“NO,” I SAID. “ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
“Why not?” Kristina asked. “It’s for your own good!”
She and Colonel Fleetwood had just explained what they wanted me to do with the stone, and since it involved wearing it like a necklace, it wasn’t going to work out.
“Because guys my age don’t wear necklaces,” I said. “Jared Terrance came back from a trip to Hawaii wearing a puka shell necklace, and everyone destroyed him for it. He had to take three fake sick days in a row just to get people to forget about it!”
“This is going to be a lot different than a puka shell necklace, Baylor.”
“You’re right,” I said, nodding fervently. “It’s going to be a whole lot worse, because that stone is big and bulky, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to hide it. People are going to notice it instantly. I’ll have to admit I’m wearing some weird stone necklace under my shirt because the only alternative is saying I have an alien parasite growing out of my chest.”
Kristina crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. “You know how this is going to end, right? You’re going to keep complaining, and Colonel Fleetwood and I are going to sit here and listen; finally, once you wear yourself out, you’re going to give in and do it. So, in the interest of time, can we just skip to the last step?”
“You think you know me so well,” I said, annoyed that she was probably right. “Well, guess what?”
“What?” she said, in mock surprise. “Are you suddenly not going to give in? Are you going to act like a headstrong idiot for a few more days before you realize how stupid you’re being and finally agree to do what we wanted you to from the beginning, but you’ll feel better about yourself because you at least stood your ground?”
We glared at each other in silence for a few moments while the colonel politely studied the popcorn ceiling.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I finally said.
* * *
I’d originally found the stone and wood for the talisman on the night of a full moon, and the three of us had used our energy to create it from that. Thankfully, since the weird mystical stuff was already accounted for, the process of making the necklace was fairly painless. I took some twine from my dad’s workspace in the basement and wrapped a long piece around the stone a bunch of times. Then I looped a different piece through the twine and tied it together to form the most primitive necklace I’d ever seen. It looked like something a caveman would give to his cavewife as an anniversary gift.
“My one request,” I said, examining the creation in my hands, “is that we don’t call it a necklace.”
“It’s really more of an amulet,” Colonel Fleetwood said.
“I’m not sure that’s better,” I said, scrunching my eyebrows together.
“We’ll figure the wording out later,” Kristina said gently. “We need to finalize the protections on it.”
“More weird bands of light coming from our fingers?” I asked, remembering the bizarre tornado of energy that we’d somehow conjured to create the original talisman.
“Nope,” Kristina said. “Fire. Lots and lots of fire. Light your candle.”
I stockpiled candles the way other thirteen-year-olds stockpile baseball cards, and I always had a few scattered throughout my room. I lit one every morning so the fire’s energy could surround me and keep me safe. I did as Kristina asked and set the lit candle on the desk in front of me.
“Good. You’ll need to do two things now.”
“The first,” the colonel said, “is to memorize this line: Surround me with white light and protect me in the dark night.”
“Simple enough,” I said. “What’s the second thing?”
“As you’re saying that line, you’ll have to dip the amulet into the candle’s flame,” Kristina said.
“Won’t that burn the twine? And make it useless?”
“Not if you don’t screw it up.”
So I did as they instructed. I said the lines aloud (and then, for good measure, repeated them over and over again in my head), and brought the amulet down to the flame. It took several seconds for the brown, itchy twine to catch fire, but once it did, it burned with intensity—the flame seemed to alternate between gold and blue, and it hissed in an oddly satisfying way.
I had a moment of panic when I realized the flame was about to inch its way up to where my fingers were holding the amulet. Kristina noticed, and she reached out her hands and held mine. I couldn’t feel them, but a chill lingered around my fingers.
“Trust us,” she whispered. And sure enough, the flame licked up and around my hands, but it didn’t burn my skin. After a few more seconds of burning and hissing, the flame snuffed itself out with a dramatic poof.
The amulet had transformed. The brown, itchy twine was now smooth and dark, almost like leather. The stone had morphed from perfectly white to an ashy silver, and it wasn’t as bulky, like it had shed a layer or two of stone.
“Nice,” I said in a hushed voice. I put it around my neck and under my shirt, and for a moment, the glassy stone burned hot against my skin. I grabbed it off my chest, but in my hand, the stone felt cool.
“And that’s all there is to it!” Kristina said. She and the colonel smiled at each other.
“So what does it do?” I asked. “I’m protected against everything now?”
The colonel laughed. “If only it were that easy. This is just an enhancement to your protections. Should you find yourself swarmed by evil spirits, the amulet will offer enough protection to fend off attacks to your body and spirit.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if it could keep me from getting swarmed by evil spirits in the first place?”
“One step at a time, Baylor,” Kristina said. “We’re working on it.”
“Right,” I said warily. “Better than nothing, I guess.”
* * *
I keep a dream journal on my nightstand in case I get any weird messages in the middle of the night, mostly from the little kids who sometimes rush through my dreams. It’s a woefully ineffective way of communicating a message since scribbling in the dark while half asleep isn’t simple, and I’ll often wind up staring at the words for a while trying to decipher their meaning. It doesn’t happen often, though, mainly because ghosts don’t really bother me in my dreams, and if they do, I can usually remember the message.
Anyway, I’m only supposed to be able to communicate with ghosts whose loved ones are in my proximity, so I shouldn’t be getting any random messages unless someone is hiding out in my closet in the middle of the night. And if that turned out to be the case, I’d have bigger problems than some incomprehensible messages.
That night, I drifted off into one of the strangest sleeps I’ve had in a while. At first I didn’t even realize I was asleep. I was in band rehearsal, and Mr. G. said he’d not only given up on the Christmas mash-up for the Thanksgiving Day Parade, but he’d also given up on us completely.
“I’ve decided to quit my job and become a ski instructor in Argentina,” he announced to the room of stunned faces, his long, golden-red hair shining brightly from an invisible source of light somewhere behind him. “I figure I can’t be any worse at that than I am at this job.”
“But—but have you ever skied before?” asked my friend Bobby, who was slumped over his drum, devastated.
“Sure haven’t,” he said.
“Well, that doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“You’re right,” I said, turning to Bobby. And he was. Mr. G. wouldn’t just abandon ship in such a grand way. In that moment, it dawned on me I was dreaming, and it was like a hazy veil had been lifted from my eyes. I looked around the room and a few things affirmed my realization.
First off, Aiden was weeping into his flute, and although I wouldn’t be shocked if Aiden actually did cry at this kind of news, I doubted his tears would rival the intensity of a small waterfall. Next, I looked at the sheet music in front of me, but the musical notes were just doodles of cats. Finally, I spotted a giant, bulbous octopus in the corner of the room, its tentacles stirring limply as it attempted to grasp its slippery saxophone. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.
Mr. G. had somehow changed into brightly colored ski clothes and was clutching a pair of skis in one hand and poles in the other.
“Time to go!” he said, heading to the door.
“I’ll join you,” I said, and stood up to follow him out of the room.
“Argentina’s a long way away, Baylor,” Mr. G. said as he sauntered outside. “Are you sure your parents will . . .”
But then he faded away, and I found myself in a vast black room, as if I’d accidentally launched myself into outer space. It was warm and cozy, as though I were wrapped in the most luxurious blanket money could buy. A pathway stretching left and right sprawled out as far I could see; the ground was illuminated by what looked like shimmering shooting stars. Some were brighter than others, and I was standing on one tinged with a blue glow.
I half walked, half floated to the left, wondering what to do. Billions of stars filled the vast space around me, glowing warmly despite their distance. At my feet, stars were spaced evenly apart down either side of the pathway; it looked vaguely like an airport runway, but it felt more like a universe that belonged just to me. One particular shooting star was flashing intensely a few feet away from where I’d entered. I was curious as to what would happen if I stepped onto it. I placed a foot on it, and with a soft whoosh, I somersaulted forward and gently tumbled into a rolling field.
The sun was setting behind massive oak trees on a hill in the distance; the sky was ablaze with vivid stripes of various shades of pink, blue, and gold, like someone had spilled paint all over a canvas and mixed all the colors together.
I walked down the hill, gazing in awe at the sky, and stumbled into Bobby again. He was sitting cross-legged on a picnic blanket, drinking a cup of tea, while a moose sat across from him, also cross-legged and drinking from a matching, but slightly larger teacup. On a fancy platter in front of them were two kinds of ants-on-a-log: the celery, peanut butter, and raisin version for Bobby, and an actual log crawling with ants for the moose.
Even though Bobby was one of my good friends and probably the goofiest person I knew, I’d never dreamed about him twice in a night before. It didn’t entirely surprise me that I’d dream up such a weird scenario for him.
“Baylor!” Bobby exclaimed. “Hey, dude! Nice of you to join!”
“Thanks, Bobby,” I said, laughing. “Who’s your friend?”
“Mr. Moose is an old acquaintance of mine,” Bobby said. Then, in what looked like a move they’d rehearsed many times, they reached behind their backs, pulled out top hats, put them on their heads, and nodded toward me.
I had never seen a moose move so gracefully—that thing was huge, and for it to balance the top hat on its antlers was impressive. I was strangely jealous of their hats.
“Do you have a spare for me? I’d hate to look underdressed for the party.”
“But of course,” said Bobby, and he motioned to the moose, which reached into a raccoon-fur satchel and pulled out another hat for me.
“Thank you,” I said, the top hat fitting snuggly on my head.
“Snack?” Bobby asked.
“No thanks,” I said, “I don’t love raisins.”
“Who does? Those are for Mr. Moose,” Bobby said, picking up the log. “We get the ants.” He shoved the log against his mouth and licked voraciously.
I gawked at him. “That’s really gross, Bobby.”
He frowned, still chewing. “Ever tried them?” he asked between bites as little bits of ant legs and guts splattered out of his mouth.
“I can’t say I have,” I said.
“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
The moose shook his head and reached for the celery.
“I think it’s time to wake up,” I said, turning around to see if there was some sort of door I could go through. There was nothing there. “But how do I get back?”
“Follow the light,” Bobby said simply.
“How’d you know that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s my picnic.”
As I got up, he reached for more ants from the log and the moose licked the celery clean of peanut butter and raisins. I walked up the hill, focusing on the sun in the distance, letting the beautiful sky absorb me and send me into a different dream I’d never remember.