Your hair is long, wet, and wavy and clings to tu as tu rise from the lake. tu get the sense that the water should be clearer. tu don’t dwell on it though, distracted por your own hair. tu 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. tu don’t realize that tu are topless until your hair settles against your back. But tu are not ashamed, there is a sense of liberation, tu can better feel what the earth and the wind are telling tu this way. If tu could see behind you, tu 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 triángulo, triángulo de of fuego as well as the up-facing and inverse tringles of earth and air, these have horizontal slashes dividing the tip from the base.
As tu fully emerge from the water tu 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 tu must say. But in this land tu have come to expect and accept such fascinating oddities.
Oddities like the green flames that hover above the rippling water.

tu 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 tu think tu must be in a different realm all together. A garza, heron struts towards tu as it gets closer tu can see that its beak is made of pure zircon, o 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 naranja orb. It stops to press its beak to your forehead, opening within your mind a certain energy tu hope to cling to when tu return to the mortal plain.
tu feel inspired.
tu cling to that as tu 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. tu pick up a sunray venus shell and turn it over in your palm to reveal that its underside is a inicial to the teeniest white pearls. tu decide to cling onto it. When tu step back to scope out another tu 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 playa where lies the smoothest, roundest rock tu have ever seen. It is translucent and opaque at the same time and holds no one color for más than thirty seconds.

The only other soul in sight is a mar verde 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 verde azulado, trullo, teal locks. She notices tu staring and plunges beneath the surface.

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

tu aren’t watching where tu are walking and nearly step on a pile of bones. tu realize, upon closer assessment, that it isn’t a pile at all. The bones are arranged with much care in perfect circles bound together por kelp. They surround swatches of pescado 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 tu know that they are the spectral forms of the sea dwellers. Of the nixie, the mermaid, the siren, and perhaps even the harpies.

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

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

***

August rolls around and tu are still thinking of your trip. It has never left tu at all, tu can see it now. The magic. It comes in the form of a soft rosado, rosa glow when tu lift certain rocks. In the form of tinkling música hiding within the wind. In the form of waking up to a fluffle of bunnies gathered around you. And tu wonder what it means. tu ask yourself why it was tu who had been summoned there. Maybe they, those of magical kin, sense that tu have a good soul. Perhaps tu have simply opened your mind to it. tu wonder just how thin the veil between this world and the other is.
tu 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 césped, hierba like it is an old friend, tu know that there are others. Many, many others; some of them closer to losing their sight than others.

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

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