Maureen Johnson - The Madness Underneath

I wanted to stay here.

There was whiteness. There was falling. I was falling a hundred feet, a thousand feet, but at no particular speed.

And then there were edges of things. Round things. A red line and a black lump. A face—Boo’s. My head was forced between my knees, and when I opened my eyes, the hospital floor came back into violent, sudden focus.

“Sorry,” I said. Because I knew what was coming next.

I threw up. A plastic basin was shoved in the approximately right spot and I did my best to aim for it. Someone helped me into a chair. I was put in a forward-facing position, slumped over my knees. Boo knelt down next to me.

“Is he—”

She nodded.

“Did it work?” she whispered, stroking my hair.

“I…don’t know. Something happened.”

“I’ll look for him,” she said. “You all right? I’ll look.”

Boo was gone for what seemed like forever. I finally lifted myself up and sat back normally. When I did that, I saw Stephen lying there, exactly as before. He looked no different, but all was silence, and his chest did not move.

Thorpe’s eyes were red.

“How long does it take?” I asked when Boo returned. “Before they…you know. Appear.”

“Jo said that when it happened to her, she thinks she woke up right after, but she was never sure,” Boo said. “It could have been hours, or even a day or two.”

“Alistair said it was right away,” I added. “He was asleep, and then he was standing outside of himself. Do they always show up where they die?”

“He could be anywhere,” she said. “It’s often tied to the place of death, but not always. I’ve heard of other places people end up. He could be at the flat. He could be at his parents’ house, though I doubt that. He’s bound to be somewhere. We just have to find him.”

“Unless it didn’t work,” I said.

“I know he’s here,” Boo said, nodding. “We need to start looking. We do the hospital. We do the flat, both the old one and the new one. And if that fails, we come back here and do it again. Yeah?”

It was then that I understood everything. There would be no train to Bristol. There might be no return to Wexford, or America. Life was being written, right now, in real time. I was not going home. I was staying here. I would find Charlotte. I was going to make Jane pay.

And I would find Stephen.

maureen johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of more than ten young-adult novels, including 13 Little Blue Envelopes, The Last Little Blue Envelope, Devilish, The Bermudez Triangle, Let It Snow , and Suite Scarlett. She divides her time between New York City and Guildford, England. Maureen also spends far too much time online.

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