According to Jack’s new pocket watch it was 4:55 a.m. when the poets dropped him off at the intersection of Second Avenue and Eighty-second Street. On the way there, they had sailed through the glass front of a costume shop and snatched up a disguise—a tweed jacket, black wig, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. “Where you’re going you’ll need to wear these,” said Todd. “You’re a wanted man.”
By New York standards, 247 East Eighty-second Street was a small building—four stories high with large arched windows on the second floor. Carved into the stone above a heavy wooden door were the words
THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY
. Jack tried to open the door, but it was locked. He stood uncertainly in front of it, trying to figure out a way in.
“You look new,” said a squeaky voice behind him.
Jack turned around and saw a skinny ghost with buckteeth wearing a poodle skirt.
“Don’t worry,” she continued. “The sessions aren’t bad. And Dr. Brill is really dreamy.”
Jack wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but he suddenly had an idea. “Hey,” he said. “Do you mind if I hold your hand?”
“First time? Feeling nervous? Sure!”
She took his hand and pulled him through the door into a musty-smelling lobby decorated with black-andwhite photos of wood-paneled, book-lined doctor’s studies, a blue leather couch, and a vase of fake red peonies. Three easel boards announced the previous evening’s events—Curiosity and Crisis:The Mother Paradigm and the Emerging Self, a lecture by Norman Kahlman, PhD, in the Auditorium; Dream and Desire:The Manifestation of the Superego During REM Sleep, a discussion with Axel Rottenspiegel, MD, in the second-floor conference room; and Confronting the “I” in Immortality, a postmortem support group lead by Abraham Brill, PhD, MD, in room 403 (from dusk till dawn, by previous referral only).
“Your hand is really warm,” the ghost remarked. “Did you just die or something?”
Jack nodded and let go of her hand. “Is there an elevator?” he asked, noting only a set of curving stairs. He could feel her eyes on him.
“There’s a little one around the corner. But Dr. Brill says that elevators are for living people,” she said. “He doesn’t like us to use them. Sure you don’t want to float up with me?”
“That’s okay,” said Jack as he darted past her. “I’ll just meet you up there.”
He needed a few moments alone. As he rode up on the tiny elevator, he tried to drain any emotion from his eyes—which according to Todd were still his greatest liability—and made one final adjustment to his wig. Then he stepped out into the hall and nearly crashed into a guard.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground.
“You’re late!” snarled the guard.
Jack kept his eyes downcast. “Sorry. Where is ...?”
“Down the hall,” the guard said in an annoyed voice.
Jack scurried to the door at the end of the hall. Just as he reached it, he could hear a German-accented voice on the other side. “Now, you are all here for a reason. Maybe you don’t realize that reason yet. Maybe you think there’s nothing wrong with not accepting death. But as Herr Freud once said . . .”
Jack slowly opened the door, which elicited a loud and embarrassing squeak.
A dozen or so ghosts were floating in a circle, including the girl in the poodle skirt, who gave him a little wave. At the head of the circle was a stooped old ghost in a tweedy jacket much like Jack’s own. He studied Jack and chewed on the end of his pipe. “May I help you?”
But Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the ghost sitting next to the doctor. There were six red tooth marks on her neck and she was picking at the threads in her short plaid skirt and looking down into her lap with a sullen expression.
“Don’t be shy,” the doctor said in a dispassionate voice. “We are all patients here. Float into the circle.”
Jack froze. “I’d rather stand, thank you.”
“This denial of your immortality is very unhealthy, Herr ...”
“Uhm . . . Jones.”
“Very well, Herr Jones. Stand for now. Shall we all introduce ourselves and say why we are here?”
Euri was still peering down at her skirt; her fingers were picking away at the material at an even faster pace than before. Jack wished that she’d look up.
“I shall start,” said the doctor. “My name is Abraham Brill. I am the posthumous president and founder of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, which is devoted to the teachings of Dr. Sigmund Freud. I have been working with those in denial of their own death for over half a century. Many of my patients are referred to me after attempts to end their own death. But the good news is that more than half of these patients move on to Elysium after a year of my sessions.” Dr. Brill turned to Euri.
“Young lady, you are new to our group. Would you like to start?”
“Me?” asked Euri, without looking up.
“Yes, Fraülein, you,” said the doctor.
“My name is Euri.”
“Euri,” said Dr. Brill. “A shortening of the name of Eurydice, Orpheus’s wife in Greek mythology. He tried to bring her back from the underworld. This is not your real name, is it?”
“No,” mumbled Euri. For a moment she was silent, but Dr. Brill waited patiently for her to continue. “It’s Deirdre,” she finally said.
Jack started, remembering the name on the construction-paper angel, the name scrawled across her dress. He had been right all along. The only people who would save a simple, careworn ornament like that, who would hang it near the top of the tree, were parents— Deirdre’s parents.
“Deirdre,” said Dr. Brill. “How did you die?”
“It was an accident,” Euri said in a fierce voice that made Jack feel relieved she was still herself.
“As Herr Freud said, there are no accidents. It’s important for the whole group that you are honest about this.”
“Suicide,” whispered Euri.
Dr. Brill showed no reaction. “You took your own life, and now you want to live again.”
Euri nodded.
“This obsession with life is a way for you to avoid facing your problems,” Dr. Brill mused, “just as your obsession with death was an avoidance mechanism when you were alive. What you need to remember, Fraülein, is that life and death are just states of the body, not solutions.”
Euri began to cry.
“That’s okay, honey,” said a fat, middle-aged ghost in a housedress. She floated over to give Euri a tissue. “We’ve all been there.”
Jack wished he could let her know that he was there. He stared at her hard. She turned up her chin, and for a split second her gaze met his own. Jack couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw her smile.
He tried to catch her eye again, but he suddenly realized that Dr. Brill was looking at him. “Herr Jones,” he said. “Would you like to talk about your death?”
Jack cleared his throat. “Not really.”
“This is a place to confront your feelings about being dead, Herr Jones.”
Before he could stop himself, Jack muttered, “But I’m not dead.”
“I knew it,” said the ghost in the poodle skirt. “He still thinks he’s alive.”
Dr. Brill sighed. “You are in deep denial.”
A skinny ghost in a rumpled suit and fedora raised his hand. “Yes, Mr. Crumwalter?” said Dr. Brill.
“Arnie Crumwalter,” said the ghost to the rest of the group. “Like I was saying last night, I just can’t stop haunting my wife. She wouldn’t lift a finger when I was alive, but now that she’s married to that windbag ...”
As Crumwalter prattled on, Jack tried to catch Euri’s gaze. He had to talk to her.
It’s me,
he telegraphed in his head.
Suddenly Euri raised her hand.
“Yes, Deirdre,” said Dr. Brill.
“I need another tissue,” she said with a loud sob.
Dr. Brill pointed to the door. “There’s a ladies’ room in the hallway.”
Euri floated down and disappeared through the door. Jack knew he had to figure out a way to join her. “Oh no!” he said.
Everyone except Arnie Crumwalter, who was still talking, turned to look at him. “What is it?” asked Dr. Brill.
Jack cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Is this the ‘Orpheus Dilemma: Solving the Problem of Eros and Mortality?’”
“No,” said Dr. Brill. “This is ‘Confronting the I in Immortality.’ I don’t recall us teaching that . . .”
“It’s on Thursdays,” said Jack, slowly backing toward the door. “I must have come to the wrong session. I’m so sorry....”
He opened the door, stepped out and shut it behind him.
The hallway was empty. He was relieved to see that the guard had disappeared. “Euri?” he whispered.
A hand pulled him though a bathroom door. The next thing he knew a pair of skinny arms were wrapped around his neck. “You came back for me!” she whispered in his ear. “Oh, why did you come back for me? You don’t have enough time to find your mother now. You shouldn’t have done it. But you came back for me! Oh, Jack, you really care, don’t you? I thought I was going to be stuck in therapy forever! I knew it was you, though you look so funny....”
Jack unwrapped her arms and turned around to face her. “I know where she is.”
“Your mom?”
“Yes. There’s another City Hall station.” He pulled out the pocket watch. “It’s 5:13 a.m. If you help me fly there, we can still make it.”
Suddenly the door to the bathroom swung open and a light shined in his eyes. Jack squinted and covered his face with his arm. “It’s over,” said a booming voice. A pair of thuggish guards grabbed him roughly by the arms and hauled him into the hallway. A third guard seized Euri, clapping his hand over her mouth. Floating in the middle of the hallway, thumping his nightstick against his palm, was Clubber. The guards dragged Jack and Euri in front of him. Clubber shoved his nightstick under Jack’s chin, forcing him to lift it, and his flat, empty eyes bored into Jack’s. “Well, I see why you’ve fooled us for so long,” he said in a cold, quiet voice.
“Where’s Cerberus?” asked one of the guards holding Jack.
“Who cares?” said Clubber. “He’s wanted alive
or
dead.”
“It’s procedure,” mumbled the guard.
“Procedure?” said Clubber, swinging around to face the alarmed-looking guard. He held up his nightstick. “This is all the procedure I need.” He grabbed Jack away from the guards and dragged him to a small window facing the street. Euri began to squirm and fight, but the guard held her tight. “Get his feet,” Clubber ordered the now red-faced guard who had dared mention procedure. He turned to the other guards. “We’re going to have some fun, boys.”
The guard holding Euri shook one beefy hand in the air. “Hell, she bit me!”
“Help!” Euri screamed. “They’re going to kill him!”
The ghosts from Dr. Brill’s session spilled into the hallway.
“They’re going to kill him!” Euri shrieked.
“Deirdre,” said Dr. Brill in his calm voice. “There is nothing to fear. Herr Jones is dead already.”
“No, he’s not!” Euri screamed. “No, he’s not!”
Clubber stepped out onto a small wrought-iron metal balcony, dragging Jack through the window with him. The guard holding his feet joined them. Then they began to swing him back and forth, working up momentum. Jack’s eyes widened as he got a dizzying glance of the apartment house across the street and the asphalt forty feet below. He tried to struggle, but they held him tight, swinging him faster and faster. “You seem to like it so much here,” Clubber finally hissed in Jack’s ear. “So stay!”
Jack tried to slip out of their hands, but they swung him once, twice, a third time before pitching him into the air.
The wind whistled in Jack’s ears as he was catapulted several stories up and then began to fall. His wig tumbled off and his glasses fell away. He tried to twist his body around so his feet were beneath him, but his backpack was weighing him down and he was traveling too quickly. As he tumbled headfirst toward the asphalt below, he became aware of the smallest things—the smell of frying eggs, a light turning on in an apartment across the street, Euri’s continuing screams from above. Even though he knew death was nothing to be afraid of, he was surprised by how much he wanted to live.
I’m not ready, he thought, closing his eyes.
A snowflake hit his nose and melted. He opened his eyes and realized he was slowing down. Another snowflake tumbled past him. He was hanging in the air. He looked down at the street, ten feet below, and then up at the sky, where snow had begun to fall in a dizzying burst. The guard who had held his feet was staring down from the balcony. “Look at that!” he shouted. “He’s
not
alive!” Clubber’s stunned face appeared next to the guard’s.
Jack took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was relieved that he hadn’t crashed to the ground. He flapped his arms and began to lurch higher. Then he gave a kick and burst up toward the balcony like a firework. “I’m coming in!” he shouted.
Even Clubber stood back. “He’s not alive,” he repeated as Jack shimmied past him through the window.
“Of course he’s not alive,” said Dr. Brill with a cross look. “I told Deirdre that. He has bigger problems than being alive—some sort of personality disorder.” Turning to Jack, he added, “You are not Herr Jones, are you?”
In his surprise, the other guard had let go of Euri, who looked even more rattled than he did. Jack ran over to her and pulled her out to the balcony, floating up to perch on the railing.
“Stop him!” ordered Dr. Brill. “Deirdre is a very fragile patient. She should not be allowed out!”
Clubber shook himself out of his daze and lunged at Euri, but before he could grab her, Jack pulled her off the railing and dove into the whirling snow. The snowflakes settled on their hair and eyelids as they began to climb. For the first time, Jack was leading the way. He caught a wind gust and they sailed fast over the city, heading downtown.
Euri stayed unusually silent, though every few minutes he caught her looking at him. Suddenly she pulled away her hand. Jack’s stomach instinctively tightened, but he kept on flying alongside her. Euri looked at him, her eyes wide. “Jack, are you dead?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I never hit the street.” He looked at the pocket watch. “And there’s no other reason I should be. It’s 5:26 a.m. There are still almost two hours to sunrise.”
“But you can fly without my help. Maybe you’re starting to die. You should go back now.”
Jack shook his head. “We still have time to find my mom. And anyway, this isn’t the first time this has happened. In the library, before you grabbed my hand, I floated. . . .”
“But, Jack, you didn’t just float this time. You flew. No living person can do that unassisted.”
For a brief moment, Jack wondered whether he’d been dead from the moment the car had hit him in New Haven. Floating, the ghosts at the hospital, the trip to New York, Dr. Lyons, even Euri—maybe they were all just figments of his afterlife. But he didn’t feel dead. And even the guards had been certain he was alive.
Below, he spotted Centre Street and flew into the entrance to the City Hall Station. Downstairs on the platform a train rumbled to a stop. He grabbed Euri’s hand. “Todd said the old City Hall station was just south of the existing one. Come on.”
He flew down the stairs and pulled Euri onto the train just as the doors closed. There was no one else on it.
“What are you doing?” Euri asked as the train jerked forward and picked up speed. She took the pocket watch out of his hand. “There’s not enough time. If there’s even a chance you’re still alive, we need to get you back down to the underworld so you can retrace your steps to track sixty-one. That’s the only way for you to get back to the living world.”
“Which fountain will get us closest to the tunnel that leads back to track sixty-one?”
“The Lowell fountain in Bryant Park.”
“Fine, we’ll fly there then as soon as the train . . . Wait, look!”
He jammed his finger against the window. The train was rolling by a station platform. Above it were vaulted ceilings made of colorful tiles that reminded him of the ones at the Oyster Bar. Chandeliers hung down from them, emitting a phosphorescent light. Under a white-tile arch he could see a set of stairs. “That’s it!” he shouted. Jack leaned against the door. He felt himself fall forward through it and tumble off the moving train onto the platform. Euri tumbled off after him. They lay on the ground as the train disappeared around a bend.
“You can go through walls by yourself too,” Euri said. “You weren’t even holding my hand.”
Jack stood up and dusted himself off. “I wasn’t, was I?”
“I guess that’s why you were able to see me in Grand Central—you were already dead. Go on. I’ll stay here. You go find your mom.”
Jack looked at her sprawled on the ground. If he was dead—and he still wasn’t sure he was— he realized that he didn’t feel particularly sad about it. He felt worse for Euri. He knelt down and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Euri wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. “It was silly to think you could bring me back. It never would have worked out, anyway.”
Jack hated to hear her admit what she had been hoping for, because it meant she had given up. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t figure out what to say to make her feel better. He stood up. “I’ll be back soon.”
Euri shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Take your time.”
He ran down the platform to the white arch and up the short flight of stairs. Before him was an elaborately tiled room with an arched roof. “Hello?” he said softly. His voice echoed against the tile, pleading for an answer.