CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I expected to fal through the black vortex forever, my screams never ending, just repeating for eternity.
But it didn’t work out that way.
The fal ing came to an abrupt stop as I felt my body shift from the feeling of fal ing downwards, to gliding sideways.
Then I felt earth under my feet, dust in my lungs and the black curtain around me lifted to reveal a distinctly de-saturated world.
My world.
Or perhaps not.
I was standing about fifty yards from the back of Roman’s smal one-level house. The curtains to the exorcism room were closed, but flashes of white-hot light poked through at sporadic moments. I could only wonder what was going on in there, if I was stil in there and being thrown around by my possessor. I was somewhat glad to be somewhere else, even if it was outside in land where everything was black, white and a mil ion shades of grey.
So, where was I?
“You are in the Thin Veil, the Black Sunshine,” a voice said from behind me.
I whirled around to face Pippa and the rol ing grey landscape behind her.
“Are you behind this?” I asked. My words sounded strangely dul and flat.
She walked a few steps toward me, her dress ruffling and shifting around her. It was probably magenta or some other bright color but here, in what she cal ed Black Sunshine, it was a grainy deep grey. Even her face was done up in varying shades of monotone.
She smiled at me and for once I didn’t find it creepy.
There was something almost maternal about it, like she actual y cared. Maybe I was just real y seeing her for the first time. Maybe it’s because I was obviously in her element.
“I did not bring you here, Perry,” she said delicately. It was odd to hear her speak outright rather than have it rebound inside my head. “But I knew you’d come eventual y.
I had hoped it would have been your choice, not that of another’s.”
“You mean the Devil?”
She shook her head ever so slightly. Her pin curls bounced from the movement. “It is not the Devil, only one of his minions. If the Devil himself ever got a hold of a mortal...No, this is a demon and al demons report to a higher entity.”
I looked around me at the world, which was my world, once removed.
“What is this place?”
“This is where I stay. It is a world of transition. Al the dead pass through here to get from one plane to another.
The dead and...other beings as wel .”
“So you are dead?”
She smiled again, sadly. “Yes. Come for a walk with me.”
She held out her aging hand and I grabbed it. She grasped mine tightly and said, “You’re too much here, Perry. I shouldn’t be able to grab your hand like this.”
I looked down at it in wonder and she led me toward the rancher, toward the window with the bright sprays of light.
“What is supposed to happen?”
She gestured for me to peak through a crack in the window, where the curtain inside had bil owed. “Can you see them? Can you see you?”
I looked through. It was hard to make out shapes in between the blasts of light that burned my eyes, but I could see Bird on the ground playing the drums. The silhouette of Dex on his knees. I saw Ada standing by the wal and a flash of Roman yel ing, arms wide open like a manic preacher. I also saw me, floating above the bed. I was the source of the white light. It was coming straight out of my mouth and eyes, like some ultraviolet angel.
I swal owed hard, surprised to stil feel worry and pain. It was scary to see myself like that; I could only imagine how Dex and Ada were feeling.
“I see them,” I said softly.
“I see them too. I’ve always been able to see you. Most people, when they die, they pass through here on their way to what you would cal Heaven or Hel . This isn’t purgatory. It is simply a place of transition. A place to let go of your life.
Many people, many who you think are ghosts, stay here because the wal s are thin. You look around, it looks the same as your world. It’s one layer less. But that layer is thin and at times it grows thinner. It holds many, many secrets.”
She pul ed me away from the window and we started walking away from the rancher. In the distance, on the top of a hil two giant wood bugs went scurrying, just like the ones I’d seen in my hospital delusion. I was vaguely horrified.
“Why do you stay here?” I asked, afraid to take my eyes off of them. She noticed but didn’t say anything. Instead, she stopped and squeezed my hand tighter.
“I stay here because I can. I have the freedom to go into your world and back. Sometimes the demons let me, if I’m quick enough. It’s thinner, softer here. If I moved on, I would not be able to stay. I couldn’t come back.”
“But why? Just move on. This place is hel .”
“Not quite hel , remember. I stay here because I have to keep an eye on you. I need to.”
I was startled. “Me?”
“I think you’re starting to figure it out, Perry. We’re only the same. I’ve been plagued by the dead al my life, when I was alive, and now I’m plagued by them stil . I don’t want the same fate for you. Because it’s coming to that. And it’s coming fast. I wish it weren’t true but...some people don’t change.”
It was time to ask, even though the puzzle pieces were al in place by now; I was just too afraid to look at the entire picture. “And Dex. Why do you know him?”
“I was Declan’s nanny when he was young. For quite some time, too. I looked after him because his own mother couldn’t and his father was too busy. I was like a mother to him and his brother.”
My eyebrows shot up. Dex had a brother? But I let her continue.
“Declan had the same...affliction...as I had. As you have.
I could tel there was something special about him, just as there is about you. I was very sad when I had to leave him.
Sad for him and scared for him. But I was no longer al owed to be his nanny. It was my own family who wouldn’t let me, though, not the O’Sheas. They, and the doctors, classified me as crazy. When you’ve babbled about seeing ghosts for too long, some people think they have no choice but to put you away.”
I didn’t want to ask the question because I had a feeling I knew the answer. And if it was true, it would change everything I knew and thought about the life I lived. And the people I loved.
I looked Pippa straight in her hooded, grey eyes and asked, “Who put you away?”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Your mother. And your father.”
I felt like the ground began to shake and move beneath me, like I was losing my wits and balance at the same time.
My blood ran cold, colder than it ever had before and I was stumped. Dazed. Stupid with thought and feeling.
“You’re my grandmother,” I managed to whisper. I was gutted by the realization and ashamed that it had taken me so long to find out. Al this time...
“I know you haven’t heard much about me,” she said, almost embarrassed. She dropped my hand and kicked a stone with her Mary Jane shoes. It was too human of a gesture. She was human. It made my heart ache.
“My parents said you had died when I was very young,” I said, racking my brain for any information about my grandmother. “I remember grandpa a little. We, he, never talked about you. I don’t think...”
“I’ve been watching,” she said bitterly. “No, they never did talk about me. They chose not to remember those last few years.”
It was al too much. Forget being stuck in the thin veil, some other dimension. This absolutely floored me.
I sat down on the ground, the dust flying up in the air and staying there. There was something almost airless, tasteless and odorless about this land. I couldn’t imagine that she stayed here on account of me, just because it was easier to keep an eye on me. Was I real y in that much jeopardy?
I stared blankly at the colorless earth while Pippa slowly paced around me, her dress dragging.
“You said they were watching you and watching me,” I said slowly. “Who did you mean?”
“I meant your mother. And the demons.”
I let out a snort. I couldn’t help it. I looked up at her. “You mean I’m being watched on both sides? By my own mother in my world, and by friggin’ demons in another?”
She didn’t smile. “I know it isn’t fair. I fear your mother may do to you what she did to me. You can imagine how hard it must be for her to have to see her own daughter take on the same traits her sick mother did.”