Meg Cabot - Shadowland

I didn't see much of my trip down into the valley. The wind was so cold that tears streamed in a pretty constant flow down my cheeks and back into my hair. There wasn't much traffic out, thank God, so when I flew through the intersection, it didn't really matter that I couldn't see. The cars stopped for me, anyway.

I knew it was going to be trickier to break into the school this time. They'd have beefed up the security in response to what had happened the night before. Beefed up the security? All they had to do was actually get some.

And they had. A police cruiser sat in the parking lot, its lights off. Just sitting there, the moonlight reflecting off the closed windows. The driver – doubtlessly some luckless rookie to have pulled so boring an assignment – was probably listening to music, though I couldn't hear any from where I stood just outside the gate to the parking lot.

So I was going to have to find another way to get in. No biggie. I stashed the bike in some bushes, then took a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the school.

There aren't many buildings you can keep a fairly slender sixteen-year-old girl out of. I mean, we're pretty flexible. I happen to be double-jointed in a lot of places, too. I won't tell you how I managed to break in, since I don't want the school authorities figuring it out – you never know, I might have to do it again someday – but let's just say if you're going to make a gate, make sure it reaches all the way to the ground. That gap between the cement and where the gate starts is exactly all the room a girl like me needs to wriggle through.

Inside the courtyard, things looked a lot different than they had the night before – and a whole lot creepier. All the floodlights were turned off – this didn't seem like a very good safety precaution to me, but it was possible, of course, that Heather had blown all the bulbs – so the courtyard was dark and eerily shadowed. The fountain was turned off. I couldn't hear anything this time except for crickets. Just crickets chirping in the hibiscus. Nothing wrong with crickets. Crickets are our friends.

There was no sign of Heather. There was no sign of anybody. This was good.

I crept, as quietly as I could – which was pretty quietly in my sneakers – to the locker Heather and I shared. Then I knelt down on the cold flagstones, and opened my backpack.

I lit the candles first. I needed their light to see by. Holding my lighter – okay, it wasn't really my lighter, it was the long-handled lighter from the barbecue – to the candle's bottom, I dripped some wax onto the ground, then shoved the candle's base into the gooey dripping to keep it in place. I did this to each candle until I'd formed a ring of them in front of me. Then I peeled back the lid of the container holding the chicken blood.

I'm not going to write down the shape that I was required to paint in the center of the ring of candles in order for the exorcism to work. Exorcisms aren't things people should try at home, I don't care how badly you might be haunted. And they should only be performed by a professional like myself. You wouldn't, after all, want to hurt any innocent ghosts who happen to be hanging around. I mean, exorcizing Grandma – that won't make you too unpopular, or anything.

And Mecumba – Brazilian voodoo – isn't something people should mess with either, so I won't write down the incantation I had to say. It was all in Portuguese anyway. But let's just say that I dipped my brush into the chicken blood and made the appropriate shapes, uttering the appropriate words as I did so. It wasn't until I reached into the backpack and pulled out Heather's photograph that I noticed the crickets had stopped chirping.

"What," she said, in an irritated voice from just behind my right shoulder, "in the hell do you think you're doing?"

I didn't answer her. I put the photo in the center of the shape I had painted. The light from the candles illuminated it fairly well.

Heather came closer. "Hey," she said. "That's a picture of me. Where'd you get it?"

I didn't say anything except the Portuguese words I was supposed to say. This seemed to upset Heather.

Well, let's face it. Everything seemed to upset Heather.

"What are you doing?" Heather demanded again. "What's that language you're talking in? And what's that red paint for?" When I didn't answer her, Heather became – as seemed to be her nature – abusive. "Hey, bitch," she said, laying a hand upon my shoulder and pulling on it, not very gently. "Are you listening to me?"

I broke off the incantation. "Could you do me a favor, Heather," I said, "and stand right there next to your picture?"

Heather shook her head. Her long blond hair shimmered in the candlelight. "What are you?" she demanded rudely. "High, or something? I'm not standing anywhere. Is that ... is that blood?"

I shrugged. Her hand was still on my shoulder, "Yes," I said. "Don't worry, though. It's just chicken blood."

"Chicken blood?" Heather made a face. "Gross. Are you kidding me? What's it for?"

"To help you," I said. "To help you go back."

Heather's jaw tightened. The doors to the lockers in front of me began to rattle. Not a lot. Just enough to let me know Heather was unhappy. "I thought," she said, "that I made it pretty clear to you last night that I'm not going anywhere."

"You said you wanted to go back."

"Yeah," Heather said. The dials on the combination locks began to spin noisily. "To my old life."

"Well," I said. "I found a way you can do it."

The doors began to hum, they were shaking so hard.

"No way," Heather said.

"Way. All you have to do is stand right here, between those candles, next to your picture."

Heather needed no further urging. In a second, she was exactly where I wanted her.

"Are you sure this will work?" Heather asked excitedly.

"It better," I said. "Otherwise, I've blown my allowance on candles and chicken blood for nothing."

"And things will be just like they were? Before I died, I mean?"

"Sure," I said. Should I have felt guilty for lying to her? I didn't. Feel guilty, I mean. All I felt was relieved. It had all been too easy. "Now shut up a minute while I say the words."

She was only too eager to oblige. I said the words.

And said the words.

And said the words.

I was just starting to be worried nothing was going to happen when the candle flames flickered. And it wasn't because there was any wind.

"Nothing's happening," Heather complained, but I shushed her.

The candle flames flickered again. And then, above Heather's head, where the roof of the breezeway should have been, appeared a hole filled with red, swirling gasses. I stared at the hole.

"Uh, Heather," I said. "You might want to close your eyes."

She did so happily enough. "Why? Is it working?"

"Oh," I said. "It's working, all right."

Heather said something that might have been "goodie," but I wasn't sure. I couldn't hear her too well since the swirling red gas – it was more like smoke really – had started spiraling down from the hole, making a low sort of thundering noise as it did so. Soon long tendrils of the stuff were wrapping around Heather, lightly as fog. Only she didn't know it since her eyes were closed.

"I hear something," she said. "Is this it?"

Above her head, the hole had widened. I could see lightning flashing in it. It didn't look like the most pleasant place to go. I'm not saying I'd opened a gate to hell, or anything – at least I hope not – but it was definitely a dimension other than our own, and frankly, it didn't look like a nice place to visit, let alone live in for all eternity.

"Just one more minute," I said, as more and more snaky red limbs wrapped around her slender cheerleader's body. "And you'll be there."