Page 26 of Soul of Shadow
“Enjoy,” said Elias. When Charlie looked back up at him, his eyes flickered with cruel amusement. “It’s as much curse as it is gift.”
She hesitated for only a moment before putting the eyaerberry into her mouth and biting down.
It burst open on her tongue. Her mouth flooded with sweet-tart juice. It flooded her taste buds, trickling down the back of her throat. It seemed to seep into her entire body, sending a cold, fizzy rush through her veins, making her fingers tremble, her toes prickle, zipping to the very top of her head, like a shock of electricity. She squeezed her eyes shut. Balled her hands into fists. Tilted her head back as the zinging tartness reached its crux, and she thought,This is what it feels like to become lightning.
Gradually, the electricity ebbed. Fizzled away until it was a cool, lingering tingle that ghosted along the surface of her skin. And when she opened her eyes again—
When she opened her eyes, shesaw.
The forest was alive. The grass shimmered. The flowers glowed. The leaves of the trees quivered and hummed. White and blue orbs of light hung from the tree branches. Purple fireflies buzzed through the air. Down by her feet, neon-red mushrooms sprouted from the dirt and white dandelions shone like electric snowflakes. There were colors—colors she had never seen before. Pinky-purply blues and magenta-white greens and colors for which she had no name, no earthly description. It was as if eating the eyaerberry had stripped away nature’s dull outer layer, revealing the long-buried, richly colored, star-bright flesh beneath.
Charlie had the sudden urge to put on sunglasses. It was almost too much.
Almost.
She stepped toward the forest, her mouth hanging open. “What—” She choked on her own voice. “Whatisall of this?”
“This,” said Shadow Elias behind her, “is Asgard.”
Charlie took another step. At the forest’s edge, a pink snake slithered through the weeds. In the sky above, a sparkling two-headed bird leapt from a treetop and swooped up into the night. Bright-green vines wound around the tree trunks, seeming to almost pulsate, as if they were breathing. Every color was brighter. Every scent like a strong gust of perfume—the grass, the dirt, the berries, the wood of the trees… Charlie smelled things she couldn’t even begin to recognize. It was like waking up on a different planet, inside a different body.
“I don’t—” She shook her head, entirely overwhelmed, lost for where to look next. At the luminous orange sap seeping out of the tree trunks? At the sun sinking fast above, almost blinding in its brightness? At the purple fireflies that swooped overhead, their buzzing so pronounced it sounded almost like laughter?
At last, she collected herself enough to ask, “What do you mean this is Asgard?”
When Elias didn’t immediately respond, she turned around.
He was gone.
14
Charlie burst through her bedroom door. She tore across the room, straight toward the white wooden desk that sat beneath the bay windows. Scattered on its surface were her laptop, her schoolbooks, a set of pens in different colors, a pile of hair ties, and a few framed photos. She pulled shut the white drapes hanging from the windows, sat in the cushioned swivel chair before the desk, and opened her laptop.
It had been a chaotic journey home. After Elias disappeared, she had taken off into the woods, sprinting blindly in what she hoped was the direction of her car. She ran with her head down, trying not to get distracted by the things she could now see and hear in the forest: the whisper of inhuman voices, the pitter-patter of tiny feet, huge birds swooping overhead, strange laughter echoing in the distance. She never once slowed her pace, never stopped to catch her breath or think about what was happening to her. She just needed to be home.
It took a half hour of searching to find her car. When she got inside and put the key in the ignition, lighting up the dashboard, she let out a bloodcurdling scream. There was a tiny creature sitting on her steering wheel. It was only a few inches high. Most ofits body was covered with a long beard; all Charlie could see of the creature was a round nose and a tall, pointed hat. Before she could think to do anything else, she swatted it out onto the pavement, slammed the door shut, and backed out of her parking spot.
She drove home like a criminal fleeing the scene of a robbery. It was a miracle she wasn’t pulled over—though she was fairly certain that the police were too wrapped up in the boys’ disappearances to care about her breaking the speed limit. She pointedly ignored the scenes flashing past the windows: vines wrapped around stoplights, huge orange fruits dangling from trees she’d never noticed before, something with six legs and horns galloping past in her rearview mirror. At one intersection, she could have sworn she spotted two men in full armor having a sword fight on a street corner. She drove right past and didn’t look back.
After parking the Bronco in the driveway and slamming the front door behind her, Charlie ignored the calls of her mom from the kitchen—no doubt wondering where she had been—and sprinted up the stairs to her bedroom. She hadn’t even known what she intended to do until she was there, sitting at her desk, mind reeling.
She clicked on the internet browser and typed:
Asgard
Hundreds of thousands of results loaded onto the screen. Links to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki page, board games, video games, and Norse mythology websites. Charlie clicked a link to Britannica.com and read the definition it listed.
Asgard - in Norse mythology, the dwelling place of the gods, comparable to the Greek Mount Olympus.
Charlie hit the back button and toggled over to images ofAsgard. They were mostly paintings and digital illustrations featuring variations on the same thing: a city in the sky, with mountains, shining golden towers, a horizon of starlight, and a long rainbow bridge. They were beautiful landscapes. Magical. Completely incapable of existing on Earth.
Or were they?
Charlie glanced up at the windows. White drapes blocked her view of the street beyond. She had closed them on purpose; she was hiding from what she might see outside. Inside her house, things were relatively normal—colors didn’t shine too brightly, scents weren’t too overwhelming, and from what she could tell, no strange creatures lurked in the corners of her bedroom.
But if she were to look outside…
She grabbed the drapes and tore them open.
