9. Chapter 9
nine
When the potion was brewed, Seer Goddard nodded for me to go ahead. I carefully poured the potion into a mug, gave it a few minutes to cool. The three of us sat silently. None of us knew what to say.
“I don’t know exactly how this will work,” Liza finally said, as I raised the cup to my lips. “I have never been into a spirit realm before. But in some of my dreams, my mother was able to…guide me. I remember how it felt, and I think I can do it again.”
“You’ll do fine,” Seer Goddard assured Liza. “The potion will pull you in with Alessia. You will have to do the guidance into the underworld. Once there, she will be free to be on her own.”
“I’ll stay with you as long as I can.” Liza reached out, put her hand in mine. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I clasped Liza’s hand in mine, raised the vial to my lips. Without a backward glance, I drained the whole thing. I let the fizziness, a slight strawberry essence, bask in my belly for a moment. It tasted like expensive champagne and gave me that same sort of lightheaded feeling.
The pleasant sensation only lasted for a few moments before a wave of nausea swept through me like a tsunami. I lurched forward, dry-heaving, and the last thing I felt before my vision started to flicker was Liza squeezing on to my hand as hard as possible.
My vision came and went for a few moments, but in that transition, I noted the look of concern on Seer Goddard’s face. When I glanced up at the sky, I saw why. The visceral reaction wasn’t just happening within my body; it was happening across The Isle.
Thunder cracked in a surround sound of trumpets. Lightning raced across the sky, spreading like tentacles out in every direction. Rain started to pelt downward, and the sunny sky instantly clouded over. Waves crashed in deadly punches against the rocks below.
As the wind whipped my hair around me, I could hear my ancestors using it to speak to me: “Are you sure, sister?”
My ancestors did not speak freely to me on a regular basis, so I took this as a massive warning.
If they were reaching out in efforts to protect me, to stop me from going into the underworld, it only confirmed that the journey that lay ahead of me was rife with danger.
I understood there was a very real chance I might not return.
“I must go,” I whispered. “I must.”
“Then we will be with you.”
My vision was the first to go. But instead of blacking out, it went pure white.
I could see nothing but blankness. A pure whiteout.
I felt Liza’s hand in mine, but eventually that started to fade, too.
At one point, I felt like I was floating in a sea of fog.
I could see nothing, feel nothing, I was nothing.
And then a jarring sensation rocked my vision back to life. I had no idea how long I’d been in the abyss of bright nothingness, it could’ve been days or years, but when I regained my vision, I was not in my body.
I couldn’t describe the sensation, except that I existed as myself without my physical being. I blinked, the darkness a jolt to my senses after the wash of brightness.
As I took in my surroundings, I noted that I was somewhere else entirely. Another world, another realm? The spirit realm. The underworld.
The darkness stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. It wasn’t the same sort of darkness as nighttime on The Isle. Even on cloudy nights in our realm, there was some semblance of light. Stars, moon, errant glow.
Here, there was no such thing. Like we were closed into an airtight box with limited oxygen. The only light that did exist was from flickering flames. As I glanced around, I noted that I was on a main thoroughfare.
The underworld was a realm not totally unlike those of the living, except there was no life here.
A black, murky river swept along to one side of me.
I stood on a path beside it. Little shops lined the dirty street, and it appeared I was on some sort of main thoroughfare.
I looked ahead and noted that at the end of this road rose a crooked, spiked castle into the heights of the blackened sky.
The entire realm felt like a layer of dust had settled on it.
Even the blackness wasn’t vibrant; it was like a faded, knockoff gray that had been marred by years of soot and grime.
There were beings here, not unlike myself, but they moved like ghosts—with an element of floating.
I looked down and indeed saw that I had a form, my body, but that it was not solid.
I shimmered like smoke from a bonfire and felt just as fragile.
Like a strong wind could blow me completely out of existence.
I began to walk. Even that felt unnatural. My legs moved, but that slight element of floating, like I couldn’t exactly control all of my limbs to the degree I was used to, clung to me like a shroud I couldn’t quite ditch.
The land was such that it sucked all semblance of hope and energy out of a person, their soul, whatever I existed as in this moment. I had been here a brief time, and I already felt depleted. I couldn’t imagine spending a lifetime here.
Already, my memories of the living world were beginning to fade. I remembered The Isle, the vibrancy of it, but already it was like a translucent cloud of gray had slammed shut over my memories, dimming the reality of them.
I would’ve been downright convinced it hadn’t existed at all, except I couldn’t shake the feeling of Liza’s hand in mine.
Of my ancestors whispering in my ear before I left.
Of a faint melody, something of a lullaby, that I couldn’t quite place.
I had a reason to be here, a reason to fight, and that reason was in the land of the living.
I would return, if it was the last thing I did.
I glanced down, as if wishing to see Liza’s hand tucked in mine. I was grateful not to see it. She’d guided me here safely, and that was her only task. I hoped she was on The Isle now, waiting in comfort for me to finish my part of the equation.
I continued forward, taking in the sights around me. Despite the fact that this seemed to be a thoroughfare, with little shops along the way, most of them nothing more than a glorified cart or wheelbarrow, it didn’t seem like the sort of place where people stopped and gabbed.
Now that my eyes had adjusted, I noted the movements of the other figures, beings, spirits around me.
Any exchanges at shop windows were done in hushed tones.
Most wore hoods or cloaks, obscuring identities.
Some were ushered through doors into dark buildings, the doors quickly swinging shut behind them.
A sense of dread swarmed around me. How could I possibly convince these spirits that I was from the living realm?
That I could help them escape this prison?
I couldn’t be sure how spirits ended up here, if the Darkest Lord claimed them for himself, or if they were truly lost souls with nowhere else to go, but either way, there would be a lot of convincing to do to spirits who didn’t seem to want to be bothered.
“You. In here.” A door swung open at my side, startling me. “Now.”
I glanced over, saw a hooded figure. The voice was raspy, but clearly that of a woman.
“You don’t belong here,” she said again. “Come inside now before he notices.”
That was enough to intrigue me. I slipped through the door, and it banged shut behind me. Inside the shop, candlelight flickered from a lantern in a wispy, ethereal sort of glow.
“Who are you?” The spirit moved around me with that bodiless ease that was quite unnerving indeed. “You don’t belong here.”
“How can you tell?”
Her hooded head shook. “Everything about you. Nothing about you is right. Where are you from? You’re new?”
“I’m from the land of the living,” I said. “I’ve come here with a message.”
“Impossible.” Already, that head shook again. “Nobody may enter from the land of the living. Impossible. Just impossible.”
“I’m a Fae Queen, and I had help from some very powerful, gifted people,” I said. “The circumstances of my visit are quite unusual.”
“Why?” Eyes glowed out from beneath her hood. “Why would you come here from the living realm?”
“With a message,” I said. “And, I hope, a way out for you. For the spirits who want to leave this place.”
“Impossible,” she repeated. “Impossible, impossible. There is no way out from his clutches.”
“As the Queen of Isles, I held the Procession of Spirits a few days ago and released hundreds of spirits that were trapped in our world. I can do the same for you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To help you,” I said, and hesitated. Then, “To also help us. We have learned that the Darkest Lord is gathering an army of spirits and plans to attack.”
“His army is at peak strength, yes,” she agreed. “I know not why, and I prefer it. But I see it. I see them. Marching, training, disappearing.”
“Disappearing?”
“Some are here one day, then they get pulled. Taken elsewhere, presumably for another purpose.”
I wondered if this was the purpose of flesh-weaving. I asked the hooded figure, but she didn’t know.
“I am not familiar with the term,” she said. “We have forsaken living bodies down here. Which is why you’ll not be able to return to yours.”
I didn’t want to argue with her, so I simply didn’t. I just nodded.
“You don’t know who is responsible, aside from the Darkest Lord? Do you know where I could find the Harbinger?”
The head-shaking grew faster, stronger. “No, no. The castle, but you mustn’t go. You will not fit in; he will pick you out before you approach and squash you like an ant. You will not have spirit enough left to join us here. His wrath is not to be toyed with, not without consequence.”
“What if I showed you the way out?” I asked. “What if I opened a portal and let you pass through? Would you be able to spread the word.”
“You cannot, simply, you cannot.”
“If I could.”