by E J Elwin
“Most souls are only there for an instant, as they’re passing through. But some people linger. Some are afraid of moving on, others are clinging to someone or something in this world, and some are just taken with the wonders of the Halfway Place. In any case, I’m almost sure that Connor is there. The way he died, how he fully expected you to come with him but then you didn’t, would give him pause. Also, the love between the two of you… that would be enough to keep anyone lingering in the Halfway Place. Especially if he’s now aware of who you are, he might even be expecting you to visit him.”
“Well then let’s go!” I said, almost shouting. “Let’s do it!”
“Just a second,” she said, putting one finger up. “I will do this spell for you, I will send you to the Halfway Place, on one condition: if after it’s done, you agree to go out with me tonight and help me find your sister witches.”
“Sure!” I said automatically. “Anything! Anything!”
“Alright then,” she said. “The first thing you need to know is—”
“Hold on,” said Harriet. Jessica and I looked at her. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” I asked.
“Arthur, you could die,” she said.
“He won’t, though,” said Jessica calmly.
“How could I die?” I asked, unbothered. “Is it dangerous, this Halfway Place?”
“It’s not,” Jessica began, “but—”
“But leaving your body is,” said Harriet gravely. “That’s what the spell does. Your soul leaves your body to travel to the Halfway Place. The soul can only be apart from the body for a very short time, an hour at most, before it falls beyond recovery. If you aren’t brought back in time, you’ll die.”
“I would stay in the Halfway Place?” I asked. “With Connor?”
Harriet turned to Jessica with an expression that clearly said, See? I told you.
“He won’t die,” said Jessica, “because we’ll bring him back in time. Jasper and I have done this spell dozens of times, we’ve been to the Halfway Place ourselves, and no one has died on our watch.”
“It isn’t even an exact hour,” said Harriet. “It’s an hour at most your soul can be apart from your body. It can fluctuate. It could be fifty-eight minutes, fifty-five minutes, fifty-one…”
“However long it is,” said Jessica, “we’ll get him back before the time is up.”
“It’s dangerous,” Harriet repeated, shaking her head.
“Based on what happened upstairs,” said Jessica, “I would say it’s more dangerous for Arthur not to go.” There was a loaded silence. “Arthur’s not going to heal overnight,” she went on, “but this will definitely help speed it along. He’ll get closure, he’ll get to have a proper goodbye. I have your word—” she turned to me— “that you’ll go with me to meet your sister witches after the spell?”
I nodded fervently. Jessica turned to Harriet. “You can do the spell with us,” she said, “with me and Jasper. You can help anchor Arthur.”
Harriet looked at me, her eyes filled with worry. I didn’t need to say anything. I knew she could see how much I needed the spell. She sighed.
“Okay,” she said.
CHAPTER 11
The Halfway Place
Jessica went to the tall oak cabinet next to the grandfather clock and opened its doors. I caught a glimpse of shimmering objects, shiny things that looked like jewelry, as she rummaged around inside. She returned to us and set the spell supplies on the wood and crystal coffee table.
There were two candles, one white and one black, that were about as thick as beer bottles and about as tall; five jagged crystals that were each the size of a fist and could have passed as ordinary rocks except that they were a vibrant violet color; and finally, a small silver knife that looked a lot like Harriet’s except that its hilt was encrusted with blue stones.
“Are those sapphires?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Jessica. “This knife was my mom’s. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
I nodded, staring at the bejeweled knife. It was worth tens of thousands of dollars at least. There were other shiny things, jewels and who knew what else, in that tall oak cabinet. I now understood how Jessica and Jasper were able to afford such an enormous house, though they had probably inherited it from their parents, who had clearly been very rich.
“So, as you know, your soul is about to leave your body,” said Jessica casually. “You’ll die if you’re not back in under an hour, but rest assured we will whisk you back here before that happens. Jasper and I always do these spells together because it’s best to have a backup person in case something happens to the primary spellcaster. If, say, I were to drop dead of a heart attack while your soul is out there in the Halfway Place, that’s what Jasper is for. He’ll keep you anchored to this plane and bring you back in case I can’t. We now have Harriet to do that too.”
I glanced at Harriet, who took a sip of her whiskey, then at Jasper, who still hadn’t so much as twitched in all the time I’d been around him. “Um, are you sure he’s—?”
“He will be helping, trust me,” said Jessica.
I watched Jasper for any sign that he’d heard what Jessica said, but he was as still as a statue. It was definitely some magical meditation he was doing, possibly something that only witches with the power of Sight could do. I wondered what he was Seeing.
“A short time after I start saying the spell,” Jessica went on, “I’ll need a bit of your blood. That’s what the knife is for. It’s just a tiny bit, a little prick on your finger. Spells often require a form of payment, as you well know by now, and in this case, it’s a couple drops of your blood. The blood will also help guide you to the precise spot in the Halfway Place where Connor is. It’s a very, very big place that takes on all sorts of appearances and your blood is your link to him.”
“My link?” I asked.
“The link Connor has to our world,” she said. “The fact that you know him, love him, and remember him, ties him to you, and your blood is a representation of you. It is you, really, and it’s crucial in guiding you to where he is now.” I nodded in understanding. “Now let’s see…”
She scooped up the five violet crystals and set them down, one by one, on the colorful rug next to the coffee table. She placed them several feet apart from each other in what looked like very precise equal distances so that they formed a circle.
“Lie down here,” she said, indicating the center of the circle.
I stepped into the circle and lay down on the rug, just able to stretch out and still be within the crystals. I watched her reach for the two candles on the table and grasp them both at the base, just like Harriet had done with her candles in the cemetery. She closed her eyes and I knew that when she opened them, the candles would light, and they did— but so did every other candle in the room.
I looked around in surprise as the lighting in the room changed. The clusters of white candles on the little wooden tables were all ignited, and so too was every candle in the giant silver chandelier next to the staircase. In the same instant, all of the antique lamps flicked out like there was a power outage. I looked at Jessica in amazement, and she smiled.
“Pre-set spells, remember? Like Harriet had at her house.”
The vibe of the room changed entirely. Where before it had been uniformly lit by bright electric lights, it was now a softly lit sea of tiny flames, casting long shadows on the walls and ceiling. It felt like we were in a luxuriously furnished cave.
Jessica handed me a silky black pillow from the red velvet couch, then went to a record player perched on a table by the fireplace. There was the sound of a needle making contact with vinyl, a brief silence, then the unmistakable opening beat of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”.
“I like to play music during big spells,” she said, as she came back to the crystal circle. “I find it steadies me. Did you know cardiac surgeons do the same thing when performing open heart surgery?”
I shook my head a
s the ethereal sounds of Jefferson Airplane floated through the room. Jessica and Harriet knelt down on the rug on either side of me, while Jasper remained stone-still in the armchair a few feet away, looking even more unsettling than he had in the bright light.
“Ready, Arthur?” asked Jessica.
I looked up at her and Harriet, and nodded. They closed their eyes and put their hands out to their sides, palms up, the way Harriet had done when she used her telekinesis to lift the dirt out of Connor’s grave. Jessica took a deep breath, and for a moment she looked just like Jasper did, upright and motionless. Then she spoke, and her voice was firm and full of purpose like Harriet’s had been when she cast the resurrection spell:
“As the night falls, and stars come alive
Upward we look, and upward we dive
To a realm of the dead, where briefly they stay
To a land in between, a place that’s halfway
We walk among worlds, this one and that
Witches make doorways, drop of a hat
Now into one, we open a door
Into the sky, a spirit to soar…”
I watched her in wonder, the way I had watched Harriet in the cemetery. A breeze blew through the room even though there were no windows open. The flames on the many wicks danced and blinked but not a single one went out. My eyes flicked to Jasper, who still hadn’t moved. Harriet and Jessica looked tall and impressive from my view on the rug, their faces cast in shadows by the candlelight.
“Guide this witch to his love, through the vastness of space
May he see him again, may he know his embrace…”
The breeze intensified and became a steady wind, making the softly lit living room feel like an airy meadow on an autumn day. The tiny flames were vigorously battered about but continued to burn persistently. I looked around me and saw that the five crystals had taken on a faint glow, as though lit from within, like the Blood Crystal had glowed in the cemetery.
“A drop of blood from the witch born of burning
Bring him to that which consumes him with yearning…”
Jessica opened her eyes and picked up the silver knife, its sapphires glinting in the candlelight. She looked down at me and I could see nothing but kindness in her eyes even as she reached for my hand and poked my right index finger with the knife. She then held the knife over the black candle on the coffee table. As soon as the first droplet of blood made contact with the flame, it shot several inches into the air as though fuel had been dumped on it, and turned a bright red color that matched the blood.
The many other flames danced and flickered into a frenzy, making the room look as though it were on fire. The faint violet light inside the crystals pulsated and brightened, dazzling my eyes and getting brighter by the second like a nuclear reactor about to blow. Jessica raised her voice in the wind:
“A meeting once more, his pain may it cease
A final goodbye, a bid to bring peace…”
As she chanted, “White Rabbit” rose to its crescendo, and the wind rose to a full on howl, causing her and Harriet’s hair, blonde and gray, to fly around their faces.
“We send him forth, yet anchor him here
He will return, so said the great Seer…”
I felt the strange sensation that the room was starting to spin, like I was on a merry-go-round being put into motion. The sounds of Jessica’s voice and the music coming from the record player filled my ears and echoed inside my head. Then the record stalled and repeated itself. The last line of the song blared out over and over again, stuck on a loop. The record player shouted at the room, growing louder and louder, and Jessica shouted too, joined suddenly by Harriet:
“Volant per astra!” My head was overwhelmed with noise and I couldn’t tell what language it was. “Volant per astra!” they shouted, over the repeated last line of the song.
The ground beneath me felt unsteady, insubstantial, as the room spun before my eyes. Just when I felt like I could throw up, I caught a glimpse of Jasper as I spun past him. At last, he opened his eyes.
A scream erupted inside me as I looked into the places where his eyes should have been— two gaping black voids, tiny windows into an infinite black sky— but the scream never left me. It stayed behind on the ground as the merry-go-round spun faster and then threw me into the air, straight through four ceilings, into the night sky, and whatever else beyond, faster and faster, spinning and spinning.
**
I felt cold hard ground beneath me and knew right away that I was no longer in Jessica’s living room. I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling of a warmly lit room. I lay in a small space between two walls; the one on my left rose up to the ceiling, and the one on my right was only a few feet tall. I glanced up at the one on the left; it was lined with glass bottles. There was also something glowing there, something familiar…
I stood up and saw that the glowing object was a sign, one that I had seen very recently, bearing the words “McFadden’s Irish Pub” above a foamy mug of beer and a four-leaf clover. I was behind the bar at the Irish pub where Connor and I had fought the Brotherhood.
My heart sunk, and I wondered if I hadn’t just teleported back to Portland rather than traveled to the Halfway Place. Then I looked around the room. Nobody was there. All the lights were on and it looked exactly the way I remembered it— there were even full mugs of beer on the tables— except there were no happy patrons laughing and drinking and playing pool like there had been when Connor and I had run in looking for shelter. The jukebox in the corner which had been alive with the music of Crowded House was dark and silent. I remembered what Jessica had said about the Halfway Place: It’s a very, very big place that takes on all sorts of appearances. Maybe it looked like this because the pub was a place I was familiar with, or because it was where Connor had been killed…
I looked up at the ceiling. Was he up there, in the same spot where he died? The thought made me uneasy. What would he be doing there? What was there to do at all here? Could souls get drunk? Eating and drinking seemed tied to having a body, although I did still have one.
I ran my hands over my chest, my arms, my face, and marveled at how real it all still felt, down to Jasper’s shirt and sweatpants. Jessica had said I would be leaving my body behind and only my soul would be traveling. I had expected to look like some sort of hologram or maybe float around like a ghost, but I was solid as ever, with the same old heartbeat and lungs pumping air in and out as they always did. It had to be part of the spell. I was traveling in spirit but Jessica’s magic was allowing me to perceive my earthly body. I was grateful for it, then wondered if Connor would be the same…
I started to walk toward the wooden staircase that led to the upper floors but a sudden thumping noise from right outside the pub door made me stop. For a moment, I expected the Brotherhood to come thundering in with their guns, before I remembered that I wasn’t actually at the real McFadden’s. There was another thumping, like a strong wind pushing against the door. Was it Connor? I looked around at the purple and green stained-glass windows but nothing of the outside could be seen through them. I crept quietly toward the door and pressed my ear against it.
“Connor?” There was no response, only the sound of the wind. I put out a hand to push the door open but then hesitated. For half a second, I wondered if I hadn’t finally lost my mind.
Stop it, calm down. My palms started to sweat and I wiped them on Jasper’s sweatpants. Unbelievable. My soul gets sweaty palms.
I reminded myself that Jessica had assured me the Halfway Place was safe, and also that I was in spirit form. What was the worst that could happen?
I pushed the door open and then nearly fell over from shock.
The street in front of the pub, the street that had been packed with people and pulsing with music and overhanging colorful lanterns, was gone, along with the rest of Portland. In its place, there was water, as far as the eye could see. It was ocean, an actual ocean, stretching endlessly out into the night, its
waves undulating back and forth, crashing against a buffer of rocks surrounding the building. The familiar salty smell hung in the air but it was different, sweeter, like there was sugar in it. The waves reflected the light of the full moon above, which was bigger and brighter and closer than it usually was. The stars around it also looked brighter and more alive than the ones I was used to seeing from Earth— because I was definitely no longer on Earth. This pub was an exact copy of the real one in Portland but it was floating in the middle of an ocean. Was floating even the right word? It wasn’t bobbing or swaying like a ship. It was as perfectly still and stationary as it was on Earth.
And where was Connor? Was he in the ocean? Had he drowned? Ridiculous. He’s already dead. This was a spiritual realm. Maybe this ocean didn’t even work like the oceans on Earth. Maybe you could walk on it or breathe underwater. I wasn’t ready to test that, though.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
My heart leapt. I turned around and there, standing a few feet away, was Connor. He wore the same clothes and looked exactly as he had when I last saw him, except his hair wasn’t pink anymore and there wasn’t blue paint smeared on his face. He wore his usual carefree smile, and for a moment, I forgot how to speak.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You look like you just saw the soul of your dead boyfriend.”
I made an unintelligible noise, then ran toward him and threw myself into his arms. The second I made contact with his body, I was filled simultaneously with joy and with crushing sadness. Joy, because his body was solid and I could hold him again; but crushing sadness because he was stone cold, like he’d been out on a freezing snowy day without a jacket on. I pulled back from him and put my hand on his chest. There was no heartbeat.
Tears welled in my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
He pulled me back into his cold arms. “Don’t be,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not at all,” he said. “The last thing I remember is being with you in that room upstairs, and then I was here. The Halfway Place, it’s called, right?”
