Shimmer

encouragement, while Buttercup thumped his tail against the floor.

Then I grabbed hold of the knob and yanked the door open, my eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the dimness, spying nothing more than the tips of her shiny brown boots, the hem of her flouncy dress, and the stray paw of the dog she clutched to her chest, until I moved all the old hanging clothes aside and could gaze upon the rest of her.

Our eyes met. And for a moment, I was sure I couldn’t go through with it. But the thought was quickly overcome by something I can only describe as a thought wave—this big, wonderful swarm of love and support that came from my friends.

Strengthened by the way it swept right over me, pooled all around me, I looked at Rebecca and said, “It’s over. Everything’s over. You’re the only one left, and now it’s time to come out.”

But if I’d had any illusions it would be anywhere near that easy, well, I quickly got over them.

Rebecca wasn’t going anywhere. And somewhere in the midst of all her yelling and cursing and ranting and raving, she’d told me as much.

“He’s not coming,” I said, deflecting each verbal blow, letting it just whiz right past me. “Your father is gone. He moved on a long time ago. Which means there’s really no point in reliving all this.”

She scooched back even farther, clutched her dog tighter, and kicked at me with her boots. And when it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere, when it was clear that none of us were, she did the unthinkable.

She let go of her dog and sicced him on Buttercup.

I screamed.

I couldn’t help it.

The sight of that beast charging my dog caused me to lose all my focus.

But luckily, I had backup.

Backup that wasn’t the least bit fazed by any of it.

And no, I’m not referring to Bodhi, or even Prince Kanta as I definitely heard them suck in a fair amount of air—I’m talking about Buttercup.

My sweet yellow Lab who, seeing the dog now grown to one hundred times his size, equated it with the game of fetch he’d been playing earlier, the game that started all this. Manifesting a lime green tennis ball, just like the one we’d been using, he sent it bouncing toward the door, down the hall, then barked and wagged his tail harder as he watched the hellhound chase after it.

The last thing I heard as Shucky ran down the stairs and out the front door was the sound of Rebecca screaming, “Nooooooo!” when she realized her dog, thanks to mine, was now on the other side of her globe.

We tried to cajole her, tried to convince her to join him, but she refused. Even after we’d stripped away the closet, the house, and tried to show her just how quickly her world had shrunk down, that besides the three of us, she was the only inhabitant left, she still resisted the truth.

Choosing to fight back by manifesting all manner of hateful, anger-making memories along with every natural disaster she could think of.

But we remained calm, focused, and united—each of us happily residing in the small, quiet space of silence she could no longer take from us.

“What now?” I glanced between the prince and Bodhi, looking for some wise words, if not guidance.

“We leave her.” The prince shrugged. “Now that my brothers and sisters are freed”—he nodded toward the place just outside the globe where they all stood, peering in at us—“it is time for me to go. I was hoping to reach her, but that does not seem to be possible just yet. And for that, I am sorry. It is a very great failure on my part.”

Though Bodhi was quick to agree that we should all just leave and possibly revisit that sad, angry girl on some other day, I had another idea entirely.

“I know exactly how to get her out of here,” I said, looking at each of them. “Just follow my lead.”

22

“You can’t do it,” Bodhi said, but I turned my back on him, determined to go through with it no matter how he might choose to protest. “You cannot force someone to cross the bridge. It goes against all the rules. And I can’t believe I have to repeat this to you when you already know that.”

I glanced at the prince, embarrassed to be bickering in front of him like this. Still, I had every intention to stand my ground. I’d had an idea. A good one if I might say so myself. And I was sure it would work, if Bodhi would just give it half a chance.

“No one’s forcing anyone to do anything,” I said, making it a point to roll my eyes and shake my head. “I mean, sheesh, whaddaya take me for? Some kind of amateur?” I screwed my lips to the side.

“Then what?” he asked, voice still full of the fight. “You can see she’s not cooperating, so short of forcing her to do what you want, how are you possibly going to convince her?”

I clutched my hips and gazed all around; just because he was in charge of guiding me, didn’t mean he knew squat when it came to the depths of my imagination. “I’m not going to force her, and I seriously doubt I’ll be able to convince her—though I do know something that will.”

Bodhi squinted, taking his annoyance out on the straw he mangled hard between his teeth.

“The bridge will convince her.”

He sighed. One of those big, loud, exasperated kind of sighs that was soon followed by, “Excuse me, but did I not just tell you that—” But his words were cut short by the flash of my hand.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, gazing between him and the prince. “Maybe I can’t force her to cross it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t lead her to it.”

They looked at me.

“And once she sees the promise it holds, well, there’s no way she can resist.”

“Yeah? And what if she does?” Bodhi asked, stubbornly refusing to see the absolute genius of my plan.

But I just shrugged. “Well, then I guess we’ll cross it, and leave her to stare at it for the rest of eternity. But there’s no way it’ll come to that,” I said, my voice bearing far more conviction than I actually felt.

“So how do you propose we get her there, to this … bridge?” the prince asked, still dressed in the rags he wore when we first met.

I dropped my hands to my sides and squinted at her—at the world she’d created, the one that once seemed so large and overwhelming, only to be reduced to the size of an average thirteen-year-old girl.

She glared at us, all of us. Her fists raised in anger, shouting every type of threat she could think of. And she was so furious to see her little dog Shucky (back to being the tiny version of himself) sitting right alongside Buttercup that she even included him in those threats.

To be honest, if you’d asked me at that moment how I planned to get her anywhere even close to that bridge, well, I really couldn’t have said. I mean, it’s not like the journey was all that long, since all we had to do was make the soft golden veil of light and slip through it to the other side, but still, how would we get her through it?

How would we lead her first to Summerland, and then, hopefully, to the Here & Now just beyond?

Then it hit me—why not just roll her there?

After all, the bubble was perfectly round, which should make it easy enough. And though I knew she wouldn’t like it, by that point, I admit, I wasn’t really all that concerned about that.

I approached the globe, placed my hands on either side of the space where her eyes glowed and her cheeks flamed bright red, and I started to push. Rolling her slowly at first, seeing her tumble and fall and totally freak as her whole world was sent upside down and a crazy swirl of ash sprayed all over the place.

And just as I was about to deem it a somewhat awkward, but still overall, success, one of Prince Kanta’s