“This tree – it looks almost exactly like the one carved on the box,” said Fanny.
“And that’s the torc. Almost a perfect likeness of it. Where did you get these drawings?” asked Jake.
“They were Bridget’s,” Liam said. All three fell silent.
“So you see these coincidences – well, there are just too many of them. My brain is in a tailspin guys. I’m not sure what to do with it all. My wife drew a picture of a tree before she died over seven years ago. Now you’re showing me the same tree carved on a box buried over a thousand years ago here in Ireland, a place she’d never been. And she drew a picture of an odd, twisted bracelet. Now you’re telling me my daughter put a bracelet just like it on her arm right before she walked through a hole in the ground and into another dimension.”
“Yep, some pretty heavy chiz,” said Fanny.
“Yes, Fanny, heavy ‘chiz,’ whatever that is.”
“I know it’s a bit much to take in Mr. Adams, but here’s the thing. We’re up against the clock here. If Hindergog was right – and so far he has been right about all this crazy stuff – well, if he’s right, this Dughall guy is out there somewhere trying to find a way into the Netherworld too,” said Jake.
“Yeah, and we don’t know what he’s up to once he gets there, but apparently it’s something really bad ‘cause that Hindergog dude came all the way from another dimension to send Emily on a journey to stop this guy,” said Fanny.
“So we gotta help her,” said Jake. “We gotta do what we can on this side to figure this out so we can stop this Dughall guy.”
Liam just sat in stunned silence, unable to respond.
“Hey, you look whipped Mr. Adams. Why don’t you get some rest for a few hours? Jake and I can keep working on this downstairs,” said Fanny.
“You’re right Fanny,” said Liam. “Good kids – both of you. I want to thank you both. . . for taking care of my Emily for me. . .”
“Ah, we didn’t need to take care of her,” said Jake.
“I don’t mean just on this trip.”
Fanny took Liam’s hand again, but this time he didn’t withdraw it. She just nodded, and Jake clapped him on the shoulder. They knew he was right, but they weren’t going to hold it against him. Liam was there now, when they all needed him the most, and that’s what mattered.
The newly formed trio shared a common goal – find Emily. Their destination, as yet unknown.
27. Emily’s First Master
“Hindergog, where are we going?”
“To your first master, of course.”
To him everything he says is perfectly obvious. I’m totally lost in everything he says.
“My master? Can’t you tell me anything about him? Even a name?”
“Oh, I think you will recognize this teacher right away.”
My heart started to race. Could it be? Someone I recognized. My mother! My teacher would be my mother!
“Miss Emily, your master, she is not human.”
My heart sank. He really can read my mind, can’t he?
It’s hard to describe the way time works in the Netherworld. I mean it’s like you’re walking for what should seem like a long time, but you don’t feel tired. And as soon as you think ‘I’m tired, I wish I was there.’ Boom! You’re there.
And that’s how it was at that moment. I was thinking that I was ready – I want to meet this teacher, even if it’s not my mom.
Then, out of the mist appeared a small building. As I got closer, I saw that it was made of wood weathered grey. It had a roof thatched in straw blackened by time. The windows were covered in wood screens with old Chinese carvings, the lacquer aged to an almost blackish-red patina. A path of stone steps led to a carved redwood door. The little house looked just like it had come out of an ancient Chinese countryside.
As we approached the front door, Hindergog stopped. I knew then that he wasn’t coming with me.
“Are you leaving me then?” I asked.
“Yes, dear one, this you must do alone.”
“But Hindergog, I don’t know what to do! Please stay with me,” I pled.
He just shook his head no. “Dear Emily, you are in capable hands here. Your task is at hand. Learn well, young one.”
With that, he vanished into the fog and mist.
I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there in front of the door like an idiot. A voice in my head said, ‘Knock, moron’. I think that was Muriel’s voice!
But I did as the voice said and I knocked. Rap, rap, rap.
No answer. Just the unearthly silence of this unearthly place.
Then, just as I thought I was at the wrong place and should leave, the door opened slowly. As the door swung open, there in the shadows of the doorway I could see a small figure. Very small.
Although I had never been here before, I knew exactly who my first master was to be. I’d recognize her anywhere. Madame Wong!
I felt some relief because I recognized my first teacher. My relief was short lived.
28. Madame Wong
“Are you going to just stand there or come in?” she asked.
I told my feet to go in, but they didn’t want to move. With great effort I got my lead feet to walk through yet another door to the unknown.
I ducked as I walked through her tiny door. The little house was dark inside but clean and sparse. A table under one window with just two chairs. A simple hearth with a kettle over the fire. In another corner, a small bed with a knobby pine frame and a mattress with modest, white covers. Beside the bed was a diminutive table with a washbowl and pitcher.
It was like I had stepped back in time. No phones. No television. No electricity. No technology of any kind.
“Madame Wong? Are you really the Madame Wong that Hindergog told me about? The Madame Wong who taught the girls in the Sacred Grove?”
“I am.”
“But how. . . how can you be here? I thought the portal was closed.”
“It was.”
Apparently she wasn’t much of a talker.
“Then how can you be here if you were left behind when the portal closed?”
“Ah, Madame Wong starting from scratch here,” she said as she shook her head then went to the fire and poured hot water from the kettle to her teapot.
“Tea Youngling?”
“Well, yes, I guess that would be okay.”
“You guess, or you know? Tea or no tea. This is not a hard question,” she barked at me.
“Okay then, tea, yes.”
Just then another cup appeared on her table out of nowhere. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had, after all, walked into another dimension. But I still couldn’t believe my eyes.
“How did you do that?”
“What?”
“Make that cup appear? Out of nowhere.”
“All of here is nowhere. Ask and it is given. So much to learn,” she said again as she continued to shake her head at me.
“Sit,” she commanded.
I did as she said and fast. After Hindergog’s story, I knew that you didn’t want to mess with Madame Wong.
We drank our tea for a moment then I just had to ask her again.
“You never answered my question. How is it that you are here?”
Madame Wong put her cup down and squinted her dark eyes at me.
“You know nothing? Hindergog said that I had my work cut out for me,” she said as she sipped her tea again, her knobby fingers wrapped around the warm teacup.
I know she could probably pull a dagger out and do me in before I could even scream but dammit, I was starting to lose my patience. I couldn’t get a straight answer about anything.
“Look, I don’t know anything, and you’re supposed to be the teacher. So teach me at least this one thing! How can you be here?” I yelled at her.
She put her tea down again, and this time her eyes were ablaze. Here it comes! I was going to feel the sting on my face of a slap soon, just like when I mouthed off to Muriel.
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“I will spare you that insolence this one time only because you are new and know nothing. But you will not speak to me in that tone again. I am not your Aunt Muriel and if you speak to me like that again, you will wish that I was!”
I nodded my head in understanding as my face turned scarlet. I believed her. I better watch my smart aleck mouth.
“Listen well as I will not explain this to you again. Consider this your first teaching, youngling.
“You humans, you see with eyes only. That is your greatest failing you know.”
I nodded yes even though I wasn’t sure I knew what she was talking about. I wasn’t about to disagree with her.
“The Netherworld – this place,” she said as she swept her arms out wide, “it is a place of pure potential. Here, if you allow yourself, you will learn things that have eluded your fellow humans – or most of them. Here you will see with your whole self, not just with your eyes.”
This was not explaining why Madame Wong was here when she should have been shut out when the portal closed. I wasn’t following her, and it must have showed on my face even without me saying, ‘what the hell are you talking about’?
“Oh. . . Madame Wong in for long life with this one,” she said as she shook her head and drank her tea.
“The Madame Wong from Hindergog’s tale, her human body – it is of the earth now. What you see here, this Madame Wong is a merged being.”
“Merged being? I don’t understand.”
“The human Madame Wong, like many curious humans before her, stumbled into this world, like you did, many, many Earth rotations ago. Long before Saorla’s time. Madame Wong met an entity here – one who had left its body behind – and they made agreement.”
“An agreement? What kind of agreement?”
“Agreement to merge, become one being. Part of their combined essence was projected into the body that Madame Wong carried around with her in your world. Part of them stayed here, in this realm. Now, the merged life essence is all that remain. Body no longer.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you are not real? Am I imagining you?”
“Real? What is real?”
“Again with that question! I thought I knew what real was, but I’m starting to wonder what real is.”
“Good!”
“It’s good that I don’t have a grip on reality?”
“Good that you begin to question what is real. I am more real than most of what you have known.”
“But when you – I mean Madame Wong – when she had a body, how could she exist two places at one time?”
“It’s quite easy. Even the smallest, simplest matter in your known universe can do this. All things exist always in every possible time and place. It is choice. You choose where you want to be and be there now.”
“When you became one with this entity – became a merged being – you can’t die?”
“Not sure if death come or not in this place of no time. Still here. That’s all that matters. Madame Wong found a way to cheat death, no?” She chuckled softly. “Not all it’s cracked up to be when all those you loved cease to be with you.”
“I know what that’s like.”
“Yes, yes. You lost one most dear.”
“She was dear, but I’m not so sure how I feel about her anymore.”
“Yes you are.”
“Am I?”
“Of course. There is no question here! If you did not love her, you wouldn’t have come on this journey. Emily only came to Netherworld because she thought she’d see her mother again.”
That was true. It’s all I could think of since I first thought about coming to this world. To look on her face one more time.
“One thing you must know and I will tell you now. Hindergog, simple-minded creature. He lacks the courage to tell you himself.”
“Tell me what?”
“Netherworld not the place of spirits, Youngling. You will not find your mother here.”
I felt like I’d been shot. All hope drained from me. I realized then how much I’d been hanging on to that hope. Hope of seeing my mom again had kept my feet moving all over the hills of Ireland when I was so tired. It was what had made me walk through the portal in the first place. It was the only reason I was here.
To be honest, at that moment I didn’t give a rat’s hind end about Dughall and trying to save the world. I just wanted to see my mom again. Now, what’s the point?
“Selfish, isn’t it?”
“What, to want to see your mom again? I was just a little girl! She was the only one who ever understood me. The only reason I came here was to see her. And now, you’re telling me that she’s not here,” I said through tears streaming down my face in torrents.
“She wasn’t the only one to understand you, that’s a lie. You lie to yourself much, youngling. Bad habit of humans. Speak untruths, even inside their own heads.”
“Okay then, you’re the teacher. Tell me, who else has understood me?”
Madame Wong didn’t say anything at first then said simply, “Look in your tea.”
“What?”
“Look in your tea,” she said calmly.
I looked down into my teacup. The soggy black tea leaves at the bottom had arranged themselves into the shape of – faces. There were two faces staring back at me from the bottom of my teacup. Two very familiar faces.
Seeing Jake and Fanny in my tea, I felt like a real turd. There I was blubbering about my mom and thinking only of myself when Jake and Fanny were out there, who knows where, risking themselves for my quest.
As I looked at the tealeaves in the shape of my two best friends, the leaves started to shift and change. Now I saw another person. Zombie Man.
“Okay, Jake and Fan I believe. But Zombie Man – no, he doesn’t get me. No, I don’t agree with that.”
“The tea doesn’t lie,” she said as she gathered her own cup and washed it out in the washbasin then put it back on her small shelf. The small gesture of washing the cup and putting it away seemed odd in this place of dreams and fog.
“Why did you do that?”
“What?”
“Wash the cup and put it away. You can conjure up a clean cup whenever you want to. Why clean that one?”
“There is joy in doing,” was her reply.
I’m not sure what is stranger – meeting an entity in another dimension, or meeting one who washes teacups.
“You are tired. Long journey. Rest now Youngling. When you wake, we will begin your training. You sleep,” she said as she gestured me to the small bed.
It was a rustic bed and not terribly comfortable, but now that she said it, I was dead tired. I fell onto the bed and slept immediately. I didn’t dream about torcs or green hills or Madame Wong. I didn’t dream at all. Even in my sleep I was in a place of fog and mist.
29. Breathe
I woke to the crack of something hard against the bottom of my foot. What the. . .?
I opened my eyes, and in the blur of first waking, I made out the outline of a tiny woman, rapping my feet with what looked like a bamboo cane.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“It is time for Miss to wake up.”
“Yeah, well you don’t have to beat me to wake me up!”
Had I slept for a few minutes – or was it days? There was no time in this place. No sunrise or sunset. I felt refreshed though, so I must have slept long enough.
I got up, stretched and ducked so I could get out of her small door without banging my head. There was less mist and fog now. Through the light haze, I saw Madame Wong, standing perfectly erect – almost as if there was an invisible string attached to her head imperceptibly lifting her body yet leaving her feet firmly planted on the ground. Her hands were at her chest, palms together in prayer position, her eyes closed. Her body, completely still, looked like a statue. I wasn’t sure if I should interrupt her, so I just stood there like a mute for what seemed like an exceedingly long time, afraid to make a sound or speak for
fear of startling her.
“You cannot startle me when I know already that you are there,” Madame Wong croaked.
Her ability to read my thoughts was annoying.
“What will I do today?”
“Sitting.”
“Sitting. That’s it?”
“You sit. You breathe. No think. That is lesson.”
I plopped myself down in front of her and sat cross-legged. Mind you all this time she hadn’t moved anything except her mouth to speak. She was still in tree pose and still had her eyes closed.
“You may want to make yourself more comfortable,” she said without opening an eye. “You sit long time.”
I wasn’t sure I could conjure things the way Madame Wong did, but I figured why not try? I thought of the most comfortable sitting I’d ever done. It was at Fanny’s house. She has this cool chair in her room that’s kind of like a beanbag chair, but it has a back and you can sit in that thing for hours. Yep, that’s what I wanted to sit on. Within a matter of seconds, I felt the chair materialize beneath me.
I got myself comfy in my chair – like it came straight from Fanny’s room. When I had settled in I asked Madame Wong, “Now what?”
“Sit.”
“Just sit?”
“Sit. No think. No do. Just breathe.”
“I just sit here doing nothing? This is way easier than I thought it’d be.”
“Not doing harder than doing.”
“Not for a teenager! This is the life,” I said as I kicked back and just relaxed.
I’d say in regular human time, it took all of about five minutes for me to feel bored. Really bored. I was fidgety and anxious. I couldn’t just sit there when my friends needed me - when the entire free world was counting on me! I didn’t have that kind of time to waste.
“Look, Madame Wong, we don’t have the luxury of time. I gotta get the cliff notes version of your lessons and get back to stop Dughall.”
“You think you ready to stop that dark one?”
“Well, no, I don’t think I’m ready. So that’s why I’m saying you know, speed this up a bit, give me the quick version so I can be on my way.”
Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) Page 13
