Prologue

 

“Mom, what’s so great about being alive?”

“Knowing you’re not dead.”

It took less than a heartbeat for my mother to spit out that smart retort.

“Mo~ther,” I groan grumpily. But I wonder about her answer. “How do you know, Mom? Have you ever been dead?” Sure, it’s an equally wise comeback, but I am semiserious.

“Of course not, Gwen.” Mom frowns at me over her shoulder, peering out from my bedroom closet. Even scowling in the dim lamplight she looks pretty with her blue eyes, pink lips, and blonde curls. It feels wrong to be jealous of my own mother, but I envy her color. Not to mention the perfect hourglass figure she works so hard to maintain. Me, I’m a beanpole—stick straight and entirely drab. A closer likeness of my father.

Seated in bed, I watch her hang up an armload of clothes she has gathered from every corner of my room. I don’t bother straightening up anymore because things always wound up strewn across my floor regardless. Mom quit hassling me about my lazy housekeeping skills years ago when I insisted (with a bit of youthful weeping and wailing) that a phantom was responsible for the continual mess. It’s a truth she refuses to accept, but she doesn’t argue with me about it.

My fingers comb the ends of my limp ponytail as I sit and ponder the mysteries of death. My eyes lock onto strands of gray hair without actually seeing them. Yeah, I know, it’s bizarre for a teenager to have gray hair, but it isn’t like old-lady hues of gray. Mine is more of a steel-blue, not-quite-dark-enough-to-be-black kind of gray. Weird, yes, but it honestly is my natural hair color. Just like my eyes—stormy gray.

I go back to staring at my mom, considering life and death and the existence of a spirit world, when I utter my thoughts aloud.

“Maybe death isn’t so bad. Maybe being dead is actually better but we don’t know it because we’re stuck here with the living, consumed by daily, tedious, grueling, pointless—”

“Guinevere!” My mother puts a stop to my pessimistic blathering with a curt pronouncement of my full first name. I hate hearing it. She gave me a queen’s name, yet everything about me is light years from regal or refined. My gray eyes flash up at her, catching a serious look of parental concern.

I wrinkle my nose and answer the obvious question on her mind. “I’m not suicidal, Mom, I swear. I don’t have a death wish or anything.”

“Gwen, honey, then why are you talking like this? Why ask such morbid questions?”

I shrug, not that I lack an answer, but the truth would worry her.

Mother steps out of the closet and hops over a pile of shoes to come sit on the edge of the bed. She brushes back my long fringe of bangs and tries to comfort me in a manner she hopes will put a peaceful end to the subject. I haven’t talked to her about this kind of thing for years, and I can see it is causing her anxiety.

“Gwen, honey, think about it. If you were dead, you would have no physical body to move around. No arms to hug with. No legs to run with. No way to touch or feel or hold onto anything or anyone. Not to mention the fact that no one would be able to see or hear you; that in itself would be horribly frustrating.”

“Why wouldn’t anyone see me? People see ghosts sometimes.”

My mother’s brow twitches uneasily. “And how many ghosts have you seen lately?” she asks.

It’s a loaded question. I shake my head. “None, Mom.” I catch how my answer visibly ebbs her fears, though she tries to hide it.

“I rest my case then,” she says, smiling as if everything is settled. Her hand strokes the downy comforter covering my legs, ending in a motherly pat on my knee.

I want to let it drop, to spare her additional worry, but I can’t. There is something bothering me to the point of haunting my dreams. Something I will never confess to either of my parents.

“Mom, uhm…” I hesitate. But I have to know. “Do you believe in life after death?”

She nods, not in answer but as a signal that she will continue our conversation. “Well, Gwen, most religions preach about an afterlife—a heaven or hell where our spirits are sentenced to spend eternity. Others say death is the final curtain. End of story. Done and done.”

“What about you, Mom? What do you think?” I wait, anxious as a mouse for an answer.

She forces a tiny smile. “Honestly… I think it doesn’t matter what I think. If life continues, I’ll live it. If it doesn’t, I won’t.”

I have to tell her. “I know there’s more to come. I’m sure of it.”

Her lips purse and her forehead crinkles beneath a wave of blonde bangs. “Well, okay, Gwen. But you’re not seeing apparitions or hearing voices again, are you?”

She is referring to my past: a dramatic night at only eight years of age when I swore the ghostly image of a dark tribesman appeared in my room where he spoke to me of frightful things. I screamed for my parents and then talked nonstop about the vision for months afterward, obsessed with the idea of ghosts and phantoms and dead people. Following a few uncomfortable visits to a fanatical shrink, I stopped talking about it for the most part. Except to my best friend, Daniel. He’s a smart kid and a good listener. But most importantly, he doesn’t think I’m crazy.

Since then I have suffered a few minor paranormal experiences, but I keep those facts from my parents. Only Daniel knows. I have yet to tell him about my latest one, though.

To answer my mom’s question, I cautiously present a theory. “Maybe ghosts and those in the afterlife haven’t gone anywhere special, like to some glorious heaven or an awful hell. Maybe they are still with us, living among us right now. Maybe the afterlife is right here on Earth.” My wide eyes gauge my mother’s expression. She squints as if considering the idea, and so I go on.

“Maybe we don’t see the dead because they cover up our eyes with some kind of shroud or mist or veil or something. Maybe they don’t want us to see them, so they blind us from their presence. But if we were to look hard enough and catch a glimpse beyond that veil, maybe we would find them gathered all around us.”

Mom clenches her jaw and breathes in deeply through her nose. Her voice lowers half an octave when she carefully asks me, “Gwen, honey, why do you think this?”

I can tell I’ve lost her. Time to drop it. I wish with all my heart my mother would trust me enough to understand me, but that is a futile wish. It will never happen. If I keep on, I’ll be forced into more worthless sessions with that crazy shrink, so I lie to pacify her.

“I miss Grandma Lucy, that’s all. I just wonder where she is. I wonder if she’s happy—if she can see us.”

“Ohhh,” my mom sighs. There is a mountain of relief in the sound. She pats my leg again, probably more for her own comfort than mine.

“You shouldn’t worry about such things, Gwen. Grandma was old. She lived a full life, and it was natural for her to pass on. There’s no point fretting over it. We can’t know for sure what happens after death until we get there. And I pray it’s many, many years before we have to endure another death in this family.”

I nod and fall back on my pillow, curling up to it. Mom leans over me to brush my smoky bangs aside and plant a warm kiss on my forehead.

“Maybe, young lady, you should think a little less about the unknowable and spend more time considering why your clothes belong in a closet and not strewn about your room.”

“I didn’t do it,” I say, closing my eyes to welcome sleep. “The phantom did.”

Mom groans bleakly. “Oh, Guinevere.”

Copyright 2025 Richelle E. Goodrich