No, this was like a real-life ghost story. He was in a horror movie.
He quietly stood up and walked over to the window, carefully stepping on the non-creaking spots of his bedroom floor. He looked through the glass, wondering if he’d have the courage to jump out. The moon cast its pale glow on the yard outside, making the trees look dark blue and creating shadows in which he could imagine every monster from his every nightmare hiding, waiting.
Ooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn . . .
Tick turned around to face the door. His mind felt hollowed out. How had it come to this? An hour ago he’d been in the middle of a desert in the Thirteenth Reality, watching Mistress Jane destroy an entire world. Now he was back in his house, in the dark, staring at a sheet of silver-blue light panning across his floor. He saw that it wavered with flashes and glimmers of shadow as though the source of the light was a gigantic TV out in the hallway, showing an old black-and-white film.
He didn’t want to face whatever was out there. He turned back to the window and unlatched the lock. After pulling up the window, he unhooked the screen. He stuck his head out to look at the ground twenty feet below. If he could land in that clump of bushes . . .
Behind him, the moan took on a different pitch, stuttered. Then something sounded almost like a cough, followed by an odd crackle. Tick couldn’t help but look back at this new noise.
Tendrils of bright white electricity danced around the doorknob, sparking and zigzagging like small bolts of lightning. It had a charged sound to it, like the monster-making machines in the old Frankenstein movies. There were dozens of small sparks casting flashes of light all over the room.
Tick was pretty sure he had stopped breathing and didn’t know if he would ever start again.
The lightning and electricity intensified, spreading out and growing larger until they covered the entire door and the walls around it. A glow of silvery light formed in the middle, growing brighter and brighter until Tick couldn’t see the features of the door or his wallpaper. Just a globe of metallic blue.
He realized he was in some sort of a trance. He was about to turn away and jump out the window—he’d take the broken leg or arm instead of whatever this was—when the entire display in front of him collapsed into an oblong and upright shape, standing maybe six feet tall. Crackles of electricity still danced along the surface, but they seemed more controlled, swirling around the oval body of light.
Then, to Tick’s shock, a large face appeared in the middle of the light. It was a young woman, her features shimmering but smooth, and her expression showing a small struggle, as if she was concentrating on a difficult task. But then she was gone, replaced by another face. This time it was a man, his features rigid and angled. Then another face formed—a young boy. Then another one—an old woman, her wrinkles lines of blue against silver. A second later, a younger woman appeared, this one with a round face and eyes.
More faces appeared, each one lasting only a few moments before another took its place. Boys and girls, men and women, all ages and all races. They all had that same look of intense effort, their eyes focused on Tick, sometimes with their tongue bit between their lips.
Tick realized he’d relaxed. He was breathing normally and no longer felt the urge to jump out the window. If this thing was a ghost, it didn’t seem very scary. After all the studying and intense reading of science and its inner workings he’d done over the past months, his rational mind had finally taken over. What he saw before him had to be some kind of explainable phenomenon, and his fear had been replaced by excitement to find out what it was.
The faces continued to change, one after the other, all types and ages. The light cast from the glowing oval shimmered and danced in the room, which had an even more relaxing effect on Tick. He stepped over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down, never taking his eyes off the apparition.
The morphing faces seemed to relax a bit. When a young Asian man appeared, the lips of his mouth parted. He transformed into an African-American woman, and her lips began to form a word. When the sound finally came out, traveling across the room for a very shocked Tick to hear, it came from a teenage boy. Then a fat man. Then a beautiful woman. Then an old man. Face after face, image after image, their lips remained in sync as the odd phenomenon began to speak. The voice never changed, however; it was deep and charged with energy, laced with crackles of electricity.
“Atticus Higginbottom,” it said. They said. “We need to have a very serious talk.”
~
Sato had learned a lot about Tick’s sister. There wasn’t much else to do when you were stuck in a place that stretched to infinity in every direction with nothing to see but colored marble squares. They’d walked for awhile as they talked, but eventually had given up, deciding they were just as well off sitting and waiting for something to happen as they were wandering about aimlessly.
“I’m sure your sister is safe,” he said after a long lull in their conversation. “Somehow those bolts of lightning sent us somewhere else. Here. Maybe other places. Maybe totally random, I don’t know. But the more I think about it, the more I think it has to be something like that. If the lightning had been killing people, it would’ve left behind charred bodies.”
Lisa nodded absently, staring down at her finger as she traced the lines in the red marble square on which she sat cross-legged. “Charred bodies. Pleasant.”
“How much do you know about the Realitants?” Sato asked.
“Most of it,” she replied, looking up at him. She’d stopped crying, but her eyes were still puffy and red. “I tried to keep living my normal life and pretend it was just something for Tick, something I didn’t have to worry about. I have my friends, you know? I have my own life. My mom and dad tried hard not to put all their attention on Tick and his fancy Realitant stuff, but they couldn’t help it. I don’t really blame them. I was happy to kind of ignore it all. Guess I have no choice now.”
She pulled up her legs to wrap her arms around her knees. “This has something to do with Tick, right? It can’t be a coincidence that I’m his sister and was kidnapped and then sent here by a bolt of lightning.”
“I’m sure it has something to do with Tick and Mistress Jane,” Sato said. “Our boss had a meeting scheduled with her, and I’m sure it all went to pot right about then.”
“What’s really happening? I’ve never been in an earthquake before, but I’m pretty sure what I just went through wasn’t normal. Especially with all the lightning.”
Sato shook his head. “I don’t know. We’re not sure what happened to Jane after the crazy stuff in the Fourth Reality, but if she survived, I’m guessing she’s one ticked-off lady. And she has weird powers. She can do things with Chi’karda. For all we know, she’s messing things up pretty bad out there.”
“Yeah,” Lisa replied, her eyes staring at a spot in the distance. She looked slightly dazed. Sato had to remind himself that all of this was new to her, no matter how many times she’d heard about it. To really understand it, to really know, you had to experience stuff like this yourself.
They sat in silence for awhile. Then Lisa said, “I can’t imagine how scared Kayla is.” A tear trickled down her cheek. She sniffed and squeezed her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I won’t be able to live if something bad happens to her.”
Sato couldn’t help but feel her sorrow. It made him think of the days and weeks and months he’d spent bawling his eyes out after Jane killed his parents. Why did there have to be so much evil in the world? Why couldn’t people like Jane realize the pain they inflicted or understand the end results on everyday lives? How was it possible to have such a complete absence of compassion? He couldn’t possibly hate Jane any more than he already did, but he felt his rage and thirst for revenge spring up anew.
“We’ll find your sister,” he said, hoping the promise didn’t sound too empty. “We’ll find your whole family, and we’ll make Jane pay for whatever she’s done. It’s the only thing I live for now.”
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Lisa looked at him, her eyes red and wet and surrounded by dark, hollow circles on her face. “Thanks.”
Something hummed deeply behind Sato, and he noticed Lisa look sharply over his shoulder, surprise transforming her face. The floor vibrated slightly as well.
He spun around to see what had happened.
Mothball was standing there, looking as surprised as Sato felt.
~
It took a minute or so for Tick to gather himself, remembering that he’d seen many strange things since receiving his very first letter from Master George and that this was just the next in a long line of oddities. He pushed away the shock he felt, ignoring the impossibility of what he saw before him. So a big oval of silver-blue light was talking to him with hundreds of different faces mouthing the words. Big deal. He had to respond.
“How do you know my name?” he asked, proud that the words came out with no squeaks or stutters.
When the entity responded, its face started out as a teenage girl with long hair but had morphed into an old man by the time the short phrase was finished. “We have been observing you and your Realitant friends.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” said a woman who changed into a man.
Tick was completely fascinated. “What are you? I mean . . . who are you?”
The glowing apparition was quiet for a moment, though the faces continued to change at the same rapid pace. Finally, a wise-looking, ancient woman appeared to speak the words, “They call us the Haunce.”
Chapter
27
~
Soulikens
The entity paused after revealing its name, as if it wanted Tick to respond. But Tick had questions buzzing around his head like flies swarming a light bulb, and he couldn’t settle on just one. So he sat there, slack-jawed and silent.
“Do not be afraid,” the many-faced apparition said. “We are as close a thing to a ghost as you will ever see, but we are much kinder than the storybooks make us out to be. It takes considerable effort to gather ourselves into something strong enough to appear visually to those still alive. We would never do it simply to scare someone. It would be ridiculous.”
If Tick had flies buzzing a moment earlier, now they had become an army of bees. A ghost? Appear visually to those still alive? What was this thing?
He decided to make a statement that encompassed all of his confusion in three short words. “I don’t understand.”
A smile appeared on a girl’s face, glowing silvery blue. When the face transformed into a middle-aged man, the smile was still there. “We would not expect you to. Sit and listen. We will explain.”
Tick had never heard a better idea in his life. He nodded his head emphatically.
“Good.” The Haunce’s orb of light expanded then retracted, as if it had taken a deep breath. The ever-changing faces spoke. “We are here because terrible things have happened in the Realities over the last few hours. When it became apparent that we must reveal ourselves, we chose you. The reason for that choice is something we may not have time to explain, but we shall see.”
Tick didn’t say anything, but he scrunched up his face in confusion, hoping the entity would change its mind. Whatever this ghostly visage was, why would it have chosen him of all people to appear to? Tick wanted to know the answer to that question very badly, but he forced himself to remain silent and listen intently as the Haunce continued speaking.
“We come to you now because enormous and catastrophic disturbances have shattered the barriers of the Realities. We know this because we are part of the barriers, interwoven into the Chi’karda that has served to bind the Realities together and build the wall to keep them apart. If we had not acted quickly, we might have been destroyed and the memories of billions upon billions of lives would have been obliterated. But we escaped before the worst of it happened.”
The Haunce paused, flashing three different faces before a weary-eyed man with a short-cropped beard appeared and spoke. “We never would have thought it possible that someone could harness, much less control, the dark matter as the woman named Mistress Jane has done. Even we do not understand its properties to the fullest. And yet, she has unleashed it, annihilating the bonds between the Realities and sending them to drift apart from one another. What she does not understand is that soon the fragmenting will begin. In every Reality. A human body cannot survive when separated into pieces; the Realities are no different. What she has done will lead to the end of everything as we know it. The end of existence.”
Tick felt a leprous lump growing in his belly. Although he didn’t understand the nitty-gritty details, not to mention any of the logistics or complex science of what the Haunce was describing, he was smart enough to connect the dots. Mistress Jane had said from the start that she was going to sever the Fifth Reality and destroy it. From what the Haunce had just said, Tick suspected Jane must have accidentally enacted her diabolical plan on every last Reality.
And then Tick had another thought, perhaps the worst thought to ever cross the pathways of his mind. What if he had done this? What if his little exercise in throwing a trickle of Chi’karda into the black tree, into the dark matter that made up the Blade of Shattered Hope, had somehow disrupted Jane’s plan? What if, by trying to help, he’d made it worse—infinitely worse? His more rational side had told him he wasn’t ready to try something so foolish. Why hadn’t he listened?
The lump inside him grew, filling his body with acid. He’d spent the last few months trying to ensure he never repeated anything like what he’d done in Chu’s mountain palace. But if he’d just helped destroy every last Reality, that made the fiasco with Chu’s Dark Infinity and Mistress Jane look like a food fight. Panic and worry consumed him.
“Atticus,” the Haunce said. “We can feel your thoughts. We can feel your mind and see this dark path which you choose to walk. You must stop. Immediately. You do not understand even the slightest parcel of the whole.”
Tick was staring at the floor. He didn’t remember looking away from the Haunce, but he returned his gaze to the glowing entity at its words. He sensed some hope, maybe some redemption, in what it had said.
A young woman stared back at him, her face full of compassion. Tick wished desperately she could stay, that her face not change. But a few seconds later it slipped into an older man, the kind look not as reassuring on him.
“We are soulikens, Atticus,” the Haunce said. “Do you know what that means?”
Tick shook his head.
“We sense in your memories that you have recently come to understand the heart of the human body and how the power of electricity is vital to its life-giving properties. Without electricity, the heart would not pump. If the heart did not pump, blood would not flow. And if the blood did not flow, there would be no life.”
Tick nodded, surprised by this turn in the conversation, but intrigued.
“Most people do not understand that electricity is a natural phenomenon,” the Haunce continued. “Much of its uses are unknown and immeasurable to scientists. Similar to how Chi’karda is not understood by most quantum physicists in the Realities, except for those who have joined ranks with the Realitants. Electricity is the key. Electronic pulses. Electronic imprints. They intertwine with almost every function of your mind and body, creating permanent stamps in the fabric of Reality—of time and space—that represent the person from whence they came.”
The Haunce paused, and Tick realized if he moved one more inch forward, he’d fall out of his chair. After an interminable few seconds, the glowing pool of faces continued.
“That is what soulikens are, Atticus. They are your imprints on the universe, and they can never be erased. They pool together every second of your life, collecting and gathering and forming into something that is undeniably as much you as . . . you. That is what we are. We are the soulikens of billions of people, a bank of memories and thoughts and feelings. We give life to the spaces between the atoms and neutrons and electrons. We give lif
e to the universe of quantum physics. We give life to Chi’karda.”
Tick stared at the morphing faces, completely and utterly engrossed in every word.
But then the faces frowned, the endless eyes filled with a deep sadness.
“What’s wrong?” Tick asked quickly.
The Haunce wiped away the frown, but it still looked unhappy. “It works both ways, Atticus. The Chi’karda also gives us life. One cannot exist without the other. Mistress Jane has severed the Realities from one another, destroying the bonds between them. And when the fragmenting begins, when all of Reality begins to fall to the lasting and eternal grip of entropy, so will we. Everything will end. Everything.”
Tick didn’t know how to respond. Impossibly, he almost felt as if his grief and worry for this collection of ghosts was as strong as his concern for his family. He was starting to understand that what Jane had done would not only kill all those living today, but also all those who had lived in the past. It would be a holocaust of all time and of all people, of all thoughts and ideas and memories. Everything would be wiped away into the oblivion of dark matter.
The Haunce spoke again, snapping him back to attention.
“But not all is lost.”
“What do you mean?” Tick asked.
“We believe there is someone who can save us. Save the Realities.”
Tick had the horrible feeling he already knew the answer, but he asked anyway. “Who?”
The Haunce glowed brightly. “You.”
Chapter
28
~
Come Together
Sato and Mothball stared at each other for what seemed like a full hour, eyes locked, eyebrows raised. She was filthy from head to toe, her hair hanging in ratty strings to her shoulders. Sato kept thinking she’d disappear any second, sure that he was having a hallucination. The staring became almost comical. Especially when she broke into a grin and simply said, “’Ello.”