Seven Trees of Stone

by Leo Hunt

  “OK,” Mum says, smiling. “Do good things today. You’re a special person.”

  Elza’s car is black, of course, and reminds me of a frightened horse, jolting and bolting whenever she tries to slow down or start it up. Still, she adores it, which is what matters, I suppose. We leave Dunbarrow behind us and drive through high moorland roads and then down to the coast. I can see the ocean shining in the sunlight as we crest a hill, crinkled with tiny waves, like a sheet of aluminum foil pressed flat.

  “So you didn’t tell them?” she asks me again.

  “Not yet.”

  “Honestly, Luke. You and keeping your secrets. Why would you not want them to know about it?”

  “I’m not sure. I suppose I feel like if I show them, that’ll be it.”

  “What’ll be it, Luke?”

  “Then . . . I don’t know. Then I’ll be normal again. I’ll head off to university. We graduate. Get a job.”

  “That’s usually what people do.”

  “And then that’s it. Forever.”

  “You make it sound like a death sentence. You can do something else if you want. I know Darren and Persephone will be happy with whatever you decide to do.”

  “It made me feel really weird.”

  “The letter did?”

  “Why are we pretending like this?”

  “Luke, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ve just been . . . I don’t know. Acting like nothing ever happened. Like there isn’t another world. Like we didn’t speak to spirits that’ve been around since before the earth was created.”

  “What’s your point?” Elza asks.

  “Don’t you think there’s something better we could be doing? Like, more important?”

  Elza squints into the sun at the road ahead. We’re nearly at the beach now.

  “What do you mean? Charity work? Religion? Politics?”

  “Not exactly.”

  We stop the car and get out. The wind is colder here, coming in off the ocean. We make our way across the spine of the dunes, ocean glittering on our left, marshland and then fields on our right. Seabirds circle in the clear sky. Ahead of us is a grassy crag that stands tall above the rest of the coastline, the foundations for an ancient castle, broken open and empty, nothing but low, mossy walls and the blunted remains of a tower.

  “So are you actually going to congratulate me on my Oxford admission?” Elza asks me as we walk. “They’re pretty difficult to come by. Or so I’ve heard.”

  “Yeah! Of course. Well done. It’s amazing. Were your parents pleased?”

  “Dad was crying. So yeah, I’d say so.”

  “I knew you’d get in,” I say.

  “Everyone says that. It didn’t feel like that to me, I can tell you. Especially after that interview . . .”

  “Elza,” I say, “you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. It’s no surprise.”

  “Aw,” she says. She’s actually blushing, something I never see. “Thanks.”

  We walk farther, and then we reach a path down to the base of the cliffs underneath the old castle, and I motion for Elza to follow me. It’s not too steep, winding around the rocks until we’re standing right underneath where the castle would’ve been. It’s low tide, and the cliffs wear a skirt of dried seaweed. Cut into the rock face is a black cave, large enough to drive a car into. I stop in front of it. For a moment I feel strangely cold, like a cloud covered the sun. But the day is clear and bright.

  “So what is this?” Elza asks me. “Why did you want to come out here?”

  “I wanted to show you this,” I say, pointing to the cave. “It’s a passing place. A gateway to Deadside. Like the Devil’s Footsteps were.”

  Elza scrapes a circle in the sand with her boot.

  “All right. So it’s another old gateway. We know they’re all over Britain. Again, why did you bring me out here?”

  “Because I’ve been thinking. We . . . I . . . ought to do something.”

  “Something about what, Luke?”

  “About Deadside. It’s mist and chaos and monsters trying to eat each other. No wonder so many ghosts want to stay here.”

  “An unfortunate truth,” Elza says. “But aren’t there other parts of it? I thought that’s what you said.”

  “There are,” I say. “But I’ve only seen them once, for a moment. When I was falling back out of the Shrouded Lake. I saw Elysium, Elza. The place the Oracle and the other pilgrims were hoping to reach one day.”

  “You never told me that,” she says, scowling. “Why are you always —”

  “I just didn’t know how! I wasn’t sure what I saw. It was so confused.”

  “So you saw Heaven,” Elza says. “What does that mean? How can we change Deadside?”

  “I saw it,” I say. “That means I can find it again.”

  “How?”

  “By thinking of it. That’s how Deadside works, remember? If you know a place, hold it in your mind, you can come to it. But nobody knows what Elysium is like. So they can’t.”

  “You want to go and find Heaven,” Elza says. “That’s what you meant when you said there was something more important you could be doing.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I want to find it. And then I want to take other people there.”

  “Like who?”

  “Anybody! Like Andy and Ryan and Jack, for starters. I don’t want them hanging around Dunbarrow forever! I’d take anyone who wanted it. You shouldn’t have to get stuck in Asphodel after you die.”

  Elza’s still frowning. “How do you know it isn’t meant to be like this? Maybe Asphodel exists for a reason. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying.”

  “I think it does. You’re supposed to go through it, on your way somewhere better. But I don’t know if it was ever meant to be as difficult as it is. So many souls must get lost, or eaten, or despair and become monsters themselves. I want to help people on the path. And I have . . . all this power. I changed when I went into the Lake. I know how to make things happen. I know I can help people.”

  “You want to be a shepherd,” she says. “The good kind.”

  “I just think we’ve been given knowledge almost nobody else has. Berkley showed us things we weren’t meant to see. My dad just used that knowledge to make himself more powerful, and look what happened to him. We can try and make both the worlds better.”

  “Why say this now?”

  “Because it’s such a huge idea, Elza. It’s been in my mind since I met Larktongue and Bald Samson, but I couldn’t put it into words. It’s been growing . . . but I’ve been scared. It’s such a big job. Deadside is so enormous. I don’t think we’ve seen even a fraction of what’s out there, beyond our world. It could take a lifetime, more, even to find Elysium, let alone work out how to take other spirits there. But I guess getting the university letter made me really think about what I’m going to do with myself, beyond our exams or whatever. The future’s real. It’s really happening. We can make a difference.”

  “You keep saying we,” Elza remarks.

  “Elza,” I say. “I love you. I don’t want to do this without you.”

  The ocean air moves Elza’s hair in a wave, black fronds flapping across her face. She pulls it back with one hand, and her eyes are glistening.

  “I love you, too,” she says. “You know that. But this is insane. Where do we even start?”

  “Here. Now.”

  “All right.” Elza laughs. “This is where we begin. What should we do?”

  “Come to the other side with me.”

  “What? Luke, come on. You’re kidding.”

  “We go through the gate and come back. It’s like learning to swim. We dip our toes in.”

  “Yeah, it’s like learning to swim in a bottomless gray ocean full of hungry sharks. Deadside, Luke . . . I don’t even want to think about going back there.”

  “It’s a start,” I say. “We go through and come back. If we’re going to do this, we have t
o start somewhere.”

  “I didn’t even think we could go through. I thought you needed a sigil.”

  “I’ve been into the Shrouded Lake and I came back. If I want to go through the gateway, I can.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “You’ll be safe,” I say. “We’ll be there a few moments and come back. I just want you to see it.”

  “So how can I come with you?”

  “Sit down. I’ll show you.”

  We sit side by side, facing the ocean. There’s a strong breeze, carrying the smell of sea salt, seaweed, a fresh briny tang. Elza crosses her legs under her body, like she’s about to meditate.

  “It’s hard to step outside yourself at first,” I say. “It gets easier. Just try and forget you’re here.”

  I stare into the movement of the waves, shifting patterns of sunlight and shadow, relentless, ever changing. I listen to the tidal noise, like breathing, thinking about my own breath. I focus on the play of light over water and forget myself.

  I’m standing beside my own body. I’m sitting on the flat stone, sand flecked on my shoes and jeans. Elza has her eyes closed, frowning. Her hair moves with the wind. She sighs loudly and opens her eyes again to find me standing there.

  “Already?” she asks. “How?”

  “I’ve done this more than you,” I say. “It takes practice.”

  She scowls. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing. Forget myself? How am I meant to do that?”

  I reach out to her with my spirit hand.

  “Let me help,” I say. “Close your eyes again.”

  She does. I take hold of her hand, not her body’s hand but the hand inside it, and pull her to her feet. Elza leaves her body without a sound, standing up out of herself, looking for a moment like a double-exposed image. Her body remains seated beside mine, cross-legged.

  “Open your eyes,” I say quietly.

  She does and looks down to see herself sitting at her own feet. She jolts but doesn’t scream.

  “That’s so weird,” she says.

  “I’m still not used to it,” I say.

  I turn around to face the passing place. The cave has been waiting for us this whole time, dark and patient. I imagine walking into it, imagine the moment when the seam between the worlds will become apparent.

  “We’ll only stay a few seconds?” Elza asks me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “This is a test flight.”

  “I must be insane,” she says. “All right. Let’s do it.”

  I take her cold hand in my own. The cave mouth yawns in front of us. Elysium. I won’t find it today, maybe not for decades. But I know it’s out there, somewhere. I know we can reach it.

  We move from sunshine to shadow and pass through the gateway together.

  First, I’d like to thank my agent, Jenny Savill, who found a home for Luke’s story, and my editors, Kate Fletcher and Jessica Tarrant, for their hard work and dedication, not just to this book but to the whole trilogy. I’d also like to say thank you to everyone else who works at my publishing houses, for their work bringing this series to you.

  I’d like to thank my family and friends for their love and support, and I want to thank our deerhound, Ruby, for being the best footrest a writer could ask for.

  Last but not least, I want to say thank you to everyone all across the world who bought copies of my books, reviewed them, or sent me messages about the story. Your support means a lot to me, and the trilogy would not exist without you.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2017 by Leo Hunt

  Cover photographs: copyright © 2017 by Boris Breuer/Getty Images (young man); copyright © 2017 by Dirk Wustenhagen/Trevillion Images (forest)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First U.S. electronic edition 2017

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

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