BEFORE THE EVOLUTION COMES THE SMOKE

Magda clutched the red satchel to her chest, trying not to breathe in too deeply the stench of hard pressed bodies and vomit. If only she’d had the money to book a private transport to Orbital Station Six instead of using the public courtesy shuttle.

She breathed as shallowly as she could through her mouth as she looked around at the dozen or so other pinched and nervous faces, all apparently as overawed as she to be on their way to meet the witch face to face. From somewhere toward the back of the transport, the sound of retching continued.

When she’d booked the ticket from Iada and indicated she needed to rendezvous with the Orbital Station Six shuttle, the chat bot had typed back, “Pardon?” She’d never seen a technical script express surprise before. It had transferred her to a video chat with a human agent, who had raised an eyebrow, speculation reflected in his dark eyes as the last of the credits in her account counted down, one by one, as they transferred to the travel agency.

When they’d checked her in at the transfer station and when she’d boarded the transport, the attendants all looked at her the same way. Surprise. Speculation. Doubt. They’d all looked at her with the same question: Why her? Why her wish? Of all the millions of petitions directed at Piscinarius, why had the great wizard of the deep chosen to grant her an audience?

Why let a little thing like dying get in the way of a good time?

Thirty-six-year-old Irene Dunphy didn't plan on dying any time soon, but that’s exactly what happens when she makes the mistake of getting behind the wheel after a night bar-hopping with friends. She finds herself stranded on earth as a ghost, where the food has no taste, the alcohol doesn’t get you drunk, and the sex...well, let’s just say “don’t bother.” To make matters worse, the only person who can see her—courtesy of a book he found in his school library—is a fourteen-year-old boy genius obsessed with the afterlife.

Unfortunately, what waits in the Great Beyond isn’t much better. Stuck between the boring life of a ghost in this world and the terrifying prospect of three-headed hell hounds, final judgment, and eternal torment in the next, Irene sets out to find a third option—preferably one that involves not being dead anymore.