“Cassandra and Lily. And Raphael’s going to be there too.”
Mom raises an eyebrow at me. “I think he likes you, mija”
I shake my head. “No, Mom, I really don’t think he does,” I say, remembering how he pushed me away when I tried to kiss him.
“How could he not like my beautiful daughter? Besides, I’ve noticed the way he looks at you.” She winks at me. “Now go and meet your friends and have fun.”
If only she knew.
The sun is just setting, casting long shadows in front of me as I power walk. Sweat rolls down my face and drips into my eyes, making them sting like crazy. Even the sun slipping below the horizon doesn’t seem to affect the temperature much anymore; the air is still heavy and hot. Cicadas sing from the trees.
I’m over ten minutes late and everyone is already waiting for me outside the station. Cassandra makes a point of looking at her watch.
“Sorry,” I say, breathlessly. I’m hoping I don’t have massive pit stains on my T-shirt.
“Not a worry,” Raphael says, smiling at me. “You’re not that late, and I’ve just finished filling these two in on what we might expect.”
I look at him. “What should we expect? Will it be the same as last time we were there?”
“I really don’t know,” Raphael says. “But if we are able to get through the gateway, we’ll be back in London. At what point in history we arrive, is uncertain. What is guaranteed is that it will be a time when there was an abundance of negative energy and human suffering.”
“How do we get through the gateway?” Cassandra asks. She takes a clear elastic band out of her jeans pocket and twists her long, glossy black hair back off her face and into a loose bun. I can’t help noticing how angular her face is and how beautiful she looks with her hair off her face. A twinge of jealousy runs through me like a shock; I hope Raphael isn’t noticing this as well. “Is it like a magic door or something that suddenly opens up?” I detect a slight sarcastic edge to her words. Clearly she doesn’t believe everything she’s been told. Not that I blame her. Even seeing this stuff with my own eyes wasn’t enough to convince me at first.
“I didn’t see anything — I mean there was no door or gate or anything like that,” I reply as the four of us descend into the subway station. We hit our cards against the fare readers and head down the next set of steps. “I thought it was just another power failure happening. But when the lights came back on, I was in London during the Second World War. Or at least, that’s where I thought I was.”
We stop at the southbound platform. I have a feeling it doesn’t really matter what direction we travel or which train we get on. The usual smattering of commuters are milling around us, waiting impatiently. It’s early in the evening, so there are still loads of business people in suits wanting to get home, their faces red and sweaty from the heat.
Business people hardly ever used to use public transit, but since the government began charging fifty dollars, per trip, to drive cars in the city, that’s changed. It was one of the things they did a few years ago to try to stop climate change. But it was far too little, too late.
Lily is nervously biting her fingernails. She glances over at me. “How are we supposed to get to your sister if there are demonic things down there waiting for us?” she asks.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I admit. “But Raphael says they can’t hurt us unless they become powerful. Negative feelings, like fear and anger, are their power source.” I don’t tell her how my fear made one of them strong enough to grab me in a vise-like grip as I ran along the tracks. Some things are better left unsaid.
“Well, that’s not good, because if any of this stuff is real, I’m going to be pretty scared.” She looks at me with wide eyes. “Actually, forget the future tense. I’m totally scared right now.”
There’s a low rumbling from inside the tunnel, and a shimmer of light appears. The next train is approaching. I’m relieved because I don’t have anything to say to make Lily feel better.
The train slides alongside the platform. We walk on, find seats, and sit down. Cassandra is beside Raphael. It makes sense. I was talking to Lily just before we got on. Still, that little twinge of jealousy rears its ugly head again.
“What do we do now?” Cassandra asks as the subway car makes its next stop. I watch about a dozen people get off, only to be replaced by new travellers.
Raphael looks at me. “Think about Jade,” he says. “Try to visualize her the way she was when you saw her on the stairwell. Maybe that will help connect the two of you.”
I’m so scared. I want to go and rescue Jade, but I’m afraid of what we’re going to need to face in order to get to her. I can’t be this afraid when we cross over.
“Do it, Jazz,” he says, this time more gently. “We’re here together. If anything happens, just remember you can battle demons. All Seers can.”
“Should we really be having this crazy conversation here,” Cassandra asks, jerking her head in the direction of the other passengers, “in public?”
“This lot will just think we’re talking about some new video game or something,” Raphael says. “Not to worry.”
But I am worried. Worried because I wasn’t able to keep my fear under control last time I was sucked into the Place-in-Between, and I have a strong feeling that Cassandra and Lily won’t be able to either. Especially Lily. So, if three Seers are down there feeling terrified, won’t that make the demons super-strong?
“How do we battle them?” I ask. “With our bare hands? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m all of five foot three and weigh a hundred pounds.”
“The three of you have strength that you don’t yet realize,” Raphael says. “Demons need to be beheaded. That will kill them.”
“Oh, God,” Lily says, putting her hand to her mouth. She looks like she might be sick.
“We don’t have much time,” Raphael says. “We need to find Jade and get her out of there. It’s no place for the living.”
“That’s what I thought!” I say, leaning over Cassandra and grabbing his arm. “Just before we ended up back here.”
“Go on, Jasmine. She’s still alive. If the gateway is open, we can get her.”
I grit my teeth, take a deep breath, and close my eyes. I try to picture my sister on the stairs of the London subway station the moment before she grabbed my hand.
I can see Jade in my mind, making her way down the steps at Bethnal Green station, her eyes meeting mine.
Lily screams as the subway lurches to one side. The train seems to be navigating a sharp turn in the tracks. I’m tempted to open my eyes, but force myself to continue thinking of Jade.
The crazy thing is, Jade is no longer on the stairs. In my mind, she’s now running down a narrow, cobbled street. She keeps looking back over her shoulder, as though she’s running from someone. Or something. She’s wearing a long, embroidered velvet dress with puffy sleeves and a high collar. Her dark hair trails out behind her as she runs. Her eyes are pools of terror. The vision is so real I feel like I could reach out and touch her.
“Get me off of here!” Lily screams as the subway lurches again. Her voice sounds distant, though, as if she’s far away from me, yelling through a dense fog.
There’s a sudden screeching of brakes and we’re all thrown forward. I open my eyes.
Everything is dark, like night without a moon.
Chapter 16
The first thing that hits me is the stench. It’s the grossest, most disgusting stink I’ve ever smelled in my life. It’s worse than puke, rotting garbage, and dirty gym equipment all mixed together.
“Oh, my God,” Lily says before turning over on her side and vomiting onto the cobbled street.
I sit up. My hands are filthy from lying in the wet and dirt. At least I hope this brown stuff on my palms is just dirt.
“Get out of the way, you ne
’er-do-wells!” a deep voice says from somewhere above us. “Drunk on cheap ale, are you? Well, out of my way!”
I look up. A man is walking toward us, a scraggly looking horse beside him. The horse’s head droops like a flower without enough water, and the bags it carries on either side of its skinny body seem far too heavy for it.
We scramble to our feet, self-consciously wiping our hands on the front of our clothes. We’re all wearing dresses now, except for Raphael who has on knee-length pants.
The man spits on the ground as he passes us. “Get ye up and to church, young ruffians. Some of us honest men are trying to make a living at market.”
“Screw you,” Cassandra hisses. The man either doesn’t hear her, or this comment just proves to him that we’re a bunch of low-life drunks. Lily puking all over likely didn’t help convince him otherwise either.
A light drizzle of rain is falling. Lily moans softly to herself. Her long, black hair hangs like a limp curtain over her face.
“Okay,” I say, trying to breathe through my mouth as I speak so I don’t have to take in the smell of this place. “Where are we? I mean, is this London?” I scratch at my arms as I speak. The dress I’m wearing is so itchy. There are layers and layers to it, so it’s hard to find any relief.
“This is definitely London,” Raphael says, looking around the narrow street at the wooden houses looming over us. “I’d say we’re somewhere in the mid-seventeenth century by the looks of things.”
“But London doesn’t have wooden houses,” Cassandra says haughtily. She cocks her head to one side. “We’ve been there with our family. Everything is old and made of stone or brick, or new and made of glass. These,” she says, waving a hand at the houses that crowd on either side of us, “are not the type of houses found in London.”
“Actually, this is precisely the type of housing they had prior to the Great Fire,” Raphael replies. “Which puts us somewhere before 1666.”
Cassandra snorts. “That’s insane.”
I can barely follow their conversation. I’m itchy everywhere now. This is even worse than when I had the chicken pox. I wiggle my body around in the dress, hoping the itching will stop.
“I think I’m allergic to this dress,” I say. “Is it made of wool?” At that moment, I notice Lily scratching at her arms and stomach as well. As she scratches, she’s letting out this weird, low moaning sound. I have to say I’m worried about her having my back in a battle with demons. She seems like the type of girl who might lose it at the sight of a tiny spider.
“You’re not going to like this,” Raphael begins, “but there’s so much overcrowding and such poor hygiene during this time….”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “You saying I don’t shower?”
He ignores me. “People tend to keep their animals inside as well. Especially the poor.” Raphael stops for a moment, as though deciding whether to tell me anything else. “It’s probably fleas, Jazz. Could be bed bugs and lice, too. Most people during this time period are covered with them.”
“Oh, God,” Lily moans. “I can’t do this. Fleas? I need to get back … now.” Her voice is becoming increasingly high-pitched. “This can’t be happening.”
I shoot Lily a warning look. “Control yourself,” I say, trying to keep my voice low.
“We need to go,” Cassandra interjects. “That man is going to tell everyone in the market about us. We’re strangers; we’re dangerous. He thinks we’ve got the plague and that’s why we were lying in the road, sick.”
I stare at her. “How do you know all of that?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I could read his thoughts. They just sort of jumped into my mind as he walked away.”
“Cassandra’s right. We should get going,” Raphael says. “It’s not safe for us to stay in one place for long.”
We begin to walk. Raphael’s words have made us quieter. Noise crowds in all around us, making it hard to have a conversation anyway. People are shouting, hanging laundry out of windows, and throwing rancid liquid and garbage into the filthy gutters along the street. Disgusting smells fill the air all around us.
I look over at Cassandra as we walk. She’s strutting along, all attitude and confidence, but her eyes are narrowed and wary. It bugs me that she was able to hear that man’s thoughts and I wasn’t. She made it sound so easy. Like a podcast being switched on in her head. If I’m a Seer, why didn’t I hear what he was thinking as well?
“Oi, you!” A woman that is all soft mounds of flesh and red-faced with boils bounds toward us from the other side of the street. My heart does a nervous flip-flop. Her sunken eyes are fixed firmly on me.
I glance over at Raphael. He’s carefully watching the woman’s approach. Considering how huge she is, she’s surprisingly fast. A scrawny chicken crosses in front of her, and she pauses for only a moment in order to kick it out of the way with the finesse of a professional soccer player. The bird skitters across the cobblestones in a blur of feathers and indignant squawks.
“You!” she shouts, wagging a doughy finger at me. People turn to stare. I look hard at her, trying to determine whether or not she is one of the demonic creatures. Doesn’t look like she is.
She rushes up to me, grabs me by the front of my dress, and begins to shake me. My head snaps back uncomfortably. I didn’t think lost spirits could have this much strength. I guess I was wrong.
“Hey!” Cassandra shouts. “Get your hands off of her, freak.”
“Who are these people?” the woman asks me. Cold spittle flies onto my face, making me want to barf. “We sent ye to Woolwich. Why are ye still here?”
My head bobs back and forth on my neck like a yo-yo. I can’t even catch my breath. I try to speak, to tell this tank of a woman that I have no idea what she’s talking about, but can’t even open my mouth.
Suddenly Cassandra is beside me. “I said, get your hands off her, you fat freak!” she shouts, thrusting her hands at the woman’s massive chest.
Her boobs are huge, like giant sacks of rice.
I watch as Cassandra struggles to get a firm grip on the woman. The woman’s eyes widen, and she loosens her grip on me. Cassandra pulls her hands back with a startled yelp.
“She’s a spirit. Different molecular energy from us,” I say to Cassandra.
“Get thee to Woolwich,” the woman says, turning her attention fully to me. The look of shock on her face mirrors that on Cassandra’s. “The plague is upon your house.”
“I think she’s quoting Shakespeare,” Lily says, her voice low. “She’s cursing us, isn’t she?”
“No,” says Cassandra. “Over a thousand people have died in London this past week from the plague. It’s killed many of her neighbours, and her local parish has nearly been wiped out. They’ve closed the churches, and the court and even the royal family has fled. She thinks that Jasmine should already be in Woolwich for some reason.”
The woman stares at Cassandra, her mouth gaping open. “How do ye know this? How is it that you can steal mine thoughts?” she demands, her face reddening. Understanding sweeps across her face. “Witches! You lot are witches! That’s how YOU” — she points her finger at me again, and this time there’s fear, not anger, in her eyes — “are in two places at once.”
People have stopped what they’re doing; a crowd is beginning to form. The word “witches” has definitely made people more interested in what’s happening. And in us. Concerned murmuring fills the air.
“We’re not witches,” Lily says, her voice trembling.
The woman swings around and faces Lily. “Ye witches have caused all of this Black Death around us.”
The murmuring is getting louder. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that many of the people are moving closer, forming a circle around us. There’s a look in their eyes that I don’t like. It’s a mixture of fear, anger and … the need for revenge. They’re like a swar
m of killer bees.
“Off with their ’eads!” one man yells. Two or three people join in, and soon there is a chorus chanting for us to be decapitated.
Cassandra moves closer to me. “They want to kill us,” she says. “Can they do that? I mean, they’re dead, right?”
“I don’t think they can,” I say. But then I notice what, at first glance, looks like a harmless elderly couple joining the crowd. I nod toward them. “But those two definitely can if they’re strong enough.”
Cassandra follows my gaze. The couple smiles at us. Their toothy grins are more barracuda than human. And their eyes are very flat and black.
Chapter 17
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I whisper in Raphael’s ear. “There are demons in the crowd.”
He nods, not taking his eyes off of the crowd or the woman. “I know,” he says out of the corner of his mouth. “The fear and anger here is so intense. It’s making them strong.”
“Did all these people die during the plague?” I ask. The elderly couple are slowly making their way to the front of the crowd. More people have gathered behind the original circle. We’re going to have to make an escape through layers of angry spirits.
“No,” Raphael replies. “But once they’re in the Place-in-Between, they forget their previous lives. They hold on to the negative emotions that brought them here, but they can’t remember the specific reasons for those feelings. At the moment, all these souls truly believe they are living in London during the Great Plague.”
There’s a loud rumble coming from the crowd now. Hundreds of voices join in a unified chant: “WITCHES! WITCHES!”
The large woman who started all of this lunges forward and grabs Cassandra by the arm. “I’ve got one!”
“THROW HER IN THE RIVER,” the crowd roars.
Raphael grabs my hand. The crowd is closing in. I smell their breath. It’s the smell of a thousand animals rotting. Apparently, the brushing of teeth wasn’t a big thing during this time period.
Finding Jade Page 8
