There was no sound. No chirping birds or buzzing lawnmowers. No rumbling of cars or thrumming iPod music. In fact, my iPod had vanished from my hand, and my headphones were no longer in my ears. The only sounds came from me—my toe tracing the edge of the step in front of me as I contemplated my next move, and my slow, calculated breath as I fought the panic welling inside of me. I pinched my arm until I cried out. Then for good measure I gave myself a sharp slap across the cheek, but the staircase didn’t disappear. Neither did I.
Instead, the stairs stretched on and on in front of me like some kind of nightmare step class from hell. It made me wonder if Led Zeppelin had intel when they wrote “Stairway to Heaven,” because they totally nailed it. Unless we’ve had it wrong all along, and hell is up and heaven is down and everything’s all backward.
Deep breaths. I had to take deep breaths.
What had just happened?
I thought back to a few moments before. The car was coming straight for me, and then … and then what? I could only recall the few seconds right before the Beemer must have pancaked me. It was as if someone snapped their fingers and poofed me there, only I couldn’t remember them, the snapping, or the poofing.
I ran my hands along my body, checking for bumps and bruises. Nothing hurt. I didn’t even look like I’d been hit by a car. My yellow sundress was as crisp and clean as it had been when I put it on that morning. There was no car grease, smears of blood, or bits of brain splattered across the pleated cotton fabric. Even my ponytail was neat and tidy, each hair smoothed into place the way I intended. I was the same me I’d been when I left my house, only I wasn’t me. How could I be me after a head-on collision?
Was I dead?
No. No, that couldn’t be right. I was breathing. I was thinking. I was moving. Those were not the kinds of things dead people were supposed to do.
“Hello?” I finally shouted at the blue and gray nothingness of the stairs and the empty sky. A hundred voices bellowed the greeting back in an echo. It was an empty and terrifying sound.
I tried to spin around, ready to launch myself through the door that must have led me there. That’s when I realized the most disturbing thing of all: I couldn’t turn around. I could look left and right, but I physically couldn’t face anything except the blasted staircase. It was like someone held me from behind, only there was no one there. And man, did I want to turn around. Anyone would after seeing the size of that thing. I got winded after one lap in gym class. How was I ever going to make it to the top of a monstrous set of stairs? Assuming there was a top. God, if you’re up there, please let there be a top.
I tried to keep my panic from bubbling into anger, but I could feel the f-bombs forming on my tongue. I mean, what the hell? WTF happened to heaven? If I was dead and this was the afterlife, shouldn’t I at least have gotten a guardian angel greeting, or some kind of clue about where the hell I was and what I was supposed to do? Maybe a hello from Mamaw and Gramps? Something?
But there was nothing except the stairs and a quiet so deep I was pretty sure I could’ve heard the grass growing if I were able to turn around to see if there was any grass behind me. I just hoped Led Zeppelin was right, and the stairs led to the good place rather than the bad one. Otherwise I was screwed with a capital S-C-R-E-W-E-D.
The steps slid easily beneath my feet as I started to climb, and I let out a sigh of relief. A small part of me had expected the sky to rain frogs, or a swarm of locusts to rise up and gobble me whole. But instead of fire and brimstone, my ascent began with my flip-flops applauding against my heels. Congratulations, Taylor. You’re dead. Clap, clap, clap.
CHAPTER THREE
I THOUGHT I WAS THE GHOST
Cracks spider-webbed their way along the stone steps, splitting the surface into tiny crags that ran up and down the length of the staircase. It looked old and busted up, like whoever built it decided it wasn’t worth the upkeep. My dad would’ve had a field day. My mom bought him a caulking gun two Father’s Days ago, and he’d been a hole-filling, crack-fixing machine ever since. He seemed to think that most things in life could be caulked back together. Crack in the sidewalk? Caulk it. Wobbly table leg? Caulk it. Heel break off your shoe? Caulk it. Once he even gave me a dried-up wad of caulk to use as an earring back.
My hand jerked up instinctively, checking to make sure the diamond studs he’d given me for my birthday still sparkled from my earlobes. Then just as quickly I dropped my hands and fidgeted with the hem on my dress. I didn’t want to think about my dad. I didn’t want to think about my parents, or what the staircase meant, or whether or not I’d ever get to see Dad rounding the corner with his caulking gun in hand, waiting to fix life’s ailments with the squeeze of a trigger. I didn’t want to think at all.
Instead, I trudged ahead, looking up and down the staircase for some clue about where the stairs led.
Each step was wide enough to hold about ten people walking shoulder to shoulder, but my fear of heights kept me firmly rooted to the center. Without being able to turn around it was impossible to tell if I was close to the ground or floating somewhere up in the sky, and there was nothing to keep me from falling over the side—no railing to hold on to or wall to protect me.
But if I’m dead can I die again? It didn’t seem likely. At least that was what I told myself when my curiosity finally got the best of me and my feet started inching closer to the ledge.
I expected to see green treetops or the brown and emerald patchwork of the earth below, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just the same empty sky stretching down and up and all around me. My head swam with the sameness of it all.
I leaned out farther, trying to catch a glimpse of anything other than the gray-blue mix of stone and sky, but my head stopped just short of the edge. It was like a wall ran along the side of the stairs, only there wasn’t anything there.