Paola Santiago and the Sanctuary of Shadows by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Author:Tehlor Kay Mejia [Mejia, Tehlor Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Published: 2022-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Okay,” Pao said, back in the center of the circle on her knees while the others stood around her. “I figured out why it’s not working. If we all want to travel, we all need to be focused on our destination, not just me.”

Kit looked like she was going to interrupt, but Emma stomped on her toes just in time to prevent it.

“So,” Pao went on, “I need you all to close your eyes and silently focus on the thing you’re most looking forward to getting back to in Silver Springs, okay? A person, a place, an activity, doesn’t matter what. Just focus hard.”

“Mine is—” Kit began loudly, but Pao cut her off.

“In your head only! If you say it out loud, it’s…less potent,” she invented wildly. “Our memories are more powerful than the language we use to express them.”

She glanced at Emma, who mouthed, Good, and gave her a thumbs-up.

Kit, miraculously, had her eyes—but, most important, her mouth—tightly closed.

“Great,” Pao said, closing her own eyes, trying for a third time to feel the grit of the stone floor beneath her fingers. Of course, none of the people present could create a portal even if there were a million-dollar cash prize at stake, but the quiet made it possible for Pao to reach out. To imagine Silver Springs, her mom, Beto, the weird multicolored rug in their living room.

And maybe it was the feeling that everyone around her was concentrating, too, but this time it came easily. She could see the green light through her closed eyelids, feel the arms of the dancing dolls reaching up and the air brushing against her face as the figures began to spin around them.

Take us home, Pao thought, and then she had the familiar sensation of stepping forward and being embraced by the dark womb. It was working! They were finally going—

A high, cold laugh interrupted Pao’s celebratory musing, chilling her to the bone. Around her, where there should have been nothing but darkness and pressure and movement, there was light. A bright white background on which too-familiar scenes were now being projected.

“You thought you could travel through my world after you stole from me, you entitled little brat?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, sounding like long fingernails scratching down a windowpane, the click of a cell door being locked, a shout from the end of a long tunnel echoing, echoing.

“Stay with me,” Pao said to her friends, the people who had trusted her to take them home. She reached out in this strange nothing space to make sure they were still there. She touched arms and shoulders, but the white was so bright, she couldn’t tell if he had taken anyone.

Suddenly, she saw Emma gone again. Dante back in his cell. The void tearing open along the seam, disgorging clone after clone, and the nightmare lord shepherding them all to the homes of her loved ones.

“Let us go!” Pao said, a sob catching in her throat. “Please, let us go.”

The terrifying images shifted faster in response.

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