Your hair is long, wet, and wavy and clings to anda as anda rise from the lake. anda get the sense that the water should be clearer. anda don’t dwell on it though, distracted sejak your own hair. anda don’t remember it being so long. With every motion the string of beads and shells woven into your hair bobs gently with a clicking noise. anda don’t realize that anda are topless until your hair settles against your back. But anda are not ashamed, there is a sense of liberation, anda can better feel what the earth and the wind are telling anda this way. If anda could see behind you, anda would know that your back is aglow with an intricate mural of deep green symbols. Among them are the upsidown tringle of water and the upfacing segitiga, segi tiga of api, kebakaran as well as the up-facing and inverse tringles of earth and air, these have horizontal slashes dividing the tip from the base.
As anda fully emerge from the water anda see four birds flock from pine branches to the stone colored sky above. A grosbeak, a crow, a catbird, and a cuckoo; an odd combination anda must say. But in this land anda have come to expect and accept such fascinating oddities.
Oddities like the green flames that hover above the rippling water.

anda set foot on land, sand clings to your ankles and thighs. Though the sky looks of it, and the air smells of it, there is no rain this time. Nor is there that curling mist. In fact anda think anda must be in a different realm all together. A pucung, bangau struts towards anda as it gets closer anda can see that its beak is made of pure zircon, atau this world’s version of it. Its dark crown is constantly furling and unfurling as if it is a living being of its own that coexists with the head it rests upon. At the very center of the heron’s spindly neck bobs a pulsing orange orb. It stops to press its beak to your forehead, opening within your mind a certain energy anda hope to cling to when anda return to the mortal plain.
anda feel inspired.
anda cling to that as anda continue across the sand.

The lake has spat clumps of seaweed, white baby ear shells, sand dollars, and even some unidentifiable Bones onto the shore. anda pick up a sunray venus shell and turn it over in your palm to reveal that its underside is a utama to the teeniest white pearls. anda decide to cling onto it. When anda step back to scope out another anda see that various swirly symbols are etched into the sand. Each one has a twin, they twist and wind until they come together at the center of the pantai where lies the smoothest, roundest rock anda have ever seen. It is translucent and opaque at the same time and holds no one color for lebih than thirty seconds.

The only other soul in sight is a hijau laut, laut hijau skinned nixie with black fishy eyes and a set of jagged teeth. She sits in her tidal pool, chewing on algae as she runs a fishbone comb through shiny teal locks. She notices anda staring and plunges beneath the surface.

Shells larger than any you’ve ever seen rise from the ground, in the water near the horizon, anda think that they might be the opening of caves. On them anda see something anda are well acquainted with. The one on the right bares the insignia of the hari protector and the one on the left of the night.

anda aren’t watching where anda are walking and nearly step on a pile of bones. anda realize, upon closer assessment, that it isn’t a pile at all. The Bones are arranged with much care in perfect circles bound together sejak kelp. They surround swatches of ikan scales and coral chunks.
Millions upon millions of these jut from the sand.
Though the skies are clear as ever, thin trails of fog seem to ebb from these knick knacks. These trails of fog have auras of their own. Deep within anda know that they are the spectral forms of the sea dwellers. Of the nixie, the mermaid, the siren, and perhaps even the harpies.

As anda wade through the water something slick and oily curls around your knees.
anda now know that there is another similarity this foreign land shares with the first one anda visited.
It is also a cemetery.
anda take a deep breath. Musky and the unpleasant tang of dead ikan fills your nostrils along side the smell of sap. With this breath anda know for sure that the plague is spreading.
anda can smell petroleum in the air. But anda can’t find the source. lebih black ooze wells up from the water. It’s over powering and the putrid smell of it burns as anda inhale it. Its choking anda quite mercilessly, anda think that anda might be withering. And your world goes dreadfully dark.

anda pull yourself up right, head spinning, lungs burning. Your head pounds and a flock of razorbill have taken attention to you. anda bolt up before they can begin their pecking. This time anda don’t brush your adventure off, it was so vivid.
So real.
anda reach into your pocket and anda know for sure that it is.
anda hand comes up with a pearl infested sunray venus.

***

August rolls around and anda are still thinking of your trip. It has never left anda at all, anda can see it now. The magic. It comes in the form of a soft merah jambu glow when anda lift certain rocks. In the form of tinkling Muzik hiding within the wind. In the form of waking up to a fluffle of bunnies gathered around you. And anda wonder what it means. anda ask yourself why it was anda who had been summoned there. Maybe they, those of magical kin, sense that anda have a good soul. Perhaps anda have simply opened your mind to it. anda wonder just how thin the veil between this world and the other is.
anda wonder how many others have seen such a place.

Looking at Louisiana-Piper as she dances around in her sundress, talking to a large mound of rumput like it is an old friend, anda know that there are others. Many, many others; some of them closer to losing their sight than others.

anda know that anda can’t let her lose her imagination. anda can’t let Katie nor Parker lose theirs either.
Most of all anda can’t let yourself lose it, not again.
Could that be the reason anda were invited to the other world?
Can anda even be sure that anda had been there at all? atau will it fade back into the background just like it had when anda turned fourteen?

anda curl yourself up under your willow and watch the sunset that will bring summer to a close.