Hereafter. Tara Hudson

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      And I would probably feel miserable about it for years. I lay my arms across my knees in a posture of defeat.

      That’s when something made my head jerk upward and then made me jump up into a crouch on the grass. At first I couldn’t be sure what made me react this way. When I tried to glean some clue from my surroundings, I noticed that the sun had nearly set while I sat feeling sorry for myself. It threw a fiery glow across the water and cast deep shadows into the woods.

      Yet it wasn’t the dying sunlight that had frightened me. It was instead the thing that contrasted so sharply with the burning light of the sunset: a bitterly cold wind that now lashed across my bare legs and through my hair.

      I’d been experiencing so many unexpected sensations lately that perhaps I shouldn’t have been so alarmed by the wind. But I was.

      Late summer was not the season for a freezing wind. Worse, nothing around me had ruffled in the wind—not the tall grass on the bank or the needles of the nearby pines. The wind came from the wrong direction, too. It didn’t blow off the water behind me or down the wide alley that the river made through the woods. It came directly from the shadowed tree line in front of me.

      Realizing all of this, I actually felt the hairs on my arms stand on end. I couldn’t help but raise my forearm to stare at the goose bumps there, marveling at the revival of my long-dead fight-or-flight response.

      Without warning, the wind became a gale, whipping my hair across my face and obscuring my vision. I stumbled backward, knocked off balance by its force. It howled out from the trees, and my hands flew up to protect my ears from the sound. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the wind stopped. The bank became deathly still.

      My hands still covered my ears, and I’d unknowingly squeezed my eyes tightly shut. I’d curled almost completely over, clutching my bent knees together with my elbows.

      “Hello, Amelia.”

      A male voice floated silkily out from the tree line. I remained curled over and opened only one eye, refusing to believe I could actually hear someone speaking directly to me. Someone other than Joshua.

      “Do you hear me, Amelia?”

      I opened the other eye and straightened myself slowly, still keeping my hands over my ears as if they afforded me some protection from this stranger’s voice. I couldn’t seem to force my vocal cords to work. He sighed impatiently, obviously waiting for me to provide him with an answer.

      “Really, Amelia, you’re being terribly rude.”

      “E-excuse me?” I managed to stammer.

      The owner of the voice clicked his tongue in admonishment. “Still rude.”

      His tone broke through the terrified frost that had begun to creep over my skin. I felt myself flush with the warmth of anger, as though I were able to blush from fury.

      “You can see me, but I can’t see you. Don’t you find that a little rude?” I demanded.

      He laughed, a smooth sound that didn’t do much to dispel the skin-crawling feeling. “Oh, I suppose I could remedy that problem, if you wish.”

      The tree branches directly in front of me stirred as something crept out from behind them. I could tell that, whoever the speaker was, he moved deliberately, possibly to put me at ease and keep me from bolting from this place. It wasn’t a very effective tactic, because I could feel the twitch of impending flight in my muscles.

      Before I made the final decision to run, however, the owner of the voice stepped out of the gloom of the woods and into what little sunlight still filled the bank.

      I knew instantly that he wasn’t a living being, although at first I wasn’t sure why. As I stared openmouthed at him—another action he would likely find rude—I noted all the details of his appearance. He looked about my age, or maybe just a few years older, but he wore strange, wild clothing: an unbuttoned black shirt, its sleeves rolled up to reveal metal cuffs on both his wrists; impossibly tight jeans slung low on his hips; and several necklaces bunched together on his bare chest. Beneath the ashy blond hair that fell in messy curls to his shoulders, he looked terribly pale. As if someone had scrubbed all the color from his face.

      Despite his pallor, I supposed you might call him handsome. Sexy, even.

      The contrast of his skin against the darkness, however, gave away his otherworldliness. His skin was too bright, too unaffected by the dying sunlight. It had its own, nearly imperceptible glow in the dark, reflecting neither sunlight nor moonlight but illuminated by his very nature. Like a black-and-white photograph that had been given a slight sheen and then centered in front of the darkened scenery. Out of place and otherworldly, just like me.

      “What are you?” I breathed.

      “You know exactly what I am. I am what you are. The better question, Amelia, is who am I?” He halted his approach, folded his arms over his bare chest, and smirked at me.

      So I was right. He was a ghost. A ghost of whom I wasn’t growing any fonder. I threw back my shoulders and raised my head high.

      “I don’t think I’m really interested, but thanks anyway.”

      “Funny girl. Of course you’re interested.”

      “And why is that?”

      “Because I’m the first of our kind you’ve ever seen.”

      I stifled a gasp. How could he know that?

      I thought briefly of retorting that it didn’t matter anyway, because he certainly wasn’t the first person to see me. Yet some protective instinct told me not to mention Joshua. To keep the very thought of Joshua out of my head, if possible.

      The other ghost was too sharp—he noticed my pause and narrowed his eyes.

      “I can understand your shock, Amelia. I’ve been watching you for years, keeping my distance. You’ve never seen me, and I’ve never noticed you encounter any of our kind. Unless you’ve been sneaking around behind my back.” He smiled, showing off a slightly chipped front tooth. The effect would have been charming were he not so creepy.

      “But … how do you know my name?” I asked.

      “Well,” he said, “you spent a lot of time screaming it at the living, didn’t you?”

      I felt myself retch.

      This ghost, this dead thing, had been watching me—for years? If so, then all of my private moments had been exposed to him. Shared with him.

      I came to another, quick conclusion: if he’d been watching me, then he’d let me wander, utterly lost and alone, for God knows how long. He’d left me without a guide or a friend, amusing himself with my humiliation and loneliness. How cruel did someone have to be to silently watch another’s suffering for so long?

      Anger sparked within me, glowing like a small coal in my core. I found myself suddenly grateful for the implication that this ghost apparently hadn’t seen Joshua and me together.

      “Why haven’t I ever seen you?” I tried to speak evenly, carefully СКАЧАТЬ