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“It’s not as bad as you think,” JJ says as we pass through the cemetery gate.
“I’m not entirely reassured.” I’m still limping slightly, but it’s not as bad as before. “Have you ever been?” I ask. “To the otherside.” I swallow thickly.
“Well, no,” he replies at a whisper.
“So it could very well be worse than I imagine.” I shiver even though it’s a mild spring night.
JJ steps in front of the shimmering portal that leads to another place or time.
“Am I correct in understanding that the otherside, as you called it, is another word for the underworld?”
He nods gravely.
“Let me get this straight. To get the wand, we need to travel to another realm,” I clarify.
“That’s about the size of it,” JJ says. “But it’s not quite the same as Borea. Hopefully, we’ll be able to visit there someday.”
I stumble but not because of my foot or because I tripped over a root. Instead, I tripped on his word we. Us. A future together. I tuck it inside a pocket in my heart.
“You okay?”
Nope. Not at all but not for the reasons he thinks. I nod slowly.
To my list of portal destinations, namely the Jubilee and Riptivik in another time long ago, now I add the undead realm as well. Not exactly where I’d like to travel. “Have you ever been to Jamaica? That’s more my style when it comes to traveling to exotic destinations.”
JJ’s eyes sparkle in the dim light.
“Do we really need the wand?”
He nods slowly.
My brow wrinkles. “What are the chances it’ll fix things?”
JJ shrugs. “Just a hunch.”
“We’re going to visit the underworld on a hunch?”
Considering he hasn’t stepped through the shimmering door yet, I don’t get the sense he’s overly enthusiastic either.
JJ asks, “Do you have any better ideas?”
“On how to undo the curse?” No, no I do not. All I know is the statue of Imogen Hawkes in Hawthorne Hall is missing her wand. Legend has it the extremely powerful magical tool went missing long ago. Some say her actual wand was once part of the statue. Others claim it was stolen before she was immortalized in stone. Either way, it’s gone and might need to be recovered, maybe, possibly...
“Like you, she could perform magic without a wand, but possessing it would have amplified her power. I can’t imagine she’s much more than a withered old hag at this point, hanging onto whatever is left of her youth with a death grip.”
JJ didn’t paint the nicest picture of his mother, but then again she did curse him to exist in the in-between: half spirit, half boy. I clear my throat. “But she could have her wand...”
“I suppose she could, but if she did, she’d have more power; we’d have heard from her because the world would be a demon-infested nightmare. Instead, she disappeared.” JJ sighs.
“So we’re going to assume she doesn’t have her wand, it’s not here in the living world, and instead jump headfirst into the land of the dead?” I don’t hide the trepidation in my voice. I back up a few steps. This is getting a bit too real.
“We’ll step. There’s no need to jump.” JJ’s lips quirk.
I roll my eyes before closing them and mustering my courage. It’s just the realm of the dead. I got this. When I open my eyes, the edge of his top hat disappears. I grab JJ’s hand as he leaves this world and follow him through the shimmering door.
We don’t leap, but we do fall. Hand in hand, we fall for what feels like forever. I get the idea that maybe that’s what we’re passing through: forever, the place that separates here from there.
What was shimmering, fluid light as we entered the portal becomes almost too blinding to look at. It’s as if we’re falling through the stars. Then it slowly fades as we fall, fall, fall to reveal a starry sky: pinpricks of light dotting an otherwise black canvas.
As usual, the landing is hard. But so is the ground—made of dark rock. I quickly get to my feet and brush off.
JJ straightens, replaces his top hat and says, “My, this is interesting.”
Interesting isn’t the word on my tongue so I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I feel different. Less dead, if that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense at all, actually and yet it does.”
Still hand in hand, we spin in a circle. Wide-open spaciousness stretches in every direction.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
“Nothing. The otherside is the absence of things as we know them. It’s more of an energetic state if I understand correctly. Immaterial. Expansion in all directions and everywhere.”
“We’re looking for a wand, in a place absent of things. It seems like a fool’s errand.”
“No, we’re looking for my father.”
“Gregor’s Axe,” I say as if that’s any easier.
JJ closes his eyes.
“Not a good time to take a nap,” I say, gripping his hand tighter. My thoughts are loud, surrounded by so much silence. It’s the inverse of sound.
Even though his eyes are closed, I swear he rolls them.
I inch closer to him. “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. Remember? I’m not a big fan of ghosts.”
His eyes blink open, and I can’t help but gaze into those mesmerizing gray pools of his. He cups my cheek. “Maija, you have nothing to worry about.”
Those sound like famous last words, but I reply, “Right. You’re part ghost.” And going to the underworld with a ghost who you have a crush on makes it totally safe. Makes sense. But I don’t say that.
“Ghost? I’m a liminal being if we’re talking in technical terms.”
I didn’t say my thoughts aloud, but he read them in my mind anyway. I immediately put up my mind-walls.
“Good idea. I don’t think we’ll run into trouble, but best to be prepared. I’m trying to sense my father’s energy.” He turns in a half-circle then points. “I think we need to go that way.”
We’re in the middle of a desert made of rock, where everything is empty and barren except for the stars above, but I follow him anyway because I have the strange feeling we could get lost here forever. I wouldn’t mind forever with him. But not here.
We reach a crest with a valley below. There, the air there moves as though it’s a vaporous cloud of shadows. Oddly, the energy I feel is heavy, dense, and not at all airy even though amorphous forms are all I see. I tremble because one ghost who happens to be cute, even if moody at times, I can handle, but down there, are what look like many ghosts. Lots. Too many. My spine tingles.
“This should be interesting,” JJ says as he starts to descend the hill.
“Define interesting for me, because it’s starting to seem like you and I have a different understanding of that word.”
But he remains as silent as our surroundings and we dip into the cloud of shadows. I blink a few times, hardly believing my eyes.
I visualize Jamaica with all its vibrancy, warmth, and food. I feel so empty in this place, all I can focus on is what I’m going to eat when we get through this. With each step, I have to convince myself to move my feet, right into the valley of ghosts.
