“And something is wrong with it?”
“Yes,” Katie nodded. “The partition that separates Earth from the Dark Place has punctured, and now has a hole in it where one world bleeds into the other. If we don’t close it back up, then the tear will continue to grow, and it will envelop all of you along with it, destroying Earth.”
“That sounds pretty bad.”
“It’s worse than that,” Katie said. “It’s the end of your world.”
I walked into a clearing where Katie and I used to play volleyball. Except there was no volleyball in the woods that night. Instead, there was a giant black hole in the sky. Blue fire shot out of it as ghosts flooded out into the world.
“Why isn’t the army, or NASA out here quarantining the area?”
“You watch too many movies,” Katie said. “Nobody else can see it but you, just like nobody can see me but you.”
“Seems stupid. I feel like the FBI would be pretty interested in this if they could see it. They probably have some interdimensional laser already in development to close that thing right up.”
“Yeah, maybe they could help, but then I would become a science experiment. I mean, a real live ghost would keep them funded for decades, and I would rather not be poked and prodded for their experiments.”
“Now who’s seen too many movies, ET?”
Katie chuckled. “I think we can fix it without them.”
“Fix it? You think we’re going to fix this by ourselves?”
“We might have to bring in a little help, but yes. I do. I have faith in us.”
“I think your faith is a little misplaced. That thing is huge.”
“It was half this size when I came out of it to find you. It’s growing every day.”
I stared at the giant hole. “What do we do?”
“No idea,” Katie replied. “This is bad, Anna, and I don’t know the first thing about fixing it.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Well, it seemed as though you had a plan, with all the grandstanding about not needing the FBI and all.”
“I don’t have a plan, but I wasn’t lying when I said that I believe in us.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
I only wished I believed myself, but that wasn’t important. What was important was saying it confidently enough that Katie felt my confidence in her. We could figure anything out together.
Chapter 13
We searched the internet for the rest of the night, but we couldn’t come up with anything about how to repair a rift to the Dark Place. We found some cool lyrics from death metal songs, and a couple very poorly categorized recipes, but when the sun rose, we were no closer to finding out how to fix the hole Katie showed me in the woods.
“Maybe somebody else will find it,” I said, falling back exhausted on my desk chair. “Can’t somebody else figure this out?”
“Who else even knows about the woods, Banana? We’re the only kids left on this street that didn’t move away or go to college.”
“Maybe one of the other ghosts will figure it out.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Katie replied. “Something happens to you when you’re in there too long.”
“What happens?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but every time I tried to talk to a ghost, they just stared at me blankly. You lose your shape in there, and your form. Some of the ghosts I saw were just puddles, and others were just rectangles. You stop remembering people, too. I found my dad in there. He didn’t…he didn’t remember my name. You just fall apart. I don’t know how to describe it better than…well, you know Slimer?”
“From Ghostbusters?”
“He used to be a human at some point, but then he became just a mass of ooze, right?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what happened. I mean, now that I think about it, Slimer must have been a human at some point, or at least something besides gelatinous ooze.”
“Well, it’s like that. Maybe they were people at some point, but they aren’t anymore. I doubt they even remember who they were. I only remembered because I just died, but even after a couple of days I started to forget everything I once knew. I started to forget you, my mom, and…everything.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“You would think, except that it was freeing in a way. I felt lighter, untethered. It was horrible and wonderful all at once.”
“I don’t see how it would be wonderful to forget everything you once knew.”
Katie turned away from me. “Let’s hope you don’t have to experience it for a long time.”
I turned back to the computer. It wasn’t that there weren’t websites talking about repairing rifts in time and space. There were thousands of them. It’s just that none of them were reliable, and they all contradicted each other. Fred-meat-popsicle.com gave one set of instructions and then Zelda_witch.net said the exact opposite thing. It’s not like there was a widely recognized site related to the afterlife we could just cross reference. Most of it was garbage, and the rest of it was washed out by the deluge of useless information.
“Wait,” I said as the sun crept into my window. “What about church?”
“What about church?” Katie replied.
“Think about it. They say they’re professional exorcists and deal with death. Like, if anybody would know about the afterlife they would, right?”
“Sure, maybe. But there are like a million religions out there. How are you going to pick which one to believe?”
“Well, we live in a small town, and there’s only a couple churches, so I say we start with what we know and work out from there.”
“Did my mother have Father Thomas do my service?”
I shook my head. “You didn’t want a religious service. She fought every instinct, but she didn’t ask the Father to your service. It nearly killed her, but she respected your wishes.”
“Good. Religion is dumb. Lot of good any of it did me. I saw every priest and faith healer in the world, and
