"Hey, kid," he said, and winked.
Gillian was startled-and mad. Normally, she was shy about speaking to guys, but after all, she was dead now, and this person had struck a raw nerve. "Who're you calling kid?" she said indignantly.
He just grinned. "Sorry. No offense."
Confused, Gillian made herself nod politely. Who was this person? She'd always heard you had friends or relatives come and meet you. But she'd never seen this guy before in her life.
Anyway, he's definitely not an angel.
"I've come to help you," he said. As if he'd heard her thought.
"Help me?"
"You have a choice to make."
That was when Gillian began to notice the door.
It was right behind the guy, approximately where the mist had been. And it was a door... but it wasn't.
It was like the luminous outline of a door, drawn very faintly on thin air.
Fear crept back into Gillian's mind. Somehow, without knowing how she knew, she knew the door was important. More important than anything she'd seen so far. Whatever was behind it was-well, maybe beyond comprehension.
A different place. Where all the laws she knew didn't apply.
Not necessarily bad. Just so powerful and so different that it was scary. Good can be scary, too.
That's the real gateway, she thought. Go through that door and you don't come back. And even though part of her longed desperately to see what was behind it, she was still so frightened that she felt dizzy.
"The thing is, it wasn't actually your time," the guy with the golden-blond hair said quietly.
Oh, yes, I should have known. That's the cliché", Gillian thought. But she thought it weakly. Looking at that door, she didn't have room left inside for cute remarks.
She swallowed, blinking to clear her eyes.
"But here you are. A mistake, but one we have to deal with. In these cases, we usually leave the decision up to the individual."
"You're saying I can choose whether or not I die."
"To put it sort of loosely."
"It's just up to me?"
"That's right." He tilted his head slightly. "You might want to think your life over at this point."
Gillian blinked. Then she took a few steps away from him and stared across the supernaturally green grass. She tried to think about her life.
If you'd asked me this morning if I wanted to stay alive, there would have been no question. But now...
Now it felt a little like being rejected. As if she weren't good enough. And besides, seeing that she'd come this far ... did she really want to go back?
It's not as if I were anybody special there. Not smart like Amy, a straight A student. Not brave. Not talented.
Well, what else is there? What would I be going back to?
Her mom-drinking every day, asleep by the time Gillian got home. Her dad and the constant arguments.
The loneliness she knew she'd be facing now that Amy had a boyfriend. The longing for things she could never have, like David Blackburn with his quizzical smile. Like popularity and love and acceptance. Like having people think she was interesting and-and mature.
Come on. There's got to be something good back there.
"Cup Noodles?" the guy's voice said.
Gillian turned toward him. "Huh?"
"You like those. Especially on a cold day when you come inside. Cats. The way babies smell. Cinnamon toast with lots of butter, like your mom used to make it when she still got up in the morning. Bad monster movies."
Gillian choked. She'd never told anyone about most of those things. "How do you know all that?"
He smiled. He really had an extraordinary smile. "Eh, we see a lot up here." Then he sobered. "And don't you want to see more? Of life, I mean. Isn't there anything left for you to do?"
Everything was left for her to do. She'd never accomplished anything worthwhile.
But I didn't have much time, a small wimpy voice inside her protested. To be quashed immediately by a stern, steady voice. You think that's an excuse? Nobody knows how much time they've got. You had plenty of minutes, and you wasted most of them.
"Then don't you think you'd better go back and try again?" the guy said, hi a gentle, prodding voice. "See if you can do a better job?"
Yes. All at once, Gillian was filled with the same burning she'd felt when she got out of the creek. a sense of revelation and of purpose. She could do that. She could change completely, turn her life in a whole new direction.
Besides, there were her parents to consider. No matter how bad things were between them now, it could only make it worse if their daughter suddenly died. They'd blame each other. And Amy would get one of her guilt complexes for not waiting to drive Gillian home from school...
The thought brought a little grim satisfaction. Gillian tried to quell it. She had the feeling the guy was listening.
But she did have a new perspective on life. A sudden feeling that it was terribly precious, and that the worst thing you could do was waste it.
She looked at the guy. "I want to go back."
He nodded. Gave the smile again. "I thought maybe you would." His voice was so warm now. There was a quality in it that was like-what? Pure love? Infinite understanding?
A tone that was to sound what perfect light was to vision.
He held out a hand. "Time to go, Gillian," he said gently. His eyes were the deepest violet imaginable.
Gillian hesitated just an instant, then reached toward him.
She never actually touched his hand, not in a physical way. Just as her fingers seemed about to meet his, she felt a tingling shock and there was a flash. Then he was gone and Gillian had several odd impressions all at once.
The first was of being... unfixed. Detached from her surroundings. A falling feeling.
The second was of something coming at her.
It was coming very fast from some direction she couldn't point to. A place that wasn't defined by up or down or left or right. And it felt huge and winged, the way a hawk's shadow must feel to a mouse.
Gillian had a wild impulse to duck.
But it wasn't necessary. She was moving herself, falling away. Rushing backward through the tunnel, leaving the meadow-and whatever was coming at her-behind. The huge thing had only registered for an instant on her senses, and now, whizzing back through the darkness, she forgot about it.
Later, she would realize what a mistake this had been.