Shayla

She swung round…blinked once—twice—maybe a third time…and started backing away.

This is it, she was thinking wildly, this is the clincher. You’re not dead at all, you’re just having the mother of all nightmares. You’ll wake up any second now and you’ll be back home. In bed. Still alive. Believe it, you’ll wake up any second now. Any…second…now…

But it wasn’t a dream, she didn’t wake up, and the figure that stood before her stayed standing before her. And like this whole crazy Heaven-place-that-didn’t-make-sense, there were a few things about him that were not quite right.

There was his hair, long and white, spilling down over shoulders a little bent for someone supposed to be trying to convey an aura of celestial majesty. There was his beard, a mess of knots and tangles that was seriously out of keeping with even the blurriest image of cherubic faces and rosy cheeks. There were his clothes, little more than rags, his sandals so well-worn they seemed barely to be holding on to his feet. And there was that wooden staff, propping him up as though without it he might fall over at any moment. Whatever else he was, this guy was no angel.

She felt herself swallow hard, felt she ought to say something.

‘Er…Hi!’

He didn’t answer, just leaned on his staff and looked back at her. Hard. Like something about her was puzzling him. Like something about her, too, was not quite right.

‘You, uh…you made it, then,’ she went on tentatively.

This time, he did answer, his voice deep and gentle. ‘I was expected?’

‘Hey, come on! I’m not your normal everyday stiff-just-up-from-the-morgue, you know. I know about these things.’

‘Do you, now?’

‘It’s no big deal,’ she shrugged modestly. ‘I just read all the right books, that’s all.’

‘Indeed. Then you will hardly be needing me to tell you more.’

He turned and started shuffling away. Shayla gaped after him, couldn’t believe he was doing this. ‘But…Hey! Where are you going!’

The old man stopped and turned to face her. ‘There is something you need?’ he asked simply.