Page 117 of Aftertaste

There are groves of sun-ripe fruit, air thick with the scent of peaches and plums, lemons and limes, deep-jungle soursop, grapes on the vine, pitaya and stink nut and green mangosteen, pomegranates descended from Persephone’s own pips.

There are city-sized mazes of street meat, umami smoke rising in columns, the sizzle of griddles and grills caramelizing everything fromanticuchoto bún ch?, lamb gyro topani câ mèusa, dodo wing to Tyrannosaurus thigh.

There are islands of cheese—actual islands—afloat in whey, burrata barges shuttling souls through a paneer pass to an ivoryibéricocoast, an isthmus of ricotta connecting it back to a Muenster mainland.

In the Food Hall, the world is an oyster! A Kushimoto white as sky, an undiscovered varietal untouched by human hands. A bowl of cherries!Amarainier, Montmorello, cross-bred juices sluicing down your chin. A box of chocolates! Clustered coconut, stickjaw caramel, a heart-shaped Whitman Sampler Wonka Wonderball Surprise.

But amid all this magic, all the tastes and smells and flavors of fantasy available to the deceased, when Konstantin Duhovny arrived, when he squinted, blinking, into a band of unflattering fluorescent light, he found himself standing before a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

He was in the food court of a mall—was this Hell?—only impossibly large, so big he couldn’t fathom where it ended or began.

His first and only thought was that he had to get cooking.

He started down the linoleum tile, passing two Starbucks, a Panda Express, a cupcake vending machine, a soda fountain (a real, working fountain spouting cola through its pump), a Fifty Shades of Gray’s Papaya, a trio of breakfast joints, and an appetizing counter called Goldie’s Lox, a dancing salmon flapping back and forth across its sign. These places might have had some rudimentary reheating capabilities (microwaves, toaster ovens, maybe a fryer), but he’d need a full kitchen, and real ingredients, if he was going to cook half the meals on his list.

He spotted an Exit door (small miracles!) and pushed through it to find himself in a sort of restaurant row, the chains and fast casuals giving way to an alley of Michelin stars, glamorous dining rooms flanking lamplit streets, linoleum swapped for cobblestone. This was more like it.

Kostya stopped before a window to gape at a knock-off Saveur Fare, the likeness so uncanny he half expected to see Michel excoriating a busboy. He went inside, looking for a waiter, a hostess,someoneto lead him back because here, surely, was a kitchen! But the restaurant was unmanned, the dining room deserted. Kostya made his way through the space, trying every door he saw, but instead of a kitchen, he only found shortcuts, pathways tootherplaces in the Hall,moreways to eat. Almost like the kitchen didn’t want to be found.

Finally, he chose a door, stepping through into a tent at dusk, a lively night market sprouting up before him like a cluster of chanterelles.

“Kitchen?” he asked at aKhanom Bueangstall, the crepe shells folding themselves up in response.

“Kitchen?” he begged pots of boiling ramen, water hissing as unmanned chopsticks scooped noodles into bowls.

“Kitchen?!” he tried at thekaitenzushi, the conveyor zipping a little plate over to him with a placard reading:No soup for you, Rulebreaker.

The Afterlife, apparently, had his number.

Everleigh had said it would be easy. That there were stalls and restaurants all over the Hall that he could cook in; that getting ingredients was just a matter of thinking of them. But she, apparently, wasn’t on the naughty list.

Okay, he thought mutinously.Fine.

If the Hall wouldn’t help him, he’d help himself. Eating was kind of the point of this place. There was food everywhere! He’d just steal some ingredients and make it work.

He pushed through a beaded curtain and into bright, Marrakech daylight, the smells ofkeftatagine and raisin-studded couscous, spicy harissa and skewers of lamb, saffron-strandedb’stillastreaked with cinnamon sugar all beckoning him forward, mouthwatering.

At a spice stall, he ran his fingers through sacks of coriander, cumin, and clove. He palmed a handful of cinnamon, but as soon as he stepped back from the stall it vanished. He tried again with turmeric. Gone. Black pepper, ditto.

“Oh, come on!” he shouted. “What do I have to do, huh?” He kicked the wooden table, the spices gasping in a rainbow cloud. “What’s it gonna take?!”

He kicked it again, one of the sacks toppling over in a puff of red.

He opened his mouth to shout something else, but a hand on his shoulder silenced him.

“Bones,” a voice whispered, the syllable tempering Konstantin likechocolate. “Keep it down, bro. You’re Public Enemy Number One. Keep drawing attention and it’s over before it even starts.”

EVEN DEAD, FRANCISK. O’Shaunessey looked like about a billion dollars.

“Frankie!” Kostya threw himself at him.

“I missed your dumb ass too.” Frankie laughed, hugging him back. “And I do mean dumb. Come on.”

Worry flicked across his face as he turned and started zipping through the marketplace, Kostya in tow.

“Fucking with the Dead, bringing people back—we messed up, man.”

Frankie turned down a street lined with bread stalls, then cut through an alley of—were those bricks ofcompound butter?

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