Chasing Before (Volume 2) (The Memory Chronicles, Band 2) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lenore Appelhans has been blogging about books since 2008. After reviewing hundreds of them, she decided to write one. She is the author of The Memory of After, The Best Things in Death (an e-short story), and Chasing Before. Lenore also wrote Chick-o-Saurus Rex, a picture book illustrated by her husband, Daniel Jennewein. She lives in Frankfurt, Germany, but loves to travel, so you can often find her on planes—at least until she learns how to teleport. Visit her online at PresentingLenore.Blogspot.com and on Twitter @LenorEva.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chasing Before

one

STEPPING THROUGH THE PORTAL out of Level Two is like jumping from the high dive out at the swimming hole. There’s a whoosh of air, the exhilarating and slightly terrifying sensation of flying, and then the freezing plunge into murky depths. Unlike when I used to hit the lake water, though, I keep my eyes open, fixed on the hand that Neil holds in a death grip as we spin through an inky blackness.

With a heavy, bone-jarring thud we land on a hard surface, dripping wet and disoriented, but whole. I look up from the white of my knuckles to Neil’s face, just in time to see his mouth slacken in shock.

He expected to walk into the Christian vision of heaven—streets paved with gold and cherubs playing harps. Maybe I did too. Instead twisted, blackened filing cabinets tower over us like angry sentinels. Their deformed bodies line both sides of a narrow passageway.

Already regretting our decision to move on from Level Two, I turn. Behind us is a brick wall, making it clear that there is no going back. In front of us, a few paces away, stands a lone woman, her spotless pale pink blazer and pencil skirt at odds with the soot-covered walls. She hasn’t noticed us. She begins to flit about, pulling on the handles of warped steel drawers and kicking at all the burned-edged papers that flutter out and lap at her heels.

I run my free hand down the soggy skirt of my sundress and then bend down to scoop up a charred sheet that has flown in my direction. Though the edges flake off as soon as I touch them, it is obvious this was once a document of great importance. Fancy gold lettering unfurls across buttery-cream linen, like a wedding invitation, but it’s not in any language I recognize.

Neil leans over to inspect it too. He shakes his head and mouths, “What happened here?”

I can’t imagine it was anything good. I shrug and let the paper fall back to the ground. Neil steps forward, pulling me with him, and the crinkle and crunch under his foot finally alert the woman to our presence.

As she turns, she snaps her fingers. Intense bright light floods into our faces, momentarily blinding us.

“State your names, please,” she says in a curt, high-pitched voice that sets me more on edge than I already am.

Once my eyes adjust to the light, the hallway and the woman come back into focus. She clutches a clipboard tight to her chest and peers over at us, her face pinched.

Neil pulls at the collar of his red polo and clears his throat. “Neil Corbet and Felicia Ward.”

“Felicia Ward,” she says thoughtfully. Her whole demeanor softens, making her look much younger than I thought at first. Though that doesn’t mean much in the afterlife, since as far as I know, people are preserved at the age at which they died on Earth. This woman could be a thousand years old and still appear twenty. “I’m Libby.” She steps toward me and bows. “It’s good you’ve come. We’ve been expecting you.”

The bowing throws me off. “What do you mean? How could you know I was coming?”

“Ordinarily I’d say it’s because you’re in our files.” She taps her fist against the nearest hunk of metal. “They used to contain the name, birth date, and death date of every human ever born on Earth. When a person ascended from Level Two, his or her card would automatically appear in these cabinets. But the files haven’t been useful to us since someone blew up this records room.”

Wait a minute. People are blowing things up? Here? But how? I squint at her, overwhelmed. I don’t know what to say.

She whistles loudly between two fingers. “Megan! Please turn off the welcome light.”

The passage dims, bathing us in the warm, dusky glow of candles. A girl wearing a neon-orange T-shirt dress and kneesocks descends a ladder I didn’t notice before. “Sorry,” Megan says, showing a mouthful of braces. “But the bright light is absolutely essential to the experience.” Her delivery is slightly mocking, like she’s parroting a phrase she’s heard one too many times.

Megan hands us fluffy orange towels, as if she expected us to arrive like drowned rats, and we accept them gratefully, wrapping them around our shoulders.

“Yes,” Libby says. “We may have a mess, but we haven’t abandoned all our matriculation procedures.”

“Does everyone arrive soaked to the bone?” Neil works on drying his hair with the ends of his long towel.

“Every time you cross into a different level, you pass through the Styx River. It’s the border between all dimensions.” Libby has the polished monotone of a flight attendant.

She spins a desk so that it cuts us off from the rest of the hallway. With a grim smile she scoots the clipboard and a pen across it.

“These forms are our interim solution while we wait for a celestial custodian to deliver updated files. Fill these out, and then we’ll take you down to get processed.”

I’m too bewildered to ask questions. Libby’s request is so simple, and while I get my bearings, I might as well go with the flow. I release Neil’s hand reluctantly and pick up the pen to complete the form. It has only two lines: name and age. My name is easy, but my age is more difficult. I could write “seventeen,” since that’s how old I was when I died. Or I could write “one hundred million,” because that’s how old I feel after spending so much time in Level Two.

Libby extracts another clipboard from her desk and clamps a sheet of paper and a pen onto it. “There you are, Neil,” she says a little too sweetly for my taste. Maybe his reputation as the always perfect, always friendly Boy Scout precedes him as well.

“How do you know who we are?” It comes out more harshly than I intended.

Libby materializes a pencil and uses it to secure her thick, curly reddish-blond hair into a bun. At least I’m familiar with materialization from my time in Level Two. If it works the same way here, all you have to do is call something up in your mind, and it appears, seemingly by magic. Of course, it’s only a copy of what you had on Earth, not the real thing. “Everyone who’s been arriving from Level Two has been talking about Felicia Ward,” Libby says. “It had been years since anyone had come through, and now we get hundreds in every day. They keep telling us the Morati had been holding humans back, and you set things right.”

I lift my clipboard to eye level, pretending to get a closer look. “I helped a little, I guess,” I mumble.

“Oh, c’mon,” Neil says, rubbing my shoulder. “She was so brave.” I peek over and see his adoring smile.

“That’s good to hear,” Libby says. “You must summon that courage again, I’m afraid. The Morati must have slipped in with the crowds and destroyed our files so we wouldn’t know they weren’t human. Angels are the only ones capable of destroying such celestial creations. And you’re the one who ruined their plans. They’ll be looking for you.”

Me? I shudder and drop the clipboard onto the desk. Of course it makes sense that they’d want revenge, but I honestly thought I was beyond their grasp for good now.

“And if they find...