by Jason Segel
“It’s unlikely you’ve heard about this one,” Medusa said. “It’s so remote that I wouldn’t be surprised if no one else knows it exists. But I’ve seen the lighthouse with my own two eyes, and I believe there may be a portal to the Waking World inside it.”
“So you’re not completely certain, then,” said the pig lady with a sigh of relief.
“You’ve never been able to confirm it?” Dabney asked.
“No,” Medusa confessed. “I can’t prove that the portal exists, because the lighthouse cannot be entered.”
Charlie and Dabney exchanged glances. Medusa’s statement didn’t make any sense. In the Netherworld, every building had a purpose. Each was built to house a human’s worst fears. As soon as the fear was conquered, the building was either knocked down or reused. From what Medusa was saying, the lighthouse sounded empty. But that was impossible. No Netherworld building ever sat vacant. Nothing there went to waste.
“How long has the lighthouse been here in the Netherworld?” the pig lady inquired.
“I’ve known about it for almost eighty human years,” Medusa replied.
“And it’s been empty all this time?” Dabney asked.
Medusa regarded the clown with a somber expression. “I said that the lighthouse couldn’t be entered. I never said that the building was empty.”
Charlie was thankful that the ride to the lighthouse was taking so long. Making their way through the angry crowd outside the courthouse had been an ordeal, and he needed some time to recover. The Nightmare creatures had mobbed Dabney, Charlie, Jack, and Medusa as the group had made its way to the presidential limousine waiting at the curb. The Nightmares had shouted, jostled, and thrown rotten fruit. Charlie had seen the fear in their eyes, and he’d understood their anger. The creatures’ lives and their land were in terrible danger, and their leader had been unable to help.
As Dabney drove in silence, Charlie thought about all he’d heard. It felt like there was a puzzle that he needed to put together, but several of the most important pieces seemed to be missing.
Jack, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be troubled at all. For the first part of the trip, he sat with his forehead pressed to one of the limo’s windows, happily watching the Netherworld pass by. But the farther the limo drove, the less there was to see. Eventually the vehicle was enveloped in darkness. The headlights barely cut through the black that washed against the windows. It was as if they were driving through an ocean of ink. By the time the limo finally rolled to a stop, Jack was sound asleep.
Charlie reached over to wake him up. “No,” Medusa said, touching Charlie’s arm gently. “Let him rest.”
Charlie knew his brother would want to see the lighthouse. Jack would be angry if Charlie let him sleep through an adventure. But with Jack around, Charlie felt ordinary. He couldn’t resist the desire to feel special just a little while longer. He could deal with Jack later.
Medusa slid out of the car, and Charlie followed, careful not to slam the door behind him. Dabney joined them from the driver’s seat. In the wasteland outside, the limo’s headlights illuminated a remarkable scene. A massive pillar of white bricks rose up before them and reached into the starless night. At its base was a rusty red door made of solid metal. The structure was topped with an enormous lantern that remained unlit. It was the sort of lighthouse that’s usually pictured with frothy white waves crashing around it. But there was no ocean here. There was nothing at all.
Charlie could see two tiny windows carved out of the round brick walls. White lace curtains hung behind the glass, and both of the windows were dark. Beyond the lighthouse lay sheer emptiness. They were at the edge of the Netherworld. In the darkness on the other side was where the goblins lived. The goblins were terrible creatures that delighted in tormenting human beings. They’d been banished from the Netherworld several times in the past, but they never really went away. From what Charlie had been told, the goblins lived in underground caverns—and they never stopped plotting their return to the surface.
“How did you know that the lighthouse was here?” Charlie heard Dabney ask Medusa. “I’ve never even been this close to the border.”
“On my mountain I can see most of the Netherworld from my living room windows,” she said. Charlie remembered the elegant, well-appointed cave Medusa called home. “I use a telescope to monitor the parts I can’t view with my own two eyes. It was ages ago when I first spotted the lighthouse. I thought nothing of it at the time. Strange buildings come and go here in the Netherworld. But this one never disappeared. As I said earlier, it’s been standing on this very same spot for at least eighty years.”
“Wait. Does that mean that someone’s had the same nightmare for that long?” Charlie asked. The idea was almost too horrible to bear.
“I believe that may be the case,” said Medusa.
“Poor soul.” Dabney giggled.
“That’s precisely what I thought,” Medusa told him. “So one night about forty years ago, I drove out here to help. No human being should stay frightened forever. Terrible things can happen if they lose all hope. But when I got here and tried to go inside, I discovered I couldn’t.”
“The door was locked?” Dabney asked.
“I don’t know if it was locked or not,” Medusa said. “I never made it as far as the door. I can’t explain what stopped me except to say that the closer I got to the lighthouse, the more it felt like the life was being drained from me. I knew if I entered that building, I would never make it out again. I would be stuck in there—alone and abandoned. The humans inside that lighthouse were more powerful than me.”
“Humans?” Charlie asked. “And there was more than one of them inside?”
“Yes,” said Medusa. “A few days after my first visit, I brought a friend here, a friend with wings. He couldn’t get close to the windows without being overcome by the same feeling of dread that I’d felt, but he flew around to the other side of the lighthouse and saw shadows inside. He said the silhouettes belonged to human-shaped beings. He was convinced there were two of them. And he said he could smell them.”
“Smell them?” Dabney asked as if he couldn’t believe it. “You mean—”
Medusa nodded. “He believed they were here in the flesh.”
“If the humans had come to the Netherworld in the flesh, they must have passed through a portal,” Charlie said.
“That was my conclusion as well, and I’ve never been able to find another explanation,” Medusa told him. “Nor have I managed to investigate any further. I’ve returned to this lighthouse many times over the years, but I’ve never been able to go inside.”
“Maybe I should give it a try,” Charlie said, half hoping that someone would stop him.
When no one did, Charlie marched across the wasteland until he reached the sturdy metal door at the base of the lighthouse. It was a dark, rusted red with a wheel where a knob would be. Charlie reached out for the wheel, but before his hands could make contact, he yanked them back. His fingers felt frozen, and no matter how hard he rubbed them, the cold continued to spread. A feeling of hopelessness began to take hold of him. For a moment, the world seemed dark and lonely. He jumped back, and the horrible feeling faded a bit. The more distance he put between himself and the lighthouse, the better it got.
Charlie hurried across the field of nothing, rubbing warmth back into his hands. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever felt,” he said when he got back to his friends. As soon as he’d said it, he realized it wasn’t true. The darkness he’d felt after his mother’s death had been worse.
“Yes, it’s truly terrible,” Medusa agreed. “I’m quite sensitive to such things, and I could feel it as we drove here. It’s getting stronger. The beings inside are growing more powerful.”
“You’re sure they’re still in there?” Charlie asked. “If the lighthouse has been here for eighty years, the people who built it must be ancient by now.”
“Yes, the humans are still there,” Medusa said. She po
inted up at the lighthouse. Charlie turned around and stumbled backward in surprise. Lights had appeared in the two little windows. Someone—or something—was inside.
The light in the window flickered, as if it came from a candle. Charlie stared at the window and imagined what it might be like to live in the lighthouse. Cold, lonely, and miserable, he thought. Whoever was in there, it made sense that there were two of them. No one could survive in that place on their own.
“You think that the humans in the lighthouse are smuggling Tranquility Tonic out of the Netherworld?” Charlie asked.
“As far as I know, there are two ways the tonic may have reached the Waking World,” Medusa said. “One is through the portal that may exist in this lighthouse.”
“And the other way?” Charlie asked.
“We don’t want to consider the other way,” Dabney said. “But there will be those who do if word gets out.”
Charlie saw Dabney the clown glance back at the limo, where Jack was sleeping, and the truth hit Charlie right in the gut. The only other way to smuggle something into the Waking World was through the portal in the purple mansion—the portal his brother had passed through dozens of times. If Charlie couldn’t prove that the creatures in the lighthouse were the smugglers, his little brother would be suspect number one. Jack had been spotted all over the Netherworld, and the “evil child” prophecy might seal his fate.
“What do we need to do?” Charlie asked.
“We must stop whoever is in there from smuggling out any more of the tonic,” Medusa said. “We need to get inside that lighthouse.”
“But how?” asked Dabney with a giggle. “None of us can bear to go near it.”
“The lighthouse here in the Netherworld may be impenetrable,” said Medusa. “But if this lighthouse has a portal, the building will have a double in the Waking World. It’s possible we can gain access on the other side. Someone will have to find the Waking World lighthouse.”
—
Jack was furious that Charlie had let him sleep through the excitement. He’d opened his eyes just after the group had arrived at Medusa’s opulent cave, and for an hour afterward, he’d stomped around with his arms crossed, muttering to himself. Every so often, he’d look over at Charlie and say something like “I would have woken you up!” Or “Who made you boss?” Or “I really wanted to tell Indy that I’d finally seen a lighthouse!”
Charlie sat silently while Jack got his frustrations out. He would have been angry too. But Charlie was too busy thinking about other things—important things—to waste time calming his brother down. They had to find a way to stop the smugglers. Otherwise, Jack might have a lot more to worry about than sleeping through a trip to a lighthouse.
Charlie had wanted to set out in search of answers, but Medusa refused to allow such a thing. She was a mother as well as a Nightmare, and she wasn’t about to send a twelve-year-old human to find the lighthouse’s Waking World double. Instead, a team of three of the Netherworld’s finest Nightmare creatures was quickly assembled to deal with the crisis. The Nightmares the gorgon chose all possessed three traits. They were loyal. They were brave. And most important, they could (almost) pass for human. The team was prepped inside Medusa’s enormous wardrobe. As owner and operator of the Netherworld’s most popular theater, she had racks upon racks of nightmarish costumes—everything from rabid poodles and monstrous bats to grade-school bullies and science teachers.
Dabney the clown was the first to take a seat in the makeup chair in front of a brightly lit mirror. He watched, giggling maniacally, as his face was spackled with a thick layer of flesh-colored foundation. Slowly but surely, the natural chalkiness of his skin was covered up and the red diamonds around his eyes disappeared. A bit of black dye took care of his three little tufts of orange hair. When his makeup was finished, Dabney was handed a pair of gray slacks and a white button-down shirt. He was unrecognizable when he emerged from the changing room. The only sign left of the clown Charlie had known were the feet that looked at least ten inches too long—and the crooked yellow teeth that seemed a little too pointy.
“What do you think?” he asked, twirling around to show Charlie and Jack. “Will I be able to pass for a human?”
“Actually, yeah…,” Charlie started to say, when the clown burst into a fit of giggles. The sound was half hyena, half donkey. And coming from a man who looked like a tax accountant, it seemed 100 percent insane.
“That laugh’s gonna be a problem,” Charlie heard Jack say under his breath, and Charlie had to agree.
“When you’re in the real world, try not to think of anything funny,” Charlie advised.
“I’ll give it my best shot,” Dabney promised. “But it won’t be easy. You humans are all so hilarious! The things you worry about are a hoot!”
Ava, a creature known as a Harpy, was the next to undergo the transformation. She and Medusa had been friends since the olden days, and they chattered away as Medusa worked on the costume. Ava’s top half was perfectly pleasant and human. Disguising the rest of Ava’s body was the challenge. Her legs were those of a fierce bird of prey, with two giant claws and razor-sharp talons. And two powerful wings sprang from her shoulders. Medusa had managed to conceal these features with a shawl and an ankle-sweeping dress. But human clothing couldn’t hide Ava’s penchant for pouncing on the furry little creatures that often ran across the floor—and tossing them into her mouth. Charlie watched with growing anxiety as Ava chomped on a Netherworld mouse.
“You know, real people don’t usually eat things like that,” Jack offered helpfully.
“Sure they do!” Ava said, a tail popping out of her mouth as she spoke. “I’ve heard you humans just grind it up, fry it, and call it fast food.”
Charlie didn’t have a chance to think about what Ava had said. Bruce, the third team member, had stepped forward to be costumed, and Charlie’s anxiety turned to outright panic. Bruce was tiny. He stood no higher than Charlie’s knee. Thankfully, Bruce had two human arms and two human legs, but his face bore a snub nose, and a tooth poked out from either side of his mouth, making him look a bit like a bulldog.
“What are you?” Jack asked.
“A changeling,” Bruce answered matter-of-factly. His voice was deep and raspy, like a gruff, elderly man with a fondness for cheap cigars. “I usually get called in after a baby is born. Parents are always scared they’ve given birth to a monster. I get to be the monster.”
“Cool,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. “But it’s getting a little old playing human infants all the time.” He groaned as Medusa approached with an outfit decorated with little yellow duckies. “It’s cruel what your kind make the little ones wear. No style whatsoever. It’s humiliating, actually. And you wouldn’t believe the chafing you can get from a onesie.”
—
Charlie sat for hours, watching the Nightmares transform into humans and listening to Medusa issue detailed orders to her troops. Ava, with her wings, would be sent in search of the lighthouse. Dabney and Bruce would investigate Orville Falls.
When Medusa’s work was done, the three Nightmares gathered around the mirror. Dabney cradled Bruce in his arms. Ava smiled so sweetly that no one would ever have guessed what she was chewing. Jack grinned, and Charlie gulped.
Medusa stood back to appraise her work. “I’ve never been to the Waking World,” she admitted. “And you boys are the only humans I’ve ever met in the flesh. Do you think these costumes will be convincing?”
“They’re awesome!” Jack exclaimed.
Charlie stared at the reflection in the mirror, taking the Nightmares in. He wasn’t as confident as his brother, but he had to admit that without the giggling and the mouse eating, they might actually succeed in passing for human. There was no getting around one thing, though: together, the three of them would be the weirdest trio on earth.
“Got any tips for us?” Bruce asked, scratching at his stubble.
Charlie honestly didn’t even know wh
ere to begin.
“Well, if you’re going to be a baby, you should probably think about shaving,” Jack offered wisely.
“You’re back!” a relieved Charlotte enveloped Charlie and Jack in an enormous hug the second they stepped through the portal and into the octagonal room at the top of the purple mansion’s tower. The sun was rising, and the tower room glowed with a magical golden light. “I nearly had a heart attack when you two got beamed up by that spaceship! Jack, you really shouldn’t have—” The lecture came to a halt when Charlotte realized that the boys were not alone. She gaped over Charlie’s shoulder as, one by one, the Nightmares stepped out of the portal and entered the Waking World.
Before Charlie could open his mouth to explain, Charlotte had burst into action. “No, no, no!” she cried, straining with all her might to push Dabney back through the opening. “Nightmares aren’t allowed here! It’s against every rule!”
Dabney’s good nature prevented him from fighting back—and his giant feet kept him firmly rooted in place. “Lottie, is that you?” he asked.
Charlotte stopped shoving and stood back to get a better look at the bland-looking man. “No one’s called me by that name in twenty-five years.”
Dabney broke into a fit of giggles. “Lottie, it’s me!”
“Dabney?” Charlotte blinked several times as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Then she threw her arms around the clown and hugged him. “What happened to you? You look so different.”
“It’s just a disguise,” Dabney assured her. He held his old friend by the shoulders and shook his head. “But look at you! Last time I saw you, you were eleven years old. Now you’re a full-grown lady.”
Listening from the sidelines, Charlie felt a little stab of sadness. His own mother, Veronica, had been responsible for introducing Charlotte to Dabney. When the two girls had been Charlie’s age, they had traveled together to the Netherworld. Dabney had been Veronica’s Nightmare—and after she’d faced her fears, he’d become her friend.