Chapter 4

Email sent eleven years ago, following the creation of the Isle

——Forwarded Message——

From: Fern Castillo <f.castillo917@gmail.com>

BCC: [COVEN DISTRIBUTION LIST]

Sent: October 1, 7:53 AM

Subject: Project Isle is a success!

Hi all,

I write today with excellent news: After months of arduous preparation, Project Isle went into effect at midnight last night. Below, please find a summary of previous actions and next steps:

Thank you for all your efforts to make this project an unqualified triumph. As ever, should you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or telepathy (preferred).

Sincerely,

Fern Castillo

Coven Secretary/Treasurer

REVIEW: Bar Between—Four Stars
posted by user JustJeanne114 on yelp.com

Okay, so I’ve heard about this place forever, my cousin Nichole swears it’s like the coolest place she’s ever been, but you can never find it online? She says the location is always moving, but she’s kind of a liar anyway, so I just chalked it up to an urban legend. But last week, I was with a couple of friends, and this cat came out of this bodega in Dumbo at 4am and started walking with all this purpose, and we were high as shit, so we were like let’s follow that cat! And I swear to fucking god, the cat took us to this vacant lot in Vinegar Hill, except there was this weird like, little stone hut in the back? None of us had ever seen it before, but it’s just some lot, so why would we have noticed? Anyway, the cat is all meowing and staring at us outside the door, so we go in, and I don’t know if we were hallucinating or what, but it was the craziest night of my life??? The walls, like, touch you back? And the people had really weird necks and shit? It was like being in a maze of your own dreams, I don’t even know how to describe it. We stayed a really long time, when we came out into the vacant lot, it was already the middle of the next day. We tried to come back the next night, but we couldn’t find the hut, no matter how many corners we tried. Only reason I’m not giving it five stars is because I’m still not totally sure it was real. But I really respect that cat for taking us there.

“Couldn’t you put me in the penthouse?” Octavia grumbled. “That rude witch checked out, didn’t she?”

“No, she stayed, despite you scaring the shit out of her.” Tess grinned. She’d checked Octavia in to the hotel’s rarely used cabana suite, which was set right next to the pool and had two glass walls allowing for fabulous views of Brooklyn to the east and the Manhattan skyline to the west, but which provided almost no privacy (unless you kept the blackout curtains shut all day, thus depriving yourself of the views you were paying for). Since Octavia couldn’t allow any sunlight into the room anyway, it was the perfect place to stash a vampire.

A vampire.

Tess glanced over at Octavia, who had changed into low-slung black trousers and a tight black crop top that showed off her sharp shoulders and unnaturally pale complexion. Even after watching her feed, Tess still kept expecting to wake up—at the hotel, in her bed, maybe in a hospital—to discover that all of this was nothing more than an exceptionally vivid dream. For the moment, Tess had told her assistant manager that she wasn’t feeling well and needed to leave her shift early. And now she and Octavia were walking toward Vinegar Hill, where Octavia knew of an entrance to Bar Between.

“Let’s run through the plan again,” Octavia commanded. Between her stern bearing and staggering beauty, Tess thought this woman wouldn’t even need to glamour someone to get them to do exactly what she wanted.

“I walk into Bar Between, I tell them I need to visit the Isle to deliver a message,” Tess started.

“No,” Octavia interrupted. “First you walk down the main hall, ignore all side rooms no matter how interesting they seem, and go directly to the bartender. Then say you need to go to the Isle to deliver a message. They’ll make you a doorway and send you straight there.”

“And after that…” Tess trailed off.

Octavia was wearing a few layered necklaces, and she tugged at one of the chains—it was delicate and silver and looked at least a century old. The chain was long, and dipped beneath the neckline of her crop top; when she extracted it, Tess saw that it held a tiny, intricately carved vial.

“Your scent vial?” Tess asked, and Octavia nodded. Tess loved when characters in old novels wore little vials of perfume, partly because it was romantic, and partly because it made her laugh to think of the lengths people went to to smell nice in the times before deodorant.

“Callum gave this to me when we were human, for our final birthday as mortals. I was wearing it the night we were reborn, and I haven’t taken it off since.” She lifted the necklace over her head and handed it to Tess, who stared with wonder. “When you get to the end of the crystal bridge, just open this, and he’ll smell me and come straight to you. Tell him everything I’ve told you—about how I got to New York, how I lost my powers, how he needs to find a way back to me. Except, maybe don’t mention the Blood Feud novels.”

“Why not?” Tess frowned.

“I mean, it’s kind of unbelievable.”

Tess choked back a laugh—it was a bit rich that a literal vampire was telling her the existence of some novels would be difficult to believe.

Tess pulled Octavia’s necklace over her head, and she felt the scent vial’s cool weight thump comfortingly against her breastbone with each step. They passed some drunks and other late-night sorts as they walked south through Williamsburg, but once they reached the misty cobblestone streets of Vinegar Hill, the city was silent except for the clack of Octavia’s heels. Tess loved this neighborhood; especially at night, walking through it felt like traveling back to the city’s earliest days.

“How do you know where the entrance to the bar is?” Tess asked Octavia.

“I came here once with Callum, decades ago.” Octavia waved her hand as if to dismiss the stretch of time between that moment and this one. “The key to finding the bar is that a silver birch tree with yellow leaves always grows in front—two trees with a connected trunk. Like this one.”

“Oh!” Tess looked up with surprise—there was a birch tree, just as Octavia had described. But there wasn’t a bar behind it, just an empty space between buildings, an overgrown vacant lot.

“Where is it?” Tess peered at the lot, and then at Octavia.

“It’s here,” Octavia replied, her voice steady. “Stand still. Don’t you feel it?”

Tess stood very still, wondering how one might “feel” an invisible bar. She tried to open her senses, but after a few seconds she had to admit she didn’t feel anything.

“Humans.” Octavia sighed and shook her head. “You have the scent vial, correct?”

Tess nodded. While she wasn’t totally sure how she was meant to execute any of Octavia’s plan in a building that didn’t exist, she was still starting to feel pretty anxious.

“Tess,” Octavia asked carefully, “are you sure you want to do this?”

Tess started feeling dizzy as she accounted for all the possibilities—that a vampire would kill her, that she’d somehow fall into an interdimensional wormhole and never return, that she was talking with some random stranger in front of a vacant lot and none of this was real.

But she wanted it to be real. She felt the desire so keenly—for another world, a magical doorway, a fantastic reality. Even if she was only there for a few minutes, she had to see it for herself.

She turned to Octavia and nodded. “I’m sure.”

“All right, then.” Octavia dropped Tess’s hand and folded her arms. “Time for you to take a walk around the block.”

“Excuse me?” Tess peered at Octavia.

“Just a quick walk around the block, get your head clear, that sort of thing.” Octavia gave her a little nudge. “Go on.”

“I—okay,” Tess agreed. “Which way?”

“Whichever way you like.” Octavia smiled placidly. “See you soon.”

Tess didn’t look back as she walked north on Hudson. She turned east on Plymouth, where the wind rustled through the leaves of the many trees. Had it really been only a few hours since Joni’s party, seeing Rick? It already seemed like another lifetime, like she could feel the strings of a new chapter gently pulling her away from the old one. She turned south on Little, and every step felt lighter than the last. A quick turn brought her back to Hudson, where she peered to make out the silhouette of Octavia waiting—except she wasn’t there. Had she already left?

Tess walked quickly toward the spot where they’d just been, gathering speed. Was this really the end of the story? Just a strange interaction with a strange woman, and after all this, Tess was simply going to get in a cab and head back to work? Tess was nearly jogging by the time she got back to the vacant lot, except—

Except the lot wasn’t vacant anymore.

Behind the silver birch tree, there was a small, igloolike building made of stone. And in the center of that building, there was a door.

“Holy shit,” Tess whispered. She closed her eyes, wondering if this small gesture might make the building evaporate just as suddenly as it had appeared. But when she looked again, the dome was still there, and she could faintly make out a warm orange glow coming from behind the door.

She approached the building carefully, looking hastily around—someone was always awake in New York. Was someone looking at her right now? Could a restless woman in Vinegar Hill be sitting at her window, smoking a cigarette, watching Tess Rosenbloom walk through a doorway into another world?

As Tess got closer, she saw that the stones of the building were glossy and black, splattered through with splintery white patterns—obsidian, maybe. The door was ebony wood, carved with intricate patterns that looked to Tess like a series of ancient runes, but she couldn’t be sure. The handle was wrought iron, a graceful arch finished with a small filigree.

Tess reached out and touched the handle—it was cool and smooth, and felt like any other door. She didn’t know if she’d be asked for a token, or to answer a riddle, or otherwise interrogated by some sort of intergalactic bouncer. But when she pulled on the handle, the door opened, and Tess simply walked inside.

The first dome—because the “bar” was actually an interconnected series of domes, like a massive subterranean maze—was dimly lit. The warm orange light Tess had seen emanated directly from the walls, which had a mossy quality. The room was empty except for a bored-looking, androgynous person in a slinky outfit that looked like chain mail glimmering violet and red as it caught the strange light. They were lounging on a cushiony chair that looked like an outgrowth of the wall itself, paging through a paperback novel in a language Tess didn’t recognize. They didn’t even look up as they waved Tess through.

Tess walked slowly into something like a hallway—it had an arched ceiling, and it continued far enough that Tess couldn’t see what lay at the end of it. Dark, vaguely electronic music pulsed through the space; it reminded Tess of Joni’s Portishead phase. The hall was covered in the same mossy material as the entryway, but the lighting in here was deep blue-green, sparkling brightly through some spots on the wall that seemed more sheer than others. Tess wasn’t sure if she should touch the moss, but her curiosity got the better of her and she laid a palm on it—it reacted immediately, pressing back against her hand with a gentle buzzing not unlike a purring cat. The sensation was intoxicating, and Tess had to fight a bizarre desire to lean her entire body into the moss. As she pulled her hand away and kept walking, she saw that some other patrons of the bar had not been able to resist that urge.

As Tess moved through the hall, she began to see openings toward other rooms, each one totally unique. One had walls that were slick and iridescent, as if they’d been covered in black oil, where half a dozen people dressed in spotless white nylon drank cocktails on high-backed sculptural chairs. Another room was nearly pitch dark, lit only by towers of glowing lily pads that people wandered around like a moonlit garden.

One dome was larger, filled with clear glass tubs that looked like they were floating in a night sky projected on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Tess couldn’t resist wandering in for a closer look: The tubs were filled with something that looked like foaming bubble bath, but when one of the people in a bath moved, Tess saw the substance was more solid than any bath she’d ever been in—the foam was thick and crunchy, tinted in pastel pinks and blues, and seemed to coalesce around the bodies of the people bathing.

Tess understood why Octavia had told her to go directly to the main bar and not to waste time exploring Bar Between. She easily could have spent weeks in this place, visiting different rooms, asking the other patrons endless questions about where they’d come from, where they were going, and how they had ended up here. And while she didn’t rush through the hallway, exactly, she also didn’t linger. She didn’t know how quickly time passed here—and besides, she’d be back soon enough once she successfully delivered her message to Callum.

At the end of the hall, Tess walked through a plain wooden door that turned out to be the entrance to the main bar. Given the varying sizes of the rooms she’d passed, Tess had expected it to be a cavernous space, the most spectacular setting of all. But it was the opposite—the closest thing Tess had seen to an actual bar in Brooklyn.

The room still had a vaguely rounded shape with a low, curved ceiling, but the walls were straight enough to hang paintings—dozens of them, oil portraits of all different kinds of people, some of whom Tess recognized from her walk through the bar tonight (like the white-nylon wearers), others more strange than anything she’d yet seen. The walls were a pleasant mushroom taupe, covered in a claylike substance, and the wood floors looked centuries old. The room was full of vintage, mismatched furniture: a velvet couch here, a leather wing chair there. Torches on the walls and a crackling fire in an iron hearth lit the space with a homey glow, and the music was both odd and comforting, muted pop electronica with a dash of jazz, or maybe funk.

There were only a few people in the room: two teens with green-tinged skin playing cards in a corner, a pot-bellied man in a fur coat dozing by the fire, an older woman with an extremely long neck wearing a dress trimmed with ostrich feathers, thumbing idly through a magazine. At the dark wooden bar, a woman in a gray skirt-suit was arguing with the bartender—their styles were radically different, so it took Tess a second to realize they were sisters.

“Honestly, Flora, I don’t see why it’s a big deal for you to make me a portal!” the skirt-suit woman said. “It’s literally the only kind of magic you can do, so why not just do it?”

“Because you can take a cab!” the bartender huffed. “Or a train, or a private jet, or literally what-the-fuck-ever. I create portals between dimensions, not to make it easier for you to go to Boston.”

The women both had dark hair and nearly interchangeable faces with wide eyes, button noses, full lips, and pudgy cheeks—but the similarities ended there. Where the skirt-suit woman was reedy and prim with a chic little pixie cut, the bartender was retro and goth, short and curvy, her hair styled in pin-up curls, eyes rimmed in black liquid liner. She wore a fitted halter dress that showed off the dozens of black tattoos snaking around her neck and down her arms, even onto her fingers, drawing Tess’s eyes to her nails, which were painted black and filed into talons. If this was New York, Tess would have guessed they were both Dominican, but trying to narrow people down by ethnicity (or planet, even) in this bar seemed a bit reductive.

“In the time we’ve been arguing about this, you could have just done it already,” skirt-suit huffed. “I’m going to be late to my meeting because you’re throwing a tantrum about helping me when you’re literally just sitting here doing nothing.”

“I’m not doing nothing!” the bartender retorted.

“Oh, pardon me, you’re making playlists and reading romance novels, high-stakes stuff.” Skirt-suit rolled her eyes. “I really am going to be late. Can I please go?”

“Fine.” The bartender exhaled. “Go ahead.”

Skirt-suit sauntered off without so much as a thank-you toward a door on the left side of the bar that Tess was pretty sure hadn’t been there when she walked in. There was a faint flash of blue light as the door thwacked shut behind her, but the light faded almost instantly as the outline of the door melted seamlessly back into the wall. The bartender folded her arms and gazed sulkily after her sister, but she straightened and flushed when she saw Tess.

“Oh! Sorry, didn’t see you come in. You want a drink?” She indicated one of the open stools; Tess was grateful the seats had backs and wide, supple leather cushions.

“I really like your playlist,” Tess said as she sat.

“Oh yeah?” The bartender brightened. “It’s Japanese city pop, I’ve been kind of obsessed lately—it’s not a genre, more like a style? I love how it has this eighties synth sensibility, but it still weaves in elements of jazz and funk, and it can be almost kind of nostalgic, you know?”

“Yeah, totally.” Tess nodded emphatically despite having understood at most twenty percent of what the bartender had just said.

“Anyway, hi! I’m Flora, and you are…” She peered at Tess, and Tess felt the most peculiar sensation of being understood very deeply by this perfect stranger. “Oh. Okay. Okay. Your first time here. What’s your name?”

“It’s Tess,” Tess said quietly, somehow afraid of giving the wrong answer to a question as simple as her name.

“Right, Tess, but that’s short for something, right?”

“Anastasia,” Tess offered, the syllables feeling foreign in her mouth. Her given name was so stuffy and ornate; she’d always preferred the simplicity of her nickname. “Are you a mind reader?”

“Mm, not exactly.” Flora leaned on the bar. “Portal magic is all about desire, you know? Understanding where someone wants to be—that’s the connection between being here and being there. So when you tell me your name is Tess, I can feel the desire there—the desire to be seen one way, and not another.”

“I don’t know what your sister was talking about,” Tess murmured. “Seems like pretty powerful magic to me.”

“Fucking Fern.” Flora rolled her eyes. “She actually is a super powerful telepath, runs around performing ultracomplex spells for the magical authorities, potion expert, gemology savant, thinks she’s the world’s hottest shit, and everyone treats her like she is, so why not? Anyway, look at me rambling and you have nothing to drink. What can I get you?”

Tess opened her mouth, but Flora cut her off.

“Wait! I’ll tell you.” She gazed at Tess again, then frowned in disappointment. “Really, Tess? A beer? I get that you don’t want anything already open, but you’re at an interdimensional bar between worlds! Live a little!”

Flora pulled out a crate from beneath the bar and deposited it with a thud on the credenza behind her. She rummaged through it, bottles clanking until she extracted the one she’d been looking for: It looked like a miniature wine bottle, sealed with wax and covered in dust.

“Is that port?” Tess asked.

“Close—Madeira, from Portugal, 1600s I think, and quite un-tampered with.” She held out the bottle for Tess to inspect, but Tess pushed it back toward her.

“That’s okay,” Tess mumbled. “I don’t have to look. I believe you.”

“Hey.” Flora caught Tess’s eye for a moment. “Don’t be ashamed to ask for what you need.”

Tess closed her eyes—the familiar images flashed before her: Snowfall over the Hudson. A rocks glass full of whiskey. The pile of clothes on the floor.

But none of that was here. She smiled and thanked Flora as she poured two small glasses of the thick, garnet-red liquid. They clinked glasses and drank—the flavor exploded in Tess’s mouth, nutty and rich with caramel, blackberries, and figs.

“Oh my god.” Tess turned to Flora, who was grinning.

“Right? I wouldn’t do you wrong.” She pulled up a stool on her side of the bar and took a seat, leaning closer to Tess. “So tell me, Tess. Where would you like to go?”

“To the Isle. I need to deliver a message,” Tess said carefully, her pulse speeding up.

“The Isle!” Flora beamed. “And you’re not worried about being killed by vampires? Oh, you are a little, but you’re also super excited, which I take it means you’re a big fan of a certain series of novels?”

“Guilty as charged!” Tess grinned. “I’m a total Feudie, I love those books so much.”

“Me toooo,” Flora half sung. “You know, we’ve always had this policy that any human who made their way into Bar Between could visit the Isle at their own risk, and once the books got big I was a little worried we’d be, like, overrun with fans?? But you’re the first one who’s actually made it here.”

“Wow, a dubious honor!” Tess laughed, and Flora did too.

“So which book is your favorite?” Flora asked. “Who’s your favorite character? Oh my god, are you a total Callum girl?? You seem like a complete and utter Callum girl.”

“Seriously? Ew.”

“What, you’re too good for a hot vampire?”

“No, nothing like that!” Tess laughed and took another sip of the incredible wine. “He just seems like—I don’t know. Like you can’t trust him. Like he would just…take what he wanted. No matter what you said.”

Flora tilted her head, giving Tess a long, appraising look. “And you want someone who’ll always listen to you.”

“Right.” Tess blushed, feeling like she’d shared too much. “Anyway, it’s Felix for me! Classic romantic, love and devotion, blah blah blah.”

“Eh, he’s not as great as you think.” Flora groused. “He dated my sister for a minute, like fifteen years ago? Before the Isle. He was super romantic and everything, but at some point it’s like oh my god, stop reciting poetry and pick a fucking restaurant.”

“Fern dated him?!” Tess was utterly agape. She leaned in, conspiratorial. “So can I ask, whoever August Lirio is, they’d have to be magical, right? To have a way of knowing what’s happening on the Isle? Like, do you think they’ve been in here??”

Flora shrugged. “To be honest, everyone comes through here at some time or another. I’ve thought about it, but we get so many people, from so many different worlds, there’s no way to know.” She took a sip of her wine and smiled. “It’s pretty cool, though. August Lirio could have been in my bar. I could have served them a drink! And since it’s my job to keep an eye on the Isle with vision portals, sometimes I try to see if I can figure out what’s gonna happen next in the books, but it’s never worked.”

“I’m sorry, vision portals?” Tess frowned.

“Oh—like this.” Flora moved her hands, and a little circle appeared in the air between her and Tess—like a small floating screen rimmed in blue light, showing the street in Vinegar Hill where Tess had just been standing. “I can see what’s happening in any world connected to the bar. Cool, right?”

“So you’ll be able to see me?” Tess asked, her voice small. “On the Isle?”

Flora nodded. “But I can’t actually do anything there. So if anything goes wrong, I won’t be able to help. You’ll just have to get to the crystal bridge as fast as you can and come straight back here, okay?”

“Oh.” Tess swallowed. “Of course.”

“Okay then!” Flora laid her hands over Tess’s, and Tess felt suffused with warm energy. “Let’s read your tarot and get you on your way.”

“My tarot?” Tess was confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re embarking on a journey,” Flora said matter-of-factly. “We need to find out what you’re seeking.”

“No.” Tess disagreed. “I’m just delivering a message. I’ll probably be right back here in an hour.”

Flora looked at Tess for a long moment but said nothing. Then she smiled.

“Let’s just see what the cards say, okay?”

Flora opened a drawer beneath the bar and took out a gorgeous deck. The cards looked at least a hundred years old, ornate illustrations printed on thick stock, accented with foil that caught the light as Flora shuffled, the cards flying through her fingers so quickly they looked like one big blur.

“Have you had a reading before?” Flora asked, her eyes never leaving the cards.

“Only with friends, like at parties and stuff,” Tess murmured. “Never with an actual witch.”

“That you know of.” Flora winked. She put the deck of cards down in front of Tess. “Okay, they’re warm—I need you to cut the deck twice, with your left hand. Think about where you’re going. Think about what you’re leaving behind. And think about what you need.”

Tess tried to do what Flora said, but in truth, her mind was a swirling mess. The past twelve hours had completely flipped around her understanding of reality, and she wasn’t sure how to locate herself in it at all, let alone what she needed to get out of it. She thought about Joni, and the hope she felt when she opened the email from Dr. Vázquez asking if she wanted to come back to Columbia, and the smell of antique books. She thought about the shock of watching Octavia feed, the revulsion of Rick’s hand on her shoulder, about a doorway appearing in the wall of this strange bar, a flash of blue light, a chance to be free. She cut the deck twice with her left hand and looked at Flora.

“Good,” Flora said. “Now restack the deck with the same hand—put whatever pile you want on top. And draw a card.”

“Just one?” Tess asked, and Flora nodded. Tess considered the piles for a moment; Tess’s left hand had faltered when cutting the second pile, the one now in the center, so it held only a few cards. For some reason, Tess felt that she ought to draw the card from this pile instead of the others. She restacked the deck accordingly and flipped over the card on top.

“The eight of swords,” Flora nodded. “Tell me what you see.”

Tess peered at the card—it didn’t seem like a good one. It showed a woman tied up and blindfolded, surrounded by a circle of eight swords sticking out of the ground.

“She’s in trouble,” Tess said softly. “She knows she’s about to die—or worse. She’s trapped, and there’s nothing she can do.”

Flora put her hand over Tess’s, and Tess felt another surge of energy pass through her.

“Look again,” Flora urged. “Is anyone guarding the woman?”

Tess looked closely. “No. And—actually, there’s an open space in the circle of swords. She could walk away if only she’d take off the blindfold and see the path in front of her.”

“What does that tell you?” Flora asked.

Tess considered this for a long moment. “She thinks no one will help rescue her. But that doesn’t matter. Because really, she has everything she needs to rescue herself. She just needs to open her eyes.”

Flora picked up the card and handed it to Tess.

“Take this with you to the Isle,” she instructed. “Deliver your message. But don’t come back until you’ve done what the cards have asked.”

Tess looked down at the card—and almost dropped it in surprise. The woman was gone from the illustration. Her blindfold and the ropes that had bound her lay in a pile in the center of the now-empty circle of swords. Tess stared at the empty space where the woman had been. Was this a simple magic trick? Or something more?

When she looked back up to ask, Flora was gone.

“What the actual fuck?” she exclaimed, loud enough that the other customers stopped what they were doing to look.

“Sorry,” Tess apologized. “I didn’t mean to—sorry.”

They went back to what they were doing, and Tess slipped the tarot card into a little zippered pocket in her purse. She looked over toward the wall where Fern had walked through her portal, but there wasn’t any door there. She was confused—was she just supposed to go out the main hallway, the way she came in? But as she surveyed the room, she saw a door in the corner, with the word “Exit” painted in black across its center.

That hadn’t been there when Tess walked in, had it?

She walked over to the door, and she could hear something like white noise, or a whisper. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew, as strongly as she’d ever known anything in her life, that she was supposed to walk through this door.

When she opened it, everything was dark and musty—she thought vaguely that it smelled exactly like her memory of the antique books—but in an instant, there was a buzz, a blip, a blackness. And then, a flash of blue light.