Portals Heather

by Leslie Edens Copeland

  Sam flung open the door, and the warmth of Bellum's raindrops rushed in. Five teenagers ran headlong through the rain, feelings rushing in, but they ran harder, dodging through the showers. All but Heather entered the double-wide. She stood alone on the steps, barely sheltered from the raindrops, writing. When she heard Bellum incanting above, she wrote special words, just for him.

  Above, floating over his petty worlds, the Bellum muttered Latin phrases, sounding very grand. But his incanting fell flat. His fury had turned the weather all to rainy chaos, and his attempts to penetrate the teardrop trailer had failed. Desperately, he tried the Ring of Esperance on the little Round Room world he'd created. The ring never did much for him, but it probably needed a portal to work on. He might have realized, had he thought about it further, that his plan sounded suspiciously like a suggestion from Heather. But he didn't think about it. He was having a bad day, and his decisions just kept getting worse.

  I paused and flexed my writing hand. The rain made my mood grouchy and my hand achy. But I would not let that stop me. It never had. I took my pen to paper and wrote.

  Bellum entered the portal and explored the Round Room. He found only one way in or out. Holding out the ring to change the direction of the portal did nothing. Soon, he decided to try inside the portal. He stepped in, holding out the ring as the portal spun, to force the portal to lead somewhere else.

  The spinning stopped abruptly. Success! He stumbled out. Where would he end up? His eyes crossed, he tipped and turned . . . he saw several Heathers waiting for him in . . . the junkyard. He tried to shake off the dizziness, then a pair of those little winged dogs swarmed around his head.

  "Get away from me, insects!" boomed Bellum. Unable to keep his balance, he crashed to the sand below.

  —Now, Sam! I messaged, still writing. Sam and Oskar emerged from the double-wide, Bruce slung between them. Trenton and Lily came next, carrying a woozy Emmett.

  "Hurry! This guy is heavy!" said Trenton in a burst of worried emotion. Bellum lifted his head and gave Trenton the evil eye. Trenton stumbled, crashing down on the sand . . . Emmett tumbled down . . .

  I wrote.

  But it was already too late for Bellum. The bat-Chi's led the charge as Sam and Oskar descended on the fallen Lord of Chaos. The Ring of Esperance glowed brighter, and as they approached, swallowed them in a flash of light. Emmett dragged himself up from the sand, looked around, and dove for the light. Trenton and Lily followed. Lily stopped long enough to shake her head at Trenton, then they, too, were swallowed up in the light. Last, Heather walked up to the ring that blazed in the fallen Bellum's forehead. Closer and closer she walked, writing the whole time, until she, too, was swallowed up in the light.

  Bellum sat up, stunned that his captives had escaped his self-created worlds. He touched the ring in his forehead—the only way out. At that instant, the ring popped from his forehead with a funny little bloop sound and disappeared, chasing after Heather. Bellum floated in his infernal Lexiverse junkyard, alone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Return to the Vic

  We tumbled in a heap, dumped onto the floor of the Round Room, Lily, Oskar, Trenton, Bruce, Emmett, and me. I bounded to Emmett's side. He lay flat on his back, eyes wide, skin flawless porcelain. Uninjured, but so still I embraced him to make certain he lived.

  "Thank All!" I said when he took a breath. I held his warmth to me, until he sat up. He took the Ring of Esperance from my hand. Together, we placed it on my finger. A welcome blue glow spread up my arm. Revived, I crawled to Bruce, who flopped and groaned on the floor. He, too, had no spiritual injuries, no bleeding, his eyes perfectly whole.

  My writing had worked. They were cured. Therefore, we must have escaped the Lexiverse and we were in the mortal world at last.

  "Is everyone else all right?" I called. Oskar, Trenton, Lily, Sam—all nodded. Sybil and Elvira squee-yipped from the chandelier. I levitated, first cautiously, then with growing confidence, up to the bat-Chi's to check them over. Both appeared sound.

  Bruce goggled at me and didn't move from his spot on the floor. Emmett had gotten up and stretched, a benign smile on his face.

  "That worked out nicely. Mmm . . . something smells splendid," he said.

  The ghost maid wafted in with a silver tray containing coffee, tea, eggs, bacon, and toast. We surrounded it. I, for one, was starving.

  "Breakfast. Thank you," I said, bowing my head to the ghost maid. So strange. Yet not strange at all. The Round Room brought back memories from long ago. How I'd caught glimpses of the ghost maid when I spied on Dad's séances. Her occasional gifts of cookies. During my time in the junkyard, I'd thought of these memories as absurd childhood fantasies. Apparently not.

  The Paranormals jostled each other for food and drinks. I tapped the coffee urn. "What will become of Valente's remains? Are they in the Lexiverse, with Bellum? Or in the actual junkyard?"

  "My junkyard?" Bruce roused himself, butted a few teenagers out of the way, and helped himself to an overflowing cup of coffee. "I don't want no remains there. Never again."

  "We'll get them. When I take Bruce home," said Sam. He gave Bruce a scornful look that dared the junkman to argue.

  "You'll probably find them in an urn, on the driver's seat of the bus. Assuming you find a junkyard, of course. Anything could be there: a junkyard, a black hole of the void, or something in between," I said.

  "Things better be just the way I left them," growled Bruce. I was surprised to feel relief at his surliness. It meant he was well. Bruce sent a glare around the room. "Because I've—"

  "Sunk a lot of money into it!" shouted the Paranormals, and Bruce jumped.

  "Yeah," he said. Then he grinned and slurped his coffee.

  ***

  Later, Sam and I stood gazing out on the tangled gardens below and argued telepathically about what to do with Bruce.

  —Police. Immediately. And report that evil Ted Bells as well. I was resolute. Justice must be served, and quickly.

  Sam disagreed.

  —We don't have enough evidence about what happened to Valente. What do we have, Heather? A bus? An empty hole? Visions?

  —Bruce tried to shoot you. That's evidence enough! You were there, Sam.

  —I don't want to get mixed up in a trial. The press, all those lawyers questioning me, cross-examining me. I'm likely to get locked up for a crazy. Sam shuddered. You know how it is, Heather. We aren't normal.

  I raised my eyebrows at him.

  —What do you suggest, then?

  —Metaphysical justice. Bad things are coming his way. I can tell you that much.

  "Bad things?" I burst out. Bruce, slouched by the fireplace, glanced at us nervously.

  —Bad things? Sam, what about Mom? What about—oh, I don't know—public safety?

  —Mom's not coming back from Aunt Doreen's. She's finally left him, Heather.

  Relief, mingled with sadness and a hint of fury washed through me.

  —So . . . that's good, but was she going to leave me with Bruce? To just deal? On my own? Oh, my All, Sam. Sometimes I do not know about either one of them. Can't we have Bruce arrested? He deserves it.

  —We can try. It's not going to work. And we won't catch Ted Bells. He's already gone where we can't follow. But we can still try.

  —Then we have to try, Sam.

  Sam shrugged at me, and I shrugged back at him.

  In the end, Arturo Benavidez decided the matter when we summoned him for a ride. I heard him yelling all the way from the Round Room, and I stuck my head out the window to see what was wrong. He stood near his truck, wrapped in scarves and shouting. Sam was holding onto a frightened Bruce.

  "This is the guy that almost shot you, Sam! And he hid my friend's bones! Valente told everyone the story. I'm gonna strangle him myself. C'mere, you!" Arturo started unwrapping his scarves, revealing his face. He was unscarred and rather handsome for an old middle-aged guy, but still a little crazy around the eyes.

  "Uncle Arturo, no
!" shouted Lily, running out of the Vic. "You need to take him to the police!"

  "Mijita, there you are," said Arturo. "I'm so glad you finally know me. We can talk at last." He wrapped his arms around Lily, who smiled, her teeth chattering.

  "I'm glad too, Tío," said Lily. "But right now, you've got to get this man to the police and stop thinking of killing him!"

  Bruce had turned white as they discussed him. He shook like a leaf when he was stuffed into the truck between Sam and Arturo, but he went meekly to his fate. He probably preferred the mortal police to being strangled by a ghost.

  Once they left, I explored the Vic, trying to refamiliarize myself with my childhood home. Some things were just the same. The Round Room, or séance room, still contained shelves and shelves of books along the walls, a fireplace never lit, and tall, elegant windows on three sides. The fourth side opened to a small kitchen, presided over by our ghost maid. Cushions littered the floor over piles of soft rugs, surrounded by overstuffed couches.

  Outside the Round Room, I passed down the graceful master stairway that wound languidly around a central pillar, past five floors, to an expansive ground floor the size of a large ballroom. The levels contained so many bedrooms that, after Shirleen sold the house, the new owners ran it as a hotel for a short while. It still showed signs of this. They'd put in bathrooms at the end of each floor. I poked my head in, pleased at the modern fixtures and clean tile. No more running all the way to the ground floor to use the bathroom!

  I reached the ballroom space and smelled the must and mildew of the old books before I saw them. Stacks and stacks, under the pressed tin ceiling. Homemade cardboard signs for various sections: PARANORMAL, SPIRITS, TRANCES, and THE OTHER WORLD.

  "What is all this?" I whispered.

  "I think it's a bookstore," said a voice out of thin air. I whirled. Emmett stood holding a pile of books.

  "Em! You scared me," I said. He gave me the smile I'd once thought of as ghostly. From a mortal, it appeared more blasé.

  "They sent me to find you. I got distracted." He held up his armload of books for me to see. The Spiritualist's Guide to Ancient Prophecies topped the pile.

  "Interesting reading. Are you planning to take all those?" I asked.

  Emmett nodded eagerly.

  "How do you plan to pay for them?" I asked.

  "Oh, that's not a problem. I can run an account. I know the owner," he said.

  "Really. And who is that?" I said.

  "You!" he said, with his sunniest smile.

  "Me?" My head spun as I gazed across the vast expanse of the bookstore. Where had all these books come from? When did we open a bookstore? Clearly, I had a lot of catching up to do.

  "And they told me to tell you—you came down the wrong way. They said to bring you back up the right way. Up the spectral elevator." He put his arm around my shoulder, leading me up the staircase. I followed, leaning into him. Thinking about all the things that might happen now that he was mortal.

  "What's a spectral elevator?" I asked, with the feeling I was about to find out.

  "I hate 'em myself. You have to get all squashed up inside," said Emmett. He led me up the staircase, then jumped hard on each stair until one creaked. "Here it is."

  He pushed on the central column. A door popped open, exposing a compartment about the size of a large dumbwaiter. Emmett placed his stack of books inside.

  "Get in," he said, crawling into the space. He doubled up with his knees almost on his nose. I stared.

  "You're kidding," I said.

  "No, this is the way up! Please hurry. I'm terribly squashed," he said.

  I groaned and crawled in. The dumbwaiter smelled of dust. Cobwebs tickled my nose. I sneezed and crashed into Emmett. I tried to right myself, but the door had somehow shut and we were moving upward at an incredible rate. My stomach lurched. I grabbed Emmett's arm and shut my eyes. I was lying with my head squashed against Emmett's chest. Not the best position to be in while shooting upward toward the top floor in a very small elevator far too quickly. I moaned with vertigo, pushing my face into Emmett, and heard his heart thump. I caught his mountain-storm scent, and breathed it in. Now my heart beat fast, too. Emmett squeezed an arm around me. We hit the ceiling with a bang, and everything stopped.

  "Ow," I said in a small voice. "That's got some kinks that need working out."

  "Allons-y, nous sommes arrivés," said Emmett. He crawled out in a hurry, so I had to release his arm. I missed him instantly.

  "Pardon?" He must have hit his head pretty hard. I poked my head out to see him sprawled on the floor. "Em—did you fall?"

  He rolled over and grinned, his nose bloody.

  "Je saigne! Je tombé!" He flung his arms out with a dramatic gesture of collapse.

  "Oh, parlez-vous français?" Oskar hurried over and handed Emmett a napkin for his bloody nose. Emmett held up the napkin, soaked in blood.

  "Vais-je mourir?" Emmett asked. I shrugged and turned to Oskar.

  "He asks if he will die," said Oskar. To Emmett, he said, "Certainement. Mais, pas aujourd'hui."

  Oskar helped Emmett stand, then we all lifted Emmett's books out of the elevator and stacked them haphazardly on the floor.

  "Merci beaucoup," said Emmett, smiling at me and Oskar and the pile of books.

  "What're you guys talking about? Don't do that," Trenton complained from the cushions.

  Emmett staggered, and Oskar and I moved to catch him. We led him to the cushions. Then I stopped in wonder. The skies outside the window hung heavy with gray clouds. A greenish sea whipped with foam stretched to the horizon, edged by cliffs of black rock.

  "What is this place?" I said in wonder.

  The fireplace, always cold since I'd been a toddler, crackled with burning logs. I clasped my arms to myself, shivering, because the air was chill and damp. Even the bookshelves were strangely altered, stuffed with books I'd never seen before—leather-bound tomes of outlandish size, volumes shimmering with color, hazy books I could almost see through.

  "The Round Room," said Emmett, smiling brightly.

  "Oh, back to English. Yes, I know it's the Round Room. I used to live here. But why does it look like we're in . . ."

  "The Hebrides? That's what I thought, too," said Oskar.

  "It's a surprise. An enhancement. They said they wanted enhancements. Donc je aidé," said Emmett.

  "From what Sam said, this is some kind of extra-dimensional space. I have no idea why Emmett's speaking French, though," said Trenton.

  "He's been . . . glitchy . . . since he turned mortal. And accident-prone." I plopped down next to Emmett and laid my head on his shoulder. Oskar raised his eyebrows at us and elbowed Trenton. Trenton snickered.

  "Em," I whispered into Emmett's ear. I delighted when he blushed red and flashed a goofy grin. "I love the Round Room this way. I hope you're going to stay with us here."

  ***

  I caught Sam on his way back from the junkyard, toting an old sugar canister. Inside were Valente's mortal remains. He set them in a sunny spot on the kitchen table.

  "There was no urn," he informed me. "I had to sweep them up, and this is all I could find to keep them in."

  "Oh, I see. The Lexiverse created the urn." I had wondered where that thing came from! I nodded at the sugar canister with approval. "We could just keep them here. As long as no one mistakes it for sugar. It's like he's always with us," I said.

  "Yeah. It's a nice centerpiece," said Sam without a hint of humor.

  "How was the junkyard?" I asked.

  "Pretty normal. Some fire and brimstone lying around, but nothing too out of the ordinary," said Sam.

  I nodded. "It's a little weird, but you can't have everything. At least it's still there. And Bruce?"

  "They booked him. I'm pressing charges. It's not going to stick, but I'm trying, like you said. And I told them what I know about Ted Bells. They claim to have never heard of the guy," said Sam.

  "Hmmm—that's a little weirder. I thought he worked f
or the city," I said.

  "Even when I pressed an image of his features into their minds, they still didn't recognize him. It's like their memories were wiped," said Sam.

  I squinted at Sam. "You did what? Oh, never mind. We'll have to go to city hall ourselves and ask around."

  Sam frowned at me over folded arms. "Who do you think you are? Some kind of teen investigator? Let's drop it, Heather. I told you, Ted Bells is long gone. And if we meddle anymore with these mortals, they're going to give us a bigger headache than even I could give them."

  "I guess. This isn't over, though," I said. Maybe mortal channels weren't the right way to bring Ted and Bruce to justice, but what were? How did a spiritualist deal with crimes across the worlds, across lifetimes, when only part of the crime could be recognized by mortals? Ted Bells had just vanished into the aether of the spirit world when detected. And prosecuting Bruce was likely to backfire and put me and Sam under the magnifying glass instead.

  The Four probably had ways of handling metaphysical crime, back before they were wiped out. If Dad were back, he'd know.

  Sam put his hand to his forehead. "Dad should've been back by now."

  I figured it was time Sam told me the whole story about what happened on his first visit to the spirit world. He knew something he wasn't telling me. So, I pressed him with mental messages until he finally broke down and told me what happened.

  "Dad had . . . a spirit consort." Sam's cheeks burned red under his tan.

  "You mean a girlfriend?" I didn't see what was so embarrassing. Our mother had remarried. Why not Able?

  "We-e-ell—" Sam was very slow getting to the point.

  "Spit it out, Sam," I said, tapping my fingers on the table. We locked eyes. I wondered if I'd have to mind-wrestle him to get it out of him.

  "No—don't," said Sam. "I guess . . . it's fine to tell you. But Dad always wanted me to protect the family honor. This goes no further, okay?"

  "You have the word of Heather Esperance d'Espers," I said, trying to sound grand, as Able might have wanted. I still thought it was silly.