Arise Read Online Free Page B

failed. Why should today be any different?
    When I’d decided to pursue this task several months ago, Joshua thought I’d lost my mind. After all, I’d only narrowly escaped an eternity spent trapped in the netherworld. So he had no idea why I would want to waste even a second trying to get back into it.
    Even now a small part of me wondered whether Joshua had a point: maybe what I’d spent months doing at this bridge was crazy or, at the very best, in total disregard for my own safety. Honestly, though, I didn’t care about my safety, and I certainly didn’t care about crazy. Not where my father was concerned.
    It broke my heart when I learned that my father had died not long after I had. But not knowing what had happened to his ghost hurt far worse, mostly because I knew what waited for him after death.
    If my experience as a ghost was any indication, my father was now spending his afterlife in one of two ways: either lost like I’d been or trapped by Eli in the darkness of the netherworld. Since I’d never run into my father during my years of wandering, I had to assume he’d fallen victim to Eli—a fate I obviously couldn’t allow him to suffer.
    But none of my attempts to help him had worked.
    At this point I couldn’t deny my strongest suspicion: that I’d lost whatever ghostly powers I had discovered the night I overcame Eli and his dark masters. Sure, I could still touch Joshua, and I could still (sometimes) control my materializations in the living world. But I could no longer create that supernatural glow upon my skin or feel its surge of power, and I couldn’t materialize into the netherworld.
    Arguably, what I did at the river this afternoon was no more productive than what I’d done every few mornings for the last two months: sit on the front porch of my childhood home and watch, unseen, as my mother prepared for her day.
    Though my visits were sporadic, I’d easily memorized her daily routine. Each morning she drank two cups of coffee in the front room, staring blankly at either the steam rising from her mug or at photos of my father and me; I couldn’t tell which. After that she left—usually forgetting to lock the front door—and drove off to work in her creaking brown sedan.
    Every time I saw her she looked tired and lonely; every time, the sight of her flooded me with angry, impotent guilt. Which was why I couldn’t bring myself to visit her every day. I just didn’t have the strength.
    But today I did.
    This morning, after I’d left Joshua, I followed my mother to work and watched unseen as she worked a punishing job as the stockroom clerk for the local hardware store. When her shift finally ended at 3 p.m., I materialized to the river, determined to do something—anything—for at least one of my parents.
    Now, standing uselessly beside the river, I sighed. However much I wasn’t helping my mother, I certainly wasn’t helping my father, either. This afternoon’s activities had proven as much.
    I ran one hand through my hair, tugging at its dark brown ends as if the pressure might force me to concentrate harder. Assuming my concentration had anything to do with my ability to reopen the netherworld. Assuming I hadn’t been barred from it entirely.
    I released the poor strand of hair, which I’d twisted fiercely around my index finger, and groaned in frustration. The groan echoed back from the barren tree line, mocking me.
    I pushed myself up off the ground and brushed my skirt smooth, although the ice hadn’t actually wrinkled it. Then I turned my back on the river and walked toward the tree line. There, on the trunk of the largest cotton-wood, hung a wristwatch. Joshua had nailed it there a few weeks ago, after I’d come home late one too many times.
    I leaned in close enough to see both the little and big hands resting near the dayglow five.
    “Crap,” I murmured. Late again.
    I could try to blame it on the blank gray sky—much darker, I realized, than it looked when I