“There’s not one,” I said.
“Then make one,” he said.
“How do I find where I’m going, though?”I asked out loud.
Brother Al’s voice was crisp in my ear: “You’re there already.Pick your path, Stacey.”
I closed my eyes.
I thought hard about another island next to mine.And then another island past that.A series of islands that connected down to another cleft in the air.A cleft in the air that would lead me to where I needed to go.
I opened my eyes.Blinked.
Sure enough, a whole series of islands rose from the void below, hovering over the blank sky backdrop.At the far end of them, connected by a rickety bridge, a portal was shimmering.
“Okay, that’s actually pretty cool,” I said.
“Just keep going,” Brother Al said.
The portal hummed.I could see a forest and a white tower in it, through the edge.I hopped from island to island, thankful I’d worn flats, and then found myself jumping into this far portal.The world contorted around me, and I found myself falling down another slide chute that fed me out into a pile of glittering fireflies.My butt hit grass with a soft ‘whumph.’
I got to my feet.Gravity here was stable enough.I wiped off my knees and looked around.Thick trees and heavy woods on every side of me.In the distance, vast monuments loomed high into the sky.
“Brother Al,” I said.“This place looks different.”
Silence, then.Of course, my connection would break.
An air of weird familiarity washed over me.What was it Dr.Kaz had said?I needed to use my mind as my weapons.
I’d been waiting for this moment most of my life if I were being completely honest.I think a normal part of every teenage girl’s development is the crushing realization that she cannot create a fireball to incinerate her foes or wave a wand and cause sparks to shoot out.Nevertheless, this may have been my shot.
I closed my eyes.Imagine a blue floating ball, flickering like a showering fountain, a globe of water hanging in the air between my hands.I opened my eyes again.Sure enough, there was a globe floating in the air, with water surging up and down its round surface.
“Find them,” I said to it.
It bobbed, flickering this way and that, and then sped off into the trees.I ran after it, barely keeping up as it zipped through the groves.Creatures I had only seen in fairytales flickered in my view briefly, here and there, but I didn’t have time to stop and look at them.Only had time to follow the ball of water as it tracked the people I loved.
Soon it paused as if panting and then dissolved entirely.I guess I was here.I was standing in front of a tall white tower that seemingly extended into the sky.There was a door with a locked brass knob gilt in gold overlay facing me.I thought about a perfect key for it—and felt it solidify in my hand.The door opened wide, creaking, onto a narrow staircase that wound up and up beyond where I could see.
I praised everything and everyone that I had worn flats, again, and started my trek up the stairs.Sconces on the wall lit as I passed by, in pairs, though there was no heat from the blue flames.One by one, as I hit every new bend and turn, another set of sconces lit.Murals carved into the stone wall spiraled up with me—and I realized after a while that it was a journey I was seeing.
A young woman in a bridal dress.She met four different men, each wearing a different colored suit.As the tower steps crawled up, so too the woman crawled up.She and the men did a delicate dance.Sometimes she was with one of them, sometimes with all of them, sometimes only a few.They faced gruesome beasts and terrible creatures as I went forward, and then, when I had hit a plateau in the stairs, the carvings changed.The woman was standing outside of a white tower on this final wall, and past the carving opening was the doorway to the next room.
I stepped through, carefully, and found myself in another torch-lit chamber.A woman in rags was stirring a pot.It smelled putrid.Bones swam as she moved her wooden spoon through the mixture.
“Hello, dearie,” the woman said.“We have been waiting ever-so-long for you.”
“We?”I asked.
“Of course.We ourselves, and of course, the new one that’s arrived.”
Clemenza was sitting at the table.She looked as if it was painful to see me.
“Let us all have some bone broth, and sit a while,” the old hag said.
9.
Three carvedwooden bowls and the Hag limped over to the bench opposite the two of us.
