by Alyson Noel
“Then your fingers sink right in.” He nodded, his expression showing how pleased he was that I finally understood, even though he refused to grant me a smile. “So you must think of the bubble as this—”
“Oobleck.” I nodded.
“You must accept that your friends are inside, accept that Rebecca is very angry and will do all that she can to work against you, accept all of that as your current reality, and then once you’ve accepted what is, you are free to proceed without the need to force anything.” He paused, making sure I understood, and I’m happy to say that I did.
“There are many trapped inside, many others whom you’ve never met, but who are in need of your help nonetheless. I must tell you that I have dreamed that the glowing ones would arrive one day, and now that you are here, I am very much pleased.”
He continued to speak, but I was no longer listening. All I could focus on was the part about the glowing ones.
While my glow may not have been all that—while it may have only been a barely there green (as Bodhi was so quick to point out)—it was there nonetheless.
Radiant enough to where even Prince Kanta had seen it.
Radiant enough to where he thought I might be of some help.
“Once we are inside, in order to help them, in order to release them, we must learn the stories that keep them imprisoned in order to compassionately free them from their own pasts.”
I looked at him, acknowledging that while he was definitely weird, a bit of an oddball for sure, I was still glad to have him around, since I was pretty sure that, glow or no glow, I wasn’t really all that equipped to tackle the job on my own.
I watched as he pressed up against the bubble, moved himself so close his entire body, including his nose and his face, were pressed flush against it. Then, with a quick wave of his fingers, he motioned for me to follow suit.
And after positioning myself the same way as he had, we closed our eyes and melded with the surface, and not long after, we found ourselves inside.
13
It was different from before.
Last time it’d been more personal.
An exact replica of my kindergarten classroom.
A hell made exclusively for me.
And though the scenery had suffered some pretty dramatic changes, I was relieved to find it changed in a more general, less individual kind of way.
While it wasn’t exactly the hell of flames and pitchforks and devil horns one might expect when visiting such a place, it was still dark and dreary and hellish in its own right.
It was also so quiet and desolate and calm, I had the odd sensation of being plopped down in the middle of a still life or a landscape. Only instead of the glistening streams and sun-dappled gardens you often see in oil paintings, this one was a completely dry and barren scene. Created from a palette of varying shades of blacks, grays, and deep reddish browns—like a forest unable to overcome the lasting effects of a fire that raged a long time before. Leaving nothing but burned-out tree carcasses, dried up lake beds, and a never-ending deluge of thick squares of ash that rose and swirled and circled and swooped only to fall once again.
“Where are we?” I whispered. Even though I didn’t see Rebecca or anyone else, for some reason, I was afraid of being overheard.
“We are inside her world.” Prince Kanta turned till he was facing me, his mouth drawn, face serious, as he said, “Both Rebecca’s heart and soul have become so soiled with anger and hate, this is the result.”
I looked all around, curious to see what else there might be, how far it might go, and if it was actually possible to see the rounded, sloping smooth walls that separated us from everything else. But while I couldn’t see much of anything besides a whole lot of scorched earth, it’s not like I was curious enough to venture off on my own. I was far too reluctant to leave the prince’s side, and though I had no way of knowing just how bad it might get, I was pretty sure this was only the beginning of what that evil little ghost girl had in store.
Besides, it’s not like I had time for a tour. I needed to find Bodhi and Buttercup as quickly as possible, so we could get the heck out of there.
“Does she know we’re here?” I asked, sensing the answer well before I saw his nodding head.
“Oh, yes. This is her world. She is aware of everything that occurs here.”
“So what now?” I gazed up at the prince and bit down on my lip, hoping he’d have a good idea or two, since I hadn’t a clue. “Where do we find them? Where do we go? What do we do?”
But even though I was fully resolved to following his lead, Prince Kanta just looked at me and said, “The journey is mostly here.” He tapped the side of his head, the space between his temple and ear, before adding, “And less here.” He arced his arm out before him, motioning toward an expanse of scorched earth.
And seeing that, well, I have to admit it took pretty much all of my willpower not to groan and roll my eyes, but somehow I refrained. No matter how grateful I was to have him around, there was no doubt he was a bit of a nutcase. Still, he had been through an awful lot, experienced the kinds of things that would definitely end up testing the sanity of just about anybody, and so, with that in mind, I decided to do my best not to judge, which, I hate to admit, was really quite a stretch for me.
So instead I just said, “Um, care to translate?”
Watching as he moved until he was standing a few feet before me, taking a moment to survey the land with his hand pressed tightly against his brow, shielding his eyes from the deluge of ash that continued to fall. Then dropping his hand just as quickly, he snatched up an old, burned-out tree branch from the ground, using the pointy broken end to draw a small circle deep into a bed of ash as he said, “This circle represents you.” He glanced at me, making sure I understood, before he went on to draw a much bigger circle just outside of it. “And this is the bubble.”
I nodded. So far, so good, I was able to follow.
Then after drawing a zigzaggy line that filled up the entire area between the small and large circles, he added, “And somewhere in here are your friends.”
“Yeah, Bodhi and Buttercup,” I said, eager to get on with it, sure he was just about to get to the good part—the part that would tell me exactly where to find them.
“And so, knowing what you know about this Bodhi and … Buttercup.” My dog’s name sounding almost hilariously foreign on his tongue, he tapped the ground with his stick and asked, “Where would you begin looking for them? What would be the very last place they’d ever want to revisit? What would be the place that holds the most trauma—the most anger for them?”
My cheeks began to flush, and I quickly averted my gaze. I had no idea how to answer, and I couldn’t help but feel deeply embarrassed for that.
Sure, Bodhi’s untimely death by bone cancer seemed like the obvious choice, but when I remembered the casual way in which he told me, the way he just shrugged it off and said something like, “But that’s the way it goes sometimes, right?” well, I wasn’t so sure.
I mean, was that just a bit of bravado?
Some big, phony, tough-guy act he put on because he wanted me to respect him and make a good impression?
Had he really been so accepting of his early demise?
Or did that acceptance come only after the point when he could no longer change it—when he was already dead and couldn’t do a dang thing about it?
Because when it came down to my own untimely exit, I fully admit that even though I was learning my place and finding my way on the other side, I still had my moments when I couldn’t help but feel outraged that I’d never, ever get to be the only thing I really wanted to be: thirteen.
The only real, actually feasible, seemingly attainable goal that I’d had was to be a bonafide, real-deal teenager—and just like that it was stolen from me.
But still, maybe that was just me. As far as I knew, Bodhi had an entirely different way of seeing these things.
I turned back to Prince Kanta, my
shoulders lifting as I said, “There was a girl. A really pretty, dark-haired girl. And even though I know it was Rebecca in disguise, Bodhi couldn’t see that. To him, it was someone he recognized, and he raced after her like…” I paused long enough to replay the scene in my head, remembering the look on his face, the longing in his voice, before I looked back at the prince and said, “He raced after her like he really, really missed her. Though I’m afraid I don’t know anything more.”
The prince’s gaze narrowed and darted as though he was alerted to a sudden change in the area, his back stiffening, shoulders squaring, as he said, “Now just keep that in mind. No matter what happens next, no matter where you find yourself, just stay focused on your friend. Do not allow her to get to you. Do not allow her to introduce anything personal. The moment you focus on yourself, the moment you let your mind stray from your friends, you lose.” He looked at me, our eyes meeting briefly before he looked away again. “Can you do that?” he asked.
And even though I wanted to smile and nod and give him two big thumbs-up along with a superconfident reply of Heck yeah, I can do it, no problem—no problem at all!
The reality is, I just stood there and gaped.
The words “The moment you let your mind stray from your friends, you lose” running amok in my head.
Because the truth was, there was no denying the fact that I wasn’t all that great at staying focused. In fact, I had a really bad habit of jumping from one thing to the next. And as far as my thoughts were concerned, well, most of the time my mind was nothing but a big ol’, jumbled-up mess.
But unfortunately, I didn’t get to express those concerns. Instead, I just stood there, wide-eyed and mute, as Prince Kanta whispered, “She’s here.”
And that’s the last thing I heard before I was separated from the prince and sucked even deeper into her world.
14
It’s like, one moment I was standing before the prince like the world’s biggest shell-shocked doofus, and the next I was somewhere entirely different. Noticing how the scorched landscape had made way for a carpet of patchy weeds and rich, red-tinged soil, while the relentlessly falling ash had transformed into a clear and sunny day, allowing me a beautiful view of a pristine blue lake.
I narrowed my eyes and gazed all around, seeing the still navy waters, the towering pine trees, the smoldering campfire … the memory of something nudging me, prodding me, as I gazed down at my clothing and took a quick inventory of faded hand-me-down jeans, mud-covered pink-and-silver sneakers, and a lime green sweatshirt with the sleeves yanked down well past the tips of my fingers in order to hide the charm bracelet I’d borrowed from my sister.
And suddenly, I need look no further.
I knew exactly where I was.
My last trip to the lake.
My last trip with my family.
The last place I ever visited—or at least as a living, breathing resident of the earth plane.
The last time I’d ever hug my parents, play fetch with my dog, or joke around with my sister as a real, live, flesh-and-blood person.
The last time I’d ever be dumb enough to believe that the thing I’d looked forward to most—my thirteenth birthday—was just around the corner.
Everything about that scene feeling as real as it did that day.
Only it wasn’t real. Not even close.
And while part of me knew that, it was only a very small part of me.
Somewhere inside, on some deep-down level, I knew I needed to turn away and focus on something else. Something extremely important. Something in need of my utmost attention.
But the truth was, I was so caught up in the scene, I could no longer remember what that important thing was.
Couldn’t imagine anything more significant than focusing on the splendor that played out before me:
Buttercup running in circles and barking like crazy before jumping into my dad’s SUV and settling onto my knee.
Ever and I bickering and fighting and basically driving both our parents crazy.
Ever discovering she’d left her prized sky blue Pinecone Lake Cheerleading Camp sweatshirt behind, and begging my dad to turn the car around and head back to the lake so that she could retrieve it.
My dad agreeing to do just that despite his concerns about the traffic.
Me singing along to a Kelly Clarkson song I blasted on my iPod—partly because I liked it, and partly because it annoyed Ever.
A deer appearing out of nowhere, dashing right into our lane, as my father swerved to avoid it, smashed through the guardrail, down the embankment, and into a tree that left us all dead.
Me not realizing I was dead.
Me feeling so fine, and good, and alive that halfway across the bridge to the other side I changed my mind and went back to search through those vast fragrant fields for my sister.
Only to find she’d returned to the earth plane—to her body—to life.
Only to discover the horrifying truth that I no longer could.
A fact that made me so angry, the next thing I knew I was stuck in a moment of flaming red rage I was forced to relive over and over again.
A rage so deep, burning so bright, it turned the once vibrating, pulsating field back into its original state of scorched, burned, and unforgivingly seared earth.
Prince Kanta’s warning The moment you let your mind stray from your friends, you lose reduced to a long-forgotten memory.
Prince Kanta was gone.
He had no role in this story.
My entire world had been reduced to a small plot of land consisting of nothing more than my deep seething anger and me.
15
I sank to my knees, threw myself onto a large pile of ash that instantly blackened my clothes, and cried and screamed and cursed and wailed, just like I had then.
Though it’s not like it brought my family back.
It’s not like it returned me to the way I had been.
Still, I was unable to stop, unable to remove myself from the scene.
Unable to focus on anything other than the neverending cycle of anger and rage that threatened to consume me.
If you asked how long it went on, well, the truth is, I have no idea. Somewhere between an eternity and a handful of seconds would be my best guess. Either way, it was far too long for me to be carrying on like I’d been.
But then, eventually, somewhere in the midst of all the shouting and tantrum-throwing came a sort of break.
A brief respite that lasted a split second at best.
A brief respite that contained what I can only describe as a small patch of—silence.
A small, bright space where anger could not exist.
And though it only lasted a moment, from that moment on, a part of me was focused solely on waiting for it to happen again.
And when it did, it seemed to linger just a little bit longer.
And the time after that—longer still.
Until finally, that bright and tiny gap of silence stretched and grew until it expanded into a space just large enough for me to crawl into.
My rage stilled, and soon my anger disappeared, as everything around me and inside me began to settle and calm. Allowing me to observe my situation with such clarity, there was no denying the fact that I was not at all different from anyone else who got stuck in this place.
We were all just as angry and unforgiving as Rebecca wanted us to be.
I was connected to all of these lost and lonely souls just as sure as they were connected to me.
For that brief split second, I could see the truth of everything—and that’s all it took to break free.
That’s all it took to know that I wasn’t alone, and never had been. I had nothing to fear, nothing to be angry about, and while it was true that I’d never expected my life to end up quite like it did, there was no denying the fact that in a lot of ways it’d ended up a lot better than I ever could’ve imagined.
I rose from my place, watching in astonishment as the scorche
d field gave way, revealing the bubble in its real and true state—so different from the view Rebecca wanted me to see.
No longer was there falling ash or burned-out trees that morphed into kindergarten classrooms, no longer were there vast and lonely fields, and family trips ending abruptly: There was nothing but a dark and murky crowded sea of wretched, writhing souls, each one trapped in a tormented hell of his own.
I moved among them, wondering what happened to the prince as I searched for Bodhi and Buttercup—eager to try and release them in the same way I’d been. Pushing through a throng of neverending cycles of pain and misery and centuries-old suffering, as I struggled to hold my focus on what I’d just learned, what I needed to remember most, while suppressing my own rising panic that fought to summon my own darker impulses.
Then, just as quickly, I stopped. Stopped right in the middle of all that continuous pain and chaos, thinking that if it was true that we were all connected, then I shouldn’t have to wander very far, if at all. I should be able to stay right where I was, keeping just calm enough and just quiet enough to tune in to this bubble of lost souls and, like the prince said, allow their stories to come forth.
So I shut my eyes tightly and tried to sort through the haze of frenetic energy in order to locate my dog and my guide.
And while I’m happy to report that it didn’t take all that long to find Bodhi—being able to reach him was a whole ’nother matter.
16
I hung back, not quite sure how to proceed. Carefully observing Bodhi, who remained completely unaware of me.
His brow creased, his hands clenched into fists he held tightly to his sides, his lips quivering, teeth gnashing together so hard it rendered his long string of words impossible to decipher.