18 Thoughts (My So-Called Afterlife Book 3) (39 page)

“Conner Anderson,” I said, thinking not introducing myself would be rude. “I come humbly before you to ask your help in taking me to the spirit realm of Juvie. Camp Fusion to be exact.”

He bent down and held out his hands. The hair lifted on my nape and on my arms, but the time to doubt had come and gone. The only way through this was by faith. As soon as I touched the angel’s hand, a shock went through me, illuminating my skin until I wore a multicolored coat like the celestial being standing before me. The angel looked down upon me with warm eyes.
Do not be afraid; I am here to help you
, they seemed to say.

“I will take you to Leo.” The angel’s voice reminded me of the gong sounds coming from Coast Guard ships when docking in the channel downtown. “A word of warning, though: the longer humans stay in the Underworld, the weaker your physical body becomes. You can lose yourself in such a place. Work quickly.”

In an instant, the light around us intensified, and the cold air returned, whipping around us like a tornado. I tucked my head into my chest as the angel continued to hold on to my hands. The wind slowly faded until only a gentle breeze remained, and I looked up. The angel had disappeared, and now I stood across from another angel who looked like he was made of fire and brimstone. It seemed I was dropped off in a school office. A desk sat in the center of the room, the edge lined with framed photos of a bunch of kids, a few looking vaguely familiar. There were also a couple of padded chairs, an aquarium in the wall, a potted plant in the corner, and a smudged plate-glass window looking into a school hallway. My ears ached, my head pounded, and my eyes leaked tears as I took in my surroundings.
What the heck? Tears? When did I become such as wuss?

Suddenly, the new angel loomed over me like an angry wave who’d like to swallow me whole. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”

He gestured for me to take a seat, and I did, obviously. “You’re Leo.”

He nodded, then pointed to me. “And you’re Conner Anderson. Now that we’ve gotten that straightened out, why don’t you tell me why you’re back at my camp?”

I started babbling about everything that happened since April first. The more I talked, the more ashamed I felt at my douche behavior, although most of it was out of my control. Still, if I’d been a better person, if I’d put just a little faith into God rather than myself, then Sam wouldn’t have been able to possess me in the first place.

Leo’s lips curled into a smile after I finished my story. “Trouble sure does follow you, kid. You should probably check the tree house or the island in the middle of the lake. That’s where you spent most of your time hanging out when you were here, besides your tent. But you wouldn’t be able to go in there without disrupting Bo, and you need to avoid contact with everyone while you’re here. Shouldn’t be too hard since it’s after the midnight curfew. Everyone is in their tents right now.”

Am I imagining things, or did he say it’s after midnight?
“I started meditating at nine sharp. Did my traveling take three hours? Because I swear it felt like three minutes.”

He ran a hand through his messy hair, which looked about as coarse as a horse’s tail. “You’re in a different time zone, that’s all. We’re actually almost a full day behind Earth time, in case you get held up here. I assume Raphael warned you to work quickly, though? Your body will get weak. Plus, things won’t look as clear to you here, since you’re not a resident anymore.”

I gave him a small smile. “Yes, sir.”
Sir? Where did that come from? This realm is already changing me after a few minutes.
“Um, how big is this place? Can I have a tour guide or something to find the tree house and lake?”

He walked over to a filing cabinet in the corner, and when he stood over me again a moment later, he held out a map. “This feels like déjà vu. You’re here.” He pointed to Camp Fusion High. “Use the front door and follow the brick path. Check the lake first, since it’s right across the way. You can use one of the sailboats docked there to reach the island. I’ll let the guards know you have clearance to be here for a few hours.”

I stood and held out my hand. “Thank you for your help, sir.”
Again with the sir?
Being here must make you automatically more obedient or something.

“Godspeed to you, kid.”

With that, I stepped out of his office into the school hallway. There was a cafeteria with picnic tables to the left and a bunch of announcements tacked to an overly large bulletin board on the far right wall. Curious, I walked over to the colorful fliers. One in particular caught my eye. Free guitar lessons from Bo Reyes every Thursday night from six to seven at campsite number one. Leo mentioned someone named Bo, the guy who took over my tent when I left or my roomie while I was here? The name seemed vaguely familiar, just like the faces in that picture in Leo’s office. Shrugging, I made my way to the front doors and pushed them open, hot air rushing in.

A deep breath escaped my lungs. The shock of heat in February caused an immediate outbreak of sweat as I tiptoed down the stairs. Quickly, I passed two guards who simply nodded at me. A gray haze caused me to squint as I studied the layout of the map and then my surroundings. I could see through the fog, yet it tainted everything my terrified gaze landed on, as if the entire camp had been draped in a translucent cloud of smoke. And something moved on the edge of my vision, drawing my eyes in its direction. I wanted to go back and ask Leo if demons were here, too. This was the Underworld. But I fought the being a wuss thing and shrugged off my paranoia, walking in the direction of the pristine lake.

A few minutes later, I untied a sailboat from the dock, and my gaze followed an eerie burst of motion, but the thing was too fast for me to get a good look. I spun in the opposite direction, squinting into the ghostly gloom as I tracked another movement. That’s when I spotted him.

In the distance, I saw a demon watching me, wrapped in an almost solid sheet of ominous shadow. He was disfigured, sort of like Tolkien’s depiction of evil personified in the character Gollum from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I wondered if this is what all demons looked like in their true forms. I almost asked what it wanted, but then I remembered Riel cautioning us about speaking to demons. Talking to them only gave them more power. Without knowing what else to do, I ignored the little beastling and shoved off shore in the boat.

She was a nice fifteen footer, and in my head, I named her
Gollum
. I wished I would’ve brought a flashlight. Moonlight flickered against the water, but it did little to penetrate through my hazy vision. Remembering the navigation light, I flipped it on so I could see in the darkness, then went about setting a course, avoiding the jagged rocks along the shore and the floating dock. Fireflies blinked in the breeze that was nauseatingly warm, and I slapped my neck as a mosquito bit me.

“What the hell is this place?”

A loud pop reverberated through the atmosphere, and the demon materialized in the boat, causing me to yelp in surprise. I eyed the dark creature, his red eyes never leaving mine. There was nothing, nada, remotely human about him. Not wanting to speak to it, and not knowing what else to do, I somehow managed to focus enough to steer the boat toward the tip of a narrow island. As quickly as I could, I jumped out of the boat and secured the line to a post in the sand. The demon didn’t follow me. Maybe he wasn’t allowed to.

Cattails nodded in the breeze, pointing toward the center of the small island where a single oak tree loomed. I shuffled my bare feet through the sand. My legs shook a little. I didn’t know if it was from my body becoming weaker already or from fear over the demon possibly popping in front of me again. As I neared the tree, I felt a charge in the air around me. Breathing became more labored. I focused on taking deep breaths, but the task was difficult in this humidity. With each step I took, it felt like my feet became ten pounds heavier, sharp shells digging into the soles of them and making me wince. I stumbled on my last step and leaned against the tree. My shoulders shook. I was barely keeping my crap together, and then I saw the carving. CA+OW=TLF.

“Conner Anderson plus Olga Worontzoff equals True Love Forever?”

Suddenly, this tree wasn’t only vaguely familiar like some of the other things in this realm, and the mist lifted at our initials. I knew this was what I needed to bring back to mark my territory. Obviously, I couldn’t bring the whole tree, so I had to peel away the bark with our carving. After picking up a sharp shell, I chipped away at the task. I felt a sharp pain underneath the nail on my left pointer finger as I finished up.

“Bloody hell!” Red leaked from the gash where the edge of the shell sliced me open, but I had my piece of bark. I slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans, then steeled myself for the walk back to the boat when I heard a familiar pop. After turning around, I froze, my eyes hot and stinging as I stared into the scarlet eyes of the demon.

He lurched forward and snatched the bark out of my pocket with his creepy skeletal fingers, cackling. I half expected him to start mumbling,
“My precious,”
but instead, he turned and ran toward the boat.

“Riel? Leo? Raphael? A little help here?” I croaked out, my broken words sounding like they came from someone else.
Wuss
.

Then I remembered Riel’s words about having childlike faith, about not being afraid. Everything looked so dark. I couldn’t even see the demon anymore. My vision faded fast, so I closed my eyes. I forced myself to breathe in and out through my nose like Nate instructed me to when we meditated. I pictured the fear leaving me, Olga’s freedom on the horizon. Then I shouted a prayer so fierce my voice felt hoarse afterward. When I opened my eyes, my sight had returned. I started forward in the direction of the boat and tripped over a dark form. The demon. He was awake but immobilized for the time being. I used the opportunity to seize the tree bark from his hands.

“I’m ready to leave, Raphael.”

The glorious colors of a beautiful rainbow enveloped me again. My hand breached the gap, grabbing on to the angel’s as a cord of energy pulled us through the spirit realm, the scene fading around me before I could even process what happened. Then the whole atmosphere seemed to shift, as if recalibrated, and I thought of the article Nate found comparing travel to spirit realms like changing radio stations. Just because you switched channels sometimes, it didn’t mean the other station ceased to exist.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the floor in my bedroom, watching the light fade until the only illumination left came from my lamp, so insubstantial in the wake of an angel.

“People you expect to kick you when you’re down
are the ones to help you get back up.”
—Nate’s Thoughts

Nate

ll day, I was like a can of soda, shaken and ready to spew. I met up with Conner before school so he could tell me all about traveling to the Underworld for our assignment. An angered heat burned through me when showed me the bark he tore off with his and Olga’s initials carved into it. Since Olga and I were both part of Limbo and shared those visions, I thought we had been together
together
in the Underworld. I might as well have been that stupid tree, my heart the bark that he’d cut into.