“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. Madame Wong 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?”
“Quite easy. Even smallest, simplest matter in your 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.”
“Can you 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?”
“There is no question here. If you did not love her, you would not have come. Miss Emily only come to Netherworld to see her mother again.”
That was true. It’s all I had thought about. I wanted to look on her face one more time.
“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 Bridget Adams 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. Hope had made me walk through the portal in the first place. It was the only reason I’d come.
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,” Hot tears welled in my eyes, broke free of my lashes and streamed down my face in torrents.
“You lie. Mother not only one to understand you. You lie to yourself much, Youngling. Bad human habit. Speak untruths, even inside their own heads.”
“Okay then, you’re the teacher. Tell me. Who else has understood me?”
Madame Wong did not immediately answer. She took another sip of tea, put her cup down, and said, “Look in your tea.”
“What?”
“Look in your tea,” she repeated.
I looked down into my teacup. The soggy black tea leaves at the bottom had arranged themselves into the shape of faces. Two faces stared back at me from the bottom of my teacup. Two very familiar faces.
Seeing Jake and Fanny in my tea made me feel like a turd for what I’d said. There I was, blubbering about my mom and thinking only of myself. But Jake and Fanny were out there somewhere, putting themselves in danger for my quest. And they understood me about as well as anyone could. At least as well as I’d allowed them to.
As I looked at the tealeaves in the shape of my two best friends, the leaves started to shift and change. The leaves again took the shape of a person. Zombie Man.
“Okay, Jake and Fan I believe. But Zombie Man? No, he doesn’t get me. I can’t agree with that.”
“Tea does not lie.” Madame Wong got up, walked to her washbasin, washed her cup and placed it on her small shelf. The small gesture of washing the cup and putting it away seemed odd in that place of dreams and fog.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what, Youngling?”
“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.”
I’m not sure what was 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 begin your training. You sleep.” Madame Wong gestured to the small bed.
The bed was a bit too short for my long frame and it wasn’t very comfortable, but Madame Wong had been right. I was more tired than I’d ever been. I fell onto the bed and fell to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. 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. She rapped my feet with what looked like a bamboo cane.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“Time for Miss Emily wake up.”
“Yeah, well you don’t have to beat me to wake me up.”
Have I slept for a few minutes or days? There was no time in the Netherworld. No sunrise or sunset. But I woke feeling refreshed so my sleep was long enough anyway.
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 than there had been before. Through the light haze I saw Madame Wong. She stood perfectly erect. It was 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 already know you are there.”
Her ability to read my thoughts annoyed me.
“What will I do today?”
“Sit.”
“Sit. That’s it?”
“Sit. Breathe. No think. That is lesson.”
I plopped myself down in front of her and sat cross-legged. During our brief conversation, Madame Wong hadn’t moved anything except her mouth. She stood as still as a statue with her eyes closed.
“May want to make self more comfortable. Miss Emily sit long time.”
I wasn’t sure I could conjure things the way Madame Wong did, but I figured I’d give it a try. I thought of the most comfortable sitting I’d ever done. It was at Fanny’s house. She had a cool chair in her room that was like beanbag chair, but it had a back to it. I could sit in that thing for hours. That’s what I’d like right now. I felt the chair materialize beneath me.
I could get used to this having whatever I want thing.
The chair felt exactly the same as the one I’d sat in at Fanny’s house. I wiggled and wedged my butt until I was comfortable. When I had settled in I asked, “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 kicked back and 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. According to Hindergog, the entire free world was counting on me. How can I just sit here when that dude Dughall is out there somewhere trying to start mayhem.
“Look, Madame Wong, I don’t have the time to just sit on my butt doing nothing. I gotta get the cliff notes version of your lessons and get back to stop Dughall.”
“Miss Emily think she is ready to stop that dark one?”
“We
ll, 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.”
“No short cut to understand Akasha.”
“Akasha? Who is she?”
“Akasha not a she. Or a he. Akasha is all that is. Miss Emily here to learn mysteries of Akasha. To learn of the great Web of All That Is. Now sit.”
I groaned loudly at that. How can sitting on my butt possibly help me learn about this Akasha or become a warrior or help my friends?
But I did as she said and sat. After a few more minutes I could take it no more. “Look, I’m not a warrior. I just want to go home. I want to find Fanny and Jake and just go back home.”
“Leave without training? Miss Emily not ready to defeat the dark one.”
“I’m not the one, okay. Look, if you know so much, why don’t you go defeat him? You, Brighid and little Hindergog. You shouldn’t send a teenager to do this anyway.”
“We exist in this realm, not in yours. A human must stop the dark one from his plan. Not our destiny. Destiny of one called Emily.”
“Well then find someone else. There’s got to be some other person that can do this job. I’m not hero material.”
“You are what you believe yourself to be. Now sit. Breathe. Answers you seek will come to you. Lessons needed will be learned. Sit. Breathe.”
I was so frustrated, I wanted to scream and throw things and kick Madame Wong out of her statue post. I’d envisioned learning how to use weapons and performing magick spells. Instead, I was told to sit and breathe, two things I was pretty sure I already knew how to do.
But seeing as how I didn’t know the way out of the place, I flopped myself back down on my chair and pouted. I may have to sit. I may even have to breathe. But I don’t have to be happy about it.
“Miss Emily stubborn one. Yes, very inflexible. Your resistance makes lesson more difficult.”
I ignored her. I would sit and breathe. Best to do it quickly and get it over with so I could move on. The sooner I figured out what she wanted, the sooner I’d be able to get out of there.
I sat. And I breathed. My mind wandered freely. I thought about Fanny and Jake and wondered what they were doing. I hope they’re not still sitting by that well. I thought about how I was ditching school and wondered if I’d missed much. But I decided a few weeks didn’t much matter since I was close to flunking almost everything anyway.
Thinking of school and flunking made me think about Muriel and how steaming mad she’d be at me if I ever made it back. And my mind stayed on the subject of Muriel for a long time as I imagined how she might lock me in my room without food (one of her favorite punishments) or maybe she’d beat me with a cane like Madame Wong’s.
I was startled out of my daydreaming by the sound of a shrill and familiar voice.
“Emily Marie Adams!”
I opened my eyes and about peed myself. Standing before me was none other than Muriel the Mean. She glared at me and she held a cane in her hand just like Madame Wong’s.
“Get up off of your lazy butt this minute!”
I did as she said and as I stood, she rapped my legs with the cane.
“Go. Go to that table and study your math. You will study all night and all day and won’t eat again until you have mastered the entire book.”
I looked over and where there had previously been only mist stood a long, brown table. It looked a lot like the one in our dining room at home but it was longer, taller, darker and more menacing than the one in my house. I walked to the table much like the one I’d sat at doing homework and suffering raps across my knuckles and Muriel’s icy stare. I was almost to the table but I stopped in my tracks.
“Wait. I don’t have to do what you say. Not here. You’re not real.”
“What are you talking about, girl? Not real? Are you hyped up on drugs? Maybe a lash from this cane will show you how real I am.” Muriel pulled the cane back, ready to wallop me with it.
As the cane swung forward, I grabbed it with my hand and wrung it from her. Muriel was stunned but only for a moment. Her icy glare gave way to outright fury.
“How dare you?” she said.
“How dare you treat me so badly?” I asked.
“You get what you deserve for your disobedience. You are a stubborn child, so unlike your father. If you were only more like him.”
“If I were more like him instead of my mom, you’d stop beating me? Well, I’m not Liam. And I’m not Bridget either. I’m Emily. And I’m not going to let you beat me or starve me or mistreat me anymore. Now go away!”
In an instant, Muriel faded into the mist of the Netherworld as if she had never been there at all. I panted and my heart raced. I thought I was supposed to be just sitting and breathing.
“Madame Wong, what was that? Why did Muriel just pop in for a visit?”
Madame Wong still stood as still as she’d been before. Her eyes remained closed. She was nonplussed by what had just happened.
“I said sit. Breathe.”
“Well I was sitting and breathing.”
“No. Madame Wong also say ‘No do. No think.’ You thought.”
“Well yeah, I was thinking. It’s kinda’ hard not to think if you have a brain. I don’t exactly have a shut off switch for the thoughts.”
“Oh, you do. Find it. Until you find switch, Miss Emily face whatever mind imagines.”
“You’re saying that if I think about something, it will appear? Good or bad, it’s just going to show up?”
“That what Madame Wong say. Why Miss Emily need to repeat Madame Wong not know.”
“But I can’t control these thoughts. My mind wanders, and it often wanders to unpleasant things. Bad things that have happened or nightmares I’ve had.”
“Then Miss Emily in for rough time. Sit. Breathe. No do. No think.”
I whined at her. “But I can’t help it that thoughts come to me. Other thoughts came. Like I was thinking about Fanny and Jake, but they pop in for a visit. Why only bad things appear?”
“No difference, good or bad. Thoughts like birds in mind. Some fly in. Some fly out. Some stay at water hole to drink. Beware of birds that linger.”
I reflected on what Madame Wong had said and remembered that I had dwelled on Muriel for a while. My thoughts of her weren’t fleeting.
“Now, sit. Breathe. No do. No think,” commanded Madame Wong.
So I sat. Again. I breathed. Again. I tried not to dwell on any thought for very long. I let go. My mind wandered. I tried hard not to allow anything awful to come into my mind.
“If awful come, let it go.” Madame Wong’s voice sounded like it was coming to me from a far off place.
I got the rhythm of my breath. In. Out. I focused on my breath, repeating the words ‘in’ and ‘out’ in my mind in time with my breath.
The whoosh of my breath in and out, in and out reminded me of a sound from a memory. The whoosh, whoosh, whoosh got louder. It was no longer my own breath I heard but the sound that had haunted my dreams, both waking and sleeping, for seven long years.
Whoosh. Whoosh. That horrible sucking sound. Air being sucked in and pumped out.
I knew that sound. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I knew what I’d see, and it was my worst nightmare.
How many times do I have to see my mother die?
30. RIDING THE WAVES
If I’d had any sense about me, I would have kept my eyes closed and thought of something – anything – else. But it was like driving by a car wreck and looking even though I knew I’d see something gruesome.
I opened my eyes and I was in my mom’s hospital room. The last one. The one she died in.
My dad sat in a chair beside her bed. And on the other side of the bed was a little girl. Her long red hair looked unbrushed. Her eyes were wide open with fear and they sparkles with tears, but she looked completely focused on something. The room was silent except for that awful sound. What’s making that horrible sucking sound?
>
The machine that looked like a bellows pumped up and down. It was the source of that awful sound. The contraption was hooked up to the little girl’s mother by the tubes that ran into and out of the woman. The machine whooshed and pumped in a smooth rhythm. Below the bellows contraption was a clear plastic container that held a disgusting black, tarry substance. What is that tarry stuff coming out of the woman? Or is it being put in?
No kid should ever see her parent die. Yet there I was, reliving the nightmare again.
It was unbearable. The long seething wound deep within me was ripped open again. The horrid sight of the tar being sucked out of my mom. My dad, eyes red-rimmed, his face ashen gray. The little girl – my child self – focused on her mother’s station, picking up her frequency for the last time. And present through it all, that incredibly irritating sucking sound.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I rushed over to the machine and ripped at it like a mad person. “Stop sucking the life out of her!” I screamed at the machine as I knocked it over and pulled at the cords and wires.
“I won’t see this again!” I swung madly at the air, trying to make the ghosts go away.
I fell to the floor, the plastic tubing still gripped in my hands. I sobbed great, heaving sobs. I cried so hard that I thought I might drown in a river of tears.
I’m no warrior priestess. I’ll drown in my own tears before I have a chance to help anyone.
Warm arms wrapped around me. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear of what I’d see. The touch was small and soft yet unfamiliar.
I opened my eyes. Madame Wong’s arms were around me and she cradled me in her warmth. She was the last person I’d expected to comfort me. She’d stood as still as a statue for so long, I’d begun to think maybe that’s all she was. A statue. But her arms were substantial and warm around me.
I didn’t speak and relaxed into her arms. My wailing gave way to soft sobs. As I relaxed into her, I almost heard her voice in my head. Pictures began to form in my mind’s eye but they weren’t pictures from my own life. Without speaking any words out loud, Madame Wong spoke to me of her life. Within a few seconds, I understood that Madame Wong knew more about my suffering than anyone I’d ever known. The human part of her knew.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 14
