Page 119 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

She pecked his hand, and he drew it back with a snap, but no blood spotted his fingers.

He laughed. “There’s that spunk. Good girl.

Now go lay me a good ole egg.” He set the bucket on the ground and pointed to the various hens.

“Now there’s Jane and Lizzie. That one there?

The one with the grayish brown and black feathers like a mockingbird’s?

Scout. Then there’s Hester, Eowyn, Arwen, and Jo March.

Thought she needed the full name. She’s the one who’s the most stubborn. ”

Hallie sprinkled her handful near Anne and the one she thought was Hester. They both clucked in approval. Maybe. It was hard to tell, but they snatched up the kernels rather quickly. “Jack, why are there chickens in the afterlife, and why in the stars are we feeding them if they’re already dead?”

Because she was beginning to think this was all some horribly cruel and ridiculous dream her mind had drummed up to torture her. She hadn’t taken anything besides Navara’s journal through the Gate. She’d left her satchel on the ground.

Oh, stars, the journal! She’d left it.

“Wait! I’ll be back. Just a moment.” And then she hurried toward the other side of the cottage and into the little field beyond. The sky grew darker as the sun sank beyond the distant horizon. The golden light made the mountain tops glow.

There in the patch of ripped up daisies and messy dirt was the journal. She scooped it up and headed back toward Jack.

Jack nodded back toward the cottage. “Chickens die too, and they still need people to ferry them over. Just easier than people. Plus, I think Gran likes the company.”

“Ferry them over?”

Jack hung the bucket on a hook by the door. “Like I said, lots of times, best to let Gran explain.” He twisted the knob, putting on some terrible mimicry of an upper-crust Jaydian accent. “Come in for a cuppa, will you?”

Jack saw her hesitation and held out his hand. “No, really. It’s about to be dark out, and it’s best to be inside when that happens.” His eyes looked beyond her at something only he could see.

Hallie looked back at the sunset. “What do you mean?” What could be dangerous about the dark when one was dead?

“Let’s get you some tea. You still drink peppermint?”

Hallie turned back and narrowed her eyes. “Jack.”

He rolled his eyes, but something about his smile twitched…

resigned, maybe, or stubborn. Either way, it gave her the impression he either wouldn’t or couldn’t say anything else about it.

“Come in , will you? Gran will be home soon, and then we can eat some of the stew I’ve had on the hearth all day. Made some bread, too.”

Hallie chewed on the inside of her lip and stepped inside. “Fine.”

The inside of the cottage looked very much like someone named Gran inhabited the place.

The entire interior was two rooms with what Hallie assumed was a loft accessed by a ladder in the corner.

The walls boasted various needlepoint landscapes.

Hallie recognized both Stoneset and Myrrai in two of them.

The others weren’t familiar to her, but they were beautiful nonetheless with their great cedars and blue, misty mountains.

A patchwork quilt lay folded on the back of a brown couch, and a wooden rocker sat near the generous brick hearth.

On the other side, a little kitchen waited.

A large farm sink with a Zuprium pump lay beneath a lace-curtained window facing the sunset mountains.

A little wooden table was set with two places complete with placemats embroidered with bulbous red mazelberries and oak leaves along the edges.

Hallie sat on a small but sturdy wooden chair. Assorted dried herbs and flowers hung from the kitchen wall. Add a wall of shelves overflowing with books, and Hallie would be quite cozy in such a place.

Jack busied himself at the sink, pressing the lever down to dredge up water into a kettle.

He set it on a tiny stove top before opening the grate below and adding a few smaller wood blocks to a dying fire.

He used the final piece of wood to work up a few sparks before adding it to the pile inside.

He shut the little door with a creak, twisting the handle and locking it in place.

“Welcome to my little corner of the world,” Jack said, holding out his arms. “It really isn’t much, but I do think the dried flowers and herbs add a nice touch.”

Now that she had finally gotten over her shock, Hallie found the moment quite surreal.

How was she with her brother right now? Was this truly the afterlife?

It didn’t feel quite right. Something about it simply felt…

off. It all felt like a house of cards about to tumble down, but why that was, she couldn’t pinpoint.

She laid the journal atop the table. Its cover was now streaked with dirt. She twisted her fingers together, holding them in her lap. For once, she felt like a proper uppity lady with stiff posture. Her mind, however, was still teeming. A paradox of sorts, really.

“You’re no good at waiting,” Jack chuckled. “Your foot’s tapping something fierce.”

A bit of frustration dredged itself up out of her general unease. “I don’t like not having answers. I can’t fear what I don’t know.”

“Plenty of people are terrified of the unknown—for good reason. You should join ‘em.”

Well, at least one thing hadn’t changed in death. Jack still hated giving direct answers. “Quit being a sterning dulkop and tell me.”

“ There you are! With all that fancy city-folk talk, I was gettin’ to think you might not be the real Hallie Walker.”

“You’re stalling.”

She needed to understand something, anything about the strange world she found herself in. It was all chaos in her ordered mind, and if she didn’t tidy it soon, she would lose hold of the barely-wrangled calm she’d scraped together.

Jack drummed his fingers on his elbows—also unscarred, also whole.

Hallie glanced down at her lap to her tangled fingers.

Her little finger was still missing. If she’d truly joined her brother in death, wouldn’t her scars and maladies be healed?

It gave her a sliver of hope, even if sorrow filled what was left—because if she wasn’t dead, she would have to leave him once more.

She didn’t know if she could do that again. And that terrified her.

Kase’s ring still circled her finger. Her heart gave a painful throb. What would he do when he couldn’t find her? Would it break him at last? Would he realize she hadn’t left of her own free will?

He’d proposed to her, she’d said no, and now…now he wouldn’t know where she’d gone. What if he assumed he’d scared her off, or that she’d taken the coward’s way out and run from her responsibility to sacrifice herself? It’d break his heart either way. He’d think she’d left him. Abandoned him.

Stop that , she scolded herself. You might be dead. Get your priorities in order .

Her twin chewed his thumbnail, a nervous habit he hadn’t seemed to kick in death.

“I don’t know, Hallie, honest. All I know is that outta nowhere, bad stuff’s started happening when the sun falls ‘neath the horizon. Every night, some of us up and disappear. It’s almost as if the night sky has a bit of a temper. Not even the stars shine no more.”

Hallie resisted the urge to rub her eyes.

Her brother would’ve been eaten alive at the University with that sort of dialect.

She’d practiced for ages, using the sleepless nights after Jack’s death to do so.

It kept her mind busy and exhausted enough not to notice that he didn’t knock messages on their shared wall in code when he couldn’t sleep.

She cleared her throat, “So you’re saying something’s going around at night and taking people? From death ? Who else is here?”

“Not always taking people. We find them the next day, all gray and the like. It’s something like out of a fairytale.

” He shivered. “Didn’t start but recently…

after I botched that Meeting. It’s part of the reason Gran relegated me to the cottage.

Thinks that particular soul wants his revenge for something or other. ”

Hallie leaned forward slightly, putting a few clues together. “So your purpose here is to meet with souls of the recently departed and ferry them? To what?”

“Dunno, not really, but I don’t gotta worry about it. All I know is that I landed here some time ago and learned that I can still heal people by making sure they want to move on to the beyond. Souls Meet is more of a holding place. I think. It’ll make more sense the longer you stay.”

His offhand tone told her it wasn’t a big deal, but the slight quiver of his hands belied how unsettled he really was. He busied himself by grabbing two teacups from his cupboard. He fished around in the back of the cabinet for a few tea bags.

Hallie found it all very odd and intriguing all at once.

She wished she had her sketchbook with her.

No one had written a book about the afterlife or anyplace called Souls Meet .

Of course, anyone who would’ve known the full details would’ve needed to die and then return to life.

Hallie was beginning to think that she hadn’t found the second Gate at all, that it had been more of a Passage into death. But why was it in Kyvena?

And most importantly, was the woman Jack referred to as Gran actually Navara? She was the one who’d left the journal with the hints. She was the one who would’ve known enough about what both Stoneset and Myrrai looked like to recreate them with thread and hang them on her cottage walls.

Ignoring the fact that having such living comforts such as tea, chickens, thread, and old rocking chairs by the fireplace seemed entirely odd for death, this wasn’t a bad place to be, not really.

And maybe that was its purpose. Jack and Gran ferried souls to what lay next, but maybe the familiar comforts made the transition easier.