But he was already ten steps ahead. Glancing over his shoulder to say, “All in good time, Riley. All in good time.”
10
It took a trolley, a tram, a bus, and a subway just to get part of the way there.
Or at least I called it the subway.
Bodhi called it the tube.
While the guy who checked our tickets called it the tunnel.
So who really knew?
All I knew for sure is that I was more than a little disappointed there wasn’t any flying involved.
And I don’t mean flying on an airplane flying, I mean the kind of flying usually reserved for birds, or butterflies, or angels, or maybe even dead people like me.
The kind of flying you sometimes get to experience in your dreams, when you just take off and start soaring through the clouds for no apparent reason.
That’s the kind of flying I was hoping for.
And when it didn’t happen, when I realized we’d be stuck with the same old methods of transportation I’d known back home, well, I’m not even sure why I was so disappointed. Especially since, up to that point anyway, nothing in the afterlife was anything at all like I’d expected. So why would flying be any different?
“Wrong again,” Bodhi said, eavesdropping on my thoughts, which, by the way, was really starting to get on my nerves in a very big way. I mean, it was bad enough knowing my entire existence had been documented, but having what I once thought of as my private thoughts so easily accessed by my afterlife guide, well, it really bugged me.
“There is flying.” He nodded, not bothering to push his hair back when it fell into his face yet again, just leaving it to hang there, dangling before his glasses, like a thick, greasy noodle. “And trust me, it’s as fun as you think, if not funner.”
“Funner?” My eyes grew wide as a smile pulled at my lips. “You sure about that—that it’s actually funner?”
I couldn’t help it, I just burst out laughing right there in front of him. And I’m talking the eye-squinching, belly-clutching kind of laughing. But he just ignored me, and continued yammering on and on as though I hadn’t even called him out on his grammar.
“It doesn’t require wings like you think,” he said, straightening his legs until they took up the two empty seats on the aisle right across from me and dangled off the end.
“So, when do I get to fly?” I asked, calming myself down enough to look right at him.
Watching as he leaned down to scratch Buttercup between the ears, glancing at me when he said, “All in good time.”
I rolled my eyes, already sick of the phrase and correctly assuming I hadn’t even come close to hearing the last of it. Scrunching way down in my seat, bringing my knees to my chest, and wrapping my arms tightly around them as I stared out the window, trying to grasp hold of the passing scenery, to pause it, to make sense of it, but the train was moving so fast it was hard to grasp any one thing in particular. Still, I had this sort of inner sense of a whole stream of images. Like a continuous flow of pictures, events that happened on the earth plane, including stuff that was both way before me, and way after me.
The entire story of mankind.
The history of time.
And even though it was impossible to tell just how long the journey took, it didn’t seem like it took all that long. Or at least not nearly as long as you’d think a trip like that would take. And before I knew it we were out of the tunnel, off of the tube, and standing on a platform as Bodhi looked all around us and said, “This is it.”
A gush of wind swept past me as the train we’d just disembarked vanished from sight, leaving the three of us gazing all around, trying to get our bearings in a place that, while I was sure it was part of the earth plane, didn’t look even the slightest bit familiar.
I stayed focused on Bodhi, hoping he knew where he was going as he wordlessly led us down one street, and then another, before reaching a long, narrow alleyway which eventually let out onto a narrow cobblestone lane. He pointed up toward the sky and said, “That’s it.” Then he paused for a moment before adding, “I think.”
“You—think?” I narrowed my eyes, the miniscule amount of confidence I’d granted him gone, just like that.
“No, I’m sure of it. Really. That’s definitely it,” he repeated, straightening his shoulders and nodding firmly, trying to appear certain, commanding, like a confident sure-footed guide, but still I had the sinking feeling he was as clueless as Buttercup and I.
“So, what is it exactly?” I said, following past the tip of his pointing finger, trying to squint through the clouds, gray skies, and extreme fog but not getting very far.
“That, right up there.” He continued to point into the distance, at what I was sure was nothing in particular. “That’s where we need to be. Warmington Castle. That’s where he lives.”
“He?” I turned, taking him in, fully aware of Buttercup pressing himself hard against my legs in a way that told me he didn’t feel any better about this than I did.