Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 1

  Gillian Lennox didn’t mean to die that day.

  She was mad, though. Mad because she had missed her ride home from school, and because she was cold, and because it was two weeks before Christmas and she was very, very lonely.

  She walked by the side of the empty road, which was about as winding and hilly as every other country road in south-western Pennsylvania, and viciously kicked offending clumps of snow out of her way.

  It was a rotten day. The sky was dull and the snow looked tired. And Amy Nowick, who should have been waiting after Gillian cleaned up her studio art project, had already driven away-with her new boyfriend.

  Sure, it must have been an honest mistake. And she wasn’t jealous of Amy, she wasn’t, even though one week ago they had both been sixteen and never been kissed.

  Gillian just wanted to get home.

  That was when she heard the crying.

  She stopped, looked around. It sounded like a baby-or maybe a cat. It seemed to be coming from the woods.

  Her first thought was, Paula Belizer. But that was ridiculous. The little girl who’d disappeared somewhere at the end of this road had been gone for over a year now.

  The crying came again. It was thin and far away-as if it were coming from the depths of the woods. This time it sounded more human.

  “Hello? Hey, is somebody in there?”

  There was no answer. Gillian stared into the dense stand of oak and hickory, trying to see between the gnarled bare trees. It looked uninviting. Scary.

  Then she looked up and down the road. Nobody. Hardly surprising-not many cars passed by here.

  I am not going in there alone, Gillian thought. She was exactly the opposite of the “Oh, it’s such a nice day; let’s go tramping through the woods” type. Not to mention exactly the opposite of the brave type.

  But who else was there? And what else was there to do?

  Somebody was in trouble.

  She slipped her left arm through her backpack strap, settling it on the center of her back and leaving her hands free. Then she cautiously began to climb the snow-covered ridge that fell away on the other side to the woods.

  “Hello?” She felt stupid shouting and not getting any answer. “Hi! Hello!”

  Only the crying sound, faint but continuous, somewhere in front of her.

  Gillian began to flounder down the ridge. She didn’t weigh much, but the crust on the snow was very thin and every step took her ankle deep.

  Great, and I’m wearing sneakers. She could feel cold seeping into her feet.

  The snow wasn’t so deep once she got into the woods. It was white and unbroken beneath the trees-and it gave her an eerie sense of isolation. As if she were in the wilderness.

  And it was so quiet. The farther Gillian went in, the deeper the silence became. She had to stop and not breathe to hear the crying.

  Bear left, she told herself. Keep walking. There’s nothing to be scared of!

  But she couldn’t make herself yell again.

  There is something weird about this place… .

  Deeper and deeper into the woods. The road was far behind her now. She crossed fox tracks and bird scratches in the snow-no sign of any-l thing human.

  But the crying was right ahead now, and louder. She could hear it clearly.

  Okay, up this big ridge. Yes, you can do it. Up, up. Never mind if your feet are cold.

  As she struggled over the uneven ground, she tried to think comforting thoughts.

  Maybe I can write an article about it for the Viking News and everyone will admire me… . Wait. Is it cool or uncool to rescue somebody? Is saving people too nice to be cool?

  It was an important question, since Gillian currently had only two ambitions: 1) David Blackburn, and, 2) To be invited to the parties the popular kids were invited to. And both of these depended, in a large part, on being cool.

  If she were only popular, if she only felt good about herself, then everything else would follow. It would be so much easier to be a really wonderful person and do something for the world and make something important of her life if she just felt loved and accepted. If she weren’t shy and short and immature looking …

  She reached the top of the ridge and grabbed at a branch to keep her balance. Then, still hanging on, she let out her breath and looked around.

  Nothing to see. Quiet woods leading down to a creek just below.

  And nothing to hear, either. The crying had stopped.

  Oh, don’t do this to me!

  Frustration warmed Gillian up and chased away her fear. She yelled, “Hey-hey, are you still out there? Can you hear me? I’m coming to help you!”

  Silence. And then, very faintly, a sound.

  Directly ahead.

  Oh, my God, Gillian thought. The creek.

  The kid was in the creek, hanging on to something, getting weaker and weaker… .

  Gillian was scrambling down the other side of the ridge, slithering, the wet snow adhering to her like lumpy frosting.

  Heart pounding, out of breath, she stood on the bank of the creek. Below her, at the edge, she could see fragile ice ledges reaching out like petals over the rushing water. Spray had frozen like diamond drops on overhanging grasses.

  But nothing living. Gillian frantically scanned the surface of the dark water.

  “Are you there?” she shouted. “Can you hear me?”

  Nothing. Rocks in the water. Branches caught against the rocks. The sound of the rushing creek.

  “Where are you?”

  She couldn’t hear the crying anymore. The water was too loud.

  Maybe the kid had gone under.

  Gillian leaned out, looking for a wet head, a shape beneath the surface. She leaned out farther.

  And then-a mistake. Some subtle change of balance. Ice under her feet. Her arms were wind-milling, but she couldn’t get her balance back… .

  She was flying. Nothing solid anywhere. Too surprised to be frightened.

  She hit the water with an icy shock.

  CHAPTER 2

  Everything was freezing confusion. Her head was under water and she was being tumbled over and over. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, and she was completely disoriented.

  Then her head popped up. She automatically sucked in a huge gasp of air.

  Her arms were flailing but they seemed tangled in her backpack. The creek was wide here and the current was very strong. She was being swept downstream, and every other second her mouth seemed to be full of water. Reality was just one desperate, choking attempt to get enough air for the next breath.

  And everything was so cold. A cold that was pain, not just temperature.

  I’m going to die.

  Her mind realized this with a sort of numb certainty, but her body was stubborn. It fought almost as if it had a separate brain of its own. It struggled out of her backpack, so that the natural buoyancy of her ski jacket helped keep her head above water. It made her legs kick, trying to stand firm on the bottom.

  No good. The creek was only five feet deep in the center, but that was still an inch higher than Gillian’s head. She was too small, too weak, and she couldn’t get any kind of control over where she was going. And the cold was sapping her strength frighteningly fast. With every second her chances of surviving dropped.

  It was as if the creek were a monster that hated her and would never let her go. It slammed her into rocks and swept her on before her hands could get hold of the cold, smooth surfaces. And in a few minutes she was going to be too weak to keep her face above water.

  I have to grab something.

  Her body was telling her that. It was her only chance.

  There. Up ahead, on the left bank, a projecting spit with tree roots. She had to get to it. Kick. Kick.

  She hit and was almost spun past it. But somehow, she was holding on. The roots were thicker than her arms, a huge tangle like slick, icy snakes.

  Gillian thrust an arm through a natural loop of the roots, anchoring herself. Oh-yes; she could breathe now. But her body was still in the creek, being sucked away by the water.

  She had to get out-but that was impossible. She just barely had the strength to hold on; her weakened, numb muscles could never pull her up the bank.

  At that moment, she was filled with hatred-not for the creek, but for herself. Because she was little and weak and childish and it was going to kill her. She was going to die, and it was all happening right now, and it was real.

  She could never really remember what happened next. Her mind let go and there was nothing but anger and the burning need to get higher. Her legs kicked and scrambled and some dim part of her knew that each impact against the rocks and roots should have hurt. But all that mattered was the desperation that was somehow, inch by inch, getting her numb, waterlogged body out of the creek.

  And then she was out. She was lying on roots and snow. Her vision was dim; she was gasping, open-mouthed, for breath, but she was alive.

  Gillian lay there for a long time, not really aware of the cold, her entire bod

y echoing with relief.

  I made it! I’ll be okay now.

  It was only when she tried to get up that she realized how wrong she was.

  When she tried to stand, her legs almost folded under her. Her muscles felt like jelly.

  And … it was cold. She was already exhausted

  and nearly frozen, and her soaking clothes felt as heavy as medieval armor. Her gloves were gone, lost in the creek. Her cap was gone. With every breath, she seemed to get colder, and suddenly she was racked with waves of violent shivers.

  Find the road … I have to get to the road. But which way is it?

  She’d landed somewhere downstream-but where? How far away was the road now?

  Doesn’t matter … just walk away from the creek, Gillian thought slowly. It was difficult to think at all.

  She felt stiff and clumsy and the shivering made it hard to climb over fallen trees and branches. Her red, swollen fingers couldn’t close to get handholds.

  I’m so cold-why can’t I stop shivering?

  Dimly, she knew that she was in serious trouble. If she didn’t get to the road-soon-she wasn’t going to survive. But it was more and more difficult to call up a sense of alarm. A strange sort of apathy was coming over her. The gnarled forest seemed like something from a fairy tale.

  Stumbling … staggering. She had no idea where she was going. Just straight ahead. That was all she could see anyway, the next dark rock protruding from the snow, the next fallen branch to get over or around.

  And then suddenly she was on her face. She’d fallen. It seemed to take immense effort to get up again.

  It’s these clothes … they’re too heavy. I should take them off.

  Again, dimly, she knew that this was wrong. Her brain was being affected; she was dazed with hypothermia. But the part of her that knew this was far away, separate from her. She fought to make her numbed ringers unzip her ski jacket.

  Okay … it’s off. I can walk better now… .

  She couldn’t walk better. She kept falling. She had been doing this forever, stumbling, falling, getting up. And every time it was a little harder.

  Her cords felt like slabs of ice on her legs. She looked at them with distant annoyance and saw that they were covered with adhering snow.

  Okay-maybe take those off, too?

  She couldn’t remember how to work a zipper. She couldn’t think at all anymore. The violent waves of shivering were interspersed with pauses now, and the pauses were getting longer.

  I guess … that’s good. I must not be so cold–—

  I just need a little rest.

  While the faraway part of her brain screamed uselessly in protest, Gillian sat down in the snow.

  She was in a small clearing. It seemed deserted-not even the footprints of a ground mouse marked the smooth white carpet around her. Above, overhanging branches formed a snowy canopy.

  It was a very peaceful place to die.

  Gillian’s shivering had stopped.

  Which meant it was all over now. Her body couldn’t warm itself by shivering any longer, and was giving up the fight. Instead, it was trying to move into hibernation. Shutting itself down, reducing breathing and heart rate, conserving the little warmth that was left. Trying to survive until help could come.

  Except that no help was coming.

  No one knew where she was. It would be hours before her dad got home or her mother was … awake. And even then they wouldn’t be alarmed that Gillian wasn’t there. They’d assume she was with Amy. By the time anyone thought of looking for her it would be far too late.

  The faraway part of Gillian’s mind knew all this, but it didn’t matter. She had reached her physical limits-she couldn’t save herself now even if she could have thought of a plan.

  Her hands weren’t red anymore. They were blue-white. Her muscles were becoming rigid.

  At least she no longer felt cold. There was only a vast sense of relief at not having to move. She was so tired… .

  Her body had begun the process of dying.

  White mist filled her mind. She had no sense of time passing. Her metabolism was slowing to a stop. She was becoming a creature of ice, no different from any stump or rock in the frozen wilderness.

  I’m in trouble … somebody … somebody please …

  Mom …

  Her last thought was, it’s just like going to sleep.

  And then, all at once, there was no rigidity, no discomfort. She felt light and calm and free-and she was floating up near the canopy of snowy boughs.

  How wonderful to be warm again! Really warm, as if she were filled with sunshine. Gillian laughed in pleasure.

  But where am I? Didn’t something just happen-something bad?

  On the ground below her there was a huddled figure. Gillian looked at it curiously.

  A small girl. Almost hidden by her long pale hair, the strands already covered in fine ice. The girl’s face was delicate. Pretty bone structure. But the skin was a terrible flat white-dead looking.

  The eyes were shut, the lashes frosty. Underneath, Gillian knew somehow, the eyes were deep violet.

  I get it. I remember. That’s me.

  The realization didn’t bother her. Gillian felt no connection to the huddled thing in the snow. She didn’t belong to it anymore.

  With a mental shrug, she turned away-

  -and she was in a tunnel.

  A huge dark place, with the feeling of being vastly complicated somehow. As if space here were folded or twisted-and maybe time, too.

  She was rushing through it, flying. Points of light were whizzing by-who could tell how far away in the darkness?

  Oh, God, Gillian thought. It’s the tunnel. This is happening. Right now. To me.

  I’m really dead.

  And going at warp speed.

  Weirder than being dead was being dead with a sense of humor.

  Contradictions … this felt so real, more real than anything that had ever happened while she was alive. But at the same time, she had a strange sense of unreality. The edges of her self were blurred, as if somehow she were a part of the tunnel and the lights and the motion. She didn’t have a distinct body anymore.

  Could this all be happening in my head?

  With that, for the first time, she felt frightened. Things in her head … could be scary. What if she ran into her nightmares, the very things that her subconscious knew terrified her most?

  That was when she realized she had no control over where she was going.

  And the tunnel had changed. There was a bright light up ahead.

  It wasn’t blue-white, as she would have expected from movies. It was pale gold, blurred as if she were seeing it through frosty glass, but still unbelievably brilliant.

  Isn’t it supposed to feel like love or something?

  What it felt like-what it made her feel-was awe. The light was so big, so powerful … and so Just Plain Bright. It was like looking at the beginning of the universe. And she was rushing toward it so fast-it was filling her vision. She was in it.

  The light encompassed her, surrounded her. Seemed to shine through her. She was flying upward through radiance like a swimmer surfacing.

  Then the feeling of motion faded. The light was getting less bright-or maybe her eyes were adapting to it.

  Shapes solidified around her.

  She was in a meadow. The grass was amazing-not just green, but a sort of impossible ultra green. As if lit up from inside. The sky was the same kind of impossible blue. She was wearing a thin summer dress that billowed around her.

  The false color made it seem like a dream. Not to mention the white columns rising at intervals from the grass, supporting nothing.

  So this is what happens when you die. And now … now, somebody should come meet me. Grandpa Trevor? I’d like to see him walking again.

  But no one came. The landscape was beautiful, peaceful, unearthly-and utterly deserted.

  Gillian felt anxiety twisting again inside her. Wait, what if this place wasn’t-the good place? After all, she hadn’t been particularly good in her life. What if this were actually hell?

  Or … limbo?

  Like the place all those spirits who talked to mediums must be from. Creatures from heaven wouldn’t say such silly things.

  What if she were left here, alone, forever?

  As soon as she finished the thought, she wished she hadn’t. This seemed to be the kind of place where thoughts-or fears-could influence reality.

  Wasn’t that something rancid she smelled?

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15