It usually took more than a light tap tap tap to rouse me from sleep, yet that was precisely the noise which dragged me away from my nap and back into the land of the living.

Or the dead.

Whatever.

I lifted my head slowly and felt my back and neck crick and crack, relieved to be out of the uncomfortable position they'd been forced to maintain in sleep. I'd expected to see a Reaper. It was my understanding that the study room was used by them all whenever they had a chance of a break from their duties. Leon wouldn't have knocked, but the others seemed too polite to wake me if they caught me napping. Then again, Lola was a bundle of energy. She probably would've crashed through the door singing to herself without any consideration to whoever was inside.

Colour me surprised when, instead of a soul-ferrying spirit, I was confronted with the vision of the girl I'd seen on Earth. At the time I'd written her off as a kid who just happened to be able to see me. I mean, people in movies said that children were more in tune with the supernatural. Kind of like animals. It didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that she knew we were there. Hell, it was just as realistic to think that she'd been a ghost lingering on in the veil.

It hadn't crossed my mind that she'd followed us through from The Beyond.

Then again, she might have followed us from Earth back through the gate. I hadn't noticed her slip by when we'd returned to the station, but I'd been preoccupied with keeping Leon from bleeding to death at the time. Not death. Look, you know what I mean. Clearly, the author hasn't quite thought this glaring plot hole through so I can hardly be expected to keep track. Believe me, I'll be lodging a complaint about how nonsensical this entire plot is becoming.

Once I had a chance to examine her properly, it was a wonder that I'd considered her to be anything but paranormal. Her resemblance to an old-fashioned doll didn't go amiss. Porcelain skin, black hair, and eyes so large and inquisitive they were disarming in the most chilling way. Taking the lingering silence as an invitation, she stepped into the room, her gaze darting to the dark corners as though suspicious someone might be hidden in the shadows.

"Are you lost?" I asked.

The girl said nothing. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when she approached and reached out with her fragile fingers. They were splayed and expectant. When I didn't move, she furled and unfurled them, snatching at the air pointedly. My little sister used to do the same when she wanted people to take her hand and either couldn't or wouldn't communicate it with words. I stood from the chair and reached down. Happily, she gripped one of my fingers and tugged me to the door. She was deceptively strong for a child, and I didn't trust that I could easily pull my hand free and return to the study. It wouldn't be impossible, of course, but I couldn't help but believe she'd break one or more of my fingers in her grip if I tried.

The last jaunt I'd taken into the corridors and tube system had led to me getting lost. It was only thanks to Clark's intervention that I hadn't been condemned to a hundred years of aimlessly meandering through beige office blocks. I didn't believe that Leon would've come looking for me in that time. In fact, he'd have done all in his power to ensure that I stayed lost. The Reaper was hardly my biggest fan even if he had saved my neck a couple of times.

That being the case, I didn't think I should be leading the girl anywhere because we were sure to spend an eternity walking aimlessly without a single soul coming to find us. I was half tempted to apologise and suggest that she find someone else to drag along in her wake. Someone with a better sense of direction who didn't need to read three billion books before their boss got back from wherever they'd gone. One look down at the back of her head and I lost the nerve to tell her to leave me alone. Not only was it the second time that she'd tried to get my attention, but she reminded me so much of my little sister that the idea of letting her go off and get into trouble or danger in The Beyond made my chest ache with guilt. I supposed if we got back before Leon knew I'd gone missing then it wouldn't be so bad, and I could make a concerted effort to focus on where I was actually going this time around.

Not that I should've worried about any of that. Even if I was prone to getting mixed up and turned around, the child clearly knew where she was going. With purpose and determination, we marched onward through the afterlife, right back to the bustling yet eerily quiet station where souls marched to trains, Reapers guided their charges to their destinations, and the lost and forgotten cried silently until they crumbled away to nothing but dust and memories.

Being a Reaper seemed to negate the need to buy tickets for the trains. That, or I was going to be pulled up by my superiors for fare dodging before the end of the book. The girl wasn't at all concerned about looking at arrival and departure boards. She headed straight for a platform and pulled me aboard a waiting train. We sat in silence until she pulled me out at another station, onto another, and once more into the cavernous underground when we arrived at our final destination. It was a place that was becoming familiar to me, the case worker offices. The magnolia and beige were as bland and dreary as my last visit, and the lack of signage still irked me. I understood that anyone who worked there long enough would gain an innate sense of direction, but to a visitor it was a labyrinth of mundanity that they might never escape.

Despite my numerous protestations that we ought to stop, the girl didn't slow her pace. If anything, she became all the more determined to see that we reached her goal. We took corners sharply and abruptly, twisting and changing course so many times that it made me dizzy. We were practically jogging before I dug in my heels and ordered, "Stop! I can't keep going! If Leon gets back and finds that I'm not –" I paused upon taking in our surroundings. I'd been so focused on the back of the girl's head that I hadn't paid any mind to the change in décor. The girl released me so that I could stand properly and take it in.

Our surroundings were elegant. I'd have gone as far as to call them whimsical, in fact. The ceiling was arched and painted with clouds and cherubs like something out of a palace. Upon the white walls were gilded frames which surrounded oil portraits of stern men and women, all of whom were surrounded by adoring mortals who'd fallen at their feet. Some had larger frames than others as if they were somehow more important. To my left was a creature more beast than man, with four faces surrounded by light. To the right seven men stood with golden halos in deep discussion with one another, the paint cracked and flaking from the canvas. Marble plinths proudly displayed religious relics and decadent golden artefacts which would make a museum curator weep with joy. I felt guilty for shouting in such a place. I was suddenly conscious of everything around me. It was like being in a library or a fancy manor house, where you felt so out of place with everything around you that you were sure your every move was being watched and scrutinised.

The child held out her hand for mine, flexing her fingers impatiently. Nervously, I allowed her to cling to me once more. Before we started, I warned, "If someone finds us here and says we're trespassing or something, I'm blaming you. Got that?"

She nodded, and we were off once again. Our pace had slowed to a walk, and I was able to better appreciate the faces of the men and women whose pictures we passed. There was a certain sense of superiority in their expressions, as if they were well aware that they were better than the people they were looking down upon from the walls and were quite proud of the fact. The end of the corridor widened, the walls curving out and opening the way into a circular room. A gallery was above us, surrounded with golden railings for the protection of the robed men who drifted idly around it, totally ignorant of our presence. A grand staircase dominated the room, an audacious golden statement piece which led up to an equally flashy door guarded by a single man. He stood as stoic as one of the Queen's guards outside of Buckingham Palace, eyes straight ahead, arms by his sides, and a crown of golden ivy about his head.

The door itself was something to be marvelled at. While the majority of it was made of dark wood, a bright, golden tree which seemed to pulse with warmth and light decorated the middle. The branches reached out to surround various gemstones. At the top was a golden crescent moon cradling a blazing sun which rotated back and forth slowly in place as if sentient and bored of being an idle decoration. Open mouthed, I found myself walking in a daze towards the staircase, pulled by the pulse on a subconscious level. It was only when the girl tugged on my jacket that I snapped out of it and backed away. Whatever was behind those doors was calling to me. The last time I'd felt such a pull I'd found myself face to face with Alistair. I wasn't about to make the same mistake.

Our destination was behind a door nowhere near so grand. It was made of light wood, the planks in a herringbone design and the handle made from brass. The girl opened it without knocking, and I followed her into what I thought would be an office as small as Clark's.

How wrong I was.

I ought to have realised that nothing in the afterlife was as it first appeared. The room was a library as grand as any I'd ever been in. It appeared fresh out of a mansion or expensive university. The cases stretched so high that ladders had been mounted to rails so the reader might reach the top shelves, plush velvet wingback chairs had been positioned at the ends of the aisles so that one might hide and enjoy the books in peace, and a roaring fire blazed in a hearth at the head of the room beneath an enormous portrait of a bearded man in a flowing red robe.

The girl let go of my fingers and ran from me, darting in between the shelves until I was left completely alone. I hesitated in calling out to her. If I was discovered in such a place without my guide then I'd have no one to place the blame onto. Believe me; I wasn't above pointing the finger at a little girl when she really was the one responsible for leading me to the library in the first place.

If I was going down, then she was going with me.

A figure loomed overhead in the gallery, approaching the top of a spiral staircase. I hurried to conceal myself in the shadow cast by one of the impressive bookshelves, peering out at whoever he might be as he descended to the ground floor. Despite my confidence in my hiding place, the man still spoke out in a voice which echoed throughout the room. "There's no point in hiding when you have been invited, Mackenzie. Come out and join me, won't you?"

I didn't recall receiving an invitation, and it made me wonder if it was a trap. I didn't have the confidence in my ability to sneak away to give it a try, so I reluctantly crept back out into the light, smiling nervously at the stranger who was the very picture of the man in the portrait overlooking the room. I glanced up at it and back down to him. The likeness was uncanny. It was practically a photograph.