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I’ve seen this before. Memnon’s father led us through one when he visited.

A ley line entrance.

Unfortunately, I cannot rip this thing off the mound. But Icantraverse it.

I don’t know what possesses me to even think the thought or why my feet creep closer, until I’m less than an arm span away from it.

For a long time, I gaze at the ephemeral surface. Cautiously, I raise my hand and touch it. Whatever substance it’s made of, it ripples ever so slightly beneath my fingers.

Emboldened, I push my hand forward, letting the ley line swallow up my fingers. It looks eerily like part of my hand hasbeen lopped off, but I know that’s not true. I can feel my fingers just fine.

I marvel that while part of me stands here on the earth, a portion of me is elsewhere. And maybe elsewhere is where spirits go—wheremychild has gone.

I glance over my shoulder. I should get back—if not to camp, then at least to the grave I sat beside.

Facing forward once more, I take in the smooth surface of the ley line entrance. I can’t help but notice that these entrances seem to exist atop funerary mounds.

Maybe this really is a portal to the afterlife. It definitely feels as close to death as I’ll ever be short of dying myself.

I reach forward, letting the strange surface swallow my forearm up to my elbow. I’m too curious to be worried, too grief-stricken to be afraid. So I act on my most foolish impulse yet and step fully onto the ley line.

Iama fool. I’m going to die here, in this in-between space.

That’s all I can think as I stand inside the strange tunnel that seems to be made entirely from smears of light. I glance over my shoulder, scanning the walls for a way out. But there is no obvious doorway or even a ripple that indicates an exit.

What have I done?

I can hear my harsh exhalations. Facing forward once more, I take a step, and the whole world seems to shift around me.

I touch the curved walls at my sides, and my fingers dip into them just a little. Yet the walls seem solid—or if they aren’t, then they’re viscous like honey and just as sure to trap me within their membrane.

Memnon?

I wait for a response. Nothing.

Memnon?

I can sense him, but I cannot hear him—and he might not be able to hearme.

I try to breathe down my rising alarm.

Ley line magic is different than earthly magic. Memnon has told me this before, but I sense it now. Like entering a room where everyone speaks another language. It’s familiar yet still foreign.

I was hoping for something unearthly. If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond death. But supernatural though these ley lines are, no spirits linger here, and if the afterlife does lie somewhere beyond these walls, it’s been hidden entirely from my view.

I begin to walk anyway, determined to find a way off this magical road. Eislyn was able to do so, and once she gave Memnon the knowledge, he was able to as well.

However, the farther I go, the only thing that changes is the pattern of light around me.

Uncertain and losing my nerve, I back up, then turn around, so that I might return to where I first entered this tunnel. I could look harder for an exit. I know one exists. But as I try to retrace my steps, the light and colors don’t ever shift back to something even vaguely familiar.

I pause again.

I could always try to find that river palace, the one gifted to us by Memnon’s father. I might have a better chance of getting there than trying to return home. The thought of grieving alone in a palace rather than in a tented city where anyone can listen to my cries sounds oddly appealing.

So I walk and walk until exhaustion overtakes me. Then I sit down on the ground, which does not really feel like ground. Isense if I stayed here long enough, I’d sink into the ley line until I was swallowed whole.

My shoulders begin to shake, and I weep from frustration and grief and weariness.