Beautiful Darkness

Outer Doors

SUMMER SCHOOL: NEVER STOP LEARNIN' IF YOU WANT TO START EARNIN'.

That's what the letter board said, where it usually read GO WILDCATZ. Liv and I stared up at it, from the bushes lining the front steps of Jackson High.

"I'm reasonably sure there are G's in learning and earning."

"They probably ran out of G's. You know, graduation, GED, Get Outta Gatlin." This was going to be tricky. Summer or not, Miss Hester would still be sitting in the attendance office, keeping watch on the front door. If you failed a class, you had to enroll in summer school. But that didn't mean you couldn't ditch -- if you could get by Miss Hester. Even though Mr. Lee never made good on his threat to fail us for not showing up at the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill, Link had failed biology, which meant I had to find a way to get inside.

"Are we going to hang out in the bushes all morning?" Liv was getting cranky.

"Give me a second. I've spent all my time thinking up ways to get out of Jackson. I never put much thought into how to get in. But we can't leave without Link."

Liv smiled at me. "Never underestimate the power of the British accent. Watch and learn."

Miss Hester looked over her glasses at Liv, who had twisted her blond hair into a bun. It was summer, which meant Miss Hester was wearing one of her sleeveless blouses and knee-length polyester shorts, with her white slip-on Keds. From where I was hiding under the counter next to Liv, I had a clear view of the bottom of Miss Hester's green shorts and her buniony feet.

"I'm sorry. Who did you say you were with?"

"The BEC." Liv kicked me, and I edged toward the hall.

"Of course. And that would be?"

Liv sighed impatiently. "The British Educational Consulate. As I said, we're looking for high-functioning schools in the United States to use as models for educational reform."

"High functionin'?" Miss Hester sounded confused. I made my way around the corner on my hands and knees.

"I can't believe no one informed you of my visit. May I speak with your headmaster, please?"

"Headmaster?" By the time Miss Hester figured out what a headmaster was, I was halfway up the stairs. Beyond the blond, even beyond the brains, Liv was a girl with a lot of hidden talents.

"All right, enough a the Charlotte's Web jokes. Grab your specimen firmly with one hand, and make your incision down the belly, top to bottom, with your scissors." I could hear Mrs. Wilson through the door. I knew what was going on in biology today, from the smell alone. Not to mention the commotion.

"I think I'm going to pass out --"

"Wilbur, no!"

"Ewww!"

I looked through the window in the door. Pink fetal pigs were lined up in a row on the lab tables. They were small, pinned to black, waxy boards inside metal trays. Except Link's.

Link's pig was massive. He raised his hand. "Um, Mrs. Wilson? I can't crack the sternum with scissors. Tank's too big for that."

"Tank?"

"Tank, my pig."

"You can use the garden shears in the back a the room."

I knocked on the window. Link walked right by, but he didn't hear me. Eden was sitting at the long black lab table next to Link's, holding her nose with one hand and poking around inside her pig with tweezers. I was surprised she was in there with the rest of the flunkies -- not because she was a rocket scientist or anything, but because I would've expected her mom and the DAR mafia to find a way to get her out of it.

Eden pulled a long yellow rope out of her pig. "What is all this yellow stuff?" She looked like she was going to hurl.

Mrs. Wilson smiled. This was her favorite moment of the year. "Miss Westerly, how many times did you go to the Dar-ee Keen this week? Did you have a shake with your fries and your burger? Onion rings? A side a pie?"

"What?"

"It's fat. Now let's look for the bladder."

I knocked again, as Link walked by with a pair of enormous shears. He saw me and opened the door. "Mrs. Wilson, I gotta use the bathroom."

We took off down the hall, shears and all. When we banged our way around the corner in front of the attendance office, Liv smiled at Miss Hester and closed her notebook. "Thanks ever so much. I'll be in touch."

She disappeared out the front door behind us, her blond hair falling out of her bun. You would have to be brain-damaged to not realize Liv was a teenager, in her ripped jeans.

Miss Hester watched in bewilderment, shaking her head. "Redcoats."

The thing about Link was, he never asked for details. He just went with it. He went with it when we tried to cut a real tire to make a tire swing. He went with it when I made him help me build a gator trap in my backyard, and every time I stole the Beater to chase a girl the rest of the school thought was a freak. It was a great quality in a best friend, and sometimes I wondered if I would do the same for him if things were reversed. Because I was always the one who asked, and he was always the one who was game.

Within five minutes, we were rolling down Jackson Street. We made it all the way to Dove Street, when we pulled over at the Dar-ee Keen. I checked my watch. Amma would know I was gone by now. Marian would be waiting for Liv at the library, if she hadn't missed her at breakfast. And Mrs. Wilson would've sent someone to drag Link out of the bathroom. We were running out of time.

The actual plan didn't come together until we sat down with greasy food on greasy yellow trays at our greasy red table.

"Can't believe she ran off with Vampire Boy."

"How many times do I have to tell you? He's an Incubus," Liv corrected.

"Whatever. If he's a Blood Incubus, he can suck your blood. Same difference." Link shoved a biscuit into his mouth while he rolled another one around in the pool of gravy on his plate.

"A Blood Incubus is a Demon. A vampire is something in a movie."

I didn't want to do it, but there was something I had to get out on the table. "Ridley's with them, too."

Link sighed and crumpled up the biscuit paper. His expression didn't change, but I knew he was feeling the same knot in his stomach I had in mine. "Well, that blows." He tossed the paper at the trash can. It hit the rim and fell onto the floor. "You're sure they're in the Tunnels?"

"That's what it looked like." On the way to the Dar-ee Keen, I told Link about the vision, but I left out the part about how I saw it in my bathroom mirror. "They're headed for some place called the Great Barrier."

"A place that doesn't exist." Liv was shaking her head, checking the rotating dials on her wrist.

Link pushed away his plate, still covered with food. "So let me get this straight. We're gonna go down into the Tunnels and find this moon outta time with Liv's fancy watch?"

"Selenometer." Liv didn't look up from copying numbers from the dials into her red notebook.

"Whatever. Why don't we tell Lena's family what's goin' on? Maybe they can make us invisible or lend us some crazy Caster weapons."

A weapon. Like the one I had with me right now.

I could feel the curve of the Arclight in my pocket. I had no idea how it worked, but maybe Liv did. She knew how to read the Caster sky.

"It won't make us invisible, but I have this." I held the sphere above the shiny plastic table.

"Dude. A ball? Seriously?" Link wasn't impressed.

Liv was stunned. She reached out tentatively, her hand hovering. "Is that what I think it is?"

"It's an Arclight. Marian gave it to me on All Souls. It belonged to my mom."

Liv tried to hide her irritation. "Professor Ashcroft had an Arclight all this time, and she never showed it to me?"

"Here you go. Knock yourself out." I dropped the sphere into Liv's hands. She held it carefully, as if it was an egg.

"Careful! Do you have any idea how rare these are?" Liv couldn't take her eyes away from its glossy surface.

Link sucked down the rest of his Coke until he hit ice. "Anyone gonna clue me in here? What's it do?"

Liv was mesmerized. "This is one of the most powerful weapons in the Caster world. It's a metaphysical prison for an Incubus, if you know how to use it." I looked at her hopefully. "Which, unfortunately, I don't."

Link poked at the Arclight. "Like Incubus kryptonite?"

Liv nodded. "Something like that."

There was no doubt the Arclight was powerful, but it wasn't going to help us with the problem at hand. I was out of ideas. "If this thing can't help us, how do we get into the Tunnels?"

"It's not a holiday." Liv handed me the Arclight reluctantly. "If we're going to get into the Caster Tunnels, it has to be through one of the Outer Doors. We can't go through the Lunae Libri."

"So there are other ways in? Through these Outer Door things?" Link asked.

Liv nodded. "Yes. But only Casters and a few Mortals, like Professor Ashcroft, know where they are. And she's not going to tell us. I'm sure she's packing my things right now."

I had expected Liv to have the answer, but it was Link who came up with it. "You know what that means?" He grinned and put his arm around Liv. "You're finally gonna get your chance. Time for the Tunnel of Love."

Fairgrounds after the fair were just grounds. I kicked a clump of dirt and weeds.

"Look, you can still see the indentations where the rides were." Liv pointed, Lucille trailing behind her.

"Yeah, but how do you know which rides the marks are from?" It seemed like a good idea at the Dar-ee Keen, but now we were standing in an empty field.

Link shouted and waved from a few yards away. "I think this is where the Ferris Wheel was. I can tell by all the cigarette butts. That old carny was chain-smoking all day."

We caught up with him. Liv pointed to a black patch in the distance. "Isn't that where Lena saw us?"

"What?" I stumbled over the word us.

"I mean, saw me." She blushed. "I think that's where the popcorn machine blew up when she walked by. Before she popped the clown's balloon and made the little children cry." How could I forget?

It was hard to find the impressions in the ground under the tall grass. I bent down and pushed the weeds out of the way, but there was nothing. Just a few paper snow cone cups and tickets. As I stood up, I felt the Arclight heating up in my pocket again, and a dull buzzing. I took it out of my pocket, and it was glowing a clear blue.

I waved Liv over. "What do you think this means?"

She studied the sphere, watching the color intensify. "I have no idea. I've never read about them changing color."

"What's up, kids?" Link wiped the sweat off his forehead with his ratty Black Sabbath T-shirt. "Whoa. When did it start with the mood ring action?"

"A second ago." I don't know why, but I started walking slowly, a few steps at a time. As I walked, the glow of the Arclight grew stronger.

"Ethan, what are you doing?" Liv was right behind me.

"I'm not sure." I switched directions, and the color began to fade. Why was it changing?

I turned around and headed back the other way. Sure enough, with every step the Arclight grew warmer in my hand, the vibrations stronger. "Look." I opened my hand so Liv could see the deep blue color radiating from it.

"What's happening?"

I shrugged. "It's like the closer we get, the crazier it goes."

"You don't think ..." She stared down at her dusty silver high-tops, thinking. We were thinking the same thing.

I turned it over in my hand. "Could it be some kind of compass?"

Liv watched as the sphere glowed so brightly that Lucille was leaping along beside us, like she was trying to catch fireflies.

When we reached a bleached patch of grass, Liv stopped.

The Arclight was swirling a dark, inky blue. I looked at the ground carefully. "There's nothing here."

Liv bent down, pushing the grass aside. "I'm not so sure about that." A shape emerged as Liv brushed away the dirt.

"Look at the lines. It's a door." Link was right. It was like the trapdoor under the rug in Macon's room.

I knelt next to them and ran my hand along the edges of the door, clearing away the remaining dirt. I looked at Liv. "How did you know?"

"You mean, aside from the fact the Arclight is going crazy?" She looked smug. "The Outer Doors aren't that difficult to find if you know what you're looking for."

"I hope they aren't too difficult to open either." Link pointed at the center of the door. There was a keyhole.

Liv sighed. "It's locked. We need a Caster key. We can't get in without one."

Link pulled the massive garden shears he stole from the bio lab out of his belt. Far be it from Link to put anything back in its rightful place. "Caster key, my ass."

"It's not going to work." Liv squatted next to Link in the grass. "It's a Caster lock, not something on your locker door."

Link huffed as he worked the gardening shears into the crack. "You're not from around here. Isn't a door in this whole county that can't be opened with a set of pliers or a sharp toothbrush."

I looked at Liv. "You realize he makes this stuff up."

"Yeah?" Link grinned up at us as the door opened with a resentful creak. He held up his fist to me. "Pound it."

Liv was shocked. "Well, that's not in the books."

Link leaned over and looked inside. "It's dark, and there're no stairs. Looks like a pretty big drop."

"Take a step." I knew what was coming.

"Are you nuts?"

"Trust me."

Link felt around with his foot, and a second later he was standing in the air. "Man, where do Casters get this stuff? Are there, like, Caster carpenters? A supernatural construction union?" He disappeared out of sight. A second later his voice echoed up from the hole. "It's not that far down. You two comin', or what?"

Lucille stared into the darkness and leaped into the hole. That cat must have picked up more than a little crazy, living with my aunts all these years. I looked over the edge, and I could see the flickering light of a torch. Link was standing below us, Lucille sitting at his feet. "Ladies first."

"Why is it men only say that when it's something horrible or dangerous?" Liv put one foot into the hole, uncertain. "No offense."

I smiled at her. "None taken."

Her silver sneakers dangled for a minute and she wobbled, off balance. I grabbed her hand. "You know, if we find Lena, she may be completely --"

"I know." I looked into Liv's calm blue eyes, which would never be gold or green. The sun lit her hair, as blond as honey. She smiled at me, and I let go of her hand.

I realized she was the one steadying me.

As I disappeared into the darkness behind her, the door banged shut after me, blocking out the sky.

The entrance to the tunnel was dank and mossy, like the one that led from the Lunae Libri to Ravenwood. The ceiling over the stairs was low, and the stone walls were old and weathered like some kind of dungeon. Every drop of water and every sound echoed off the walls.

At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves at a crossroads. Not a proverbial one but a real one.

"So which way do we go?" Link looked down two very different tunnels. This trip was more complicated than the one to Exile. That had been a straight shot, but this time it was different, and there were choices to be made.

Choices I had to make.

The tunnel to the left looked more like a meadow than a tunnel. As it widened, there were weeping willows hanging over a dusty footpath, framed by tangles of wildflowers and tall grass. Rolling hills spread out under a cloudless blue sky. You could almost imagine the birds chirping and see the rabbits nibbling grass, if it wasn't a Caster tunnel, where nothing was ever as it seemed.

The tunnel to the right wasn't a tunnel at all but a curving city street underneath its own Caster sky. The dark street was a sharp contrast to the sunny countryside scene of the first tunnel. Liv was scribbling notes in her book. I looked over her shoulder. Asynchronous time zones in adjacent tunnels.

The only light came from a blinking motel sign at the end of the street. Tall apartment buildings with small iron balconies and fire escape ladders lined either side. Long wires crisscrossed the street from building to building, forming an intricate web with a few pieces of clothing caught in it. An abandoned trolley track was embedded in the asphalt.

"Which way do we go?" Link was anxious. Wandering around creepy Caster Tunnels wasn't agreeing with him. "I vote for the Wizard of Oz path." He headed for the sunshine.

"I don't think we'll need to vote." I took the Arclight out of my pocket, its heat warming my hand before I noticed the light. Its ebony surface began to glow a pale green.

Liv's eyes were wide. "Amazing."

I took a few steps down the dark street, and the light intensified.

Link came up behind us. "Hello? I was walkin' away over there? You're not gonna stop me?"

"Watch this." I held the Arclight high enough for him to see and kept walking.

"Killer flashlight."

Liv checked her selenometer. "You were right. It's guiding us like a compass. My readings confirm it. The moon's magnetic pull is stronger in this direction, which is completely wrong for this time of year."

Link shook his head. "I should've known we'd have to go down the creepy street. We're probably gonna get killed by another one a those Vexes."

Every time I took a step closer to the street, the Arclight glowed a brighter and deeper shade of green. "We're going this way."

"Of course we are."

After Link convinced himself we were headed for certain death, the dark street was nothing but a dark street. The short walk to where the motel sign was still blinking was uneventful. The street was a dead end, leading right up to a doorway under the sign. There was another street running perpendicular to it, lined with unlit doorways. Between the motel sign and the building next to it, there was a steep set of stone stairs. Another Doorwell.

"Should we go left or right?" Liv asked, stepping back onto the street.

I looked at the Arclight's incandescent light, now emerald green. "Neither. We're going up."

I pushed open the heavy door at the top of the stairs. We stepped out from behind an enormous stone arch, stumbling into sunlight that reached through the branches of a gargantuan oak. A woman with white shorts and white hair pedaled a white bike with a white poodle riding in her white bike basket. A giant golden retriever chased the bike. The dog was pulling a man holding its leash. Lucille took one look at the retriever and took off into the bushes.

"Lucille!" I bent down between the bushes, but she was gone. "Great. I lost my aunt's cat again."

"Technically, she's your cat. She lives with you." Link thrashed around in the azaleas. "Don't worry. She'll come back. Cats have a good sense a direction."

"How would you know that?" Liv looked amused.

"Cat Week. Like Shark Week, but with cats." I shot him a look.

Link turned red. "What? My mom watches a lot a weird stuff on TV."

"Come on."

As we stepped out from behind the trees, a girl with purple hair bumped into Link, almost dropping her giant sketch pad. We were surrounded by dogs and people and bikes and skaters, in a park lined with azalea bushes and shaded by huge oaks. There was an ornate stone fountain in the center, with carved naked mermen spitting water on each other. Walking paths radiated in every direction.

"What happened to the Tunnels? Where are we?" Link was more confused than usual.

"We're in some sort of park," Liv said.

I knew exactly where we were, and I smiled. "Not some park. Forsyth Park. We're in Savannah."

"What?" Liv was digging through her bag.

"Savannah, Georgia. I've been coming here with my mom since I was little."

Liv unfolded a map of what looked like the Caster sky. I recognized the Southern Star, the seven-pointed one that was missing from the real Caster sky. "It doesn't make sense. If the Great Barrier exists, which I'm not saying I believe, it's definitely not in the middle of a Mortal city."

I shrugged. "This is where it led us. What can I say?"

"We walked, like, five miles. How can we be in Savannah?" Link still hadn't grasped the idea that things were different in the Tunnels.

Liv clicked open her pen, muttering to herself. "Place and time not subject to Mortal physics."

Two little old ladies were pushing two tiny dogs in strollers. We were definitely in Savannah. Liv closed her red book. "Time, space, distance -- they're all different down here. The Tunnels are part of the Caster world, not the Mortal one."

As if on cue, the glow of the Arclight faded to a glossy black. I slipped it back into my pocket.

"What the -- ? How do we know where to go from here?" Link panicked, but I didn't.

"We don't need it. I think I know where we're supposed to go."

Liv crinkled her brow. "How?"

"There's only one person I know in Savannah."