Free A Plague of Shadows by Travis Simmons

gateway.
    Leona let go of Abagail’s hand, and that brought her attention away from the gateway and back to the road before them. Ahead of them, and high up in the blackness was a floating disk of light, similar to the Waking Eye, but completely white and almost as radiant to hurt the eyes as the sun did.
    There was something climbing through the darkness and toward that light. From a distance behind them, beyond the gateway they’d just come through spirits arose through the air as if climbing a stairway only they could see. Their eyes were rooted on the light they were climbing to, the light that Abagail almost couldn’t look at.
    “What are they?” Rorick asked, following her eyes.
    “I don’t know,” Abagail told him.
    “Spirits of the Dead.” Leona said. “Skuld says they are climbing to their final meeting with the All Father.”
    Abagail glanced at her sister and frowned at the wooden doll clasped in her hands. She wanted to refuse to believe what Leona said. She couldn’t. Once Leona said it, she remembered a myth about a stairway to the Ever After at the top of the Tree at Eget Row.
    “This is Eget Row,” Abagail whispered, realizing where they were. The moment she realized it the light shone down upon the bridge they stood on and like opals caught in the light, the bridge reflected an oily kind of rainbow light.
    The light grew, and as her eyes followed the Rainbow Bridge she could just make out the top of the World Tree stretching up into the darkness which held the glowing light of the Ever After.
    Leona started waving to the people as they climbed above them, and Abagail reached for her to make her stop. Rorick tugged on her arm, and Abagail looked to him.
    “Why stop her?” Rorick asked. “She’s just having fun. She’s not hurting anyone.”
    “Yea Abbie, they’re already dead,” Leona said.
    Abagail frowned, but watched the people climb higher and higher. When one would finally reach the light at the top of their invisible stairway there was a slight flash of light, and they would vanish.
    “I wonder what’s beyond there,” Abagail said aloud.
    “Wanna find out?” Leona asked her, and then laughed at the scowl on Abagail’s face. “Don’t be so sour,” Leona said.
    “I’m sorry, it’s hard to be excited when I have these shadows turning me into a raging monster,” Abagail said.
    “Seems like you were always kind of a raging monster,” Leona shrugged. “Maybe now your true nature is starting to show through.”
    Abagail wanted to say something back to Leona, but she bit her tongue. Maybe Leona was right, she had always been terse with her sister. She wasn’t her mother, and Dolan had never been as protective with them as Abagail was.
    Instead she looked around herself at the glittering road of opal that stretched out of sight ahead of them.
    Rorick leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Come on, think of where we are,” he said. Her stomach hitched as his voice whispered against her ear. “How many mortals can say they’ve been here before?”
    Abagail smiled and let him lead her a little ways away from Leona, who was still trying to get the spirits of the dead to talk to her.
    “You know, it helps a little seeing this,” Rorick said after a couple moments.
    “What’s that?” Abagail asked, dragging her eyes away from the endless dark before them and the bridge that seemed to manifest out of the darkness the further they walked. She could head Leona’s feet scuffling up behind them.
    “The ghosts of the dead,” Rorick said, his eyes latched on those people climbing higher and higher. “For the longest time I didn’t know if any of it was real. I mean, I believed, but I didn’t know. If that makes any sense.”
    “It does,” Abagail said. “I was the same way.” She lowered her voice, aware that Leona was getting closer behind them. She didn’t mind Rorick hearing what she thought of religion, but there was something about Leona hearing anything to do with