A Way between Worlds

by Melanie Crowder

  The moss shifted beneath her feet, and Fi glanced over her shoulder as the woman who’d come to get her from the aerie approached. She wore an unreadable expression on her face and a dappled tunic trimmed at the knees in front and dipping to brush against her calves in the back.

  Fi had half a mind to reach out and grab the woman’s jaw, turning it side to side so she could examine the veins that cut across her forehead and along the cords of her neck. But she didn’t need to. It wasn’t the starlight glimmering off the greenwitch’s skin, or the weight of Fi’s wishing that made it true. The woman glowed, the green in her veins as bright as the new tips on an evergreen branch.

  Fi looked down at the backs of her own hands. Veins cut across the tendons, pale green like all Vineans. Nothing special. Nothing magical. They didn’t glow, not like a greenwitch.

  The woman laid a hand on her chest. “You may call me Ness.” She crossed under an ivy arch and gestured to the ground at her feet.

  Fi knelt, plunging her fingers into the ground cover for comfort. The mosses pressed against her palm in response, their tiny spores tilting toward her like miniature sunflowers chasing the sun. A shy smile crept over Fi’s lips and she forgot for a moment to be nervous. She forgot to wonder why they’d called her here, or what might be happening back home.

  The light shifted in the garden as the rest of the greenwitches approached the glade. They moved slowly, pausing before each footfall until the greenery rose to meet them. Their skin was almost as pale as the mists, their veins pulsing with bright green life. Each had shorn her hair at the chin, though age had stolen the luster from what had been rich yellow, orange, and red hues. Their faces bore deep wrinkles, and though no malice hid in the creases beside their eyes or in the set of their lips, their gazes did not fall softly on Fi.

  Vines rose to form stools and the greenwitches sank with unconscious ease onto the plaited seats. Ness knelt in front of Fi, so their knees nearly touched. “Do you know why your aunt Ada stayed on Vinea but you were sent to Somni?”

  Fi sat back in surprise. How did Ness know Aunt Ada? “The resistance told me it was because the priests needed kids to do some of their work.”

  “That is true.” Ness pulled her upper lip through her teeth. “But it’s not the only reason. Surely you know that we would have fought to the end of everything to keep our children safe if there wasn’t a good reason to send them into that danger.”

  Fi scowled. This was not how she’d imagined this moment going. Four days and four nights she had waited in the cold on that platform, watching the greenwitches and wishing to be among them. For what—a history lesson?

  “There is so much about greenwitches that the people of Vinea have lost—things they’ve made themselves forget, in order to protect us. It used to be that the green magic was spoken of in all things. Everyone knew its workings, even if the magic didn’t flow through their family tree.” Ness paused. Her berry-red hair was laced with white, framing a round face with half-lidded eyes and a mouth that worked slowly, as if there were no need to hurry anything, ever. “So you wouldn’t have heard, then, that the green magic skips a generation.”

  “It does?”

  Ness watched Fi with a haunted look. There was something more behind her words, something Fi was supposed to understand. Ness lifted Fi’s hand and turned it over. She placed a small plant with roots exposed to the air and gemlike leaves into Fi’s palm.

  “See here—” She pointed to where the tips of the roots had shriveled and dried. “This plant is dying. It has closed itself off to the water in the air. It won’t survive much longer.”

  “Well, why don’t you save it, then?”

  Ness drew her hands back. “Why don’t you?”

  “But—” Fi protested. “I don’t know how.”

  “Then I suppose it will die.”

  Fi groaned. “But I’m not a greenwitch. I can’t.”

  “Try.”

  Fi cupped the plant in her hands. She could almost feel it, the way the tiny thing thirsted but couldn’t bring itself to drink. She looked up at the women encircling her. Their faces were impassive, lofty and removed from the kneeling girl below. At least, that’s how it seemed to Fi. Before she knew it, anger rose like a tide inside her, spilling over the levy that held it back. Her palms grew hot and damp.

  But beneath the anger, something else nudged its way to the surface. Fi squeezed her eyes shut. Suddenly there it was, glowing against the backs of her eyelids: a faint image of the plant in throbbing green. The joints from bud to stem to root had sealed—she could see it with her eyes closed. All they needed was reopening, like sluice gates holding back a stream.

  Fi blinked furiously. What was happening to her? Sweat formed on her forehead. She closed her eyes again, wiggled her toes deeper into the moss, and just as Ness suggested, she tried.

  She pushed against the joints, and, to her surprise, they opened. The little plant that had barely pulsed with green began to glow, beads of life speeding in and out of the roots, filtering through the stem and out to the tips of each leaf.

  Fi opened her eyes. Ness was beaming. They all were beaming.

  “Look,” Ness prodded, and once again, she lifted Fi’s arm. Just as it had within the tiny plant, green flowed through Fi’s veins, bright as a thatch of newborn grass. The veins didn’t glow, not like Ness’s, but they were definitely brighter than before.

  Fi stared at her arm as if it belonged to someone else. “I don’t understand.”

  Ness tipped her head to the side. “If you had remained on our green world, your blood would have begun ripening in your eleventh year. This would have put you in grave danger. You would have been a fugitive for the rest of your life. We had to send you away to protect you, to slow the green waking within you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘ripening’?”

  “It happened to all of us, once, when we were young. The green magic flares inside a person and grows to its full potential.”

  “Me?” Fi’s voice was small. “You’re saying I’m a greenwitch?”

  Ness reached out and clasped both of Fi’s hands. “We did the cruelest thing. For decades, we sent the children we suspected might have magic in their veins directly to the enemy. Like you, they were hidden in plain sight on Somni, unaware. We suspected that on that lifeless world, their magic would remain dormant until it was safe to return home.”

  Fi stared at the plant in her hands. Already, it seemed more plump, lifting its spears toward the mists that curled around them. She did that. She’d never done anything like that in her whole life! She should be thrilled, or proud, or something. Instead she squirmed, not sure she was entirely comfortable with this new version of herself.

  “Fionna, if we haven’t damaged you by holding back the green magic, and if your great-aunt Una is any indication, you should be very powerful indeed.”

  Fi dipped her chin and stared at Ness from beneath wary brows. Was she joking? Were the greenwitches making fun of her? The women dropped from the stools and came to congratulate Fi one at a time. They cupped her elbows in their palms and whispered welcomes over the glow that had begun to rise from the pale skin of her forearms.

  Fi fought the urge to snatch her arms back. Something still wasn’t right. “Why now?”

  Ness sat back. “Excuse me?”

  “Why am I here now? Why are you saying this today, and not two years ago, or four days ago when I got here? What do you know that I don’t?”

  A tight smile crept over Ness’s lips. “We have come to a decision. It isn’t enough anymore for us to remain here, carrying on our traditions. Too many have died. Too much has been lost.” She exchanged a determined look with the other greenwitches. “We are ready to fight back.”

  Fi’s heart slammed against her chest. “Then what are you waiting for? Let’s go! The resistance needs you.”

  Ness chuckled. “Fionna, we’re well aware of your bravery. But we’re not sending you into danger again until you’re strong eno
ugh not just to fight, but to win.”

  4

  FI

  FOR THEIR FIRST lesson, Ness took Fi to the observatory, where massive cone-shaped structures were trained on the stars at all times. But Fi wasn’t there for the stars.

  The observatory was the island farthest from the lighthouse and its sweeping beams. It was far from the gardens, too, where there was an abundance of green to distract Fi’s senses. She sat beside Ness at the edge of the observatory’s deck, swinging her feet over thin air. Behind them, the sky watchers went quietly about their business. Fi wedged her hands beneath her thighs, trying to convince her nerves to quit jangling.

  If Ness noticed, she didn’t let on. “The first thing to know about the green magic is that it’s not something you have to search for. It’s already inside you, waiting for the last frost to pass, and eager for the bloom.”

  Fi gulped. She didn’t feel anything blooming inside her. Well, except maybe impatience. Her people were in the middle of a war they were inches from losing. Budding greenwitch or not, she belonged on Vinea, right now. Every day she wasted on Caligo, people died.

  But Ness only continued her speech. “Even the smallest bit of life calls to us, though there is a limit to the green we can perceive. Greenwitches can’t work with a seed or a clump of dried herbs—we need a sprout or even a single root clinging to life. We aren’t gods. We can’t create life.”

  Fi ground her teeth together. She wanted this—she did. A greenwitch’s power was more than she’d ever dreamed for herself. But now? The timing couldn’t have been worse.

  “Your task today is to quiet your mind and invite the green in.”

  Fi suppressed a groan. The very last thing her mind had ever been was quiet.

  5

  GRIFFIN

  GRIFFIN STOOD AT the edge of their little island, watching for whatever Leónie’s warning might mean and chafing the skin of his upper arms to warm them. He and his mom had been offered some of that spider silk clothing the people wore on Caligo, but even though their stolas were hopelessly stained, they were at least a little warmer. At this point, Griffin would give just about anything for a pair of jeans and a hoodie. And some socks. Thick, wool socks.

  Leónie hadn’t moved since she practically shoved him and his mom back into their boat. The Levitator came to stand beside her in the glossy feather cloak he wore to greet newcomers. They waited at the very edge of the aerie’s platform, and together they stared intently at the lighthouse. The Levitator was smaller than his attendant and younger than Griffin, but the boy thrummed with power. His hands were clasped behind his back, and even from a distance, Griffin could see him wring and twist them when he thought no one was looking.

  The lighthouse thrust into the sky, the whitewashed bricks nearly blending into the mists. Griffin peered at the bank of windows beneath the bright red roof, squinting for a better look at the lens. He could just make out the brass fittings between panels, and the slightly greenish hue of the glass.

  Griffin’s breath caught. Something wasn’t right. He jumped to his feet. The lens wasn’t turning. It always turned, night and day, unless—

  He began to tremble, not unlike the hum that was surely rattling through the tower at that very moment. “Mom! Come here, quick.”

  Katherine drifted outside, answering without looking up from the book in her hands. “Hmmm?”

  “The portal—it’s opening!”

  Katherine’s head snapped up. She tucked the book under her arm and reached out to clasp her son’s hand. In the tower, a dark form blinked into being in the lantern room, a silhouette against the pale glass. Slowly, the giant Fresnel lens began to swivel on its pedestal again, winking as the eight panels rotated, catching and releasing the light. The figure in the tower seemed to shake himself and look around. He stepped outside onto the balcony, bracing his weight against the iron rails and taking in the floating city of Caligo.

  Griffin gasped, and Katherine’s grip tightened, her book falling to the floor, forgotten. Griffin knew that stance—he’d seen it a million times back home, when his dad leaned on the gallery railing, watching the ocean beyond the headland.

  “Dad!” Griffin shouted across the expanse that separated them, and Philip jerked at the sound of his voice.

  It had only been a few days since they’d been separated, but it had been a restless, uneasy separation. Griffin had hardly been able to sleep nights, between the wonder at having his mother suddenly returned to him and the worry for his dad back on Somni.

  His excitement was quickly dampened. “Something must be wrong. Why would Dad be here?”

  “Come on.” Katherine stepped into the boat, pulling Griffin with her. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “To the tower,” Griffin said, and the boat lurched away from its perch, dancing along the currents of mist like a leaf bobbing in a stream. He leaned forward, nearly tipping the craft end over end in his eagerness.

  The boats always sped along the currents of mist—Griffin knew that. But this time it seemed like an undertow dragged at the hull, making the trip from their little island to the lighthouse agonizingly slow. When they finally floated up to the top of the tower, Philip threw his leg over the railing, leaning out over nothing and reaching for them. The boat sidled alongside the gallery and Philip jumped in.

  The Fenn family fell into a heap in the boat’s belly, arms wrapped around one another, gleeful laughter spilling from their lips. They could deal later with whatever had gone wrong to bring Philip to them. For now, they were together, and nothing else mattered.

  The boat didn’t seem to mind that its passengers weren’t paying any attention to where it carried them; it responded to the fleet’s call, climbing obediently toward the aerie. The mists surrounded them, offering a little privacy for the tender reunion. Or perhaps they simply wished to join in the celebration.

  Philip pulled back at last, a broad smile stretching across his grizzled cheeks. “It’s been horrible, knowing you were together and I was missing it—missing you!”

  Katherine drew a hand along a nearly healed scrape behind his ear. “You’re certainly looking better than the last time I saw you.”

  Philip ducked his chin to kiss her palm.

  Griffin flushed, but he couldn’t drag his eyes away. “Dad, but—how did you know we were here, on Caligo? You told us to go to Earth. We were supposed to be at home.”

  Philip drew Katherine down to sit beside him, tucking his arm firmly around her waist. “I meant to go home, but the portal to this world opened instead, and before I knew what was happening, I was yanked here.” He winked, reaching to pull Griffin to his other side. “Kind of like you, I’m guessing?” The boat tipped at an alarming angle as all three Fenns piled in the stern.

  Katherine glanced toward the aerie, and the meddling Levitator. “But why did you leave Somni so soon? We assumed it would be weeks and weeks until you finished your work, and until it was safe to leave the caves.”

  Philip shrugged. “I thought so too. But the priests left Somni. Completely. They abandoned their home world, taking all their soldiers with them, to who knows where. It would make sense if they traveled to Vinea, I suppose, to tamp down the rebellion there.”

  “Do the greenwitches know?” Griffin interrupted. “And Fi?”

  “Who?” Philip asked.

  “You remember, my friend—the girl who knocked out that priest who had us all trapped in the chapel back on Somni,” Griffin said. “She’s here on Caligo with us, not that she’s happy about it.”

  “Wait—did you say greenwitches? I thought the priests wiped them out decades ago.”

  “That’s a long story,” Katherine said. “First—the priests left Somni? How is that possible?”

  “Yeah, well, that was a surprise the Somnite rebels weren’t expecting. I made as many pendants as I could and they passed them out to anyone left in the city. I even made a surplus, for the soldiers. The rebels hope to be able to save them, though the Vinean resi
stance was reluctant, to say the least, to go along with that plan, after all they’d suffered at the soldiers’ hands.” Philip hugged Katherine and Griffin tighter. “My part was finished. So I left as soon as I could, to come home to you two.”

  Beside him, Katherine’s face was drawn in a decided frown. “They simply left? After everything—brainwashing their own citizens and stealing people from other worlds to siphon off their dreams so they could lord over all eight worlds? It doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head slowly. “We’re missing something.”

  Griffin looked between his parents, unease seeping in like a wave breaching the walls of a sand castle, leaving nothing but soggy lumps in its place. Whatever happened next, his family had done their part. They should be able to go home, together, at last. So why couldn’t he believe that?

  6

  GRIFFIN

  THE LEVITATOR HELD meetings in the very center of the aerie, under the nest’s lofty roof. The three Fenns kneeled before him, waiting. Unlike the rest of the Caligions, he was bald as an egg. The spider silk garment that wrapped over his torso curved out at his slim shoulders like the sloping petal of a calla lily. He perched on a feather pillow, the picture of serenity. That is, until he began chewing at a corner of his lip like a kid with a crayon that keeps veering out of the lines.

  “Mr. Fenn,” the Levitator began. “We are so glad you’ve joined us in our floating city.”

  “Did I have a choice?” Philip muttered.

  Katherine jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “What my husband means to say is, thank you for reuniting our family. We are grateful.”

  A man with a beaklike nose and hair twisted into a silver beehive carefully lowered a tray of wobbling egg cups to the floor. The Levitator leaned forward, offering an eggshell full of some inky liquid to each of the Fenns.