Intersections Read online

  Tears filled Lily’s eyes as a pang of unexpected grief for her mother stole her breath. Lily scrawled: I’m happy Jane has a mother figure to look up to. I miss my mom.

  Antonia raised her eyebrows. “Ha! Deena is Jane’s partner. They’ve been together since the Rise and Fall. Stupid name but I guess people gotta call it something.” Lily rolled her eyes. “I’m happy for them, though. Finding love in this mess.”

  The fiddling stopped on a sour note. The crowd grumbled then hushed and started to disperse. Antonia looked around. The tensing of her stance said to Lily she saw something she didn’t like.

  “Looks like the Angels are shutting us down early.”

  Antonia strode to join the other women. Lily straggled behind. Someone doused the fire. The night grew darker save for the random blue crackles of Angels’ eyes watching them. Lily quickened her pace.

  Once back in the barracks, Antonia bade Lily good night. Lily waved back. She stepped into her room and a host of spirits greeted her. They flitted through the walls and back like people pacing nervously. Some walked on the ceiling. Others stood fixed to the spot or sat shoulder to shoulder on the bed. The air carried the weight of waiting expectation. When the ghosts saw her they all began to talk at once but their voices didn’t reach her ears. Exasperation darkened their faces and they gestured toward the corner where the messenger bag lay.

  Sorry, guys, I’m done with the Ouija board.

  But like she wasn’t able to hear them, they weren’t able to read her mind. Phantom hands passed through her leaving a chill in her bones as they tried to guide her to the corner. Then she saw it, the Ouija board. It lay on the floor near the crumpled satchel and the crushed remains of the crystals. Her stomach twisted. Hands shook as she gathered up the hunks and smaller bits. Who could have done this? Why? The image of the shape in her window earlier came to mind and she glanced up expecting to see a face there. Only darkness.

  Lily deposited the mess in the trash. When she turned around, the letters and symbols on the Ouija glowed like they hadn’t when the Demon and his little girl were searching for her. Pulse racing in angry beats, she rushed over to kick the board under her bed. Abandon her and come to life now, would it? The tip of her shoe moved the Ouija barely a foot. She reached down to scoop it up and liquid smoke flowed up her arm. It covered her like a shroud. The world tilted.

  She spiraled through darkness streaked with pearly white. It seemed as if she were falling up and up and up, turning and twisting. Her back arched until her spine cracked. She screamed silently. The pressure released as her shoulders thrust forward but began anew in her shoulder blades. The bones grew. Skin tore. Blood drenched her tattered shirt. Then her cheek hit soft grass smelling of summer and promises. A white feather drifted by her nose.

  Golden sunshine warmed her throbbing shoulders. Lily sat up. Mouth dry and heart pounding, she reached behind her. Coarse pinion feathers bristled under fingertips. Breath came fast and sharp, and she fought against hyperventilating. If it dragged her under, she feared she’d lose her mind.

  “Relax, Lily. Breathe. You’ll be okay,” the alien voice from the grocery store, the one she now intuitively knew belonged to the Ouija, said.

  Hearing the Ouija in her mind brought residual anger at its abandonment to the surface but she pushed it back. Lily took a deep breath of sweet scented air, then another. One more and her heart ceased racing. The ache in her shoulders dulled. A fourth, and joy lightened the heaviness in her chest. It reminded her of the elation she’d felt the first time she gazed upon the cracks in the sky so many months ago. The glee rose in her chest and spread through her until she felt as if she could fly.

  In a blink, she was soaring through the air, a silent woo-hoo on her lips and the fear forgotten. Miles and miles of green pasture stretched below her. Far, far away, the west horizon ended with the blue membrane of limbo. Her shadow rolled over orchards of cherry blossomed trees as the sun glinted off a golden cupola in the distance. Bone white buildings dotted the green. Not knowing how she did it, she banked toward the city.

  Oh my God, is that Heaven?

  “Yes, but God doesn’t live here anymore. No one does.”

  The wings spread out to soar and caught fire. She fell.

  Again, she twisted through absolute darkness shot through with streaks of white. Flaming feathers swirled around her. The heat thrust scalding tendrils into her scapulae as wing bone melted away from her body in ribbons of ash. Down, down, down she went. A ripple in her temples drove away the burning agony. Cracks and pops sounded within her head. The sensation of bone grating on bone sent a spasm through her. Hot black sand odorous with brimstone and sulfur filled her nose.

  Coughing, she jumped up only to fall to her knees under a strange weight. Darkness settled into her heart. It brought violent desires but before seeking out a victim she needed to rid herself of the cumbersome weight. Jaw clenched and nostrils flared, she grabbed her temples to rip off the horns she knew grew there. And why not horns, she’d grown wings in Heaven. They stung but didn’t budge under the onslaught. She cursed existence.

  “Enough!” the Ouija roared.

  Lily stopped. Her hands dangled at her sides, and she sighed in despair. A lake of lava lay before her. At its far edge black walls topped with some kind of gray metal tamped up the side of a mountain like steps toward a palace at the apex. Beyond that, the blue membrane pulsed.

  Heated wind blew around her and teased little waves onto the surface of the lake. They licked the black granite steps leading down. Lily thought if she knelt here long enough the lake would erode the steps and then her. No one would remember her name. She belonged in Hell. Alone.

  It’s empty here too, isn’t it?

  “Yes,” the Ouija said.

  Then what’s the point of showing me all this?

  The familiar sapphire nothingness sprawled before her. Head unburdened of their horns, shoulders free of burning wing stumps, she gazed out at the mass of ghosts. She understood what the Ouija showed her. With Heaven and Hell, Elysium and Underworld, and all those before and between gone, souls had nowhere to go. They were stuck in this in-between space, this Purgatory. Lily wept for them.

  The little girl with the caved-in head took her hand. “Don’t cry.”

  “I can’t help it,” Lily said.

  In surprise, she pulled her shaking hand from the little girl’s and put it over her throat. She had spoken. She had so much to say about what she saw to the ghosts. Lily opened her mouth to tell them the truth. Heaven and Hell…. Not a sound came out. Lily tried again. Nothing. Frustration brought back the tears.

  “Take the child’s hand,” the Ouija whispered.

  She did.

  “Heaven and Hell are empty,” she said. “God and Satan are gone.”

  After the last word was spoken, her abdominal muscles contracted and she let go the child’s hand to double up. A stab to the ribs brought her fully to her knees.

  “What’s wrong, Lily?” the girl said.

  Lily—breath wheezing—looked up through her bangs at the child then fell forward as an invisible shot to the kidney brought her down. The blue fell away to be replaced by the linoleum of the barrack bedroom floor.

  “I command you to wake up,” Gabriel said and delivered another booted jab to her kidney.

  She opened her eyes and turned her face up. Gabriel and Uriel stood over her, their eyes crackling with electric blue snakes. A fine sheen of sweat—pungent with the scent of fear—broke out over her body. How had they been able to see and touch her when she had been with the ghosts? No one else could.

  “Everyone else were human,” the board whispered in her head.

  “Finally,” Uriel said.

  Gabriel ignored him, “What are these?” He thrust his palm at her. Inside lay two crystals, one clear and one pink.

  Trembling, Lily made for her writing board but Gabriel kicked her back down.

  “Answer me.”

  She looked at him and