Marie Donovan-Zhang was the queen of the afterlife. She was regal, and she knew secrets no one else did - which parts were unstable, where tore a rip in reality, or a viewing platform to Earth. How to deal with the hunger pains that come from a body that does not need to eat and a brain that thinks that means it’s dying all over again.

Marie was 19 when she died from carbon monoxide poisoning in 1976. She was no older than the others, the five of them who lived in this pocket of the universe, forgotten clearly by whatever was supposed to come after. She had never quite figured out why. They seemed to have very little in common. Abdul was 15, and drowned in a frozen lake in 1998. Sasha was 17, and they had overdosed, though Marie doesn’t quite believe them when they say it was accidental. That was 2016. Niamh is 16. Car crash. 2021.

From what Marie knows, they were all siblings. She had an older sister, Annaliese. Abdul had his twin, Fatima. Sasha had Ivan. And Niamh had Liam. All different birth order, though.

That leaves her greatest theory; near death experiences.

From one of her afterlife observatories, Marie had watched and monitored every one of the purgatory kids' siblings. There wasn't much to do in that realm, after all. It gave her something to fill the endless hours with.

Fatima, Abdul's sister, had been kidnapped and stored in a trailer freezer when their father was too poor to pay ransom. Police had only saved Fatima with minutes to spare.

Ivan also almost overdosed on heroin in the aftermath of Sasha's death. Only some supernatural force, like God, could have brought Ivan to his senses before he followed his sibling's mistake.

Niahm's younger brother, Liam, was playing with bottles of hand sanitizer while the babysitter was using the bathroom. He was only 2. A hasty call to poison control prevented Liam from prematurely ending his own life.

Annaliese was different. Marie didn't know what her sister's near-death experience could have been. That is why this was only a theory, after all. Her older sister was very careful, unlike Ivan or Liam. She could have only been exposed to danger by another force, as in Fatima's case. Marie's devotion to watching Annaliese never provided Marie with any knowledge that would solve this case.