by Vered Ehsani
She shook her head. At least, I think she did. It was difficult to see her if she wasn’t completely still. “Just stay out of the veil, whoever you are. Don’t try to help me. You can’t.”
“What do you mean?” My voice squeaked and my eyes stung. “And why are you fading?”
“I think he’s changed how it happens. And maybe when,” she mused, as if commenting on a change in the weather. “I didn’t anticipate that. Clever man.” She jerked upwards and stared at me. “That’s why you must be extremely careful.” She sighed again and faded some more.
“I can help.” I tried to sound confident, but it came out more as a question.
Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head wearily. “I’m sorry, Ash. You can’t. Please don’t try.” Then, as if to herself, she murmured softly, “There’s no going back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” I stated, but my voice wobbled around the words.
“He’s pulling me away.”
“He’s a monster. Make him stop!” I shouted, which made the veil quiver and darken some more.
Bibi just gazed at me with an expression that clearly said I didn’t really understand. She stared at me and opened her mouth and then closed it, frowning. A couple times, she almost said something and then finally, she said softly, “You don’t know his story.”
“I know he’s bad news. Look at what he’s doing to you.” My hands were shaking. I crossed my arms and stuck my hands under my armpits.
She smiled, but I could barely see it. “Looks can distract the eye from the truth.”
“What truth? Tell me, so I can help you.”
Her image faded further until I could only see her outline; the features of her face and clothing were blurred into the light.
“Promise me you’ll stay away, boy,” she whispered.
“Yeah, ok.”
“Promise.”
“Yes, alright, I promise!”
“Remember…” Her whisper quietly echoed around me and then, she vanished.
“Bibi, where are you? Bibi? Please come back,” I quietly begged, but nothing moved. She was gone. Where she had been standing, a funnel of darkness began to form. The glowing light of the veil began to draw down towards it. At that point, I tried to bail out, focusing on the veil, on jumping through to anywhere else. But instead of being greeted by the sunshine brightening up my bedroom, I fell into the darkness. All I could see was a pair of iceberg-blue eyes that glowed inside the swirling shadows.
“You aren’t here,” I stuttered through quivering lips. “It’s not possible. You have no way to get in.”
Kali smiled. That’s always a bad sign.
“I’m not in. Not yet,” he gloated.
“But…?” My head jerked around. I was no longer in the veil. But I wasn’t home, either. Shadows peeled back and I was on a ship that had crashed on rocks. Salt spray misted the air, but I couldn’t feel or smell it. I could hear though, and I heard the shrieks of the dying as the ship began to sink. I had been there before, saving my ancestors, but this time I was powerless to move or help. Pirates were swarming over the sides, grabbing what they could. Kali was standing on the deck, grinning at me. Light and shadow shifted and the man’s previously handsome face twisted into a grotesque mask of gleaming white bone with jagged teeth.
I started to scream, but even as the sound worked its way up through my throat, the scene dissolved into a familiar clearing. Snow swirled around two figures. My scream turned into a gasp. It was Kali and Bibi, facing each other.
“I will change everything,” Kali was telling Bibi, but without his usual venom. It was more like a promise to a friend, rather than a threat to a longtime enemy.
“You will change nothing,” Bibi whispered, her voice barely carrying above the howl of the wind that whipped the surrounding trees into a furry. “And we will continue this cycle without hope of escape.”
“Bibi!” I yelled and pushed myself forward, towards her, but I should’ve saved my energy.
She didn’t hear or see me, but the shadows did. Attracted by my floundering limbs, they began to approach like sharks. I stopped struggling, but they kept coming. The shadow made by the leafless branch of a nearby tree twisted into a large, skeletal claw. An innocent tree root created a shadow viper with two fangs the length of my arms. All over the clearing, snow gave way to the shadows that oozed over everything. Kali and Bibi disappeared. Trees dissolved into more dark, twisted forms, all of them creeping and flowing towards me, towards my fear. So I did the most logical thing I could do.
I screamed and panicked.
Then I did the next most logical thing: I reached for the veil with every bit of my being, focusing on light and warmth and laughter and all the things that this place wasn’t.
I fell onto the floor, face first. Normally, the nose splat on a hard surface would snap me out of anything. This time, I just lay there, breathing in the dust on my bedroom floor. I didn’t try to stand up for a while. My legs quivered so badly, I knew they wouldn’t support me. I couldn’t stop shivering, despite the overly warm room. The summer sun did nothing to ease my clenched throat or warm up the cold sweat that dappled the back of my neck. In fact, the sunlight seemed to have momentarily dimmed.
Eventually, the discomfort of my nose and the oven temperature of the room convinced me to peel my weary carcass of the floor, if only to push the windows open completely and rub my sore face. I moved to my desk, staring at the book. The portrait of Bibi was dim, meaning I couldn’t use it to contact her. I stared at her picture for a while, hoping she’d miraculously pop back into life with a flippant remark or off-humor observation. Nothing.
“Well, that’s just…” I searched for an appropriate word and in a fluster, I blurted out, “Peachy.” I snorted as I slowly flipped the book shut. Of all the possible words that could describe what had just happened – horrific, dreadful, unbelievable, disastrous, confusing – I had chosen peachy. It wasn’t even my word; it was Juna’s.
“And she’s lost,” I informed the room and began ticking off on my fingers a list. “One cranky, lost friend. No time traveling. One attic to clean. And a missing relative. There goes the summer.”
Just as the book cover thudded down, I heard the distant baying of a dog and then it was quiet.
Chapter 4
Sleep shifted into a misty curtain. I passed through it and drifted into a foggy forest clearing. I saw a boy there. I stared at him, tugging at my hair, trying to figure out why he was so familiar. He tugged his hair too, as if wondering the same thing and then it clicked. I was watching myself. Some small part of my brain with a bizarre and irrelevant sense of humour noted that I really needed a haircut.
The boy (who was actually me) was talking with a girl. What was she doing there? I squinted through the fog, trying to figure out who the new element of my dream was, and then groaned. Juna. She was also watching the other me, the boy who needed a haircut, shouting and pointing at the forest. I wanted to tell her to shut up and get out of my dream, until I noticed the dancing shadows at the treeline, getting closer.
“I can’t just leave you,” Juna yelled and then saw me floating nearby. “What are you doing in my dream?”
I scoffed. “Your dream? I don’t think so. This is my clearing from hell, my nightmare. You don’t like it, get out.”
She glared at me. “I’m dreaming this. My dream. Not yours.”
Meanwhile, the boy in the clearing was opening the book, trying to show Juna something. A shadow rose up out of the pages, a tentacle of darkness that reached up to encircle his neck, preparing to pull him in. I jumped forward and knocked the book out of his hand, pushing him backward in the process. Before I could help him up, the shadow hunter approached. It was time to run, but there was nowhere to run to.
I woke up, angry this time. The shadow scar flared and I itched at it until my nails left scratches along my leg. I tried deep breathing, turning my focus to calm and cool thoughts, but that was rather difficult to do
when I kept thumping the pillow with a fist. Where did she get off invading my dreams like that? Now there’d be no getting away from her bossy, snarky, grumpy self.
Yes, I also did wonder (eventually) how she’d even crawled into my dream or if I had made that part about her up. Eventually. But at that moment, I was still fuming at her. I kicked off my blanket and glared at the shadowy ceiling. Why her? Was she somehow related to me? She could move through the veils, even though she had no control over it. Did that mean we could see into each other’s minds when we slept? Ick. I shuddered at that idea. It was possible. Nasty, but possible. I sighed and closed my eyes.
Get me out…
My whole body convulsed with shock. I pushed myself up quickly with the energy of a rocket launching, and then fell onto the floor, using my face as a landing pad. My legs remained on the bed, tangled in my blanket.
“Juna?” I whispered as I rubbed my throbbing nose. At least my leg didn’t hurt anymore. “Juna, is that you?”
In response, thick, leathery pages fluttered. I glanced up and saw the book quivering on the desk like a dog that sees the collar and leash dangling from its owner’s hand and hears: “Let’s go, boy. Time for walkies.”
“I can’t,” I continued to whisper, hoping my crash landing hadn’t woken up Shanti.
The book shook harder. Pages fluttered, pushing against the constraint of the cover. Obviously, the book hadn’t made any promises and it was eager to open up.
“Bibi told me not to. I promised her I wouldn’t.”
Then again, I reasoned, Bibi hadn’t exactly been sound of mind. And she hadn’t known about Juna. Would it really be so dangerous to pop in and pull Juna out? The answer to that was, yes, of course it would. The answer I told myself, and believed, was no, of course not. Just one quick, little trip…
The page was not difficult to find. She was staring out of the painting, a deep frown on her face. She was still staring when I floated through the veil and into a small bedroom. Apart from the bed, which she was sitting on, and a small chest of drawers, there was nothing else. The room redefined the term ‘Spartan.’
“Finally,” she muttered.
She was glaring at me like it was all my fault she was stuck in the past. Like I’d even want her there or in my dreams. Don’t get me started on that. Like I hadn’t tried to save her from an intimate tour of the digestive track of a pre-historic reptile.
She continued, oblivious to my outrage. “You have to get me out of here. Now.”
“Really? Why?” I studied her clothes. She was wearing a dress that started from right under her chin and kept going past her ankles. It looked nasty. “Don’t you like your new wardrobe? I think it’s a great look on you. Or, as you would say, peachy.” I snickered.
She glared at me. Wow, that girl has a glare to top all glares. Watch out, Medusa; you’ve got some serious competition. “Laugh it up, Ghost Boy.”
“The name’s Ash.”
“Whatever. I can barely walk without tripping over this stupid skirt. There’s no indoor plumbing. Heck, there’s no outdoor plumbing, either. There’s just a hole in the ground.”
She took a deep breath, clearly preparing to continue the monologue. The girl was on a roll. “There’s no electricity, nothing to do except work and sleep. They can’t even pronounce my last name – Schumacher – and they keep asking me the same question.” She stared at me, making sure I was listening.
“And what would that be?” I asked politely. “Perhaps ‘Why are you always in such a foul mood’?”
“No. They keep asking me if I make shoes. They think my last name is Shoe Maker. And then they ask if my parents make shoes, or if my village is famous for shoe making. It never ends.”
That’s definitely when I burst out laughing. It was one of those stomach-aching, tear-jerking laughs. It felt great. Juna didn’t seem to think so; she bent down, picked up a shoe that was more ugly than the dress and threw it at me. It passed right through me and thudded against the wall.
“The benefits of being able to turn into a ghost,” I grinned at her.
“Good for you,” she snapped. “Are you going to help me or laugh at me?”
“Well…” I pretended to think about it. “Actually, I have to admit I am rather tempted to just leave you here.”
She prepared to throw her other shoe.
“Ok, ok, I’ll help. Stop throwing shoes at me, Shoe Maker.”
I thought back to that time I was running on a rooftop in 18th century Boston with Sara. She had fallen off and I had managed to catch and transport her through the veil and to safety before she splattered herself all over the ground below. And I had done so as a ghost, which was weird because I usually can’t hold anything unless I’m solid.
“Let’s give this a try,” I muttered and wrapped a pair of ghostly arms around Juna. “Just don’t move. I’d prefer you didn’t walk through me.”
“Oh, we fully agree on that, Ghost Boy,” she retorted, although her expression looked a little less confident and a little more worried than usual.
Shifting my focus, I pulled the veil towards us, around us and then…
I landed in my bedroom quite alone. I frowned. Why hadn’t that worked? I zoomed back to her. She was standing just where I had left her, with the same worried grimace on her face. I tried again, with the same result.
“Huh. I guess that doesn’t work,” I stated the obvious.
“No kidding.”
We stared at each other.
Then, for lack of anything better to say, I suggested, “So why don’t you try whatever you did to get yourself here in the first place? You know, call back that tornado or whatever it is.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically, as if about to explain to someone that the world is in fact round, not flat. “Because I don’t know what I did.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem.”
“You think?” She started glaring at me again. What was that about? Without deciding to, I backed up a couple of steps, as if she might take out some of that anger on me physically. She looked like she could, and I was not going to play therapist or punching bag.
“Seriously, have we met before?” I asked. “I’m just wondering if I’ve done something to make you hate me. ‘Cause the attitude is getting a bit much.” For a moment, I sounded like my mother and I almost grinned but figured that might give the wrong impression.
Startled out of her hate glare, her mouth gaped open and then she shook her head. “No. Well… No, not really.”
“Not really? It’s a yes or no kind of a question.”
“No.”
I heard a slight hesitation in that, but she wasn’t going to say anything else. I could tell. Remember, I have three sisters.
“So you generally hate the world? Or just guys?”
“Whatever.” But her scowl at least lessened a bit.
I shrugged my shoulders. There’s no pleasing some people. “Well, at least you’re taken care of for now.” I gestured around the room.
“Oh yeah, I’m just jumping with joy,” Juna grumbled, and then added in a quieter tone, “It won’t last long. Never does.”
“Whoa,” I breathed out. “Someone sure is bitter with the world.”
“Someone has good reason to be.” I think she was trying to sound all snappish, but she wasn’t into it. It came out kind of tired sounding. Even her shadow wilted around the edges.
“If you say so,” I responded. I drifted back to my room, pausing in the veil. I was still creeped out and my shoulders tensed up, as if Kali might make an appearance. He didn’t, but I still breathed out noisily when I made it safely back to my room. I sat at my desk, gazing through the veil into Juna’s room. Her tough, angry expression had faded into something a lot less tough and angry. She looked miserable and her eyes weren’t so hard and dry.
“Hey, we’ll figure a way out of this,” I offered, feeling just a tad sorry for her. She looked up at me, hesitated and then smiled slightly. I grinned
back. “You should smile more often. It suits you.”
Juna rolled her eyes but her smile widened just a tad. “Yeah, whatever.”
“At least you don’t have to worry about a parole officer finding you.”
Her gaze sharpened as she mulled over that bit of good news. “You’re right,” she admitted slowly, and this time really smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it’s not so bad after all.”
“But don’t get too comfortable,” I hurriedly added, suddenly worried she might not want to leave. I didn’t know why I should’ve been worried about that, but still… If the book kept directing me to her, there had to be some reason. I just hadn’t figured it out yet.
“No worries there,” she scoffed. “There’s nothing comfortable about this place.”
Relieved, I started to close the book, and then paused. “What place are you in, by the way? And when?”
“Somewhere in the backwaters of Tennessee,” Juna grumbled. “And it’s 1860. Summertime. I’m melting.”
“1860, hmmm?” Something about that year was important, but I couldn’t remember what. I wasn’t a big fan of history class, as any of my teachers and my report card could tell you, but that might have to change. “Well, just be careful. Don’t do anything to attract attention to yourself. Lay low and stay out of trouble until we figure out how to get you home.”
“Do I have to? I was kind of planning on scheduling in a bank robbery while I’m here,” she said in a sarcastically sweet voice.
I snickered, and then remembered that I still didn’t know why she had been with a parole officer. “Seriously, don’t.”
“Seriously, I won’t.”
“And try to focus on the positive,” I added impulsively, starting to like this slightly softer version of Juna. “What you focus on, you become.”
“So you’re like a Zen master now, Ghost Boy?”
I could feel my cheeks go red, and that made me blush even more. “Ah, no. It’s just something my Great Aunt’s always telling me.”
