A Long Way Up, Part Three
A teenage girl finds herself in the Afterlife following a tragic accident involving her and her twin sister. When her Afterlife guide uncovers a terrible mistake, the girl must make an impossible decision.
To start from the beginning, go here.
I hear Mom in the kitchen, doing dishes or something.
“Mom?!”
“She can’t hear you. Or see you,” Brenda says. “You’re not really here.”
“Aren’t there some people who can communicate with the dead, like in that movie ‘Ghost’?”
“Pure fiction, I’m afraid,” she says with a click of her tongue. “Oh, don’t look so disappointed. You wouldn’t believe the trouble those movies cause for us up here in the Afterlife.”
Then Amber comes down the stairs. She looks terrible, like she hasn’t slept. Her face is pale, eyes bloodshot. Her short auburn hair is sticking up every which way.
“How long has it been?” I ask Brenda.
“Time is irrelevant now, dear. But for your family, it has been a month since you died.”
I reel backward, amazed that so much time has passed. I’d been sure the accident had just happened last night.
I watch Amber drop herself down onto the couch. She’s moving so robotically, like life has left her. She reaches for her phone. I move closer. Her lock-screen is a picture of the two of us, grinning, arms around each other, falling into each other. Best of friends. She stares at it, unmoving, until a sob squeezes from her throat.
Then she swipes up and clicks on her phone messages. When a message I left her ages ago starts to play and tears fall from her face like rain, I have the urge to hug her, to hold her and make her pain go away. I reach my arms around her, but I sink through the air and I’m falling, falling, until—thud!
I’m back in the gazebo in The Garden. “What?! What happened?” I look frantically around, searching for answers, for Brenda, anything.
“You can’t do that,” Brenda scolds, appearing again out of nowhere. “I’m sorry, Amber, but you can’t have contact like that with your past life. You can only look and listen.”
I’m trying to wrap my mind around that, as well as figure out whether this means I’m starting all over at AL1, when I realize something. “Wait. What did you call me?”
“Oh, so sorry. I should have said Miss Peterson.”
“But did you call me Amber?”
“Yes. Again, I’m sorry.”
“But I’m not Amber. Amber’s my sister.”
Brenda’s face goes white, her eyes flash, her mouth freezes in a grimace.
Moments pass, then her face softens into a smile and she squints her eyes and chuckles. “Ahh, you got me. Good one, Miss Peterson,” she says. “But that wasn’t funny.”
I shake my head, shouting now. “No, Brenda, I wasn’t trying to be funny! I’m Paige Peterson. Amber is my sister.”
Now she’s furiously flipping through pages on her clipboard, looking up at me, looking back down at her papers, frowning. Then she’s on a phone, which I didn’t know she had until now. She walks away to speak in privacy, but I follow her, demanding answers.
“What’s going on? Am I supposed to be here? Is Amber supposed to be here?” But she waves me away, and then she’s gone. “Ugghhh!” I look for something to throw, but there’s nothing, so I stomp my feet like an indignant child. I knew something felt wrong, I just didn’t know what. And clearly there is something very wrong.
I decide to go back into the cottage. All of my memories are still there. I stop short and freeze, examining the room more closely than before. These aren’t my memories; they’re Amber’s. Amber’s sports equipment, Amber’s photos, Amber’s books. I didn’t notice before because she and I are embedded in each other’s lives, so our memories are … pretty much the same.
Something in my peripheral vision catches my attention. The monitor (on Amber’s pink desk) is flashing red: “Touch to start.” I move to it and touch the screen. There’s a man in a white suit, hair slicked back, a somber look on his face, quite different from the flamboyant man in the intro video.
“Miss Peterson.” He clears his throat. “Paige, if I’m correct.”
I nod, as though he’d just asked me if I like ice cream. As if I’m not completely confused. And terrified.
“My name is Peter,” he continues, “and I must tell you about a terrible … uh, misunderstanding that has taken place regarding your Afterlife.”
There’s a long pause, and I squirm on the chair’s edge.
“When you and your sister were caught in the storm on the lake…”
Another pause. Just get on with it!
“I’m sorry, this is difficult to say.” He looks like he’s going to weep any moment now.
“What happened?” I ask, not hiding my impatience.
“Well, you both were injured, and, of course, you are identical twins, and… someone misjudged… and, well, it was Amber who should be where you are right now, and you… were supposed to survive.” He closes his eyes.
I sit back in the chair, unable to breathe. I knew it! The clues were everywhere. The cottage, the beach, the gut feeling I had. Now I have only one question. “What happens now?”
Peter opens his eyes, and he looks pained, apologetic. “According to the Afterlife bylaws, this has happened once before. The only solution is to make a choice. You may allow us to… make the swap so that we have the correct Miss Peterson, or—”
“You mean kill my sister and just go on living in her place?” I yell. “No thank you!”
“Or… you may choose to stay here in her place, and allow her to go on living.”
“I’ll take that one,” I say, jutting my chin for emphasis.
“You should know, Paige, that if you choose that option, you will remain in The Garden until it is, as they say, your time.”
“You mean, I can’t go to Heaven?” He nods. “Until I’m supposed to die?” He nods again. That sounds fine to me; this garden is so gorgeous it may as well be Heaven.
“In addition,” he says, “Amber’s life, going forward, will not be the life you think it will.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this mistake that was made has consequences. It was Amber’s time. Now that’s been interfered with, so her ‘life’ will malfunction.”
“Meaning?”
“She may be stuck in an endless cycle of depression. She may exist in a half-life. Or she could be just fine. It’s difficult to say for certain, since the last time this happened, the twin opted for the swap, so we’re not exactly sure what may happen to the living twin who is supposed to be dead. But … in all of my experience, Miss Peterson, horrible things happen when you mess with the natural order of life and death.”
I bring my hands to my head and squeeze. This is crazy. So I can either go back home and live without my sister while she dies, or I can let her live, but it may or may not be a horrible life. What in the world did I do to deserve this?
“Miss Peterson,” Peter says, “we need to act on this as quickly as possible, or there could be worse problems.”
“What could possibly be worse?”
“We could lose the opportunity to make a choice.”
Check back soon to find out Paige’s decision in the finale!