Chapter 32. Reed
Reed
I rub my eyes, gulping for air as my muscles spasm. I was drowning … or was it falling? Just moments before. Tugged under, I threw all my will against that tide—against a current beckoning me to murky depths, quarters unknown—as I forced my way to the surface.
Tessa. I was reaching for her, pulling my mind up, up, up.
Her terror-stricken face was pleading with me. She needed help. For what I can’t remember, but it was enough to heed her call.
Tessa, with her hand outstretched, even though we both knew it was an impossible distance.
I slowly come to, feeling the weight of my body again. The ground is mushy, unsteady under my back, while above me is a surreal and cloudless bright-orange sky. Is that a bat?
Where am I? This feels like a dream, and I can’t tell if it’s the good kind.
I roll onto my hands and knees, shaking my head, clearing out the cobwebs.
My disordered thoughts shuffle into place.
There was a basement. And Tessa was in trouble.
And I was sucked backward, sucked through a door.
I watched as it sealed up behind me, until all that was left was her face, twisted in panic, her eyes, twin pinpricks of light, begging me to stay, and then … nothing. Nowhere.
I must be on the other side now.
I blink, taking in my surroundings for the first time. The squishy ground beneath me is actually grass, rising between my fingers. My fist tightens around a clump. I’m outside. In a grassy field or …
I make my way unsteadily to my feet.
A cemetery?
Around me in all directions are gravestones as far as the eye can see.
The other side is … a cemetery?
I’m surrounded by aisles of the lost. There are stones crumbling with age, their dates barely visible from centuries past, while others, freshly dug, are bedecked with wilting flowers. I spin in a slow circle. It’s entirely empty. All that remains are the dead and forgotten.
And I’m one of them.
The air gusts out of me when I realize exactly where I’m standing.
My own plot.
HERE LIES
REED WALKER
brILLIANT MIND, KIND HEART
VALEDICTORIAN, TRAILBLAZER
YOU INSPIRED US ALL
I can hardly think. I can barely breathe. I mean, of course I have a grave, but I haven’t dwelled on it. Somehow this makes it so much more real. There is a Reed Walker … some version of Reed Walker lying underground somewhere. But that’s not the only version of me.
So why am I here?
Am I supposed to hang out in this cemetery now?
’Cause that sounds like a great fucking time.
Tessa once said that maybe we pass through the door only to take on a series of tests.
Maybe that’s what this is, a test of some kind.
But I don’t know what to do. Or whether it’s better to stay or go.
I’m used to tests I know how to pass, but this …
is something else. I run my hand through my hair.
My brain can’t handle this level of metaphysics right now.
Unless … this is my punishment? Maybe I’m supposed to remain here with the dead, confronting all the lives I stole through my carelessness. I need to own the hurt and pain I caused in the world.
I deserve that.
Something shuffles on the periphery, catching my eye. I startle when a hazy figure emerges from the pines dotting the hillside. A woman. Walking this way.
Could it be?
But as she comes closer, brushing her long dark curls away from her face, I stagger back, heart in a vise.
It’s …
Mom.
Is she dead, too? When did …? How …? I can’t add the pieces up. Why would she be here so soon?
“Mom.” I step closer. “It’s me.”
When she pauses at my gravestone, my heart thrums in my throat, waiting for her to speak, to wrap me in her arms. But her eyes drift past me as though I’m not here.
My words are carried off on the breeze. Instead, she bends over my grave, hair falling across her face as she collects old flowers and sweeps some fallen leaves aside.
I hover behind her, watching the degree of tenderness she places into each small task.
So … what is this, then, a vision I’m supposed to see? Is it a detour before whatever comes next? Because that’s some serious Ghost of Christmas Past shit. Except I’m the ghost. And … I already feel like a crap son for everything I’ve put her through.
My mom wraps her sweater tight around her as the wind picks up.
Tears prick my eyes. The regret. The longing to hug her. It feels like it could knock me to the floor.
After tucking the old bouquet into a bag at her side, she neatly places some fresh roses against the headstone, her fingers running along the grooves, tracing over the dates.
If only I could tell her. She could take some comfort in knowing I’m okay. I take another step closer as she gingerly rises to her feet.
She pauses, her head turning slightly to the side. Can she sense I’m close? I don’t know. I watch as she pulls her sweater tighter around her frame.
“So, baby. Here we are again.” My heart almost stops when she speaks.
She’s talking to me. She glances around nervously, as if embarrassed to put her thoughts into words.
“I’ve been thinking recently about our years in Denver.
And those wonderful parties we’d throw after your dad opened the music studio.
We’d get together with some friends in the evening, bring a big pitcher of sangria, hand out instruments, and jam.
Though I’d always ask for the shaker eggs.
That’s about all I was good for.” She laughs quietly.
“But you, Reed. You were so talented. Your father would clap out these intricate, complicated rhythms and you could repeat them just like that.” She snaps her fingers.
“You could get so lost in each other. He could see all that talent in you. All that potential. We both could …” Her voice breaks.
“He loved you so much, Reed. I know you beat yourself up over the years about everything that happened with him and the accident that night. And I think I understand that now in a deeper way because I’ve been doing the same with you.
Blaming myself. I should have kept you home from the party.
Or I should have come to get you, made sure you were okay.
There are a thousand versions of that night that play out in my mind, a thousand versions where I made a different choice and saved you.
But these things aren’t our fault. Tragedies happen.
” She leans over the gravestone and sobs. “It’s not our fault.”
“Mom.” I reach out a hand as I step toward her, unsure how to help, how to absolve her of her guilt. It isn’t her fault.
And it’s not mine, either.
Maybe it never was.
“I’m still trying to tell myself that, anyway. Perhaps one day I’ll believe it.” She wipes her eyes, while the first stars blink through the vanishing sunset. The fluorescent orange sky is fading. A sliver of moon rises over the treetops, the light catching in her hair.
This strange liminal plane where I’ve arrived begins to take more shape.
Or maybe …
The thought hits me like an Alex Pereira left hook.
Maybe this isn’t some in-between place. Maybe you can’t travel through someone else’s door.
I stagger back, my pulse quickening. Because if that’s the case, then I’m not somewhere else, I’m here.
And if I truly am back in this time, in this reality, then that means Tessa’s out here, too.
Relief floods through me. We haven’t been torn apart after all.
My mom stoops to pick up her bag. And even though I need to find Tessa, longing twists in my stomach as my mother turns and steps away. But as if she senses my need, she pauses and swings back around. “Oh, I’m leaving Steven.”
My mouth falls open.
What?
“It’s something I probably should have done a long time ago. I know you were never a fan. I just … thought the stability would be good for us. And it’s not that he’s a bad person, he just has his priorities, and I have mine, and I don’t think those two will ever align.” She sighs.
That’s one way of putting it.
I glance around, worried my time is running out, but uncertainty creeps in.
I must have reset to the cemetery for a reason. Is there something here I’m supposed to see? Something I’m supposed to understand?
“In fact, I’m taking some time off work.
I can’t focus. I need to do some healing.
Your uncle Javier and aunt Paula invited me to stay with them in Seville this summer.
I’m going to use your ticket. I always got along with Marco’s family.
I don’t know why we didn’t see them more.
” She smiles. “And your cousin Carla has insisted I join her on the coast, too. So maybe I’ll even learn to kitesurf for you. ”
I walk up so that I’m standing beside her. She places her hand on top of the gravestone. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Reed.”
Tomorrow. The word ricochets through me.
I won’t get a tomorrow. At least not here. Maybe I’ll never see her again. But I hope that’s not the case.
I lift my hand and place it gently over hers, whisper soft. Not passing through her but connecting in the smallest way. The only way I have to let her know I’m here.
My mother gasps. The wind picks up, leaves swirling in eddies around our feet.
“Goodbye, Mom,” I whisper. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she says back, almost like she can hear me.
Then she shivers, grabs her bag, and walks briskly away.
The sun dips low on the horizon, the gravestones casting long shadows across the grass, like so many fingers directing her toward the exit. Get out while you can. Don’t tread here.
I shouldn’t be here, either. Tessa could be in trouble. I reach into my pocket, but it’s empty. Tessa has the phone.
I have no idea how much time we have left. All I know is I need to find her. I promised we’d leave together. Who knows what happens to our door if one of us crosses before the other?
Fog rolls in over the gravesites as an owl takes flight overhead. Whispers surround me on all sides, a lament carried on the wind.
They’re coming for me.
Bodies appear out of the mist—rolling upward into great hulking forms, decaying fingers beckoning me to them. Oh God, my time’s up. Good work, genius. You stayed too long. And Tessa’s probably left. She’s smart. She’d know not to push it this close to the countdown.
Please let her still be here.
I won’t give the smoke people their chance to claim me. Not yet. I send myself back to the mansion.
If Tessa hasn’t crossed over, and there’s still a chance, then I’ll wait for her by the door.
I’ll wait until the very last second.