The Land of Yesterday

by K. A. Reynolds

  Cecelia thought her father would come running after that last explosion of noise, but her door remained shut. If her father didn’t come to her, she’d need to go to him.

  Cecelia bolted for the door.

  Her dresser slid in front, blocking her way.

  “No need to disturb him, Cecelia,” Widdendream growled, amused. “You don’t want him mad at you, too. Besides, I think you’ve disturbed his life enough already, don’t you?”

  Her chin quivered. She pushed her fists into her burning eyes. “I’m sorry I ruined everyone’s lives. I’m sorry I broke the banister and forgot to fix it. I’m sorry for making Celadon and Mother leave. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do!”

  A board ripped from the wall and flew a centimeter above her head. Surprised, her hair raised with the wrath of a thousand midnight-blue snakes.

  “My good, kind Mazarine,” Widdendream moaned, its voice getting farther and farther way. “Find a way to bring her home, Cecelia, or you will be a very sorry little Dahl.” A new crack formed in Cecelia’s wall. It opened ominously beneath her eyelike windows, lifting at the corners.

  Lightning struck over the lake. In the flash of electric light, Cecelia realized Widdendream was grinning. The sort of grin a dog makes before it bites.

  Chapter 4

  The Miraculously Magical Pen

  The walls shuddered briefly, then stilled. The poisonous-looking vines and inky-black rot retreated through the cracks. Cecelia’s pulse quickened and her hair flailed, crowding her neck. “Widdendream?”

  She thought she heard a creak upstairs, but after that, nothing. Even the sour scent had left her room. She felt terrible, being responsible for someone else’s darkness and pain as well as her own. Cecelia decided then and there: she would make a plan to get her mother back, for everyone’s sake.

  Right away, an idea took root. Cecelia removed her pen from her pocket, brushed remnants of plaster and dust from her desk, and sat. Then Cecelia remembered what her mother said as she gave her the remarkable pen: “This pen is a great gift, Cecelia. When combined with the ink of one’s heart, it becomes powerful enough to bring writer and reader together, like magic.”

  When combined with ink of the heart. She’d forgotten about that part. Maybe when I wrote Celadon’s letters I didn’t use the right kind of ink?

  “Okay, pen. I believed in you once. Now show me what I need to do to believe in you again.” Cecelia placed the pen on her desk. For a few moments, it just sat there doing nothing but being a pen. But then, quick as you please, it stood up by itself, unscrewed its cap, unplugged the cork on its inner canister that held its ink, and turned upside down on its head.

  Cecelia gasped. She’d never seen a pen do that before!

  Wide-eyed, she watched as pale-blue ink ran over her desktop and drained onto the floor. The color reminded her of tears.

  Tears.

  The ink of one’s heart.

  Tears were the answer.

  Cecelia picked up her empty pen and forced herself to imagine every pitiless memory haunting her: the thud in the dead of night, her brother at the base of the stairs, the looks of horror on her parents’ faces when they found his body, her mother leaving, Widdendream’s distress, her father’s sorrow, the weakling she had become. Then she resurrected all the times she talked down to Celadon, screamed at him while he was still alive—“Go away!” “I hate you!” “I wish I never had a brother!” She remembered her mother laughing, rainy days, and daisies. How the light in her father’s eyes went out when Celadon died, and how badly she wanted it back.

  The pain was monstrous, like a beast devouring her heart. But she forced herself to feel it and channeled that pain into her tears. Cecelia cried, harder than she ever had before, until her tears poured like a great flood. And when her worst, never-want-to-remember memories reached their climax, she held the inner canister of her pen to the corners of her eyes, siphoned each drop into the tube, and then put her pen back together.

  “This will work,” Cecelia said as her hair dried her cheeks. “I know it will. I will write Mother a letter with these, my saddest and sorriest tears, and somehow, combined with the magic of my pen, this letter will find her in the Land of Yesterday. Maybe then she’ll understand me and come home, and Widdendream will go back to being a friend.”

  Butterflies doing battle in her stomach, Cecelia opened her desk drawer. She removed a sheet of her best notepaper—shaped like a hot-air balloon and striped in a rainbow of color—and set her divine pen to page. She’d only written a handful of words when something within her changed.

  The room became so quiet, Cecelia thought she heard the creak of a rusty door. Not from somewhere within the house, but from somewhere inside her.

  The hairs on her neck stood on end.

  She hunched over and listened harder. Cecelia swore she heard the clang-clang-clang of a brass knocker ring out behind her belly button—the sort of knock that belonged on a door.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  Something inside her was different and she needed to know what it was. What if the magic she’d created by filling her pen with tears was inside her now and she needed to set it free?

  Like opening a door.

  Gooseflesh pinching her skin, Cecelia moved her chair back from her desk and gnawed the tips of her hair. Then, without thought of consequence, she picked up her pen of tears, and drew, in one continuous line over her gray-and-black-striped dress, a door, just above her belly button.

  The tears from Cecelia’s pen soaked through her dress and skin at once. Her middle tingled and cooled, then numbed. The space within the door’s borders thinned and stiffened and crinkled in a dreadfully paperish way.

  Cecelia swallowed hard, her mouth dry as thousand-year-old bones.

  “Is anything in there?”

  With one middle finger, Cecelia tapped the curious door. When she did, her dress, and skin beneath it, dimpled and scrunched. Quickly, she drew back her hand, but it being evil Tuesday, Cecelia was too late.

  The small door-sized piece of herself tore at the seams and opened, as if she was a three-dimensional paper doll. To Cecelia’s astonishment, right beneath her dress door, hung another. This door, bordered by natural skin, was the same midnight blue as her hair, and as strong and translucent as a jewel. Remarkably, her middle didn’t hurt a bit.

  My pen is magic.

  My pen is dangerous.

  Cecelia tapped on the inner door of herself.

  “Hello?”

  The second door opened in reply.

  Cecelia tried to see beyond her paper skin. A cool breeze billowed upward, scented with daisies, wind-dried linens, and the pages of old beloved books. Her unbuttoned sweater flapped like drapes. She anchored her hair and peered inside, as far into herself as possible. Behind the door, Cecelia found a miniature rusted lamp inside a tarnished Victorian birdcage. The bulb within her was as cold and dark as Widdendream, as if her light was broken, too.

  A lock clicked. Cecelia gasped. The cage door opened with a slow and eerie creeeak. White wisps of frozen breath puffed when she spoke. “Hello?”

  Cecelia waited for any reply.

  Chapter 5

  A Surprise from the Other Side

  Many books about magical rabbit holes existed, and Cecelia had read them all. Yet none regarding paper girls or internal cages and doors inside paper girls came to mind. She couldn’t be sure if her pen had created the lamppost and cage, or if they’d always been there. Did everyone who’d lost someone have a space like this inside, or was she the only one?

  Peering into the icy darkness of herself, Cecelia noticed a tiny midnight-blue circle of skin alongside the door of her middle, not there a moment earlier. She ran a finger over the blue spot.

  Paper.

  Oh souls. Her paperness had spread. Just a little, but spread all the same.

  Maybe using such a powerful tool as a miraculous tear-filled pen on herself
wasn’t such a great idea.

  “Hello?” she asked again.

  Cecelia received no reply. The only sound was the crinkling scrunch of her paper middle until the doors of herself slammed shut, and the ripped edges of her dress stitched together as if they’d never been torn.

  Cecelia poked her middle, hoping she’d magically turned back to normal. But her dress, and the skin beneath it, remained as papered as ever. She listened at the door of herself a while longer, but heard nothing more.

  Twisting a strand of her restless tresses, Cecelia considered calling out to her father. He could push the heavy dresser away from her door (if Widdendream let him). Also, as an inventor, maybe he’d know how to fix her paperness. But what would she say? She’d already caused so much trouble. What if he yelled at her for waking him, tired as he was? He might be the last person who loved her. She didn’t want to drive him away, too.

  She’d have to figure out her predicaments on her own.

  “What would you do?” she asked the Joan of Arc action figure poised on her desk. “Any explorer worth her weight in adventure has to be built to last. If my paperness spreads and I crisp and dry, I’ll never see Mother again, and Father will end up alone with angry Widdendream.” Cecelia shook her head. “That is unacceptable.”

  She had to get her mother back.

  Setting her jaw, Cecelia picked up her absolutely miraculous pen. Her only hope rested upon it and her tears, and the letter she’d write to her mother reaching the Land of Yesterday. Cecelia closed her eyes and tried to imagine the dreaded land. Legends claimed Yesterday wasn’t a globe at all, but an enormous flat wasteland of black sands and skies, lost things and ghosts, hidden somewhere in deep space. Some said a haunted galaxy brimming with wormholes surrounded it. Others insisted the flip side of the black desert held the enchanted Sea of Tears—where every tear ever spent by every being ever born pooled in waters of lilac and gold beneath skies of crimson and tangerine. Lady and Lord Arnot of the Isle of Dragons maintained in their book, Tales of Darkness and Light, to have met the fierce Sea Captain who guarded the waters himself. If this legend of the Sea of Tears proved true, Cecelia’s letter might reach Yesterday after all.

  Finally, in a frenzy of feelings and words, Cecelia scratched her tears to page. She begged her mother’s forgiveness and that she’d come home. Cecelia asked her mother why she left and why she didn’t love her anymore and why she was so easy to leave. Cecelia wrote I’m sorry a million times. So consumed was Cecelia in the letter to her mother, she blocked out every sight and sound, every thought and worry, leaving just her and the outpouring of words. And in one final burst of energy, Cecelia signed her name and folded the letter into its envelope, done.

  “Okay, Mother, you knew this pen was miraculous, and I believe my tears are the same.” Cecelia stood, still focused on the envelope, and allowed a small grin of hope. “I wrote this letter for you. Now, if you love me, catch it!” On instinct, she tossed her letter high. It hit the ceiling and went straight through, blipping out of sight.

  Magic.

  Just as Cecelia opened her mouth to cheer, her letter reappeared. It plunged back through the ceiling and zigzagged in slow arcs to the floor. A small moan ran away with her smile. Her hair nuzzled her neck and wrapped her in a hug. “I don’t understand.”

  Cecelia had felt certain that if she threw the special letter, her mother would catch it. It seemed logical that if a girl could turn into paper, and a pen could perform miracles, a letter of tears could reach the Land of Yesterday. Maybe, she thought determinedly, I’ll have to deliver the letter to Mother myself.

  While Cecelia retrieved her unanswered letter, a bolt of lightning struck outside. Her bedroom flashed white, illuminating her surroundings. She cast long, brow-furrowed gazes around her room. Cecelia’s eyes popped wide as she realized what was wrong.

  Oh souls.

  Her sorrow had spread.

  Cecelia’s bedroom walls and shelves had become parchment thin. Her music box collection and every knickknack she owned had crisped and flattened into fancy rectangles of colorful origami. The desk she wrote on turned into hard black poster board. Her circular rug went from braided wool to elaborately woven cardboard. Her curtains, once gauzy and light, now hung at her windows in sheets of creased gray newsprint. She pressed a hand to her bed; it crackled like ice that froze too fast and made itself into paper. Each dress and shoe, figurine and stuffed toy, everything had turned to paper. But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

  She turned her letter over in her hands. Curiously, the envelope had transformed as well. It was now transparent, like tears.

  Observing this odd new letter, she felt a sunny warmth fill her cage. A faint glow of pale-yellow light seeped through her paper skin and dress, and out into her bedroom.

  My lantern, she thought. It is lit.

  A sudden gust of arctic winds scourged toward her. Her newspaper curtains rustled sideways. Cecelia froze.

  Mist in the shape of a person caught her eye across the room.

  “No.”

  Cecelia held her breath, watching the impossible shape emerge through the wall.

  “It can’t be.”

  Her spine tingled and knees became weak.

  “Are you . . . real?”

  The last time she’d seen him, he had been lying in a coffin lined with immaculate white silk. He hadn’t looked like himself; he had been wearing a suit; his hair had been neatly combed and his eyes closed; his smile had been stolen permanently. Cecelia’s tears had landed on his artificially rouged cheeks. When she wiped them away, his chilled skin stabbed an icicle into her heart and she had been cold ever since.

  “I’m as real as you are, Cee-Cee,” the dark-haired boy with the hint of a smile replied. He stopped an arm’s length away.

  The air temperature dropped several degrees.

  Delicately, afraid she would break the spell, Cecelia touched his cheek. The lantern within her sparked and glowed in a spray of yellow and gold. The sudden warmth surging through her felt like coming back to life.

  “Celadon,” Cecelia whispered. “You’re home.”

  Chapter 6

  A Ghost with Pale-Green Eyes

  Shaking with disbelief and nervous excitement, Cecelia blinked in stunned silence at her ghost brother. The boy who died because of her, whose death left a permanent hole in her family, had come home.

  Celadon hovered above the floor in front of her. He looked almost as she remembered him: black hair, bronzed skin as dark as her own, and the loveliest pale-green eyes. Though he did seem older. The whole of him, including the suit and basketball shoes their parents had buried him in, glowed in a misty shade the same as his irises.

  She’d imagined this moment at least a zillion times and had written him as many letters, pouring out her sorry heart for her role on that nefarious day. And now here they stood: one girl with papering skin, and one ghost of a boy. Suddenly, Cecelia didn’t know what to say.

  When she placed her hands on her brother’s cheeks, they didn’t go all the way through; his body held the texture of cotton candy and the bite of Hungrig snow. Her hair reached out to his, and lovingly ruffled the cool dark waves. Celadon laughed. Cecelia asked again, her mind not ready to believe, “Celadon, is it really you?”

  “It’s really me.” A cockeyed smile she never thought she’d see again rose on his vaporous face. “I’m kind of a ghost. But I’m still kind of me, too.”

  “Oh, how I’ve missed you!” She pulled him into a fierce hug. A barb of guilt washed over her at feeling the realness and impossibleness of him. Yet no tears came. “I didn’t want you to leave me.”

  Pulling away, Celadon patted the space over his heart. “I’m never all-the-way gone, Cee-Cee. No matter where I am, I’m never far from you.”

  Chin wobbling, Cecelia grinned and couldn’t stop. “How did you get here? Have you come from the Land of Yesterday? Have you seen Mother? Is she with you?” Cecelia stepped back and grabbed hi
s hands. She never wanted to let go.

  “None of that matters right now,” Celadon answered with the seriousness of an adult. “I don’t have much time here.”

  Cecelia’s hair drooped. “What do you mean? You can’t leave already—you just got home.”

  Celadon started to say something, when a door banged shut upstairs.

  Maybe Father was awake? Cecelia wondered if he’d be able to see Celadon’s ghost, too. If he could, that might convince him to accompany her to Yesterday. Then she and her father could bring Mother home together.

  Celadon whispered into his sister’s ear, “I’ve come to warn you. You’re heading for a world of trouble.”

  Her hair curled around her shoulders like a sleek blue fox. Cecelia whispered back, “Is this about Widdendream?”

  “Widdendream?” Celadon grew even paler and seemed lost in deep thought.

  “Or is this about Mother and the letter I wrote her? Did she read it? Does this mean she’s coming home?”

  “Cee-Cee, please, just listen, okay? This is important, and I would’ve come sooner to tell you, but the land of the living is forbidden to the ghosts of Yesterday!”

  Cecelia had never heard her little brother shout before. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  Celadon’s eyes grew so intense she thought she’d drown in their icy-green glimmer. “After I caught—”

  “After you caught my letter?” Cecelia clasped her hands at her chest. “You found it. That’s why it returned so strange-looking. You caught it and then came to guide me to the Land of Yesterday so I could give the letter to Mother myself!” Cecelia and her hair hugged Celadon so tightly, his body squished like a marshmallow and his eyes bugged out of his head. Her paperish middle scrunched.