“What is this?” Anne asked.
“The In-Between,” Jim said. “The space between worlds.”
“How the hell are we supposed to find her in here?” Jennifer asked.
Jim closed the distance between him and Jennifer, standing so close that their arms touched. Trix wasn’t sure it was even a conscious movement. “We walk,” Jim said. He turned away from them all and looked back the way they had come. Trix knew it was that direction, because she could feel Holly’s influence there, like a beacon in the darkness.
“We walk,” Trix repeated. “But can you feel…?”
They all nodded, because they knew what she meant. The air of this place was awash with malevolence, and as she inhaled and exhaled, she sensed the shadow inside her settling as it became one with the In-Between again. It smelled of stale cotton candy, and tasted of something rotten.
Without the shadow, the air would be harmful to her. It would start to bleed her of spirit and turn her into one of them, and she’d seen enough to know that their existence was not something to relish. Perhaps there would be no pain, but an unconscious limbo seemed worse than anything she could imagine. In the In-Between, possessing a mind-thoughts, desires, history-seemed the most important thing of all.
“Come on!” Trix said, suddenly desperate for Jenny and fearing that they might already be too late. “We don’t walk, we run! Hope you’ve all been keeping in shape.” She started running, and the others followed.
There was no concept of distance, other than by counting paces, but from the beginning Trix was certain they were going the right way. Jennifer and Anne passed her and subtly adjusted their direction. Jim followed with Trix, and the two facets of Jenny started moving faster, loping through the mists as something drew them on.
They saw their first Shadow Man, and it shocked Trix to the core. Outside, dragged through into one of the real worlds, these things were horrific enough. But here in the In-Between their monstrousness was more shocking because of its familiarity. In her world they were shapes that barely echoed humanity, but here they were tortured people, naked forms that twisted and writhed through the mists, limbs bending farther than they should, heads twisting and flipping so fast that they were a blur. They moved without walking, their agonies giving them a terrible momentum. And after seeing the first few, she feared that the next one they’d see would be Jenny.
I’ll know her, Trix thought, because each of these tortured souls possessed human traits and marks. Some were tattooed, others scarred, and hair color and build were distinguishable even through their pained contortions. As they saw another manifesting from the mists, she dreaded seeing Jenny’s hair, her face.
A larger shadow marred the blankness ahead of them, then emerged as a shape with square edges and features she finally recognized. It was Trinity Church, solid across this In-Between because it existed in all three Bostons.
Anne and Jennifer did not even pause. Wherever Jenny was, she drew them on.
Time lost meaning, its only evidence the urgency Trix felt. They passed another building in the distance that seemed solid, and then they entered a park whose plants were barely there, and whose small buildings seemed composed of drifting, shifting structures. Trix’s No-Face Man seemed uncomfortable in this place, and her own senses were repulsed by their surroundings. She glanced at Jim and saw that he was equally disturbed.
They did not pause to see what that place was, or why it had such an effect. As they left and entered the nowhere spaces in between, her No-Face Man settled again into the echo he had been. She could never get used to him, but at least this way she felt in control.
“Close,” Jennifer called, her voice robbed of its tone by the mist.
“Very,” Anne agreed. She looked back at Trix without breaking her stride, and with a burst of speed Trix and Jim drew closer to the two women.
And then Trix heard something in the distance. It was a soft, gentle moan, like wind gusting through an empty woodland. It rose and fell, raising a shiver like ice in her soul. Anne and Jennifer paused, and with their heads cocked they reminded Trix so much of Jenny that she let out a sob.
“We’ll save her,” Jim said, and it was ridiculous that he was comforting her.
“I know we will,” she said, because any other outcome was unthinkable.
The moaning grew in volume as they ran on again. Trix felt a tugging inside her, something that set her No-Face Man squirming, an uncomfortable sensation as if suddenly her skin could not contain her body. The tugging came from behind her, and she sent a message she hoped Holly might hear: We’re close, and soon we’ll be back with your mother.
And then they saw the lonely shape in the mists, and Trix’s heart broke. Anne and Jennifer stopped, sending shadowy ripples through the heavy air. Jim slowed, moving past them before coming to a halt. None of them could take in the pain they saw in the woman they loved, or the woman they were a part of.
“We can’t just fucking stand here,” Trix whispered, and in that silent place it seemed that her words might travel forever. She approached Jenny and saw how much had already happened. Naked, writhing, she did not twist and flex as much as the other changed people she had seen but rather seemed to swim in the air, limbs kicking and clawing at the strange misty atmosphere.
“Jenny!” Trix said, grabbing her arms and holding her still. The recognition in Jenny’s eyes was instant and shocking, because it spoke of such pain.
“H… H… H…,” Jenny said, panting.
Trix nodded, angrily wiping a sudden tear from her eye. “Holly’s fine,” she said. “She’s waiting for you.”
“Can you stand, babe?” Jim said. He was beside Trix now, touching his wife’s arms, her shoulders, wiping a slick of gray wetness from her stomach and chest.
“I… I…” Jenny’s eyes rolled, her body shook, and Trix saw shadows flickering from the corners of her mouth and ears, tendrils flowing inward rather than out.
“She’s a long way gone,” Trix said. She turned back to Jennifer and Anne. “Come on. We’re going to have to carry her.”
Jim lifted his wife beneath her arms and held her against him, taking the hug she could not give. Her body rippled and shook from the forces assaulting it, and shadows manifested from nowhere to flow into her. How long until she’s filled up? Trix wondered, and she stood beside Jim and offered help.
Jim turned his wife and held her beneath the arms, stepping back and allowing Trix to grab her beneath the knees. Naked, Jenny was on display to all of them, but it was a wretched nakedness-her skin was pale and slick, and things moved inside her. Anne and Jennifer approached on either side, looking down at another version of themselves. “God help her,” Jennifer whispered.
“Not unless we do,” Trix said. “Come on. You lead the way.”
They started running, and it felt like they were being repulsed by the In-Between and forced back to reality. Holly pulled them on, drawing them back to her. Trix relished the exertion, rushing sidelong with her best friend in the world held in her hands, and another version of this best friend racing beside her, her lover in another world. And everything was suddenly starting to feel fine, when Jenny began seizing so violently that she kicked her legs from Trix’s hands and twisted herself away from Jim’s grasp.
“No!” Jim shouted, and Jenny hit the ground and bounced back up, forced by her flexing limbs, rolling and thrashing like those other tortured Shadow Men they had seen all around.
“Not now!” Trix said. “We’ve found her, we have her, this isn’t fucking fair!” As she became angrier and more desperate, the thing within her grew more agitated, and she sensed it thrusting itself out beyond her body’s extremes.
Jim was staring at her, aghast… and then he came forward and grabbed her shoulders. “We’ve got to get it out of her,” he said, glancing at his hurting wife and turning away again, resting his head on Trix’s shoulder.