The Hidden Worlds

by Sandra Ingerman

  “I don’t feel safe here,” Magda said. “It only makes sense the man thinks we’re from the middle school. What if he comes through the gate looking for us? And my soccer team is wondering where I’m going every lunch. I’ll be back.” She took off running toward the gate.

  As Isaiah watched her piling rocks on this side of the gate, he thought, Magda would be missed by her friends while the rest of us wouldn’t be. When she returned, he said, “I think we need to ask our power animals this weekend in our dreams what we should do.”

  “We also have to finish our individual animal research so we can start the PowerPoint on Monday,” Magda added. “Hash tag homework.”

  Isaiah thought it felt strange to have her mix school with what they were doing here.

  The others looked at her and nodded.

  “Our animals know a lot about living a good life,” George said. “I think they might have special powers to fix this.”

  “Without us getting in trouble,” Rose added, picking at her purple nail polish on her pinkie finger.

  “Right now I think we should bury these birds,” Isaiah said taking some gloves from his pocket. “Let’s use sticks to make a hole in the earth.”

  “Before we move anything, we have to document our evidence,” George said, phone in hand. He took a close-up of a blackbird.

  “Great thinking, George,” Magda said, pulling out her phone. “We need to be sure the school is in some of the pictures of the area and the warehouse too.”

  “And we need pictures of the pond to prove it existed,” Rose insisted.

  “Rose, you do great diagrams,” George said. “Will you sketch the area and label where everything is? Here’s my log book where I’ve been listing the dates and the things that have happened.”

  Rose took the notebook and leafed through it. She noticed that he’d taped in the diagram she had drawn of the barrel operation. “George, this is brilliant! What made you think of it?”

  “I told you I want to be a scientist. Scientists keep log books. Rose, here’s my dad’s tape measure.”

  While George and Rose worked making measurements to place on the diagram, Magda took pictures. Isaiah went to work with a long stick scrapping out a giant hole next to the cottonwoods. Soon Magda came to help him which made the hole deepen more quickly.

  Diagram complete, Rose laid a large trash bag on the ground, and she and George began placing dead birds on it. When it was full, they pulled it to the hole and slid the birds gently into their grave. A cloud covered the sun. Magda and Isaiah brought another group. The silence was profound. No birds were calling. No wind. Quiet stillness for six loads of dead birds. Isaiah brought the one with the eagle feather covering it to place last in the hole. As they looked down at the heap of dead blackbirds, the sun came out again, and Eagle flew over, his shadow stroking the burial site.

  “There were 109 dead birds.” Rose broke the silence. “109! Those stupid idiots!”

  “I’ve got it documented. 109.” George said. “I’ve also collected some of the pond water for science. Don’t worry, Rose. I won’t tell specifically where it came from.”

  “What if the toxins in it blow up the science lab?” Magda asked.

  “I’ll be careful,” George said, dropping it into a plastic bag.

  They covered the birds with leaves, pinecones and needles and placed a cairn of rocks on the spot. A tombstone. George measured the distances from the trees beside the pit and wrote them in his log book. “In case we need to dig them up later.”

  The four stood in silence again until the bell sounded on the other side of the cottonwoods. In the distance, a black Labrador watched them.

  Isaiah noticed tree branches swept against them as the kids slipped back into the school yard. Kind of like a pat on the back, he thought.

  That afternoon, their science teacher announced they’d be doing the water tests today. “Part of your lab work will be deciding if we are looking at a physical reaction or a chemical reaction. Okay, in our area, we have to watch for high levels of nitrates in the water from the fertilizers used in farming. Drinking water high in nitrates can interfere with your red blood cells’ ability to transport oxygen. This is especially harmful to infants.

  “If you brought tap water from your house that is on the city water system, raise your hand. Okay. That’s a majority. The nitrate level in city water is regulated and monitored, so we will just check your water against the report they published. Use these test strips.

  “If you brought a sample from home and are on well water, raise your hand please,” their teacher said. Seven students had their hands up. “We’ll also be checking that water for nitrate levels. The kits for that are on the cart. Does anyone have a sample that is from something other than home?”

  George alone raised his hand, and Rose choked. “I found this in a pond,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll find nitrates in it.”

  “Great,” the teacher said. “We probably will because of run-off, but we’ll see. We will be sending that sample out to a professional lab to be checked for other chemicals as well. It’ll take about ten days. Put it up here on my desk. Okay everyone, partner up and get your supplies.”

  As he passed George, Isaiah heard Rose say to him, “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

  Chapter 12

  Advice

  In the Friday night dream, Eagle brought the kids to their power animals around a fire again. This time it was on a canyon floor, and they were surrounded by smooth rock walls that rose all the way to the stars. Looking up was like viewing the sky through a telescope.

  “So,” George said, “chain reactions. The toxic waste put into the water killed the fish.”

  “And this will hurt the bears and raccoons who eat the fish,” cried Rose.

  “Exactly,” nodded George. “Everything affects everything else.”

  “Burning those pellets,” said Rose, “made Isaiah’s asthma bad and most likely isn’t good for anyone’s lungs.”

  “Did eating those pellets kill the birds?” Magda asked.

  George sighed. “Those men were probably burning them to dispose of them, spilling them all over the ground, and the birds thought they were food.”

  “So what do we do now?” Rose asked. “It has already been a whole week!”

  Isaiah was lying on his back, looking up at the stars. He loved watching them blink and flash. He noticed there seemed to be a bridge of light linking one side of the canyon with the other. “Look at how the stars connect both rock walls,” he whispered.

  “Let’s go cross that bridge,” Rose said, rising up on Giraffe’s back.

  Magda and Panther were already halfway across the bridge of stars when the others got there. “This is so cool,” she said. “Come on!”

  Rose stopped beside Magda. “Look,” she said.

  Isaiah followed her pointing finger.

  Across the dark sky, letters appeared to form out of the stars. “Follow the ancient ways,” they said.

  “What does that mean?” Isaiah asked.

  George said, “The ancient people had abilities that modern science cannot explain like how they lifted the final blocks into the pyramids or cut the crop circles so perfectly without being able to see them from above.”

  “So does this mean that ancient people would know how to get rid of these toxins that weren’t even invented when they were around?” Magda asked.

  “It probably means they had a way of accessing information that we need to find out about,” George said.

  Magda said, “I just wish there was some way to get advice from our animals during the day. It’s hard having to wait to go to sleep every night before we are in touch, although I do feel Panther with me all the time.” She patted Panther.

  “Hey!” Isaiah said as Magda’s question nudged something to land solidly in his mind. “That’s it! We’re waiting to meet in our dreams to go places to learn things. What if there’s a way to speak to our animals in the mi
ddle of the day?”

  He felt a grizzly hugging him.

  “I think we can,” Rose said, “I’ve heard about a technique ancient peoples used to talk to plants to find out how to use them or to travel ahead to find out what weather was coming toward them.”

  Isaiah felt excitement rising in him. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Can everyone meet at the pond?” His mother was working so he’d be free to go without questions. “I bet we can figure this out,” Isaiah said.

  “I have soccer practice in the morning, but afternoon works for me,” Magda said.

  The others were available in the afternoon too, so the plan was set.

  “It’s called a shamanic journey,” George said, pointing to the new arrangement of stars.

  Chapter 13

  Journeying

  “I had the whole morning to look on the Internet about what we’re trying to do,” George said. “This ancient shamanic practice called journeying, well, people still do it. I found a website that had instructions.”

  “Do your instructions look like this?” Isaiah asked, showing George a printout of what he had found on the Internet. The boys laughed. They had been on the same website.

  “As they say, great minds think alike!” Isaiah said as he high-fived George.

  Isaiah read from his notes: “Many enter into the Hidden Worlds through dreams, but there is a way to enter these worlds via performing a special ceremony called journeying.”

  “When you journey into the Hidden Worlds, you travel outside of time where all the spirits (for example: animals, birds, insects, reptiles, plants, trees, and rocks) who want to help can speak to you, advise you, and teach you,” Isaiah read. “Hey! We’ve already spoken to Jeremiah, Wind and Fire in our dreams, and they all helped us.”

  “And we have our own power animals,” Magda said.

  “And Eagle who leads us places,” Rose added.

  “Right!” Isaiah continued, “Once upon a time all humankind could see and communicate with these spirits. Then when science became strong, people started trusting only what they could see with their eyes, feel with their hands, hear with their ears, and smell and taste physically. A veil formed between the worlds.

  “Soon only special people called shamans could see and speak with the spirits. And they became the people who could help their communities in working with the invisible helping-spirits.”

  The others listened carefully as Isaiah continued, “In the Hidden Worlds there are three levels: the Lower World, the Middle World, and the Upper World. The Middle World is where we live. The Lower World has forests, jungles, oceans, beaches, and deserts. All the landscapes we have in our world exist there. The Upper World is the place of the sky. In either world, there are many landscapes to travel to and many helping-spirits in many forms.”

  “This is interesting,” George said. “If these worlds exist outside of time and space, we aren’t on the clock when we visit Lower World or Upper World. ‘Being there for a few minutes could seem like hours and days in the Hidden Realms.’ That makes total sense because it seemed like our visit to Jeremiah took all night—but it probably didn’t since people dream a lot in one night.”

  “I think all we have to do is close our eyes and go into our imagination,” Isaiah said. “It should work.” He kept reading. “When you journey, you should set an intention or have a guiding question. I guess we all know what that is,” he said to the group. “What is our next step with the warehouse situation?”

  George nodded and continued, “To get to Lower World, you must travel down. To do this, locate a way to go deeper into the earth (for example: through a hole, a tree trunk, a cave, a volcano, or a body of water you can swim through). Well, we already know we can make our bodies smaller to go into these openings since in these dreams our bodies don’t have limitations.”

  “I think we need to take our Power Animals with us,” Magda said.

  “Great idea,” said Isaiah. “I want to try going down through water like George did with Jeremiah. I’m going to imagine my reflection on the surface of the water and then dive through it.”

  “Water’s very cool,” George assured him. “because you can breathe in the water as you move through it. Your asthma won’t be a problem.”

  “I’m going through some tree roots I saw once on a camping trip. They were all twisty and you could see a tiny opening at the base of the pine tree,” Magda said. She waved, called to Panther, and closed her eyes to enter the tunnel.

  “I want to try a cave,” George said.

  “I’m diving into a volcano,” Rose said. “I’m off to Lower World to find out our next step!”

  Isaiah lay back on the ground, closed his eyes, and imagined himself diving into a large, clear lake. Grizzly was right beside him.

  Chapter 14

  Lower World Travels

  The four of them and their animals met up in a meadow filled with tall, green grass and wild flowers of blue, yellow, and pink. The flowers were waving, welcoming them.

  “So this is Lower World,” Isaiah said looking around.

  “How do you like the water?” George asked.

  “I could breathe in it just like you said, George. I asked how, and the water told me that it is a living being too. Babies breathe in water before they’re born so it makes sense. It was cleansing and purifying me while I swam. It told me I should honor water whenever I take a bath or drink it. It talked to me in my head, and I could hear it! Just like Rose hears.”

  “Very cool! I guess the water didn’t have time to teach me all of that when I was with Jeremiah turning off the valve,” George said.

  “Probably not,” Isaiah agreed. “What happened to you on your way here?”

  “A beautiful woman who was dressed in this long, green gown came out of the cave. Emerald light was shining through her. She said she was the spirit of earth,” George said.

  “Did she say anything else?” Isaiah asked George.

  “She had me think a thought, any thought. So I thought about how lucky I was to be traveling through a cave to Lower World. The second I thought it, I saw my words ripple through this shimmering web touching everything connected to it. Words sure have a lot of power. I really need to be careful about what I think and say.”

  “That’s true!” Magda said. “When I came out of the long tunnel of tree roots, I talked to some spirits too. I actually saw them come out of the rocks where they live. They were elves, gnomes, and fairies. I used to think they were make-believe, but today I saw them! I was able to see like all of you do! They welcomed me to their earth garden and told me that they take care of the earth. They said speaking words is like planting seeds. Something grows out of every word we speak. Our lives are like gardens, and we get to choose what grows in them based on the words we plant.”

  “I just wonder what the gardens look like for those men killing the fish?” Rose muttered.

  “Good question,” Isaiah agreed. “Did you talk to anyone, Rose?”

  “I talked to Volcano,” she said, “about how some see her as destructive, but she’s always clearing things so change can happen. We talked about how anger erupts like a volcano and how it can destroy or be a force for change. Giraffe told me that I can learn to channel my anger into doing good things like stopping the poisons from killing the birds and fish.”

  Isaiah nodded. “We’ve each received important information. Let’s go back and talk about it. Retrace your exact steps that you took getting here. I’ll go back through the water. George re-enter your cave. Rose, you go back through the volcano and Magda through the tree roots.”

  As if on cue, the animals lifted them and like a flash moving outside of time, they were magically transported back the way they’d come.

  Chapter 15

  Ideas

  “Okay, so one idea is that we need to honor the water by getting it cleaned up so it can continue its important healing work,” Isaiah said.

  “And we need to watch our thinking about the situation
so we don’t make it worse,” said George.

  Magda added, “Yeah, we need to plant seeds of hope, seeds of knowing that all of this damage can be fixed.”

  Rose said, “Well, I’m mad enough about it that if I just send a little of my anger into fixing it, it’ll help a lot.” She laughed, and her magenta hair and nails (today’s colors) seemed to vibrate.

  “So we know what needs to happen. Any ideas for where to start?” Isaiah asked.

  “We’ve already got a water specimen being tested in a professional lab,” George reminded them. He looked at Rose.

  “My mom’s on the city council,” Magda contributed.

  “I forgot about that!” George shouted.

  “Me too,” Isaiah said. “We could tell your mom.”

  “Or we could ask her if we can speak to the whole group,” Magda added.

  “I think we still need more facts before we tell any adults,” Rose said. “We have to make a detailed plan, including what we know for certain and how we know it. George’s log book is a super start, but we need to gather more information. Most important though, we need to be sure we’re not incriminating ourselves.”

  “One of my sisters is on the youth city council,” George said. “Maybe we should ask her or some other high school kids to help us.”

  “Whatever we decide, we need to act fast,” Rose reminded them. “It won’t take long for them to discover the valve has been turned off. Like I said before, it’s already been a week!”

  “This week they might plow the pond under,” Magda said. She slapped her forehead. “We could tell my Uncle Robb what those men are doing.”

  “What if the dumping was his idea?” George asked. “It’s very expensive to clean up poison. When he’s not talking sports, my dad talks about the bottom line and how important it is to make the big bucks.”

  “We don’t know who’s involved, so we have to be very careful,” Isaiah said. “Hey, do you see that black lab out there? It’s like he’s watching us. He might be the same one I saw at the warehouse.”