Jeremy bounded into his room. His feet slid on the smooth floor as he turned and hurriedly draped curtains back over the entrance. He rested his back against a wall and sunk slowly to the floor, panting as he fell.
He narrowed his eyes and gazed around the room. His figurines still stood on top of his dresser. His books were still on their shelf. The floor was still littered with dirty clothes. He nodded to himself. Everything where it should be.
He crawled across his floor and pulled a blanket from his bed. He curled it up on the floor and hastily lowered himself. He peered under the bed.
“Misfit?” He whispered. “I’m back”
He squinted into the darkness. In the dim lantern light he could just make out the thin pool of water he’d poured. A mirror beneath his bed. But it was too dark.
He propped himself up and pulled the lantern from his bedside. He shuffled it carefully under the hem of his bed, moving sheets out of the way. The soft orange glow illuminated the puddle.
“Misfit?” He paused. And slowly, the reflections in the puddle began to swirl, twisting the darkness and orange light within the water. The water glowed and spun till with a subtle breath, a face appeared in its surface. A reflection without a caster.
“You’re back!’ Jeremy whispered, kicking his feet.
So are you, came the voice from the puddle. Was your mission successful, Little one?
“You can call me Jeremy,’ said Jeremy, ‘and it was awesome! Do you want to hear about it?”
The reflection pulsed in the orange light. Jeremy couldn’t see much of it from where he was, lying on the blanket, gazing under the bed, but he swore he saw it prop its chin up on its hands.
Tell me everything. Spare no detail.
Getting to the doorway was easy. I only had one woman ask where I was going and I just told her I was going to study the song, and she bought it. As I got closer I had to be more sneaky, you should have seen me Misfit, I was so stealthy. At one point a man looked right at me and I just stood perfectly still. He looked so confused, he just kept walking. Didn’t even see me! It was so cool.
But the trickiest part was getting through the doorway. It was surrounded by guards. I saw a group of attendants lining up, getting ready to go through, and I thought, perfect! I can just pretend to be one of them. So, as they were getting ready for the ritual, I sneaked a set of their robes from the storeroom. I looked just like them. I was so nervous, but I got in line anyway. Their priest started walking down the line, checking that everyone was there. I held my head high and pushed out my chest. Mama always says that confidence is key. But as the priest got to me, he frowned. He looked me up and down. I don’t know what set him off but clearly, he saw right through my disguise.
Perhaps because the rest of the attendants are adults, and you are 8.
Hmm, I guess everyone else was a good deal taller than me. Anyway, I could tell he wasn’t buying it, so I ran. I took off down a corridor and then another one and another one. Haha, I got super lost. And I could hear them shouting behind me. They were chasing me. And then I remembered! The figurines you gave me. The little guards. I pulled the bag out of my pocket and sat one of the little men on the ground. I hadn’t used one before. It was so cool! It made, like, a copy of me, but it wasn’t me. It was like a ghost. Like a reflection made out of smoke. The little toy man ran away and lead the fake me away. And the people chasing me followed him. I hid until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Thankyou for the figurines by the way.
That’s ok. I’m glad you like them.
Once they were gone, I snuck back the way I’d come and eventually got to the doorway again. And wouldn’t you know, all the guards were gone. They must of run off to chase the fake me. So I started climbing up through the doorway. It was more difficult than I expected. I mean its got stairs and a handrail and everything but like, have you seen it?
No, I haven’t.
Well it’s pretty much just a really big hole that goes up to the Above. So I was climbing straight up. It was so tiring. When I got to the top, I just laid down on my face for like five whole minutes.
After that I started trying to find a way out of the cathedral. That’s the big building that surrounds the top of the doorway. It was pretty easy cause there aren’t many people Above so I could mostly just wander around. And then I got to a door. It was so scary Misfit. It took me a while to figure out how it worked. It has this like grabby bit that you hold and when you twist it right, the door opens. And so I opened the door and. Oh my gosh, you wouldn’t believe it. It was so beautiful. And also very bright. It hurt my eyes a lot. It stung so bad. But once I could see again it was beautiful. There wasn’t any roof, it just went up and up and up and I couldn’t see when it ended. I could see trees off in the distance but they were so bright and big. And there was someone massive! I couldn’t see them but I could feel them breathing. Their breath blew through my hair and it made me shiver. I wish you could have seen it Misfit, it was amazing!
I’ve seen Above before Jeremy.
What you have? No way!
I’m Above right now.
Woah! You’re so lucky. Did you see the trees too? Why didn’t you come and meet me?
I’m in a different Above, it’s very far away from your Above.
Oh, how far away?
When you looked up to where the roof should be, up up up and it just kept going, that’s where my Above is.
Wow.
What happened next?
Oh right, well then I left the Cathedral and I was in the Holy City. It was so … sharp! Every building had doors and they were all made of squares so you could stack them together. The ground was made of little squares all placed one after the other and the buildings had roofs that pointed up to your Above. It was so cool, but it also looked like it was falling apart. Some of the squares had fallen from the buildings and heaps of them were being eaten by the trees. At one point, I was walking past one of the small trees, one of the ground ones that doesn’t have a trunk and it started moving. I didn’t know trees could move so I hid behind a corner. Oh, corners are like where the squares in a building-
I-I know what a corner is Jeremy.
Oh ok, well I watched the moving tree and then something jumped out of it. It was terrifying! It was small and covered in hair and it had really long ears. I just watched it. It started eating some of the tree that covers the ground everywhere. And I mean it didn’t look mean, so I started to move towards it.
You went up to it? Jeremy, you didn’t know what it was. That was very reckless. You could’ve been hurt.
I’m sorry, but but it was fine, because it hopped over to me and it just kind of sat there. And then more of them appeared. And they just sat around me and ate the ground tree and they let me touch them. It was the best ever. But eventually I decided I had to keep going so I went on and kept exploring the city.
I saw so many things. Some of the hallways were so skinny that it stopped the light getting in. In some places the trees had gotten so tall I could climb them and look out over the whole city. In each of the smaller buildings they had a little table. It was always covered with a bit of cloth, usually purple or black and had lots of candles and figurines on it, like mine but more boring. And then I found a big church. It was weird. There weren’t any spots for the musician to sit and they had a big painting on the back wall that was all dark.
It was dark?
Yeah like what happens when Mama leaves the pan on the fire for too long.
Ahh, I see.
I found lots of cool stuff, but then I started to get tired. I looked around and realised I wasn’t sure how to get back. I started to get worried so I climbed a tree to see what I could see. But while I was up there, a man saw me.
A man?
Yeah. He was funny looking. His skin wasn’t grey, it was all pink. And his hair was so long and yellow. And his eyes were so small, like the size of a coin. He was wearing nice clothes though. They were all flowy and blue. He spied me up in the tree and I said:
“Uh oh, You weren’t supposed to see me”
And he said “Then what are you doing up there in a tree where everyone could see you?”
“I’m lost,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to see what way the Cathedral is.”
“I can show you the way.” He said.
He seemed pretty nice, so I started to climb down from the tree.
He asked me what I was doing in the Holy City. I told him I had heard about the fluffy jumpers and wanted to see them. Haha, see? I lied. He laughed and told me they were called ‘rabbits’. Apparently, they’re everywhere here. I asked him what he was doing in the city.
“I live here,” he said.
“You live in the Holy city?”
“I do.”
“Wow, that’s so cool. Aren’t you scared? It’s so sharp up here.”
“I’m pretty careful.” He said.
I asked him why the city was like this, all falling apart and stuff. He said that a long time ago there was a very evil man that ruled over the holy city. He was very mean, and everyone was sad. He let monsters into their city. But then one day, a good man came and defeated the evil ruler. He helped the people build new homes underneath the city where they would be safe from the monsters. That’s why no one lives here anymore.
He’s lying you know.
Oh really? I thought it was a pretty nice story. He led me back to the cathedral and told the guards to help me back home.
“Thanks for showing me the way,” I said.
“Thankyou for listening to my story,” he said.
I told him that I thought he was a very nice man and I gave him a hug. He really was a very nice man, Misfit. That’s why I put my mirror in his pocket.
You what?
I thought you might like to meet him, so I put my mirror in his pocket so you can visit him.
You put a mirror in his pocket?
I’m sorry, I know you gave it to me so we could talk in emergencies, but now you can talk to him too-
Hahaha, Jeremy its ok its ok. You did very well.
I did?
Exceptionally well, in fact, I think awfully soon we may get to meet in person.
Really!? Even though your Above is so far away?
Yes, I think so.
Jeremy grinned and kicked his feet. The reflection in the puddle smiled too.
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