Before long, I found myself hustled into a near-dilapidated monastery, about which I was assured, “No one goes there any more.” If no one ever went there, why, I wonder, did we venture deep within its labyrinth of corridors and finally enter a little disused room and then block the door with a chair? Just wondering. Now I sat on the floor, rubbing my head sullenly (one of the women had inconsiderately slammed a door in my face, leaving a large bruise that made my head feel funny). I was sitting in silence when one of them returned.

“I got ‘em,” she said. “I know you needed incense candles, but…they just don’t have them here. Are regular ones okay?”

“I guess so,” I replied dubiously, rubbing where my beard would be if I was a male with facial hair. (I suppose I can just call it my chin, but rubbing a beard gives the impression of wisdom and stuff like that.) Regular, huh? Well, when this whole ceremony didn’t work, I could blame it on the candles and everything would be fine.

As I was “setting up” (a.k.a. putting the candles in strategic/random places in the room) I glanced at my too companions. The first one I inspected was the one who wanted to communicate with her deceased mother: the one who slammed the door on my head. She looked about seventeen, maybe even eighteen. Her straight brown-auburn hair fell squarely to her shoulders, where it ended abruptly. Her ebony eyes showed a mixture of admiration, curiosity, confidence, and something else. She wore a brown shirt, camouflage pants, and combat boots. Something about her build was strange. She wasn’t very large; she was nearly slender, but somehow she seemed strong. Her normal sized body radiated power and energy. It was as if nothing of her was wasted; there was no fat on her arms, but everything that was there was muscle.

The other one was very different. She seemed a bit older, probably nineteen. Her shiny black hair was pulled back on top of her head in the form of two buns, and each one was tied with a turquoise ribbon that fell down her back and reached her legs. She was svelte, willowy, graceful. Every movement was fluid; none were wasted. Her skin glowed with health, and her green eyes were the color of olives. I don’t want to sound weird, but she was beautiful. She wore lavender and beige that flowed as she moved. She had a strange feeling like the other about her, but she didn’t seem to be strong physically. Instead she seemed to have this magical, supernatural strength.

“Tell me your names,” I commanded, feeling a teeny bit of power since they wanted my skill. My little puffball bird-kitty fluttered its wings, then settled on my shoulder, folding the buttery plumage against its back. Somewhere under its fur were four tiny paws that I felt clinging to my shoulder. It wrapped its tail around my neck and purred. It was odd, because when I created it, it was just a strange-looking doodle. Now it was three-dimensional. Its eyes shined, its fur gleamed in light, and it was soft as it cuddled against me. It was now adorably real.

“I am Ulea,” the one with two buns said in a soft, velvety voice.

“Ceph,” the one in camouflage pants said simply.

“So, Ceph,” I said casually. “What’s your dead mother’s name?”

“Lorietalana,” she said easily. “We call her Lori.”

It took me several minutes and several repetitions of the name to get it memorized. Then, I had Ceph turn off all the light except for the candles, which now glowed in the shadowy room. At the moment I didn’t feel anything. I felt unreal, like this was a movie I was watching or a story I was making up. I felt real sitting at the computer and doing nothing important at all, but now, I just felt numb. Not in a bad way: I was just emotionless.

“Lorietalana,” I said in a deep voice that I hoped was mysterious. I needed to make up an elaborate shaman ritual so it would look like I knew what I was doing. “Come now, from the depths of the afterlife! We offer a door to thee, and we humbly request your presence! Grant that to us, deceased spirit! Come to us!”

Nothing happened. I was getting caught up in the drama, so I had at least expected a strong wind to blow or something. But nothing. We sat there for the longest time, in silence. I wondered when Ceph would turn and ask me where her mom was. She didn’t. I felt really stupid. I had just embarrassed myself in front of strangers much older than me and was in a strange place. All my aggravations drifted into my mind. I was lost, alone, ashamed, really stupid, and so much more. I felt the back of my throat tighten, and then my mouth taste foul, like it always did when I was upset. My head hurt, and I wanted to fall asleep forever. Or die.

“Oh stop,” came a cranky voice.

“Lorietalana?” I asked, breathless. Ceph looked at me quizzically. Ulea was still absentmindedly staring off, not paying much attention.

“I didn’t hear Lori,” Ceph said, wondering I should have my head examined.

“Just wait a minute; I’m coming…”

“That’s her!” I cried, delirious with happiness.

“No,” Ceph said to me softly in a voice used to calm upset psychopaths or wild animals. “I don’t hear her. It’s just that—“

“What now?” the strange voice asked again, right in my ear. Ceph and Ulea didn’t react at all.

“Lorietalana! It’s you! It is! Right?”

“I’m right here, calm down,” said Lori in the same voice her daughter had just used.

“Where are you?” I demanded, spinning around, looking for something out of the ordinary.

“Right next to you.”

And then, suddenly, she glimmered into focus. She just came out of the air like it was water and she had just floated to the surface. Discreetly, but not just random appearing. She looked like Ceph. She had the same normal but strong build, the same defiant eyes, the same subtly smug expression on her face. She wasn’t transparent and bluish like most ghosts are in horror movies. She didn’t have a tail instead of legs. She didn’t float. She was a solid, colored, normal person. Except she was dead.

“Look, Ceph!” I cried, grinning stupidly and feeling very proud. “It’s Lori! I did it! I summoned her!”

Ceph just stared at me. “No, you didn’t,” she grumbled. “You’re not a shaman. You’re a hoax.” She stood, ominously towering over me. I backed up behind what I at least thought was Lori.

“Tell that no-good daughter of mine to mind her manners and shut her fast actin’ mouth before a bird flies in there,” said Lori dangerously.

“Er…” I began, “Lori’s no-good daughter, mind your manners and shut your fast-acting mouth before a bird flies in there.”

Ceph stared at me for a long, long time, and I felt like any minute I would get beat up. Finally, something surprising happened. She grinned widely, bounced on her heels, and giggled, “Wow! It IS her! You did it!”

Ulea turned to look at me, and quietly said, “Shamans are the only ones who can summon spirits, and also the only ones who can communicate with them. They must act as messengers between a spirit and a person, because without them, no one would even know if a spirit was right next to them.”

Wow. I guess I really was special. I mean, everyone’s special. Supposedly “everyone is different,” but if everyone is different, then really, no one is. I don’t think that will really make you feel good about your individuality after hearing that. But this shaman business was really something else. I don’t know many shamans. I wasn’t even sure they existed at all. But now, I supposed I knew the truth.

For the next forty-five minutes (approximately, since I didn’t have a watch), Ceph and Lori talked. Ceph told Lori what had been going on in her life (apparently she had joined “the Pals,” whatever that was) and Lori told her about the afterlife. At first, I was intrigued, and was listening with the guilty curiosity of an eavesdropper. But eventually, I realized that they needed me to talk, and I was therefore accepted into the conversation, so of course, they wouldn’t say anything too personal. After that, I carried messages from Ceph to Lori and vice versa with a bored monotony. Finally, Lori said she was beginning to ache (the mortal world can do that to a spirit, I guess) and then departed.

“You’re a good shaman,” Ceph approved. “Most take forever to take a message from one side to the other. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Where ya from?”

I fiddled nervously from the strings on my pants. “Er…another world.”

“Really?” Ceph asked, sounding only mildly interested, as if I had just told her that my mom was a teacher or something.

“Can you tell us?” Ulea asked, in the same, cool voice that never seemed to change.

It was somewhat upsetting how neither seemed very excited or frightened or anything. I’d guess that they thought I was just crazy, but I saw both of them watching, waiting for me to tell my story. I knew they believed me. I guess that it’s common to get world-jumpers here.

“I was on Earth. It was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. School was plain, as always.”

“Wait…” Ceph asked cautiously. “School then? It’s a couple of days until Christmas!”

I gaped at her. Apparently they had the same holidays and schedules here.

“I read a travel guide,” she added sheepishly.

“Well, they’re trying this weird thing where break starts the day before Christmas. Pretty stupid, since people need to fly to their families. Well, I was walking home when I heard this noise.”

“Noise?”

“It sort of went REEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW.”

“Right,” Ceph said dubiously.

“And then I turned around and a part of the world was gone. Just white. Then the rest started to disappear, like it was being erased or something. In a few minutes, I was alone in the white void. These lines started to appear, like pencils were drawing them or something. So, I decided to see if I could draw something too. I drew this kitty thing,” I said, shrugging my shoulder as if they couldn’t see my new pet sleeping on it. “Then everything got colored. I was a little freaked out, and then you came.”

“I guess this is your world,” Ceph said easily, thoroughly confusing me.

“Earth is my world,” I corrected.

“No,” she said, in a tone that completely showed how stupid she thought I was. “I mean, a lot of people don’t fit in their world, because it bores them or whatever. Everyone has a world created in the subconsciousness of their mind. It excites them, and they really belong. They truly fit there, but they don’t know about this world perfectly engineered for them and they likely never will. Sometimes though, your mind just opens up a passage, and you end up in this perfect world.”

“So,” I began, not quite believing that this was “my” world, “This is the world for me?”

“Yup.”

“But it was created in my mind…so it’s imaginary. And you guys are…imaginary too. Is that upsetting?”

“We’re one hundred percent real,” Ceph informed me. “This world is real too.”

“Although you DID just witness its creation,” Ulea added, “We’ve been around our whole lives.”

“That doesn’t work.”

“It works for us,” Ceph said simply.

“But…teleporting here…it’s like magic…it’s impossible.”

“It’s not magic; it’s physics,” Ceph scoffed.

“I doubt that.”

“Forget all your doubts. Forget all the stupid things you’ve been taught. It’s not true. You’re a child, and you’re learning everything over again.”

“My world…” I murmured, feeling the strange words come out of my mouth. “And this is mine, but you don’t care?”

Ceph carelessly shrugged. “Nope. I mean, Earth might be my world.”

I don’t remember what happened next. I think I fainted.