He pissed himself, but he did not cry out.
The bad things he felt were too many and too much to be called one thing, like sadness or fear. There was the immediate knowledge and horror of his own life ending. There was also the horror of what, in all likelihood, would happen to his home and his family. The whole terrible thing gave one huge stomp inside his head, like an angry elephant, and then left him in silence as he passed out of the morning sunlight and fell and fell and fell through the dark.
—
The fall didn’t kill him.
He struck branches and the steep flank of a mossy cliff and plunged backward into churning water. The water flung him up on a rock, choking and paralyzed. In a little while, the voice and the light in his head would fall silent and go out. But for now his wide eyes and listening ears still looked and heard. Just for a moment. He fell asleep for a while.
—
When he awoke, a little girl sat on a nearby stone, staring at him with eyes nearly as big as his own. She stared as if she’d never seen a boy before, let alone a boy broken and dying at the bottom of a gorge. She was wrapped in something long and black—maybe a robe, or wings. Her long black hair lay drenched across her shoulders.
He knew who the girl was. What else could she be?
“I didn’t know Death was a girl,” he said, his voice no more than the sigh of a moth. “I didn’t know Death was so young.”
“I’m not young,” she answered. “I’m old enough to get tired just thinking about it. And I’m a girl because I want you to like me. You’re very brave and wise for your age.”
Milo felt himself getting dark and quiet inside.
“I don’t want to take you,” the girl whispered. “You were living your life so wonderfully. I’ve never seen anything like it. They must have accidentally packed an extra soul inside you.”
Milo wanted to say something, but his breath wouldn’t cooperate. His body jerked. He began to choke.
The girl leaned over him and kissed his forehead, and he felt himself go out like a—
—
He lay on a wooden bridge, over a slow blue river. The river flowed through a green meadow bright with wildflowers.
He was whole again. He was even a little taller.
His armband, he noticed, was gone. Too bad. He’d earned it, he felt.
The girl was gone, too. In her place was a woman.
A woman with pale skin and black, deep eyes. She wore something like a cape, or maybe it was wings.
She reached out and cupped his head in a long, willowy hand.
“Try and survive ’til you’re a grown-up next time,” she whispered.
“?’Kay,” he said.
The woman and the little girl were the same. Milovasu understood this, without understanding quite how. But before he could ask, she straightened up and stepped back and was flanked by two other grown-ups. An enormous, planetary woman, and an old lady holding a cat.
“Come,” said the big woman. And they took him across the bridge to a town on the river’s far side, into a neighborhood of nice houses. They ushered him into a mansion with a fountain in the courtyard, and peacocks.
“Holy shit,” said Milo, after his father’s example. “Why? How can I possibly have earned this?”
“Beginner’s luck,” said the old woman with the cat. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“More than luck,” said the big woman, giving the cat lady a sour look. “You have had an exceptional first life. Who knows—you might reach Perfection very quickly.”
They turned to go.
“Wait!” Milo cried. Who were these people? What was happening?
“Are you goddesses?” he asked. “Or perhaps the souls of my ancestors?”
The big woman laid a warm, heavy hand atop his head.
“We’re a little bit of everything,” she said. “Think of us as slices of the universe.”
Which meant squat to young Milo.
“Do you have names?” he asked.
“Everything has a name,” answered the old woman, a little crossly. “My name is—”
The air exploded with a sound that was beyond words or music. As if the stars themselves were humming or the whole entire Earth were getting ready to sneeze. His ears would burst! His mind would tear—
It stopped.
“But you may call me Nan,” said the old woman.
“I am Mother,” said the big one. “Or Mama, or Ma, or—”
“Who are you?” Milo asked Death.
“She’s called Death—” Nan answered.
“I’m Suzie,” Death interrupted.
Milo liked this name. It sounded futuristic.
“Since when?” asked Mother, rolling her eyes.
“Since right now. Calling me ‘Death’ is like calling him ‘Boy-soul’ or a dog ‘Dog.’ Besides, how’d you like to be called ‘Death’?”
“?‘Suzie’ is pretty,” offered Milo.
“We should go,” said Mother gently. “He’ll be needing his rest.”
“Rest from what?” Milo asked. “With respect, all I did was fall down and die. I just got out of bed, like, an hour ago.”
But Mother and Nan turned their backs and left the courtyard, arm in arm. Suzie vanished in a sudden gust of wind and blue clover. Milovasu let his head spin and his thoughts whirl while he had a long pee in the fountain, then he went into his house and found some fruit waiting for him and managed several hours of troubled sleep.
—
Later, the universe women came back and they had a sit-down.
The purpose of the sit-down was simple: They explained how the universe worked.
In Milo’s new kitchen, Mama waved her big arms, and a roaring fire appeared on the stone hearth.
“That fire,” she explained, “is the Great Reality. It represents the universe the way it really is: Raw and wordless. Alive and pure. You can’t really understand it, and if you got too close to it, you’d burn up. It has a lot of names. Sometimes we call it the Oversoul, because it’s like one giant perfect soul. Okay?”
Mama had made one hell of a fire. Milo shielded his eyes and backed up.
“Okay,” he said.
Mama turned away from the fire and pointed all around at the rest of the kitchen. “Notice how the farther you get from the fire, the cooler and darker everything gets? That’s because the Oversoul casts its heat and light—its reality—out into everywhere. But as the heat and light radiate out, they get thinner. They diffuse. I mean, look at the fire, there—”
Milo looked.
“—and you see bright, perfect light. Look out here, and it’s bright in some places and dark in others, and the light flickers and changes. And this is like where we are now.”
“The afterlife,” said Milo, always an eager student.
“It’s not called ‘the afterlife,’?” rasped Nan. “Because it’s the ‘before-life,’ too, isn’t it? It’s called Ortamidivalavalarezarationaptulsphere. Means ‘middle.’?”
“?‘Afterlife’ will do,” said Mama. “Don’t be difficult. Anyhow, things here are warmer and brighter, more real, than out there in the rest of the universe.”
“All right,” said Milo, “so if I see a bridge here, in the afterlife, it’s more real than if I see a bridge down on Earth.”
“Not bad,” said Nan.