by Cameron Jace
“I was just kidding,” Babushka killed the cigarette in the palm of her hand. It produced a funny odor that made Carmen cough a little. “You can call me mom all you want. After all, I am your mom, and you’re my little Loco.”
“Please don’t call me Loco. And by the way, what made you remember you actually had a son, Babushka?” Loki asked her, but she disappeared suddenly from the backseat and popped up next to him in the passenger seat.
He didn’t know why, but she freaked him out.
Relax, Loki. It’s just your mom.
“Wombles!” Loki banged his hands against the wheel. He didn’t know why, but wombles was the only word he used when he wanted to swear in his mom’s presence. “You can’t freakin’ sneak up on me like that, mom.”
Babushka teased him, tickling him under his chin before she swooshed, disappearing into the backseat again.
“Did I scare you, Loki?” she leaned forward, looking happy that she had.
Loki didn’t blame her. He knew that scaring him was an act of affection, more like cuddling to her. Even if it freaked him out, he knew she loved him dearly, and it wasn’t her fault she died and became a ghost—he had asked her once how she’d became one, and she told him she died trying to save a kid who was about to be hit by a truck while crossing the street. She saved the kid who crossed the street safely, and the truck ran her over instead, so she crossed a little too far to the other side.
“Not at all” Loki tightened his lips and pretended she didn’t scare him.
“Really? I didn’t?” Babushka was sad, leaning back. “I’m a terrible ghost,” she said, and Loki wondered if she thought she was a terrible mom as well. ”I don’t know what happened to me. I used to scare the bubblegums out of people. Now, I can’t even scare the residents of the haunted house I live in,” Babushka started sobbing. “I’m such a failure. I can’t even walk through walls.”
Loki felt sad for her, but he didn’t know what to do.
“Come, on, mom,” Loki said. “Don’t be like that. You’re an awesome ghost. You’re very scary. I get nightmares when I think of you,” it wasn’t true. He wished she was around all the time.
“Really?” Babushka leaned forward. “You do? Tell me how much I scare you? Does this scare you?” she turned her face into some gruesome kind of monster that resembled Cerberus, guard dog of Hades. Loki thought she looked laughable. However, he screamed, pretending he was scared. He felt silly lying, but if it pleased his mom, he didn’t mind.
“See?” Loki said. “You’re very scary.”
“That’s such great news,” Babushka said. “I’m going to leave now so I can go scare the residents of the house I live in.”
“Wait,” Loki waved his hand, looking at her in the mirror. “Did you just visit me to see if you’re scary? What was that all about?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Babushka pulled out something that looked like a stake, only it had a surface that resembled thin snakes spiraling around it. “Take this.”
Loki took the mysterious item and looked at it. “What’s this?”
“It’s an Alicorn,” Babushka said.
“What’s an Alicorn?”
“A rare unicorn’s horn,” Babushka said. “There are very few of them in the world.”
“From a real unicorn?” Loki didn’t know they really existed.
“Very real,” she said.
Loki wanted to keep his eyes on the road but couldn’t take his eyes off the white Alicorn. “Seriously? A unicorn’s horn? Does that mean someone cut if off a unicorn? That’s horrible.”
“You’re asking the wrong questions, Loki. If I were you I’d wonder why I gave it to you.”
“OK. Why did you give it to me?” Again, Loki hated beating around the bush. Why couldn’t she just tell him what it was for?
“It’s a stake, and it’s one of a kind,” Babushka said. “You see that spiral surface around it? It helps you drill into a vampire’s heart; it turns into a snake, a whip, and sometimes a sword. This Alicorn has been enchanted so it can kill the strongest of demons, Loki. Don’t ever let it out of your sight. Keep it within reach at all times.”
“So you know that I am going to Sorrow to kill that Snow White vampire,” Loki said. “How do you know that?”
“I’m your mother,” she slapped him on the back of his hand and he almost dropped the Alicorn. “Mom’s know everything.”
“Ouch, mom,” Loki arched his back.
“Focus, Loki,” she said. “I’m giving you a precious weapon that chooses its master, and I am hoping you can make it choose you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It chooses the master who deserves its powers.”
“That’s kinda lame, mom,” Loki said. “I admit it looks awesome, and I want to believe that it’s actually a unicorn’s horn, but all that mumbo jumbo about choosing its master is so clichéd.”
“Then give it back,” she reached for it.
“Wait,” Loki pulled the Alicorn away from her. “OK. I get it. I have to be worthy of the unicorn it came from to use it to kill that vicious vampire in Sorrow. Truth is; I need anything that will help me overcome my fears, especially this one. What do I have to do to get the Alicorn to choose me?”
“First, there is spell that makes it work,” Babushka said. “You gaze at it with determination, and say, ‘Ora Pedora’.”
It was a mystery to Loki why the things had to be so complicated. If the Alicorn was magical, why did controlling it have to be so hard?
“Ora Pedora—“Loki started saying.
“The spell won’t work unless you fulfill the second condition,” Babushka said.
“Which is?”
“You have to believe in the Chanta,” said Babushka sternly.
“Chanta?”
“The Chanta, Loki,” she reached with her skeleton hand over his heart. “It used to be called the Enchanta, but Chanta sounds easier.”
Loki thought it was a bit odd that a dead mother talked to him about using the Chanta, which seemed to have to do something with his heart.
“The Chanta is the unseen power of hearts that enchants us all. It’s the secret of wills and the conjurer of miracles,” Babushka elaborated, reminding him of the way Charmwill used to talk to him. “It’s the human power that science can’t explain. No one can prove it exists, but we all know it’s there.”
“English, please?”
Babushka leaned forward again. She neared his right ear then whispered, “If you believe, I mean truly believe and desire something with a true heart, the Chanta coaxes the whole universe to conspire with you and help you get what you want.”
“The whole universe? Even Forks, Seattle?” Loki wondered; trying to neglect the fact that if the world did conspire to do something, then it was making sure his life in the Ordinary World was miserable. Still, he hoped his mother’s words were true. Wouldn’t it be amazing if he desired something and the world conspired to help him achieve it?
“The whole world is on your side, Loki,” she whispered in his ear. “All you need is to follow your bliss and the world will walk in your footsteps.”
“Did you talk to Charmwill lately?”
“Stop asking silly questions and ask the right ones,” Babushka scowled.
“Right ones, like how am I supposed to follow this bliss you’re talking about?”
“When you learn to care for others the way you care for yourself,” Babushka sounded serious for a ghost who scared others.
“I don’t want to care for someone else. Why should I care for any of those Minikins?”
“I don’t know, Loki, but I think you keep saying these things despite what you truly feel in your heart. I can’t imagine you walking away from helping someone in need.”
“Well, if it’s a helpless animal that Minikins keep hurting, I agree, but none of those Minikins deserve my help. This is not my world. It’s only temporary.”
“It’s your life, son. You will choose what’s right for
you. I’m telling you what I think is best for you,” Babushka said. “Just promise me you’ll always remember this conversation.”
“If the Council of Heaven doesn’t wipe it away from my memory, I promise you I will.”
“That’s my Loco. Now close your eyes, breathe deeply, and desire what you want,” she demanded. “Make sure it is what you really want before you say it.”
“I’m kinda driving, mom. I can’t close my eyes.”
“If you believe in the Chanta, you can.”
“Look, mom, I know you’re a ghost and that life isn’t precious to you anymore, but boys like me don’t close their eyes while driving. The Chanta can wait.”
When Loki looked back in the mirror, his mother was gone. Sometimes, when Babushka disappeared like that, Loki began to think that he didn’t really have a mother. Maybe, she was just a figment of his imagination that he’d invented to ease his loneliness in this Ordinary World.
But if he was hallucinating, what was the Alicorn doing next to him in the passenger seat? He reached for it to touch it and make sure it was real.
Loki kept staring at the Alicorn for a while, wondering how he’d make it choose him—and if all that hocus pocus was true.
“Ora Pedora,” Loki whispered to it as if trying to wake someone up.
Nothing happened; it was just a dead unicorn’s horn lying in the seat.
“Ora Pedora,” Loki raised his voice a little, the way you do when someone you are trying to wake doesn’t hear you the first time.
Still, nothing happened.
“Ora Pedora,” he straightened up his back and talked as if he were a wizard master in the sixteenth century.
Nothing.
“Crap,” Loki stopped messing with the Alicorn and began focusing on the dark road ahead.
Carmen had stopped playing music. He drummed the radio with the palm of his hand, but still no tunes came vibrating from the radio. It was as if the few people he talked to in this world, didn’t want to talk to him anymore, and he felt an eerie loneliness creeping up his spine.
Out of boredom, Loki pulled out Sesame, the fortune cookie. He put it on the dashboard and asked it where to go. He knew where he was going, but he needed Sesame to encourage him even more. He trusted it more than anything lately.
“Wait,” he said to Sesame. “That’s not the right question. My question is: Should I kill the vampire Snow White? Is that really what I need to do to go back home?” Loki asked and crushed Sesame open.
The gummy paper read: Kill Snow White.
Loki took the paper and started chewing it. It tasted of vanilla. A bit sour, though.
Suddenly, Carmen’s radio came back to life. The presenter in the radio introduced a band called the Pumpkin Warriors. They sang a tune called ‘Nothing is going to stop us now.’ The lyrics went something like this:
We will hit the road together,
Together and forever,
Nothing’s going to stop us now.
And that was it. The same three sentences over and over again. The music was uplifting and cheerful, though. Loki thought the Pumpkin Warriors were much better than the Sweet Pickleheads or the Piedpipers. He started tapping his fingers on the wheel again and singing along.
A few miles later, a cold chill filled the air outside, and a fog began crawling like sneaky ghosts above the ground. The fog was thickening, covering the Cadillac and the road ahead.
Loki saw a wooden sign on the right side of the road. He arched his back and squinted at it, afraid to miss it due to the thick-as-pea-soup fog. The sign read:
Welcome to Hell
Only a few more miles to Sorrow
5
The Train of Consequences
Loki rolled down the windows and locked the doors as the Pumpkin Warriors announced they’d stop playing for the night. They said it was becoming too cold and foggy for their liking, but that they’d come back later when it warmed up a bit.
“See ya later, Loki,” one of them said from the radio.
Loki wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t the first time a member of one of the bands that played on Carmen’s radio had talked to him. He just wanted to focus on the road ahead.
The foggy surroundings oozed with creepy anticipation like a dark ride in an abandoned amusement park. Loki expected something to pop out of the fog at any moment.
“If you think you should go back, now would be the time,” one of the Pumpkin Warriors’ members told Loki. “It looks like there is no turning back from here.”
Loki slammed the on/off button of the radio with the palm of his hand. “The last thing I need is advice from the dead,” he mumbled.
“Ouch,” the band members said before the radio’s light dimmed into darkness.
Loki drove on, reminding himself that he was a Dreamhunter, and that he should be brave.
A minute later, something glittered in the fog.
It was huge gate, blocking the road. Loki stopped the Cadillac, wiping the sultry fog off the window with his hand. The gate was the shape of a whale’s mouth with what looked like vampire fangs drawn out.
Loki supposed it was the way to cross over to Sorrow. He wondered how such an expensive looking gate existed in the middle of nowhere.
A figure shrouded in the shadows appeared from behind the gate, as if it had just passed through like a ghost. It was approaching Loki.
The figure was of a hunched man in a black tuxedo, wearing what looked like a magician’s hat. He looked like a twisted version of a circus ringmaster, and he stopped in front of the Cadillac.
Although Loki couldn’t see the hunchback’s face clearly through the fog, he noticed a silver tooth, gleaming in the dark. Loki supposed the dwarf-like man was smiling at him, but he wondered which kind of smile it was. There were smiles, and then there were smiles—the latter were the worst. Loki tucked his Alicorn in the back of his jeans and walked out to meet the bizarre, hunchbacked man.
“Excuse me, is this the way to Sorrow?” he pointed at the gate.
“It depends,” the hunchback said, resting with his hands on his cane.
“Depends on what?” Loki asked politely.
“On how much you desire going there,” the hunchback said.
“Very much,” Loki plastered his two-time-academy-award-winning-smile on his face.
“How much is very much?” the hunchback said, his sound implying mockery.
Loki wasn’t going to answer that. Things were getting absurd, and he just wanted to cross over. “I haven’t caught your name,” he offered, diverting from the silly conversation.
“My name is Magnificent,” his silver tooth gleamed, “Igor, the Magnificent.”
“Oh,” Loki said. “You’re the one who called me to come to Sorrow—“
“I know who I am,” Igor snickered. “The question, is do you know who you are?”
Loki said nothing. It was an unsettling question.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Igor said. “What you need to know is that if it’s your first time coming to Sorrow, then this whale’s mouth is the only way in.”
“Is that some kind of a special treatment for those who enter for the first time?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds magnificent,” Loki said. “So could you open it then?”
“I could, but there’s a slight problem,” Igor said. “The gate doesn’t lead straight to Sorrow. It leads to the Missing Mile, which then leads to Sorrow.”
“The Missing Mile?” Loki wondered. “Interesting name, is there a reason for it?”
“Many, actually,” Igor said. “One of them is that it is really a Missing Mile that few people know about,” Igor snickered again. “Another reason is that everyone who finds the Missing Mile usually goes missing.”
“Are you saying that in order to enter Sorrow, I have to cross the Missing Mile, which sounds like it’s impossible to cross?”
“Not impossible, only dangerous,” Igor lifted a finger in the air. Hi
s hand was crooked enough that Loki wasn’t sure if it was a forefinger, middle finger, or even a thumb. “The only way to cross the Missing Mile is to ride the Train of Consequences,” Igor pointed his cane at the gate like a magician showing kids into a candy store. A tray of flashy lights shone behind the gate which had just opened on its own. Spirals of green smoke foamed from under a sparkling train. It looked like a huge piece of diamond. The scene with the creepy man, gate and the train with its flashy lights and green smoke reminded Loki of a ridiculous Broadway show he’d seen on TV.
The whale’s mouth was actually a train station. The train’s windows were all foggy, and Loki wondered if there were any passengers inside.
“The Train of Consequences,” Loki rubbed his chin.
“If I were you, I’d get on the train right away before you change your mind,” Igor said. “The Train of Consequences runs with the power of your intentions, and I’m getting a hesitant vibe about yours.”
“Are you saying that its fuel is my desire to go farther?” Although Loki was annoyed by Igor, he found the idea of the train interesting.
Igor nodded.
“So what happens if my intentions weaken halfway to Sorrow?” Loki asked.
“The train slows down or even stops,” Igor said. “And trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to be stuck in the Missing Mile.”
“What about my Cadillac? How will it cross over with me?”
“Do you have to have your Cadillac with you?”
“We’re kinda dating,” Loki patted Carmen’s roof gently.
“There is a ramp you can use at the end of the train. You can drive it in with the rest of the cargo.”
“Sounds good,” Loki said. He got in his Cadillac and drove through the gate then up the ramp at the end of the train, and parked Carmen inside.
