in my head. But there’s no point in arguing with him, as he made abundantly clear. Charlie is coming with us. I can only hope and pray that he will be able to evade whatever creatures lie within the archway.
“What is this thing?” Jones asks poking his fingertips inside, where they become invisible.
“You might not want to do that.” Zoë suggests. “There’s a lot of dark magic in there. You never know what lurks just on the other side.”
He promptly removes his fingers.
“Dark magic?” Baxter asks. “So why exactly are you convinced you need to go in there?”
“If my sister went in there, it’s where I have to go,” I answer.
“Aren’t you worried about what might be waiting in there for you?”
“Of course I am. But I know what to expect and how to defend myself against most of it.”
“Most of it? What about the some of it that you don’t?”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say turning to Zoë.
“You’re taking Charlie in there with you to figure it out?”
My level of frustration and annoyance with the Charlie argument has reached its boiling point. I raise my voice, hoping to put the issue to bed, once and for all. “I’m not taking Charlie anywhere. Charlie is following me. It’s his decision.”
Baxter looks to Charlie, clearly doubting his decision to go with us. “It’s not up for discussion,” Charlie says before Baxter can utter a single syllable.
He turns to Casey. “When Jessie went through the archway, what happened?” Charlie asks her.
“At first we were putting our hands through, like Jones was. But then she put her face in because she wanted to see what it was like it there. She said it was beautiful and that she saw her family and her home in there. She wanted to go through and she wanted me to go with her. She thought that if she could see her family, I’d see mine. I tried to stop her but she wouldn’t listen. When she went all the way in she was gone. She just disappeared.”
I sigh deeply, thinking of what the girl may have encountered as soon as she stepped through. I know the creatures that live within the caligo. I’m not sure if Charlie does, but if not, he’s in for a terrible surprise.
“After she went through,” Casey continues, “something came out.”
“What do you mean something came out?” Charlie asks her. We all stare intently at her, waiting in suspense for her reply.
“I ran over there and hid behind that big tree trunk,” she says, pointing to an enormous fallen tree. “There was this really loud, scary noise. Like something growling or screaming. That’s when I hid. Then a minute later, a really tall man with a long tail and big horns growing out of his head walked out. I was too afraid to move so I stayed behind the tree. A while later, you guys came looking for us and found me back there.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Jade asks.
“I was too scared to talk about it. I thought if I did then it might come back.”
“The thing you saw is called an alloquet,” I explain. “You did the right thing by hiding and probably by not talking about it. They're very dangerous, so you need to stay away from them. Their tails are loaded with poison. If the alloquet gets ahold of you, you won’t ever go home. You will die here.”
Casey grabs on to Baxter’s shirt and pulls herself in close to him. He wraps his arm around her shoulder, in big-brother fashion. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” he says softly to her.
“Is something else going to come out when you guys go in?" she asks me.
I look at Zoë’s face. Her expression offers me no comfort at all. “It’s possible that this archway is a gate to another realm, like Charlie said before,” she explains. “One of us passing through could open the doorway for one of its creatures to pass through to here. Three of us passing through could conceivably allow three creatures to pass this way. When we do go in, I don't think the three of you should be anywhere near us. You should go back to the cave. Now.”
“I won’t argue with that,” Jones retorts.
“Wait,” Jade interjects. “What will happen to you guys once you pass through?”
Everyone looks to me. “There’s no way to know for sure exactly what we will encounter, but I have experience dealing with most of the creatures that