Acheron Falls

Of the many words Elizabeth Dane would have used to describe her life, 'posthumous' was probably farthest down the list. So it came as some surprise to her when a fateful car accident vaulted it right to the top, not to mention vaulting her right into Heaven.

Not one to be deterred by something as inconvenient as death, Ellie quickly sets about looking for a way back to her mortal coil. The path back appears in the unlikely form of William Granger, an angry 'Cast Aside' with his own axes to grind. Despite an instant wedge of mutual dislike between them, the two form a tenuous alliance, each agreeing to help the other get what they want.

Armed only with their inability to get along and a plan that involves breaking the one rule that Heaven actually has, what could possibly go wrong?

This story started some eighteen years ago with the movie Titanic. As anyone who has seen the movie will recall, in the final scene the main character Rose walks up the Grand Staircase of the Titanic to a smiling, waiting Jack, surrounded by applauding passengers and crew. Roll credits, cue lights, and everyone leaves the theater or ejects the DVD in tears. The implication being of course, that Rose has passed at the end of the movie and this is Heaven where she is finally re-united with her one true love.

That ending never sat well with me. The character of Rose was married. It was there for anyone paying attention - her granddaughter traveling with her, then the brief scene where she arrives via helicopter and the salvage team talks about her background: she was married to 'a guy named Calvert' who is now dead. Most people gloss right over it as it's entirely tangential to the story.

She would have been married to Calvert for forty, maybe fifty years? As I watched the ending of Titanic, I couldn't help but imagine this Calvert fellow sitting there in Heaven patiently waiting for his wife of fifty years to cross over so that they might be together again - only to have her finally get there and go straight to... Jack?

That seemed... well... just completely brutal and so it simmered on the back burner of my subconscious until this story eventually worked its way out.