The In Between by Marc Klein

Author:Marc Klein [KLEIN, MARC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

thirty-

five

days

after

“THE BARDO?”

Tessa and Shannon were standing outside the school’s gymnasium, waiting to sign in for Saturday morning’s SAT exam. Shannon was paging through Doris’s book.

“There are a lot of different names for it,” Tessa said. “But that’s what the Buddhists call it. It’s the place we all go after we die.”

“Not me,” Shannon said. “I’m goin’ to Jamaica.”

“It’s like this waiting room for our souls. After we die, our souls separate from our bodies, and we spend a bunch of time in this intermediate state before we move on to… whatever’s next.”

“A bunch of time?”

“It’s not really scientific. Some souls linger for weeks, others stay for months or even years. It’s different for every soul.”

“Okay, and you think Skylar’s reaching out to you from this… waiting room?”

“They were color photos, Shannon! You know I don’t shoot in color. I don’t even have the chemicals to develop it!”

“But you can’t show me the photos because…?”

“I told you. The stop bath didn’t work. I don’t know why. Maybe spirits can’t be captured on film?”

“Right,” Shannon said sarcastically.

They reached the sign-in desk. Gerald was sitting behind it, and upon seeing Tessa, he perked up and pushed a pen toward her. “H-hey, Tessa. I, uh, seated you at desk fifty-four, right beneath the AC vent. It can get really warm in there.”

Tessa signed her name. “Thanks, Gerald.”

As they moved off, Shannon quipped: “It pays to have friends in high places.”

They entered the gymnasium. There were a hundred desks arranged in a checkerboard pattern, all of them numbered. The murmur of chatting students echoed off the ceiling. So did the squeaking of everyone’s sneakers on the parquet floor.

Tessa trailed behind Shannon, continuing to press her about what had happened in the darkroom. “What if ‘dying’ and coming back changed me? What if… I don’t know… it tuned me to another frequency?”

“You mean the dead-people frequency?”

Frustrated, Tessa threw her hands up.

“I’m sorry, Tess,” Shannon said. “I want to believe you, I swear. But… messages from the other side?”

The test monitor cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed out into the gymnasium: “Two-minute warning!”

Shannon located her desk and turned to Tessa. “Tess? I love you like a sister. But I don’t think this is about color photos or waiting rooms or bardos.”

“Okay, fine. Then what’s it about?”

Shannon handed Doris’s book back to Tessa. “A girl who doesn’t want to let go.”

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