Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

love bears on them. I pulled off the one I was wearing and stuffed it in the trash can by my bed. Then I took a long post-road-trip shower. The water at home was hotter than at any of the motels we’d stayed at, and seemed to thaw the cool place inside me a little. But the cold never went completely away, even the afternoon before in Tucson when I’d stood in the sun on hot black asphalt, willing myself warm. The only time the cold had really gone away was in the desert with Yamaraj.
    I wondered if he’d known what his touch would do to me, make my heart shudder so hard that I was thrown back into reality. Or was it something he’d be embarrassed about the next time we saw each other?
    There were so many things I wanted to ask him, about the black oil, the underworld, and if he cared whether people had been good or bad in life. But most of all, I wanted to know how Yamaraj had become one of us. What awful thing had happened to send him over to the afterworld that first time?
    His face was so serene and flawless, not like someone who’d been through a reality-shattering trauma. Of course, as I stared into the bathroom mirror, I expected my own face to be different, to show what I’d gone through. But the only changes were the scars on my cheek and forehead, as if I’d only fallen off a bike.
    I was back in my bedroom drying myself when a noise came from behind the door.
    “Yeah, Mom?” I wrapped the towel around me.
    The door didn’t swing open. It didn’t move at all. But it slipped somehow ajar for a moment, like a piece of the world gone missing, and I could see through it into the hallway behind. A little girl stepped through the gap. She wore red corduroys with a brown plaid shirt tucked tightly in, and two fat braids of blond hair hung across her shoulders.
    I took a step back. “Um, hello?”
    She looked timid and uncertain for a moment, but then she placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “I know this is going to be a little weird at first, Lizzie. But the thing is, I’ve been in this house just as long as you have.”
    *  *  *
    Her name was Mindy Petrovic, and she was a friend of my mother’s from way back.
    “We grew up across the street from each other,” Mindy began. We were both sitting on my bed, me still in my damp towel. “Your mother had a dog called Marty who ran all over the neighborhood, and he used to chase me on my bike. I made friends with Marty first, then with Anna.” Mindy’s eyes got a faraway look for a moment. “And I went to the vet with Anna when he died, which was only about a week before I did.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of Marty or Mindy before, but I vaguely remembered pictures of a collie in my mom’s old photo albums.
    “That’s when Mom was how old?”
    “Eleven, like me.” She smiled. “I’m only two months older than Anna, but she was always in the grade below me. She got born with bad timing.”
    “But she grew up in Palo Alto.”
    “Duh,” said Mindy. “Me too.”
    I frowned. “That’s hundreds of miles away. And you’re . . . here.”
    “Ghosts can walk, you know. And we have other ways to get around.” She looked down at where her fingers were picking at the bedspread, an old quilt my grandmother had made. “But yeah, it’s kind of dorky. Like that Disney movie where the pets get stranded on vacation and have to get home. Ghosts are really loyal, like dogs. Except dogs can’t see us, only cats.”
    I shook my head. Mindy kept skipping around, as if she’d never told her story out loud before.
    “After I died, my parents started to hate each other. There was a lot of yelling, and it was all my fault, so I moved across the street to Anna’s. Her room was always my favorite place. Especially her closet. I would hide in there with her for fun.”
    “And you’ve been following her around for . . .” I did the math. “Thirty-five years?”
    “I don’t know exactly.” Mindy looked up from playing