Chapter 48
Whit
“NOT EXACTLY,” it said in a voice that just about stopped me from breathing.
As the shadow moved closer to the meager light, it became more three-dimensional. Right before our eyes, the shape… filled in, until it—she—looked incredibly real. And beautiful.
“Celia,” I whispered. “You came.”
“Celia!” confirmed Wisty. “You came from where?”
She smiled at us both, what little light there was raking across her face. She didn’t seem as pale now, and I took that as a good sign. Hopeful.
“Hi, Wisty,” said Celia, giving her sweetest smile. She’d always been supernice to Wisty. And everybody else, for that matter—geeks, jocks, Goths, little kids—it made no difference to Celia. She found the best in people—especially me.
“B-but… how?” Wisty stammered as Celia moved toward us without a sound. And suddenly I noticed that something else was different—she had no scent. She’d always worn this wild-rose perfume, and every time I smelled it, my heart thudded a little and my blood seemed to pump faster. But now when I breathed deep, all I could smell was the dank Hospital.
“Can I… hold you?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, but we can try,” Celia said, getting more emotional. “Oh, Whit… please try. I need you to hold me.”
“I’d leave you two alone,” said Wisty, “but there’s nowhere for me to go. Sorry. I’ll just… close my eyes.”
Very gently I tried to put my arms around Celia. And I could actually feel her again. She definitely wasn’t smoke or an illusion, but she wasn’t exactly solid either. I tried to push aside her hair, to nuzzle her neck—something that had gotten me to many happy places. But I couldn’t move her hair.
Celia understood instantly. She smiled and tossed her hair back. That familiar gesture… I never thought I’d see it again. It was probably my imagination, but it felt like a breeze of fresh air washed through the cell as she did it. Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t help it.
“This is why I love you,” she whispered. “You’re something else, Whit. I don’t understand everything that’s happening, but I know more than you do. After I saw you, I couldn’t find you right away, and none of the Curves could help me get back here to the Hospital. The Shadowland is a dark, complicated place… very easy to get lost in… for a very long time.
“Then your weasel came racing through one of the portals into the Shadowland. He was the one who showed me how to get here.
“So I’ve come to bust you out of this wretched Hospital. Before they execute you both. The only problem is, to get out of here we have to travel through the Shadowland. Whit—and Wisty, you can open your eyes now—I’m not sure we’ll be able to get back out. You could be there forever.”
Chapter 49
Wisty
SO FAR THE ONLY THING that completely made sense to me was the word “weasel.” I didn’t know what the heck a Curve was, or anything at all about portals or the Shadowland. And I was still too overwhelmed with this bitter-sweet sadness—seeing Whit and Celia together again, the way they were looking at each other—to process too many more details about our twisted new reality.
Celia was by far my favorite of Whit’s girlfriends and admirers. For one thing, she always had time to talk to me. And even listen to me. For another, Celia was everything I wasn’t, and secretly wanted to be. I used to stare at myself in the mirror—with my too-fair skin, my too-many freckles, and this awful splotch of red hair—and think that nature, genetics, and karma had really shafted me.
“Um,” I said, not even knowing where to begin, “you found our weasel? Didn’t you just hate it?”
Celia smiled again, looking like a supermodel, and not the stuck-up or shallow kind. “No, I didn’t hate it. It was a live weasel, not a Half-light, like me. So I knew it was important somehow.”
“What’s a Half-light?” I couldn’t help asking.
“I’m a Half-light. Because… well… I’m dead, Wisty.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say that, Celia. Listen, Whit and I—well, you probably know the deal—we kind of turned out to have, um, powers. Maybe we can save you.”
“It’s not simple like that, Wisty,” Celia continued patiently. “Let me explain some more. The Half-lights, or spirits, live in the Shadowland.”
I couldn’t keep the questions from coming. “The Shadowland? Is that anything like… purgatory? Limbo? Isn’t that where dead babies go?”
Celia winced. “Well, um, no to dead babies, but yes to purgatory and limbo, only the Shadowland is, well, kind of its own dimension of reality. There’s more than just the present, the here and now that you’re used to. Anyway, Half-lights can sometimes come and go through portals into your world. Portals are holes between the two realms. They develop over time but can disappear just as randomly. While the openings are there, Half-lights and certain people and animals—called Curves—can go through them. Like your weasel did.”
“He’s not exactly our weasel,” Whit said. “He’s our enemy, actually. A vicious little scumbag.”
“Well, he knew you,” said Celia. “He told us all about you. He told us you’re scheduled to be executed tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe he just blurted that stuff out,” I said. “He’s not exactly a cooperative weasel.”
Celia rolled her eyes. “He didn’t want to tell us anything,” she said. “We tortured him. Then he told us.”
That sounded interesting. “Tortured?”
Celia nodded. “We held him down and tickled his little weasel belly until tears came out of his eyes. In the end he was begging to tell us everything he knew. I don’t think he wants to come back here now.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Whit. “If I could get out of here, I wouldn’t come back either. Not in a million years.”
“Speaking of which, baby,” said Celia to Whit, “it’s about time for us to go. We have to risk it… the Shadowland.”
I nodded, but my mind was somewhere else. If Whit and Celia could be together now, why couldn’t they be together forever? Somehow, some way, I wanted to bring Celia back from the dead for Whit.
Could a witch do that?
Chapter 50
Wisty
“WE’VE GOT TO HURRY,” said Celia. “I can’t stay in your world much longer. We have to get you two out of this god-forsaken place.”
“Oh, why didn’t we think of that?” Whit cracked, and Celia just smiled.
I don’t know how she does it. Things Whit says that make me almost scream in frustration just make Celia laugh. Did I mention how much I like her?
“As soon as we get the door open,” Celia went on, touching Whit’s cheek with her hand, “you have to jet out of this cell and run like crazy for the nearest portal to get to the Underworld.”
“The Underworld?” Whit asked. “Celia?”
“Sorry. I keep forgetting—you’re new to all this. The Underworld is everything that isn’t the Overworld,” Celia said, as if it were as obvious a concept as, say, peanut butter and jelly. “Or at least it was till the New Order started messing with things.”
Celia was faced with our two blank stares.
“Sorry. Let me be clearer. The New Order now controls almost all of the Overworld—that’s the, uh, regular world that you’re used to. The Underworld contains the rest of the known universe—the Shadowland and other dimensions. For the moment, the N.O. doesn’t run the show in all those places. But they’re trying. The One Who Is The One is after total control.
“Somehow, the two of you are in his way. That’s a puzzle you have to solve.”
“Okay,” said Whit, looking determined. “Where’s the portal? Is it in the bathroom?”
“No, that one’s gone already,” Celia said. “It took me a while to find another.”
“And so the portal you used is,” I prompted, “like, where exactly?”
“End of the hall,” Celia said. “Past the dogs, unfortunatel
y. Then you just rush toward the wall and throw yourself into it. You’ll go through.”
“You’re kidding me,” Whit said. “C’mon, Celia. Get real.”
“No fair,” I whined. “Isn’t the definition of a portal, like, an opening? In fact, I’m pretty sure my fourth-grade teacher would’ve called a brick wall an ‘antonym’ of the word ‘portal.’ ”
“Wisty, please trust me on this. I know you won’t want to run into a wall at full speed, but it’s the only way you’ll escape. You’ve got to do what I tell you.”
I looked at Celia, hoping this wasn’t an elaborate hoax. Was she really the Celia that Whit and I had known? What if this was a trap?
“We can run through the wall,” Whit said, sounding grim but very determined. The old QB was back. “When is all this supposed to happen?”
Celia looked at us. “In about a minute.”
Chapter 51
Whit
OKAY, IN TERMS OF emergency preparedness, “in about a minute” never, ever falls under the category “enough time.”
What choice did we have, though? It was either run through a wall or get executed.
I looked at Wisty. “Got your drumstick?”
She held it up. “Check. Drumstick.”
I picked up my journal, stuffing it into my jumpsuit. “You think you can do anything about the devil dogs?” I asked lightning girl.
Wisty shrugged doubtfully. “I’ll try, Whit. But I’m still learning this stuff.”
“Okay, here’s what we can do,” I said. “Once we get out of here, we’ll run like mad to that hallway. You’ll have a couple of seconds to try something with the dogs. If you can’t pull it off, then I’ll just tear through like I usually do to get food. I’ll hold your hand. You run as fast as you can, even if we get bitten. It’s okay to scream but not to stop!”
Wisty swallowed, looking a little freaked but resolute. “Gotcha. Scream. Don’t stop.”
Celia nodded. “I’ll be right there behind you. Of course, I’m biteproof.”
I had a really bad thought: “What if the Matron and the horror-show guards throw themselves through the portal too?”
“They won’t,” said Celia. “Unless they’re secretly Curves. If they’re Straight and Narrows, they’ll just hit the wall. It could be kind of funny, actually.”
Oh good. So we had that to look forward to. I added “Straight and Narrows” to the growing list of terms I had to ask Celia about.
I wiped my damp palms on my jumpsuit. We were going to, like, “cross over” to the other side now, right? Wasn’t that sort of like dying?
Chapter 52
Whit
“QUICK! RAP THREE TIMES on your door. Hard!” Celia urged. “Now! I really can’t be here much longer, Whit. My spirit could die.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“Just hit that door, Whit—three times!”
I pounded as if my life depended on it—which it did. The next second, we heard the lock go click.
I turned to Celia. “What just happened?”
“Whit, go!” she said. “The door’s unlocked.”
Celia grabbed for the knob… and kind of went through the door completely.
“I always forget,” she muttered. “I can’t grab things anymore.”
I yanked it open for Celia, took Wisty’s hand, and poked my head out into the hallway.
The Matron was away from her desk, talking with some guards about thirty yards down the hall to the right. So far, at least, they seemed unaware of us. I couldn’t see whoever—whatever— had unlocked our door. Was it my magic? Celia’s? Wisty’s?
“Go!” Celia said in my ear, so Wisty and I leaped out of our cell and raced toward the dreaded nurses’ station.
We skidded around the corner just as we heard the Matron screaming bloody murder from behind. “Stop them! They’re trying to escape! Sound the alarm! Shoot to kill! Take no prisoners!”
Another six or seven strides, and we were at Wolf Row. The floor was literally shaking with guards, and the Matron was thundering after us.
“Hurry, hurry,” I told Wisty. “Do your stuff. Make ’em into puppies. Stuffed dogs.”
Wisty stood just out of reach of the snarling, barking animals. She held up her drumstick like it was a conductor’s baton and the hounds were her orchestra. Nice image, but would it work?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guards and the Matron round the bend.
“Freeze!” commanded Wisty loudly, and waved her stick at the dogs.
For a split second, nothing happened, and I gripped her hand, ready to boogie down the hellway. Then the dogs’ yelps and barks strangled to sudden silence.
The animals actually froze in place.
Paws were raised, jaws gaped hungrily—several of the beasts were actually in midlunge at us, standing on their hind legs.
“Yes! I’m a witch!” Wisty yelled. “Let’s go!”
“Perfect! You’re amazing, Wisty!” said Celia, right by my side. “There’s the portal!” She pointed near the end of the hallway, at a blank wall that showed no obvious signs of opening up or turning into foam or anything like that. “Run as fast as you can! Now!”
I couldn’t get out of my mind those videos we’d watched in driver’s-ed class. Crash-test dummies going kablooey in slow mo as the cars smashed into walls.
No, I thought. Think “victory, victory, victory.”
The Matron and the guards were right behind us, halfway through the frozen dogs. So I rushed at the wall like I was a quarterback again—and I went right through the portal to the other side.
But I lost my grip on Wisty’s hand. She just slipped away, screaming my name.
I lost Wisty!
Chapter 53
Whit
MY FEET LANDED on something hard, maybe a stone floor, and I somersaulted to a stop.
I leaped up. “Wisty!” I yelled. “Sis?”
From the Shadowland side of things, I could see her still standing in the Hospital hallway. It was like I was looking through a pane of thick, wavy glass. Celia was trying to grab hold of Wisty, but she couldn’t, of course. It’s a ghost thing, I guess.
Then I saw Wisty raise her drumstick again and shout, “Release!”
Instantly the mad dogs roared back to life, surging around the guards and the Matron like a gigantic pileup in the middle of a ball field. Not only were the dogs released from their spell but they were released from their chains. One guard made it through the animals and rushed toward Wisty, starting to level his stun gun.
A dog broke free from the pack and bounded after him, baying like a hound released from hell.
The guard and the crazed dog were right on Wisty’s and Celia’s heels as they rushed toward the… well, whatever it was.
“Watch out!” I screamed. “Right behind you!”
Wisty closed her eyes and pitched herself through the portal, stumbling right into me. “Whit!” she screamed. “It actually worked!”
Celia was with her, and right behind Celia, the dog dived paws-first through the portal. It came at us in mid-air, hit the floor, and skidded to a stop. Suddenly it looked not so much fierce and deranged as totally confused.
We all glanced back just as the guard slammed into the wall face-first. Behind him, the Matron’s white-uniformed figure was still being attacked by the pack of ferocious animals. Her enormous arms flailed, her stun gun knocked from her hand, spinning away. Then she disappeared under the pile of snapping mouths. Bye-bye.
“There’s someone who’s working out some serious karma,” said Wisty, but instead of relishing the sight, I reached out to try to hug Celia in a moment of relief that we’d made it through to the other side.
It didn’t matter how awkward and ridiculous it was, trying to hug a ghost. That’s the cool thing about love. In my opinion anyway.
Just then a whimper made me jerk my head around.
“The dog,” said Wisty, staring at it, expecting the worst.
&nbs
p; “No, it must be okay—it’s a Curve dog,” Celia marveled. “A Curve is anyone who has access to the Underworld, whether they know it or not. This dog didn’t know it. It must not have been fully brainwashed by the Straight and Narrows.”
Its lips curled up in an ingratiating grin as if to say, “Sorry I tried to eat you.” Then the dog lowered its head further and sort of slunk toward us, low to the ground.
“It looks deeply sorry,” Celia said. “I wish I could pet it. Go ahead, Wisty. Pet it.”
“Maybe some other time,” Wisty said reluctantly. “We have a lot of history to work out first.” But then the dog sat and gazed up at her longingly, with the saddest brown eyes, looking much less horrible and insane than it had in Hell’s Kennel.
Wisty looked at me, and I knew what she was going to ask.
“You’re crazy,” I said, sighing.
“I’m nothing if not forgiving,” she said earnestly.
“Well, okay,” I grumbled. “Maybe it’ll be a watchdog or something useful in the Shadowland.”
Wisty winked at me, then looked at the dog and patted one knee. The animal stood up cautiously.
“You can come,” she told it, then added, “It’s a she. I’m going to call her Feffer.”
“Okay. Feffer it is,” I conceded. “Now let’s go meet some Curves and Half-lights and locate some new portals.”
Then there was a terrible crash—and we looked and saw the Matron’s face smashed up against the wall to the portal.
“Not a Curve,” said Wisty with a broad smile. “Didn’t think so.”
BOOK THREE
BRAVE NEW WORLDS
Chapter 54
Wisty
WHIT GRABBED ME in a bear hug that felt extraordinarily reassuring. “We’re outta there! We’re safe from her now.”