by Sarah Kuhn
With the Organ closed, there would be relatively few random tourists lingering around, and I could keep eyes on Poet pretty easily. As we got closer to the Organ, I saw a couple of Rose’s team patrolling and scanning the area.
“Hey!” I yelled at them. I waved my arms around and pointed at Poet. “Stop that girl!” They looked at me quizzically. They probably couldn’t even hear me. I was just a flailing girl in a slip dress screaming into the void. They turned away and went back to their patrolling and scanning business.
Poet had nearly reached the cordoned off area around the Organ. I frowned. Where was she going? Surely Rose’s people would stop her if she got too close.
BRRRRRRRRRRRR
Out of nowhere, there was a roaring sound in my ears, the same as I’d heard yesterday in the Otherworld—the sound of a plane descending overhead. I looked up at the sky. No planes. So . . .
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The sound was so loud, I had to clap my hands over my ears. I tried to keep running even as the roaring got louder and louder, even as it threatened to overwhelm all of my senses. Poet was still running ahead of me in the distance. I looked around wildly for Rose’s people, but they had moved out of sight.
“Please!” I screamed at Poet. “I just want to talk. I just want . . .”
But it was no use. The roaring was so loud, I couldn’t even hear myself scream.
I clamped my hands more firmly over my ears and kept Poet in sight. I was determined to catch up with her, to get answers, to ask what connection she had to Mom—
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The roaring was unbearably loud now; it felt like it was slamming directly into my eardrums. My vision started to blur, Poet turning into a fuzzy dot in the distance. The landscape around her started to blur too.
Wait a minute. How was this . . . this noise making my vision blur? And where was the noise coming from?
I stopped for a moment, hands clamped firmly over my ears, and watched Poet get even farther ahead of me. And standing still, studying the beautiful seascape in front of me, I realized it was blurring. There was a very distinct spot where everything was fuzzy, wavy, almost like it was in motion. And it looked like there was a veil over it. A fog.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The roaring was making it impossible to think. I started to run again, but Poet was really too far ahead of me now and nothing made any sense.
All of a sudden, Poet jumped into the air, aiming herself directly at the blurry, veiled spot. And she disappeared.
My jaw dropped and I stopped in my tracks again.
Then, before I had time to allow any rational thoughts into my brain, I sprinted forward, hands still clamped over my ears, the roaring still overwhelming everything, and jumped into the air, just as she had—
WHOOM
I half expected that wind whooshing in my ears sound this time. I was pretty much ready to fall through that starless night. I had a hunch I would land on the soft, velvety surface that I could feel but not see. But I had no idea what would come next. I stood up carefully, ready this time for the heavy press of the weighted atmosphere. I could already see a blurry, person-shaped form standing just a few feet from me. Maybe my eyes were getting used to adjusting to the Otherworld?
Hello? I thought, reaching out with my mind. Is anyone there? Poet? Pretzel Guy? Someone with a real name, even?
“Did you bring my wallet?” the blobby figure said out loud. It was starting to take more of a shape now, just as Pretzel Guy had. Maybe I’d be able to actually stick around long enough to see who it was for more than two seconds before being dumped back to Earth or the between dimension.
“What?” I responded out loud. “Your wallet? Can we maybe start with something more basic, like: who are you?”
“I need my wallet,” the figure said, its voice developing a stubborn cast. “I lost it the other day. Besides having all my stuff in it, it has a ton of sentimental value. I’ve had it since college.”
“That is truly tragic, but there are more pressing issues to get to here—” I cut myself off, frowning. Why did that sound so familiar? Where had I just heard someone complaining about . . .
It came to me in a flash. Tori, the tourist we’d interviewed two days ago. The one who’d said her friend had disappeared while looking for a missing wallet. With sentimental value.
“Carmen?” I said out loud. “Are you Carmen?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding supremely irritated. “Look, do you have my wallet?”
“Forget about the wallet for now,” I said, my impatience rising. I took a few labored steps toward her, the atmosphere pressing down on me with every move. “I mean, uh . . . trust me, we’re looking for it. Can you tell me how you got here? And do you know where ‘here’ is?”
“It was that girl,” Carmen said. She was starting to come into focus, to look more person-like. She seemed to be wearing a uniform of tourist clothes, a Golden Gate Bridge t-shirt and baggy jeans. At least she hadn’t gotten stuck here wearing a giant pretzel costume. “That girl brought me here,” Carmen continued. “Or at least, I think she did.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Messy hair, glasses, kind of a sulky look? Toting a giant sketchpad?”
“Yes,” Carmen said, nodding vigorously. “She was sketching by the ocean and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was looking for my wallet, and she offered to help. And then . . .” Carmen scrunched her face up, like she was trying to recall the exact details.
I wanted to reach out and give her shoulder an encouraging pat, but I knew the act of making any sort of movement at all would take forever, thanks to that Otherworld atmosphere pressing down on me again. And I didn’t know how much time I had before I was dumped back into our world.
“What happened next?” I said, trying to sound encouraging.
“I’m not sure,” Carmen said. “I remember she turned to me at one point and took my hand, and she had the oddest expression in her eyes. And then she said something like, ‘you want to come with me.’ And in that moment, I did. I absolutely did. I could think of nothing I wanted more, even though just before that, all I’d wanted was to find my wallet.”
Holy frakballs. Poet had mind-mojo-ed her. Somehow, she and Kathy Kooper had what sounded an awful lot like a version of my power. And they were using it to spirit people over to the Otherworld and weaponize locations. Were they trying to take over the whole city?
“Where did the girl go after she left you here?” I said. “And when did you realize you actually didn’t want to go with her?”
Carmen’s brow furrowed. “I remember walking with her, holding her hand. I remember hearing this sound all of a sudden, like . . . like . . .”
“A plane overhead?” I said.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Just loud and roaring in my ears. And I remember everything getting blurry around me and then all of a sudden, I was here.”
“What does ‘here’ look like to you?” I said, realizing that she might not be seeing what I was. After all, even the way I saw this bit of the Otherworld seemed to change every time I was transported here. And . . . hmm. Both my voice and Carmen’s didn’t have that odd distorted quality that had plagued my conversation with Pretzel Guy. We sounded like we were conversing normally. Interesting.
“Darkness,” Carmen said. “And it’s hard to move. Though I try to take a short walk every now and again. Even though I can’t actually see much. I tried to find a way out when I first got here, but no matter how far you walk, it’s all the same.”
“Endless darkness,” I murmured, a shiver running through me. How awful, to be trapped in this freaky nightscape for days on end—and to not even have a way to mark when a day ended. Had Mom been trapped here for the past ten years? The thought was almost too horrible to comprehend.
“When I get tired, I just lie down and
sleep,” Carmen continued. “I keep hoping that girl will come back and take me to meet up with my friend, Tori. And that she’ll have my wallet.”
“Have you ever encountered anyone else?” I said. “Any other people?”
“I did have a lovely chat with a man dressed in some sort of weird food costume,” Carmen said. “He didn’t have my wallet, either. Oh, and there was . . . Oh, heavens. There’s that sound again.”
BRRRRRR
She was right. The roaring was back, a low hum in my ear. That meant our time was probably about to get cut short.
“What were you just about to say?” I said, trying to make my voice louder. “Right before you noticed the sound?”
BRRRRRRRRRRR
Argh. It was already getting louder.
“I ran into another person one day,” Carmen said. “A woman.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Was she tall?” I said, talking as fast as I possibly could. “With long, dark hair and a kind of musical voice—”
“No,” Carmen said, raising her voice to be heard over the roaring, which was getting louder and louder by the minute. “She was short, she had little glasses, and she spoke in a monotone. She kept talking about how much she misses her dog and . . .”
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Now the sound was amping itself all the way up, and I could barely hear her. I kept my arms at my sides, resisting the urge to cover my ears.
“Talking about what?” I shouted, desperation rising in my chest. “What besides her dog?”
“. . . os . . . al . . .”
“What?!?” I screamed as the roaring reached a fever pitch.
“HOSPITAL!” she screamed and then the by-now familiar whooshing sound was in my head again and I was lying on my back on the grass by the waterfront, hands clamped over my ears. Rose and one of her team members knelt next to me and peered at me with great concern.
“Bea,” Rose said, laying a hand on my arm. “What’s going on? I just got here. My deputy said she saw you disappear into thin air and then all of a sudden you were lying on the ground.”
I sat up and, for what felt like the millionth time in just a few days, took stock of my body. Everything seemed to be in order, except that my head really, really hurt.
“Rose,” I said, trying to piece together the weird, fragmented conversation I’d just had. “I think I just got a clue. And I have no idea what it means, but I’m sure as hell going to follow it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“BEA!” EVIE THREW her arms around me, then pulled back and put her hands on my shoulders, her eyes lit with concern. “Rose told us what happened! Why didn’t you come back to HQ? You need to be examined—”
“And why did you want us to meet you here?” Aveda said, gesturing to the intimidating exterior of San Francisco General. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave me her best steely look. “Beatrice, being on a team—especially as a very junior member—means communicating clearly with your teammates about everything. Your text was very vague. Rose was the one who filled us in on how you disappeared into the freaking Otherworld! Didn’t we just have a very involved discussion about you not doing that anymore?”
“I . . . uh, didn’t have any control over it,” I lied. “I got sucked in, it was very sudden. And I feel fine now.”
“But—” Evie began.
“I’m sorry my text was vague,” I said. “Issue me some superhero demerits or something later. But I think I may have just gotten a serious lead on something and time is of the essence.”
The truth was, I’d been so excited about this potential lead, I hadn’t been able to contain myself. The possibility that I was closer to finding Mom outweighed everything else. If it had been up to me, I would have booked it to the hospital and pursued this mission myself without stopping to tell Evie and Aveda, but Rose had insisted. And also filled them in on some extra context, since all I’d said was to meet me at San Francisco General ASAP. And then I’d added a few choice emojis to convey the urgency.
I didn’t have Sam on hand as my usual chauffeur (and I really didn’t feel like calling him after our dust-up that morning), so it had taken me longer than anticipated to get all the way from the waterfront to the hospital. I’d had to take three buses, and Evie and Aveda ended up arriving before me.
“We don’t have a demerits system in place,” Aveda said, getting a strange gleam in her eyes. Uh-oh. Evie always referred to that look as Aveda’s Idea Face. “But we could start one.”
“Also something for later,” I said. “For now, just listen.”
I gave them the bullet points: how I’d chased Poet, how I believed she’d led Carmen into the Otherworld, how Carmen had told me about this familiar-sounding other woman she’d encountered on one of her aimless walks.
“I believe that woman was Edna—the officious desk jockey who works here,” I said, gesturing to the building. “Especially since she kept talking to Carmen about the hospital. I don’t know how she got trapped in the Otherworld too, but I’m working on a theory.”
I put my hands on my hips and gazed up at the building. It was so tall, so solid, and it seemed to develop an ominous presence the longer I stared at it. Almost like it was staring back, daring me to try something. I faced Evie and Aveda. “I think this is where Mom was taken,” I said. “I think Kathy Kooper did it, while she was visiting Mom one day. I don’t know why she took Mom’s records, and I don’t know if she was trying to weaponize this location or what. But I need to go in there and see if I can hear that weird voice again—see if it’s Edna or Mom or someone connected to her. And if I do that, maybe I can . . .” I cut myself off abruptly. I’d been so into my theory, I’d forgotten that at least part of my proposed mission was bound to be met with protests.
“Bea,” Evie said, shaking her head. “You are not doing anything that might lead to you being transported to the Otherworld again! And anyway, I thought you just said you didn’t jump in on purpose.”
“But now you want to try to jump in on purpose using the knowledge you’ve gathered from your previous encounters,” Aveda said.
Was it my imagination or did she actually sound . . . admiring?
“Do you approve of this?” Evie said to her. “Annie, don’t encourage her. Didn’t you hear what Nate and Scott said last night? It’s too dangerous.”
“I know,” Aveda said. “But it’s also bold. Risky. Demonstrates a tunnel-visioned determination to get to the heart of our current supernatural dilemma.” Her mouth quirked into a half-smile. “It sounds like something I’d do.”
“Oh, no,” Evie said, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I think you and I need to have some long discussions about what constitutes good, responsible mentoring.”
“If ‘responsible’ means ‘never taking any risks ever,’ we’re going to end up with the most basic, boring mentees ever,” Aveda said, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t have to be a daredevil to be a superheroine,” Evie argued.
“No.” Aveda sniffed. “But it doesn’t hurt.”
“Hey,” I said, snapping my fingers at them. “Mentee, standing right here. Listening to everything you say. And you two sound like bickering parents.”
“As if we needed to be more co-dependent,” Evie sighed.
“Aw!” Aveda said, slinging her arm around Evie’s shoulders. “Come on, we can raise this adorable Superbaby, you and I. I’m Fun Dad and you’re Stick-in-the-Mud Mom.”
I expected Evie to laugh, but she stiffened and a weird shadow passed over her face. Aveda seemed to pick up on it too.
“Sorry,” she murmured, dropping her arm from Evie’s shoulders.
Evie’s gaze went contemplative as she studied the building. “I guess we’re here. We might as well go inside, see if we can find anything out. But Bea.” She touched my arm. “No jumping into the Otherworld,
please.”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. But deep down, I knew something with absolute certainty: if the opportunity presented itself, I was taking it. We were so close to finding Mom now—I could feel it. And I was more than ready to take a risk or two to find her. They could give me all the demerits they wanted later.
We passed through the sliding doors and entered the aggressively beige hallway. Something was immediately off. It was as beige and blah as ever, but the atmosphere was different than it had been my previous visit. I scanned the blah-ness, trying to figure out what it was, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was just my amped up state of mind—maybe I was what was different. Then we rounded the corner, and my jaw dropped. Edna wasn’t behind the reception desk—I’d expected that. I’m not sure who, if anyone, I’d expected to see in her place. Maybe Kathy, looking all evil and shit, surrounded by cat-hair crafts? Or Poet, sketching away?
Instead, a familiar figure rose to greet me.
“Bernard?” I said, my brow furrowing. I quickened my stride to the reception desk and felt Evie and Aveda pick up the pace behind me.
“Hello,” he said. “Ms. . . . Tanaka, is it?”
On the surface, he looked the same as when I’d first encountered him in the basement archives: squat frame, combover in place, tie with a soup stain on it. But his entire demeanor was completely different. Instead of looking at me with an utterly downtrodden expression, he greeted me with a big, dopey smile that was super confident—smug, even.
“Hi Bernard,” I said, as we reached the desk. “Did you get a promotion?”
“Indeed I did,” he said, beaming at me. “Edna was fired for improperly filed paperwork, and yours truly has been such a dedicated soldier for the past twenty years. There really was no other choice. The front desk is now my domain.” He let out a raspy chuckle.
“Congratulations,” I said, my eyes scanning the desk. Edna’s puppy picture had been removed. Bernard had wasted no time making himself at home—his vast pen collection was now spread out all over the desk and it looked like it had multiplied since I’d last seen it. Pens of every conceivable size and color were stuffed into an army of mugs, which were in turn packed into every available microcosm of space. It looked like a rainbow honeycomb. A super disorganized, hoarders’ paradise of a rainbow honeycomb.
