth-eaten, midnight-blue coverlet sits atop the retro circular bed.
Long drapes laced with sparkling silver thread cascade from the enormous windows, sending tiny flecks of light dancing across the ceiling.
How did she score actual furnishings while I’m sitting on mouse droppings? No wonder she claimed the third floor.
Standing beside the mantel, she wraps her hand around the base of a candlestick. Once gleaming silver, it’s now tarnished to a dark gunmetal gray. Tessa grunts as she attempts to lift it. “Why won’t you move?”
I step to the side before she notices me and hold my hand against my mouth as I double over with laughter. Of course Tessa is trying to ace the afterlife. Does it get more predictable? Can’t that girl wallow in despair like the rest of us?
But seeing her work so hard makes something inside me snap into place.
That’s what I need, a puzzle. If my mind is whirring on a question, like how this whole afterlife thing works, then I can’t collapse under the incredible grief and panic bubbling below the surface, threatening to explode like a geyser.
Besides, nothing would satisfy me more than seeing the envious look on Tessa’s face when I waltz into her room and casually pick up one of those candlesticks. It’s all the fuel I need.
I race downstairs and throw myself with renewed energy into affecting my surroundings. I go about it as scientifically as possible, coming at objects fast and slow, adjusting the variables for time of day, angle of approach, speed. Nothing works.
I feel like I have a body, but I can’t fully use it. Is this all in my head? Am I experiencing the memory of touch or are these real objects in the real world and I somehow can’t access them?
I don’t know.
But as the days drift past, one after another, I find I’m no closer to an answer, just defeated. And utterly bored.
Time moves unpredictably. Sometimes an entire afternoon comes and goes in a blink, while at other moments, I watch shadows creep along the floor in slow motion.
By the third night it becomes clear to me that it’s not that I’m having trouble sleeping, but that ghosts don’t sleep—which means more endless hours with nothing to do.
What I wouldn’t give to binge something on Netflix.
But even through the boredom, a small, insistent thought keeps needling me.
Where’s my dad?
If we die and become ghosts, then that means he must be somewhere, too. Is he trapped in Denver still, like I’m stuck here? Does he blame me for his death? I’ve certainly blamed myself enough.
This is all your fault, Reed.
Tessa’s words bite at my conscience. I know what it’s like to have cost someone their life. And I’ll accept that guilt when it’s deserved. But this … right now … this is not on me.
I clasp my hands over my head. Please. Please don’t let this be on me. I can’t take being responsible for any more pain.