Hereafter

“So you won’t even listen to what we have to say?” Joaquin asked. “You won’t even consider the possibility that people are being misplaced?”

She lifted her head and looked at Joaquin and Tristan. “I think you’ve wasted enough of my time. I’d like you to leave now,” she said, striding back toward her office, back to whomever was waiting in that chair. She paused next to Tristan and looked down her nose at him. “All of you.”

Next to me, Krista made a sound somewhere between a squeak and a squeal.

“Let’s go,” Tristan said to the rest of us. He walked over to the door and held it open. Krista was the first one through, fluttering like a startled butterfly. Joaquin hesitated for just a moment but eventually tromped out.

I was just passing by Tristan when the mayor’s voice stopped me.

“Oh, and Ms. Miller?”

I stopped and looked at her. In the shadows cast by the curtained window next to her, her face looked like a skull.

“Don’t come back without an appointment.”

Then she walked into her office and slammed the door.

Always

Outside, Joaquin flung Tristan’s arm off his and stormed to the edge of the bluff. In the distance, storm clouds gathered, lightning flashing deep within the dark gray cover. I took in a deep breath and tried to relax, but the mayor’s last words to me still rang in my ears. In two short days, I’d gone from being a “distinct pleasure” to being someone who needed an appointment. Someone who got the door slammed in her face. Was it just because I was siding with Joaquin, or was it something more?

“What is the matter with you?” Tristan demanded, charging after Joaquin. A gust of wind blasted his hair back from his face as they neared the drop-off. “You know she hates it when we just barge in.”

“Do you really think I give a shit?” Joaquin asked, whirling to face Tristan. “Something’s going on around here, Tristan. Something bigger than the random shriveled magnolia or the centipede you found at the gazebo. Don’t you feel it? Because I do. I can feel it in every inch of my body.”

Tristan scoffed. “You’re so melodramatic.”

Krista and I hovered a safe distance away as the boys faced off. I could feel the mayor watching us through her office windows, but I refused to turn. Krista, however, kept glancing furtively back at the house. Along the front of the porch, the garden that had once been bursting with daisies was now a square of dry brown thatch.

“What if she never lets us back in?” she whispered, biting her bottom lip.

“I’m sure she will. It’s your home,” I replied.

“Yeah, but not really,” Krista said. “It’s not like she’s really my mother. And I’ve never seen her that angry before.”

Krista toyed with her bracelet, looking at the ground.

“We can’t keep letting this happen!” Joaquin shouted, the veins in his neck bulging. “You know the weather vane has been pointing south a lot more often than usual. If people are being sent to the wrong place, then what’s the point of all this? What’s the point of our existence?”

Another cold wind whooshed in off the ocean, leaving me momentarily breathless. The clouds were moving in at a fast clip; they were an ominous shade of steel gray. Krista took a few steps back toward the porch and away from the drop-off.

“People aren’t getting sent to the wrong place,” Tristan replied stubbornly. “The system works, Joaquin. It’s always worked.”

“Always?” Joaquin asked, raising his eyebrows.

Something passed between them. Some unspoken communication. Tristan stood, stock-still and silent, as if weighing his response. I smoothed my braid. Was Joaquin talking about Jessica, or was there something else going on?

“You’ve been here longer than anyone, Tristan,” Joaquin said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You know that things aren’t always what they seem. That the system can be circumvented.”

“No,” Tristan said firmly. “Not like this. Nothing like this has ever happened before. It can’t happen, J. It’s just…it’s not possible.”

They stared each other down, the wind blowing the sleeves of their shirts tight against their arms, until Joaquin finally chuckled and backed off.

“Screw this; I’m outta here,” he said, storming past me.

Krista looked away as he went by.

“So you’re really not gonna help us?” I asked Tristan, my voice nearly drowned out by the swirling of the wind.

He turned his palms out, his eyes determined but still full of sorrow. “There’s nothing to help with. This place isn’t broken, Rory. It can’t be broken.”

I pressed my lips together, hesitating. “But…Jessica broke it, didn’t she?”

An angry shadow crossed his face. “That was different,” he said fiercely. “She willingly ignored a rule, but once she did that, the mechanics worked as they were supposed to. The people who had been compromised went to the Shadowlands, as they were supposed to. You’re trying to say that the coins can be altered, that the final decision can be wrong. That can’t be.”

“But I know Aaron didn’t belong in the Shadowlands. I know it.” I looked down at my sneakers, gripping my fingertips until they hurt. It was nothing compared with the pain inside my chest. “What if we could bring them back?”

“We can’t,” Tristan said, pushing his sleeves down.

“But what if we could? What if there was a way to—”

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” Krista interrupted. “If Tristan’s so sure they are where they’re supposed to be, then we shouldn’t bring them back.”

“Exactly,” Tristan said, his face like stone.

“But they’re not where they’re supposed to be!” I wailed.

“We can’t keep having the same conversation, Rory,” Tristan said firmly. “Trust me. Nothing’s broken, and no one is coming back.”

Suddenly, my whole body felt hollow. There would be no getting through to him, no making him understand how awful, how wrong, how desperate I felt. Something or someone had sent Aaron to the Shadowlands when he belonged in the Light. And nothing Tristan said was going to change my mind about that. He was right about only one thing: we couldn’t keep having this conversation.

“Rory,” Tristan said, taking an imploring step forward.

I instinctively backed away. “I have to go,” I said, my heart breaking along with my voice.

“But you don’t understand—”

“I have to go.”

I turned and jogged after Joaquin, the wind making me tear up. As I came around the corner of the house, my foot caught on a rock and I stumbled. From the corner of my eye, I saw a pair of dark eyes staring at me through the office window, and the second I did, the blinds snapped shut.

I shoved myself up to my feet and ran. “Joaquin!” I shouted.

He was crossing the patio out back, headed for the woods on the southwest corner of the island.

“Joaquin, stop!” I shouted again as the clouds moved in to block out the sun.

Joaquin finally paused near the tree line, but he didn’t turn around. A rumble of thunder sounded nearby as I jogged to catch up with him, shoving my knotted hair away from my face. One huge drop of rain plopped onto my cheek.

I blew out a breath, choked with anger, confusion, and despair. “What are we going to do?” I asked, my hands on my hips.

“I don’t know,” he replied simply.