Page 76 of Aftertaste

I shimmered backward through the air, suddenly aware of this new way I moved—weightless. Bodyless. Then they were intubating, running thick, corrugated plastic down a throat, into a chest that used to be mine. I was seizing up, convulsing, something going wrong, and I didn’t want to watch anymore.

I closed my eyes, pictured a happier place, a happier time. A happier Halloween.

We were sitting on the porch. Eating Reese’s. Laughing. Everleigh and me.

It was one of those moments when we were entirely present. Charged by the magic of loving and being loved. Cemented by the flavor in our mouths. A taste, a memory, that brought my sister back to me.

And suddenly someone was saying my name.

M-Maura?

Ev’s voice went through me like water. When I opened my eyes, saw her there—staring, stunned, beside a booth in a carbon copy of our local arcade—it felt like every piece of my soul had filtered to the floor.

She looked so different. Still young, still lanky, still wild faced and violet haired, but there was a wrongness to her now. Her eyes had lost their flickering light; her skin stretched tight over her bones. Her mouth hung open, desperate.

She looked so hungry. So haunted.

But I didn’t care.

I threw my arms around her neck, and she hugged back, tight, and I felt her there, against my chest, spirit on spirit like solid flesh. Maybe it was worth it, I thought, dying, to feel this again.

Ev?I gasped.Everleigh? Are you all right?

She shook her head, her eyes wide and full of pain. Full of panic.

No, she whispered.

She wasn’t okay.

It’s the Hunger.Her words came fast, like she was running out of time.Maura, please—I need your help.

And I would have done anything for her then. Given anything.

I need you to let me—

BUT THE DOCTORSaround the crash cart succeeded, then, in bringing me back to Life.

I woke to everyone cheering like they’d just performed a miracle.

I guess, technically, they had.

Don’t get me wrong—I was glad to be alive. But I was also devastated.

It was loss and grief and pain all over again. Only this time, I had watched my sister suffer. Had heard her beg for help. She was reaching out; she needed me.

And I know someone more skeptical might have questioned what they’d seen. Chalked it up to hallucination. A drug-induced dream. But if there was even a chance it was real, I had to try.

When Ev took her life, I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to help her.

But now that she was Dead? Maybe I could.

GRAVY TRAIN

IT WAS LATESeptember, the air honey crisp, leaves expiring in oranges and reds.

They were shooting in DUMBO, on a cobblestone street with a view of the bridge. The camera made another quick succession of clicks—pow-pow-pow-pow-pow—and Konstantin winced as if he were under fire. Which, now that he thought about it, might have been less painful.

He hadn’t had a professional photo taken since the sixth grade—what was the point when they never had the money to buy school pictures?—and in the handful of candids of him from the last decade, caught absently at the weddings of friends and relations, men and women his age who had managed to follow life’s recipe, find love, make a family, he’d looked sad and envious, and more than a little drunk.

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