I Woke Up Dead at the Mall Read online

  My bracelet was nearly white. It showed faint signs of shimmer. I was nearly ready.

  “I don’t care about that!” I half-lied. “She’s going to kill my father. I’m running out of time.”

  “How will you stop her?” Alice asked. Okay, maybe that was a reasonable question any other day, any other time, but not now! I needed a way to explain this whole mess in ten seconds or less. It didn’t exist.

  “Please,” I said simply. “You two know me. Just trust me, please. This is important.”

  I looked at Alice and then at Lacey. They looked at each other and nodded.

  “If I end up mall-walking, I’m going to kill you,” Lacey whispered.

  “Declan, I need you to use your acting skills,” I said to him.

  He nodded sagely, as if he were the wise old man on a mountaintop and he’d been expecting us to come to him eventually with this very request.

  “Hey. Sure. After all, I do sort of owe you one,” he said.

  I shouldn’t have asked. But I did. “What do you mean?”

  “Well. I put the mushrooms on your plate. How could I have been so stupid? I trusted Karen, and you ended up dead. And you act like you pretty much forgive me. You even woke me up, I think. So. Ya know.”

  “Oh, Declan.” I took his hand as I spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. She tricked all of us. And now you’re going to help me save my dad.”

  “How?” He looked so young and eager.

  “Distract Bertha. Keep her in Staples. Ask for more affirmations. Or talk about something from your life. Do one of her therapy exercises. Anything!”

  Declan looked off into the distance, picturing the scene. “Improv. I can do that.” But then he refocused on Lacey, Alice, and me. “What are you going to do?”

  “Maybe it’s best if you don’t know,” I replied. “That way you won’t have to lie.”

  “But I’m an actor!” He seemed a bit hurt. “I can totally act my way through it. Please? Tell me?”

  Lacey interrupted us. “We’re taking the elevator back to the living so Sarah can save her dad. Somehow.”

  “Cool.” Declan nodded, smiled, and went off in search of Bertha.

  Lacey focused on the elevator button. She focused for a long minute, and nothing happened. I knew it wouldn’t help to shake her by the shoulders and yell, so I locked myself and my fears into silence.

  After a while, Lacey blew out a breath. “I’m out of practice. Losing my touch. Sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’ve got this. I know it.”

  Alice smiled. “You’ve got all that life and fury and passion inside you, Lacey. Just tap into it. You can do this.”

  Lacey nodded. The pressure must have been awful, because she shook her head, as if she wanted to pretend none of this was happening and none of us were here. She closed her eyes and then, bump. The elevator moved. Then the door opened.

  Go, Lacey!

  I stepped through it and turned to thank her. But she and Alice were right beside me. “Hey!” I called out as the door closed behind us. (How were we going to get back now?)

  “Where should we start?” Lacey asked. “I’m ready to kick a little ass.”

  I reeeeally should have explained what little plan I had. I was the only who was supposed to go back. Lacey, at the very least, needed to return and run the elevator to come back for me. Clearly she hadn’t figured out that we were now stranded here. Neither had Alice.

  “Let’s start at my place,” I said.

  The apartment was dark and quiet as I went from room to room to room. No sign of Dad or Karen so far. The place was perfectly clean and spare. Barely lived in.

  Could they be at his office? Was he well enough to be at work? Was he sick enough to be in a hospital somewhere?

  “Are we too late?” I wondered aloud. “Did she already kill him?”

  “How do you know that he’s in mortal danger?” Alice asked.

  “When I was mall-walking, I saw them at a doctor’s office. He has a heart condition now. All of a sudden. And his hair is falling out and he looks terrible.”

  “Oh, Sarah,” Alice said. “Maybe that’s just life, just nature.”

  “Declan knew her, and her whole terrible history. She killed him, I’m sure of that. She killed me by mistake, and now she wants to finish what she set out to do.” I had absolutely no doubt. Alice, on the other hand, looked full of doubt. She drifted off to the window.

  I kept searching for any sign of where they might be.

  “You know, we never did find any actual, definite poison,” Lacey reasoned.

  “Girls! Come here at once!” Alice commanded, and we obeyed.

  She was pointing out the window to a bench on the other side of the fountain. I spotted Karen’s red hair right away. The salt/pepper/balding man next to her on the bench was Dad. Alive. At least for now. He was leaning forward a bit, and I knew that he was in danger. Zero doubts.

  “Wow,” Lacey said. “How did he get there?”

  “She must have walked him out there,” I reasoned. “Maybe it’s better for her if he dies in public? I bet that helps her look less guilty. Or maybe he was trying to get away from her!” I set my jaw a little too tightly and began to make my way to the door. “Either way, I’m stopping her now!”

  Alice and Lacey stayed by the window.

  “Come on!” I beckoned, and couldn’t quite believe that I had to rush them.

  “Not your dad,” Alice said. “Look.”

  I didn’t want to look. I wanted to go. Now. But okay, fine. I would probably need their help, and maybe they knew something I didn’t. So I looked. Dad and Karen were still there, on the bench. It was early morning, and the population was still fairly light: workers going to work. That same street musician getting set up to perform near the Washington arch. And an assortment of dead people who were stuck here. The usual suspects. Just another day.

  “Look,” Lacey said with more urgency. There was a guy doing jumping jacks near the bench. Or he was waving his arms. Karen and Dad acted like they didn’t notice him. Maybe they were being true New Yorkers, ignoring the crazies, or maybe the guy was dead and therefore invisible to them.

  When my eyes rested on that figure, he clicked into focus, and the earth seemed to shake. Nick. Absolutely Nick. Unmistakably Nick. My Nick.

  I didn’t pass through the door or the wall to get down there to that scene. I passed through the window, sailed through the air, and landed in front of Nick. And Dad.

  chapter forty-one

  it takes a village

  “Sarah!” Nick called. “Your dad—he’s in danger!”

  “I know!” I said. Seeing Nick, hearing his voice, being near him again, it all conspired to throw me off and slow me down. And I couldn’t afford to be slow. Not now.

  “She’s been giving him selenium. It’s destroying his heart. And if he dies from a heart attack, she’ll get away with it.” He was waving his arms in front of them, and I realized that he was trying desperately for them to see him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, and okay, there was just a hint of hostility in my voice.

  “I’m trying to help. I’m trying to become an angel, and that’s what angels do.” It was his turn to sound hostile. “We help!”

  “So they’ll see you, and then what?” I asked. “My dad sees a ghost and has an instant heart attack? Is that the plan?”

  “No!” Dad gasped. His red face was contorted in pain. He was sweating and fighting for air as he clutched his left arm. I knelt before him. “Dad. Get your phone. Call nine-one-one. You need an ambulance. Right now!”

  There were at least a dozen dead people all around us. They broke from their usual routine to watch what was unfolding here. “He doesn’t have long now,” one of them said.

  “Dad!” I shouted as hard as I could. A few ghosts echoed me. “Dad! Dad!” The ghost who screamed at people let out a banshee howl. The Gatsby couple stopped their endless bickering and joined in the chorus. />
  “Listen to her!” Gatsby guy shouted.

  “Your daughter is trying to save you!” Gatsby girl urged him.

  “Call nine-one-one!” My voice was a ragged shriek above the rising chorus of screams, shouts, and moans from the dead encircling us.

  Maybe he heard me. He reached toward the inside pocket of his jacket. Or was he reaching for his chest? His trembling hands rested against his heart. The dead went silent, waiting for him to do something, anything.

  “Help,” he whispered.

  “Finally,” Karen said. “I have to hand it to you, Evans, you have endurance. I mean, the stress of Sarah’s death should have pushed you to a coronary by now. But no, you had to make me earn it. Fine.”

  And now, all around us, the voices of the dead rose up—shouting, moaning, shrieking, and screaming—at him, her, me, and the sky. It was an ever-expanding, deafening chorus of alarm, like someone had started a rebellion in the ape house.

  Dad turned to face her. The pain was magnified now with fear and bone-deep sadness. I moved in even closer, to hear and be heard above the madness.

  “Dad! Don’t listen to her. Listen to me! Call nine-one-one right now!” I practically bellowed.

  Karen leaned close to Dad. I could barely hear her over the madness all around us. “Just let it happen. It’s better if you don’t fight it. You’ll have to take my word on that.”

  Dad groaned and tried to move, but the pain in his chest and his arm stopped him.

  And now the dead were scrambling outward, shouting warnings all over the park to the police and every living person who passed by. “Nine-one-one right now! Somebody call nine-one-one! Murder! Murder! Death! This man is having a heart attack!” But the living tuned us out.

  Karen scanned all around her, a momentary look of confusion on her face. But she quickly returned to Dad. “Maybe this’ll help,” she said with false sweetness. “I never loved you. But I’m mad about your money. I’ve been waiting for this day since we met. And now I’ll go over there.” She pointed to a distant bench with a good view of this one. “So I can come back and discover you. And I’ll be shocked and sad and all that. Whatever. I’ll give you a dramatic send-off with lots of witnesses. Would you please move this along?”

  “Nine-one-one. Please! Hear my voice and call nine-one-one!” My throat was raw and painful. A few living people looked up for the source of the voice, but then instantly, maddeningly turned away. Karen looked around, a flicker of worry overtaking her.

  “Weird,” she said. She checked her watch, impatient for Dad to die, no doubt. She whispered once more into his ear. “How about this? I killed Sarah. Or at least I arranged it. Here’s the punch line: You were supposed to die that day, but my idiot caterer screwed up. Sarah died in your place.”

  That did it. Dad’s head dropped forward. His struggle against the pain was over. I could feel it. He was losing the fight. Soon he would be in that thread-by-thread part of dying.

  Karen rose slowly, casually, not calling any attention to herself. She walked away to that distant bench. She sat and she watched. The cries of the dead rose in pitch and volume and felt like a physical wall around us.

  Alice and Lacey were by my side. “We’re too late,” Alice said. “He’s gone.”

  “Not yet,” Lacey said. “I’ll get his phone. I’ll dial. You’ll shout into the phone,” she ordered me. I was ready to obey.

  She reached into his jacket for the phone, but she couldn’t grasp it. Three tries. Four tries. Finally she had it and began to ease it to the bench. But it fell from her hand and crashed to the ground, facedown.

  “I’m trying.” She was nearly weeping as she reached for that phone over and over again.

  “Sing,” Nick said. “Sing and somebody will really hear you.”

  It sounded like the stupidest idea ever. But it was the only idea we had left. I scanned the park for someone who might hear me and respond. The musician? Maybe. And then I saw that little strawberry-blond girl, the one who liked to sing. She was walking through the park with her mother, humming a tune to herself. Elizabeth Anne. I had to pin all my hopes on a random kid. So, I sang out as hard as I could.

  Turn your face to me

  Turn your gaze and see

  All the pain surrounding you

  She stopped walking and stopped humming. Good. Her mother tugged at her hand to start up again. “Elizabeth Anne, we have to go,” her mother urged. But Elizabeth Anne stood still and listened. Good girl.

  Every song you hear

  With a heart sincere

  Brings a chance for you to do

  “Sweetheart, don’t stare at that man on the bench. It’s rude to stare,” the mother advised.

  Something more

  “I think he’s sick. I think he’s in an emergency,” she said. The mother shook her head, but she studied the man on the bench, the man who was beginning to leave his body, thread by thread.

  Turn your face to me

  Turn your gaze and see

  All the pain surrounding you

  epilogue

  free will

  Dad was alive. Whatever was to come after this, I knew I’d be at peace with it.

  As the ambulance was loading him onto the stretcher, I saw him blink his eyes open, and I could swear that he saw me. He reached his hand forward, and I reached mine. I heard the word “stable” and that would have to do.

  In the distance, I saw Karen rise and leave the park. Maybe she had some sort of getaway plan. Or maybe she’d be caught and spend the rest of her miserable living days in prison. Either way it was fine. Despite the Boy’s predictions, I didn’t need revenge. She’d find hell right here on earth. I was certain of that.

  Little Elizabeth Anne stood all alone, crying, as she watched the adults in a state of emergency around her. So I crouched next to her and sang softly into her ear.

  Be the girl who does

  More than she who was

  Be alive in joy and hope

  Just as her weeping quieted, a familiar, faintly Irish voice sputtered, “Honestly!”

  Bertha. I was never so happy to see that little face, even though it was twisted into an old-lady scowl.

  “How did you know we were here?” I asked. And all at once, I knew. Declan couldn’t act his way through this one. (Good.)

  Bertha did her classic cluck-sigh combo and said, “Come on, you lot. Get in.”

  “Hey,” Lacey said, with a realization dawning on her. “How were we going to get back to the mall?”

  “Oh, I would have found a way to help you,” Nick said. He was there by my side as the elevator bumped to a start.

  “Yay for Nick,” said Lacey.

  “Yay indeed,” Alice echoed.

  He took my hand and warmed me through and through. Was he staying? Was he just passing through? Were these our true final moments together? I looked up at the gold flecks in his eyes and that crazy smile. This was my chance at a do-over for our goodbye. I kissed him and let us both get caught in the dream of that kiss. Bertha wasn’t shy about interrupting us.

  “Ah-hem!” she shouted, and we all followed Bertha to the Toys“R”Us. Nick kept hold of my hand. I felt like I was watching a movie of us walking together. I was the smiling girl. The one holding hands with the boy who had the crooked grin. I was the girl filled with light.

  Bertha came to a sudden stop at the Toys“R”Us entrance and said, “I wonder, really, at what point I lost control of this group. Just this once, do as I ask and wait here. Do not go to the elevator. Do not go anywhere!”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “You were trying to save him,” I said to Nick. “Thank you.” I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. Could I really be happy that Nick had left me and become an angel?

  “I was failing.” Nick shook his head and grinned as he spoke. “You saved him.”

  “We all did,” I said to Nick, to Lacey, to Alice. “Thank you.”

  Bertha screeched to us from the store, �
��Come inside!” That was our Bertha, forever stepping on the pretty moments.

  We found her at the back. “And now…” She raised an eyebrow at me and said, “It’s time.” The Boy was waiting for us. Declan was cowering off to one side.

  The girl Boy jumped up and cheered, “Bravo for you! You did it!”

  “But I thought you didn’t want me to interfere—it sounded like you wanted me to let him die,” I answered.

  “You never told us that,” Alice whispered to me.

  “We did!” the boy Boy said. “Only angels are supposed to interfere. But you were naughty, and you went there anyway, and now your daddy’s going to live.”

  “He is?” Oh, I was too full of joy. I had to share some of it, give it away. Dad would live through all of this. Victory.

  “Well,” the girl Boy corrected the boy Boy, “he won’t live forever!”

  “I’m really sorry I told on you guys,” poor Declan said. “She just kept asking me. And I cracked. I’m really sorry!”

  “It’s fine, Declan,” I assured him. “All is forgiven. Truly.”

  Bertha muttered, “I asked him twice. Hardly the third degree.”

  “Hey, Bertha?” Declan asked. “Are those new shoes?” She was wearing ballerina flats. No clunk whatsoever. And they were—how can I say this?—cute.

  “Oh. Well. I felt the need for a change. A few changes.” She was blushing hard.

  Suddenly Lacey shouted out, “Hey! My bracelet! It’s all white and shimmery! Like Harry’s was.” She was giggling with delight. And then I realized that Alice and I were both wearing white shimmery bracelets too.

  “Even me!” Declan crowed.

  “Time to move on,” Bertha said quietly. “And not a moment too soon.”

  Nick squeezed my hand and I let myself lean against his arm and his shoulder. I had nearly forgotten how intoxicating trees and rainstorms could be. I had to inhale it and enjoy it while I could.