and I now stood in an empty hallway, ringing with the muted sounds of lessons filtering through a long row of closed doors.
“This is connected to the dead boy, Aimal,” I said, careful not to give it a questioning inflection. But Messenger was not enticed into answering my non-question question.
I did not know where we were, exactly, nor where Aimal had been, but I was pretty sure there were thousands of miles separating the two locations. But in Messenger’s world, space and time are a bit . . . different.
I did not believe we were there because one jerk kid had harassed one girl in one school. The penalties Messenger imposes can be . . . Well, they are the fuel of my nightmares.
“Where should we follow the story next?” Messenger asked.
“What?” The question was so out of the blue I wasn’t sure how to answer. Since when did Messenger consult me? And, anyway, didn’t he already know all the answers? Didn’t he know exactly how this story—whatever it was really about—would end up?
But he was still waiting for an answer, so I had no real choice but to attempt one. “We either follow Trent—he’s the ringleader—or the girl.”
“As you wish.”
“Well . . . which one?”
“Both.”
And then something extraordinary happened. Extraordinary even by the standards of the extraordinary reality into which I have entered. The world around me split in two.
We stood, Messenger and I, in a void, blackness ahead and behind and above, and far more disturbing, black emptiness below as well. I saw no floor or ground beneath my feet, but I was not weightless, either.
But this void was as narrow as a footpath, and to either side of this void was the world. Two worlds. Or two iterations of the same world. The effect was as if we had been standing in a darkened room and two enormous movie screens had been set up, one to our left, the other to our right, each infinitely tall and long and wide.
Two real worlds. I had only to turn my head or even just move my eyes to see one, then the other. Both at once if I stared straight ahead.
But, as hard as it is to imagine, and despite my suggestion, you must not think these were movie screens. They each were real, each happening, each completely three-dimensional. I knew that I could step into either, so that they were less like screens than like living dioramas.
To our left, the girl. To our right, Trent. We could hear both. I could smell the lamb stew the girl was heating in the microwave of her kitchen.
The girl’s phone dinged an incoming text. Without thinking I stepped into her world, hoping to read it over her shoulder. Instantly a wall closed between me and Messenger. I saw neither him, nor Trent.
Frightened, I stepped back into the newly appeared wall, passed through it, and was with Messenger again.
This made me feel foolish. Obviously Messenger understood all this better than I, but that didn’t mean I wanted to seem like some kind of newbie.
That in itself struck me as absurd and I laughed.
Messenger shot me an inquiring look.
“Just . . . takes getting used to,” I explained lamely and stepped back into the girl’s world. Her name was Samira. I saw it on her text. The person she was texting was named Zarqa.
Zarqa: Heard u were hassled. RU OK?
Samira: It was nothing. Just jerks.
Zarqa: What happened?
Samira: They pulled off my abaya. NBD.
Zarqa: It is a big deal. U shd tell sum1. Bullying.
Samira: No.
Zarqa: Grl we have to stand together.
The microwave rang and Samira cut the conversation off with a quick GTG and a heart emoticon.
Samira set her phone aside and removed her meal.
I stepped back to Messenger. “Her name is Samira. I think that was another Muslim girl texting her.”
“All right, I admit it: I’m mystified.”
The words were what I was feeling, but they did not come from me.
Oriax had appeared.
Oriax is a female. She’s a female in much the same way that a billion is a number, or a Porsche is a car, or a twenty megaton nuclear bomb going off is fireworks.
Age? Whatever age she wants you to see. She may be eighteen. She may be older than human civilization.
I knew enough of her to know that she is sadistic, cruel, evil, and not really human, and incredibly beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes, an outfit of scraps of leather melded seamlessly to form a dominatrix look that fits her like it was painted on—and might well be. Her boots were extreme high heels but minus the heel, a look only possible when you have hooves.
“Well, hello there, mini-Messenger. What was your name again? Pawn? Puppet?”
She had a throaty purr that sounded like an intimate whisper. The illusion is so real that when she punctuates the p sound in puppet I swear I can feel her breath on my ear, and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Mara,” I said. “My name is Mara.”
She moved like a tiger, sinuous, precise, dangerous. She was beside me and though I’m straight I felt my throat tighten and my breathing become labored, such is her animal appeal.
“You know, Mara, you don’t have to dress like a schoolgirl. I could arrange for something a bit more . . . well, let’s just say something that would make it harder for Messenger.” She laughed wickedly at that, then with a wink, added, “I mean harder for Messenger to ignore you so completely. As a young woman.”
“I’m not . . .” I began, and then realized there was no safe way for me to conclude that sentence. Instead I blushed and fell silent.
“I don’t think he’s even really noticed the way you look at him sometimes, or the way your heart speeds up when he comes close or—”
“What is it you want, Oriax?” Messenger asked wearily.
“Oh, you, Messenger. Always. You’re just so very delicious. I could eat you up.” She licked her lips, which today were glowing mauve, and leered, but for a chilling moment it occurred to me to wonder if she might not mean that literally.
I had stood by helplessly while she had tricked a boy into accepting a punishment that left him shattered as a human being. She had laughed and sung a grim little song as he was made to experience being burned alive. Was there anything too foul for her? Was there any sort of limit? I doubted it.
“I’m fine,” I said, responding way too late to her offer to improve my appearance.
“Why this girl?” Oriax gestured at Samira, who had
