When he jumped right in like that, it took me a minute to catch up. I shook my head, as always too distracted by him to think very clearly.
“Close your eyes and concentrate,” he said more slowly, his voice becoming soft and hypnotic. I did as he said. “Can you see it?” I could hear the leaves crackle under his weight as he approached me.
Focusing, I conjured up the image from my dream, just as haunting and intimidating as it had been while I was asleep. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, think of the symbol on the girl. That’s the door you’ll use.”
I nodded, eyes still closed so I wouldn’t lose the image.
“And, Carson,” he whispered, his voice right at my ear. “Don’t forget our deal.”
I got that cold spider web sensation again and then a terrible taste invaded my mouth. I opened my eyes just in time to see Fahl start to move past me, through me. His body began to shake and shimmer and then he was gone, his odor the only sign that he’d been there at all.
Closing my eyes once more, I pictured the black house. I wasn’t sure how long I was supposed to do that so I kept my focus on the image.
The first things I noticed were changes in ambient noises. There was absolute silence, an eerie stillness that speaks of an inherent lack of life and all things living. Then I started to feel dizzy. When my feet began to feel wet, I opened my eyes to see what was going on.
I looked down. I was standing in water up to my knees. I looked up and around. Up ahead, I could see the black house hovering on the moonlit horizon. I was in the pond that I’d seen my father floating in.
With a shriek, I started running, which was a slow, wet process in any amount of water.
When I reached the shore, I walked toward the black house. In my peripheral vision, I could see shapes moving inside the shadow, just like in my dreams, but I kept my focus on the task (and the house) at hand.
I moved cautiously up the steps and stood in front of the narrow front door. I looked back and, just like before, the pond was gone. Only the crisp field remained.
I turned back toward the house and looked down at the door knob. It, too, was just as I remembered—silver with an intricate design etched onto its surface. I bent to get a better look.
Best I could tell in the dark was that the knob was divided into four quadrants. In each quadrant was a different design. I recognized two of them. One had vines with tiny leaves and delicate flowers. The other was flames, just like the ones on my back.
The other two were unfamiliar to me, but I thought I knew what they meant. One looked like waves in a tumultuous sea, the other swirls of silver. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say water and wind, the other two of the four elements. The two I suspected that my sister could control.
I reached for the doorknob and the instant my skin made contact, my insides caught fire. Never in my life had I felt such an intense, indescribably horrific pain. I gasped, filling my lungs with burning air. I let it out on a blood-curdling scream that I thought surely echoed into the other world. When my chest was empty of both fire and air and I could scream no more, I listened as other sounds began to fill the dead silence. Shuffling, dragging, moaning, gurgling.
I pushed through the pain and turned my head to the right as much as I could. And I saw them. The dead were all around me, closing in on me where I stood on the stoop.
With every ounce of strength I had, I twisted the doorknob. Luckily, it turned easily and I all but fell inside. I lay on the floor, immobilized by the excruciating pain. I could see the door from my position, and the dead just outside it. I knew in my current state I wouldn’t be able to defend myself and, as my mind raced with thoughts of what they might do to me, my heart raced with terror.
The dead mounted the steps slowly, dragging dangling limbs and wobbling on broken legs, bumping into one another. A man made it to the top first. He wore only a grungy dress shirt that hung in tatters from his bloody shoulders. I could see teeth marks on nearly every visible inch of skin. There were even chunks of skin missing from his cheeks and chin. And one eye socket was a gaping black hole in his head.
I watched, terrified, as he stepped to the door. I tried to get my legs to move, but I was still in too much pain.
As he took the next step, the step that would bring him into the house and within inches of my foot, he stopped with his foot in midair. He set his foot down and looked at the doorway. He raised his leg to take that step again, but once more he stopped.
Anger contorted his mangled features and he raised his hand toward the doorway. I could see the palm flatten as if it were pressed against an invisible barrier. He tightened his fingers into a fist and beat at the doorway, but still he couldn’t pass through it.
Relief flooded me and as I watched the others approach the door and try to get in, unable to. And, slowly, my pain began to subside.
When it had lessened to something more like menstrual cramps (only in every muscle of my entire body), I sat up.
And I saw that I had no legs.
Panic erupted from the churning pit of my stomach and I felt the blood drain from my face. I reached down to touch the empty space where my flesh should’ve been and I felt…my legs. I flexed the muscles in my right thigh and felt them contract under my fingers. Puzzled, I wiggled my toes. I felt the material of my socks and the rigid toe of my shoes. I bent my legs at the knee, preparing to stand—or try to anyway—and that’s when I saw the hint of an outline, an outline that looked like my legs.
As I moved them, I could see the hardwoods through them, through my legs. They shimmered and danced like I was seeing them through heat waves. I thought of the way Fahl shimmered when he walked through me and realized it must have something to do with traveling through the Darkness.
Then, right before my eyes, my arms began to fade. I pushed myself onto my feet and looked down at my body. My trunk was fading as well. I could just barely see the faint lines of where my body stopped and thin air began. To the untrained eye, there would probably be no difference. To most people, I’d be invisible.
A familiar voice interrupted the unhealthy escalation of my emotions. I recognized her words as well. It was the girl from my living room floor, the girl that would soon be dead if I didn’t find her in time. And, though she might be anyway, I was determined to do everything within my power to prevent it.
Pushing my transparency and implications thereof out of my immediate thoughts, I turned in a circle, examining the halls that sprouted off in different directions from the hub in which I stood.
Now, think of the symbol on the girl. That’s the door you’ll use, Fahl had said.