The Everafter by Amy Huntley Read Free Book Online Page B

dignified name. Something that allows it to keep its tail straight up and proud. Something so unique, no other cat in the world will have it. Cozycorium is a name I think Eliot would approve of.”
    The cat’s purring vibrates against my chest. It almost feels like I’m purring, too. “But we can still call her Cozy for short, right?” I say.
    “Right,” Mom says.
    “Wait,” Dad says. “You mentioned three names. What’s the third name?”
    “Oh, well, Eliot says a cat will have a secret name that only it knows. It’s a name that we’ll never figure out. But whenever we see that she’s deep in thought, she’ll be thinking about her secret name.”
    “No,” I say. “She’s not allowed.”
    “Not allowed to what?” Dad asks.
    “Have secrets from us. She can’t have a third name.”
    Kristen laughs at me. “You can’t stop her,” she tells me. “Cats pretty much do what they want.”
    “I can too stop her,” I insist. “I’m going to take her upstairs and show her my room now.” I’m already halfway to the stairs.
    “Madison,” Mom calls after me, “what about all these be—”

is
    I T SEEMS TO BE a pinecone. It has edges like one, and its round shape tapers toward the top the way pinecones do.
    But I can’t figure out how to make this thing work. The other items that have taken me places have been easy. I’ve tried imagining what it was like to hold them. To hand them to someone, to drop them, to put them on.
    Something always works.
    But not with this pinecone.
    Maybe it’s the Universe’s idea of a joke. Let’s put this object with her that she can’t quite figure out how to use, it’s thinking. See how long it takes her to go crazy.
    Uh-huh. Not long. A person who’s dead and consciousand revisiting her life at every opportunity must already be crazy.
    Still…it’s almost as big a mystery as this whole how-did-I-even-die-anyway thing. How many different things can you do with a pinecone?
    Maybe that’s not even what it is.

beyond the boundaries of any one life
    age 17
    Ohmygod, if I don’t find that assignment right now, my English grade is going down the toilet!
    I scurry frantically, pulling things out of my book bag for the third time this morning. I look everywhere. Every where.
    I glance at the clock…. Twenty minutes until Gabriel gets here to pick me up for school. I worked so hard on that paper, and now I can’t find it. I did it last night at Gabe’s house and emailed it to myself. I’ll have to reprint it.
    I switch on the computer quickly, and while I am waitingfor everything to boot up, I scramble to the bathroom for my toothbrush.
    When I return, I log into my email account and open the message I sent from Gabe’s house last night.
    Ohmygod. Unbelievable. There’s no attachment. How could I have sent an email to myself with the sole purpose of attaching that paper—then have forgotten to do it?
    I grab my cell phone to call Gabe.
    No answer.
    My eyes smart as they fill with tears. Can I remember any of that paper? I’ll have to try to rewrite it in fifteen minutes. I flip open my English textbook. There are the two poems by Emily Dickinson that I’m supposed to hand in an analysis of—first hour:
    664
    Of all the Souls that stand create—
    I have elected — One —
    When Sense from Spirit — files away —
    And Subterfuge — is done —
    When that which is — and that which was —
    Apart — intrinsic — stand —
    And this brief Tragedy of Flesh —
    Is shifted — like a Sand —
    When Figures show their royal Front —
    And Mists — are carved away,
    Behold the Atom — I preferred —
    To all the lists of Clay!
    1732
    My Life closed twice before its close —
    It yet remains to see
    If Immortality unveil
    A third event to me
    So huge, so hopeless to conceive
    As these that twice befell.
    Parting is all we know of heaven,
    And all we need of hell.
    Reading these two poems this morning causes me to shiver in a way that I never have before, and