Spirits

by Leslie Edens Copeland

  Teddy glared at Emmett, his last word resonating low against the stones, but he said no more. The shades brought forth blocks of loam, packing Teddy's small body tight into an earthen box, until he could neither move nor speak, his mouth congealed with mud.

  Emmett shuddered to see this and turned away, his form shifting in and out. He bowed his head in misery. I coaxed him back with a soft brush of my hand.

  "It's not your fault," I said. "You know what he has done."

  Emmett still gritted his teeth, eyes closed, and wouldn't look in the direction Teddy had been taken for a long time.

  I had an idea then, to better cement our friendship with Plouton.

  "O Lord of the Underwood," I said, "We will also give you what we have to bestow. We will gladly carry messages for you to the spirit or mortal worlds, reconnecting your isolated realm with the rest of existence."

  Emmett's head popped up and he smiled widely. "Clever little protégée!" he whispered to me. "Forging connections, making reparations with Plouton." He manifested larger, almost swelling with pride, beaming upon me so fond and pleased.

  "What a delightful suggestion!" said Plouton, smiling through his beard. "I certainly accept your offer. In fact, I will begin composing immediately. I have a few words to say to that former wife of mine who left me for the surface and did not return. Will it please you to wait? The search will not take them long and I will have my letter written by then."

  "Of course. We'd be happy to wait," I said.

  Left him for the surface? Clearly, there were more beings traveling back and forth from the Underwood than we'd realized. I had great hope then that we'd get out.

  I leaned on Emmett to rise. I still felt weak and shaky, but I could stand and my strength promised to recover. Trevor, the red demon, led us to a small dugout room, "wherein you may abide in privacy," he said, winking at us. The room was dismal and cramped, lit only by glowing orbs, but it did contain such refreshments as the Underwood had. That is, it contained stone cups of mineral water and a table piled high with very burned cookies. Emmett picked at one of the cookies with some dismay.

  "How will these ever revive you, my little protégée?" he asked, but I was content to crumble them into my mouth. For the time being, I'd rest, regain my strength, and hope for my father's safe return.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Weight of Kriot

  "Emmett," I said, while we waited in the dugout room. "You seem to know Plouton pretty well. Were you friends, back in spirit god days?"

  Emmett shook his head. "We were terrible enemies, fighting on the opposite sides in a war that sundered the spirit world. He's a great guy, isn't he?" He held out his hand, a blackened cookie still in his palm. "Trade you—for the Nonbook. Then I'll read you the account."

  I fished the scroll from my sleeve and he handed me the burned cookie, which I tossed away. Emmett spun through the scroll's contents, muttering as he searched.

  "I won all my bidents during that confrontation. They became my signature weapon. I previously fought with my bare hands," he said. "Ah, here it is."

  "You fought with your bare hands?" I eyed him skeptically, his skinny body, his awkward, fumbling hands. "Like Sam?"

  Emmett looked up from his scroll. "Ah, no, my little protégée." He chuckled. "I fought with an extension of energy beyond my bare hands. Not with fists." He laughed some more, then cleared his throat and patted me on the head. "I had quite strong abilities in those days, as I recall. Never needed an extender like the Bellum did."

  I pushed his hand away from my head. "An extender?"

  "Yes, a power extender. You know, to focus the power beyond the containment of the body. The mortals have a word for it. Let me see . . ." He furrowed his forehead. "A . . . wand."

  "Oh! Like a wizard," I said. "Is that why wizards have wands? So they can focus their power better?"

  Emmett groaned at me, his shape shifting around in dismay. "What have you been reading, my little protégée? There are no such things as wizards. Magic from mortal humans! Pah! That idea is a mere fiction. But extenders are real. A crafter who is weakened or learning his craft may use an extender to cast the force from within the body into the world. Or against the forces of an opponent, in the case of a battle."

  "A crafter?" I tapped my foot at him. "And by the way, I'm mortal, and pretty magical too, Emmett. Last time I checked." A crackle of blue electricity snapped through my body and I held up my hand to demonstrate its charge.

  Emmett backed away from the bolts that fizzed from my hand, gritting his teeth. "That is not magic, Aether. That is spectricity—the deep, enlivening energy of the spirit world. And we crafters learn to manipulate it with great finesse—to make things anew, to rearrange what already is. A fully realized crafter would need only the mind—no weapons, no extenders."

  "I thought you were a spirit god," I said. "Now you say you're a crafter."

  "I was—I am a spirit crafter," said Emmett, "I believe I inherited the ability." He frowned, scanning the scroll, like he needed to back this up.

  "Don't you remember what you are? Em, this is like when you didn't realize you were the All. How many different identities can you have?" I said.

  "Well, it is a long story, Aether," said Emmett and he began to tell me some of it right then, reading from his scroll.

  "The Great Underwood Uprising." Emmett cleared his throat. "In the time before, the spirit gods often clashed over territorial disputes, with the four divisions of the spirit world shifting from one god's dominion to the next. The Great Underwood Uprising arose as a result of a dispute between Lady Mystery, the spirit goddess of the Celestial Realms, and Plouton, Lord of the Underwood and all the demonic forces below . . ."

  "Just a moment," I said, "What does that mean, the time before? The time before what?"

  "It just says the time before, Aether. Pray allow me to continue," said Emmett, sniffing at me over his scroll. "All four spirit gods took sides in the conflict, with the brothers All and Bellum siding together—"

  "Wait," I said. "That's right. The All and the Bellum sided together. You and Teddy?"

  Emmett held up the scroll, the barely legible spidery handwriting. "It says so. Therefore, it must be right."

  "You don't remember any of this? Is everything that scroll says necessarily correct?" I asked.

  "The Nonbook is a vessel for the Divine Word of the All," said Emmett. "It can contain no errors." He raised his eyebrows at me. "May I continue?"

  "Hmph," I said, not totally convinced. "Okay. Go on, I guess."

  Emmett intoned, "With the brothers All and Bellum siding together with Lady Mystery against Plouton, whose demon hordes had crossed into and invaded the Transitional Realm of the All. Plouton's forces were also threatening the Encircling Realm of the Bellum and menacing the Celestial Realm of Lady Mystery. Even though the All's region was the first to be invaded, the All reacted last to the threat, attempting peaceful reconciliation. Lady Mystery's response was much less moderate, as she took immediate decisive action, recruiting spirits from around the realms to aid her fighters in driving Plouton's demons and shades back underground.

  The incident that incited the war is unknown, since all records of it are lost in time. Several theories remain. Some sources, particularly the denizens of the Celestial Realm, claim a clan of crafting spirits had invaded Plouton's realm first, causing the backlash from the demons. Plouton's realm at the time extended above the Underwood itself and included a large territory in what is now the Transitional Realm.

  The other theory is that the Bellum may have been the first invader, encouraging his followers to cross Plouton's boundaries and engage in trade, which ultimately led to conflict and fighting.

  Whatever the cause, the rapid onslaught of the demon hordes forced the other three spirit gods to take action. Working together, the forces of Lady Mystery, Bellum, and the All drove the demon forces back into the Underwood stronghold, where they and Lord Plouton were sealed within. The Underwood beca
me permanently separated from the rest of the spirit world. It remains to this day a final destination of the damned, death for the dead, a prison from which none can escape."

  I tapped my foot on the hard stone floor. "I counted multiple errors in there. I don't see how that can be one hundred percent right!"

  "No." Emmett's eyes were wide. "It's right."

  "It can't be. Em, it contradicts itself!" I said. "Look—the account doesn't even know whether Bellum or the crafters incited the conflict! It as much as admits it doesn't know."

  Emmett shook his head. "It's right."

  "It seems at best to be only a tentative version of what might have happened," I said.

  "Aether. The ways of the All are not our ways. Please try to think above your mortal sense of how things work and realize that both or neither of these incidents may be true, depending on dimensional distortions, varying opinions, wind direction, cultural conventions, statistical evidence, historical context . . ."

  "The spirit world doesn't even have wind!" I snapped. This was getting ridiculous.

  "Be that as it may—" Emmett lifted his lecturing finger. "And even so, the Divine Word is still the Divine Word. Of the All. So it's right."

  I rolled my eyes. Spirits! Did he have to be so inflexibly and irrationally stuck on the Nonbook's perfection?

  "It even says we can't get out of the Underwood. None can escape. Do you think that's right?" I demanded. "Didn't Plouton just say his ex-wife left for the surface? And I reached the surface myself. Also, Plouton told us we could leave, so how can your Nonbook be correct in this case?"

  "Aether, please." He took my arm, with his gentle spirit touch, and I calmed somewhat. Although that Nonbook account still had me pretty worried. What if it was right? What if we couldn’t escape and the demons just kept dragging us back down, as they had me, any time we neared the surface?

  "Most importantly, if you learn nothing else, please understand this. The All tells us what we need to know. At the time we need it, in the way we need to know it." Emmett folded his arms before his chest, floated a foot off the floor, and looked down at me triumphantly. "So it's right."

  We sat for a long time in the underground chamber, me scrolling through the Nonbook's endless entries and making sense of none of it. They were all out of order, for one thing. Some of it read like the boring history homework we'd been given by the All earlier. Other parts appeared to be predictions for the future, but I couldn't always tell the difference. Finally, I put it down in disgust and decided I'd leave it for Emmett to interpret. I wanted to ask him about something else I'd seen—and this time, I was sure the Nonbook didn't contain the answers.

  "When I cast into your mind, Em, I encountered something . . . unusual," I said.

  I munched another of the cookies Emmett kept putting into my mouth, although they were dry as sand and about as tasteless. He took such immense pleasure in feeding me that I hated to refuse him.

  "That surprises me not at all!" he said. "I'm sure there's lots up here that wouldn't make sense to you, owing to my two thousand years of existence." He knocked on the side of his head with his fist. Unfortunately, his fist passed through his head and made this gesture somewhat less effective.

  I chuckled. "No, I think I did understand this," I said.

  I paused. But I had to tell him what I'd seen. It was only right that he should know what was on his own mind.

  "I've encountered something similar in my brother, Sam. I call it a center of passion. When someone is really excited or passionate about something, one of these can appear. I first noticed it in Sam about motorcycles. All of a sudden, there appeared these red-hot, brilliant patches in his thoughts. When I investigated—motorcycles. Can you imagine? He was totally fixated on them."

  Emmett nodded. "Makes sense. Sam seems like the motorcycle type." He nudged another cookie into my mouth. I pushed it away.

  "I've never felt a center of passion in a spirit before," I said. "Until now. In your mind."

  "Oh, pshaw," said Emmett. "How many spirit minds have you encountered, anyway? I'm sure it's common enough. I must have quite a few of these so-called centers of passion from all my past lives, all jumbled around in there. Although I certainly don't remember any of them now."

  He held a stone cup of mineral water to my mouth and I drank, feeling silly. However, Emmett beamed. That made it worth it.

  "But this wasn't from the past," I continued. "It was red and hot and alive, like from a mortal, but stronger. And what I found at the center—" I stammered for the right words. Then I broke down and told him. "Emmett, I saw myself."

  Emmett made a choking noise, then dematerialized, letting the cup of water fall to the stone floor. When he faded back in, he was blushing—a deep shade of red this time.

  "Does this mean you have a passion for me? A real, live passion?" I asked, my own face heating up as I said it.

  He raised his eyes to mine. In the deep black, I saw more than empty wells. His eyes glimmered with feeling. "You're really too alive for me, is the thing. But I can't stop feeling this way. I don't know what's the matter with me! It certainly hasn't happened before, like this, when I was dead. Spirits are normally quite dispassionate. Now during my lives, it was a different story, but . . . for some reason, with you, my feelings are so intense. Even while I am dead."

  Now it was my turn to beam and blush at him. "I fought it at first," I admitted. "Somehow I knew I'd wind up with a ghost. I can't even think of another boy—only you. Emmett, I think . . . I love you."

  Emmett covered my hands with his. "I know I love you," he said, his eyes searching mine. "I have from the first. I don't care how or where, but we must be together. It's why I became mortal again, without going through proper channels. I wanted to be with you, the same as you, grow old with you. Something about you draws me, pulls me. I'm not complete without you. We must have known each other from some other time or place."

  "I don't remember," I said. "But Em, before you—died—you said when my name used to be Aether, in a long-ago previous life, we were together then."

  "Well, I certainly don't remember it now," said Emmett. "What a lovely remembrance." He gazed at me wistfully.

  "You also said Teddy killed me," I said.

  Emmett grew serious. "I'm sure if I said it, it's true. We could search the Nonbook for my locked-off memories and try to find out our history, to see what happened."

  "We could," I said. "Or we could trust our feelings and see where this goes."

  Darkness flicked at the edges of Emmett's frown. "What if we had a tragic end? What if it's a pattern we keep playing out, again and again?"

  "Then we will have to play it out," I said. "I'm not giving up because of that possibility. Are you?"

  "No, no. Of course not," said Emmett. "But I can't even kiss you properly . . ."

  Trevor appeared at the door. "Plouton is ready for you," he said.

  I encircled Emmett with my arms and pressed my lips to his. The buzzing, the zapping—I took a sharp breath. He fluttered around and I could barely hold on.

  "It's growing on me," I said. "Give it a chance, Em."

  "Remarkable!" said Emmett. "Aether, you really are a most remarkable mortal."

  Hand in ghostly hand, together we followed Trevor out of the small chamber, and through the smooth, rock-hewn passages, until we entered Plouton's hall again. Emmett and I both bowed reverently.

  "Please carry this message to the nymph spirit who presides over the Disenchanted Wood. Her name is Coçeaux. She's a tricky one, so be cautious." Plouton handed me a roll of parchment. I placed it inside my sleeve, held tight to my skin.

  "Now, I have unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, news regarding your father," said Plouton. "It appears—" He glared over at Percival, who hung his shaggy head. "that there is no red rock in all of my realm. A very interesting fact I had yet to take note of, what with all my managerial duties."

  "What does it mean?" I asked. The memory of my vision flashed in my mind.
Dad in his cave of red rock. That vision did not lie.

  "Despite the total absence of red rock, we've searched all the crevices, canyons, fire-laden pits, slough trees—even the underground river, which we normally do not touch. Many of my shades will be permanently altered and drying out for weeks. But no matter. The point at hand, All's mortal protégée, is that we did not find any Able d'Espers in all my realm," said Plouton.

  "I see." My mind spun with uncertainty. Had Dad gotten it wrong or had Plouton? They both seemed so prone to error.

  "My demon and shades know the penalty for disobedient servitude," said Plouton. "If you like, I can torment them until Able is found." He smiled down upon us, very genial. Groans and cries issued from the crowd of shades who had gathered and were listening outside the door.

  "No—no!" I said. "I don't want that in any case! Dad wouldn't either. I'm sure they did their best!"

  A ripple of relieved sighs traveled through the horde of minions gathered around the entrance.

  "May I make a suggestion?" Emmett had just finished swatting the air with his handkerchief after the sighing epidemic from the demons. He tucked it away into his left wrist.

  Plouton nodded and I tried to pay attention to what Emmett was saying—difficult, because his sunshine smile made it hard for me to concentrate. I kept wanting to kiss him again.

  "Aether saw her vision in the slough tree," said Emmett. "Perhaps by traveling upward once again, she may receive additional communiqués or some clue to better assist us in finding Able," said Emmett.

  "Brilliant!" I said. It really was a very good idea and gave me an excellent opportunity to kiss him as long as I dared. I pressed my lips to his, enduring the shocking and zapping, until Emmett reeled back from my embrace.

  "Great All!" He panted. "That was a scorcher! We'd better get you topside before you set the place on fire!"

  "To the slough tree!" boomed Plouton. "Thank you once again! Remember to deliver my missive to Coçeaux! And pleasant journeys!"