Silverworld

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  It was almost like the book was trying to avoid her. Like the book itself was under a spell.

  She smirked and rolled her eyes at herself, but kept turning the slippery pages. Twice, wisps of things—tiny feathers or petals—tumbled from the book, but when Sami bent to retrieve them, they winked out before she could touch them. The book was so old and delicate, she felt like a clumsy oaf trying to thumb through a fairy’s storybook. She paged faster, aware of precious minutes slipping by, her frustration building. Finally, she was about to give up on the book when she came to a page where the writing stood precisely still.

  The words looked like some sort of incantation, written partially in gibberish. Directly underneath the first line of garbled words, in small faint letters, it said:

  Thee Opfening of thee Silverskinn’d

  Beside this was an ink drawing of a mirror. The same mirror, to be exact, that stood in Sami’s room. There were the same waves and swirls that framed the long rectangle—even the dented glass in the middle. She realized then she could make out in the drawing the faint image of a face in the mirror…which looked oddly like Sami’s—it had the same round black eyes and curling black hair. She shivered a bit, then tried to laugh at herself. It was just a drawing!

  There was something about the scrambled language that looked familiar as well—kkeeff karaaaab yyallu: ahtttah li rraaad il raamsim.

  Sami climbed back on her bed and looked up at her reflection in the mirror again. The words reminded her of Teta’s jumbled language. It was just as if the book itself had taken her to this page. Her breath sped up and her eyes grew wide: it seemed almost possible she was holding the key to her grandmother’s cure right there in her hands. But did she dare to try a spell? Her grandmother always emphasized the powerful—and unpredictable—nature of enchantments. For some reason, one of her mother’s favorite expressions popped into her head: The only way out is through. It was something Alia would say when she was tackling a tough case or a mountain of briefs and paperwork.

  Just outside came the sound of a car door closing.

  Sami jumped and almost dropped the book. There was no time to waste. She didn’t know exactly what this spell was supposed to do, only that the book itself had nearly placed these words in her lap. Sami stood and held the old thing up carefully before her. She was just a few feet from her mirror and could see all of herself reflected in it. Her reflection looked frightened and unsure, but also maybe even a little bit brave. Yes. Determined. She hoped her own secret strength was there too, like her grandmother’s Ashrafieh, trying to unfold.

  “Mother! What’s the matter now?” Alia’s voice came through the window from their driveway. “Easy, easy. Please, calm yourself. I’ll have you back upstairs in just a minute.”

  There was a long, agitated string of Teta’s strange words.

  “Why are you being like this? Shoo, habibti? Just take it easy, I’m coming around to your side now—I’ll let you right out….”

  She knows I have the book, Sami thought in a panic. Somehow, Teta knows!

  The tiny words ran under the unknown lines like a kind of translation. Squinting, heart hammering in her chest, Sami began to read aloud: “Beautifull Silverskinn’d, greatest door to Worldes beside Worldes beside Worldes, please to hear mine enjoindre. I heare the Friende and I Respond. O, Silverskinn’d, parte your Gaetes and admit me….”

  There was the sound of a second car door closing. She read faster:

  “I atteste that I am Capable and Authorize’d, and that I am One of the Treu Silverwalkers, read’eed to pass threuw the Gaetes. For this Favore I grant You mine Favore, which is Luve and Obeisance. Threuw the Gaetes I go Willinglee and Joyeouslee, knowing once threuw, nevermore I may retourn Un-change’ed.”

  Sami lowered the book then. Her face in the mirror looked ashen, her heart was pounding, and for some reason she was completely out of breath, panting like she’d run a mile, but nothing else was happening. For a moment, she felt a kind of terrified uncertainty: this had to work! It would be unbearable to step back from whatever brink this was. It would not only fail Teta, but also prove her grandmother was wrong—about many things—especially and worst of all about the magical worlds.

  Through her anxiety, Sami realized her head seemed to be swimming with a dense murk: she heard and felt things as if they were coming to her from a great distance. She turned toward the front door. It was opening, but the sound itself seemed to come from far away. Was she dreaming?

  She closed the book, and was sliding it under her blankets when she noticed a soft blue light cast over her bed. She blinked. All along its edges, in each corner, the mirror had started to glow.

  She blinked several more times, bit the inside of her cheek, pinched her arm and felt it sharply.

  This was not a dream.

  At the center of the mirror a dot expanded into a white beam: it grew and cut through her room, sweeping across Sami’s body. She felt shimmering under her skin. It was a wondrous, silky, free-flying sensation. It felt like being born and swimming in a warm pool and climbing the highest tree and eating chocolate ice cream, and having her mother and father and grandparents and brother wrap their arms around her all at the same time.

  No matter what happens, Sami thought, whether Teta gets well or gets sent away or I get into a million years of trouble or I’m grounded forever, no matter what—this feeling, right now, makes everything worth it.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep, sweet breath, wishing she could have this feeling forever, and that’s when she felt the floor disappear from under her feet.

  She plunged.

  Her feet flew over her head, her arms were thrown open, then her head was over her feet, then down again. It was like being tumbled in the most enormous waves: a roar from underneath the planet swept her body and she felt rushing and frothing. Her eyes filled with blue light, light seemed to be pouring from her ears and mouth and fingertips, and there was no time to scream or breathe, only to twist and spin.

  And then not.

  Light sucked inside out and everything was gone—no color, no shades, no dimension. No Sami. All was flat and nothing. It was just a blink. Like existence held its breath. Then released.

  And light—in all delicate gradients and hues and colors—rolled back in.

  Now she drifted. As if she were made of feathers. One great feather. Gently, gently lowering, rocking, lowering, at last settling into stillness. She sank into something with the softness of feathers, water, air.

  Easing deeper. Into sleep.

  * * *

  There were voices. No. It was only one voice. And there was that good feeling again. Not as strong as before. Where was she now? Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be riding a little cushion of air. It rose and fell very gently with each of her breaths, like a cradle made from a cloud.

  There was a sweet, rocking sensation inside her body and mind, tipping one way, then the other, gentle and satisfying, as if she herself had become the cradle. Something—or someone—was stroking her hands.

  The voice blurred slightly. She couldn’t quite focus enough in order to hear. Words coming together:

  Alive…you…

  Like…seeing…wanted…dense.

  Friend…waken…

  She struggled to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt heavy, as if there were tiny weights attached to them. She began to crack them open, but sharp blue-and-white light cut into her eyes and she flinched, squeezing them shut.

  She’s awake!

  “No, your eyes! Wait, Sami!” the voice cried. She realized then that the first words she’d heard hadn’t been spoken aloud, yet somehow she’d still managed to hear them. She felt hands on her head—the feeling that something was sliding over her face. “Okay—yes. Now, gently, Sami. Open slowly.”

  She lifted her eyes slowly and this time the
intense colors were softer. She could just make out a shadowy head hovering over her.

  “You’re not used yet to our light,” the voice said. “It will take some minutes at least.”

  Sami realized that this creature or person standing before her was where the good feeling had come from. As she gazed at it, she started to remember what had happened: how she’d stood before the mirror with her grandmother’s spell book, reading those words, then fell forward into the mirror as this lovely, sweet sensation swept over her. The feeling was little more than a faint echo now. She squinted through bands of color and light and began to make out more details. The speaker appeared to be a boy, several years older than Sami, with round black eyes, green skin, and long, waving deep-black hair. He wore a checked scarf around his shoulders that reminded her of the headscarves men wore in Lebanon. He seemed intensely familiar to her, like a long-lost best friend, like someone she’d known all her life—and yet she was pretty sure she’d never seen him before. “You look like me,” she said hazily, her voice thick and slow. “Are you—like—a dream?”

  His smile was wide and bright. “I am Dorsom. I’m sure I must seem very like dreams to you now. But no. I’m a Flicker. We are—well, how to say it so you understand? We’re reflections. Sort of.” Dorsom didn’t have an accent, but the slightly clipped way he talked reminded her of how some of the people in her family spoke English.

  “Reflections…” She looked around, carefully sitting up. “Is this place—are we—inside the mirror somehow?”

  Dorsom stared at her, blinking, and she felt a hum of surprise that seemed to come directly from him.

  Now she sat a bit straighter, carefully balancing. Her body felt somehow featherlight. She attempted to pull her thoughts together. “Are we still—in the world?”

  “It’s a world of a kind,” Dorsom said. She noticed his eyes flick away and back again. He seemed preoccupied or distracted. “We’re in Silverworld, Sami. The World next door.”

  “And that—how do you know my name?” Sami pushed back her elbows.

  “Take care,” Dorsom said. “You’re not used to our air yet.”

  “I’m not used to…what?” Sami tried to stand up and nearly fell right back over. She was solid, yet couldn’t feel the weight of her own body. Her head spun for a second and her ears fizzed. “Whoa!” She braced against the ground, her hand brushing silky golden weeds. She realized she and the boy were out in some sort of open field—red stones and sandy bramble. Gradually, her sense of balance began to return. “What on earth is going on? What’s wrong with me?”

  But he didn’t answer. Instead, he shifted into a squat, eyes scanning all around. Sami followed his gaze and saw that the field was bordered on one side by a row of distant houses. She squinted, tilting her head; the perspective changed and the houses looked much closer and quite familiar.

  “I’m—I’m at home! We’re not in another world, we’re in my backyard.” She marveled, gazing around at scrubby weeds and sand, noticing bands of soft colors—the weeds lavender and the palm trees rippling coral red. “Only, well…it’s not totally my backyard….”

  Then something like a surge or pulse ran through the air. Sami couldn’t see or hear it but she felt it clearly. “Oh! Wow.”

  “What is it?” he asked. “What do you feel?”

  She stared at Dorsom, still shocked and afraid, yet she had the strongest sense that this was someone she could trust. His warm black eyes were so familiar, it was somehow as if they were old friends who’d never met before.

  He stood. “You must have picked up on something. It wouldn’t take long, I knew. Best we get going.”

  “Going?” Sami wasn’t sure she could even get to her feet, but he took her hand and she rose effortlessly. “My gosh!” She started to laugh but then she felt the pulse through the air again—this time deeper and stronger, like a shock wave. It was as if, for an instant, everything had turned into ripples on a pond.

  He asked, Is something coming?

  Sami nodded, though she wasn’t sure how she knew. Then she realized again he hadn’t spoken the words out loud. “Wait. How are you—?”

  Walking swiftly, Dorsom beckoned, and with his thoughts he called, Let us go now. Most quickly. Let’s go.

  Sami still wasn’t sure what was happening here, but the intensifying, increasing pulse in the air made her feel as if her very bones had turned cold. “Wait! Wait for me!”

  Catching up to Dorsom, Sami asked, “Where are we going?” They were walking swiftly and it almost felt more like flying. She barely felt the ground under her feet. They dodged around the back of a house very similar to the one she lived in—except this one had a soft orange glow. Sami started to turn toward it, but Dorsom said, “No. This isn’t the Actual World, Sami. It’s not your World.”

  “What—where are—?” Sami didn’t even know which question to ask first.

  He muttered with his thoughts, Please. For now—just keep going. They walked past houses that looked vaguely like Sami’s neighbors’ homes, but these glowed in tones of amber, sea green, and bronze.

  “Wow!” Sami gasped, her head swiveling to take in all the colors. “Just wow, wow, wow. It’s beautiful.”

  Once they’d covered several blocks, Dorsom slowed his pace. “Don’t look forth or back,” he said evenly. “Better to blend right in.”

  Sami recognized the Flamingo Road neighborhood, and yet, like the backyard, it didn’t look right. The colors were too bright and unusual; there was little grass, just expanses of sandy pink rock and scrub. The street was narrow, coral-tinted cobblestone. She seemed to hear a faint jingling in the palm fronds, and a flock of glowing fuchsia birds passing overhead seemed to be murmuring to each other in some sort of language. Was her mother or brother seeing any of this? She didn’t have her phone or tablet; she wished desperately she could ask her family what was going on.

  Dorsom gestured and they turned into a crowded street. Flickers strolled by, the way people did on Flamingo Road, but here they were dressed in long robes—women mostly in crimson and lemon yellow, the men in rich browns. Some wore headdresses, turbans or sand-colored headscarves. A few wore russet beads wound around their heads or their necks. There were no cars, but several Flickers walked past, leading goats or a line of sheep. One rode on a grunting, soft-eyed magenta camel. Instead of a sleepy beach town in South Florida, it all looked more like some bustling, Technicolor, Middle Eastern desert oasis, straight from one of Teta’s stories.

  Sami tried not to stare but she noticed a few of the Flickers glancing at her. She had the weird sense that she was being scanned somehow—and that it wasn’t quite a polite thing to do either. In response, she felt herself doing something instinctive that was like sealing herself off; instantly the other Flickers looked away. She frowned, unnerved.

  Well done, Dorsom said—or rather, thought—startling her again.

  I didn’t realize I did anything, she tried thinking back to him. I don’t even know how we’re having this—conversation.

  They all assume you are a Flicker, like me. He smiled. For an Actual person, that’s some excellent reflecting you’re doing.

  They walked quickly, Sami panting and struggling a bit to keep her balance on the broken, uneven cobblestones. At last they turned into a place that in Sami’s World was called the Tropi Café—a squat, whitewashed stone structure with a flat roof. In this World, the sign out front had a bright chartreuse light, making it too blurry to read. They knocked, and the door opened. Dorsom led her to a table in the corner.

  “This is good,” Dorsom said softly as they sat. “Most Shadows dislike going indoors. We should be all right for a bit.”

  “We’re running from shadows?” Sami asked, incredulous. “But why? Please, you have to tell me what is going on. I can’t—I won’t go any farther until I know what’s happening.”

  A young
woman closed the front door, then hurried to their table and smiled at them. “Rebalancers, welcome!” Her narrow eyes had a pewter tint and her hair glowed down her back like a sheet of cream-colored satin. She wore flat silver sandals and billowing, filmy trousers tied around her ankles with silver threads. A row of bangles clinked on her wrist. She seemed to Sami almost too beautiful to be real. “We are honored that you are amidst. May I bring you trays from our chef?”

  Dorsom shook his head. “Something simple, please. Tea, bread.” He looked at Sami. “The soup here is excellent.”

  Sami hesitated, wondered if she should ask what sort of soup it was, and then nodded. “Okay, uh, soup for me too, please.”

  The waitress bowed politely, backing away.

  “Marvelous!” Dorsom said. “Not one discerns that you are an Actual.”

  “Is that good?” Sami asked, glancing at the server, who was opening the elaborate lock on the door. “What would happen if other Flickers found out about me?”

  “To say is difficult.” Dorsom raised his eyebrows. “I’ve not seen this sort of situation before. I mean, for an Actual person to Cross Over into our World. And there is less…tolerance…these days for new sorts of persons and ways of being and such.”

  “Everyone is upset and anxious because of all the increasing Shadow soldiers,” a new voice said. Sami turned to see a woman standing near her chair. The waitress bowed and once again locked the door.

  “You arrived!” Dorsom pulled out a chair, which she folded into gracefully.

  The young woman had long purplish-black hair and deep indigo skin. There were silver tattoos covering the backs of her hands, a delicate line of dots from her lower lip to her chin, and a line of silver dots above each purple eyebrow. I heard your thoughts and rushed over here. She turned to Sami. “It’s recorded within The Book of Silver that in ages past, Flickers and Actuals used to regularly Cross into and out of each other’s Worlds. But I never believed I would ever see someone from the Actual World in person.” She gazed at Sami with such a wide, purple stare that Sami lowered her eyes.