Queen of the Dead

in the closet designated for my mother’s dozen or so fur coats, stoles, and wraps. (I’d been playing runway model again, even though I’d gotten in trouble for it the week before. Hence the hiding in the closet with the furs instead of dragging them out and down to the front hall, which any reasonable person could see cried out for runway use. It had been like being trapped in an animal…one that was inside out.)

But the weird part about this, aside from unending darkness, was I was still me. Didn’t oblivion — as Will had described it — mean I wasn’t supposed to exist? Like maybe your name and the memory of your life was always right there on the edge of your awareness, but you couldn’t quiterecall it…forever.

Unless remembering was the point. I would know there was an existence other than this, and that was my punishment. To be stuck here, knowing what I could never have again, trapped in this unrelenting darkness forever…

No. Something about this didn’t seem right, and not just in the gigantically, cosmically unfair kind of way. Whenever I’d vanished before, lost control and let the negative energy wash me away, I had no memory of it. I didn’t exist during those times. They were just blanks. Like a night at a really bad party.

This, though, was different. I was here. Wherever here was.

I struggled to concentrate, trying to ignore the feeling that my lungs were about to burst. The last thing I remembered was…

It took a second for the memory to surface and then fall into place.

I’d been in Lily’s hospital room, borrowing her hand to deliver my message, but something had gone wrong. The force connecting my hand to hers had grown more powerful and started to pull me down. And I, unpleasant as it was to admit, had freaked out, caught between the unknown power tugging at me and my own fear and anger, which had slowly begun to consume me.

So, if this wasn’t the final nothingness, which seemed unlikely as I was still here and aware, unlike my other temporary bouts of nonexistence, then that left really only one other option…

Oh, no. No, no, no. If I could have shaken my head violently in refusal, I would have. This could not be. It would just be wrong, on so many levels.

But, my brain insisted, it made sense, on the surface at least. I’d felt the strength of the connection the very first time I’d used Lily’s hand to touch Joonie. Whatever it was, it had not wanted to let me go, and that was only after a few seconds. This time it had been stronger and even more reluctant to release me. Add to that the utter darkness and silence around me and the sense of being completely enclosed, and I had to at least consider the possibility…

There was a good chance I’d been pulled inside the body of Lily Turner.

I gagged just thinking about it. Me, trapped in someone else’s body. How did that work? Was it even possible? No, never mind, I didn’t care. If that’s where I was, I needed out. NOW.

I started to panic, and my breathing, or attempts at it, sped up. I lashed out with my hands and feet, feeling the effort of my would-be limbs, straining against the press of my lightless surroundings. The darkness gave a little with my increasingly frantic motions, but it didn’t retreat. It covered my mouth and nose, pulling in closer with my every frantic attempt at inhaling. It was like trying to breathe with one of those big black garbage bags pulled tight over my face.

Stop it. Calm down! I forced myself to be still, though every moment of doing nothing felt like a slowly dying eternity. Think, Alona.

You can do this, I told myself, trying to sound as calm and reassuring as possible. You got in here. You can get out.

Except I wasn’t entirely certain I’d been the one who’d gotten myself in here. Something had pulled me down. Would that same something let me up?

All right. I forced myself to calm down and slow my breathing. Let’s just think this—

A bolt of invisible lightning slammed into me, ripping away what little breath I’d gained. Agony poured through me. My back arched, and I twisted against the surface of whatever held me in place, my mouth open in a silent scream.

Okay, okay! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—

A second bolt, equally stealthy as the first, struck, paralyzing me in another endless wave of pain, crackling along nerve endings that shouldn’t have existed. How could something hurt so badly when I didn’t have even the semblance of a body, let alone a real one?

I sagged in place, unable to move away, unable to fight, forced to simply wait for the next inevitable blast to tear through whatever remained of me.

Seconds — though it could have been hours for all I know — ticked by, a longer gap than had transpired between the first and second bolts, and nothing happened.

Maybe…maybe that was it. Maybe it had just been the two—

I’d no sooner let my guard down to begin that thought before the lightning returned, even more powerful than before.

Only this time, something was different. In the silence that followed — I couldn’t even breathe through the pain; it was worse even than that time I got sunburned and exfoliated way too soon — I heard something I’d missed before.

Voices.

They were muffled beyond recognition or even understanding, but voices nonetheless.

Someone was out there. Multiple someones, it sounded like. But as the effects of the lightning receded, so did the voices, until I was left in the silent blackness I’d awakened to, however long ago.

But now I knew. I was ready.

When that fourth bolt struck, I didn’t fight it. Fighting did no good anyway. I let it roll through me, doing my best to imagine it passing through the body I used to have and still saw in my mind’s eye.

And I reached for those voices.

My first clues that something was happening were subtle. The shading of the black around me shifted to a lighter, fuzzier gray. I had more room to breathe. A sudden rhythmic booming filled the air. My heartbeat? It was way too loud.

The voices grew louder and more distinct, and I followed them, intent on escape. Where there were voices, there were other people. People NOT trapped in someone else’s body.

“Give me three-fifty.”

“Wait! We’ve got a rhythm.”

“BP is eighty over sixty.”

“Push another twenty cc’s.”

The voices spoke over one another, and equipment clattered loudly. A woman sobbed somewhere nearby.

“She’s stabilizing.”

Wait. This all sounded very familiar. Too familiar. It was hospital-speak. The same I’d heard when I’d watched them try to save me, save my body, rather, that day after the school bus. Only that time, there’d been no stabilizing. No rhythm. No relief in the taut voices, as there was now.

They were saving my life. No, not mine. Lily’s?

I needed to get out of here right now. If she was dying, I didn’t want to get stuck in here.

I pushed my way through the remaining layers of gray and surfaced — finally! — in a pool of light far too bright.

I threw my hand up to cover my already closed eyes…or rather, I tried. I felt a finger or two twitch, but no real movement. My arm felt heavy and too…fleshy. Like I’d suddenly gained hundreds of pounds.

You’re just weak, I told myself.

But something didn’t seem quite right about that.

My whole body ached, like I’d been locked in the same position for days. Like when you wake up after sleeping twelve hours without moving. My whole left side, but particularly my left leg, felt…off in some way. My head throbbed with a ferocity I’d never experienced. And I could feel hands poking and prodding at me, removing medical equipment, checking my pulse.