Epilogue After the After
Epilogue
After the After
I shouldn’t be here. It’s not his time.
But I can’t help myself.
The last time I was in this hospital, I was dead. An untethered soul. Now I’m something more. That doesn’t quiet the chill that vibrates through me. The reminder that, even with its glowing white lights and cream walls, not everyone leaves this place alive.
I follow the halls to the pediatric center. A small room is gradually filling up. Doctors escort kids inside. Some are wheeled in by nurses. Their faces are bright as sunlight on the ocean despite the tubes or machines or caps hiding bald heads.
They’re eager for what’s next. I am too. And our wait isn’t very long.
An older girl whoops when, from the other side of the room, he walks in. A smile flows like a wave over my lips. My pulse leaps.
He’s older now. Twenty. He still has the same crown of tight bronze curls. Warm brown skin and vibrant eyes. A faint shadow around his round jaw from facial hair he can’t quite grow right, just like his dad.
“August,” I whisper, though no one can hear me. Or see me.
Still, his head turns for the briefest second before he refocuses on the cheering kids.
He goes around the room giving hugs. High fives. It’s cool in the hospital, and he wears a navy hoodie.
My grin arcs higher. It was once mine. He hasn’t forgotten me. Our dreams. But he’s also made space in his life, in his world, for new things.
Soon, another boy joins him. He’s just as tall, with pale gold skin. Loose curls fall around fine bone structure. His hugs last longer. His attention lingers on anyone who calls him.
“Cary! Cary!”
He’s careful with each of them. Cracks terrible jokes to make them laugh. Kind with his almost-black eyes. He holds their hands. Just as he held mine.
A memory wisps like smoke in my head:
We stood in Aides’s great hall. Cary and me. Surrounded by flowers and statues and power I couldn’t wrap my brain around.
“Wh-what do you mean you choose me?” I stammered.
He smiled patiently. Then he explained to me his time as the ferrier was done. He was ready to move on. He finally could. He told me why he stayed for so long in the first place.
“To care for them.” Gold glittered in his eyes. “So they did not feel alone or scared after their mortal time ended.”
The souls, like me.
“But why me?”
It made no sense. This was the underworld. There were so many others he could pick.
Again, the corners of his lips lifted. “Because you care, London.”
He reminded me of that night. When he came to me in the hospital. Of the one thing I asked him to do:
Look after August.
“You wanted nothing else of me,” Cary said, relieved. “I know you will do the same for them. Just like I did.”
It was a lot. What he was asking of me. I knew of the Deathless. I had been in Aides for two years. Well, longer in their time.
That didn’t mean I fully understood them. What it meant to be one.
I had so many questions. How long had Cary been a Deathless? How long would I be one? What if I said no? I’d been waiting my turn to be judged by the prince. Was there something greater waiting for me in Aides?
Something…worse?
Was I good enough to carry the weight and power of the ferrier?
“London.”
His hand grabbed mine. I remembered the comfort in his touch. And I saw the certainty in his eyes. It was the same way August used to look at me.
Like I was a flame that couldn’t be put out.
I’d needed that Cary in the hospital. His sure grip on my hand. His smile. All my mortal life, I’d planned for what was next. And when those plans were ripped away, I had…nothing.
Except for his kindness.
And there were millions more who needed that. Who needed someone to understand their fear.
“Okay,” I said. Helping others wasn’t such a bad way to spend the afterlife.
Then another question came to me: “What happens to you?”
He stared at something in his other hand. Daffodil petals.
“I want to be with him.” His gaze searched my face for understanding. I already knew. The moment I saw August again in the maze. The gentle flicker of love behind his eyes when I mentioned Cary. “Is that okay?”
I was surprised by his question. Even more shocked by how easily, how quickly I answered: “Yes.”
In every second I’ve been away from him, all I’ve wanted was for August to move on. To remember me but not to be held back by those memories. To live his life.
Somehow, with Cary, I knew he’d do that.
Now I watch them sit on stools at the front of the room. A hush falls over the kids. Quiet as sunrise. Cary plays guitar. And August sings.
His voice still isn’t great. To make up for it, he coaxes the kids to join in. They make up songs with silly lyrics. They laugh and laugh. And Cary grins, staring at August with fondness etched into every corner of his face.
“Them again?”
I don’t fight my own grin when someone stands next to me. Thick, shiny black hair. Reddish-brown skin, soft as clay. Tall and lanky and impeccably dressed. The boy who found me, who brought me to August.
The messenger.
“Are you stalking me?” I ask.
Henri scoffs. “No. You’re not cute enough for that kind of wasted energy.” He chuckles. His attention drifts. “How are they?”
Between songs, Cary touches the inside of August’s forearm. New ink maps out a flower beneath his daffodil. An asphodel. Like the ones in the Meadows. Though neither August nor Cary remembers them.
August ruffles Cary’s hair. It sticks up everywhere. The children giggle. When Cary leans over to kiss August’s cheek, they gag and pretend to vomit.
I finally answer Henri. “Happy.”
“As they should be,” he comments, yearning in his voice. He misses them. But he’s not angry with Cary’s decision.
My eyes study August for a moment.
We were not forever. But we were for now. Neither one of us knew it then. How beautiful and rare that is. To have the chance to love and be loved equally.
I do now. I think he does too.
“Come. You know the rules.” Henri tugs on the sleeve of my navy Henley. He smells like coffee. My favorite scent. “They’re waiting on you.”
I hear them. The souls all over this realm. Death’s whispered call to guide them.
Grinning, I say, “Since when do you care about rules?”
A smirk flexes his lips. “Don’t stay too long.” Gold flashes over his eyes. “I’m waiting on you too.”
His lips brush my cheek the same way Cary’s did to August. But not with sweetness. With suggestion and promise.
A blush burns against my skin. That isn’t such a bad way to spend the afterlife either.
Henri disappears into the shadows. I stay a second longer. A minute. Until I don’t know how much time has passed.
I take August in. Smiling, healthy, growing.
One day, I’ll come back, and he’ll be graduating from UCSB. One day, he’ll be in the middle of Shoreline Park, on bended knee, proposing. It’ll be spontaneous and completely him. He will get a dog: a Great Dane. Maybe he’ll get three.
One day, he’ll get married. I’ll watch, smiling proudly. One day, August will have kids. He’s gonna be an amazing dad. They’ll live in a beachside house where August can listen, write music to the roaring waves and the laughter coming from every room.
One day, he’ll be old. Gray and wrinkled, but still so in love with life. Grateful for his time.
And I will come for him. He won’t recognize me, but maybe he will. Maybe Lethe’s magic isn’t as powerful as the one inside him.
Maybe love is its own kind of magic. One that cannot be stripped or dulled or erased. One that can never truly be forgotten.
When August returns to Aides, I’ll make sure he’s with Cary, wherever that may be.
But that’s later. Much later.
For now, I watch him for one more breath.
His fearless smile. The way he lives in the moment. Every single one. His life is unplanned and…happy. The way it should be.
He loves Cary. And Cary loves him.
Together, they are myths made to be recited in song and stars.