He nodded. “Twins. We still are, even if I’m a little older now.”
“Right. Weird.” Yami was stuck forever at the age she’d died, but her brother wasn’t. “Is that why you stay in the underworld? So you don’t leave her behind?”
“I live there to keep my people from fading away.”
“And she’s one of them. You’re a good brother.”
He didn’t answer, and we walked a little farther. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a brother or sister, especially a twin. I’d imagined making up our own language, and giving each other secret names.
Of course, I’d had an invisible sister all that time. Mindy had been there every day, watching me grow into an eleven-year-old, then aging past her. A shiver went through me.
“Are you okay?” Yamaraj asked. His eyes glinted brown against the gray world. He and I were still in color, as if we didn’t belong behind this veil of death.
“I’m fine. So when your sister died, is that when you became . . . like us?”
He nodded. “I couldn’t let her go alone.”
“Whoa. So that whole twin-bonding thing is real.”
Yamaraj thought for a moment, then shrugged. “It is for us.”
“How did she die?” I asked, my voice small.
“She was betrayed by an ass.”
“Um, pardon me?”
“A donkey,” he said. “A beast that belonged to my family.”
I was still confused, but my next question froze in my mouth. Past Yamaraj and down the street, the cat lurked in the shadows, green eyes glimmering.
But it wasn’t watching us anymore.
It was staring at another bungalow, even older than the one my mother had grown up in. The house was set back from the road, with gnarled desert trees in the front yard. Around each was a planter box full of stones.
Standing on the lawn were five little girls, all Mindy’s age, dressed in outfits that all looked out of date—plaid jumpers, shirts tucked into jeans, short dresses. They were all staring at the house.
“He’s still here,” I murmured.
Yamaraj turned to follow my gaze. “Who is, Lizzie?”
“The bad man. The man who killed Mindy.”
He took my arm. “This is why you wanted to come here?”
“She needs to know.”
“Be careful,” Yamaraj whispered. “There are some ghosts you can’t save.”
“I don’t want to save them, I just want to help Mindy. She’s afraid all the time, even after all these years.” I couldn’t take my eyes from the collection of little girls. They just stood there staring at the house, silent and fidgeting, as if waiting for a performance to start. “She needs to know if the man who killed her is still alive. Or if he’s wandering the flipside, looking for her.”
“Come away from here, Lizzie.” Yamaraj pulled at my arm, but I shook him off.
“I have to make sure he’s still alive.”
“You don’t want to go any closer to that house,” he said.
As I opened my mouth to ask why, one of the little girls moved. Her head turned slowly, the rest of her body utterly still, until her gray eyes rested on us. She was a little younger than Mindy, wearing overalls and sneakers. Her gaze lingered, her expression blank except for the barest hint of puzzlement.
Yamaraj turned to face me. “Don’t look at them.”
“But they’re just . . .” My words faded as the other girls, all in one motion, turned their heads to stare at us. Their five little gray faces regarded me with growing interest. “Okay, maybe this is kind of weird.”
Yamaraj was already kneeling, his palm on the asphalt. He stood up as the bubbling oil began to expand beneath our feet, and put his arms around me, his muscles tense and hard.
“You don’t want them in your memories,” he whispered as we began to sink into the street. “Just think of home.”
* * *
Our second journey in the river seemed faster, as trips home often do. It was easy to hold an image of my own house in my mind, because I wanted to be there so badly. But it was harder this time to ignore the wet, shivery things that brushed against us. Some part of me had realized what they were—loose memories, fragments of ghosts who had faded away.
I kept my eyes shut the whole way, head pressed against Yamaraj’s chest, his warmth and solidity protection against the blank stares of the gray-faced little girls.
We came to a halt on another windy expanse under a blank sky, but somehow I could feel home just overhead. Or maybe it was beneath us—the afterworld had confused me on the concepts of up and down.
But before I returned to my bedroom, Yamaraj took me by the shoulders.
“You give this up, Lizzie. Don’t go there again.”
“I have to help Mindy. It’s what I would do for a living person.”
“But those ghosts are in your head now.”
“That’s for sure.” I shuddered, seeing their gray faces. “But why is that such a bad thing, besides the potential for nightmares?”
“Ghosts go where they can for nourishment. Think about it. Mindy died in that house, didn’t she? Hundreds of miles from here, but she lives with you now.”
“Right. Because my mother remembers her.”
“More than anyone else in the world. More than her own parents.”
“That’s kind of sad. And weird.”
He shook his head. “It’s not as strange as you’d think. Sometimes when children go missing, their parents can only stand to hold on to their memories for so long. When they let go, those children fade, unless someone else keeps them in mind.”
My mouth was dry. “But that means those little girls are there . . . because the bad man remembers them better than anyone else?”
“Their last days, perfectly. But what if they had you to nourish them instead?”
I imagined the five little girls on my front lawn, waiting and wanting, and a shudder went through me. I could still see the face of the first one who’d turned to look at me—her worn overalls and the half-dozen sparkly barrettes in her short hair.
“How am I supposed to forget what I just saw?”
“You can’t, Lizzie.” His hands fell from my shoulders, and he sighed. “It was only a glance, not enough to bring them here.”
“So you’re just trying to scare me?”
“You should be scared.” He was angry now, his brown eyes locked on mine. “Promise me you’ll never go near that house again.”
I turned away. I’d had enough of being afraid, and Mindy had been trapped with her fear for decades. I couldn’t just leave her in limbo, now that I knew where the bad man lived.
I chose my words carefully. “I promise I won’t ever see those little girls again.”
Yamaraj stared at me a moment longer, but finally he nodded. “Thank you.”
With the anger fallen from his voice, he sounded tired. He was probably starting to think that I was a lot of work, like a student driver who keeps crashing the car in her first lesson.
At least I knew that the bad man was still alive. Mindy was safe, for now. We had Yamaraj to thank for that.
“It was nice of you to come and save me.”
The storm in his eyes lifted a little. “I’m not sure you needed saving.”
“Maybe not. But it was fun seeing you chase that guy off.”
Now a smile danced at the edges of his mouth. “I was wondering if you were going to call. My sister was certain you would.”
“Oh? Does Yami have an opinion about me?”
“She thinks you might become a distraction.”
“I hope she’s right.”
He nodded. “She’s always right.”
“Yamaraj . . .” I shivered a little, saying his name aloud again.
“Call me Yama. ‘Raj’ is only a title.”
“Really? What does it mean?”
“Prince, or perhaps lord.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean, I’ve been calling you Lord Yama all this time?”
He was fighting a smile. “You’ve only said it once or twice.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking it in my head!” I groaned, feeling like a ditz. “Anyway, now that I actually know your name, will that work? I can call you and you’ll come?”
He nodded. “The name is important, but it’s like traveling to a place. There also has to be a connection.”
“You heard me tonight. So there’s already a connection.”
“There is.” He took a step closer. “But it could be stronger, just to be safe.”
“And how do we do that?” My eyes were drifting closed.
“Like this.”
As his lips met mine, something keen and buzzing flowed into my body. It bloomed in my chest, making my breath skid and shudder, scattering the fear this long night had left inside me. The kiss grew hotter, fiercer as I pressed my mouth against his, hungry for more.
The wind of the river turned sharp and dry around us, filling with pinpricks that played across my skin. My eyes opened for a moment and I saw sparks swirling past, like when Yama had appeared to save me, the air burning around his feet.
“Did you make those?” I murmured.
“Not just me.”
We didn’t say much more.
* * *
An hour later I left him and descended into my bedroom, safe and welcoming and familiar. My skin still tingled. My body felt lighter. The cold place inside me was almost gone, burned away by Yama’s lips.
There was just one little problem left. My mother was sitting there on my bed, staring at her phone.
After everything that had happened tonight, I’d forgotten her coming into my room just before I’d sunk into the river. She hadn’t seen me, of course, and I was still on the flipside, but I couldn’t stay here forever.
With Yama’s body against mine, I had felt boundless, powerful. But now I felt like a little kid about to get grounded. If I went outside and came in through the front door, pretending to have been taking a walk, how would my mother respond? After this week, she might flip out. Or worse, start checking on me every night.
I didn’t even know how long I’d been gone. And I couldn’t let her sit here any longer, not knowing where I was. I had to think of a reasonable explanation why I wasn’t in bed.
Mindy was gone, probably having scampered back to my mother’s closet after I’d sunk through the floor. Which gave me an idea . . .
I wasn’t an expert at walking through walls yet, but the door to my closet was open a little from when I’d changed into jeans. I slipped inside, and settled myself on some dirty clothes on the floor. My closet wasn’t as spacious as my mother’s, but it was big enough to huddle there and pretend to be asleep.
I took a few sharp breaths, making my heart beat faster, and soon my grasp on the flipside was fading. The slant of light coming though the closet door showed colors bleeding back into the world.
When I’d crossed over, I quietly slipped out of my jeans and hoodie, then let out a soft yawn.
After a long wait in nervous silence, I was about to yawn again when I heard my mother’s voice.
“Lizzie?”
I pushed the closet door open. It swung with a plaintive creak, revealing my mother’s astonished expression.
“Oh, hey,” I said sleepily. “What’re you doing in here?”
“I heard your voice, and I came in to see what was up. And you weren’t . . .” She shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, Lizzie. What are you doing in your closet?”
“Um, sleeping.” I sat up, blinking my eyes and stretching. “I had this really scary dream. And after I woke up, it just felt safer in here.”