The In-Between

The first thing I knew was warmth. Sunlight. I opened my eyes and had to immediately shade them from the blinding light. The next thing I knew was soft beneath my hand and arms. Grass. Softer and greener than any grass I’d ever known before. Where was I? A field?

I sat up and looked around with squinted eyes. Definitely a field. But where? And how’d I get there?

I tried to remember what happened. I remembered driving. It was dark. And raining. My husband was next to me. Something smashed into us. But I wasn’t hurt. I looked myself over and saw the unmarked and undamaged black-and-white horizontally striped shirt, black jeans, and black jacket that I had been wearing before. The only thing out of the ordinary was a large, light blue diamond on a string around my neck.

I stood and looked around frantically. “Kyle?! Kyle!” I searched even though some part of me knew I wouldn’t see him.

Where was I? Was this Heaven? Certainly, didn’t seem like Hell.

“Hello?! Anyone?!”

I couldn’t see anything but grass and slight hills in every direction, couldn’t hear anything but my voice and unseen birds. I sighed, running my hands through my short red hair, and started walking forward, unsure of what else I could do.

Even though it felt like I walked for hours, I didn’t get tired or hungry or thirsty. The sun did set, but I could see just fine. Maybe it was how bright the thousands of stars and the huge moon were. Eventually, I came over a hill and saw a building in the distance. A mansion, lights fully blazing. The closer I got, the more I could hear classical music coming from the house and see people lying on the ground in front of it.

I slowed down and stopped about a hundred yards from the mansion, wondering what I should do. Did I go knock on the front door? Talk to the people lying on the grass?

“Hey!”

I jumped and turned to see a teenage girl with long dark hair looking up at me. How had I not heard her? Then again, had I been hearing myself walk?

“What’s your name?” she asked, standing about a foot from me, her pale skin luminous in the moonlight, a clear diamond around her neck.

I looked down and noticed that her feet were bare before I looked back up. “Um, Levi.”

“Levi.” She repeated it like it was some newborn baby that she had been charged with caring for. “I’m Haydyn. Welcome.” A smile brightened her face, like I was some beloved relative of hers.

“Um… Haydyn…where are we?”

She shrugged and smiled wider. “We call it Síocháin. It’s Irish for ‘peace’.”

“Why Irish? What is this place? Where is it?”

She shrugged again, stepping a bit closer to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “Levi, this might be hard to grasp, but you’re dead.”

I flashed back to that night, driving, the crash. After a few blinks, I saw Haydyn’s face again. “I… Yeah, that—that makes sense. So, this is, what? An afterlife?”

She nodded and smiled again. “Yes. It could be Heaven, but we think that if it were, then the pets we’ve lost would be here too.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Oh, there’s a lot of people here. Siobhan was here first and she’s been here kind of a long time. she’s why this place is the Irish word for ‘peace’, by the way. Would you like to come inside?” She half-turned and gestured to the mansion.

I looked hesitantly at the house. “But…not everyone who’s died can be living in that house.”

“Oh, no, it’s not everyone. We’re all from the same neighborhood in Roanoke. Siobhan lived there in 2000. What year is it now? Out in the real world?”

“Um, 2019.”

“Haydyn?” a strong, maternal Irish voice called from the open front door. “Chucker yer ‘av a new person witcha?”

“Yes, Mama. I’ll bring him in.”

“Yer take yisser time nigh,” the woman replied before going back into the house.

“That’s your mother?” I asked Haydyn in surprise.

“No, that’s Siobhan. The younger ones of us call her Mama, since she was a mother of six and, well, we miss our mothers.”

“Haydyn, you coming or what?” a boy called from where he was standing on the lawn near the front door, the other people from the grass going into the house behind him.

“Eli, Mama told us to take our time,” she said with a turn of her head and a smile on her face.

“Still, you gonna stay out there all night? Everyone else is already inside.”

Haydyn looked back at me with a gentle smile. “Do you wanna go inside now?”

I considered her and the house for a moment before saying, “Yeah, sure, I guess. Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” She smiled wider and took my hand, gently pulling me toward the mansion.

With the bright light from the stars and the moon, I could tell that the giant house was a dark blue color and had the kind of style of a great southern farmhouse or something. Inside the tall front doors was a giant, cream-colored foyer with carpeted, railed staircases curling up the walls to the second floor. I could see furniture in a large room beyond the foyer, a large dining table in the room to the left, and what looked like a home theater to the right.

“Well, failte in, yer two!”

I jumped a bit and turned to see a large black woman standing in front of me and Haydyn, a smile on her face that automatically made me feel warm and loved and at ease. A mother’s smile.

“Oi believe it wus a gettin’ a wee bit nippy oyt dare, wasn’t it?”

“Just a bit,” Haydyn replied with a sparkling smile. “Mama, this is Levi. Levi, Siobhan. Or Mama, if that’s what you wanna call her>”

“Uh, aheh, I don’t think there’s a big enough age gap for me to call her Mama,” I admit with a little laugh.

“’oney, sometimes ‘tis de feelin’ av someone dat makes dem a mama, not their age.” She came up to me and gently squeezed my upper arms. “Yer call me whatever yer want ter, sweetheart. Age don’t matter.”

I was touched by her sincere and warmly loving demeanor and couldn’t speak for a moment, eventually saying, “U-umm… Thank you. Siobhan.” As much as I kinda wanted to, I just couldn’t bring myself to call her Mama when she couldn’t have been more than ten years older than my thirty-five years.

She smiled at me with pure love and gently held my face in her large, slightly rough hands. “’Tis nathin’ worth thankin’ me. ‘Tis waaat oi’m ‘ere for. So,” she continued, removing her hands, “did ‘Aydyn tell yer waaat dis ‘ere place is?”

“Uh, she told me that this is some kind of after life that’s probably not Heaven and is called…”

“Síocháin,” Haydyn said when I looked to her for help.

“Right. That. And she told me that everyone here is—or was, I guess—from the same neighborhood.” I suddenly felt a weight in my ears and reached up to find large stones in ears replacing my old earrings.

“Diamonds,” Haydyn remarked with a soft smile. “Someone must really love you.”

“De stones symbolize people who are mournin’ yer,” Siobhan explained. “De stronger de bond they ‘ad witcha, de more precious the stone.”

“So, that’s what this is?” I asked, fingering the blue diamond around my neck. “Someone missing me?”

She nodded. “De longer you’re gone, de more people miss yer, de more stones yer git. Sum people only ‘av a couple, sum ‘av lashings. Wud yer loike a tour, Levi?”

“Um…sure.” Wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be.

She and Haydyn walked me around the giant mansion and told me more about the place between pointing things out. They told me that there were always twenty people in the house and they moved on a various times depending on how they died. From what they could figure out, the more tragic the death, the faster they moved on. It seemed to them like people tended to move on when someone new died in the real world.

“Sometimes we git sum juicy dry spells,” Siobhan explained as they walked through the giant library on the second floor. “Sum av us don’t fancy dohs spells cos it means naw wan gets ter move on, but for de most part, we really value dohs times.”

“Haydyn said you’ve been here since 2000.”

“That’s correct, laddie,” she replied, introducing me to a young Asian woman in an armchair named Alice, a book in her lap, ruby and sapphire earrings dotting all over her ears.

“How long have you two been here?” I asked Alice and Haydyn.

“About three weeks,” Alice replied with the kind of soft smile that seemed common around the house.

“A week,” Haydyn said.

“Has he met Juniper yet?” Alice asked her two friends.

“Actually, we ‘enny run into anyone besides yer,” said Siobhan. “Yer tink everyone else ‘as turned in for de noight?”

“Well, it is late,” Alice replied with a playful smile.

“Wait, people actually sleep here?” I asked in confusion, sitting down beside Haydyn on one of the sofas, Siobhan sitting in a chair beside Alice’s.

“Ah, aye,” Siobhan answered with a nod and a smile. “People sleep ‘owever long they want to—for example, if they want ter sleep for exactly six ‘ours, den they chucker naturally—but if they don’t want ter sleep at al’, den they don’t ‘av ter. Does dat make sense?”

I nodded. “It does.”

“So, waaat chucker yer tink? After de tour, wud yer loike ter go on ter bed or ye interested in doin’ somethin’ else?”

I considered her for a moment. “Um, I don’t know. I’m not really tired and I guess I wanna… I don’t know… explore the house?”

“An’ that’s perfectly gran’,” Siobhan said with a nod. “’Oy aboyt we show yer wha yisser room is anyhow?”

“Okay.”

She and Haydyn said goodbye to Alice and led me up to the third floor and to the right down a wide, ornate hallway to the last white door on the left. Siobhan opened the door to a large cream-colored bedroom with a queen-sized bed, a plush bench at the foot of the bed, a small grouping of a sofa and two armchairs around a dead fireplace, and a couple of empty mahogany bookshelves.

“Um…wow.” I was used to small bedrooms where the bed was the only furniture, so to have something like this… “Are all the bedrooms like this?”

“Mama’s is bigger,” Haydyn said. “And everyone else’s is personalized. You can do that too, if you want.”

“How?”

“Just think about it.”

Siobhan stepped into the room, faced us, and spread her arms. “Dees bedrooms ‘av pure speshal properties. Waaat yer clap nigh is de room’s default settin’, basically. Yer can change it ‘owever yer want by simply tinkin’ aboyt it. Go on, gie it a try.”

I looked around the pale room and the pale furniture, trying to find something to change. Honestly, I kinda liked all the white. But maybe the sofa could be black.

The second I had the thought, the white sofa rippled and became a solid black leather.

“Whoa! What the—?”

“Told ya,” Haydyn said with a smirk.

“Levi, wud yer loike me or ‘Aydyn ter stay witcha?”

I smiled at Siobhan. “Um, no, I’m—I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Well, alright, then. Breakfast will be tomorrow at eight a.m. if you’re interested. It would be a nice chance for you to meet everyone.”

“Yeah, that, um, that sounds good.”

“Night, then,” Haydyn chirped before heading away.

“Gran’ noight, Levi,” Siobhan said, her hand on the doorframe.

“Good night, Siobhan.”

Once she was gone, I stepped inside my new room and decided to do some redecorating before I explored the house.

------------------------------------------

The next morning at 7:50, I emerged from the library and headed down to the dining room. there were a lot of people milling about on the first floor, ranging in age from a small little girl to a very old man, all of them with some kind of gemstone jewelry. I tried my best to just stay against the wall and out of the way as dishes, glasses, and silverware were carried into the dining room.

I was just done counting twenty chairs at the table when I heard an enthusiastic saying of my name and turned to see Haydyn smiling and sauntering up to me.

“How are you doing?”

“Um, I’m-I’m good,” I said, “Um, how are you?”

“Wonderful.” Mama made her special blueberry French toast, fruit salad, egg bake, bacon, and sausage. It’s what she always makes the first morning of having a new person.”

“Where does she get the ingredients?”

“She just thinks them up.”

“Haydyn.”

I turn and see a thin, feminine-looking boy with a blue knit cap on walking towards us. The same boy Haydyn had called out to the night before.

“Hey, Eli!” she greeted. “This is Levi. Levi, Eli.”

“Nice to meet you,” Eli said with a wide smile. I was beginning to wonder if everyone in the house was just perpetually smiling.

“Nice to meet you too,” I replied, noticing the way he didn’t make any attempt to shake hands.

“Um, how old are you kids? Or, how old were you, I guess?”

“Kids?” Eli asked with a smirk. “We’re closer to adults.”

“I’m seventeen,” Haydyn said, “Eli is sixteen.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” I told Eli.

“Oh, wow, you’re old,” he smirked playfully.

“Everyone, breakfast is ready!” Siobhan called from the living room.

I followed Haydyn and Eli into the dining room and sat beside her on one side of the table. Siobhan sat beside her at one head of the loaded table, but the seat at the other end of the table was empty.

“Who’s missing?” I asked Haydyn in a low voice, pointing to the empty chair.

“Juniper,” she murmured back as everyone started serving themselves. “She’s not really one for being around people. Mama always brings her food up to her room.”

“You should probably go meet the poor girl after breakfast,” the old man across from me suggested, pouring some orange juice into his glass. “While she doesn’t like being around a lot of people, she does prefer to meet the newbies here.”

“Be gentle with her, though,” Alice said beside the old man, chewing on some bacon. “She’s fragile.”

“Are you guys gossipin’ about Juniper?” the small girl a couple of people down from me asked the others. “Mama said not to do that.”

“We’re not gossiping,” Alice said gently. “We’re just explaining her to the new person.”

“What’s your name, anyway?” a black boy of about ten asked me from beside Alice, his mouth full of French toast.

“Lionel, don’t blather wi’ yisser gob full,” Siobhan gently chided before addressing the table. “Everyone, dis is our new mucker, Levi.” She gestured to me. “Levi, dis is everyone. May oi ask ‘oy yer passed, or is dat personal for yer?”

I wished I had coffee and then took a sip of the coffee that appeared in front of me. “Um, no, it’s… I was in a car crash.”

“In dat case, you’ll ‘av galore av time ter get ter nu everyone.”

“Um…Oh, right. Because you…you mentioned something last night about people leaving here faster if they died more tragically?”

“That’s correct. For example, dohs who die by natural causes or automobile accidents remain ‘ere for longer periods than ladies or other young people who are victims av suicide or disease.”

“Why?” I asked in confusion after swallowing some egg. “Who came up with that?”

Haydyn wrankled a bit and glared at me. “What? You got a problem with that?”

“Haydyn.” Siobhan laid a gentle hand on the girl’s arm. “’Tis not as if Levi ‘ere is de first person ter quesshun de ways ‘ere. Levi, we don’t quite nu why things in dis place work de way they chucker. Shoot, we proobably still don’t even nu al’ de nooks an’ crannies av dis gaff an’ dis field. It may seem confusin’, but dis is de way things are ‘ere. We ‘av al’ de grub we cud want, we ‘av al’ de comforts an’ objects we cud want, an’ we git ter kip ‘ere before we move on.”

“Move on where?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” the old man asked me with a sparkling grin. “Nobody knows. One of the great mysteries of life and whatever this place is.”

I turned back to my food and dropped the subject, settling for listening to the others eat and talk. Once everyone was done, Siobhan looked around at all the dishes and suddenly, they all vanished, any tablecloth messes immediately vanishing.

“Thanks, Mama,” the three little kids called before running out of the room and loudly clomping through the house.

The others thanked her as well and shuffled off to do whatever they wanted. Siobhan and Haydyn came up to where I was standing awkwardly against the wall, Siobhan reaching out the hand not holding a covered plate of food and saying, “Wud yer loike ter meet Juniper?”

“Uummm…do you think that would be a good idea?” I asked. “I mean, Alice mentioned that she’s fragile and I don’t wanna upset her.”

“Ah, ‘tis gran’ so. She prefers ter meet new people. Jist, not al’ at once. Cum on, nigh.” She held out her dark hand that was lighter on the palm.

I hesitated a moment before accepting her hand and letting her guide me up to the third floor, Haydyn right behind us. We eventually came to a blue-and-purple door with “Juniper” painted on it in swirling script.

Siobhan released my hand to knock gently on the door. “Juniper? Haydyn and I brought you some breakfast. We also brought the new person who’s been here since yesterday.”

“Come in,” a small voice said from inside the room.

Siobhan opened the door and slowly moved to a young girl sitting on the plush plum floor, her back against the simple bed, a large old-fashioned chest in front of her. Her thin arms curled around her thin legs as she stared into the chest, which I could see was filled with gems of all kinds: blue diamonds; white diamonds; rubies; sapphires; opals; tanzanite. It was almost overflowing with all the gems and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

Then Juniper turned to look at me and my heart fell. The girl looked like she was around twelve, but small for her age. Her face was small and round, her light brown eyes big and filled with red. There was enough light in the room that I could see faint tear tracks on her face. There was a sadness in her eyes unlike anything I had ever seen before, even with working as a nurse. If there was any light in the girl’s heart, I couldn’t see it. All I saw was pain and misery and darkness. It made me feel cold down to the core of my bones and I had no idea what to do or say in the face of such pain.

Siobhan and Haydyn knelt beside the wounded girl and Siobhan uncovered the dish of egg bake, French toast, and fruit salad.

“Thank you,” Juniper murmured in a soft, fragile voice, crossing her legs and taking the plate onto her lap, her hands shaking slightly.

“Juniper. Sweetheart.” Siobhan’s voice was pure silk, soft and cool and warm and comforting. She laid a hand on the girl’s bony shoulder and nodded towards me. “This is Levi.”

She looed at me again and I had to resist the urge to look away from her pained eyes. “How did you die?”

It takes me a moment to be able to respond to her. “U-umm…car crash.”

She nodded slowly, like I’d given her some great knowledge. “That’s a good death. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s, um…it’s nice to meet you, too.”

Haydyn got up from the floor and came to stand beside me. “She’s been here three days,” she murmured. “And she’s probably gonna be gone soon.”

“Why’s that?” I asked her, keeping my voice low even though I knew that Juniper could probably still hear us.

“She’s a suicide victim. They don’t stay for long.”

I looked at the girl and considered the pain in her eyes in a new light. It made sense. That kind of pain didn’t come easily. But she had all those jewels, which meant there were a lot of people who missed her. So, her life couldn’t have been all that bad. If there were so many people who loved her. That part didn’t make sense to me. Why was she in so much pain if she had so many people who loved her? Maybe the suicide was a stupid accident and she was now in pain because of that decision? He wanted to know more, but he didn’t think he could ask.

Juniper looked at me again, her eyes resigned like she knew what I was thinking and how curious I was. “Ask. Whatever you want.”

“Are…are you sure?” I asked her after a moment.

She nodded heavily. “Are you curious about how I killed myself, but have this?” She gestured to the chest full of gems.

“How did—?”

“Everyone wants to know.” She stares at me for a moment. “The answer is everyone loves you when you’re dead.”

I don’t know what to say to that and after some time, Haydyn started tugging my arm gently. I followed her out the door, where she turned back and said, “Bye, Juniper. Mama?”

“Yer go on, sweetheart. Oi’m jist gonna stay wi’ ‘er for a bit.”

“O-okay.” Haydyn gently closed the door and tugged me down the hallway a bit before letting me go. “What do you wanna do now?”

“Umm…. I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, whatever you wanna do, you can do. If you want me to come with you, I will.”

“No, no, I… I think I’ll be okay.”

“Okay. If you need me, I’ll be around.” She gave me another smile before heading down the hallway, leaving me alone in a strange house in a strange world.

-------------------------------------------

“Is it time for me to go?” Juniper asked Siobhan, a hint of hope in her delicate eyes and her gentle voice.

She smiled at the young girl and gestured to the plate in her lap. “Ayte yisser breakfast, sweetie. We’ll blather after dat.”

The girl’s eyes sparkled brighter and she finished her food in record time, setting aside the plate and turning to face Siobhan. “Is it time?”

She took Juniper’s face in her hands and just held it. Such a delicate, small little face, so full of pain, of sorrow. And it was time to let go of all that hurt.

She nodded. “Aye, love. ‘Tis time ter go.”

“Where am I going?”

“Well, if oi towl yer, dat wud spoil de surprise, wouldn’t it?” she gave a small chuckle and wiped away a small tear that had slipped out of Juniper’s eyes. “Don’t be shuk. You’re gonna be gran’. You’re ‘eading ‘um.”

Juniper gave her a shaky, hopeful smile, leaned into her touch, and closed her eyes.

Siobhan wrapped her arms around the small girl and pressed her lips to her forehead. Juniper started glowing with a warm, white light which grew until she was light instead of person. Then, the light faded and Juniper was gone. Siobhan smiled to herself, made the plate disappear, and looked out the large window. “Be at peace, my child.”