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?
And-weren't those voices? Fragments of sentences that seemed to come from the air around her? The kind of nonsense said by people in dreams.
"So white you can't see..."
"A time and a half..."
"If only I could, girl..."
Gillian turned around and around, trying to catch more. Trying to figure out whether or not she was really hearing the words. She had the sudden gut-trembling feeling that the beauty around her could easily come apart at the seams.
Oh, God, let me think good thoughts. Please. I wish I hadn't watched so many horror movies. I don't want to see anything terrible-like the ground splitting and hands reaching for me.
And I don't want anyone to meet me-looking like something rotting with bones exposed-after all.
She was in trouble. Even thinking about not thinking brought up pictures. And now fear was galloping inside her, and in her mind the bright meadow was turning into a nightmare of darkness and stink and pressure and gibbering mindless things. She was terrified that at any moment she might see a change-
And then she did see one. Something unmistakable. A few feet away from her, above the grass, was a sort of mist of light. It hadn't been there a moment ago. But now it seemed to get brighter as she watched, and to stretch from very far away. And there was a shape in it, coming toward her.
Chapter 3
First it looked like a speck, then like an insect on a lightbulb, then like a kite. Gillian watched, too frightened to run, until it got close enough for her to realize what it really was.
It was an angel.
Her fear drained away as she stared. The figure seemed to shine, as if it were made of the same light as the mist. It was tall, and had the shape of a perfectly formed human. It was walking, but somehow rushing toward her at the same time.
An angel, Gillian thought, awed. An angel...
And then the mist cleared and the shining faded. The figure was standing on the grass in front of her.
Gillian blinked.
Uh-not an angel, after all. A young guy. Maybe seventeen, a year older than Gillian. And... drop dead gorgeous.
He had a face like some ancient Greek sculpture. Classically beautiful. Hair like unburnished gold. Eyes that weren't blue, but violet. Long golden lashes.
And a terrific body.
I shouldn't be noticing that Gillian thought, horrified. But it was hard not to. Now that his clothes had stopped shining, she could see that they were ordinary, the kind any guy from earth might wear. Washed and faded jeans and a white T-shirt. And he could easily have done a commercial for those jeans. He was well built without being over-musdy.
His only flaw, if it could be called that, was that his expression was a little too uplifted. Almost too sweet for a boy.
Gillian stared. The being looked back. After a moment he spoke.