Emily's House

PART TWO

   

   

  Training the Modern-Day Priestess

   

   

  You never can tell what a thought will do

  In bringing you hate or love –

  For thoughts are things, and their airy wings

  Are swifter than carrier doves.

  They follow the law of the universe –

  Each thing creates its kind,

  And they speed o’er the track to bring you back

  Whatever went out from your mind.

   

  From “You Never Can Tell,” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919

  17. TO FAIR ÉRIE

  Amazingly we all slept well that night. Maybe we were just exhausted and didn’t have a choice. Before we knew it, we touched down in Dublin.

  Weary from the seven-hour plane ride, we practically stumbled down the steps and walkway to the custom’s agents. I sailed through without a problem, lying and telling the Irish customs guy that I was there on vacation.

  “For how long then love?” he asked.

  I hesitated because the truth was I didn’t know how long I’d be there. For all I knew, the Irish Garda would be waiting for us on the other side of customs and put us right back on a plane to the States. Or if we were successful we could be there indefinitely. Suddenly the words ‘two weeks’ popped into my head, and I realized that I was reading Jake’s mind.

  “Two weeks,” I finally stammered out.

  “’Ave a good holiday then,” the agent said. He stamped a 30-day visa into my passport and handed it back.

  I stood on the other side of the wooden customs booth and waited for Jake and Fanny. They were taking a long time and I began to get worried that they weren’t being allowed through. But finally I saw them come out of the walkway together.

  “I told you to let me do the talking,” Fanny said.

  “I’m supposed to be your older brother. It doesn’t make sense that you would be the one talking for us.”

  “It does if my older brother is a moron,” Fanny said. She smacked Jake lightly in the back of the head.

  “Ow, stop hitting me.”

  “Stop being a nub.”

  I interrupted their gripping conversation. “You made it through. That’s all that matters. Come on. Let’s find a place to regroup.”

  We found a free table near the baggage claim area where they had a few places to get food. We grabbed some coffee and bagels and promptly inhaled them like we’d never eaten before.

  “What now?” Fanny asked.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired. We need to find a place to stay,” I said.

  Jake pulled his laptop from his backpack, tapped into the Wi-Fi connection and began typing away. With the help of the Internet and some questions to a bored-looking but friendly currency exchange agent, we came up with a plan. We found an inexpensive youth hostel in Dublin, a short trip by Airbus from the airport. In the heart of the city, we’d be able to find some maps, rest a bit and come up with a plan.

  Once we’d settled into our room, we all crashed for a while before heading out to find maps of Ireland. After our naps, we grabbed coffee in the self-catered kitchen and discussed our situation.

  “What is it that Hindergog said?” Fanny asked.

  “About what?” asked Jake.

  “You know, about where to go. Didn’t he give us a clue,” Fan replied.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It seems so long ago that we talked to him. In fact, I’m not even sure we did. Doesn’t this all seem sort of like a dream to you guys?”

  They both just stared at me. Could they see that I was losing my steam? Could they see, even without the ‘sight’ that I was close to bagging out?

  “You’re not chickening out, are you?” asked Fanny.

  “No, I’m not chickening. It’s just, you know, we don’t even know where we’re going. I mean, this is just stupid. We could end up sitting here in this frickin’ hostel for weeks without knowing where we’re supposed to go. We could run out of money before we find anything.”

  “Calm down, Em,” said Jake. Other folks in the eating area were starting to look at us. “Hindergog was real. Well, at least as real as any hologram is. That little dude was there. We all saw him. We all heard him. You gotta’ get a grip so we can figure this out. We have to use our brains and our technology to figure out these clues,” said Jake.

  We talked out the things that Hindergog had said. Jake wrote down our clues in his notebook but before long, he ignored our chatter and typed on his laptop.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “I’m searching for old churches and monasteries. That’s the best clue Hindergog gave us. Remember, he said that the torc was buried near a church.”

  “Yeah, but there have to be tons of old churches here. It could take months to search them all,” said Fanny.

  “I don’t think so. He also told us that Cathaír rode past the Slieve na Calleigh hills on his way to bury the torc. I found those on a map, so that narrows the list.

  Jake read the list out loud and talked about the area where each was located. He pointed them out on the maps we had spread out on the table in front of us. I was only half listening, bored with Jake’s lesson in Irish geography and history. Yawn. And I couldn’t get what he was saying anyway because he was trying to pronounce the old Gaelic names and botched it badly.

  Suddenly I had goose bumps going up and down my whole body. It was like something had jolted me out of my bored stupor.

  “Wait,” I practically shouted.

  “What?” said Jake.

  “Read back what you just said. What was the name of the last one?” I asked.

  “Monasterboice,” said Jake.

  I got a chill down my spine when he said it. “That’s it!”

  “How do you know?” asked Fan.

  “I don’t know exactly, but when he said that, I got all goose bumpy and tingly. I’ve got chills going up and down my spine.”

  Jake and Fanny looked at each other like maybe they weren’t sure whether I was off my nut or they should listen to me. But Jake turned his attention to his maps again and before we knew it, he figured out how to get there.

  “We need to go north. County Louth,” he said at last. Jake examined the online bus schedule for a few minutes, then said, “Really not too far and won’t take long. We can hop on a bus here and be at a little town south of Monasterboice before you know it. There are small inns and a few hostels up there. We can find a place to stay when we get there.”

  With that, he closed his laptop, packed up his maps and stood to leave. “Let’s get going,” he said. “There’s a bus in 45 minutes. Let’s be on it.”

  I felt like I couldn’t move. I had complained about how long it could take to find answers, but the truth was I didn’t care if it took forever. It was moving too fast.

  “Shouldn’t we spend the night here, you know, and start fresh tomorrow?”

  Jake shot me a look that I swear felt like he knew exactly how scared I felt inside. Sometimes it feels like he’s the mind reader. But Fanny agreed with me. “I need my sleep,” she said. If Jake had known what was ahead, he would have thanked me for being chicken.

  18 THE INN

  Jake had been right. The train ride was fairly short. We got to Drogheda and called around for lodgings and found an inn to stay in. We decided it was best to go to Monasterboice at night seeing as how we might have to dig in the ground and all. The locals would likely frown on grave robbing.

  The innkeeper was a friendly little guy who went by the name Paddy. He wore a tweed cap and he had red, round cheeks and beefy hands. He didn’t seem to question that there were three American kids wanting a room for the night. He did ask what we were about.

  Jake thought quick and blurted out sightseeing. “We’re planning to go to Monasterboice first, you know, to take a look at those crosses.”

  Like all the Irish we
had met so far, Paddy was quick to offer his help along with a few stories and suggestions for other places to visit.

  “You didn’t come all the way to Ireland just to see a few Celtic crosses, now did you lad?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “No sir,” Jake replied. “But that’s first on our agenda anyway. Could you suggest how we might get there seeing as how we don’t have a car?”

  “Oh, not a problem. It’s about eight to nine kilometers from here. My mate Mack O’Donohugh, he has a cab. He can take you there.”

  “Eight kilometers? How many miles is that Jake?” I asked.

  “It’s about five to six miles lass,” Paddy offered.

  “Okay, thanks Paddy,” I said as Paddy walked us to our room. “If we need that ride, we’ll let you know.”

  “Here you go youngsters,” Paddy said. He opened the door for us and showed us into a tidy room with one double bed and one twin bed. It had old red wallpaper and cream-colored carpet and walls. Paddy looked like he was going to stay and chat with us some more until Fanny faked a big yawn.

  “Oh, you’re tired from your long journey. Some jet lag, huh? Well, you let me know if you need anything.” Paddy walked out and the door slammed shut behind him.

  Fanny and I plopped ourselves onto the little beds to rest. I think we were both almost asleep when Jake yelled at us. “You can’t sleep. We have to get out there,” he whined.

  “Sleep first,” Fanny said. She rolled over with her back to us.

  “You don’t have time for sleep now,” said Jake. “Come on, we have to make a plan for how we’re going to get that torc.”

  “Calm down nub,” said Fanny. “We’ve got time. Plan later. I need sleep.”

  “Come on Fan, Jake’s right,” I said. I wanted to sleep too, but Jake had a point. We needed to plan first, sleep later.

  “You two plan without me. You haven’t needed me so far. You don’t need me now,” Fan replied.

  We’d been a trio since pre-school, and there’s usually an odd man out. As the only sister to four older brothers, Fanny was pretty used to being the center of attention when she wanted to be.

  “Fan, you know we need you,” I said.

  “No you don’t. Jake’s enormous melon brain will come up with all the plans you need and now that you’re like a warrior goddess or whatever … well, you don’t need my talents anymore.”

  Ah, that was it. Fanny was used to being the muscle. She may be small, but Fanny is one of the strongest people I’ve ever seen. Ever since second grade when she kicked the crap out of this huge third-grader, Tommy, when he tried to take her lunch box from her. Well no one messed with Fanny again. The teachers had to come pull her off his chest, and she was still wailing on him. She was half his size and not a scratch on her but Tommy got led to the office with his nose bleeding buckets.

  Between that fight and the fact that Fanny is the star player of every sport there is, everyone pretty much steers clear of her. She’s been like my bodyguard ever since the Greta incident that started it all for me. It doesn’t make her popular, but she stands by me to make sure no one messes with me.

  I went and sat next to her. “Fanny, I need you. I’ll always need you,” I said.

  “Em, you’re strong too. You can take care of yourself,” she said without turning over.

  “Yeah, I’ve got some power building in me. But Fanny, you know I’m a big coward. I don’t have your courage. Your bravery makes me stronger. I can’t do this without you,” I said.

  There was quiet for a while. I heard a few sniffles but didn’t say anything about it.

  After a few minutes, Fan turned over, her eyes rimmed with red. “You know I’ll do anything to help you, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know that,” I said as I hugged her. “And I’ll do anything for you. For both of you. We’re in this together.”

  Drill sergeant Jake interrupted our beautiful moment.

  “Are you two done with your Lifetime TV moment? We’ve got to make a plan, then get some sleep, then head out to find this thing … ”

  Fanny and I both grabbed pillows and threw them at Jake, stopping him midsentence. Fanny threw hers so hard it knocked him over.

  “See,” I said. “You’re still the biggest muscle here.”

  We laughed and promised Jake we’d listen. He didn’t actually need us to come up with a plan. We mainly nodded as Jake outlined his strategy for the evening. Finally, we all decided to get a few hours of sleep before we set out. Soon we were going to be runaways and grave robbers. I doubt any of us will ever get into college. Good-bye scholarships.

  19. THINGS GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

  We woke up around 10:00 that night, packed just the stuff we needed for our nighttime journey into one bag, and crept down the stairs. People were eating and drinking in the pub below. They didn’t seem to notice us as we left.

  “Okay, we’re ready except for one thing,” Jake said.

  “What’s that nub? A blankie,” joked Fanny.

  “Cut it out Fan, I’ve had enough of your crap,” said Jake. He was tired and testy. “We need a shovel, okay? Unless you want to dig with your hands.”

  “Where are we going to get a shovel?” I asked.

  “They have to have a shovel here somewhere,” offered Jake. “Maybe there’s a shed or something out back. We can lift their shovel and return it when we get back.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Fanny as we left the room.

  We had one flashlight between the three of us so we pretty much had to stay clumped together to see anything in the pitch black. We crept around to the back of the large brick inn and found a small building. It looked promising until we noticed that it was locked with a padlock.

  “Crap, it’s locked,” I said.

  “You give up too easy,” said Fanny. “Padlocks are no problem. Jake, hand me the pack.”

  Jake flung the pack off his back and onto the ground. Fanny took the flashlight and rummaged through the bag until she found what she was looking for.

  “What ‘ya got?” asked Jake.

  “A pair of tweezers.”

  “What are you doing with a pair of tweezers in the pack?”

  “You’re a guy. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Understand what? What use could you possibly have for those on this mission?”

  “You never know when you’re going to need to tweeze, Jake,” Fanny said matter-of-factly. She got down on her knees and started working the lock. In a couple of minutes, we heard a click as the lock opened up.

  “How do you know how to do that?” I asked.

  “You don’t wanna’ know.” She flung open the door and began to walk into the shed with Jake and I on her heels.

  It was black as the blackest night in there. There wasn’t a speck of light except for what was put out by the small flashlight. We were huddled together so tight if one of us tripped we were all going down.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “So far all I’m seeing are old cans of paint and some crates of unknown origin,” said Jake.

  We stood still in the center of the room as Fanny swept the flashlight from one side of the room to the other. After a few minutes of slowly sweeping the room, we saw something metal glint in the light.

  “There,” said Jake. “Go back a bit. Back there, in the corner.”

  Fanny did what Jake asked and as our eyes adjusted to the light we saw it. A garden shovel caked with dirt and grass. Perfect.

  “Go get it,” Fanny said. She shoved the flashlight into Jake’s hand.

  “What? No, we’re all going to get it. All for one, remember?”

  “Come on Jake, you’re the guy here. Man up.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, give me the flashlight then.” Jake grabbed the flashlight from Fanny and left us in the dark as he slowly walked toward the back corner of the shed.

  “Got it,” he said. Fanny and I were in complete darkness now so I hoped he’d walk fast so we could get out of the
re.

  “Come on Jake, let’s get out of here,” I said. I heard Jake’s feet slowly shuffle then a sudden loud crash.

  “What happened?” Fanny asked.

  “I tripped,” said Jake. A few seconds later, Jake let out a loud scream. The small beam of light cast by the flashlight moved erratically.

  “What’s going on Jake?” I screamed.

  “Something just had my leg,” he said as he came bounding toward us. “Come on – move – there’s something in here!”

  We all ran with Jake to the door of the shed and escaped outside. When we got out, Fanny grabbed the flashlight from Jake.

  “What are you doing? Come on, let’s just get out of here.”

  “Calm your panties, nub,” said Fanny. She shined the flashlight back into the shed from just outside the door. She moved it back and forth until it caught the glow of eyes looking back at us.

  “There. That’s what attacked Jake,” she said.

  Jake and I both cowered on either side of Fanny as she shined the flashlight onto Jake’s attacker. There were two beady eyes looking right at us, reflecting the light in that creepy way animals’ eyes do. And in the light of the small electric torch you could see the eyes were surrounded by black fur.

  “It’s a cat,” I said.

  Fanny laughed so much I thought she’d have a seizure.

  As soon as Fanny stopped laughing enough to talk, she said, “Okay, I concede Jake. We no longer send you to do ‘man’s’ work.”

  “Shut it,” Jake said. He grabbed the flashlight from her and stomped away.

  We ran to catch up with Jake, neither of us wanting to be left in the dark Irish night without a flashlight. When we got to the sidewalk in front of the inn we followed Jake up the street. He looked like he knew where he was going.

  20. MONASTERBOICE

  “Jake, you know how to get there?” I asked.

  “Sure. We take this street about four miles then we go left. We should be there in another mile or so. Easy.”

  We walked on the sidewalk until we ran out of sidewalk then we walked single file along the narrow road. We soon found ourselves in the Irish countryside, the houses thinning out and giving way to fields. We were three young teens alone on an open road. Though we were cloaked in the robe of darkness, I felt exposed.

  “Hey guys, maybe we should get off the road,” I said.

  “Why?” asked Jake.

  “So no one will see us. Three kids out this late carrying a shovel may be a bit out of place, don’t you think? And what if they’re looking for us? I mean, we don’t know, but if our parents called the cops back home and they started looking for us, they may have tracked us to Ireland and so if we get stopped by the town fuzz … ”

  “Yeah, Em’s right,” said Fanny. “We should get off the roads.” Jake nodded his agreement and pointed us in the direction that he thought we should go.

  Along the road, there was a low fence made of grey stone that we jumped over pretty easily. After that, it all started going to crap pretty quickly. I mean that literally. We soon found ourselves tripping over small bumps in the grass and trying to dodge cow pies.

  “We’re in a frickin' field of cows, Em,” said Fanny. She quickly sidestepped what appeared to be fairly fresh cow poop. The dark of the night may have helped shield us from any onlookers, but it made the travel much more difficult. The only light came from a small sliver of moon that was just starting to creep above the horizon and a single, small flashlight.

  After about a half hour of slow going through the cow field, we came to another fence. As we approached it, the reality of our situation began to dawn.

  From the road, the stone fences looked about four feet high at most and easy to scale and jump over. But when you get up close to them, they’re not only taller than that, but grown up all around the stone are bramble bushes. What was once an ordinary stone fence became a stone fence with a natural razor wire barrier.

  We stood in front of the impenetrable fortress of rock and brambles for a few minutes, speechless. It was getting late. We had spent more time in the shed getting a shovel than we had expected. And with the slow going through the field, it was now after 11:00.

  “What now?” asked Jake.

  “I’m sorry guys,” I said. “I’m not much good at this whole quest thing. Every idea I have turns to dog poop.” I felt defeated and we’d only just begun.

  “No need to apologize, Em,” Jake said. “It was a good idea. How were you supposed to know the Irish protect their cow pie fields with natural razor wire?”

  “Okay Jake, stop kissing Emily’s butt long enough to navigate us back to the road.”

  We walked along the fence toward the road, climbed over the lower fence then started walking single-file again up the road. After about an hour of walking, I sensed that we weren’t going the right direction.

  “Hey Jake, you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, back there when we were first started out, the moon was coming up in front of us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now it’s behind us,” I said.

  We all stopped. Jake looked back and up into the sky. “You’re right,” he said. “Crap, we must be going the wrong way.”

  “Oh that’s great Jake! We’ve been walking for an hour in the wrong direction,” Fanny said. She flicked Jake in the head.

  “Ow! Don’t flick me. You didn’t figure it out either, Einstein,” he said.

  “Okay guys, stop bickering. Jake, pull out that map,” I said.

  Jake shone the flashlight on the map. “Problem is, I’m not really sure where we are. There are so many little roads that intersect. I’m not sure what road we got onto when we went back over the fence.”

  “Well, we know we’re going the wrong way now, so we have to turn around and go back down this road,” I said.

  “Yeah, but then what?”

  Fanny cut in, “Wait! I’ve got it.” Fanny rummaged through the backpack.

  “What now? More tweezers?” Jake asked.

  “No Jakester, something way better for this situation.” Fanny pulled something small and rectangular from the pack. “My phone,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re not thinking of calling a cab, are you?” I asked.

  “No silly, something better. I got GPS on this thing. I totally forgot about it.”

  “You’ve got GPS on your phone, and you’re just now telling us?” Jake said through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t get your boxers in a knot Jake. I forgot, okay? Besides, I didn’t think you’d get us lost, nub.”

  “Let’s not waste more time bickering. Fanny, get that thing fired up,” I said.

  According to Fanny’s GPS, after an hour and a half on the road, we were now six miles from Monasterboice instead of five when we started out.

  “Let’s get going. We gotta’ hustle before we run out of time.”

  We walked as fast as we could along the edge of the narrow roads. We didn’t see a single car so I guess my worry about being caught out there wasn’t much of a problem. After almost two hours of walking and navigating the roads – tricky even with a GPS in rural Ireland - we saw a large stone tower in silhouette on the horizon to the east.

  Monasterboice. The tower looked just like the pictures we’d seen of it on the Internet. It looked ominous in silhouette against the large October moon. Even at that late hour there were crows circling around it calling out.

  We were exhausted, but we ran the rest of the way to Monasterboice. We finally got to the gate a little before 2:00 a.m. The air was chilly and filled with the smell of wet fall leaves, grass, and the lingering odor of cow dung.

  Our elation at finally finding the tower soon turned to despair. Just like the cow and sheep fields, Monasterboice was surrounded by a grey stone fence all the way around. But the Monasterboice fence was even more menacing than the fences around the fields. It had jagge
d stones turned on their sides all around the top. You couldn’t shimmy over it without ripping a huge gash in your stomach.

  “Very effective security fences they have here,” Jake said as we approached.

  “What now?” asked Fanny.

  Neither Jake nor I had an answer. Lit by the large, nearly full October moon, the cemetery with the large stone tower looked like an impenetrable fortress.

  “I think we should walk around the outside of the fence. We can look for a place where the top stones have come off or something,” I offered.

  “As good a plan as any,” Jake said as we headed out.

  We trudged through a field on the south side of the site first. It wasn’t long before we saw what we were looking for. There was a place about two feet wide where the jagged capstones were missing.

  “Bingo,” Fanny said. She wasted no time and scrambled up the wall. Fanny’s a strong climber. It didn’t take her long to scale the wall and slide through the narrow gap between capstones. After she got up and over the wall, she leaned over it from the inside and put her hands out to help me up.

  I’m not a strong climber and not nearly as small as Fanny. It wasn’t so easy for me to scale the wall and pop over. Fanny pulled me and I pushed against the bumpy stones with my feet as I tried to push my bottom half up the wall.

  “Come on girl,” Fanny grunted. “Use your muscles.”

  “I don’t have any muscles.” I huffed and puffed from the exertion.

  “Jake, make yourself useful. Push Emily’s butt up the wall,” Fanny said.

  “I’m not … I can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” asked Fanny.

  “I can’t touch her butt,” said Jake. “That wouldn’t be … a proper thing to do.”

  “Jake,” I huffed. “It’s okay. Desperate times, desperate measures, remember? Push my butt over this wall before Fanny rips my arms out of their sockets.”

  After a few seconds, I felt Jake’s small hands shoving on my posterior. He had them just kind of resting there, not pushing at all.

  “Come on Jake! This isn’t the time to cop a feel. Push!” With that Jake gave a mighty shove and I was up and over the rock wall. Fanny let go of my hands, and I fell over and landed on top of her. “I’m over,” I said.

  “Really? Hadn't noticed." Fanny quickly scrambled out from under me.

  “Okay, Jake. Your turn,” I said.

  “Not happening,” Jake said back.

  “What do you mean? You gotta’ come over too.”

  “I can’t. There’s no one over here to shove my butt over,” he said. “Here, I’ll toss over the backpack and hand you guys the shovel. You can take it from here.”

  “No, Jake, we’re all in this together, remember? We’ll get you over.”

  The backpack came flying over the wall and landed with a thud.

  “Here’s the shovel.” Jake handed it over the wall and Fanny leaned over and grabbed it.

  “You guys go on in and try to find it. I’ll wait here for you. Now get going. We’re running out of time.”

  He had a point. It was getting late, and we didn’t know how to find the torc. We were in a huge graveyard. It was full of large headstones, Celtic crosses and low gravestones. We could search for days and not find what we were looking for, and that’s if we actually knew what we were looking for.

  “Okay, Jake. You’re right. But don’t go anywhere. I don’t want to lose you out here,” I said.

  “You won’t lose me.”

  “Make yourself useful, Jake,” Fanny said. “Be a lookout. If you hear or see anyone coming, hoot like an owl or something so we know to hide.”

  We heard Jake mutter something under his breath as we walked away from the wall. “What’s the plan, Em?” Fanny asked.

  “I’m not sure. I guess we need to walk up and down the rows and look at the markers. Look for clues, like a symbol or letters that seem to go with Hindergog’s story.”

  Easier said than done, especially in the dark. From the wall, the ground sloped slightly. At the top of the small rise, we saw gravestones packed tightly together as far as our eye could see. The stones were in fairly even rows, but every now and then there would be a large rectangle of stone placed around a grave, only about two inches off the ground. The perfect height to cause someone to trip. Fanny and I must have each tripped and fallen face first into a gravel-filled grave about three or four times. Our shins and legs were scraped and bruised.

  Row after row of old stone grave markers and large and small Celtic crosses. Fanny and I used the flashlight to illuminate each grave marker we could see, but even the light wasn’t much help.

  “I can’t make out any letters on most of these,” I said.

  “I can’t either,” said Fanny.

  Feeling with our hands didn’t help. We knew we were looking for a marker or grave from over a thousand years ago so we could ignore the modern ones with words etched in marble. All the older ones had been worn down by weather and were covered with lichens and moss.

  We had walked through probably half of the cemetery when we heard a scuffling in the leaves behind us. Fanny and I both jumped and turned around, moving together almost as one unit. Fanny shone the flashlight directly in front of us. We didn’t see anything but again heard the leaves rustle.

  We held our breath and didn’t move a muscle. Here we were in an old graveyard in the middle of the Irish countryside during a full moon with crows calling out overhead. It doesn’t get much creepier than that. We heard something come toward us. It sounded too large to be a cat.

  “Who’s there?” I called out into the dark.

  “It’s me.” Jake appeared in the small pool of light made by the flashlight.

  Fanny and I both released our grip on each other and began to breathe again.

  “Jake, you major pain, what the heck are you doing? You scared the crap out of us,” Fanny said.

  “Oh, good to see you too.”

  “You shouldn’t sneak up like that. You should have called out or something,” Fanny replied. Her voice was filled with annoyance. Fanny didn't like to show weakness, especially around Jake.

  “What? And miss the opportunity to see your face just now?"

  Fanny lightly punched Jake's arm for good measure. He rubbed his arm where she hit him, but he continued to smile, enjoying the rare moment when he got the better of Fanny.

  “How’d you get in?” I asked.

  “Oh that. Well I sat there for a while but got bored. So I started walking the fence to see if I could find a way in. If you guys had gone a little ways further along the fence, you would have found a wrought iron gate. They forgot to lock it. All I had to do was pull it open and voila! Jake’s in.”

  “I’m glad. We need your help. We’ve gone through row after row of graves – watch your step, by the way – some of them are raised. But most of the old ones don’t have any visible writing left. We could be here for days and not see a single clue,” I said.

  Jake looked thoughtful for a minute. Sometimes, when he’s thinking hard, you can practically hear wheels spinning in his brain.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said at last. “Em, remember when I was saying names of burial sites, and you got that chill up your spine when you heard Monasterboice?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, maybe you can use your second sight – or whatever you call it – you know, to sense when we’re in the right place.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have control over that stuff. It seems to come and go as it pleases. I can’t just turn it on when I want to.”

  “But maybe you could try,” said Fanny. “We don’t have a lot of options.”

  We didn’t have time to look at each grave in that place with our little flashlight. There had to be hundreds of stones in that place. Besides, even if we looked at each one, our eyes were no use. Any information that might have been a clue for us had long since worn away.

  “Okay, I’ll try it,” I
finally said. “I’m not sure what to do though to turn on my receiver.”

  “What did you do when you were younger?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, when I was little, it was like always on. I didn’t have to turn it on.”

  “Well, try to meditate or breathe or something,” said Fanny.

  “Yeah Em, that’s a good idea. Maybe if you quiet your mind and think about the torc, maybe it will lead you to it,” Jake said.

  “But we’ve walked through about half of this place already. And there wasn’t any hair raising going on. I think we’re at a dead end.”

  “We still have about half to go. Besides, what do we have to lose?” Jake asked.

  He had a point so I did what Jake suggested. I sat on the ground, closed my eyes and tried to get quiet. It seemed so silly. Fan started giggling and that got me laughing. Jake looked stern and serious, which made us laugh more. But after a few minutes and Jake pleading with us, we stopped and I tried again.

  With Fanny quiet, after a couple of minutes I was able to quiet my mind a bit. At first I felt sleepy. I could have laid down there and taken a nap on the hard ground between all these gravestones. But then a peace came over me. I daydreamed, just like on the airplane.

  I saw the same green hills and a circle of stones. I saw the face of a beautiful woman with long wavy red hair. At first I thought it was my mom, but it wasn’t. Then I saw it. The torc. Just as in my dream before. Shiny and golden and glowing. It hovered right in front of me. I felt like I could reach out for it. I saw the initials ‘SCS’ in my mind then the dream was gone.

  I opened my eyes and half expected myself surrounded by lush green hills with the torc hovering before me. But I was still in the graveyard. Fanny was lying down, maybe asleep. Jake still sat across from me, his eyes droopy but awake.

  “Well?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I think we should look some more,” I said.

  I got up and began walking, not sure why I was going where I was going. My feet seemed to steer me to the west corner of the graveyard. Fanny and Jake followed behind. My feet led me to a small grave marker almost at the very edge of the cemetery.

  It was different from all the others. It wasn’t shaped like the usual tombstone but instead was a small obelisk shape. It stood only two feet or so above the ground, and it looked like it used to have a point on top but it had worn down. It was covered in lichens and moss and had turned a yellowy green rather than grey stone.

  It was such a small, plain stone, most would probably walk by it and not notice it at all. It had no carvings or writing. But as soon as I approached it, I got that tingly feeling again all up and down my spine and my arms. The hairs all over my body stood on end.

  I bent down and gingerly put my hands on the stone. I felt for a mark of some kind. I didn’t feel any markings with my fingers, but as I touched it, I saw the letters ‘SCS’ appear in my mind, just like in my dream. As in my dream, I saw verdant hills and a circle of stones in my mind’s eye. And there it was. The torc glowed gold and hovered before my eyes. The vision was so powerful, it made me dizzy. I began to wobble.

  “Em, are you okay?” asked Jake. He bent down to steady me.

  “This is it,” I said in a low voice. “Here. We dig here.”

  Fanny and Jake looked at each other and at me. Their mouths hung open like when I’d thrown Muriel against the wall. It was like they were in a daze.

  “Jake, Fanny,” I said. “We’re running out of night. Come on, let’s dig.”

  Jake came out of his stupor, grabbed the shovel and dug. It wasn’t long until Fanny had had enough of Jake’s slow and methodical digging. She snatched the shovel from him and hacked at the ground.

  “Be careful,” said Jake. “You don’t want to break it.”

  For close to an hour, Fanny dug and found nothing but worms and slugs. As the first light of dawn peaked over the hills to the east behind us, Fanny hit something hard.

  “Hey, I think we’ve got something,” she said.

  I shined the flashlight into the hole. I saw something glint in the hole as I shined the light. All three of us used our hands and the shovel to uncover the object Fanny had hit upon.

  “Do you think this is really a grave?” Fanny asked.

  “I don’t know, but this is creeping me out,” I said. “I don’t want to find a corpse.”

  But our fears were soon alleviated. There was no coffin. Our digging revealed the shape of the object in the hole. It was a small box, no more than six inches all the way around. In no time, we had it out of the ground completely and began wiping it off.

  “It’s metal,” Jake said. “And look, it has something carved on the top.”

  “What is that?” asked Fanny.

  I shined the flashlight on the top of the box. “It’s a tree,” I said. The carved tree took up most of the top of the box. It was a magnificent tree with many branches. It looked like an oak tree. But the weird thing was that all its branches ended in a flame. “It’s a flaming tree.”

  “Open it Emily,” Jake said. He’s been holding the box and he pushed it into my hands.

  “No, you open it.” I tried to shove it back to Jake.

  “No, you should open it,” he said.

  He was right of course, but I was afraid. What will happen when I open it? Will that torc thing crawl up my arm and wrap itself around me? Will I become someone – or something – else? Will the ground open up and swallow me into it like it did with Saorla?

  Even though questions of worry swirled in my brain, I decided to open the box like Jake suggested. I tried to pry it open with my fingers, but it was stuck shut, the clasp caked with dirt and age. I handed the box to Jake and he tried but it was no use.

  “Oh, give me that,” Fanny said. She took the box, knocked it on the ground a few times, and with one mighty pull opened it. As she held it open, I shined the flashlight into the box.

  The light caught the golden metal. The torc lay inside.

  It didn’t move on its own or crawl its way onto me. It just lay there, a beautiful arm bracelet made of many strands of twisted gold that all came together in an oval. Each end was capped with a carved finial. One finial was in the shape of a bird. It looked like a hawk or maybe an eagle. On the other end was the head of a woman. Her hair streamed back from her face and ended in flame. A chick with her hair on fire! What’s with all the fire?

  The torc didn’t glow or look in any way magickal. It looked like an old, hung of metal.

  “I can't believe we found it,” Fanny said.

  “Yeah, I hoped we’d find it. But I had my doubts,” Jake said.

  I couldn’t say anything. It was great that we’d found it of course. And yeah, it made me believe again in Hindergog, that weird little guy. But the truth is, I was kind of disappointed. I guess I expected it to glow like in my visions and for something magickal to happen when I found it.

  “What’s the matter, Em?” asked Fanny.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “It’s just that it looks sort of looks, you know, ordinary.”

  All three of us stood peering into the box and stared at it for a few minutes. Jake finally broke the silence. “Put it on Em.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I should,” I said. “Look, the sun is coming up. We need to cover this hole and get the heck out of here.”

  Jake didn’t argue with me, but he eyed me cautiously. I think he could see that I was scared of the thing, but he didn’t push me. At least not then.

  21. ON THE RUN

  We hoofed it back to the inn and arrived as the town was coming fully alive for the day. We put the shovel back inside the shed and looked forward to falling into bed for a long sleep. As we walked inside the inn, there were already a few people gathered around the dining table eating breakfast. When we walked by the front desk, Paddy looked at us with raised eyebrows.

  “Bit early, huh,” he said.

  “We wanted to see the sunrise,” I said as we wal
ked up the stairs to our room.

  When we got to our room, Fanny and Jake both flopped down on their beds to get some well-deserved sleep. “I think Paddy was a little suspicious of us, don’t you think?” I asked.

  “Ugh-huh,” was all Fanny said in reply. I think Jake was already asleep.

  “I gotta go hit the head guys,” I said. I tiptoed out into the hall and closed the door behind me. As I turned to go down the hall to the toilet, I heard Paddy talking to another man down the stairs in the reception area.

  “Imagine that, some German tourist lady falling into a hole out there in that old graveyard,” the man said.

  I heard Paddy chuckle loudly. “I’d have liked to seen that mate! Old bird was she? Falling right in a hole.”

  “It ‘taint funny Paddy. That’s some serious stuff now,” said the man.

  “Well the ladies out there at Monasterboice said the German gal wasn’t harmed. So what ‘taint funny about that then, Officer Kelly?” Paddy asked.

  “Oh the old bird going down, that’s funny mate. But the hole being there? Now that’s another story. The volunteer ladies who run the place, they said that half to nine a German tourist came to them and complained that his wife just twisted her ankle in that hole back there. They ran to where the old bird was down and when she got up, they got to lookin’ at it, and it was a right proper hole someone dug up. Fresh too. Wasn’t there yesterday when they locked up. In the night, someone dug a hole at one of those old grave markers.”

  “Can you believe it, some heathen defiling an ancient grave that way!” said Paddy. “Do you think they’re after treasure or something?” he asked.

  “Probably some teenagers, you know, pulling some kind of prank. Or maybe it’s random vandalism like kids do these days,” said the other man.

  “Did they take anything, you knows, out of it?” asked Paddy.

  “They don’t rightly know seeing as how it’s so old, no one knows if there was anything in there still. But the hole was pretty small, so who’s ta say.”

  There was a pause for a minute then Paddy said, “Hey wait a minute. There are some youngsters staying here. American kids, teenagers.”

  “Yeah, so?” queried the other man.

  “Well, my groundskeeper was out early this morning, and he couldn’t find his shovel in the shed,” said the innkeeper.

  “Oh yeah? Tell me more.”

  “Well, those kids, they came in early this morning. They said they was out for sunrise, but I reckon they was out all night,” said the innkeeper.

  Then there was another silence. I didn’t wait to hear what they’d say next. I ran back to the room and opened the door.

  “Guys, wake up. Get up man, we gotta’ go.” I madly threw my stuff into my bag.

  “What are you doin’?” Fanny asked. “I wanna sleep for a few hours.”

  “No time, Fan. We gotta’ leave now. A local cop is down there and he’s real curious about our shovel pinching. They’ve already found the grave that we dug up, and he doesn’t sound too thrilled about it.”

  Jake and Fanny were up like a shot. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jake move that fast. He and Fanny stuffed their junk into their bags and shoved their feet into their shoes. We heard the loud steps of the portly Paddy and Officer Kelly coming up the stairs.

  “What do we do?” asked Jake. “We can’t go out the door. They’ll see us.”

  I looked around the room. There was only one window in the room and it was small and fairly high off of the ground. It would be a squeeze, but it was our only way out. “There,” I pointed. “Let’s go.”

  Fanny was the first out. She fit easily through the window, stood outside on the small ledge, and jumped to the gable roof below us. Jake and I poked our heads out of the window and watched as she walked along the roof to the small shed at the back of the inn. Jake turned to me and said, “I can’t do that, Em. I’ll fall.”

  “You’ve got to. Come on, Fanny will help you.”

  As I tried to summon Jake’s courage for him, Paddy knocked on the door. “You kids, open up now. Officer Kelly here wants to talk to you.”

  Jake took one look at me, swallowed hard, and jumped to the gable just as Fanny had. He stumbled a little and looked like he might fall off, but somehow he righted himself and ran to the shed roof.

  My turn. I was quite a bit bigger than both Fanny and Jake. I had to squeeze to get through the small window, but somehow I did it. I jumped and ran without thinking, all the while hearing the innkeeper and Officer Kelly yelling for us to let them in.

  We ran down side alleys and across neatly mowed yards. We didn’t know where we were going, only that we needed to get out of sight of the inn. As tired as I was, the danger allowed me to find the juice in my legs to run like I’d never run before. We ran south and west for a long time. Before long we were on a small country two-lane road with nothing but fields of grass and sheep on either side.

  I was too tired to keep count of time or distance. I knew only that we had to keep moving.

  After what seemed like an eternity, we came to a thick woods just off the side of the road. It was looked primeval. It was dark and scary, but it was a place to get out of the open and hide.

  We walked until we were far into the dense wood. Without saying a word to each other, we threw off our packs and fell down. I don’t think we were awake for more than a minute. Sleep while we can. This is only the beginning.

  22. ZOMBIE MAN WAKES

  The day that his wife died, a large part of Liam Adams died too. Liam was like the stone foundation of a house, but Bridget was the fire that burned in the hearth. Without her passion for life fueling him, Liam reverted to the only other comfort he had ever known: Science.

  Liam’s only family was his sister Muriel, fifteen years his senior. He’d asked Muriel to stay with him for a while and help him to care for Emily. In the wake of his grief, caring for his child felt like a burden he was unable to carry.

  Muriel didn’t just stay a few weeks. She moved in permanently. And while Muriel chipped away at the beauty of both Liam’s house and daughter, he threw himself into his work in theoretical physics at the University of Chicago. He became a zombie of a man.

  But on that day that everything changed, Liam was jolted out of his zombie state. He came home from work and found his sister sitting in their parlor, an ice pack on her head. Her bags were packed and arranged neatly by the front door. Liam walked to the chair where she sat and stood in front of her. Muriel didn’t look up at him as she handed him a note.

  “I told you she's trouble,” Muriel snarled. “Probably on drugs or something. You should have seen her when she attacked me. Her eyes were wild. She looked hyped up on something.”

  Liam said nothing and quickly scanned the note. He flopped his large frame into the worn chair across from Muriel and read it again. He searched each line for clues or hidden meaning.

  “Was she with anyone?” he asked.

  “Those two no-good friends of hers,” Muriel replied.

  Liam looked up from the note and looked at his sister. As soon as he looked at her, she screwed her face into a look of pain.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Okay? Okay? That brat attacked me! No, I’m not okay. You need to call the police, Liam. She needs to learn a lesson. If you don’t nip this in the bud, she’ll run wild all over you.”

  “Did she hit you?”

  “Hit? Well no, not exactly hit.”

  “Then how did you get that knot on your head? Did she push you?”

  “No, she didn’t exactly push me.”

  “Dammit Muriel, what happened here?”

  “I always knew she was strange. Just like her mother.”

  “Muriel, unless you want another lump on your head, you best leave off bad mouthing my wife and daughter.”

  Muriel’s lips pursed tightly. Her ‘baby’ brother had never raised his voice at her or back talked her in any way.

  “Just answer the questio
n. Tell me how you got that lump,” he said.

  Muriel, still stunned, obeyed the request. “Well, you’re not going to believe me. But she threw me.”

  “You mean to tell me that Emily picked you up and threw you?”

  “Well no, not exactly. Maybe threw isn’t the right word, but that’s what she did but without touching me. She looked at me with a crazed look and I was thrown backward. Twice. The second time I fell against the wall. That blasted frame fell, hit my head and knocked me out.”

  It was Liam’s turn to stare off to the horizon in a dazed silence. Any other father probably would think his older sister was cracked, the bonk on the head giving her brain damage. But Liam knew something that Muriel didn’t know. Liam knew that his daughter had special talents.

  Emily and Bridget thought that they had a secret from Liam. They had thought it was just between them. But Liam had known all along.

  When Emily was not yet one, he came into her room in the morning to get her up and change her. As he walked in, Emily was sitting up in her crib and a small stuffed animal dog flew across the room to her. She didn’t see her father there watching, but he could see her concentration on the dog. Before long it flew into her hands. She grabbed it, smiled big and played with the toy like it was the most normal thing in the world to make something come to you just by thinking about it.

  Liam didn’t say anything to his wife. He assumed it was a fluke, perhaps a trick of his own mind. After all, there had to be a reasonable explanation. Objects don’t just fly around.

  But as time went by, there were other flying objects. And Liam could swear that his wife and daughter communicated with each other without talking. He never said anything, and as time went on, Emily’s abilities – and Bridget’s too – became something that was ‘between them’. Liam assumed that when Emily got older, she’d tell him about it if she wanted to. She never did. Liam had figured that maybe Emily had lost her strange abilities as she grew up.

  When Liam heard Muriel’s story about Emily ‘throwing’ her across the room just by thinking about it, it didn’t surprise him in the least. In truth, Muriel’s story made Liam smile inside. He supposed that Muriel deserved it. She had been nasty to Emily. Perhaps she had it coming?

  Liam resumed his study of Emily’s note. He read and reread.

   

  “Dear Dad,

  I’m leaving. Don’t try to find me. I have important work to do. A mission. I can’t tell you where I’m going. I can’t tell you when I’ll return.

  I’m not running away – at least I don’t think I am. I plan to come back. But you should know that I won’t be putting up with Muriel anymore. I’m done with her pushing me around.

  Don’t worry dad. Love, E”

   

  Not a lot of clues. Acting on an intuitive sense that Liam wasn’t aware he had, he knew as he looked at the laconic note from his daughter that he didn’t want to call the police. This was a family matter, and Liam needed to take care of his family and of the mess he’d created.

  “We’re not calling the police Muriel,” he said calmly.

  “What! You can’t do this Liam. That girl needs to learn her lesson. You have to use tough love with dope heads,” she said.

  “She’s not a dope head, Muriel. And no, she’s had enough of your tough love. If I call the police, I should be calling on you for child abuse.”

  Muriel’s face turned as white as stone. That shut her up.

  “No, this is something that I need to take care of,” he said.

  No sooner had Liam finished his sentence and the phone rang. Fanny’s mom, Esther, sobbed on the end of the phone line. She had received a similar note. Her husband was out of town on business and she didn’t know where to turn.

  “Come over, Esther, and bring the note from Fanny. We’ll find them. But don’t call the police. Not yet.”

  He hung up the phone and padded to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Liam was measuring the coffee into the filter when the phone rang again. Jake’s mom cried on the other end. Liam invited her over as well.

  Within a half hour, both mothers sat in Liam’s parlor. Jake’s mom, Carol, still in her nurse’s uniform, bags under her red-rimmed eyes, sat on the couch with Jake’s note held tightly in her hand. Esther quietly sobbed and grasped Fanny’s note tightly in her hands. Muriel finished out the quartet. She seethed but kept her lips tightly shut.

  “Ladies, I know this is a shock for all of us. But we have to keep our heads about us. I suggest we compare the notes and see if our kids left us any clues so we can find them and get them back where they belong.”

  “Liam, shouldn’t we call the police?” Esther asked. “They need to find my Fan … ” She broke down sobbing again and Carol put her arm around Esther. Liam could see tears well again in Carol’s eyes.

  “I know it seems natural to call the police. But I’m asking you not to. The children weren’t kidnapped. And it’s clear from these notes that they intend to return. The police will classify them as runaways and these kids will be in all kinds of trouble when they get back. Carol, Jake needs scholarships for college, right?”

  “Yes. Without scholarships, Jake will never be able to afford college.”

  “I don’t want him to have a criminal record. Not if we can help it. And Fanny, her chances of sports scholarships will be jeopardized too,” he said.

  Esther couldn’t speak but nodded her affirmation.

  “And, well, I feel I need to take care of this. I’m not at all proud to say it – you may already know this – but I haven’t been a very devoted father to Emily since Bridget died,” Liam said. A tear came to his eye but he willed it not to fall. Both mothers reached and gently touched Liam’s hand. It was the first time anyone had intentionally touched Liam in seven years.

  “I understand,” Carol said at last. “You need to find your little girl, Liam. And bring our Jake and Fanny back too.” Again, Esther only nodded her agreement.

  With that, they went to the dining room table to pour over the notes and try to find clues. Liam was worried, sad and mad. But he was also exhilarated. It was the first real emotion he'd had in years. It was the first time he’d truly cared about anything in years. Liam felt like he’d been in a foggy sleep but was waking. He was needed, and he was going to find his daughter and bring her home. He’d bring her home at long last.

  23. LIAM SEARCHES FOR CLUES

  Three notes. Three different handwriting styles. All pretty much saying the same thing. None said where the kids were going.

  All three mentioned an urgent ‘mission’. What kind of mission could three fourteen-year-old kids from the Midwest be on?

  Liam thought that if any of them would leave a clue it would be Jake. Liam observed the neat handwriting of Jake’s note.

   

  ‘I’m sorry Mom. I know this puts you in a bind. But I’ve got to go help Emily with her mission. I’m sorry for the trouble this is going to cause you, but it’s for the greater good. I know that when I return you’ll understand.’

   

  So it’s Emily’s mission. What mission could Emily have (besides running away from Muriel)?

  Next Liam looked at Fanny’s note. Sloppy handwriting. Poor grammar and incomplete sentences. She better hope for a sports scholarship.

   

  ‘Don’t worry mom and dad. Don’t send my brothers after me. Not running away. Em needs me for urgent mission. She’s my best friend. Know you’d do the same for a friend. Please forgive me and I know you’re going to ground me for life when I get home.’

   

  Again with the “urgent mission.” And Emily needs her. It’s Emily’s deal, and they’re just along for the ride. But what could Emily possibly have going on?

  Liam read over Emily’s note again. He hadn’t turned it over before, but for some reason, he did then. In even sloppier writing, she wrote more on the back.

   

  ‘Dad, I miss you so much.’

&
nbsp;  

  Miss me? She just left. As Liam thought about it more, he realized what she meant. Oh, she means she had been missing me, even before she left. Tears welled in Liam’s eyes and he didn’t will them not to fall.

   

  ‘If I told you where I was going and why I was going, you wouldn’t believe me. Something amazing has happened. I know you wouldn’t understand. The ancient blood that runs in my veins is calling me home. Please don’t come looking for me. I love you dad.’

   

  Liam read the backside of the note over and over. There had to be a clue in there somewhere, but all he could see was a runaway note from his missing daughter. Guilt and shame threatened to blind him until he could see nothing else.

  Liam dragged himself to the kitchen and rifled through the high cupboard above the refrigerator that only his 6’3” frame could reach. Liam hadn’t had a drink in years, but it seemed to him the right time for a stiff one. He retrieved a bottle of scotch and poured himself a shot.

  He swallowed the amber juice down in one gulp. The fire liquid set his innards ablaze but did nothing to clear his mind. He sat with his head in his hands, waiting for something to click. As he sat and contemplated how drinking shots of scotch wasn’t going to help clear the thick fog in his brain, the words from the note suddenly shouted at him. ‘The ancient blood that runs in my veins is calling me home.’

  In a flash he was sober and alert like he hadn’t been in years. There was a clue in that phrase. It was a big clue that Emily didn’t know she had given. She didn’t know she had left a clue because she didn’t know what he knew.

  Liam ran to the attic, taking the steps by two. In the far corner, covered in dust and cobwebs, was a special box. He had hidden it under clothes and other junk. He’d hidden it from Muriel and from Emily too.

  It was the box of Bridget. His own box. He hadn’t touched any of the things in over seven years. Liam’s hands shook as he took the little box from under the pile of stuff and wiped off the years of dust. It was only a mundane shoebox. It didn’t look like anything noteworthy would be inside, but the dusty, ratty box contained the contents of his heart.

  When Emily spoke of her ancient blood, Liam knew that she was talking about Bridget’s side of the family. It was a lineage filled with Irish blood. Bridget had once shown him a family history, actually drawn out by her like a tree. She’d kept it in the box that Liam held in his hands.

  He gently took off the lid. On top were letters Liam had sent Bridget when they were in college at two different universities. He couldn’t believe she had kept them all those years. She’d also kept pictures Emily had drawn for her while in preschool. There were crayon drawings of houses and flowers. The bright colors mimicked the paintings that Bridget had made. He sifted through concert ticket stubs and more letters and cards. It was strange to see someone’s memories of their life, now over, laid in a box that way. Bridget’s memories laid to rest in a shoebox coffin.

  There were sketches she had done of orchids and other flowers. Finally Liam found what he’d been looking for. On the bottom was a small black notebook. He pulled the notebook out and laid the shoebox to the side. He opened the cover and only a few pages in he found the sketch of a family tree. Bridget’s family tree. It was a complex and convoluted drawing with lines going here and there and everywhere and notes in the margins. She had spent hours tracing her family history. Bridget had her mother’s side back to the 1500’s. And then there it was. Ireland.

  As soon as he saw the word, scribbled in large letters in black ink, he knew it was where Emily had gone. Had she received contact from someone in Ireland and felt she had to go. But who? Liam looked at the names of ancestors long dead. Unless a ghost had haunted her, he had no idea who could have contacted her. But he knew he had to get on a plane and go to Ireland.

  He didn’t know what he would do when he got there or where he would go. He knew only the single-minded thought to get on a plane and fly to Ireland. He knew only the need to search for his only daughter.

  She’s got Bridget’s eyes.

  Liam carefully put the cards, letters, ticket stubs and pictures back in the box and shoved it back under a pile of dusty clothes. He grabbed the little black notebook and as he stood up, a small sketch fell out of the notebook and landed on the floor. He picked it up and puzzled over it for a few minutes. It was an odd sketch of something that looked like a bracelet. Liam had never seen Bridget draw anything like it. She always drew and painted flowers and plants and trees. Her work was all about nature. Why did she draw this odd bracelet, all twisted and? Somehow it seemed to Liam that this drawing was related to Emily’s ‘mission’, but he didn’t know how or why he felt it.

  As he looked at the sketch, fresh tears sprang to his eyes. It felt to Liam as though Bridget’s energy zoomed from the strange drawing and straight into him. Salty drops dripped from his eyes. Until that day, he hadn’t cried since the day she’d died.

  “Bridget, I miss you so much. If only you were here, you’d know what to do. You’d know how to find our Emily. Let's face it, if you were here, she wouldn’t have run away, would she?

  “Bridget, I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t even know if I believe that you still exist. You know I’m not a spiritual man. I don’t know why I’m doing this.” Liam buried his head in his hands and let the long quashed tears flow in rivers down his cheeks.

  “Bridget, if you can hear me – if you’re still there, somewhere, somehow – if you’re there, Bridge, our little girl needs you too. If you’re there, look over our Emily.”

  After a few minutes, Liam wiped his tears and nose. He folded the little sketch and tucked it back into the notebook. He’d have time on the plane to puzzle over the drawing and the notebook, the only clues he had to find his daughter amongst the entire population of Earth.

  24. EMILY’S SEARCH FOR THE SACRED WELL

  When I woke, it was the next morning. We had all slept through the afternoon and into the next day. We shook the sleep from our bodies and ate the day-old bagels we’d stashed in our packs. After our dry breakfast, Jake pulled out his maps and pages he’d printed off his laptop while Fanny cranked up the GPS app on her phone.

  Jake had printed out pages that he’d found about different wells and sanctuaries dedicated to St. Bridget. It was a surprisingly long list. Over the years, the old goddess Brighid was turned into a Catholic saint, St. Bridget. The spelling was different, and she had become a saint instead of a Goddess. But St. Bridget was associated with wells, springs and healing waters just as the Goddess Brighid had been for thousands of years. There were wells and springs dedicated to her all over Ireland. When Jake plotted the wells and springs on his map, we could see a concentration of them in County Kildare.

  “This is promising,” Jake said. “There are at least two wells within walking distance of each other in Kildare town.”

  “Bingo,” said Fanny. “Hey, do you think that town cop called in an APB on us and has the whole Irish police force out looking for us?” Fanny asked.

  “I think we should be cautious. In a little town like that, digging up a grave at a religious site is probably a high crime,” I said.

  Fanny searched the web on her phone and found a bus schedule. We hiked to the next town and popped onto Bus Eireann. After two bus changes and six hours, we went about a hundred miles and got off in Kildare.

  By the time we got there, it was about an hour before dark. But it was only about a mile from the bus stop to the first well on our list so we decided to press on.

  Our most likely candidate for the Sacred Well was a small, somewhat touristy site that had a statue of St. Brigid and a walking path to a well. We walked down a newly paved road with a sidewalk and followed the signs to ‘St. Brigid’s Well’. Before long, a sign pointed down a long paved lane lined with towering old trees. When we got to the end of the lane, there were some cars parked there and about a half dozen people milling about the site.

  We walked ov
er a small wooden bridge onto a manicured lawn of intensely green grass. A statue of St. Brigid stood by a small stream, and there was a path with grey upright prayer stones leading to a small ring of stones.

  There it was. A small hole in the ground surrounded by stones. It wasn’t much to look at and didn’t seem very sacred. And it wasn’t a deep hole either. It looked to be only two feet deep. I can’t imagine this is a portal to another world. Looking at the small ring of stones around a tiny spit of water, my doubt grew and I began to feel silly about the whole thing.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” I said. I reached into my bag for the box with the torc in it.

  “Wait Em, you can’t do that now,” screeched Jake. “Not with these people around.”

  “Why not Jake? Nothing’s going to happen anyway. These tourists will just think I’m a weird American kid.”

  “What do you mean nothing’s going to happen? When you pull that thing out of its box, the portal will open up,” said Fanny.

  I laughed out loud at that. They really believe this stuff.

  “Look at this,” I said. I pointed to the small pool of water. “It’s a pathetic hole in the ground. Admit it, this doesn’t look like a portal to another dimension, does it?”

  Fanny and Jake looked at the hole in the ground and at each other, then back to me. They couldn’t say anything. They knew I was right.

  “Maybe nothing will happen. But we stole that artifact, remember? I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it out and wave it around in daylight with all these people around,” Jake said.

  Jake had a point.

  “Okay, you’re right. We’ll wait ‘til night when these people are gone,” I relented.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Fanny.

  “Let’s go back up to the town and have some supper. We’ll come back at night.”

  We stopped at a small restaurant and had Guinness stew, brown bread and Coca Cola. All we’d had to eat that day were the dry bagels at breakfast. We ate like feral children. After the heavy dinner, I wanted to find an inn and crash instead of walking back to the well. But sleep would have to wait, at least until I satisfied Jake’s curiosity. He wouldn’t rest until I’d pulled the torc out and shown him that I couldn’t open a portal. Then maybe he’d let me sleep.

  We staggered back to the well and it was full dark when we got there. Instead of all the tourists leaving, an even larger crowd had gathered.

  “What’s up with this crowd?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But look over there. It looks like they’re going to light a huge bonfire in that field over there,” said Fanny. She pointed to a pile of wood and kindling large enough to set a house on fire. There was a real festival atmosphere going on as more and more people gathered.

  Jake walked up to a small round lady and asked, “What’s going on here tonight?”

  “Well, it’s Samhein – All Hallow’s Eve, don’t you know? We’re honoring the spirits of our ancestors. Join in the festivities, lad,” she merrily answered.

  “Oh, okay, thank you then,” he replied. The lady shuffled off with her friends toward the bonfire.

  Jake returned to where we were standing. “Doesn’t look like a good night to open the portal, does it?”

  “Ah, this bites,” I said. “I’m so tired. I just want to get this over with.”

  “What do we do now?” Fanny asked.

  We stood there in silence for a few minutes. We were all cold and tired beyond belief. As miserable as my home had been for me, at that moment I would have gladly taken another crack in the face from Muriel if it was followed by sleep in my own bed.

  We stood there, half asleep standing up, when a large bird swooped down and almost took my head off.

  “What the … ” was all I could get out before it came back and swooped down again, this time actually grabbing at my jacket with its beak.

  “What kind of bird is that?” Fanny asked.

  “Looks like a small hawk,” Jake said.

  “A hawk?”

  All of us looked at each other, jaws open, remembering what Hindergog had said. ‘Follow the hawk.’

  The bird came at me again, this time flying right at me. I wasn’t sure the bird would pull up, but at the last minute, it did and flew across the grassy field just to the west of the well.

  “Follow the hawk,” said Fanny.

  “Yeah, I know what Hindergog said,” I replied.

  “No, I mean do it. Follow the hawk.”

  All three of us ran and tried to catch up with the bird.

  “Why are we following this bird exactly?” asked Jake.

  “Because the little dude with the pointy ears told us to,” said Fanny.

  “Good point,” Jake said.

  The bird led us away from the crowds at the Well of St. Brigid and over small hills. After about a quarter of a mile, we were well away from the bonfires and revelry and came to a small clump of old trees by a small brook.

  As we went down a little dip, we entered a thick grove of trees. My body went into overdrive. I felt chills up and down my spine. The hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms stood up. Even the hairs on my legs were on end. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. What is this place?

  “Does anyone else feel that?” Fanny asked.

  “What, you feel it too?” I asked.

  “Yeah, all my hairs are standing up,” said Jake.

  And he was right. I looked over at him, and the hair on his head was standing straight up. Jake’s head looked like someone had rubbed a balloon on it and made static electricity.

  “Holy crap, look at Jake’s hair!” said Fan. “Not a good look for you man”

  We couldn’t help but laugh at his ridiculous hair.

  “Come on guys, this isn’t time for jokes. There must be something near here causing this,” Jake said.

  We wandered around in the light of a full moon. The trees and vines were thick here, and it was a bit hard to pick our way through the wood. We couldn’t see the hawk anymore and I wasn’t sure we were going the right way. But we heard the hawk cry out and turned to go in the direction of its voice.

  A few minutes later we came to a small clearing. And there, perched atop a rock, was the hawk. She was beautiful in the full moon, her brown feathers flecked with white and her chest nearly all white. Even though it was entirely dark, the full moon lit up her eyes. They shone like two rounds of onyx.

  For some reason I can’t explain, the urge to speak to the hawk overwhelmed me.

  “Are you the hawk that Hindergog said to follow?” I asked it.

  The bird didn’t move but let out a short squawk.

  “And is this the Sacred Well?”

  Again, a short squawk.

  “Amazing,” said Jake. “Hey wait Emily, take out the torc.”

  I did as he asked and handed it to him.

  “Look, the bird on the torc. It’s the same kind of bird. It’s a hawk.”

  Fanny took the torc and inspected the bird finial then looked at the hawk. She nodded, “Yep, it’s a hawk alright.”

  Jake took out the flashlight and shone it around the ground. He shuffled his feet around the thick grass under our feet.

  “There’s a ring of stones here. This is it. This is the real well.”

  The hawk squawked again, only a bit louder. It was as if she was saying “That’s what I said, stupid!”

  The second well was smaller and less noticeable than the first. If I thought the first well was an unlikely candidate for a portal, the second was just plain pitiful. There wasn’t even any water, just a small, broken ring of stones.

  We stood in complete silence as we looked down at the pathetic, broken ring of rocks. But the chills going up and down my spine contradicted my conclusion that it was just a dip I the ground surrounded by ordinary rock.

  All I could say is, “This is it.” Fanny and Jake spoke not a word but nodded in agreement.

  “Emily, put the torc on now,” said Fanny. br />
  “Yeah,” chimed in Jake.

  I knew they were right, that I should put the torc on. The racing heart and chills in my body showed me that we were in the right place. But I didn’t want to put the hunk of metal on. At the well the hawk led us to, I began to feel as if the torc really would cause something to happen and I was scared. I didn’t want to go into the little hole. What if I can’t breathe? What if I get ripped apart? What if I can’t come back?

  “Come on Em,” Fanny said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Well,” I stammered, “what if someone sees?”

  “There isn’t anyone around here. They’re all over at the bonfire. They can’t see us,” said Jake. Fanny nodded.

  Fanny held the torc out to me. I reached for the arm bracelet, half expecting it to crawl itself up onto my arm or for the small hole in the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

  But as I grabbed the torc, nothing happened. It didn’t feel strange or magickal at all. It didn’t vibrate in my hand or cause a static discharge. The well was still just a small hole in the ground surrounded by ordinary stones. The torc was still just an old arm bracelet made of twisted metal.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Jake. “Hindergog said you’d know what to do.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t! How am I supposed to know what to do with this thing?” I yelled. The hawk cried out.

  “And I can’t understand what the heck you’re saying,” I grumped.

  We stood there and said nothing. None of us knew what to do next. After a long, awkward silence Jake said, “Look in the box Em. Maybe there are instructions in there or a spell or something.”

  Jake shone the flashlight while I searched the box. But I found nothing. There was no inscription or ancient writing. No pictures. Just an empty box.

  Jake inspected the torc itself. He found nothing helpful there either. It was just a bunch of twisted coils of gold.

  “Oh, this is useless,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Then Fanny chimed in, “Put it on.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You know. Put it on. Around your arm like Hindergog said that Saorla wore it.”

  “Well I’ve been holding it and nothing happened. I don’t see how putting it on is going to make a difference,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Fanny replied. “But try it anyway. It can’t hurt.”

  The hawk let out another excited squawk.

  “Apparently she agrees with you Fanny,” I said.

  I took my jacket off. The torc was pretty large and it slid easily onto my upper arm. As I eased onto my upper right arm, something truly strange happened.

  The torc tightened itself. On its own, the metal became slightly liquefied and molded itself to my arm until it fit me perfectly. Fanny and Jake stared in amazement, their eyes wide and their mouths open.

  “Holy crap, did you see that?” Jake asked.

  I couldn’t answer because at that moment, my head began swirling. In a matter of seconds, I was no longer with Jake and Fanny. The ground around me moved and morphed. I stood in front of the same well, only I wore a long purple robe and white tunic instead of jeans and a sweatshirt. I didn’t know if it was a vision or real, but I had become Saorla. I don’t know how I knew I was Saorla, but I did know it. I’m Saorla.

  My mouth opened and I heard myself speak. The voice sounded strange, as if it came from a far away place down on long tunnel. I spoke these words:

   

  Ring of stones,

  Circle of Moon.

  Goddess of Fire,

  And of the Light.

  Lift the veil of illusion,

  Open the door to truth,

  For the good of all mankind.

   

  As soon as the last word was spoken, the ground trembled beneath me. I didn’t know if the ground trembled only in my vision or in the real world with Fanny and Jake. But as the earth shook, I heard thunder boom and the little indentation surrounded by stones grew. It widened and deepened until it was a proper hole, not just a depression in the ground. A strange silvery mist coming billowed out of growing hole. It was like fog only thicker. The silvery mist looked like a liquid blanket made of silver.

  I heard Jake’s voice. “You did it Em! That’s the portal.”

  Jake’s voice pulled me out of my vision. I blinked my eyes. I was back in our world. I saw Fanny and Jake, both looking at the wide hole in the ground with mist pouring out. They see it too. I’m not just seeing things. It’s really happening.

  “Are you going to go in?” Fanny whispered.

  “I guess,” I whispered back.

  I took a few steps forward but stopped when Jake said, “Wait Em. Don’t go yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Well … I don’t know how long you’ll be there,” he said. “Or when you’ll come back.”

  “Or if I’ll come back.” I felt tears come to my eyes. Jake looked like he might cry too.

  “You’ll come back, Em,” Fanny said. “I know you will.”

  “I hope so. I’ll miss you guys.”

  “We’ll wait for you,” said Jake. “As long as it takes, we’ll wait for you.”

  “Look, it may be like I’m in and out in a second, or it may be years. Time may be weird there. Anyway, if I’m not back in a few hours, go to town and get a room. Take care of yourselves. Promise me that, okay. That you’ll take care of yourselves.”

  “We promise,” they both said.

  “Okay, then wish me luck.” We gave each other a group hug and said goodbye.

  “Good luck, Em,” they both said.

  I began again to walk slowly to the large hole in the ground. I felt as if I was on a conveyor belt. Somehow I moved, but I don’t remember telling my legs to go forward. I was drawn to the silvery mist billowing out of the small cave that the incantation had created. Step by step, I drew closer. I heard the hawk call out. Every hair on my body stood on end. My heart beat so fast, it felt like it would explode in my chest.

  The breeze picked up and clouds swirled in the sky, blocking out the moon’s light. The wind blew my hair about my head, and the chilly air increased the already copious goose bumps on my body.

  As I crossed the threshold between our world and the new world, I heard the same low hum that I’d heard when Hindergog appeared to me. Was that just three days ago? It seemed like a million years since I’d first seen the little, furry guy.

  The humming grew louder and sounded more like buzzing. What is that sound? It seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then it came to me. It was the sound that I’d heard coming from power lines. It’s the sound of electricity. Am I going to be electrocuted?

  Though it felt as if I walked in slow motion, the entire journey from our world to an alien one took but less than a minute. As I contemplated the possibility that I’d be electrocuted by as I stepped across the threshold to another world, I began to have a thought.

  What if I’m going to what people call the ‘other side’? What if there really are spirits of the dead and I’m going to the place where they live? And if there is such a place, maybe my mom is there. And if she is there, maybe I’ll be able to see her again!

  Those thoughts displaced my fear about electrocution and what might come next. With thoughts of seeing my mother again whirling in my head, I picked up my feet and crossed the threshold between two worlds.

  25. EMILY AND THE NETHERWORLD

  As I entered the portal, I expected to be in a wormhole kind of thing like I’d seen in movies. I anticipated being sucked into a colorful vortex of swirling light. I imagined that I’d feel as if I was being pulled apart or maybe I’d disintegrate and then come back together (hopefully) when I got there.

  But it wasn’t like that at all. The truth is, I was disappointed in the journey. I simply walked from one world to another. I knew that I’d left our world only because I was surrounded by the same silvery mist and fog that we’
d seen come out of the hole. The fog and mist was so thick, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I had walked into a dimension of fog.

  I didn’t know what to do so I walked. At least I think I walked. It’s hard to describe, but when you can’t see anything in any direction, when you’re totally surrounded by mist and fog, you can’t tell if you’re moving or not. I moved my legs, but I can’t say for sure that I went anywhere.

  And there didn’t appear to be any ‘where’ to go. It felt like hours that I walked through the endless fog and mist. I was on the verge of some serious tears. What have I gotten myself into? I was stuck in a place of nothing, and I had no idea how to get out.

  Through my tears I cursed Hindergog, the only one I could think of to blame for my misery. “Darn you Hindergog, you evil troll!”

  No sooner had a yelled those words into the mist, I saw a dark shape materialize in front of me. My heart began to pick up speed as the shape came closer and grew larger. But when the shape was a few feet from me, I relaxed as I recognized the familiar outline of pointy ears.

  “I am no troll, my young mistress.”

  “Hindergog, oh thank God you’re here,” I said. I hugged him to me and found that he was as solid as any person in my world. “I’ve never been gladder to see anyone in my life.”

  Hindergog almost looked happy. He looked exactly the same in person as he did in the holographic projection. He had the same sad, droopy eyes. Same tweed vest and rolled up sleeves of his linen shirt. Same dog muzzle but with a pig snout on the end and same odd pig-like ears. I can’t say that Hindergog was cute because he was a bit ugly. But just then, he was the best-looking thing I’d ever seen.

  “Hindergog, you’ve come to rescue me from this place, haven’t you?” I asked.

  “Rescue you? From what?”

  “This horrible nothing land that I’m stuck in. I was supposed to go to the Netherworld, but I don’t know how to get there.”

  “You are in the Netherworld,” Hindergog said. He began to walk.

  I ran after him because I didn’t want to lose him in the fog.

  “This doesn’t seem like a world at all. Where are these great teachers I’m supposed to ‘train’ with? I swear I’ve walked for hours and I haven’t seen anyone or anything.”

  “This is a decidedly different kind of world than you are used to, young Emily. Your teachers are here, as are other entities, but not nearly so many beings as in your world. Here, you will not have the interference of the creations of so many others.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think interference of others is anything I’ve got to worry about here.”

  “My young mistress, so human. You still see only with your eyes.”

  “Well, I am accustomed to seeing with my eyes, yes. What other organ should I use to see? My spleen?”

  “I can see that you are getting frustrated … ”

  “You think!”

  “But please, dear mistress, try to calm yourself. There is more here than meets your human eye. We are on the way to meet your first teacher, but let’s stop here for a moment. I don’t think the elders will mind if I give you a short lesson myself.”

  I was happy to stop walking for a minute and to know that we were, in fact, headed somewhere. I was being a snotty brat but I wasn’t in the mood to play nice. I felt like Hindergog had misled me into a strange and unpleasant place. It was as if I’d closed my eyes to sleep and woke up in a silvery cloud of fog. There was no color, no shapes. It wasn’t light but it wasn’t dark either. It was an insubstantial cloud of nothing.

  “Mistress Emily, I ask that you close your eyes for a moment.”

  It seemed silly, but seeing as how I had nothing else to do, I did as he said and closed my eyes.

  “Good. Now, imagine in your mind a path before you to walk on. Make it any kind of path that you would like. Make sure it is solid and smooth so that you will not trip. Think only of your ideal walking path. Have you imagined it?”

  I nodded.

  “Good, now open your eyes.”

  I did as Hindergog said and still found myself surrounded by fog. “Okay, that was fun. I’m still in a fog bank.”

  “Look down.”

  I looked down and there in front of me was a path - the path - that I’d imagined. Seeing the path that I’d imagined struck me so funny that I laughed out loud.

  “What is so amusing to my mistress? Do tell me why you laugh so.”

  “Oh Hindergog, this is amazing. I didn’t know what would happen, you know, so I imagined the first path that came to mind. It was a silly thought but I didn’t really know what was going to happen, so when you said ‘path’ the first thing I thought of was something from an old movie.” I could barely finish the sentence because I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

  Under my feet and ahead of me, as if I was on the set of the original movie, was the yellow brick road. I’d imagined Dorothy’s yellow brick road and I stood on it.

  After I finally quit laughing quite so hard, I pressed Hindergog on what had happened. “So, I imagined this path and it just appeared?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just like that, I imagine it and it appears here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you see it too?”

  “No, I have my own path. They may look different, but at this moment, they are going to the same place.”

  “So right now, when you look around you, do you see the same foggy cloud everywhere that I see?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “You don’t? Teach me, Hindergog. Teach me how to replace this fog bank of nothing with something so I don’t get bat crap crazy in this place.”

  “But I have taught you. Do you not see?”

  “You mean, I just imagine it?”

  “Yes, Mistress Emily, you just imagine what you would like to see. But heed my words of caution. Be exceedingly careful of what you imagine here. In the Netherworld, there is no interference of ideas from others, no competition as it were for creation. And there is no buffer of time. Whatever you intend will manifest immediately. Beware of your fear. A fearful mind can create truly awful things.”

  I closed my eyes and imagined a sunny day, with just a few bright, white puffy clouds. I imagined green grass and rolling hills and flowers and trees.

  I opened my eyes and found that all I’d imagined had come true around me. Instead of standing in a world of dove-grey fog, I stood on Earth and it was a perfect day. Birds chirped and butterflies flitted amongst the flowers. I breathed a sigh of relief to be surrounded by familiar things.

  But the brightly colored flowers reminded me of the reason I’d gotten my legs to walk me through the portal. The flowers were my mother’s paintings come to life. As if he could read my mind (and I found out later he could), Hindergog coughed lightly. “Not all wishes can come true,” he said. He continued walking. I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant because I had to run after him so I wouldn’t lose him.

  I practically skipped down a yellow brick road behind a man that looked like a dog crossed with a pig. I half expected that Hindergog would take me to an Emerald City and that I’d be chased by a wicked witch. No, don’t imagine that! It may come true.

  Follow the yellow brick road.

  26. AND LIAM MAKES THREE AGAIN

  Liam was restless on his flight to Dublin. His mind raced with thoughts of where Emily could be and why she’d gone to Ireland in the first place.

  He arrived exhausted, but there was no time to waste. He searched from youth hostel to hostel and hoped his guess about where the three had flopped was correct. Liam got lucky. On his fifth try, he found two familiar faces in the dark common room of an old hostel. Jake was busy at his laptop, and Fanny appeared to be asleep on a couch.

  “Fanny, Jake – thank God I found you!”

  Jake didn’t stand but his mouth fell open almost to the floor. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired looking but he smiled brightly when he saw Liam. Jake kicked at Fanny’s leg
hanging over the end of the couch. “Wake up, Fan.”

  Fanny pushed herself up, rubbed her eyes and laid into Jake. “Leave off, nub. I’m trying to sleep.” But then her eyes caught sight of Liam and she ended her grumpy tirade at Jake. She ran to Liam and hugged him.

  “What? How did you find us?” Jake asked.

  “It’s a long story, but I got lucky I guess. Are you okay?”

  “We’re fine Mr. Adams, really okay,” said Fanny.

  Liam’s eyes roamed the room hoping to see Emily. But she wasn’t there. “Where’s Emily? Still sleeping?”

  Jake and Fanny exchanged guilty, worried looks. A wave of nausea overcame Liam.

  “Emily’s not here?”

  “Nah, she’s not,” Jake said.

  “Well, where is she?”

  The two teens were again silent.

  “Look you two, this isn’t a game. All three of you are in serious trouble. Now tell me where she is!”

  Jake and Fanny again exchanged silent glances, but then Fanny nodded to Jake.

  “Mr. Adams, what we have to tell you … well, it’s going to sound impossible. You probably won’t believe us,” Jake said at last.

  “In the last forty-eight hours my fourteen-year-old daughter assaulted my half-crazed sister and ran away to Ireland. I had to calm down two mothers who are, by the way, close to hysterical, flew from Chicago to Dublin, I haven’t slept in over thirty-six hours and, oh yeah, I ran around Dublin looking for you guys. So try me.”

  “Okay, but we need to go somewhere private. What we have to tell you isn’t for public consumption,” said Fanny.

  Jake and Fanny took Liam to their small room. Fanny plopped stomach down on a bunk while Jake told Liam an incredible story about a visit from an alien creature, a golden arm bracelet and a portal. Jake ended his story, “Then Emily walked into a hole in the ground and disappeared into another dimension.”

  Jake went quiet. He and Fanny stared at Liam with mute expectation. Liam did not speak, but his cheeks flushed red and a large vein in his neck began to bulge.

  Fanny broke the silence. “Well, what do you think?”

  “What do I think? What do I think? I think my daughter’s missing, and you’re telling me this crazy story to stall me instead of telling me the truth. That’s what I think.

  “Why are you two doing this? You think it’s a funny game to play – mess with Liam? Look, I know I haven’t been the father of the year, but this is a cruel joke to play on me. So what I think is that you two better cut out lying and tell me the truth or so help me, I’m turning you over to the police and let you deal with that!”

  Fanny’s eyes filled with tears. Jake too looked like he was on the verge of crying. With tears beginning to spill down her freckled cheeks, Fanny went to Liam, knelt down and took his hand in hers.

  “Look, Mr. Adams, I’d like to tell you that Emily is in the bathroom hiding and that after you leave she’ll come out. I’d like to tell you that we decided to help her run away from you and her aunt. I’d like to tell you just about anything other than what Jake said but the truth is, we don’t have another story. Truth is, this is all we got.”

  Liam pulled his hands from Fanny’s and slammed his fist on the table. “Well you better come up with something soon. I’m beyond losing patience!”

  “What if we can show you proof of our story?” asked Jake.

  “We’ve got proof?” queried Fanny.

  “You have proof of a holographic alien and an alternate dimension?” Liam asked.

  “Well I don’t know if it’s proof exactly, but we’ve got the box that the torc was buried in. It’s still covered in grave soil.”

  Jake dug in his backpack and handed Liam a small metal box. It was caked in dirt, but the engraved tree on the top was visible.

  Liam’s hands shook as he took the box from Jake. He held it and stared at the engraved picture on the top. Tears came to his tired eyes.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Adams?” asked Fanny.

  “This box – where did you get it? Did you take this from my house?”

  Jake and Fanny exchanged confused looks. Liam could tell from their reaction that they had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I told you, Mr. Adams, the box is the one we found buried in the cemetery at Monasterboice. We can show you the grave too, and you can see that the ground was recently dug up,” said Jake.

  “Yeah, but I’d rather not go back there seein’ as how we’ll probably be arrested for grave robbing if we do,” said Fanny.

  “You’re saying that you found this buried here, in Ireland, in an old grave?”

  “Yeah, that’s what we’re saying,” said Fanny. “Look, I know you’re worried about Emily and wigging out with all this. We are too. But I’m not okay with you calling me a liar or threatening me so you either believe us or you don’t.”

  “Fanny, cut it,” said Jake.

  “No, I won’t cut it,” she replied. “We’ve got serious business to get to and we don’t have time to put up with this so you either believe us or you don’t.”

  “Calm down, Fanny,” Liam said. His voice had become soft and warm. “I’m sorry, to you both. But look at it from my side. I’m a physicist for Christ’s sake. I deal in facts and logic, not magick. None of this makes any sense. You – this whole situation – is asking me to stop listening to reason. You’re asking me to … ”

  “Believe,” said Jake.

  “Yes, well that’s not easy for me. Bridget was the believer.”

  “It’s hard for us to believe too and we’ve been through it all. I still wonder if we actually saw Hindergog or maybe it was a dream that we all had or a hallucination. But then we came here and found things just like he said we would,” said Jake.

  “Yeah and then we saw Emily walk through that portal. We had our doubts that it would open, but she put that torc on and then we were all staticky, and our hair was on end – that was real. It really happened to us. And then we saw the ground open up and the silvery fog came out … ” said Fanny.

  “What are you saying about static and silver fog?”

  “We all knew we were onto something when we got to the well the hawk led us to because we felt our hairs stand on end, you know, like when you rub a balloon on the hairs on your arm? Only it was like that all over our bodies, and we all felt it, right Fan?”

  “True chiz, we all felt it. And there was no storm or lightening or anything.”

  “And you saw a silver fog come out of the portal? What do you mean by silver?”

  “You know, not grey or white – silver,” Jake said. “I know it’s kind of hard to picture, but imagine fog like flowing liquid silver.”

  “And this torc – the arm bracelet she put on. What was it made of?”

  “I’m not sure. It looked gold, but it wasn’t like we did an analysis on it or anything. Why?”

  Liam sat quietly. To Fanny and Jake it almost looked as if he were in a trance. His synapses fired, his mind focused. There was something familiar in their description but Liam was just too tired to place it.

  “I’m not sure yet, but the static and silver fog and the gold bracelet – I think they’re connected and relevant, but I can’t put my finger on it right now. But let me tell you why I got choked up when I saw this box.”

  Liam pulled Bridget’s notebook out of his bag and showed Fanny and Jake the drawing of the tree and torc.

  “This tree looks almost exactly like the one carved on the box,” said Fanny.

  “And that’s the torc. Almost a perfect likeness of it. Where did you get these drawings?” asked Jake.

  “They were Bridget’s,” Liam said. All three fell silent.

  “So you see, there are just too many coincidences. My brain is in a tailspin guys. I’m not sure what to do with it all. My wife drew a picture of a tree before she died over seven years ago. Now you’re showing me the same tree carved on a box buried over a thousand years ago in Ireland, a place she’d never been. An
d she drew a picture of an odd, twisted bracelet. Now you’re telling me my daughter put a bracelet just like it on her arm right before she walked through a hole in the ground and into another dimension.”

  “Yep, some pretty heavy chiz,” said Fanny.

  “Yes, Fanny, heavy ‘chiz,’ whatever that is.”

  “I know it’s a bit much to take in Mr. Adams, but here’s the thing. We’re up against the clock here. If Hindergog was right – and so far he has been right about all this crazy stuff – this Dughall guy is out there somewhere trying to find a way into the Netherworld too,” said Jake.

  “Yeah, and we don’t know what he’s up to once he gets there, but apparently it’s something really bad ‘cause that Hindergog dude came all the way from another dimension to send Emily on a journey to stop the guy,” said Fanny.

  “So we gotta help her,” said Jake. “We gotta do what we can on this side to figure this out so we can stop this Dughall guy.”

  Liam’s head spun with coincidences and information, clues and ideas. But he was too tired to piece any of it together into a coherent thought.

  “Hey, you look whipped Mr. Adams. Why don’t you get some rest for a few hours? Jake and I will keep working,” said Fanny.

  “You’re right Fanny,” said Liam. “Good kids. Both of you. I want to thank you both for taking care of my Emily for me.”

  “Ah, we didn’t need to take care of her,” said Jake.

  “I don’t mean just on this trip.”

  Fanny took Liam’s hand again and he didn’t withdraw it. Fanny nodded and Jake clapped him on the shoulder. It appeared that they wouldn’t hold the zombie years against him. Liam had come when they needed him the most.

  The newly formed trio shared a common goal: Find Emily. Their destination, as yet unknown.

  27. EMILY’S FIRST MASTER

  “Hindergog, where are we going?”

  “To your first master, of course.”

  He gave answers as though they were perfectly obvious. But every answer he gave made me more lost than I was before.

  “My master? Can’t you tell me anything about him? Even a name?”

  “Oh, I think you will recognize this teacher right away.”

  My heart picked up speed. Someone I recognize. Can it be? Who else would I recognize here? It must be. My mother! My teacher will be my mother!

  “Miss Emily, your master is not human.”

  My heart sank. He really can read my mind, can’t he?

  It’s hard to describe the way time worked in the Netherworld. It’s like I’d walk for what seemed like a long time, but I didn’t feel tired. And as soon as I’d think, ‘I’m tired, I wish I was there,’ I was there.

  That’s how it was at that moment. I thought, ‘I’m ready. I want to meet this teacher, even if it’s not my mom.’

  I no sooner that it when out of the mist appeared a small building. As I got closer, I saw that it was made of wood and it was weathered grey. It had a roof thatched in straw blackened by time. The windows were covered in wood screens with old Chinese carvings, the lacquer aged to an almost blackish-red patina. A path of stone steps led to a carved redwood door. The little house looked like it had come out of the Chinese countryside.

  As we approached the front door, Hindergog stopped. Panic seized me. Is he going to leave me here alone without him?

  “Are you leaving me?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear one, this you must do alone.”

  “But Hindergog, I don’t know what to do. I’m scared and you’re the closest thing to someone I know in this strange place. Please stay with me.”

  He shook his head and his dog lips curled into a small smile. “Dear Emily, you are in capable hands here. Your task is at hand. Learn well, young one.”

  With that, he vanished into the fog and mist.

  Sweat pooled in my palms and I stood as still as a stone in front of the small, cottage door. I felt like an idiot standing there. A voice in my head said, ‘Knock, moron’. I think that was Muriel’s voice.

  But I did as the voice said and I knocked. I rapped softly on the door, but I could barely hear it. The incessant grey fog seemed to suck up sound like a vacuum cleaner. I knocked again but harder.

  No answer. I stood in the unearthly silence of the unearthly place and waited for something to happen.

  Just when I thought that maybe I should leave, the door slowly opened. As the door swung open, I saw a small figure in the shadow of the doorway. A very small figure.

  Although I’d never met her before, I recognized my teacher right away. She looked exactly as I’d pictured her when I listened to Hindergog tell his tale. My teacher was none other than Madame Wong.

  I felt relief that the kindly, wise woman from Hindergog’s story would be my first teacher. My relief was short lived.

  28. MADAME WONG

  “Are you going to stand there or come in?” she asked.

  I told my feet to go in, but they didn’t want to move. With great effort I got my lead feet to walk through yet another door to the unknown.

  I ducked as I walked through her tiny door. The little house was dark inside but clean and sparse. There was a wooden table under one window, large enough for two. Two rickety-looking wood chairs flanked the table. There was a simple hearth with a kettle over the fire. In another corner rested a small bed made of knobby pine with modest, white covers over the mattress. Beside the bed was a diminutive table with a washbowl and pitcher.

  It was like I had stepped back in time. No phones. No television. No electricity. No technology of any kind.

  “Madame Wong? Are you really the Madame Wong that Hindergog told me about? The Madame Wong who taught the girls in the Sacred Grove?”

  “I am.”

  “But how … how can you be here? I thought the portal was closed.”

  “It was.”

  Apparently, not much of a talker.

  “Then how can you be here if you were left behind when the portal closed?”

  “Ah, Madame Wong starting from scratch here.” She shook her head, went to the fire and poured hot water from the kettle into a small, porcelain teapot.

  “Tea, Youngling?”

  “Sure, I guess that would be okay.”

  “You guess, or you know? Tea or no tea. This is not a hard question,” she barked at me.

  “Okay then, tea, yes.”

  Another cup materialized on her table, seemingly plucked out of nowhere. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had, after all, walked into another dimension. But I had a hard time believing what I’d just seen.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Make that cup appear out of nowhere.”

  “All of here is nowhere. Ask and it is given. So much to learn.” She shook her head again as she poured tea into two, small cups.

  “Sit,” she commanded.

  I did as she said and fast. After Hindergog’s story, I knew that I didn’t want to mess with Madame Wong.

  We drank our tea in silence. Madame Wong watched me over her teacup with dark, brown eyes surrounded by copious wrinkles. She hadn’t answered my question so I pressed her again.

  “You never answered my question. How is it that you are here?”

  Madame Wong put her cup down and squinted her dark eyes at me.

  “You know nothing? Hindergog said that I had my work cut out for me.” She wrapped her knobby fingers around her warm teacup and sipped again.

  I knew she could pull and do me in before I could even scream. But I’d lost my patience. I couldn’t get a straight answer about anything from anybody and I’d had enough.

  “Look, I don’t know anything. A few days ago I was worried about flunking math and dealing with the wrath of Muriel the Mean. Today I’m sitting in another dimension sipping tea with a woman that should have been dead over a thousand years ago. You’re supposed to be the teacher, so teach me at least this one thing. How can you be here?”

  Madame Wong gently
put her teacup down on the table, but when she looked up at me, her eyes were ablaze. Here it comes! I knew I was going to feel the sting of a slap soon, just like when I mouthed off to Muriel.

  “Because you are Youngling and know nothing, Madame Wong spare you insolence one time. But you not speak to me in that tone again. Madame Wong not Aunt Muriel. If you speak to Madame Wong like that again, Miss Emily will wish for her aunt.”

  I felt my cheeks flush scarlet. My mouth was full of cotton and I couldn’t speak. She was small and had not raised her voice yet instinctively I knew that what she said was true. I nodded my head to show her I understood.

  “Listen well as Madame Wong not explain again. This first lesson, youngling. Most humans see with eyes only. That is great failing of the species.”

  I nodded yes even though I wasn’t sure I knew what she was talking about. I wasn’t about to disagree with her.

  Madame Wong swept her arms out wide. “This place, what humans call the Netherworld, is place of pure potential. If you allow it, Miss Emily learn things that have eluded most humans. Here you see with whole self, not just eyes.”

  I listened as best I could, by my mind was still back at the question of how Madame Wong was in the Netherworld when she should have been shut out when the portal closed. I wasn’t following her, and it must have shown on my face.

  “Oh, Madame Wong in for long life with this one.” She shook her head and drank her tea.

  “The Madame Wong from Hindergog’s tale, her human body is of the earth now. The Madame Wong you see is a merged being.”

  “Merged being? I don’t understand.”

  “Madame Wong, like many curious humans before her, stumbled into this world, like you did, many, many Earth rotations ago. Long before Saorla’s time. Madame Wong met an entity who had left its body behind. They made agreement.”

  “An agreement? What kind of agreement?”

  “Agreement to merge. To become one being. Part of their combined essence was projected into the body Madame Wong carried around with her in your world. Part stayed in this realm. Now, merged life essence all that remain. Body no longer.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that you are not real? Am I imagining you?”

  “Real? What is real?”

  “Again with that question. I thought I knew what real was, but I’m starting to wonder what real is.”

  “Good!”

  “It’s good that I don’t have a grip on reality?”

  “Good that you begin to question what is real. Madame Wong more real than most of what you have known.”

  “But when you – I mean Madame Wong – when she had a body, how could she exist two places at one time?”

  “Quite easy. Even smallest, simplest matter in your universe can do this. All things exist always in every possible time and place. It is choice. You choose where you want to be and be there now.”

  “Can you die?”

  “Not sure if death come or not in this place of no time. Still here. That’s all that matters. Madame Wong found a way to cheat death, no?” She chuckled softly. “Not all it’s cracked up to be when all those you loved cease to be with you.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “Yes, yes. You lost one most dear.”

  “She was dear, but I’m not so sure how I feel about her anymore.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “Am I?”

  “There is no question here. If you did not love her, you would not have come. Miss Emily only come to Netherworld to see her mother again.”

  That was true. It’s all I had thought about. I wanted to look on her face one more time.

  “Hindergog, simple-minded creature. He lacks the courage to tell you himself.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Netherworld not the place of spirits, Youngling. You will not find Bridget Adams here.”

  I felt like I’d been shot. All hope drained from me. I realized then how much I’d been hanging on to that hope. Hope of seeing my mom again had kept my feet moving all over the hills of Ireland when I was so tired. Hope had made me walk through the portal in the first place. It was the only reason I’d come.

  To be honest, at that moment I didn’t give a rat’s hind end about Dughall and trying to save the world. I just wanted to see my mom again. Now, what’s the point?

  “Selfish, isn’t it?”

  “What, to want to see your mom again? I was just a little girl. She was the only one who ever understood me. The only reason I came here was to see her. And now, you’re telling me that she’s not here,” Hot tears welled in my eyes, broke free of my lashes and streamed down my face in torrents.

  “You lie. Mother not only one to understand you. You lie to yourself much, Youngling. Bad human habit. Speak untruths, even inside their own heads.”

  “Okay then, you’re the teacher. Tell me. Who else has understood me?”

  Madame Wong did not immediately answer. She took another sip of tea, put her cup down, and said, “Look in your tea.”

  “What?”

  “Look in your tea,” she repeated.

  I looked down into my teacup. The soggy black tea leaves at the bottom had arranged themselves into the shape of faces. Two faces stared back at me from the bottom of my teacup. Two very familiar faces.

  Seeing Jake and Fanny in my tea made me feel like a turd for what I’d said. There I was, blubbering about my mom and thinking only of myself. But Jake and Fanny were out there somewhere, putting themselves in danger for my quest. And they understood me about as well as anyone could. At least as well as I’d allowed them to.

  As I looked at the tealeaves in the shape of my two best friends, the leaves started to shift and change. The leaves again took the shape of a person. Zombie Man.

  “Okay, Jake and Fan I believe. But Zombie Man? No, he doesn’t get me. I can’t agree with that.”

  “Tea does not lie.” Madame Wong got up, walked to her washbasin, washed her cup and placed it on her small shelf. The small gesture of washing the cup and putting it away seemed odd in that place of dreams and fog.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what, Youngling?”

  “Wash the cup and put it away. You can conjure up a clean cup whenever you want to. Why clean that one?”

  “There is joy in doing.”

  I’m not sure what was stranger. Meeting an entity in another dimension, or meeting one who washes teacups.

  “You are tired. Long journey. Rest now, Youngling. When you wake, we begin your training. You sleep.” Madame Wong gestured to the small bed.

  The bed was a bit too short for my long frame and it wasn’t very comfortable, but Madame Wong had been right. I was more tired than I’d ever been. I fell onto the bed and fell to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I didn’t dream about torcs or green hills or Madame Wong. I didn’t dream at all. Even in my sleep, I was in a place of fog and mist.

  29. BREATHE

  I woke to the crack of something hard against the bottom of my foot. What the …

  I opened my eyes, and in the blur of first waking, I made out the outline of a tiny woman. She rapped my feet with what looked like a bamboo cane.

  “What the heck are you doing?”

  “Time for Miss Emily wake up.”

  “Yeah, well you don’t have to beat me to wake me up.”

  Have I slept for a few minutes or days? There was no time in the Netherworld. No sunrise or sunset. But I woke feeling refreshed so my sleep was long enough anyway.

  I got up, stretched and ducked so I could get out of her small door without banging my head. There was less mist and fog than there had been before. Through the light haze I saw Madame Wong. She stood perfectly erect. It was as if there was an invisible string attached to her head imperceptibly lifting her body yet leaving her feet firmly planted on the ground. Her hands were at her chest, palms together in prayer position, her eyes closed. Her body, completely still, looked like a statue. I wasn’t sure if I sh
ould interrupt her, so I just stood there like a mute for what seemed like an exceedingly long time, afraid to make a sound or speak for fear of startling her.

  “You cannot startle me when I already know you are there.”

  Her ability to read my thoughts annoyed me.

  “What will I do today?”

  “Sit.”

  “Sit. That’s it?”

  “Sit. Breathe. No think. That is lesson.”

  I plopped myself down in front of her and sat cross-legged. During our brief conversation, Madame Wong hadn’t moved anything except her mouth. She stood as still as a statue with her eyes closed.

  “May want to make self more comfortable. Miss Emily sit long time.”

  I wasn’t sure I could conjure things the way Madame Wong did, but I figured I’d give it a try. I thought of the most comfortable sitting I’d ever done. It was at Fanny’s house. She had a cool chair in her room that was like beanbag chair, but it had a back to it. I could sit in that thing for hours. That’s what I’d like right now. I felt the chair materialize beneath me.

  I could get used to this having whatever I want thing.

  The chair felt exactly the same as the one I’d sat in at Fanny’s house. I wiggled and wedged my butt until I was comfortable. When I had settled in I asked, “Now what?”

  “Sit.”

  “Just sit?”

  “Sit. No think. No do. Just breathe.”

  “I just sit here doing nothing? This is way easier than I thought it’d be.”

  “Not doing harder than doing.”

  “Not for a teenager. This is the life.” I kicked back and relaxed.

  I’d say in regular human time, it took all of about five minutes for me to feel bored. Really bored. I was fidgety and anxious. I couldn’t just sit there when my friends needed me. According to Hindergog, the entire free world was counting on me. How can I just sit here when that dude Dughall is out there somewhere trying to start mayhem.

  “Look, Madame Wong, I don’t have the time to just sit on my butt doing nothing. I gotta get the cliff notes version of your lessons and get back to stop Dughall.”

  “Miss Emily think she is ready to stop that dark one?”

  “Well, no, I don’t think I’m ready. So that’s why I’m saying, you know, speed this up a bit. Give me the quick version so I can be on my way.”

  “No short cut to understand Akasha.”

  “Akasha? Who is she?”

  “Akasha not a she. Or a he. Akasha is all that is. Miss Emily here to learn mysteries of Akasha. To learn of the great Web of All That Is. Now sit.”

  I groaned loudly at that. How can sitting on my butt possibly help me learn about this Akasha or become a warrior or help my friends?

  But I did as she said and sat. After a few more minutes I could take it no more. “Look, I’m not a warrior. I just want to go home. I want to find Fanny and Jake and just go back home.”

  “Leave without training? Miss Emily not ready to defeat the dark one.”

  “I’m not the one, okay. Look, if you know so much, why don’t you go defeat him? You, Brighid and little Hindergog. You shouldn’t send a teenager to do this anyway.”

  “We exist in this realm, not in yours. A human must stop the dark one from his plan. Not our destiny. Destiny of one called Emily.”

  “Well then find someone else. There’s got to be some other person that can do this job. I’m not hero material.”

  “You are what you believe yourself to be. Now sit. Breathe. Answers you seek will come to you. Lessons needed will be learned. Sit. Breathe.”

  I was so frustrated, I wanted to scream and throw things and kick Madame Wong out of her statue post. I’d envisioned learning how to use weapons and performing magick spells. Instead, I was told to sit and breathe, two things I was pretty sure I already knew how to do.

  But seeing as how I didn’t know the way out of the place, I flopped myself back down on my chair and pouted. I may have to sit. I may even have to breathe. But I don’t have to be happy about it.

  “Miss Emily stubborn one. Yes, very inflexible. Your resistance makes lesson more difficult.”

  I ignored her. I would sit and breathe. Best to do it quickly and get it over with so I could move on. The sooner I figured out what she wanted, the sooner I’d be able to get out of there.

  I sat. And I breathed. My mind wandered freely. I thought about Fanny and Jake and wondered what they were doing. I hope they’re not still sitting by that well. I thought about how I was ditching school and wondered if I’d missed much. But I decided a few weeks didn’t much matter since I was close to flunking almost everything anyway.

  Thinking of school and flunking made me think about Muriel and how steaming mad she’d be at me if I ever made it back. And my mind stayed on the subject of Muriel for a long time as I imagined how she might lock me in my room without food (one of her favorite punishments) or maybe she’d beat me with a cane like Madame Wong’s.

  I was startled out of my daydreaming by the sound of a shrill and familiar voice.

  “Emily Marie Adams!”

  I opened my eyes and about peed myself. Standing before me was none other than Muriel the Mean. She glared at me and she held a cane in her hand just like Madame Wong’s.

  “Get up off of your lazy butt this minute!”

  I did as she said and as I stood, she rapped my legs with the cane.

  “Go. Go to that table and study your math. You will study all night and all day and won’t eat again until you have mastered the entire book.”

  I looked over and where there had previously been only mist stood a long, brown table. It looked a lot like the one in our dining room at home but it was longer, taller, darker and more menacing than the one in my house. I walked to the table much like the one I’d sat at doing homework and suffering raps across my knuckles and Muriel’s icy stare. I was almost to the table but I stopped in my tracks.

  “Wait. I don’t have to do what you say. Not here. You’re not real.”

  “What are you talking about, girl? Not real? Are you hyped up on drugs? Maybe a lash from this cane will show you how real I am.” Muriel pulled the cane back, ready to wallop me with it.

  As the cane swung forward, I grabbed it with my hand and wrung it from her. Muriel was stunned but only for a moment. Her icy glare gave way to outright fury.

  “How dare you?” she said.

  “How dare you treat me so badly?” I asked.

  “You get what you deserve for your disobedience. You are a stubborn child, so unlike your father. If you were only more like him.”

  “If I were more like him instead of my mom, you’d stop beating me? Well, I’m not Liam. And I’m not Bridget either. I’m Emily. And I’m not going to let you beat me or starve me or mistreat me anymore. Now go away!”

  In an instant, Muriel faded into the mist of the Netherworld as if she had never been there at all. I panted and my heart raced. I thought I was supposed to be just sitting and breathing.

  “Madame Wong, what was that? Why did Muriel just pop in for a visit?”

  Madame Wong still stood as still as she’d been before. Her eyes remained closed. She was nonplussed by what had just happened.

  “I said sit. Breathe.”

  “Well I was sitting and breathing.”

  “No. Madame Wong also say ‘No do. No think.’ You thought.”

  “Well yeah, I was thinking. It’s kinda’ hard not to think if you have a brain. I don’t exactly have a shut off switch for the thoughts.”

  “Oh, you do. Find it. Until you find switch, Miss Emily face whatever mind imagines.”

  “You’re saying that if I think about something, it will appear? Good or bad, it’s just going to show up?”

  “That what Madame Wong say. Why Miss Emily need to repeat Madame Wong not know.”

  “But I can’t control these thoughts. My mind wanders, and it often wanders to unpleasant things. Bad things that have happened or nightmares I’ve had.”
/>
  “Then Miss Emily in for rough time. Sit. Breathe. No do. No think.”

  I whined at her. “But I can’t help it that thoughts come to me. Other thoughts came. Like I was thinking about Fanny and Jake, but they pop in for a visit. Why only bad things appear?”

  “No difference, good or bad. Thoughts like birds in mind. Some fly in. Some fly out. Some stay at water hole to drink. Beware of birds that linger.”

  I reflected on what Madame Wong had said and remembered that I had dwelled on Muriel for a while. My thoughts of her weren’t fleeting.

  “Now, sit. Breathe. No do. No think,” commanded Madame Wong.

  So I sat. Again. I breathed. Again. I tried not to dwell on any thought for very long. I let go. My mind wandered. I tried hard not to allow anything awful to come into my mind.

  “If awful come, let it go.” Madame Wong’s voice sounded like it was coming to me from a far off place.

  I got the rhythm of my breath. In. Out. I focused on my breath, repeating the words ‘in’ and ‘out’ in my mind in time with my breath.

  The whoosh of my breath in and out, in and out reminded me of a sound from a memory. The whoosh, whoosh, whoosh got louder. It was no longer my own breath I heard but the sound that had haunted my dreams, both waking and sleeping, for seven long years.

  Whoosh. Whoosh. That horrible sucking sound. Air being sucked in and pumped out.

  I knew that sound. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I knew what I’d see, and it was my worst nightmare.

  How many times do I have to see my mother die?

  30. RIDING THE WAVES

  If I’d had any sense about me, I would have kept my eyes closed and thought of something – anything – else. But it was like driving by a car wreck and looking even though I knew I’d see something gruesome.

  I opened my eyes and I was in my mom’s hospital room. The last one. The one she died in.

  My dad sat in a chair beside her bed. And on the other side of the bed was a little girl. Her long red hair looked unbrushed. Her eyes were wide open with fear and they sparkles with tears, but she looked completely focused on something. The room was silent except for that awful sound. What’s making that horrible sucking sound?

  The machine that looked like a bellows pumped up and down. It was the source of that awful sound. The contraption was hooked up to the little girl’s mother by the tubes that ran into and out of the woman. The machine whooshed and pumped in a smooth rhythm. Below the bellows contraption was a clear plastic container that held a disgusting black, tarry substance. What is that tarry stuff coming out of the woman? Or is it being put in?

  No kid should ever see her parent die. Yet there I was, reliving the nightmare again.

  It was unbearable. The long seething wound deep within me was ripped open again. The horrid sight of the tar being sucked out of my mom. My dad, eyes red-rimmed, his face ashen gray. The little girl – my child self – focused on her mother’s station, picking up her frequency for the last time. And present through it all, that incredibly irritating sucking sound.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I rushed over to the machine and ripped at it like a mad person. “Stop sucking the life out of her!” I screamed at the machine as I knocked it over and pulled at the cords and wires.

  “I won’t see this again!” I swung madly at the air, trying to make the ghosts go away.

  I fell to the floor, the plastic tubing still gripped in my hands. I sobbed great, heaving sobs. I cried so hard that I thought I might drown in a river of tears.

  I’m no warrior priestess. I’ll drown in my own tears before I have a chance to help anyone.

  Warm arms wrapped around me. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear of what I’d see. The touch was small and soft yet unfamiliar.

  I opened my eyes. Madame Wong’s arms were around me and she cradled me in her warmth. She was the last person I’d expected to comfort me. She’d stood as still as a statue for so long, I’d begun to think maybe that’s all she was. A statue. But her arms were substantial and warm around me.

  I didn’t speak and relaxed into her arms. My wailing gave way to soft sobs. As I relaxed into her, I almost heard her voice in my head. Pictures began to form in my mind’s eye but they weren’t pictures from my own life. Without speaking any words out loud, Madame Wong spoke to me of her life. Within a few seconds, I understood that Madame Wong knew more about my suffering than anyone I’d ever known. The human part of her knew.

  In my mind, I saw a group of ancient Chinese houses. Rice paddies. Beautiful mountains in the distance. But the houses were on fire. I heard the sound of anguished cries.

  There were other pictures flashing before my mind’s eye. A baby that looked still as a stone. Another baby – no a child – being held by a gentle looking man. The child didn’t move either.

  I saw men and women dying by the hand of a sword and felt the anguish of a heart that had known considerable loss. And great anger. I saw an old woman finding her way through the mist of the portal and into the Netherworld. I saw her struggle with the lessons that I too struggled with. Of letting go of anger and of sadness. Of finding peace and happiness.

  All this was a flash in my mind, like a movie being shown at super high speed. It was more like a knowing than a seeing.

  Madame Wong. The tiny woman holding me had known enormous suffering in her human life. And she had come to the place of mist and fog and learned how to forget.

  “No, Miss Emily. Not forget. You never forget. If you live to be as old as Madame Wong, you never forget.”

  “Then why did you choose to live so long – to allow yourself to go on – when you had such immense pain inside?”

  “Ah, yes, choice. I chose to let ghosts stay in past. Past is history. Living is now. I sat. I breathed. I let past go. I let future go. I am. That is all.”

  “But didn’t it take you many years to learn how to do that?”

  “Have you not understood yet? Time here – it is slippery, no?”

  “It seems not to exist at all, and still … It’s odd, in some ways, I feel like I’ve been here my whole life, but it also feels like I just got here.”

  “It is difficult for humans to stay in Netherworld because no watch, no rising sun, no setting moon. No markers for human mind to gauge its ever present need to know time.”

  “So if there is no time here … ”

  “It is eternal.”

  “Then what is happening back in my own dimension? Has a great amount of time passed?”

  “Miss Emily, you need only know that you need not worry about time. That is one you must let go like the ghosts of your past. Plenty of time to sit. To breathe.”

  Back to sitting and breathing.

  I sat on my chair again and got comfortable, closed my eyes, and began again to breathe. I thought only of my breath. I opened my eyes briefly, and Madame Wong was back in exact same statue pose I’d seen her in before. It was like she had never moved. Did I dream it? When she comforted me, was it a vision?

  But I let those thoughts go too and paid attention only to my breath like the waves of an ocean. Tide coming in. Tide going out. My breath was like the gentle roll of the waves, up and down my body.

  I sat in meditation for a long, long time, reckoning as best I can about these things in a place with no time. I had more visions come to life, but they weren't as frightening or as momentous as Muriel or the hospital room.

  Eventually I found that I was fully in control of my mind. Mostly I thought nothing at all, which I hadn’t thought possible. For long stretches of time, known to me by the large amount of breaths I had followed like a wave through my body, I thought nothing at all. At other times, there were small thoughts that popped in, like the little birds Madame Wong had talked about. I told them to take flight and they did. It became easy to have a mind free of the distraction of a thousand thoughts and ideas crowding all at once like a busy market filled with people. My mind was instead like a vast, still meadow, waiting to see what
would appear.

  After immeasurable breaths into and out of my body, my long meditation was broken by the sound of Madame Wong’s voice.

  “You ready to become warrior priestess now,” she said. “But first, Miss Emily sleep.”

  I opened my eyes and felt underneath me the rustic bed of Madame Wong’s cottage. It took me no time at all to drift off to a dreamless sleep, my mind already so empty that it didn’t have the material left to create dreams.

  But just before waking I had one dream – or was it a vision? I couldn’t be sure. In the dream I stood before a dark haired man with eyes like two lumps of coal in his skull. He was gaunt, his fingers bony, and his body was like a skeleton covered in thin skin. He looked smug and satisfied with himself.

  The man’s face was menacing and I knew instantly that he’d do me harm. I thought, “I should be scared.” But I wasn’t scared. Instead, I felt pity. Why would I pity him?

  My eyes fluttered open and the dream faded. But I recalled the image of myself that I’d seen in the dream. At first I didn’t think it was me. The girl seemed strong and powerful. She had a halo of buttery yellow light that glowed around her. Her face was determined with no hint of fear or smirk about it, just calm self-assurance. And in my dream the girl held a dagger in her hand. Can this be me? But I don’t own a dagger, and I never look that confident.

  I rose from the bed, ready for a new day with Madame Wong in the place of mist and fog, of dreams and shadows. I had a vision in my mind of a girl with a dagger that I wanted to meet.

  31. WHY I HATE BAMBOO

  I found Madame Wong in a perfect headstand in her spot under the large maple tree in the garden. I sat in patient mediation in front of her, waiting for her to start my lesson for the day. I listened to the burbling brook that tumbled past her small meadow, and I drifted off into a state of deep relaxation. It was a shock to the system when Madame Wong finally spoke, her high-pitched croak interrupting the perfect stillness I was becoming accustomed to.

  “Miss Emily ready to become warrior priestess now?”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for it, but I’ll try.”

  “Only do or not do. Which is it?”

  “Okay then, I choose do.”

  “Ah, good choice. Come.” She gracefully exited her headstand and walked across the garden. I followed respectfully behind her a few paces as we walked through intense fog and mist to the babbling brook.

  “Miss Emily has learned focus, yes?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “NO, NO, NO! No suppose. Focus or no focus – which is it?”

  “Okay, yes, for God’s sake, I can focus! Jeez, no need to scream at me.”

  “Don’t suppose. Don’t guess. Know the answer and say it. A true warrior is sure of herself. Right or wrong does not matter.”

  “Well see that’s the point now, isn’t it? I’m not a 'true warrior'. And about the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not sure of myself.”

  I looked down into her eyes. She stared up at me evenly. Stalemate.

  “You know focus. Time to learn awareness.”

  I rolled my eyes, a knee-jerk reaction to the thought of spending more time sitting for days on end breathing. I was ready for action, not more doing nothing.

  “Oh, you will have action, young one.” Her lips curled into a sly smile.

  “I’m afraid to learn the answer to this, but I’ll ask it anyway. How do I learn ‘awareness’?”

  “By doing laundry,” she said. Out of the nothingness appeared an enormous pile of clothes just like the ones Madame Wong wore. There were black linen pants with wide legs and a drawstring waist and long-sleeved dark blue linen shirts with cloth buttons up the front and a mandarin collar. There was also a large, metal washbasin, bar of soap and a washboard.

  “I become a warrior by doing your laundry?”

  “You become aware, alert and ready by doing laundry.”

  “So how long do I have to stand here scrubbing your clothes until you decide I’m sufficiently aware?”

  “Until all clothes are washed and hung to dry.” She pointed to a clothesline hung between two large oak trees.

  “Then what?”

  “Then cut the fire wood.” She pointed to a pile of logs and a hatchet that I hadn’t noticed before on the edge of the meadow. “Chop wood. Learn to be aware and alert.” Madame Wong vanished into the misty air.

  I wanted to rebel. I wanted to sit down on the ground and refuse to do anything. I wanted to be back at my house, even if Muriel was there.

  But I caught myself and stopped thinking about Muriel before she reared her ugly head again. I picked up a shirt and began washing the old gnat’s laundry.

  I dipped a shirt into the stream, rubbed soap on it. Up and down until it was well lathered, then I swished it in the water and hung it to dry. Shirt after shirt, pant after pant, all the time trying to be ‘aware’, whatever that meant.

  My mind was in a stupor then it wasn’t. I was on my knees in pain, a burning sting surging from my calves and up the backs of my legs. There was a moment when I thought that the hatchet on the edge of the meadow had flown into the backs of my legs.

  “What the … ” I turned and Madame Wong stood behind me with her cane, her face wearing a smirk.

  “Did you just beat me with that cane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Test. See if Miss Emily aware.”

  “Well? Am I?”

  “Welts on the back of your legs. What you think?”

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t know this was a game. You didn’t tell me that you’d materialize and beat the crap out of me.”

  “If aware, you know it coming. If alert, you stop me.”

  “Well I’m alert now.” I towered over her, challenging her with my look to try it again.

  She stood stone still and eyed me just as I eyed her. We stood locked in a death stare for countless minutes. I felt focused and aware.

  Suddenly, CRACK! That cane swung out of nowhere and bit into the flesh of my left thigh.

  “Son-of-a-kraken. You did it again!”

  “Miss Emily not aware.” She disappeared again into the nothingness.

  I flopped myself down and let flow the tears that had sprung up in the corners of my eyes. Caning is a barbaric punishment but it’s still meted out in some countries. I know why they still use it. Only two swats with that little piece of bamboo had left me with the most painful welts and bruises I’d ever had. The pain, the fear, and the worry about my dad and Jack and Fan made me feel hopeless and beat down. I wanted to give up.

  I heard a faint voice from somewhere beyond the mist say, “No think. Do.” The voice was right. If I dwelled on negative stuff, bad things would happen. I had to get up and do something – anything – to end my negative thinking.

  “Your lessons suck, Madame Wong!” I yelled into the nothing. Screaming that out made me feel a little better.

  More laundry. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

  It seemed like I washed clothes for days. Every now and then, without any warning, the old bat would appear out of the fog and beat the crap out of me with that cane. I tried my best to focus on what I was doing as I finished the laundry then moved to the woodpile.

  I can’t tell you how many swats with that cane I got over the endless time that I did Madame Wong’s chores. And I can’t tell you how long it took me to figure this out, but eventually I realized that I could focus on what I was doing but at the same time be alert to my surroundings.

  I chopped wood (not as easy as it looks), swinging the axe high then down into the center of a piece of wood. I split it clean in two. I felt a slight breeze to my left. I had my feet planted, but I swung my upper body to the left and held my axe in both hands, ready to deflect the coming blow of her cane.

  But as I turned to my left she wasn’t there. Just empty space. Then SMACK! The cane blow came across my legs to my right. I swung myself around and there she was, standing stil
l and holding her cane like she hadn’t just beat me with it.

  “Aw crap! I heard you that time! You switched sides on me.”

  “Progress, yes. Alert. Aware. But too focused on what you thought was going to be. Don’t think, just do.”

  “But if I hear something on my left, then I should think you’re going to be on my left, right? I mean, that’s logical.”

  “Don’t think! Logic not relevant. Feeling is way. Be in the flow of things, Miss Emily. Let go. Just be.” She vanished again.

  I’d come so far yet felt so frustrated.

  But one good thing came out of all that wood chopping. I had long ago abandoned my long sleeved shirt and stripped down to my black tank top. I’d never been muscular. But I noticed that my shoulders were cut. I had deltoids and shoulder muscles. My arms were strong, not skinny and lacking any semblance of muscle tone like before.

  I don’t think that building muscles was part of the old woman’s plan, but it made me feel good about myself. I was beginning to look like a girl that was strong enough to take care of herself. Maybe I could even stop that Dughall guy.

  Back to chopping. Sweat poured down my back and my tank was soaked. The pile of wood grew. Focused but alert. “Into the flow Emily,” I told myself. Swinging the axe.

  I felt a ripple of air move. “Don’t listen, be,” I told myself. The air around me moved. The hairs on the back of my neck were on end. I swung my upper body to my left, holding my axe out and this time, it connected.

  THWACK! I blocked her blow. My axe and her cane were locked together, each of us maintaining our stance and our stare.

  “Miss Emily ready for combat,” she said. Madame Wong backed away and bowed her head slightly.

  32. SLICING AND DICING

  When she said, “Miss Emily ready for combat,” I almost wet my pants. It’s one thing to fend off a blow from a cane, it’s another to do battle. As always, Madame Wong kept me unsettled. Just when I thought I’d mastered something and felt balanced, she threw something else at me, and I felt like I’d topple.

  “Come.” She walked away from the stream and through the meadow to a path I’d never seen before. Before long a building appeared out of the fog. It was made entirely of wood and looked like it had been there for hundreds of years. Instead of a thatched roof like her cottage, it had a pitched roof covered in weathered tiles. I followed her as she walked up the steps to a wide wooden porch the length of the whole building, and then into a door opening (there was no actual door).

  Inside was one large room, open to the rafters above. Windows from the second story rafters let a little light filter into the otherwise dark, cavernous room. To my right and to my left were walls filled with racks of weapons. There were broadswords, spears, daggers, lances and other sharp, pointy things that I had no idea what they were called. It looked like a weapon cache for a small army.

  “What is this place?”

  “My training room,” she said quietly.

  “But where did it come from? It wasn’t here before.”

  “Building from my childhood.” She walked to the right and inspected a row of swords. Madame Wong picked up one and swung it around gently a few times, then replaced it and chose another. She did this with several until she picked up a sword with a handle that looked like it was made of ivory and a thin blade that had lost its sheen, weathered like so many other things in Madame Wong’s world.

  “You trained to be a warrior as a child?”

  “No, of course not. Girls not allowed. Madame Wong snuck in and watched her brothers train.” She continued swinging her sword around in wide arcs and practiced thrusting her blade forward.

  “Choose your blade,” she said. She gestured to the wall opposite her, also filled with weapons of all kinds and shapes.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Hindergog told us of your fighting skills. I’m not fighting you.”

  “How learn if not try? Come Miss Emily. I teach you ways of the true warrior.” She had a mischievous glint in her eye. “Yes, long time since Madame Wong teach a warrior. This will be a good day.”

  She’s excited to kick my butt!

  I didn’t know what kind of weapon I needed or how to choose. I inspected them all and finally settled on a broadsword. Its handle was wrapped in black leather and it had a curved, shiny steel blade with intricate carvings of a dragon etched into it.

  I picked it up, and despite the fact that I’d built up quite a bit of upper body strength wielding an axe at the woodpile, it was so heavy that I almost dropped it. I teetered a little as I tried to hold it out in front of me, gripping the handle with both hands.

  “That one too heavy for Miss Emily?”

  “I’ll be alright,” I said. “Just need to get used to it.”

  “Best to be used to it now.” She sprung into the air, did a somersault and landed in front of me, brandishing her ancient looking blade. I reacted as quickly as I could and tried to use my sword to deflect her, but her blade caught a bit of flesh at my ankle.

  “You should block my attempt to cut you,” she said.

  “Really?” I gripped my ankle. My hand was covered in blood. “Son of … You cut me!”

  “Real warrior fights through pain,” she said.

  “Yeah? Well I’m not a real warrior now, am I? I’ve got to do something about this wound, or I’m going to bleed to death.”

  “No need worry about blood. Ready for battle.” Madame Wong held her sword horizontally in front of her face, her legs planted and ready to go again.

  “Look, I’m not like you, okay. I’m a real person – flesh and blood. So yeah, I’ve got to bandage this cut up so I don’t bleed out.”

  “What cut? Miss Emily not bleeding.”

  “What … ” I looked down, and my ankle was fine, not a scratch on me. It wasn’t even covered in dried blood. It was like Madame Wong’s blade had never touched me.

  “What the heck? You cut me. I know you did.”

  “Cut? Maybe. Wound no more.”

  “But how?”

  “This is Netherworld. Now ready yourself.” She backed up a few paces, planted right foot in front and left behind, then raised her sword in her right hand above her, her left hand out straight in front.

  I moved out from the wall and toward the center, all the while keeping my eyes on wily Madame Wong. When we were about twenty feet apart from each other, I planted my feet like Madame Wong’s and put my arms in the same position. The blade I had chosen was super heavy. My arm wobbled as I tried to hold it above me as Madame Wong was doing.

  “Remember what you have learned, Miss Emily. Focus. Aware.”

  I tried to do as she said and focused on her sword, tuning everything else out.

  “I don’t know anything about this, you know. I never took fencing in school, and I wasn’t exactly on the medieval knight team. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Stay alive.” No sooner had the words escaped her lips and she took to the air again. She did a somersault then kicked me in the chest hard. I flew backward about ten feet and landed flat on my back. Madame Wong landed gently on the ground at my feet.

  “That’s not fair. You can fly.”

  “Miss Emily can fly too.”

  “In case you didn’t notice, I don’t have wings.”

  “Madame Wong has no wings.”

  “Yeah but you’re not human.”

  “Form of entity of no matter. Intention what matters. You want to fly, you fly. Focus on what you want Miss Emily, not on what you do not want. Focus on doing, not failing. Ready?”

  I got up and took the stance. It was like a showdown in the old west. Both of us stared at each other but neither made a move. The silence grew to the point that I heard my blood rushing through my veins.

  If I had been watching with my eyes, I would have seen nothing. If I had been listening with my ears, I would not have heard a sound. But in the focused awareness that Madame Wong had taught me, I felt her coming.

  I thought of flying awa
y to the other side of the room, and I pushed off with the toes of my front foot. I sprang into the air effortlessly. I spun myself head over heels several times then gently landed facing her. I think I saw Madame Wong’s lips curl into a small smile, a twinkle in her eye.

  But there were no words of adulation or praise, only her little body coming at me, swinging her sword in tight figure eights as she gently glided forward across the grey tile floor. It was like watching a mini combine coming for me, the only sound was the swoosh of her sword like a wind turbine.

  I took to the air once more, and as I turned mid-air to land facing her, I saw that she, too, had taken to the air and was right behind me. I reacted quickly enough to fend off a blow from her sword, and we were locked in battle, mid-air.

  We came down with a thud as our weapons continued to clang against each other. I was working hard just to keep her from chopping my arm off. Madame Wong looked like she was hardly putting forth any effort at all. She stood entirely motionless except for her right arm, swinging the sword tightly as she thrust it toward me over and over again.

  On the defensive, my arms quickly tired. I was so busy blocking her blows that I had no chance of mounting an attack. Then it happened.

  Pain ripped through my arm as I felt the warmth of blood flowing in a torrent down my arm. My legs shook. I dropped my broad sword to the ground. It was like I was moving in slow motion as my head slowly turned to look at my left arm.

  There was a gash so deep that I could see the bone peeking through. It was a wound so severe that it was a matter of seconds until I felt the lightheadedness that comes just before the world goes black.

  As I slumped to the ground, my last thought was that I’d make a terrible warrior with only one arm.

  33. SWORD OF THE ORDER

  When I woke I was in Madame Wong’s cottage, resting on the bed. My arm had been dressed in a white linen dressing, wound tightly. I saw no blood on the bandage so I decided to unwrap it even though I was scared of what I’d see.

  I slowly unwrapped the cloth. As the linen slipped off my arm, I saw no blood, no puss, and no oozing sore. There was only the faintest of scars where a three-inch gash had been.

  “Miss Emily come, take tea and stew,” Madame Wong croaked.

  I sat at her small table and drank the cup of warm tea in one swallow. I devoured the bowl of stew like I was starving. She said not a word as she refilled my tea and scooped more stew into my bowl.

  “Madame Wong, I don’t understand. How can I heal so quickly and completely here?”

  “It is a world of no time and pure intention. We can have things exactly as we want them.”

  “Then why did you bandage me?”

  “Because your mind expects a bandage. You feel you must do something to heal rather than think something to heal. I gave you what you expected.”

  I let her words sink in as I devoured the rest of my stew and tea. Every time she gave me an ‘answer,’ more questions rose from it.

  “Look, I see how that may work here, in a place of no time.”

  “And a place of no place.”

  “Yeah, whatever. But when I go back to my world – the world where I have to defeat Dughall – well it most certainly is a place and has time. So none of what I’m learning here will apply there, will it?”

  “If it didn’t why would I teach it to you?”

  “Well that’s what I’m saying. It’s like I’m wasting my time here.”

  “No time so no waste. Besides, all Madame Wong teaches works in human world.”

  “So I can defy gravity and fly through the air and have whatever I want? I don’t believe that.”

  “Then you’re not ready to return. Miss Emily, laws of universe same everywhere. Big or small. Here or there. No matter. Only thing that matters – your intention.”

  “Then why can’t humans fly or just think of something they want and poof, it’s there?”

  “Because humans do not believe they can do those things. Because your world is a place of time. Because of time, your creations do not happen instantly. And that causes you not to believe, bringing you back always to the first thing.”

  “So when I go back there, I can do all the things you’re teaching me here if … ”

  “If you have belief and patience.”

  I wasn’t there. I couldn’t believe I could sail through the air just by thinking it. Not in my own world. I didn’t believe I could conjure up a chair or any other object just because I wanted it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever believe those things were possible in my world, even if I stayed with Madame Wong a thousand years.

  “You not believe. You not ready to go. But you are ready to fight, no?”

  I simply sighed and instantly we were back in Madame Wong’s training room.

  “Madame Wong teach about weapons. Miss Emily chose broadsword because it was shiny and pretty.”

  “That’s not why.”

  “Yes it is, and Miss Emily knows it. Not good reason. Warrior must play to her strength. Broadsword is weapon for a brute man, not a medium-sized girl.

  “You need a weapon for finesse, cunning. Come.” She walked to the weapons rack. “Pick them up, swing them, listen to them. Choose the one that sings to you.”

  Singing swords? I glared at her hard but didn’t argue as I picked up swords and lances and daggers and other objects of aggression. Most of them were too heavy for me or felt awkward to hold. Toward the end of the line, I saw a sword with a wood handle and a thin blade, much like Madame Wong’s. The handle looked well worn, its wood polished to a sheen by the sweat of the hands that had held it before me. The blade was only about an inch wide and could be no more than an eighth of an inch thick. The handle was about a foot long, maybe eighteen inches and the blade about two feet. The blade was not corroded but not shiny either and covered in what looked like Celtic knots.

  When I picked it up, I felt a tingly feeling run up my hand and into my arm. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end like it had when I entered the Sacred Grove. I swung the sword wide, and I swear I heard a single musical note hang in the air. The handle felt like it had always been in my hand. It felt effortless to swing it in a wide arc.

  “That blade sing to you Miss Emily?”

  “Yes,” I answered in a whispered voice. “Madame Wong, this sword. Who owned it?”

  “That sword have no owner but was used by last High Priestess of the Order of Brighid.”

  “Saorla.”

  “Yes, and many priestesses before her. Like the torc on your arm, it was crafted by the Fair Sidhe for the Order of Brighid.”

  I practiced swinging, thrusting and flying with the beautiful sword in my hand. It felt like an extension of my arm, like it was a part of me.

  “Miss Emily ready for next combat lesson?”

  “Yes.” I continued to practice my moves.

  “For a true warrior, life is sacred. A warrior with honor never kills unless she must. But when she must kill, a warrior is prepared to take the life of another – or to die – if honor requires it. Are you prepared to take the life of another? Could you kill Dughall if necessary?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Up to that point my mission had been a bit abstract. Kill someone? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

  It’s not like I’m against a person killing another to save their own life or the life of someone they love, but I never thought I’d be the one doing the killing. Doubt crept through my blood like a cold, dark shadow.

  “I don’t know Madame Wong. Honestly, I’m not sure I can kill someone, even someone as bad as Dughall.”

  “Even if it were necessary to save the ones you love?”

  A scream pierced the air, breaking the icy silence that defined the Netherworld. A high-pitched scream that was familiar but also seemed like it was from a long-forgotten dream.

  Fanny.

  34. THE THREE LITTLE NINJAS

  I ran from the training room and out into the mist and fog. Another scream a
nd a shout.

  “Help! Emily, we’re here.”

  Jake. I ran toward the voices as fast as my legs would take me. I felt like I was in a dream, running and running but going nowhere. After a while it occurred to me to stop running and instead think about being where they were.

  Out of the mist and fog another building came into view. It was a small cottage, much like Madame Wong’s only slightly larger. I stormed through the door, the Sword of the Order still in my hand.

  Inside it was dark like night, the only light coming from the grey haze of the Netherworld through the small window openings covered with carved wooden screens. In a corner of the large open room I had stepped into were Jake and Fanny, their hands bound behind them. They were lashed together with a thick rope, and their feet too were bound tightly.

  “Emily, look out!” screamed Jake.

  It was a good thing he warned me. I had been thrown off my guard, and was not focused and aware like Madame Wong had taught me. With Jake’s warning, I sprung to the air and did a back flip so that I could see my attacker.

  Correction. Attackers. There were three small men, dressed in black from head to toe, all brandishing large, curved broadswords like the ones Madame Wong had said were for brutes. The three little ninjas. They turned to face me as I gently landed on the wooden floor. I planted my feet, right foot in front, left behind. I held my sword horizontally in front of me, my left hand up and vertical in front of my face. Focus. Breathe.

  They all lunged for me at once, charging like bulls, their swords swinging wildly as they screamed their warrior cries. I felt the blade coming before I could see or hear it, like the movement of the swinging disrupted the molecules in the air around me. I thought only of my blade connecting with theirs, and my arm swung powerfully in a large arc. There was the loud crash of steel as the Sword of the Order swung true and hit the first blade.

  The man wielding it looked down in shock as he saw that my sword had cut clean through his thick broadsword. But he was a trained fighter, not a novice. It took him a matter of seconds to recover and grab another sword that he had strapped to his back.

  In the meantime, my arm swung like it was a machine, connecting time after time with the blows coming from the three men. I lifted myself gracefully into the air and came down behind them. As one of the ninjas came at me, I thrust forward and dashed to the side so quickly that I cut his arm clean off. He screamed in agony but then vanished from the scene entirely. His cries of pain lingered even after his body was gone.

  There was no time to think about it. The other two didn’t miss a beat as they both came at me at once. I swung left and right, parried and turned. I took to the air, but they followed right behind, our blades connecting the whole time. Sparks flew, ignited by the steel grinding on steel.

  As we touched the ground, one ninja to the left of me, the other on the right, I swung my arm in a tight figure eight like I’d seen Madame Wong do. I fended off the attempts of each of the ninjas to do me in. I sensed the one on my left was ready to thrust hard. I pitched myself straight up like I was shot from a cannon.

  I looked down, and the one ninja’s thrust landed straight in the heart of the other as the second ninja’s sword, which has already been in the motion of a wide arc intended for me, swung clear through the torso of the first ninja. Both vanished even as the sound of their anguished cries lingered.

  Then there was silence. My chest still heaved from the exhaustion of the battle with the three ninjas. But there was no time to waste. I had to get Jake and Fanny out of their bindings.

  “That was amazing,” Fanny said. I looked at Jake who said nothing, but his clear blue eyes showed their appreciation and awe.

  “I didn’t know you could fight like that,” he finally said.

  “I didn’t know either.” I cut the ropes around his wrists with my sword. When his hands were free, Jake caught my hand with his. He looked in my eyes with a look I’d never seen before. His hand was warm and as he held my hand in his I felt a slight tingle run up my spine. Time was frozen for a moment as I let Jake keep his hand there, the first true warmth I’d felt in so, so long.

  But the moment was cut short by the sound of a large, low voice.

  “You’re not finished here, Youngling,” he said. Instantly Jake’s hands were once again bound together.

  I turned and there before me was a large man, standing at least six feet three. His upper body was bare, his barrel chest smooth and rippled with muscle. His biceps were two of the most powerful guns I’d ever seen, his stomach a washboard. His dark hair was tied behind him in a smooth tail, his chin covered in a well-groomed goatee. His black eyes glared at me as he stood with his legs spread wide, his sword in his hand.

  I hadn’t finished getting Jake and Fanny out of their bindings, but that would have to wait. It occurred to me at that moment that I was going to have to keep fighting until I finished what I came here for.

  I had to keep fighting until I killed.

  35. THE KILLING TIME

  The supersized ninja stood firmly, a devilish smirk smeared across his face.

  “They’ll be tied up here forever you know. If you want to save them, you’ve got to go through me. And from the looks of you, still a whelp sucking at your momma’s breast, you’ll give up. I’ll take immense pleasure in killing them just because I can.”

  I didn’t wait to take my stance or focus myself. His words had their desired effect. I was enraged and shot through the air straight at him.

  “My … mother … is … dead … you tart monkey.” I hurled the words at him as our swords clashed. My arms were already tired from fighting the three amigos, but I had to keep going. I wasn’t sure if Jake and Fanny were real or an ephemeral figment of Madame Wong’s imagination. But either way, I couldn’t stand by and allow the guy murder them. Somehow I got my arm to swing the sword, more defensive than offensive. It was all I could do to keep supersize from cutting me in half. I was so unbalanced by his strength that I didn’t have a chance to land any blows against him.

  I took to the air and bounced from wall to wall, trying to give my arm a rest while I avoided his attack. Everywhere I landed, he was there. It was like he anticipated my every move.

  Then I ran across the walls. I know it sounds impossible, but I was like an insect defying gravity using the walls of that cottage like a floor. I wondered to myself what would happen if I ran really fast and I thought only of making myself move so fast I was a blur to him. After a few seconds, I took a chance and looked at supersize. He had dropped to the center of the room, standing on the floor, looking at me. Or trying to look at me and find out where I was exactly. Somehow I was moving so fast I was a blur to him, winking in and out of the room altogether.

  I didn’t have a plan and wasn’t sure why I felt the need to run. But I had unhinged him a bit so I guess that was as valid a reason as any.

  “Get down here and fight like a man,” he grumped at me.

  “Ah, but I’m not a man. I want to fight like a woman.” I swooped down from the wall and struck him with my sword across his back. I quickly flew back up to my wall and continued to run in circles around the room.

  Supersize only grimaced and shrugged off the large gash across his back. Blood dripped from the slash across his naked back.

  “If this is what you call fighting like a woman, then women are cowards.” He ran up the wall and planted himself firmly like a fly on the wall, hoping I guess to stop me in my tracks. When I saw him there, I simply reversed direction so that I again came at him from the back. My second blow was a sword thrust to his back.

  “Smart, not cowardly,” I said.

  I had hoped that my strategy would do him in for good. Problem with my plan was that the Sword of the Order got stuck in his large, thick torso. I tried to thrust and pull but as I pulled, the sword stayed. I fell backwards and dropped to the ground with a thud.

  Supersize stood for a minute, his feet defying gravity, stuck to the wall like a fly on f
lypaper. Then he gently swooped down to the ground and faced me, his face taut with rage. He reached his left hand behind him and pulled the Sword of the Order out of his back. His face showed only the slightest twinge of pain as he pulled the sword out. Blood gushed from the deep puncture wound, but I noticed that the other wound I’d inflicted only minutes ago was almost healed. I guess I’m not the only one for whom the Netherworld provides protection from injury.

  “Beautiful weapon,” he said. He held the Sword of the Order in his left hand and inspected it while he held his own large broadsword in his right. “I will enjoy killing you with it.” He swung both weapons in small arcs in front of him.

  Supersize had two weapons, I had none. When I’d run the walls like a human fly, I had a surge of hope. But my hopes were dashed. How can I kill a man if I have no weapon? No time to think about it. Supersize was coming at me with both swords blazing. Time to make like a cricket and leap.

  I sprung through the air in time to miss being chopped like tuna at a sushi bar but not before he landed a gash across my thigh. I felt the warmth of blood trickle down my leg. I knew it would stop soon, but it still hurt like blue blazes. I didn’t know what to do with no weapon so I took to running again until I could figure something out.

  Supersize wasn’t going to let me just run in circles anymore. He took to the air and leapt from wall to wall, occasionally finding purchase, and I’d get a new gash here or a slice there. I knew there were phenomenal healing powers in the Netherworld, but I intuitively knew that if I got injured badly enough, my death would come before I had the chance to heal.

  Then I heard a familiar voice come from what seemed like a long way away. Jake yelled out, “Emily! Over there.” It seemed like it came from a dream. I turned my head to where Jake and Fanny were tied up, and I saw Jake point to the corner opposite from where they were bound.

  There, by the fireplace, was a poker. It wasn’t the Sword of the Order, but it was something. No time to be choosy.

  I ran over and down the wall, picked up the poker, and went back to running like a mad thing around that room. We were both moved so fast that we blinked in and out. I’d see supersize in front of me. I’d approach and thrust but he was gone. Occasionally I’d get a slash in on him, or he’d get a gash in on me, but mostly we ran and flew around like idiots.

  I was so tired, I thought I’d drop. This had to end.

  I glided down to the floor, beckoning him to join me. Sweat poured in rivulets down my back and between what little chest I had. My hair was soaked, and wisps of it clung to my face and neck.

  When supersize landed I could see that our hours of fighting had slowed him too. His bare torso was completely slick, covered in sweat, his well-muscled chest heaving. If it weren’t for the fact that he was trying to kill me, he would have looked hot. But it was no time for a crush. I had to kill this guy so I could free Fan and Jake.

  As supersize caught his breathe, I planted my feet like I’d learned from Madame Wong. I held the poker firmly in both hands out in front of me, ready for his offense. I took a long, deep breath in, closed my eyes, and focused. Aware. Alert. I felt the molecules in the air shift, heard the sound of his blades swirling and opened my eyes. Acting on instinct alone, I let my arms do what they knew how to do. I trusted my body to protect itself and went with the flow, my arms moving independent of my conscious thought, fending off blow after blow.

  Finally, the moment had come. I felt it before I saw it. His guard was down for the smallest fraction of a second, and I swung the poker in an upper cut that caught his chin, took him off balance and down he went. As his hulking frame fell backwards, the Sword of the Order flew out of his weaker left hand and slid across the floor.

  I willed my body to do several front flips to where the sword had landed. I scooped it up before supersize could reach it. I leapt to the air and came down behind him, planted again and ready. With the Sword back in my hand, I felt a renewed energy course through my body. As I brought the sword out in front of me, clasped in both hands, I could hear it sing.

  Supersize took to the air and so did I. No running away from him this time. I leapt for him before he could gain speed and blink out of sight. My sword caught his hand and his broadsword went flying. I didn’t waste a single moment as I began hacking at him with my sword as he tried to run away. But I was on his tail and moving at the same rate that he was.

  I did a flying somersault over him and landed in his path. Before he could even see me, I swung my sword low, taking his right leg off below the knee and sending him down to the floor, a river of blood flying in the air around him.

  I knew that wouldn’t do it. In this place of mystery and magickal healing, I knew that if I left him there, he’d just grow a new limb in a few minutes. Time to do what I’d been sent there to do.

  I landed beside him and pulled my sword up high, ready to thrust it deep into his heart. His coal black eyes were not filled with hatred or sadness. They did not plead with me to spare him. He looked into my eyes with the eyes of a true warrior, knowing that he was bested and ready to accept his fate.

  It was a small gift that I knew Dughall wouldn't give me if it were he that lay there on the floor. But I was glad of it as I thrust hard, swift and true. The Sword of the Order sang out as it struck Super-size in the heart. He didn't say a word or make a sound, but soon he began to vanish. His eyes held mine to the last second.

  As he vanished, the Sword of the Order vanished too, swept right out of my hand and back to the aether from where it came. My body ached as it had never ached before. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be in my own bed in my own house and sleep the sleep of the dead. But a recess of my brain remembered that Jake and Fan were tied up, held against their will.

  I turned and ran to them, surprised my trembling and wobbly legs could still move. Super-size had bound them even tighter, and I didn't have the Sword of the Order to rip through the ropes. I began trying to untie them with my hands, the rough rope giving me burns.

  Jake caught my eye. “You were amazing,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks Em,” said Fanny as I worked on the knots. Once I had Jake's hands free, he worked on the knots at his ankles while I worked Fan’s hands loose.

  When they were finally free they stood and stretched, happy to be free of bindings that had held them for an unknown amount of time. I couldn’t believe they were there. I didn’t want them to leave. For a moment, I forgot about my T.V. receptor and how it came on when I touched people. I just wanted to hug them both to me and hold onto them so they’d stay.

  With my arms stretched around them both the visions started at once. I saw a large explosion and Jake’s lifeless eyes looking up at me, his head covered in blood. I turned and saw Fanny’s leg sticking out of a pile of rubble.

  I took my arms out of the embrace and backed away so the horrible scene would get out of my head. As I stepped back, the vision vanished. Then Fanny and Jake vanished too.

  Tears instantly sprang to my eyes. Fanny. Jake. Gone.

  The walls around me dematerialized as well, and I found myself once again in Madame Wong’s meadow. The sound of the stream was so peaceful and comforting after what I’d just been through.

  Madame Wong sat in silent meditation, her eyes closed. She looked dead.

  Exhausted beyond reason, I flopped down hard and sat cross-legged, too tired to put my legs in a lotus position. I sat and breathed hard. It took several minutes before my breath became slow and smooth.

  “Miss Emily succeeded?”

  “You know I did. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t killed him,” I said. She didn’t open her eyes or say a word, but her mouth put on a small smile.

  “Madame Wong, will it be time for me to leave soon – you know – to leave the Netherworld?”

  “Your lessons with Madame Wong almost complete but not finished yet. When done here you must go to next Master.”

  “I’ll have another teacher here? Who will it be?”

&n
bsp; “Not Madame Wong’s place to tell you that. You must find teacher on your own.”

  “But Madame Wong, that means that soon – soon I’ll leave you?”

  “Yes, Miss Emily.”

  The thought of leaving Madame Wong mixed with the emotion of seeing Jake and Fanny die in my vision then vanish before my eyes brought a flood of tears.

  “There there Miss Emily,” she said as she gently hugged me. “You crying to leave Madame Wong? You miss my lessons, yes?”

  “I’ll miss you,” I said. “You have taught me so much … ”

  “You taught yourself,” she said.

  “But Madame Wong, you don’t keep the past. For you, memories are like ghosts. I’ll be no more than another ghost that you lock away, won’t I?”

  “Memories not ghosts, Miss Emily. Just little birds. You will fly in from time to time. Madame Wong say hi then let you go. One of my little birds.” She patted my hand and winked at me.

  “Rest now, Miss Emily,” she said. “After sleep, last lesson.”

  I bowed to my teacher and crept into her cottage for what would be the last time that I slept there.

  36. THE DARKEST WOODS

  I woke after sleeping the longest, soundest sleep I’d ever had. I went outside and found Madame Wong in the same place she’d been each day before, still as a statue in a perfect handstand. How long can she hold that pose?

  I sat on the ground across from her as I had become accustomed to and waited for her to speak. I was just about asleep when I heard her ancient voice croak, “Relaxed, Miss Emily?”

  “Well, yeah, I am actually.”

  “Good, good. For your lesson today, must be extremely relaxed.”

  “I’m ready for this lesson.”

  “Yes, Madame Wong agree. This lesson, hardest for some to learn. I ask you question today.”

  “Okay, I can answer a question.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?”

  “Is there echo in my mist? You have question, now answer.”

  “Who am I? Well, I am Emily, of course.”

  “No. That is a name. Does not answer question. Again, who are you?”

  “Well, I’m a girl. And my name is Emily. I am a human … ”

  “No, no, no. Names only. Does not answer. Who are you?”

  “Well, I don’t know then. I think I’ve answered your question.”

  “You think you ready, but you don’t know who you are? Maybe Madame Wong put it to you another way. What are you?”

  “Well isn’t that different? Who I am. What I am. Two different things.”

  “No different. Same question. Answer now.”

  “Well I don’t know. I’m molecules and cells. Water and carbon.”

  “You describe that thing you call body that you drag around with you. What are you?”

  “I guess I don’t what I am. If I’m not this body, then what am I?”

  “Don’t ask me! I thought you knew who and what you are.”

  “Come on, stop with the riddles. I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “Only you can answer who you are.”

  “Apparently I don’t know who I am. How can I find out?”

  “Ah, that is good question. That I have answer for. Come.” She gracefully exited out of her handstand and began to walk.

  I followed Madame Wong as she walked through her little yard and into a deep, dark wood. I don’t remember this being here before. We walked silently for a long time, ever deeper into woods so thick you could barely see your way. We came to a small clearing, scarcely large enough for both Madame Wong and myself. There she stopped and gestured me to sit on the ground.

  “Most important question, one you must find answer to, what you are. You will journey on your own now, to find answer. This wood will help you. Listen well to the trees. They will guide you. When you have answer to question, you will find me.”

  “But how do I find you? I’m lost here. I wasn’t paying attention to how we got here, and I didn’t mark my way.”

  Madame Wong rose from the ground and walked away. I was up in a flash.

  “You can’t just leave me here! I don’t know what I’m doing. I could be here for days.”

  “Maybe months, even years,” she added.

  “What? This is going too far. Look, I’ve played along. But this isn’t right. Jake and Fanny – even my dad – they need me. I don’t have time to sit in the woods.”

  “Miss Emily. Such a Youngling. Your journey here will be long one I fear. You have seen you can create all that you need here yet you do not accept it. Yes, long journey.”

  “Well if I can create whatever I want, then I’ll create a road out of this mess.”

  “Once you have answered the question, a path as clear as the morning sun will appear before you and lead you to next phase of your journey.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that. Loophole.”

  “Madame Wong leave now, Miss Emily. Madame Wong return when Miss Emily have answer.”

  And with that, she was gone. No puffs of smoke or wave of a wand or anything. Just there one minute, the next vanished.

  I stood alone in the darkest woods I could imagine. I didn’t have any food or water, no flashlight or other provisions. Just me in the dark. With Madame Wong gone it seemed even colder and darker in the small clearing. All I could think about was getting out of there.

  I wasn’t interested in answering her question, but I figured by the time I found my way out of the woods, I’d have something worked out to say to her. Walking again, destination unknown.

  37. AKASHA

  I walked for what seemed like days. I never saw light shining from outside the thick wood. After a long while, I saw a clearing and I ran. I was so excited that I might finally be out of the woods.

  When I got to the clearing I cried. I wasn’t out of the woods after all. I was right back at the same clearing where Madame Wong had left me. I’d walked in circles.

  I sat down with my head in my hands. “Get a grip Emily,” I said to myself. I had to find a way out of that place.

  I was determined not to go in circles. I got up and walked in a direction that was at a ninety-degree angle from the direction I had traveled last time. There was no way to end up back in the same place going in that direction. And as added insurance, I thought about a large bagful of peanuts in the shell. A bag materialized in my hand. Something to eat and something to mark my way.

  Off I went again. I ate the peanuts and dropped the shells as I went. I walked like that for many hours. The supply of peanuts was endless. My stomach hurt from the pain of eating too much. I have to be out of these woods soon. I looked down and could not believe my eyes. I was walking on a path littered with peanut shells. And in just a few minutes I was back to that same clearing.

  I had felt sad before, even depressed, but until then I’d never felt complete despair. I felt like I was at the end of my rope and it would never get any better. I was beyond tears. What’s the point of even crying? I was in a living hell. I’d wandered in circles in a dark, cold wood, all alone. Utterly, completely, helplessly alone. And my friends were out there, somewhere, in our world wondering what had happened to me. By now Dughall has probably succeeded in whatever evil plan he has.

  What can I do? What’s the point of any of it? It was clear that I wasn’t getting out of there by walking out. I’d just end up in circles again. I sat down on the ground and curled up in a ball and tried to sleep. I was lying there thinking about how pleasant it would be to at least have a comfy beanbag chair to lie on when one appeared. It was all fuzzy and so comfy.

  Now that’s more like it. Funny how a stupid beanbag chair could make life seem a little less hopeless. “How about a warm blanket,” I said aloud. Bam, there it was. I’d conjured a fuzzy, peachy soft blanket. Now for a nap.

  I lay there, curled up on the beanbag, snuggled in my blanket. I wanted so badly to sleep. But sleep didn’t come. Instead, I just lie
there fully awake.

  “What am I supposed to do here?” I screamed into the woods.

  No answer.

  I’d rather spend my days facing Madame Wong’s blade than sit alone in these dark woods by myself.

  I was one hundred percent alone. No T.V. No cell phone. No computer. No people. Just completely, totally, utterly alone.

  There were many times, living with Muriel the Mean and Zombie Man, that I thought it would be much better to live alone. But my experience of alone? Well, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.

  “Apparently I’m supposed to sit in this stupid clearing until I figure out – what was it that I was supposed to figure out? Oh yeah, who I am,” I said aloud to no one but myself. Talking to yourself – not a good sign.

  I sat on the beanbag chair, not quite asleep, but not quite awake either. I heard the sound of wind in the trees surrounding me. I thought I heard a voice. It sounded like it came from the trees. The breathy voice sounded like it was saying ‘breathe’. “Listen to the trees,” Madame Wong had said. So I closed my eyes and did what I thought I’d heard the trees say. I breathed. Open the receiver.

  I concentrated on the rise and fall of air going in and out of my lungs. I found my mind got more and more quiet. If a thought came in, I just let it go like Madame Wong had taught me. Little birds. I concentrated instead on the steady flow of air going in and out, in and out, in and out …

  After immeasurable breaths, I felt weightless. No sound. The breathy whisper of the trees was gone. I didn’t even hear the air going in and out of my nose. Complete emptiness. I knew instinctively that a part of me was no longer in the darkest wood.

  Where am I? I knew that wasn’t the right word. ‘I’ didn’t seem to describe me anymore. Am I floating? Not so much floating as just being without any effects of gravity.

  If I'd had eyes, I would have seen the most beautiful sight. It was like trillions and trillions of stars, tiny and large and miniscule and epic, all twinkling and pulsating and connected one to the other by what seemed like an almost invisible filament.

  This cosmic string pulsated too. And it created a sound, like a low, melodic hum. As I tell this, I realize it’s hard to explain in words what I felt. It wasn’t just that each star was connected only to the next closest by this pulsating string. Instead, it was like all the lights were connected to each other all at once in every direction by this nearly invisible throbbing web.

  I’ve seen graphics of the nerves in your brain and how there are those spiderlike dendrites that finger out to each other. It was like that, but all lit up and pulsating with life.

  Do I still have a body? What am I?

  I can say I looked, but it wasn’t like I had eyes in that place. It was more of a knowing – a sight without eyes. As I ‘looked’ at myself, the being that I am, I saw that I too was one of those small, pulsating stars. And all around me, in every direction that I could fathom, was the fine mist of throbbing netting, touching me and surrounding me all at once.

  If I'd had a mouth, it would have been beaming in the biggest smile it could make. If I'd had eyes, they would have cried from the rapture of unbridled joy. There is no feeling that I have felt in my human body that can compare to the pure bliss that I felt in that moment of being connected to all these twinkling stars by that lovely pulsating web.

  I concentrated on the low, melodic hum. I found that I could pick out individual notes, like the strings of a cosmic instrument had been plucked. Here, one is lower. Over there, it is higher. Some were so clear and beautiful. There were a few though that sounded a little off key. But mainly it was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.

  And yet to call it music isn’t quite right because in that place – if you can call it a place – I didn’t have ears to hear with. I just knew that there were different notes all playing together.

  What about my note? Can I tune into my own frequency?

  I again put all of my concentration on these questions. Within seconds, I began to hear a separate distinct hum. It was stronger than the others to me. It was clear and not particularly high but not low either. It was my own vibrating string, unique and individual amongst all the others, yet resonating with them as well.

  It was so beautiful. I didn’t want to leave. In that place and time, I could see everything so clearly. I knew my own unique note. And I could see how I fit into it all.

  In that instant, I knew. I knew who I am. I knew what I am. I am not a human. I am not a girl. I am not Emily or a daughter or a niece or a friend. In that instant of pure joy, I knew the true nature of myself.

  “I know who I am,” I said (or was it a thought, I can’t be sure).

  In an instant, there was a powerful whooshing feeling like I was being sucked up by a large cosmic vacuum and then spit out on that beanbag chair.

  I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me and took a large gulp of air. I blinked open my eyes, and there I was, back in the clearing of the deep, dark wood. Only this time, there was a golden path. It was my yellow brick road. It lay before me, lit by bright sunlight.

  Just a few minutes earlier – or was it days? – I’d wanted nothing more than to forever exit that gloomy forest. After being one with Akasha, I wanted nothing more than to go back to that place of pulsating webs and stars and beautiful, resonant humming. It was my true home and I wanted to return.

  But I could see Madame Wong at the end of the path, her mere presence beckoning me. It all came flooding back, Fanny and Jake and Dughall and somewhere, my dad. All of them needed me. The pulsating web would have to wait.

  I rose and walked calmly and serenely down the golden path to the waiting Madame Wong. How did she know that I was ready to come out? How did she know that I realize the truth?

  “You ask that question? Why, when you already know answer. Annoying habit of yours asking questions to which you know the answer. Are you ready to answer your teacher’s question now? Who are you?”

  “Annoying habit of yours,” I said, “asking questions to which you know the answer.”

  Madame Wong smiled a bemused smile, one of the few smiles I’d seen on her face. I knew though not to push it. It was important for me to answer this question aloud for my own ears to hear.

  “I am Akasha,” I said.

  Madame Wong bowed her head gently. I followed her out of the darkest woods.