Industrial Magic

Primeval Swamp

We hiked across the rocky plain for what must have been two hours. One problem with the ghost world? Serious lack of public transportation. Yet, even with all that walking, I didn't suffer so much as sore feet. I suppose that renders motorized vehicles unnecessary. That and the fact that, here, you have all the time in the world to get wherever you're going.

Normally, I guess, travel in the ghost world is like a Sunday stroll, relax and enjoy the scenery. Where we were, though, there was no scenery to enjoy, unless you were a geologist. Rock, rock, and more rock. Not exactly the Elysian fields I'd hoped for. Of course, this was a temporary stay-the more temporary, the better-but I couldn't help being curious, if only to take my mind off the worries that were gnawing through my gut. This was the afterlife, the greatest mystery in the world unfolding before me. Yet my attempts to get more information from Eve were blocked with witticisms and non sequiturs. I can, however, be somewhat persistent, and finally she was forced to address the issue.

"I can't tell you anything, Paige. I know you're curious, but if we're going to get you out of this world, then the less you know-"

"The better," I finished.

"The better for me, too," she said. "I'm already in the Fates' bad books, and once they find out-"

"So the Fates are real?"

"Oh, yeah, only they don't just sit around spinning yarn-" She shot me a mock glare. "Stop that. You're going to trick me into talking, and then they'll find out and I won't just be up to my neck in shit anymore, I'll be drowning in it. Believe me, they will find out-hopefully just not until you're gone."

"How will they find us? Those Searchers you mentioned?"

Eve kept walking.

I continued, "If I need to be on the lookout for these things, then I have to know what to look for."

"No, you don't. If you see them, they've already seen you, and we're both going down. Not a whole lotta laws in this place, but we're breaking most of them."

"What if-"

I stopped and stared. The rocky plains ended less than a dozen yards in front of us. Beyond that was… nothing. They didn't end in a cliff or a wall of darkness or anything so dramatic. They just ended, like hitting the last page in a book. I can't describe it any better than that.

"Well, come on," she said.

I couldn't move. There was something indescribably terrifying about the view in front of me, the yawning nothingness of it.

"Oh, hell," Eve said. "It's just a way station."

She grabbed my elbow and propelled me forward. When we reached the end of the plain, my brain went wild, digging in its mental heels. That response shot down to my legs and they stopped moving. Eve sighed and, without a word, stepped behind me, and pushed.

I'd been tricked. In that last second before Eve shoved me through, I realized the truth. Eve wasn't helping me. She didn't want me going back to Savannah. She hated me, hated what I was doing to her daughter, hated how I was raising her. This was her revenge. She was-

"There," Eve said, stepping beside me. "That's not so bad, is it?"

I looked around. Fog surrounded me, a strange, cold, bluish mist.

I rubbed my upper arms. "So what is this place? A way station between what?"

"Between planes, the nonearthly realms of the ghost world, like where you landed. From here I can transport us to another plane, or to any place on earth. Well, our version of earth."

"But how-"

"Think of it as a cosmic elevator. A modern one, though. No elevator attendant on duty. Can't just walk up and say 'Miami, please.' Don't I wish. No, it's strictly do-it-yourself, and you have to figure out the right incantation to get to each place, like breaking a code. Different place, different code."

"So I assume they don't like ghosts traveling."

Eve shrugged. "They aren't totally against it, but they'd rather you found a place and stuck to it, at least for a while. Frequent commuting is not encouraged. It confuses the older ghosts, seeing new faces popping in and out all the time."

"But you know the codes."

She grinned. "Not as many as I'd like, but I'm racking up far more frequent flier miles than the Fates would like. They've rapped my knuckles a few times. Not about using the codes, because, technically, that's allowed, but they don't always approve of the methods I use to get them."

"Uh-huh."

"And that's all you need to know about that. Now hold on."

Eve murmured an incantation in a language I'd never heard. Then she turned and walked back in the direction we'd come.

"It didn't work?" I said as I hurried after her. "So now what-"

"More walking, less talking, Paige."

I took one more step and my foot sank into what felt like a steaming pile of horse shit. I yelped and jumped back. I looked down. Warm, slimy mud oozed into my sandals.

"Gross, huh?" Eve said. "Come on."

I followed. The mist still swirled around us. I opened my mouth to ask Eve something, then caught a whiff of the air and gagged. In grade school, a sadistic teacher had forced our class on an educational tour of a sewer plant. It had smelled like this, only better. One more cautious step, and a wave of humid heat washed over me. Then the mist cleared.

I looked around. The first association that clicked was: the Everglades. But it wasn't. It had the same smell, the same feel, the same general look, but everything was multiplied a hundredfold. I touched the nearest overhanging fern. The leaf was bigger than I was. Massive twisted trees loomed overhead, pale moss dangling all around them, like a tattered wedding dress on a bridal corpse. An insect the size of a swallow buzzed past. As I turned to get a better look at it, something deep within the swamp shrieked. I jumped. Eve laughed and steadied me.

"Welcome to Miami," she said. "Population: a few hundred… none of whom you want to meet."

"This is Miami?" I said.

"Weird, huh? Watch this."

She murmured an incantation, then rubbed her hand in front of us, as if cleaning glass. There, in the spot she'd cleared, was a tunnel view of a city street, neon signs blazing. A pair of headlights rounded the corner and headed straight for us. I locked my knees so I wouldn't bolt. The car zoomed to the edge of the "window," then disappeared.

"That's your Miami," she said, then pointed at the swamp. "This is ours."

She swiped her hand over the image, and it dissolved. I took a few steps, shoes squelching in the mud.

"Stick close," she said. "I'm serious about there being things out there you don't want to meet."

I looked around and shook my head. "So all the cities are gone in the ghost world?"

"Nah. Miami's special."

"What are the other cities like? Do they look like ours?"

"Kind of. That's the cool thing. They look like the real ones, but they're stuck in the past, at some important point in their history, their heyday or whatever."

I looked around. "So Miami's heyday was back when it was a primeval swamp?"

Eve grinned. "All downhill from there, huh? Or maybe it's a metaphorical thing."

"You said ghosts live in the other cities. What if you lived in Miami while you were alive? Would you have to relocate?"

"Mostly, yes. But those things I was mentioning, the ones that live here? Rumor has it that they used to be-" She grimaced and made a zipping motion over her mouth. "No more questions, Paige."

"But shouldn't I know-"

"No, you shouldn't. You don't need to. You just want to. God, I'd forgotten how curious you are. When you were little, I swore your first word wasn't 'Momma,' it was 'why.'"

"Just one last-"

"One last question? Ha! Do you have any idea how many times I fell for that one?" She started walking. "One last question. One last game. One last song."

"I just-"

"Stop talking and get moving or you'll learn more about this swamp than you ever cared to know."