Maria swallowed and smiled. She was crying. Emma was not, by sheer force of will. “Yes, Emma,” Maria said quietly. “We’re ready.”
Emma told the others what she wanted to do, but it only made sense to the dead. They stared at her for a moment with something that looked like hunger but was really just a deep and terrible longing, sublimated because it was so pointless.
“Dad?”
“He’s not here, dear,” Margaret told her.
“But—”
“If you accomplish what you intend, I think he feels he’ll have to leave you. The pull is very strong.”
“But he said he could find it no matter where he was.”
“He hasn’t just walked down the street.” In a more gentle voice she added, “He’s not ready to leave you yet, and he doesn’t trust himself to stay. You can’t know what we’ve seen and what we long for. Because you can’t know, you don’t know how very hard it will be for him. But he does know. And he’s not willing or ready to leave you, not yet.”
“Is that because I don’t want to let him go?”
Margaret’s smile was almost gentle. It was also sad. “Partly, dear. I’m sorry.”
“How do I—”
But Margaret shook her head. “Only partly. The dead are what they are, and if you will not make decisions for them, respect his. You’ll need power for this, dear. And it will be more power than you held when you faced Longland.”
Eric sucked in air. “Emma, don’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s not telling you the whole truth.”
“Then you tell me.”
“You can’t—you might not—survive the taking of that much power. And even if you do, it might change you.”
“You mean, more change than seeing the dead and being able to leech the life out of them?”
He grimaced.
“She has a point,” Chase told him. Chase’s expression throughout had been very, very odd, and it wasn’t an odd that could be attributed to blistered skin and patchy red hair.
“Fuck you,” Eric said.
“Why? Eric, she’s going to try it anyway. You’ve known her for long enough to know that. You might be able to interfere—but she won’t thank you.”
“She can’t do it.”
“Then she’ll fail. What’s the big deal?”
Eric turned, then, to Margaret. But whatever he saw in her face gave him no strength and no hope. “I didn’t save you from the old man so you could commit suicide.”
“No. But that’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“You’ll need the dead, dear.”
“I have—”
“More.”
Emma deflated. “I have no idea how to bind the dead. I don’t even think I want to know.”
“No, you don’t. But you already know. It’s a different binding,” Margaret added, “and it’s costly, for you, child. You pay for it, and we—the dead—touch a little bit of life again. But what you’ll need to do this is far more than we gave you. If we give you everything we have, if we drive ourselves beyond the point of speech or perhaps even thought, we will still not give you enough.
“You need the dead,” Margaret added firmly.
She turned to the others. “Will you help me?” she asked them. “Will you help me even if it means you have nothing left?”
As one, transfixed, they nodded.
“I think there are very, very few who would say no,” Margaret told her.
Emma nodded. “Then I have to find a way to—to summon the dead. I can gather them, if I find them.” She glanced at Maria. And swallowed.
No.
She frowned. She could hear a voice, and she felt it as if it were a dead person’s voice, but none of them had spoken a word.
You have what you need, Emma Hall. Be what I could not be. Be what she could not be.
And then she saw the almost translucent image of an ancient, ancient woman, dressed in rags, her flesh like another layer of grimy cloth upon her skeleton. It was the old woman from the graveyard. Emma lifted a hand to cover her mouth, but she managed not to take more than a step back.
Margaret turned toward the old woman, and she bowed and fell silent, moving to allow this most ancient of ghosts to pass her.
“You’re not going to kiss me again.”
“No.”
Emma lowered her hand. Allison was staring at the side of her face, and she reddened. “Who are you talking about? Who couldn’t be, and what?”
The old woman shook her head. “If I had survived, I could not do what you will try now. There is only one, in our long history, who could.”
“And she?”
The old woman fell silent.
“Emma—”
They both, young and old, living and dead, turned to look at Eric. He also fell silent.
“It is dark, where the dead live. The light they long for has been denied them. But you have other light. Use it.”
Emma frowned, and then her eyes widened. She looked at her hands, at the hands that had gripped, for moments, the sides of a lantern in a distant graveyard. As she looked, she saw the sides of it appear, like a layer, against her skin. She saw the writing first, and then the wires, the folds of textured paper. She felt the ice and the cold of it, and it burned her as if it were fire.
But she’d held on to Maria Copis for longer, and that was worse.
Margaret was again utterly silent.
Eric flinched.
Ernest swore under his breath. “You gave her that?”
“I did not give it to her intentionally,” the old woman replied, her gaze held by the growing light in Emma’s hands. “She took it.”
“You allowed it.”
The old woman did turn, then. “It was meant to be used,” she finally said. “It was meant to be used this way. She knew nothing, and it was the light she reached for.” Turning once again to Emma, she continued. “Sometimes they exist shrouded in darkness; they cannot find the way. And then, Emma Hall, we find them, and we lead them home.”
When the lantern was solid, Emma lifted it. She shifted position, one hand at a time, until she held it by its top wire; it swung wildly back and forth as if caught in a strong wind.
Georges whispered in a language that Emma didn’t understand. She meant to ask him what he saw but fell silent as the lantern began to glow. Its light, which had been so orange and then so blue, became a white that was almost blinding. Almost.
It was brighter than the azure of clear sky; it was brighter than the sunlight. It spread as she watched it, touching the houses that were closest and passing beyond them as if it could blanket the entire city, yard by yard, as it traveled.
Georges came to stand by her side. She thought it was because he was nervous, but when she spared him a glance, she realized that he wasn’t; he was standing as close as possible to her because she was the center of that light, and that was where he wanted to be.
And in the distance, as her eyes acclimated to yet another change in color and texture, she saw that he wasn’t the only one. From every street she could see, growing larger as they walked—or rode, or ran—the dead came.
THEY CAME IN ONES AND TWOS, to start, but as the time passed, the numbers grew. Eric swore, because Eric could see the dead. Maria didn’t swear, but a quick glance at her face told her this was more because she was holding a four-year-old than from any lack of desire.
Emma didn’t know the names of the dead, but she thought she should. They looked, or rather, felt, familiar to her. She saw the young, and the old, the strong and the infirm, the men and the women; she saw different shades of skin, heard the traces of different languages. From the language she did understand, she thought that the voices were raised in prayer.
What these dead didn’t do, apparently, was see each other. They saw her. They saw the lantern that she held in her hand. It was enough to draw them, like moths to flame. And Emma very dearly did not want to be the flame that consum
ed them.
“This is going to take a while,” Eric told Ernest.
“Meaning?”
“You’d better start cleanup detail or Emma and her friends are all going to be on the inside of a jail, which we can’t afford.”
“Ah. Right.”
She asked them their names. She touched them, briefly, as she did. They answered, even the ones who didn’t apparently speak English, and she absorbed their names. Not their beings, and not their power, but the simple fact of the syllables that had identified them in life.
She started by telling the first few of the dead what she intended and by asking their permission and their help to do it; she finished merely by taking their quiet, hushed—and heartbreaking—assent. They knew, somehow. They understood.
They gathered in a crowd that made the most exuberant of concerts or political rallies look paltry by comparison. But they gathered almost on top of each other, occupying physical space as if it meant nothing to them. It became hard to look at them and see the mismatch of face and chest and shoulder as they overlapped.
She closed her eyes instead.
With her eyes closed, she could see again, and she knew that, without effort, she had once again slid out of her body. She looked at a world that was gray and at the dead, who were not. She could barely see houses; they were sketched against the horizon as if by an impressionist. The cars and the trees were gone; the plain spread out forever. And above it, on a spiral of stairs that glimmered, she could see it: a door.
“Maria,” she said, although she could no longer see Maria Copis.
But she heard, at a great remove, Maria’s steady voice.
“Give Andrew to me,” she told his mother, as gently as she could.
She didn’t know if Maria hugged him or kissed him or spoke to him, although she was certain she had, but after a long moment, she felt the weight of a four-year-old placed, gently, in her arms. The arms that were extended and carrying the lantern. Andrew Copis materialized, and smiled at her.
“Are you ready?” she asked Andrew.
His eyes were shining.
She held the lantern by her fingers and Andrew in the curve of her arms, and she began to climb those stairs as the crowd that gathered all around her took—and held—a collective breath. The dead didn’t need to breathe, of course, but maybe they’d forgotten they were dead. Her feet were the first to touch the steps.
As she ascended, they followed. They were much more orderly than a concert crowd; they didn’t push and didn’t shove and didn’t swear at each other. But then again, they didn’t have to. She thought, for a moment, that they might not need to touch the stairs at all—and wondered if what she was “seeing” was entirely something created for her own benefit.
But it didn’t matter. She could climb stairs, and the dead could climb whatever it was they saw in their individual, unconnected worlds. She rose, and they rose, until she was at the top of the steps on a platform that led to a single door.
It wasn’t a fancy door; it wasn’t pearly gates. It was a simple, thick wood of a kind you didn’t see much anymore. It had no handle, no doorknob, no knocker, no bell. It was just there.
She put Andrew down, and then she reached out to touch the door. Her hand stopped an inch away from its surface.
“You’re not dead,” Andrew told her calmly. He reached out with considerably smaller hands, and his hands did touch the wood. He frowned, though, and looked as if he might cry. “I can’t get through.”
“Well, no. You have to open it first.”
“Open what?”
So, she thought, it wasn’t just the stairs that were for her benefit. Her father had said he could see light, and Emma demonstrably couldn’t. It should have worried her, but she found it oddly comforting. The closed door was like another metaphor, and all she had to do was open it.
Without being able to actually touch it.
She shook her head, and reached for the surface of the door again.
“Emma—”
“Hush, Andrew. I’m not dead—but right now I’m not exactly alive either. I’m here, I’m with you, and with all the others.”
He looked up at her for a moment and then nodded. “You brought my mom to me.”
“She wanted to come.”
He nodded. “She was sad.”
“Yes. She’s been very, very sad. I think seeing you has made her happier, though. Now, let me try this.” This time, when she reached out with her palm for the door’s surface, she pushed. The inch between her hand and the flat planks gave way very, very slowly, and even as it did, she felt her hands begin to tingle and ache. It was a familiar sensation, but it grew stronger as she pushed.
She looped the lantern around the crook of her elbow, and she freed up her other hand. She applied that one to the invisible barrier as well, and it continued to give slowly. Sweat started to trickle down her neck, although she felt it at a great remove.
The inch became half an inch, and then a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth. Every tiny increment required more power, and she took the power that was there, gathering it as if she were breathing it in and exhaling it through her hands.
But when she finally—finally—touched the door, she knew. She felt it, and she felt what lay beyond it, so clearly she could almost see. She heard the faint, attenuated cries at her back, and she knew that what she could almost see, they could clearly see. They had given her this, and it had robbed them of the power of their voices, muting them.
She pushed hard.
The door gave slowly, fighting her every inch of the way.
But it gave, and when it did, she renewed her efforts because she could see what they saw: the light, the sense of comfort, of home, of belonging. The sense of perfect ease, of place. She felt it like a blow, and she felt herself, somewhere, stagger back at the force of it.
It was like the very best parts of loving Nathan, and it tore at her because she had thought they were gone forever and she wanted them so badly. Badly enough to hold that door against the force that was trying to keep it closed. As she struggled, she felt the dead begin to pass by her. Andrew was the first to go, and this felt right to her, but he was only the first.
The others streamed past as well.
She couldn’t count them. She didn’t try. She became the struggle, and she knew that all she had to do was keep it open for long enough. How many of the dead would pass through, she didn’t know. Not all of them, unless she could somehow wrench the door wide open, and free of all restraint.
But she didn’t have to do that. All she had to do was hold it for long enough, and then?
She could go, too.
She could go to the light, and the peace, and the lack of pain and loss, and she could find comfort there, and she could give over all grief, all numbness, all of the horrible gray and guilt and anger that had clouded the last months of her life.
Emma!
It would be so easy. It would be so much easier.
The last person slipped through, and her hands now ached with effort, and with cold. She knew she’d run out of power; there was no one left to give it to her. But she could—
Could go. But Nathan, she knew, would not be there. He hadn’t been among the dead; she would have known him anywhere. His name, his face, the sound of his voice. Even if she couldn’t touch him without the cold. She could pass through this door, and he would be trapped here, and she would spend eternity without him.
And, she thought, she would be dead, and she wouldn’t have to care.
She swallowed, her fingers slipped, and she moved an inch forward.
And then, clear as a bell, she heard a familiar, quiet voice, uncertainty and fear etched into every word. Emma, I don’t want you to die. Michael’s voice.
She knew that he would be fidgeting, that he would be in that physical state that was one step short of out-and-out panic, and she knew that if she walked through this door, the one short step would be crossed the minute he understood that what
he wanted didn’t matter.
She didn’t love Michael the way she’d loved her father. She didn’t love him the way she’d loved Nathan. But she accepted the responsibility of the love she did feel for him, and she let the door go, weeping. Understanding, as she did, that the Maria Copises of this world were doing the same thing.
The door slammed shut with so much force it should have shattered, and while Emma watched it reverberate, it grew eyes.
Shadowed, dark eyes, scintillating with color the way black opals did. They were not—quite—human eyes, although something about them implied that they might have been once, and they were rounded with effort and, Emma thought, fear.
I will kill you for this.
She heard the voice and knew that it was the second time she had heard it. The first time had been in Amy’s house, when Eric had spoken to an image in the mirror.
She should have been afraid. Later, maybe. Right now she was too caught up in grief, and when she opened her real eyes again, she was weeping. In public. She couldn’t even find the strength to tell anyone that she was fine.
Eric drove her home. She left him at the door when Petal emerged, barking in his stupid, loud way. She’d run out of Milk-Bones, and anyway, feeding Petal was not exactly what she needed at the moment.
But need it or not, it was what she had to do, and she walked into the kitchen and found a can of dog food, a can opener, and his dish.
“Emma.” She looked up, and she saw Brendan Hall standing in the kitchen, where in any real sense he would never stand again. She’d recovered just enough that she could turn her face away. She did, but then she turned back to her father, as if she were eight years old. She had nothing to say, and he waited.
“You didn’t leave,” she whispered, when she could speak at all.
He shook his head. “While the door is closed,” he told her, his voice heavy with worry and yet somehow warm with pride, “I’m staying.”
“Why?” She had to ask, because she’d come so close to not staying herself, and she, at least, was alive.
“Sprout,” he said quietly, and Petal looked up and barked. It wasn’t a “strangers-at-the-door-man-the-cannons” bark, which was his usual form of noisemaking; it was tentative and hesitant.