Meg Cabot - Darkest Hour

It was the first object I picked up in my new ghostly state. It felt absurdly heavy. Still, I managed to fasten it around my wrist, where it jangled loosely, like a bracelet. Or a prison shackle.

"Okay," I said, looking up at that hole above me. "Here goes nothing."

I had to climb, of course. Don't ask me why I hadn't thought of this. I mean, I had to reach up and grab the edges of that hole in time and space and boost myself up into it. And in a slip dress, no less.

Whatever. I was about halfway in when I heard a familiar voice shriek my name.

Father Dominic spun around. I leaned down from the hole - through which I could only see fog, gray fog that spritzed my face damply - and saw Jack, of all people, running down the church aisle toward us, his pale face white with fear, and something trailing behind him.

Father Dominic reached out and caught him just before he flung himself on my unconscious form. He obviously didn't see my legs dangling from the enormous tear in the church ceiling.

"What are you doing here?" Father Dominic demanded, his face almost as white as the kid's. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Do your parents know you're here? They must be worried sick - "

"They're - they're asleep," Jack panted. "Please, Suze forgot ... she forgot her rope." Jack held up the long white object that had been skittering along behind him as he'd run between the pews. It was my rope from our first attempt to exorcise me. "How is she going to find her way back without her rope?"

Father Dominic took the rope from Jack without a word of thanks. "It was very wrong of you, Jack," he said disapprovingly, "to come here. What could you have been thinking? I told you it was going to be very dangerous."

"But ... " Jack kept looking at my unconscious half. "Her rope. She forgot her rope."

"Here," I called, from my celestial hole. "Toss it up here."

Jack looked up at me, and the anxiety left his face.

"Suze!" he yelled delightedly. "You're a ghost!"

"Shhh!" Father Dominic looked pained. "Really, young man, you must keep your voice down."

"Hi, Jack," I said from my hole. "Thanks for bringing the rope. How'd you get down here, anyway?"

"Hotel shuttle," Jack said proudly. "I snuck onto it. It was coming into town to pick up a lot of drunk people. When it stopped near the Mission, I snuck off."

I couldn't have been prouder if he'd been my own son. "Good thinking," I said.

"This," Father Dominic moaned, "is the last thing we need right now. Here, Susannah, take the rope, and for the love of God, hurry - "

I leaned down and grabbed the end of the rope, then tied it securely around my waist. "Okay," I said. "If I'm not back in half an hour, start pulling."

"Twenty-five minutes," Father Dominic corrected me. "We lost time, thanks to this young man's interruption." He took a pocket watch from his coat with the hand that wasn't clutching the other end of the rope. "Go now, Susannah," he urged me.

"Right," I said. "Okay. Be right back."

And then I swung my legs into the hole. When I looked down, I could see Father Dominic and Jack standing there, peering up at me. And I could also see me, asleep like Snow White, in a circle of dancing candle flames. Although I doubt Snow White ever wore Prada.

I got up and looked around me. Nothing.

I'm serious. There was nothing there. Just that black sky, through which a few stars burned coldly. And then there was the fog. Thick, ever-moving, cool fog. I should have, I thought to myself with a shiver, worn a sweater. The fog seemed to weigh down the air I was taking into my lungs. It also seemed to serve as a muffler. I couldn't hear a sound, not even my own footsteps.

Oh, well. Twenty-five minutes wasn't long. I sucked in a chestful of damp air and yelled, "Jesse!"

It was a highly effective move. Not that Jesse showed up. Oh, no. But this other guy did.

In a gladiator outfit, no less.

I'm not even kidding. He looked like the guy from my mom's American Express card (which I frequently borrow, with her permission, of course). You know, the broom sticking out of his helmet, the leather miniskirt, the big sword. I couldn't see his feet on account of the fog, but I assumed that, if I could, he'd be wearing lace-up sandals (so unflattering on people with fat knees).

"You," he said, in this deep, no-nonsense voice, "do not belong here."

See. I knew the slip dress had been a mistake. But who knew purgatory had a dress code?

"I know," I said, giving him my best smile. Maybe Father D was right. Maybe I do have a tendency to use my sexuality to get what I want. I was certainly laying on the girlie thing thick for the Russell Crowe type in front of me.

"The thing is," I said, fingering my rope. "I'm looking for a friend. Maybe you know him. Jesse de Silva? He showed up here last night, I think. He's about twenty, six feet tall, black hair, dark eyes - " Killer abs?

Russell Crowe must not have been listening closely, since all he said was, "You do not belong here," again.

Okay, the slip dress had definitely been a mistake. Because how was I supposed to kick this guy out of my way without splitting the skirt?

"Look, mister," I said, striding up to him and trying not to notice that his pectoral muscles were so pronounced, his breasts were bigger than mine. Way bigger. "I told you. I'm looking for someone. Now either you tell me if you've seen him, or you get out of my face, okay? I'm a mediator, all right? I have just as much right to be here as you."

I did not, of course, know if this was true, but heck, I've been a mediator all my life, and I haven't gotten squat for it. As far as I was concerned, somebody owed me, but big.

The gladiator seemed to agree. He went, in a completely different tone, "A mediator?" He looked down at me as if I were a monkey that had suddenly sat up and started saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Still, I must have done something right, since he said slowly, "I know the one of whom you speak."

Then he seemed to come to a decision. Stepping to one side, he said in a commanding voice, "Go now. Do not open any doors. He will come."

I stared at him. Whoa. "Are you . . . are you serious?"

For the first time, he showed some personality. He went, "Do I seem to be joking to you?"

"Um," I said. "No."

"Because I am the gatekeeper. I do not joke. Go now." He pointed. "You have not much time."

Off in the distance, in the direction he was pointing, I saw something. I don't know what it was, but it was something other than fog. I felt like hugging my new gladiator friend, but I restrained myself. He didn't seem the touchy-feely sort.

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks a whole lot."

"Hurry," the gatekeeper said. "And remember, whatever you do, do not go toward the light."

I had given the rope a yank so that Father D would give me some slack. Now I just stood there with it in my hands, staring at the gladiator.

"Don't go in the light?" I echoed. "You're not serious."

I swear to you, he sounded indignant. "I told you before, I do not joke. Why do you think I would say something I do not mean?"

I wanted to tell him that the whole don't-go-into-the-light thing was way overplayed. I mean, Poltergeist One through Three had pretty much run that line into the ground.

But who knew? Maybe the guy who wrote those movies was a mediator. Maybe he and the gatekeeper were pals or something.

"Okay," I said, sidling past him. "Gotcha. Don't go in the light."

"Or open any doors," the gatekeeper reminded me.

"No doors," I said, pointing at him and winking. "You got it."

Then I turned around, and the fog was gone.

Well, not gone, really. I mean, it was still there, licking at my heels. But most of it had given way, so that I could see I was in a corridor lined with doors. There was no ceiling overhead, just those coldly winking stars and inky black sky. Still, the long corridor of closed doors seemed to stretch out forever before me.