Free The Black by D. J. MacHale Page B

to Marsh? I can warn him about Damon?"
    "Maybe," was her maddening answer.
    "Have you ever done it? I mean, communicate with people in the Light?"
    Maggie scowled, as if she wasn't sure if she should answer. "Have you?" I asked again.
    She nodded, reluctantly.
    "That's great! Will you help me warn Marsh? Whoa, wait. We're talking about voices from beyond the grave. That'll freak him out."
    "It won't be a voice," she said. "He may only sense a presence."
    "No," I countered. "It's possible to do more than that. Damon whispered in his ear and Marsh heard it."
    "Then Damon is as different as he says. I can't do that kind of thing."
    "What can you do?"
    Maggie looked me square in the eye and for the first time I sensed that there was more to her than a meek, frightened girl. I couldn't imagine what had been so wrong about her life that she had been kept in the Black for so long. I wanted to know all about her, but I had to take care of Marsh first.
    She answered, "He can be made to understand that he isn't alone."
    "0-kay," I said, skeptically. "I guess that's a start. Would you do it for me?"
    Maggie took a deep breath and gave me a small smile. "I'll try."
    "Awesome. Thank you. How does it work? What do we do?"
    She stood up and turned her back to me. "Think of your friend," she said over her shoulder.
    I closed my eyes and pictured Marsh. I saw his blond hair and brown eyes. In my head he wore a hoodie sweatshirt and jeans. He was building a model rocket at his kitchen table. His cat, Winston, was on the table next to him, watching.
    "Got him," I said. "Now what?"
    I opened my eyes to see that in front of Maggie, the colorful fog had appeared.
    She turned back to me and winked. "Now we pay him a visit."
    I liked Maggie.
    She took a step into the fog… and disappeared. I leaped after her, jumped into the swirl of color, and landed in Marsh's bedroom.
    Maggie was already there, standing at the foot of his bed, looking down on a sleeping Marsh. It was daytime.
    Sunlight streamed in through his bedroom window. When I had been in the Light with Damon it was night. How long ago was that? A few minutes? A couple of hours? A hundred years? I kept hearing that time had no meaning in the Black, and that looked to be true, at least in how it corresponded with the Light. Passage of time in the two dimensions wasn't necessarily relative.
    "It's going to take a while to get used to this," I said, stunned.
    "Is that him?"
    "That's the guy," I said. "Yo! Ralph. Rise and shine!" He didn't move.
    Maggie rounded the bed and knelt down next to Marsh's head. She looked at my sleeping friend with a sad smile. Did she feel sorry for him? Did she think he was vulnerable and cute? Did she miss being in the Light?
    Seeing Marsh gave me mixed feelings. It was good to see my friend, but the last time we were together we'd had a blowout fight that was mostly my fault. I'll always regret that because I'll never get the chance to tell him how sorry I was. More than that, I didn't want to be dead. I wanted my old life back. I had to force those thoughts away. Why sweat over something that could never be?
    Maggie barely moved. She kept looking at Marsh, concentrating. After a few seconds she closed her eyes and started breathing deeper. It seemed like she was going into some kind of trance.
    "What are you doing?" I asked.
    My answer came in the form of rippling color. All around her the air began to move and shimmer. It wasn't dramatic like when we moved from place to place. It was barely perceptible but it was there and Maggie was causing it. The aberration, or whatever it was, grew around her until it enveloped Marsh too. Finally, Maggie leaned down, pursed her lips, and without opening her eyes she gently blew air at Marsh's face.
    Marsh's hair moved.
    It was subtle, but it moved, and it woke him up. He smiled as if he was having a great dream as he brushed the hair out of his eyes.
    "You did it!" I exclaimed.
    My spontaneous outburst broke the spell… or