by Gina Damico
Lex inched closer. It was no more than a foot in diameter, and flat—as if a dinner plate had gotten sick of being confined to the table and decided to suspend itself in midair instead. After circling it completely, she sat back down and peered into it as though she were looking through a porthole on a ship, though she could see nothing except more of the same grayness. The second she looked away, however, her peripheral vision sensed movement within.
When she squinted harder, she could tell she was right. The grayness inside the circle was moving, ebbing like clouds right before a thunderstorm.
A daft idea popped into her mind, even though it didn’t quite make sense. Cautious yet curious, she bit her lip and brought her hand up to the circle, hoping that her theory was right and that she’d be able to reach inside.
But before she could do anything, a grinning face popped into view.
Startled, Lex flew back in her chair again and screamed.
“Hey, snotwad,” said Cordy.
6
Lex clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Stirrings within the other bedrooms meant she’d already woken everyone up.
Cordy’s head looked around the kitchen. “Nice setup you’ve got here,” she said. “Top-secret safe houses really have come a long way.”
“What the hell?” Lex was able to reach into the circle, but when she tried to touch Cordy’s face, her hands were repelled as if they were magnetized, just as in the Afterlife.
“And are those bunk beds?” Cordy carried on, straining to see into Lex’s bedroom. “What’s the thread count on those bad boys?”
“Cordy, focus,” Lex said, unable to believe how Cordy’s murky surroundings were so starkly different from the normal fluffy whiteness. “Is that really the Afterlife? It’s so dark and—”
“Stormy? Yeah, I know.”
Their conversation was cut short by everyone else barging into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and confused.
Pip rubbed his eyes and pointed. “Lex, look! It’s your sister!”
“Yes, thank you, Pip,” she said through gritted teeth. She turned to Uncle Mort, whose stern face left little room for doubt that he was incredibly pissed about this whole situation. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—” She turned to face the floating circle, then back to her uncle, then repeated that cycle a couple of times, really hammering home the fact that she’d turned into a lunatic.
Cordy wasn’t helping. “Hey, Uncle Mort!” She gave him a sprightly wave. “And hey, loverboy,” she said in a sultry voice, winking at Driggs. “You bunking with Lex? Have the sexy parties begun? She’s a big fan of piñatas and jello pits—”
Lex quickly stood in front of Cordy to block her, resulting in a muffled series of protests. “You know what? I’m not going to bother with excuses,” she said to Uncle Mort. “I don’t know what I just did, but I’m a hundred percent sure I wasn’t supposed to do it, so let’s just skip over the scolding for now, and you tell me what’s going on and we’ll all go from there.” His stern face didn’t go away. “Sound coolsies?”
Cordy was shouting something about a grave injustice, but Lex stayed put. Ferbus rammed his hands over his ears. “Floating head is loud,” he complained. “Make stop.”
Uncle Mort, who hadn’t ceased frowning since he came into the room, snatched the hole punch up from the floor where Lex had dropped it and placed it on the table. “I thought I explicitly instructed you not to use this.”
“I don’t even know what this is,” said Lex.
“I told you. It’s a hole punch.”
Lex just stared.
“It punches holes,” he added.
More staring.
Uncle Mort pinched his nose between his fingers. “Between the real world and the Afterlife. It opens up a temporary portal. Through the Looking Glass, Alice. Do I need to paint you a picture?”
Elysia’s jaw dropped. “That’s the Afterlife?” she said, trying to see around Lex.
Lex stepped away from the portal to reveal a frowning Cordy. “Uncool, Lex,” she said. “I didn’t schlep all the way over here just to stare at your backside. Which is looking great, by the way. Have you been working out?”
“If running in sheer terror for my life counts, then yes.”
“It’s done marvels for your glutes.”
“Enough with the glutes!” Ferbus shouted. “Mort, just tell us what to do with Floaty Head so we can all go back to sleep!”
Uncle Mort scratched his hair, transforming his already messy bed head into a thing of true chaos. “The perforator was supposed to be used only in the event of an emergency,” he said with a disapproving glare at Lex. “In case we needed to contact the dead for some reason, or send a warning. But now that you’ve gone and used it, let’s just call it a wash and get out of it what information we can. Sound coolsies?” he ended in a mocking tone, staring at Lex.
She looked away. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s a wonder you haven’t blown yourself up yet,” Uncle Mort said under his breath, crossing to the miniature portal. “Cordy! How are things holding up in there?”
“Not great, as you can see.” She bit her lip, a mirror image of the way Lex always did. “It’s like all those little cracks that have been showing up around here suddenly started to widen and get worse, and at a much faster rate, and now—” She gestured at the brewing tempest, her expression worried. “It’s bad. A lot worse than it was when you were in DeMyse.”
“That’ll be because of Norwood gaining the ability to Damn,” Uncle Mort said. “It’s just one violation too many. The Afterlife can’t handle it.”
Lex reddened but said nothing.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought,” Cordy said. “Kilda snuck up to the vault and filled us in about what happened—you guys Crashing across the country, being in jail, getting convicted, and then . . . all the stuff that happened after.” Lex wanted to thank her for not rehashing the whole Zara-Driggs-Norwood-Heloise debacle in front of everyone, but it seemed Cordy already knew how sensitive she was about it. Twin perk. “Sorry you had to go through all that,” was all she said, looking at Lex.
Lex swallowed. “Thanks.”
“Anyway,” Cordy continued, “a whole bunch more vortexes popped up, and a few more people are losing their memory. Elvis forgot the lyrics to some of his songs. Abraham Lincoln can’t quite remember who it is he emancipated. Tom Edison keeps wandering around and mumbling something about losing his precious, precious current.”
“And the blurring!” a voice in the Afterlife distance rang out. “Don’t forget to tell them about the blurring!”
“Oh yeah,” said Cordy with a grim look. “That fun new problem.”
“Hi, everyone.” Kloo appeared, businesslike as usual and not the slightest bit surprised to have stumbled upon a mini portal full of her former colleagues. “In addition to the vortexes, parts of the Afterlife are now blurring, like they’re being . . . I don’t know, erased. Like someone is smearing it all away with a giant paper towel.”
“Have any souls disappeared?” Uncle Mort asked.
“Not as far as we know.”
“Not yet, anyway,” said Cordy, a hint of fear flickering through her eyes.
“Then we’ve still got time,” said Uncle Mort. He gave the two dead girls a reassuring smile. “We’re working on it. Until then, sit tight.”
“Sure.” Cordy smirked. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Ferbus clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Great! Well, I feel worlds better. Back to bed with us.”
One by one, the Juniors shuffled back into their rooms, Elysia giving Lex a quick squeeze before she left. Driggs exchanged a series of looks with Lex, asking if she was okay? Yes, she was. Did she want to chat with Cordy alone for a while? Yes, she did. Okay, love you. Love you too.
Uncle Mort picked up the perforator, propped it over his shoulder, and headed for his room. “I’ll just be holding on to this from now on.”
“Wait,” said
Lex, gesturing at the portal. “What about this? Don’t we have to—I don’t know, close it?”
“It should close on its own in a few minutes. Like I said, it’s only temporary.”
“Then why did you make such a big deal about it?” she asked. “I thought I’d done, like, a shitload more damage to the Afterlife.”
He turned around to look at her and spoke very slowly, as if she were a preschooler who’d just drawn all over the walls with a crayon. “The perforator is designed to inflict the least amount of damage possible to the Afterlife—still some, but since it’s only open for a few moments, it’s a relatively scant amount. However, there are only a number of these in the world—one per Grim town, to be precise.”
“One per town . . . temporary, with just a tiny violation . . .” Lex let out a slow breath at the realization. “You’re going to use perforators to replace the tunnels.”
“Correct,” he said. “Every Grim team in town will unload their vessels at the same time—once per day, in under half an hour. That’s the best we can do.” He looked at the device in his hands. “This one is intended for Necropolis, and if you’d damaged it, there would be no way to replace it. I thought I could trust you to keep it safe, but it looks like once again I was deluding myself into thinking you were capable of listening to me. That’s why I made such a big deal.”
Lex blinked. “Oh.”
He turned and went back into the bedroom. Lex watched him, unnerved.
“Awkward,” Cordy said, breaking the silence.
Lex turned back to the portal. Kloo had left, but Cordy was still there, and woefully confused. “Why do the tunnels need replacing?” she asked Lex. “What the hell were you two talking about?”
“Uncle Mort has this psychotic plan to fix the Afterlife,” Lex told her. “It involves—” Her throat went dry. “It involves sealing the portals and the tunnels. Forever.”
Cordy’s smile faltered. “What? How?”
“No clue. All I know is that we have to seal the one in Necropolis first. And after they’re all closed, we won’t—” Lex realized how selfish she was about to sound, given the fact that the existence of the Afterlife was on the line, but she said it anyway. “We won’t be able to see each other anymore.”
“What?” cried Cordy. “That sucks!”
“I know.”
After a moment, though, Cordy turned thoughtful. “But I guess . . . it would be no more difficult than what regular people go through, right? Like Mom and Dad having to wait until they die to see me again? Really, you and I are lucky to even have what we’ve had.”
Lex glared at her. “I guess.” She hated how optimistic Cordy had gotten ever since she died, never letting Lex just stew in her misery. It was very irritating.
“I mean, if it saves the Afterlife, isn’t that a small price to pay?” Cordy went on. “Besides, when you finally do get here—and it will be decades from now, or I’ll be very upset with you—we’ll all be waiting. Like I said, I’m not going anywhere. And then we’ll have the rest of eternity for you to tell me all about the amazing life you’ve led. And I can force you onto all of the roller coasters I’ve built. It’ll be a hootenanny and a half.”
Lex nodded slowly. “That’s true.”
Except that Driggs might not be waiting for her. Driggs might never get to the Afterlife at all if Lex didn’t successfully trigger the reset.
It wasn’t fair. Driggs being cheated out of an Afterlife like that, when there were plenty of awful people who got it automatically but didn’t remotely deserve it. People like—
“Zara!” The word rushed out of her mouth the moment she thought it. She tried to look around Cordy’s head into the distance of the Afterlife. “Where is she? Is she in there?”
A pained expression came over Cordy’s face. “Yeah, she’s in the Void, somewhere. We saw her come in when you—when she died,” she said, expertly sidestepping the reminder of Lex’s adventures in strangling. “But she blew through so fast, no one got a chance to approach her.”
“Figures.”
“Honestly, though, Lex? I don’t think we’ll ever see her again.”
Lex grimaced. She didn’t think so either.
But it was then that something sneezed on Cordy, and there was no way they could keep up a serious discussion about Zara after that. “Lumpy!” Cordy groaned, wiping off her face. “I told you to knock that off!”
The answer she received could only be the strident cry of a disgruntled camel. Cordy fumbled with her adopted pet for a moment, but judging by her flailings, she was losing the battle. “I think he’s in heat,” she explained to Lex as Lumpy licked her eyeball. “He’s become very . . . affectionate.”
Lex pointed into the distance. “Doesn’t that make your boyfriend jealous?”
King Tut, the legendary Pharaoh, was wandering aimlessly through the rolling clouds of the Afterlife, calling out for Cordy before becoming distracted by his shiny gold necklace. He paused, used it as a mirror to pick something out of his teeth, then gave it a winning smile and started to carry on a compliment-laden conversation with his reflection.
Lex raised an eyebrow. “So. How is the Tut?”
Cordy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you know. Stunning. Dreamy. Dynamite in the sack.”
Lex’s jaw dropped. “You’ve—”
“Well, no.” Cordy said, abashed. Lumpy abruptly wandered off, as if offended by all this talk of his rival. Cordy gave her face another good wipe and continued. “So far, we’ve just cuddled. Some business about the gods looking down on us with unflinching scorn or something. But I remain cautiously optimistic.” She waved at him. “Hey, sweets!”
Tut sauntered over to Cordy until his golden, chiseled face filled the portal. He peered out at Lex. “What demonry is this?”
“Good to see you, Tutty,” Lex said. “Looking sharp.”
He frowned. “I always look sharp.”
“I know. Just confirming.”
“The peasant looks more peasantlike than usual,” Tut said to Cordy, as if Lex weren’t sitting right there. “Gaunt. Malnourished.”
“I was in jail for a while,” said Lex. “Best crash diet there is.”
“But look at her glutes!” Cordy added.
Lex stood to display her butt. Tut gave her a once-over and managed a bored nod. “The glutes are satisfactory.”
“I mean, not as satisfactory as yours, obviously,” Cordy said, slapping him on the ass.
Lex held her hand up to block the view. “Well, I don’t need to see this.”
A twitchy nose popped up underneath her hand, near the rim of the portal. “They’re like this all the time. I can’t bear it any longer. I can’t and I shan’t!”
“Edgar!” Lex’s face melted into a grin as she lowered her hand. “Oh, man. I’ve missed you.”
Edgar Allan Poe smoothed out his frock coat. “Yes. Well. Your absence has been noted as well. I’m left to fend for myself with these simpering nincompoops.”
“Hey, Poe,” said Tut. “Your mustache is showing!” He smiled a jockish grin and gave Cordy a high-five.
“I know my mustache is—that’s not even a joke—” Edgar’s lip quivered. “You see what I mean? It seems the presidents have taught him the ever-popular sport of Torture the Poet. Oh, yes. Taught. Him. Well.”
Lex snickered, but her body stiffened as she thought about all that was on the line here. If they didn’t succeed in preserving the Afterlife, what would happen to these guys? They’d just cease to exist?
Tut was now flicking something at Poe, who fussily swatted at his head. “Stop that at once. Quoth!” The stately black raven alighted on his shoulder, picked something out of his hair, and dropped it into Poe’s outstretched hand.
Tut let out a hearty laugh. “Dung beetle!”
Edgar turned a gothic shade of red. “Oh, that is quite mature. Quite!” He stalked away, repeatedly muttering “Quite!” to Quoth, or himself, or perhaps a voice in his head. One could never be too sure with t
he soul of Edgar Allan Poe.
Tut let out a hearty chortle, prompting Cordy to smack him. “Give the guy a break, Tut,” she said. “You know he gets nosebleeds.”
“That was just a phase!” Poe huffed in the distance.
Lex laughed out loud, then threw a worried glance back at the bedrooms. When no one emerged to yell at her, she turned to the portal—
But it had disappeared.
***
“Lex, wake up!”
Lex did as she was told. She lifted her head and rubbed her face, feeling the notches in her skin where the wooden kitchen table had imprinted itself.
Pip and Bang were staring at her like two frightened lemurs. “We heard something.”
Lex listened. After a second, she heard a shuffling noise above her head.
Her limbs tingled. “Crap,” she whispered. “Do you think someone followed us here? We’re in the middle of—”
“Nowhere,” signed Bang. “Yes, all Grimsphere locations are in the middle of nowhere. And yet people keep finding them, so I think that by now, discovery is a valid concern!”
Lex jumped out of the hard chair and ran into the adjoining bedroom. “Uncle Mort,” she said, shaking him gently. “There are noises outside.”
He swooped out of the bed fully dressed and ready for action, as if he’d known that she’d inevitably barge in to announce trouble. Which, given their recent history, was an entirely reasonable assumption to make. “For how long?” he asked her, heading for the kitchen.
“I don’t know. Pip and Bang just woke me up.”
More scratching noises came from above, and Uncle Mort’s face went pale. “Yeah. Someone’s here.”
“Call Pandora—or Wicket! She’s standing guard outside, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but since she didn’t alert us, we have to assume she’s already been compromised.”
The commotion had woken Ferbus and Elysia, who emerged from their rooms once again. “What now?” Ferbus whined.
“Shhh,” Pip said, pointing up. “We think someone’s here.”
Lex’s eyes lit up as an idea steamrolled into her head. “Driggs!” She ran into the bedroom, climbed up the ladder, and shook him awake. He was solid—which, for once, was not a good thing. “Driggs, wake up.”