I took off in the direction Cecile had gone. I spotted an open door and stepped in. “Hey, what’s going on here? You ignore me the whole walk and it’s obvious you don’t like me—but I mean, you can’t just keep me in the dark about everything. I’m losing my mind. I died last night. I might never see my family again. I don’t know what happened to me, or what you are or what’s going on. I mean help me out here!”

Cecile was sitting in a large black computer chair, her screen was on and opened to some forum. She lazily turned and leaned back, staring at me thoughtfully. I immediately regretted my tone, remembering how she had hurt me earlier.

“So you don’t remember how you died, but you remember your family? And you said no rifters came to offer you safe passage to the other side?” she asked.

I sighed and pressed my hands to my forehead. Was she ever going to answer any of my questions? “No, I told you, there were no rifters or angels or whatever. I don’t know what happened.”

“Hm. Well, I mean, these are interesting times. The system gets gummed up sometimes. After the Great Awakening and everything, all sorts of things have been going wrong. All these fairy and otherkin running around. I wonder if you got caught in some sort of magickal crossfire. Hm-hm. Let’s see what I can do about getting you to the other side. Maybe I can help you move on without having to involve one of those feather-brained rifters.”

Oh, no. No. The Great Awakening, fairy, and otherkin? That was all I needed. Several years ago, newspapers, newsfeeds, and the whole Internet blew up with talk of this Great Awakening. People all over the world started to see magickal creatures and witches and more, but Silverbrook had remained blessedly untouched, or so I thought. Now I didn’t know what to think.

“So you’re saying some sort of fairy could have done this to me? I thought we didn’t have any in Silverbrook.”

“If you pissed one off, it might have. We’re in the middle of a mountain range, if you think there aren’t fairy and otherkin out here, you are an idiot. Just because they hide or don’t show themselves in the city, doesn’t mean they’re not here. This isn’t Toronto, sadly...” She looked down, a shadow of disappointment crossing her face. “Alright, well. We’re not getting any younger. I’ve got some sacred space set up in the basement so we’ll light some candles, say some weird shit, and off you go.”

“Off I go? What about my parents? My family?” I asked.

“What about them, Darren? You’re dead. You don’t belong here. Let them mourn you and move on,” she replied.

“But why can’t we talk to them? Why can’t we tell them that I’m still here? You could talk to them for me. You could tell them I’m alright.”

“But you’re not. You’re dead. You’ve lost your physical body. They can’t see you and they certainly aren’t going to believe some pink-haired girl is channeling their son for them. Don’t you think I’ve tried all of that? It only ends in tears. It ends with you staying too long and becoming dangerous—or—or worse.” She looked down. She shook her head and then stood up.

“But Cheetoh can see me. Both of you can. The three of us, we go over there, we explain I’m not in pain, and that we’ll see each other again. Someday...”

Cecile shook her head again as she grabbed an old book from one of her bookshelves. “Cheetoh is a mummy and will happily go with us and suck out the remaining years of your family’s life to stay young and beautiful. Do you want that? She’s named after a bag of Cheetos. Cheetos, Darren, because she likes them.”

Her tone and what she said frightened me. Cheetoh was a mummy? Like from a movie? Could she have killed me? I had obviously made a mistake coming here. Whatever was going on here wasn’t right.

“You know what? If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone else who will. I’m sure there’s a psychic or something around town,” I said and went to storm out.

Cecile snapped her fingers and I flinched, expecting pain again or that horrible place she’d taken me to, but instead, the lights flickered and I saw something skitter across the room. I jumped. A book got knocked down from the shelf. I jumped again, and then I saw them. Rats. Rats crawled out from every nook and cranny, from underneath the laundry pile and from under the bed covers. There were rats everywhere and they were either dead or not normal—like me. They weren’t decaying like zombies, but I could feel them in a way that I couldn’t feel anything else in this world, like something swimming around me in water. I looked up at Cecile, horrified.

A dark gray rat with obsidian eyes sat on her shoulder and both of them stared at me. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you left me no choice. I can’t leave you here to hurt someone.” Her gaze softened and a stray pink curl drifted down and laid across her pretty face.

“What? Hurt someone? What are you saying? I wouldn’t do that. I swear I wouldn’t. I don’t know what’s going on, but please let me go,” I begged.

“You think that now, but you will change. You all change,” she replied, looking down.

The rats crept closer. I was going to have to run for it. I turned and made to sprint, but they surrounded me. I went to move forward but my legs wouldn’t obey. I was trapped. Little hands and feet started to crawl up onto my shoes and legs. “No. No!” I screamed.

“AYE! What is all the noise! Oh, great. Not this again, Cecile!” Cheetoh exclaimed from behind me, but before I could cry for help, the rats covered me and everything went dark.