The Edge of Over There

by Shawn Smucker

  “This is the last place I saw my father and my sister,” Leo said in a flat voice, walking up to the crypt and running his fingers down along one of the thin cracks in the cement. It was the shape of a long, country road or a lightning bolt.

  The other three stared at him, waiting for more, but when he didn’t keep talking Abra wasn’t surprised. Cemeteries are the one place on earth where people can stop talking whenever they want and no one will press them for more. Which makes sense, since cemeteries hold so much unfinished business. You can visit a cemetery with a friend and stand by a grave for an hour and not say a word. Words mean less in cemeteries than they do anywhere else in the universe. Cemeteries devour words.

  Mr. Henry walked up to the grave beside Leo and put both hands on it. “Have you heard of Marie Laveau?” he asked no one in particular.

  “I have,” Leo said quietly.

  Mr. Henry looked at Leo. “You have?”

  Leo nodded.

  “And do you know when she died?” Mr. Henry asked.

  “She did not die,” Leo said, looking over at him.

  “She didn’t die?” Abra asked.

  “That’s the legend.” Mr. Henry shrugged, and it seemed he knew more than he was saying.

  “It’s not a legend,” Leo said, cutting him short. “I saw her. Eight years ago I saw her standing right here in this spot.”

  Mr. Henry stared at Leo for a moment, then looked at Abra. “Marie Laveau ate from the Tree of Life. She snatched a piece of fruit and took a bite before Mr. Tennin could kill it.”

  “So she will live forever?” Abra asked.

  Mr. Henry nodded. “She will. Whether or not she still wants to is another matter entirely.”

  “She had a key,” Leo said. “She had a key that opened a door.”

  “How did she get a key?” Abra asked.

  Mr. Henry shrugged again. “We don’t know. We don’t know everything. She has many connections, both solid and spirit. She has ways of getting things—she was always very good at that. But it would seem that after working with Koli Naal for some time, Marie has now vanished and Koli cannot get back in. Or let her henchmen in.”

  “Which is why she came to me,” Abra said in a flat voice.

  Mr. Henry nodded.

  “Don’t we need the key to open the door?” Leo asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Henry said, pointing at Abra. “But we already have one. The key Marie had was a poor copy. We have the original.”

  Abra pulled the sword out and it was ice blue along the edges, the same color the northern sky had been before the clouds completely obscured it.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Put it in the keyhole.”

  She walked over to the side of the grave and stood there for a moment. She stared at the weathered cement, the small cracks, the graffiti on the walls. She saw the smallest of notches, a rectangle-shaped hole. Abra lifted the sword and slid it into the stone—surprisingly, it slid in the entire way.

  “Now turn it,” Mr. Henry said, and there was a light shining in his eyes. The lightning glinted off the diamonds and silver of the piercings on his face. The stud in his tongue tapped lightly against his teeth, and the rain fell harder.

  Abra grasped the small hilt with two hands and turned it. There was a grating sound.

  “Go ahead,” Mr. Henry said in a gentle voice.

  Abra was surprised at how easily the gate swung open. She was surprised at how the darkness inside repelled the light so that it looked like a black curtain hanging over the opening. The darkness shimmered against the approaching storm like something solid, like something alive.

  19

  ABRA STARED INTO THE LIVING DARKNESS, and fear moved through her like a tremor. “Mr. Henry,” she whispered, “I don’t think I can do it.”

  “You need to be brave,” he said in a kind voice. “We need you.”

  Abra reached her hand out toward the crypt and put it in the darkness of the doorway. The shadow seemed to ripple like water.

  “I don’t think I can do it,” she said again.

  “Abra,” Mr. Henry began, but then he glanced at Leo and Beatrice. Abra thought he seemed torn, as if he had important things to tell her that he didn’t want the others overhearing, but he also didn’t want to leave them by the open door on their own.

  “Come away with me for a moment, Abra,” Mr. Henry said, walking a short distance away. Abra followed behind him.

  The rain came down harder and soon they were wet through. Abra looked over her shoulder and saw Beatrice and Leo still standing beside the crypt, water dripping from their faces, their hair matted down against their heads. They did not follow Abra and Mr. Henry. They stood there quietly, almost motionless, watching the two walk away. Mr. Henry, on the other hand, looked otherworldly, shrouded by the rain, and Abra felt tiny beside him.

  “You know, being bald is a nice, simple way to live, but when it rains, all that water runs right down into your eyes.” He smiled. Abra felt a kindness coming from him she had rarely experienced in her life. A fondness. He wiped his face with both palms, trying to clear the water.

  “Choice is a funny thing, young lady. Choice. Every day we have it. Every day we make it. This way or that, that way or this. The small choices we make today and the next day and the next day, combined all together in a long, crooked path, can lead us here, or they can lead us there, and the difference between here and there can be a great distance after so many choices. But most choices seem small at the time. Inconsequential.”

  He stopped and let the water run down over his face. When he spoke again, rain sprayed out from his mouth in small droplets, and he blinked in that awkward way that someone blinks when it’s raining hard in their eyes.

  “I cannot make this choice for you,” he said, squinting. “If you go in, you may never come out. Or you may come out so changed that you will not recognize yourself. I do not know what the Passageway will do to you or what you will find at the Edge of Over There. If you kill the Tree, the whole place might collapse in on itself. Of course, if you don’t come back out of the Passageway, perhaps it’s grace that Koli Naal made your mother forget you. In my experience, there is grace to be found in everything, even in what first appears to be pure pain.”

  Abra nodded but didn’t say anything. She felt the weight of the moment, the weight of the decision, but if she was honest with herself, she didn’t feel that she had much of a choice. There are things that should be done, and there are things that must be done. Abra felt she must go through that curtain of darkness. She didn’t know what would happen after that.

  “I know,” Abra said. “I know. But what should I do about the people who live in there? Should I just leave them inside? That seems rather horrible, getting locked in a place like that forever. I don’t know if I could do that to anyone.”

  “Choice is a funny thing,” Mr. Henry said again. “Every person in there has made their choice. If they have not yet eaten from the Tree, they will eventually die like anyone else, here or there. If they have eaten from the Tree, they must not be allowed to come back here. You can see the kind of trouble that immortals like Marie Laveau bring about here on earth.”

  “But what will happen to the people who have eternal life and are trapped inside?”

  Mr. Henry looked up at the sky and closed his eyes as the rain pummeled his cheeks and his forehead. When he looked at her, it was as if his face had been washed by the water.

  “I don’t know. None of us knows what will happen at the end of time to those who live forever. But they should not, must not, come back here, through the gate. That, I know.”

  Abra nodded. “And Leo’s father? His sister?”

  Mr. Henry bit his lip, and for the first time since Abra had met him he appeared unsure, uncertain. She saw the kindness in his eyes again, the kindness of Mr. Tennin, and she was surprised that Mr. Henry had scared her when she first saw him in the park with all of his piercings and tattoos. She realized that his ha
rsh exterior only served to hide a kindhearted man. She wondered how many times that was the case.

  “If they have not yet eaten from the Tree, it seems like that will be your choice to make,” he said. “But your primary purpose—remember this! Your primary purpose is to go in and destroy the Tree, come back out, and seal the gate. I will wait here while you’re inside, because I have to. I will guard the door and make sure no one comes in or goes out.”

  The rain lessened, and the two stood there for a few more minutes before turning and walking back to Marie Laveau’s grave. The rain stopped suddenly, and steam rose up off the pavement in foggy clouds of vapor. Throughout the whole city, a heavy mist was rising, creating a cloud that drifted over the streets and the buildings, thick as soup. The sunlight glared down through the white so that you could barely see.

  Abra and Mr. Henry walked back to the grave of Marie Laveau through the mist. They were wet, and something about their conversation had exhausted them. But Abra also felt eager—eager to get on with the task, eager to see what waited for her on the other side of the curtain of darkness. There was something inside of her that came alive when she thought about taking the sword into the darkness, finding the Tree of Life, and getting rid of it. It felt like something she had been created to do.

  When Abra and Mr. Henry arrived back at the open door to the grave, Abra’s mouth fell open and Mr. Henry sighed.

  Beatrice and Leo were gone.

  “Mr. Henry,” Abra said quietly. “They’ve gone in.”

  “Yes, young lady. They have.”

  “What are we going to do?” she asked him.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Abra paused for a moment. “I have to find the Tree. I have to come back out and lock the gate.”

  Mr. Henry nodded, and his head looked heavy on his shoulders, the way it swayed slowly forward and back.

  “Young lady, who do you think Beatrice is?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Had you ever seen her before this summer?”

  Abra shook her head.

  “Yet she claimed to go to your small school.”

  Abra stared into the curtain of darkness that shrouded the opening in the grave. “She arrived at the same time as Koli Naal,” she said. “She was there when my mother stopped knowing who I was. She just so happened to be there when the sword brought me to New Orleans.”

  Mr. Henry nodded.

  “I should have done something sooner. I should have ditched her earlier.” Abra paused. “I should have gotten rid of her earlier.”

  “Now, now,” Mr. Henry said. “That’s not you speaking, is it? There are so few, if any, we are responsible for ‘getting rid of.’ That’s the last thing you should be thinking or worrying about.”

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “She does complicate things,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes with his palms as if he were weary, weary to the bone. “I’m guessing she belongs to Koli Naal. I’m guessing she’s been back and forth through the gate and into the Passageway, at first with the help of Marie Laveau, and then, when Marie stopped helping them, they came looking for you. I’m guessing that Koli won’t risk going inside herself for fear of being locked in forever, so she uses Beatrice to do her work.”

  He looked at Abra, and even in that moment, he laughed.

  “That’s a lot of guesses,” he said. “But I’m a good guesser. They must have been desperate if they came looking for you and your sword—it might have been able to get them through the gate, but it is also the very thing that can kill the Tree. It appears we have something in common with Koli Naal.”

  Abra was surprised. “What?”

  “We both need to get inside.”

  “I thought you couldn’t go inside. I thought angels couldn’t go in.”

  “Beings of Light, young lady. Beings of Light cannot, will not, should not—any of those and all of them at the same time. Cannot, will not, should not. Koli Naal and her kind, on the other hand . . . I suppose that might be seen as a benefit of their kind. They go where and when they please.”

  He rubbed his eyes again.

  “I’m tired, Abra.”

  “You’re tired? You’re an angel. How can you get tired?”

  “You know I don’t like that word. You have a lot of questions, don’t you?”

  She waited.

  “Beatrice will be Beatrice,” he concluded. “She will do what’s in the best interest of her master. I would be wary if you see her again—she will not play the part of your school friend any longer.”

  Abra took one step toward the doorway.

  “Wait, young lady. Wait.”

  Mr. Henry motioned toward the sword. Abra reached up and grabbed on to it, pulled it smoothly from the lock. It shone silver and white in the mist. But even the mist was fading. The world was returning from the shadows, taking shape all around them as if emerging on the first day. First the crypts came into view, followed by the wall, and finally the trees beyond it.

  “Hurry,” Mr. Henry said, staring at the sword. “I will push the gate nearly closed behind you, but I cannot lock it without the sword, and you will need to take that with you. I will wait here for a hundred days or a hundred years—however long it takes you to do what you must. I will sit here with my back against the door, but it will remain unlocked until you return. You should be able to see the light around the edges. When you return, walk to the light. I will be waiting.”

  She nodded solemnly at Mr. Henry and slid the sword into the side of her jeans. But then she thought better of that and took it back out. She held it in front of her, both of her hands clutching the small hilt. She had many thoughts as she walked into the darkness. She thought first of her mother—she wondered if going in was made easier by the fact that her mother no longer knew her. It was some comfort to think that if she didn’t return, her mother would not be saddened by her absence.

  Abra also thought about Sam and, not for the last time, wished he was there with her.

  She thought about the Amarok and took comfort in knowing it had been the last of its kind, but she wondered what other creatures Koli Naal might have set loose in the Passageway. She thought about Beatrice, wondering what she was up to. And that’s when she had her first important revelation—if Beatrice was involved, then surely she would know where the Tree was! It was the only lead Abra had, and she made up her mind. She had to follow Beatrice.

  She looked over her shoulder after she was a few steps inside and caught a vision of Mr. Henry, a tiny sliver of his face still visible through the crack in the door. Behind him was light and the dissipating fog and the emerging city, and beyond that the whole wide world.

  “I’m afraid,” she said in a small voice, small as a lone firefly in an endless field.

  “I know,” he said. “But fear always comes with a door, a door that leads straight through.”

  Abra tried to smile at him and took a deep breath, the sword trembling in her hands. She nodded at him and he nodded at her, and as she turned to walk farther into the darkness, he slowly pushed the stone door closed so that all she could see was a thin sliver of light around the outside of it.

  She hoped she would see it again soon.

  20

  LEO STOOD THERE WATCHING Abra and Mr. Henry walk away through the downpour. He barely noticed the rain—the last thing he was thinking about was the rain. It took everything in him not to scream at them as they walked away.

  Don’t you realize my sister is in there! How can you be so calm! What are we waiting for?

  But he didn’t scream anything. He stood there. And he waited.

  Beside him stood Beatrice. She had been silent at the park. She had been silent in the car on the drive over. She even remained silent while they stood there in the rain. He had nearly forgotten about her. He hadn’t taken much notice of her at all since she had emerged from the trapdoor, whining and complaining. But she moved, there in the rain, and he looked over at her.
r />   Beatrice walked through the doorway.

  Just like that, without a word, without an explanation, without so much as a sound or a look his way, she took ten steps and vanished into the darkness. He almost missed it because he had been staring at Mr. Henry and Abra, and Beatrice didn’t make a sound when she moved. The only thing he really saw was the back of her blending in with the shadows inside of Marie Laveau’s grave.

  “Beatrice!” he said, but she didn’t stop. He walked over to the opening and stared inside—it was like staring into a vat of black oil. He couldn’t see a thing. His mind started to wander.

  Leo’s sadness about losing his sister hadn’t lessened through the years, but it had changed, somehow lost its sharp edges. The sadness that remained seemed fuller, more permanent. Standing there in the very spot where he had last seen her eight years before, the door now open in front of him, was a powerful experience. He scoured the area for any signs of Marie, but there were no ashes on the ground, no signs of a miniature fire, no reminders of that night. He wondered what had become of his father and his sister. Were they still in there? Had they been waiting all those years for someone to unlock the gate so they could come back out? Were they even alive?

  Before he knew it, he was surrounded in darkness.

  He had gone in.

  He kept walking forward even though he couldn’t see anything. The ground beneath his feet seemed temporary in that blackness, as if he might start floating away. The darkness suffocated him at first, and he had to breathe deliberately. Sometimes he thought maybe he was floating. But in those moments of uncertainty he would look back at the doorway, framed in light. The door was still there, smaller as he walked farther in, but still there.

  When distance threatened to make the door invisible behind him, he noticed a shifting in the darkness ahead. It became less oily, less solid. It shifted into a gray sort of murkiness, and he felt stones and dirt crunching under his feet, and he walked farther and realized the darkness to each side of him was no longer a void but the shadows of a thick forest. When he looked behind him, all he saw was the dirt road as far as he could see. He wondered, if he walked back that way, would he reenter the darkness, or was that door lost to him forever?