Pounding with my fists, I screamed, “Help!” I screamed it again and again, yet there was no movement. No answer to my call. Panic tangled with my fear and exasperation. I pounded harder. “Let me out!” My voice cracked with the strain of the words and the force of my strikes.
But then something else happened.
In my hand, the Faytling began to glow as it had beside the divining pool and again in the tunnel. But this time, the light was a vibrant purple, and it cast out purple tendrils. They reached away from me, undulating and floating toward the wall. I stared without understanding, with no thought but one single phrase that swelled within me until it spewed forth with volcanic force:
“Let me out!”
Somehow, with the Faytling in my grip, I knew what to do. I closed my eyes and took a step back from the wall. But I was doing more than that, I was stepping out of myself. I opened my eyes to see I was still standing at the wall, caught in an immobile pose, fingers still gripping the now dim Faytling. Only it was no longer me.
I was gazing on that figure from a good two paces behind and in my hand was a specter of a Faytling, still glowing at its brightest.
What madness was this? I could see my hand and my skirts with my boots peeking out beneath, only they were all edged in a soft lavender light. I was glowing like the Faytling.
Was it a hallucination?
Or was it another Faytling power?
I shook my hand, and the glowing hand shook. I shook my foot, and the glowing boot did the same. I stepped forward and my body, if it could be called that, moved though I couldn’t feel the floor or anything really. Only a coolness, like the breeze on a late November morning.
I knew nothing of spirits, but I was quite certain that’s what I was now. A spirit without bodily form and that meant…
I moved closer to the wall. With the fingers of my right hand wrapped around the Faytling, I reached out with my left toward the wall. My fingers, my palm, my whole arm passed through the solid wood, which felt like something more than air but less than water and rather like a thousand tiny pinpricks along my limb.
I yanked it back and examined it. Still whole. Still intact. I tried to make sense of it. But there was none. Echoes of Mr. Wyck’s words returned to me: “When it comes to the Other Realm, the world plays by different rules.”
At the sound of the calliope, I pushed my arm forward again then closed my eyes and moved the rest of me through as well.
When I looked again, I was in the corridor. I was… free!
The calliope howled once more, reminding me there was no time to marvel or muse. I had to act, and I had to be fast.
Quickly, I moved toward the instrument’s wail, retracing my steps with Mr. MacDougall. At the anteroom, two footmen stood sentry beside the door.
“Stop that performance!” I cried, flinging propriety and what was left of my good sense to the winds.
Neither man flinched.
With more vigor, I yelled again, “You must do something. The Queen is in danger!”
Still they didn’t move, as if I wasn’t even there.
I waved my hands wildly in front of their faces.
Not a twitch.
I may be free of that room, but I was apparently invisible and mute. What good was a spirit form if I was still powerless? My mind raced, until it settled on one word. One name.
Marlie.
I needed to find her. Without a second’s hesitation, I flew through the corridor and down a staircase. It had to be flying for it was much faster than I could possibly run, but by the time I reached my roommate in the Great Kitchen, I could feel my energy waning.
“Marlie, I need your help,” I whispered over her shoulder as she pulled the tiny leaves off a thyme stem and dropped them into a bowl.
She didn’t move.
What was left of my strength was evaporating like steam billowing from the stockpot behind me. “Please, you must help me!”
The Faytling in my hand glowed more brightly.
Curiously, the talisman beneath Marlie’s blouse glowed as well. Noticing it, she dropped the thyme stem she was holding and covered the jewel. Her glance darted around, searching for something.
“I’m nearly out of herbs and need a few more sprigs,” she said to the cook behind her. “I’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for permission and her hand still over her chest, she hurried to the pantry. I followed. When she closed the door behind her, she pulled out her Faytling and stared straight at me. “You? What are you… I mean, how—”
“You can see me?”
Relief flooded through me, overriding the lethargy that had taken hold.
“Of course I can. I’m talking to you. But how—”
“There’s no time to explain. The performance is starting. You must stop it.”
She froze. “The calliope?”
I nodded and gulped for air. “You have to do it.”
“But the color is draining from you. You must return to yourself before it’s too late.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Where are you?” she pressed.
“I don’t know the room, but I can take you there.”
“Hurry then.”
The Queen was my paramount concern, but I was too weak to argue with Marlie. Instead I pointed at the door, and when she opened it, I led her back to the room that imprisoned my body.
We were standing in front of the locked door when I realized I still had no way to open it. “The key,” I murmured, the lethargy making it almost impossible to form words. In the distance, I could hear someone testing more chords on the calliope. “MacDougall… has… it.” I should have been frustrated. Angry even. But I was too tired. Sleep was all I wanted. A nice bit of floor would do just fine.
“Don’t you worry
