Total recall meant it was time to resume my conversation with Ted and Lillian about the Professor Norax legacy. They said they couldn't tell me until I'd worked out I was dead, but now that I had we could talk freely. They were surprised to learn that I'd been born a girl, but acknowledged that as I was all man in the afterlife it really was my true gender. They both got a kick out of the story of my first magic assistant. And Ted was very interested to hear what I knew about Professor T.B. Norax from my magic history research.

If you haven't figured it out yet (I had an inkling but couldn't be certain until he confirmed it), Ted Braxton, proprietor of Professor Norax's Wonder Emporium, and Professor Thomas Bradley Norax, British magician from the turn of the century and author of some of the books I'd studied over the years, were one and the same person. He'd died in the 1930s and kicked around the post-mortal plane ever since. I was amazed and delighted to meet someone who had worked in the golden age of magic, the classic era that had inspired me so much through the books I had read. We talked and talked for hours, I picked his brain about the business back then, the differences in creative processes and attitudes, the great names of the past he'd met and worked with ("good choice naming yourself after Devant," he said. "Did you know the Magic Circle kicked him out twice, even though he was their president?"). And he told me about his death, in a freak bullet catch accident that he maintained was no accident. Some of the books he'd published had contained exposés of fake fortune tellers and mystics of the time, any one of whom could have arranged to have him taken out.

Lillian meanwhile started out as acircus performer before her career was derailed by a severe training accident that left her unable to perform for a year, during which time she developed an addiction to opioid painkillers. She moved into sideshow and burlesque performance  with a little fetish modelling on the side, which she found unexpectedly lucrative. "Who knew I could make £300 a day for just sitting on balloons?" she said.

She developed a successful cabaret act featuring contortionism, fire eating and midway stunts like hammering nails up her nose and attacking a metal corset with an angle grinder. One of her trademark dances took place around a French guillotine, with her posing beneath the falling blade at various points as it dropped within millimeters of her body. It was all going well for her until her opioid addiction developed further and led her on to heroin, which brought her into contact with a criminal gang who exploited her addiction and forced her into some altogether nastier video productions with decidedly illegal plots and eroded levels of consent. With the help of an undercover police officer she almost got away and was ready to help bring down the gang, but both officer and informant were betrayed, recaptured and dealt with viciously and permanently. Upon reaching the post-mortal plane she met Ted, became his assistant and rediscovered her passion for performing, hitting total recall a short while later.

Compared to these two, my life had been quite pedestrian. Both their stories contained brutal tragedy tempered with a positive determination to fight the universe for their own terms. They warned me to be on the lookout for beings on this plane whose job it was to move spirits on to  the final destination, a prospect which appealed to neither of them –  Ted because he was an atheist (a position he managed to retain despite being in the actual afterlife) and Lillian because she'd had enough of being passed around and exploited by people who didn't have her best interests at heart.

"The first thing you notice about them is that they come in threes," said Ted. "Usually they're running some sort of business or club, something you'd sign up to and put your trust in. There'll be a big boss who sets it all up, a maintainer who keeps everything ticking along and  then a deliverer that sends you packing once they're done with you. I don't think they're evil or anything, they're just doing a job of work. But that job of work happens to be persuading souls that death isn't so bad and they should just give up. I can't be doing with that on  principle, and Lillian..."
"The last time I got caught by something like that," she said, "it came in a little syringe that brought comfort and obliteration in rapid order, and I'm never putting myself in that position again."
"Between us we're building our own little heaven right here, where we can be the artists we want to be on our own terms," said Ted. "If we're lost souls, we're staying bloody lost. We'd love for you to be a part of it, if there's nowhere else you have to be."

I was happy to, the setup was just like where I'd started in Pete's magic shop, with a lovely little theatre attached where I could perform whatever I liked. I had everything I ever wanted here, I couldn't imagine heaven being anything else. And for all their dark concerns about being moved on, the universe had seemed strangely compliant in their supposed act of rebellion. Ted had bought the shop and attached theatre through a string of lucky coincidences after decades of obsessively avoiding the trinities, shortly after meeting Lillian. For some reason the furious face of my Mother crossed my mind, but what  registered was the words she was saying:
God does not make mistakes.

The next day I went for a long walk to explore my surroundings with new eyes. This world was almost identical to the one I remembered from my life, with only subtle differences you had to look hard to spot, like in a dreamscape. For one thing, there were no churches, religious buildings or schools – I went by places I'd remembered them being and found just generic buildings. People milled about with no obvious concern. There were no families or  children that I saw, I thought that maybe the schools had been moved elsewhere. But then I thought back and realised that the kid in the shop had been the first child I'd seen in a long time.

I ended up sitting on a park bench overlooking a pretty lake, when I became aware of someone sitting on the bench beside me. I hadn't seen her arrive, but I recognised her as the girl who'd triggered my recall in Ted's magic shop. She looked about twelve, in a grey school dress  liberally decorated with punky pin badges. She smiled and waved at me.
"Dianne?" I asked.
"Actually my name's Triana," said the girl. "Was Dianne your name once?"
I gave a start, then reluctantly concurred.
"It's OK," said Triana. "Mine was David. The important word is 'was', for both of us."
This was a strange conversation. As I looked at Triana I saw a child, but  there was something else about her, something deeper, older, eerier.
"Are you one of those beings Ted told me about?" I asked. "The ones trying to move us on to the next plane?"
"In a word, yes," she replied, "but there are a few things your boss has the wrong end of the stick about."
"Like all the weird coincidences giving him what he needs to build his little slice of heaven?"
"Yes, that," said Triana. "This is a place for spirits to work things out, but not everyone moves on to somewhere else. It's up to individual spirits, what they truly believe they deserve and any special purposes the universe has for them. There aren't any churches because faith needs  to be personal, the time for organised religion was on the mortal  plane. And I'm the only child because children don't generally die with the kinds of issues that are sorted out here. I'm only here like this because the universe had a job for me to do; I died aged twelve, woke up with the ability to see certain things, then got guided to where I needed to be. That was about six years ago in relative time, so I only  look twelve, I'm eighteen really. In case you're wondering, I was never what you'd call a normal kid, either as a boy or as a girl."
"I can tell," I said. "Who were those people I thought were your parents in the shop?"
"My  actual parents. Lovely people, trans affirming, let me be myself. But not safe motorway drivers, as it turned out. It's nice that we all came  here together so they could help me figure things out and teach me the stuff I never had a chance to learn, but it's in the back of my mind that they might move on eventually, once they know that I'm settled. I hope they don't. I sense auras, you see, it's how I know when spirits are ready to go."
"How close am I?" I asked.
"You're 'not applicable'," said Triana. "By the way, which do you prefer, 'God' or 'The Universe'?"
"Let's go with God," I said. "I feel like I have a bone to pick with that guy."
I told them about my parents dragging me to church, denying my transition, telling me over and over that God makes no mistakes.
"Who said you were a mistake?" asked Triana.
I thought about it. "They did."
"What if they were the ones arguing with God?"
That was a fair point.

We were joined by a man and a woman who turned out to be Triana's parents. They introduced themselves as Bob and Stephanie, we shook hands and Triana stood up to join them. I told them about the parallels with Triana's appearance in the shop and my own pivotal encounter with Peter Mazing all those years ago.
"I'm glad we had this chat," said Triana. "Keep doing what you're doing, I'll be watching how you get on. I'll come to the shop when I can, but I can't let Ted and Lillian figure me out yet, they still need to work out some things and they'll hunker down if they think anyone's trying to influence them."
I told her I'd help any way I could. Ted had commented on the family's previous visit, but he thought it was the parents who were acting suspicious. I think he was more concerned than  suspicious when he saw Triana, so I suggested she come back alone like I had to Pete's shop. I had a feeling she'd make a good student and it would be a good way to sneak her in with Ted and Lillian.
"Thank-you, I will," said Triana. "Do whatever  you can to keep everything calm and positive over there, if the universe  starts sending you strange signals take the hint and go with it. See  you soon, Darryl De'Vante."

Her parents stood and smiled through all of that, in the manner of  proud, loving parents who know their offspring have gone way beyond  their own understanding and now just want to support them, to love them, to see them fulfilled.
It was one of the most beautiful things I have  ever seen.