Emily's House: Book 1 of the Akasha Chronicles

Chapter 25: Emily and the Netherworld

“You think!”

“But please, dear mistress, try to calm yourself. There is more here than meets your human eye. We are on the way to meet your first teacher, but let’s stop here for a moment. I don’t think the elders will mind if I give you a short lesson myself.”

I was happy to stop walking for a minute and to know that we were, in fact, headed somewhere. I was being a snotty brat but I wasn’t in the mood to play nice. I felt like Hindergog had misled me into a strange and unpleasant place. It was as if I’d closed my eyes to sleep and woke up in a silvery cloud of fog. There was no color, no shapes. It wasn’t light but it wasn’t dark either. It was an insubstantial cloud of nothing.

“Mistress Emily, I ask that you close your eyes for a moment.”

It seemed silly, but seeing as how I had nothing else to do, I did as he said and closed my eyes.

“Good. Now, imagine in your mind a path before you to walk on. Make it any kind of path that you would like. Make sure it is solid and smooth so that you will not trip. Think only of your ideal walking path. Have you imagined it?”

I nodded.

“Good, now open your eyes.”

I did as Hindergog said and still found myself surrounded by fog. “Okay, that was fun. I’m still in a fog bank.”

“Look down.”

I looked down and there in front of me was a path - the path - that I’d imagined. Seeing the path that I’d imagined struck me so funny that I laughed out loud.

“What is so amusing to my mistress? Do tell me why you laugh so.”

“Oh Hindergog, this is amazing. I didn’t know what would happen, you know, so I imagined the first path that came to mind. It was a silly thought but I didn’t really know what was going to happen, so when you said ‘path’ the first thing I thought of was something from an old movie.” I could barely finish the sentence because I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

Under my feet and ahead of me, as if I was on the set of the original movie, was the yellow brick road. I’d imagined Dorothy’s yellow brick road and I stood on it.

After I finally quit laughing quite so hard, I pressed Hindergog on what had happened. “So, I imagined this path and it just appeared?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that, I imagine it and it appears here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see it too?”

“No, I have my own path. They may look different, but at this moment, they are going to the same place.”

“So right now, when you look around you, do you see the same foggy cloud everywhere that I see?”

“No, not at all.”

“You don’t? Teach me, Hindergog. Teach me how to replace this fog bank of nothing with something so I don’t get bat crap crazy in this place.”

“But I have taught you. Do you not see?”

“You mean, I just imagine it?”

“Yes, Mistress Emily, you just imagine what you would like to see. But heed my words of caution. Be exceedingly careful of what you imagine here. In the Netherworld, there is no interference of ideas from others, no competition as it were for creation. And there is no buffer of time. Whatever you intend will manifest immediately. Beware of your fear. A fearful mind can create truly awful things.”

I closed my eyes and imagined a sunny day, with just a few bright, white puffy clouds. I imagined green grass and rolling hills and flowers and trees.

I opened my eyes and found that all I’d imagined had come true around me. Instead of standing in a world of dove-grey fog, I stood on Earth and it was a perfect day. Birds chirped and butterflies flitted amongst the flowers. I breathed a sigh of relief to be surrounded by familiar things.

But the brightly colored flowers reminded me of the reason I’d gotten my legs to walk me through the portal. The flowers were my mother’s paintings come to life. As if he could read my mind (and I found out later he could), Hindergog coughed lightly. “Not all wishes can come true,” he said. He continued walking. I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant because I had to run after him so I wouldn’t lose him.

I practically skipped down a yellow brick road behind a man that looked like a dog crossed with a pig. I half expected that Hindergog would take me to an Emerald City and that I’d be chased by a wicked witch. No, don’t imagine that! It may come true.

Follow the yellow brick road.