Queen of the Dead

8 Alona

When I woke, a suffocating blackness — the kind of dark your brain rebels against by creating fireworks and faces out of nothing just for something to see — pressed in on me from every side. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see…couldn’t breathe.

Stay calm. A good suggestion, but it didn’t help with the impossibly tight feeling in my chest and the screaming desire to inhale.

Was this it, the end? The nothingness, nonexistence Will had talked about? I’d had visions of burning pits of flame or watching myself disintegrate like bonfire ash in the wind. Never this darkness and unbearable closeness to something I couldn’t even see. I hadn’t felt this claustrophobic since I was six, and my dad had accidentally shut me 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.

No, no, no. This wasn’t right.

With my heart pounding too fast — and a beeping somewhere nearby that seemed to keep time with it — I forced my eyes to open a slit and to stay open, despite the light, which made them water fiercely. I couldn’t move my head at all, but even that tiny slice of vision, blurry and painful as it was, was enough.

I stared at the girlie pink bedsheet, with castles and fairies hanging on the wall opposite of where I lay. I’d seen it before, but never from this perspective, from the point of view ofthe one for whom it had been hung. Arms that weren’t mine — too pale for one and too freckled for another — rested at my sides. The rise in the blankets farther down that hadto be feet and toes was far too close, and yet, when I concentrated with the intensity I’d once reserved for landing abackflip, those toes moved. Just a little, probably not even noticeable to anyone else. But it was enough, more than enough.

I had not escaped Lily Turner’s body after all. No, instead, I’d somehow just managed to lock myself into the driver’s seat.

Okay, so the important thing was not to panic. Right. I was only stuck inside of someone else’s freaking body! And not even one I would have picked for myself, BTW.

Just stay calm. My eyes snapped shut again, and I allowed it, the burden of keeping them open too much in this moment.

It had been one thing to sort of borrow her hand. I’d been aware of my hand inside of hers, like a hand in glove, if you’ll excuse the grossness of the metaphor (don’t think about it too hard). But this was different. I no longer had any sense of me within her. It was just all blended and blurred together. We were blended and blurred together.

That couldn’t be good. The monitor next to me beeped a little louder and faster, sounding my panic for me.

And apparently, I wasn’t the only one having trouble with not freaking out. As soon as someone pushed the rattling cart of equipment away and the doctor left with murmured words that I could not quite hear, the chair next to my bedside squeaked loudly as someone collapsed into it and began to sob.

Lily’s mom. It had to be.

Her warm fingers wrapped around mine, startling me, and she squeezed almost too hard. “Come on, baby, you can’t give up on me now.”

The anguish in her voice ate at me. I’d caused this. Even if I wasn’t sure how, my attempt to use her daughter had brought this about. God, I was a sucky person. Not that it was entirely my fault. Will had some responsibility in all of this. If he’d just done what he was supposed to — i.e., what I said — none of this would have happened!

I wanted to pull my hand away from Mrs. Turner, but succeeded in only wiggling my fingers.

She drew in a breath sharply, and I could feel her staring down at me. “You want your board back, baby?”

Crap. This monster was all mine…and Will’s.

Will. He might be able to fix this.

Yeah. He could probably just reach in and pull me out. Or, better yet, just “call” me from someplace farther away and I’d have to come out to answer. That’s the way it worked. I couldn’t ignore his call. Period. Ever. And trust me, I’d tried.

So…all I had to do was get Will here. I could do that. It was possible that maybe I’d be pulled out of here tomorrow morning anyway and show up at his side, just like usual. Possible. But I wasn’t willing to take the chance. Plus, I was not cool with spending one second longer in this body than I had to, let alone the hours that still had to pass before 7:03 a.m. would roll around again.

“Can you call Will Killian, please?” is what I imagined myself saying in a voice creaky with disuse.

Instead what came out was…nothing. My throat worked, and my tongue clicked and clacked against the roof of my mouth, but not so much as a grunt emerged.

What the hell? I was stuck in here without any control or a voice? A shiver of fear ran over me and I felt it in a way that I hadn’t in a while, with real goose bumps and everything. It was almost too intense.

“Let me get your board.” She gave my fingers one last squeeze and let go.

I squinted again, and this time, the light wasn’t as unbearable. Don’t get me wrong, it was still like staring directly at the sun in terms of pain, but I was beginning to adjust. If I avoided looking directly up — at what I was beginning to suspect were ordinary room fluorescents, too bright for my newly sensitized eyes — I could see a bit more.

Straining my eyes to the right, I watched Lily’s mom turn away from me and fumble through the stack of Ouija boards on my bedside table.

But before she could put one in place and I could test my likely nonexistent fine motor skills, running footsteps sounded in the hall, out of place now without alarms sounding or the announcement of code blue on the overhead.

They came to a stop right outside my door. Lily’s mom froze, her arms wrapped around a pink plastic version of the Ouija board. She jerked around in her chair, and I struggled to follow with my limited range of vision.

“What happened?” A ragged male voice asked from the door. “Is everything okay? Is she—”

“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Turner stood and turned to face him, blocking my view. “I didn’t call you.”

A too-long pause followed. “I asked the nurses to leave a note in her chart to call my cell phone if she—”

“What, died?” Mrs. Turner spat. “Disappointed, Jason?”

“That’s not fair! She’s my daughter, too.”

“Really?” She moved toward the door, out of my range of vision. “Then where were you this morning? When she was present and trying to communicate?”

He sighed. “Corrine, she’s not…” He took a deep breath. “Never mind. What happened?”

Mrs. Turner sniffed. “Her heart stopped. All of a sudden. No warning.”

“She looks different,” someone else said, also near the door. God, could everybody please move into the room so I could have a shot at telling what was going on?

This new voice had that squeaky sort of braying quality that I’d noticed in the freshman boys who’d attempted totalk to me. Lily’s younger brother?

“He should not be here,” Mrs. Turner hissed. “He doesn’t have to see this.”

“It’s his sister,” Mr. Turner, presumably, hissed back in that way parents have of arguing in front of their children. Seriously. Do they think we’re that stupid? Of course, my parents had graduated from loud, angry whispers to shouting, and then, even worse, stony silence, a long time ago, so this was nothing new to me.

It didn’t seem to faze Lily’s brother either. He left them hissing and snarling at each other near the doorway and came closer to me, his shoes squeaking on the floor as he approached.

He stepped into my field of vision, keeping a cautious distance from the side of my bed, but still close enough for me to get a good look.

God, geekiness must run in their family. He was twelve, or maybe thirteen, and tall and skinny with fine light brown hair that was sticking up in the world’s worst cowlick at the back of his head. He was wearing a polo shirt (points), but it was about three sizes too big and in a spectacularly bright shade of clearance bin yellow. Seriously. Did they not have a mirror in their house? From this and what I recalled from the pictures I’d seen of Lily, you wouldn’t think so.

He stepped a little closer, frowning. Behind him, his parents continued arguing in fierce but hushed tones.

“Corrine, you heard them. Even if she woke up, which is never going to happen, she won’t be the same person.”

“Not in here, not in front of her,” she snapped.

The brother waved his hand millimeters above my face, releasing the smell of antibacterial soap and sweaty boy, and I blinked in irritation.

He cocked his head to one side. “You should see this. She’s opening and closing her eyes.”

“It’s just a reflex, Tyler.” Lily’s mother sounded exhausted. “Remember, they explained that.”

He stared down at me with a frown. “No,” he said. “This is different.” He rested his hands on the side of my bed and leaned in for a closer look. Having him hanging over my face was, quite frankly, more than a little annoying, but it was further than I’d gotten with Mrs. Turner.

Now just get them to give me one of those damn boards. I tried to tell him with my eyes. That would be a start at least. Even if I couldn’t quite get it right from the start, maybe they’d at least realize I was trying.

But his parents ignored him.

“I think it’s time to take her home,” Mr. Turner said.

That sounded like a good plan to me. If “Lily” came home, Will would have to come visit. Guaranteed.

“Take her home to die, you mean,” Mrs. Turner said scornfully.

Wait, what?

“Yes, to die,” he said. “She’s not getting any better. And you’re…” he sighed. “This isn’t good for you.”

“Don’t pretend to care about Lily or me.”

I wished I could see her. Mrs. Turner sounded like she was inches from snapping and throwing a punch. From what I’d seen of her, I bet she could probably put some force behind it, too.

“You’re willing to let her slip away just so you don’t have to live with your mistake,” she said.

“That’s not—”

“You gave her the car!”

This sudden shout from Mrs. Turner was a conversation stopper. Even Tyler half-turned from me to stare at his parents.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I gave our sixteen-year-old sober and responsible daughter the car keys and permission to spend time with her friends. You would have done the same thing, but I’m the one who will have to carry the knowledge for the rest of my life that I could have done something.” His voice cracked. “I could have stopped her, but I didn’t know.” The sound of broken and hoarse breathing, half-repressed sobs came from his direction.

I turned toward the sound instinctively and found I could move my head on the pillow. Just a little bit. But enough to see them both now. Mr. Turner was this big guy with a beard, but his voice was gentle. And I’d forgive him for wearing a denim shirt. He was clearly grieving.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Turner said wearily. “I didn’t mean it.” She rested her head against his shoulder, and he allowed it, patting her back with one giant bear-paw of a hand.

“If we take her home,” Mr. Turner continued, forcing himself to talk through his tears, “she can be comfortable. She can be with us. No more tests, no more feeding tubes, no more doctors.”

Mrs. Turner leaned into him and shook her head. “I don’t know.…She was trying to talk to me, Jason, I know it.”

“Then why don’t any of the tests show improvement? Why doesn’t she communicate when we ask her to?”

“I don’t know, but—”

“Her fingers move on their own — muscle reactions. If you look hard enough, you can make meaning out of anything.”

“She told me not to be sad.”

“How much of that is what you wanted to see?” he asked gently. “How sure are you that she was reaching for the ‘s’ and not the ‘t’ or the ‘q’?”

I beg your pardon, I hit those letters with precision. Well, as much precision as I could manage using someone else’s hand.

“I know what I saw,” Mrs. Turner said, but her voice had lost its earlier conviction.

“We don’t have to forget, we never forget, but she can let go and so can we,” he said quietly.

And take me with her? I don’t think so. I still wasn’t sure how I’d been pulled in here in the first place. If Lily died, would her body let me go? I could think of one thing way worse than being stuck in a living body I didn’t want, and that was being stuck in a not-living one.

I shuddered on the inside.

Lily’s brother was still by my bed, half sitting, half leaning against the edge, like he’d forgotten I was there in the drama created by his parents. Couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly the chatty type these days, now was I?

This time, I didn’t even try to talk.

If I was going to stop them from letting Lily die longenough to let me out, I needed to let them know I was in here. I seemed to be having better luck with small motionsover talking, and the brother’s hand was resting on the bed, just inches from mine. If I could just tap him, that might be enough to get his attention and get him to make his parents see.

I focused all my effort on my right hand. I just need to move the fingers a little farther down and…

As usual, when I really put my mind to something, I win. Big time.

I watched as my hand shot forward and locked around Tyler’s wrist.

Tyler jumped up with a yelp, but my hand was still on his arm, so he dragged me with him until I was listing awkwardly to the side.

“Lily!” Mrs. Turner shrieked.

She shoved Mr. Turner away and bolted for the bed. Pushing past Tyler and breaking my now weakening grip on his wrist, she scooped my upper half up into a too-tight hug.

“I knew you would come back. I knew there was a reason to keep hoping,” she whispered in my ear, her tears wet against my face.

Crap. This was going to get complicated.