Free In Your Dreams by Gina Ardito

personality, but nice eyes.”
    “Is Mr. Martino
giving you difficulty?”
    “Difficulty?
Well, lemme see.” She counted on her fingers. “He’s bitter, angry, stubborn,
and disrespectful. But difficult? Nah. He’s a piece of cake.”
    Once again,
Uriah remained passive, despite her sarcastic edge. “Have you spoken to him about
his past? About why he’s here?”
    “No. You made it
pretty clear he wasn’t Mr. Popularity when you assigned him to my department. I
don’t need any trouble. So long as he does his job, I don’t care about his past
or why he’s here. This ain’t no church social. He stays out of my way, and I’ll
stay out of his.”
    “The Board and I
would prefer you worked more closely together.”
    Suspicion
bounced inside her like popcorn kernels on hot oil. “Why?”
    At last, she got
a rise out of him. His eyes narrowed to feline slits. “It is not your place to
question the Board’s directives, merely to follow them.”
    The damn Board.
Nothing she’d ever seen in the bible or heard in church had prepared her for
the Afterlife. Along with learning about the lack of heaven and hell, she had to
come to grips with the Board. Not God, but the same general idea. If God did
exist, He held no sway here. The Board—so named because all beings in the
Afterlife received communications through the magical clipboards they were
required to carry—had full control. Even the Council of Elders answered to that
same enigmatic power.
    In some ways,
the Board made sense to Xavia. Grammy used to tell her, “Only the righteous
shall look upon the face of God.” In that case, anyone stuck here—the suicides
and other assorted losers—certainly hadn’t lived a righteous life on Earth. So
why not make them communicate with the Almighty through impulses delivered via
a clipboard to their fingers—rather than with face-to-face dialogue?
    Uriah’s scrutiny
burned holes through her, a stark reminder he expected her surrender. As usual.
She didn’t disappoint. She sighed. “Okay, fine. How close do you want me and
Sean to be? Like babysitter-close? Am I supposed to keep him from sticking his
fingers into electrical outlets?”
    “As close as
necessary for you to communicate without animosity. We believe you and he can
learn from each other.”
    “Yeah? What’s he
gonna teach me? How to be snotty?”
    “I would say you
already excel in that area.”
    She squirmed,
but said nothing.
     
    ~~~~
     
    With Isabelle
safe in the hands of her friends, Sean believed he had enough free time for a
quick visit to Reception. The kid was probably long gone by now. But Sean
wouldn’t rest until he’d tried to track the kid down, to verify what his
instincts suspected. First, though, he’d jump to his room at the Halfway House
for his clipboard. He’d prefer his own over Xavia’s, which gave off the same
angry vibes as its owner. Go figure.
    In any event, he
couldn’t work surrounded by rage, especially not when another woman’s life hung
in the balance. He might be long dead—his former vocation a blip on the charts
of time. But the NYPD motto he’d lived by, Fidelis Ad Mortem , still
defined him, as long as he could remember the words and their meaning: Faithful
Until Death. Or into death. Or beyond death.
    On the sneak, he
checked out the other probation officers. All had their attention riveted to
their clipboards and took no notice of him. Just as well. None of them could
mark his absence and time his disappearance. Sean would do this fast. If the
boss lady came back before he took care of his errands, he’d use the clipboard
excuse to explain his AWOL status. Mind made up, he slipped into a quiet corner
of the open space. After spinning into astral dust, he poured from his new desk
to his old shabby room with its harvest gold carpet, barren walls, and the
bitter memories of loss.
    When he landed
near the bed, he collided face-first with an invisible wall. He pulled back
slowly, gauging the changes. Had he