Wraith didn’t remember waking up. One moment she was being carried out of the Order’s stronghold, the next she was here. Where here was, she didn’t know. Everything around her was white, stark, and perfect, save for the rolling hill she stood at the center of. The hill was covered in grass so green it might’ve been colored by a child. Scattered about the grass were gleaming white tombstones, hundreds of them, reaching to the very edge of this reality. It was as if someone had started to create a new universe from nothingness, and started by pulling up a section of Arlington or some other military cemetery.
As she looked around, children began to appear, standing behind the markers and smiling serenely. There were so many, maybe as many as a thousand. They looked to range in age from as young as ten to as old as seventeen, and all of them were fifties, the various aspects of their fae side now obvious; luminescent eyes, pointed ears, small horns, gills, with skin colors of ebony, pale blue, dark brown, or alabaster. She knew them all, and they knew her. She was them, and they were her. Or rather they had been. They weren’t scared, confused, or crying out anymore. In fact, the look of serenity on their faces made Wraith realize she felt the same way. She didn’t feel any pain or sadness, though the whisper of grief and regret was in the corner of her mind.
“Where am I?” she asked herself.
“It’s a sort of way point,” Shadow said from behind her. “A crossroads.”
Wraith turned and saw her three friends, intact and smiling. She threw her arms around them, hugging them all as tight as she could. When they hugged her back, she never wanted it to end. At the conclusion, it felt as if it hadn’t even been seconds. She smiled at how alive her friends looked, and then her smile faltered. She looked from them to the host of souls watching them, and understood. Her smile returned, born of both great sadness and joy together.
“It’s okay, I’m ready,” she said.
Now it was the smile of her friends that wavered.
“Um,” Shadow began.
“No!” Wraith said. “You’re not going on without me. There’s nothing left for me!”
Shadow touched Wraith’s cheek and smiled. “Oh, there is so much left for you, more than you can imagine.”
“I don’t understand,” Wraith said.
SK chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t it a bitch?”
Fritz poked him in the ribs.
Shadow wrapped Wraith in a hug. “We didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”
“Or saying thanks,” SK said as he joined Shadow in the hug.
“Ja, and that we love you,” Fritz added.
Wraith was going to protest, to say she couldn’t go on without them, to beg them to come back with her, but she stopped when she realized just how selfish that was. Instead, she just hugged tighter and whispered, “I love you too.”
A long moment later, the embrace broke again.
“Look,” Shadow said and nodded behind Wraith.
She turned and saw a brilliant and beautiful light appear in the sky. In fact, to call it beautiful was so insufficient, it was an insult. It was sublime. Music began to play from everywhere, but like the light, words failed to capture the sheer magnificence of it.
“Thank you,” a young Japanese boy with fox-like features said. “Thank you for setting us free.” Then he looked up to the light and began to drift up to and into it.
“Thank you,” whispered a girl dark brown skin and hair the color of summer grass, before floating up to the light.
“Thank you,” said another, then another and another. Each so sincere and heartfelt, Wraith knew the only proper response was to cry. One by one, all the lost and forgotten thanked her, then made their way to the light. As Wraith watched, a chorus of a thousand words of thanks, in as many languages, came from the nothingness around her. She saw for the first time the countless others—those she didn’t know— emerging from the white and gliding up to and into the light. It was like the most beautiful ballet imaginable.
Time had no meaning here, so Wraith didn’t know how much had passed, but eventually she turned back to her friends and felt sadness finding its way into her heart, even here.
“You have to go,” she said in a whisper.
Shadow nodded.
“But we’ll be right here,” SK said and touched Wraith’s heart.
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” SK asked. “I can’t be serious sometimes?”
Shadow smiled. “It’s cliché but true—they’ll always be a piece of us in your heart.”
“And here as well,” Fritz said, tapping the side of Wraith’s head. “So work on your Deutsche, ja?”
“You German minx,” SK said, turning to Fritz. “Did you just make a joke? That is so hot!” SK pulled her close and kissed her.
“You still want to come along?” Shadow deadpanned.
“Coincidently, I am rethinking that.” Then Wraith hugged her again. “See you later?”
“Don’t rush,” Shadow said. “But we’ll be waiting.”
Wraith let go, reluctantly, then turned to SK. She cupped his face in her hands, kissed his cheek, then looked him in the eyes. “Thank you for always making me laugh.”
“Thank you for always laughing,” SK said.
Wraith hugged Fritz. “You take care of him.”
“Ja, like anyone else would put up with him,” Fritz said.
“Baby, you cut me so,” SK said.
Wraith let go and stepped back. She clenched her jaw, fighting tears as her friends rose into the air. In a moment, they were gone.
Wraith closed her eyes and waited to return to the world.
Nothing happened.
She opened her eyes to find the light still shone and the music still played. She began to fear that maybe she was stuck between worlds. She imagined Dante or Caitlin giving her CPR and trying to bring her back. Thoughts of what an eternity here would be like had just started when she smelled something familiar, a woman’s perfume. It was faint, but it tugged at a memory she’d thought was lost. It brought feelings of comfort, security, and the taste of grilled cheese sandwiches.
She spun to see a middle-aged couple standing in front of her. Both were tall: the woman brushing six feet, the man a few inches taller. His face lined from years of smiling and laughing. The small patch of hair under his lip was gray; and his brown hair, the same plain shade as her own, was sprinkled with white. His eyes were lined, but inside they sparkled and shined, vivid and intense; they were a match for Wraith in both color and shape. When he smiled, it reached to his eyes, and brought the same feelings of comfort to Wraith as did the perfume.
The woman was built much like Wraith, tall and slender. Her hair was the color of chestnuts, and her eyes a pale blue. Her nose and fine eyebrows were the same Wraith saw whenever she looked into a mirror. When the woman smiled, it caused her eyes to light up. Wraith knew that smile as her own.
“Mom? Dad?” Wraith barely managed to get out.
“Oh, baby,” her mother said and took Wraith into her arms.
The smell of her mother’s perfume was like someone turned the light on in a darkened room. Memories began to come to the surface. Wraith could remember skinned knees and the fizzing of hydrogen peroxide and birthday parties with homemade tres leches cake, her favorite; coming in from cold days to find grilled cheese and tomato soup waiting and working with her dad in the garage on the car, the smell of oil and gas featuring prominently; working with her father and mother on math homework. All this and so much more.
Her dad looked her in the eyes. “We don’t have much time, Janey,” he said.
Wraith blinked and could see both her parents were growing transparent. She looked up at the light. “No! You can’t take them too! Not yet!”
“Shh, honey, listen to your father,” her mother said. “Time is short, and these moments are a gift.”
Wraith looked at her father, and tried not to remember what happened with Nightstick in the church.
“It wasn’t an accident,” her father said.
“What wasn’t?” Wraith asked.
“What happened to us,” her mother said.
“What? Who?”
“They did it to get to you, baby,” her mother said as she stroked Wraith’s hair. “To awaken your magic before we could teach you anything and make you into—” Her mother wiped tears away.
Wraith’s eyes went wide. “Wait. You’re both wizards?”
Her father nodded. “We were. And there are others. You need to find them, honey. They can help you.”
“How do I find them?” Wraith asked.
“Go home,” her mother said. “You’ll find it in the secret place that opens with a magic number.”
Wraith desperately racked her brain. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t remember everything.”
Both her parents began to look nervous.
Wraith could now see through them.
“Find them, Janey,” her father said. “You’ll need all the help you can get, so reach out to others. But be careful who you trust.”
“I know you can do it.” Her mother smiled at her with pride. “You were always a remarkable child.”
“Please, don’t go,” Wraith said.
“It’s not up to us,” her mother said and reached out to touch Wraith’s cheek, but her hand passed through it.
Both her parents’ mouths were moving, but the only sound was the music that had been so beautiful just moments before.
“I can’t hear you,” Wraith said and reached out for them, but her hands passed through them both.
They began to rise up and drift toward the light.
“No! Not yet!” Wraith screamed at the light. She scrambled to think of an equation, some formulation that would give them mass, bring them back into reality, but there was nothing here for her to form it with. She pushed her desperation into a ball deep inside and tried to wish it so with her willpower.
Her father waved his arms to get Wraith’s attention.
Wraith looked and watched as he pointed to his eye and mouthed “I,” then he crossed his arms over his chest, “love,” and pointed to her, “you.”
Her mother repeated the gesture.
“I love you,” Wraith said to them. “I’ll find them, I promise! I won’t let you down!”
Then they were gone and Wraith was alone. That once beautiful music was empty, and the light felt cold.