The In Between

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Justin

“Do I get a lawyer?”

“This isn’t a trial, Justin,” Damaris explains.

I have no idea how long we’ve been sitting on this stone bench. There are no clocks anywhere in sight and I have lost all sense of time. I’m not sure if it’s day or night, or if that kind of thing even exists here.  

Damaris disappears to check what’s going on and then reappears by my side without warning. “Don’t read anything into it,” she whispers to me. “Don’t assume the worst.”

I hadn’t been—until now.

While we wait, I look down and notice that my pants and shirt have transformed into the same gray iridescent fabric I’ve seen the other beings here wearing. I turn to Damaris for an explanation. “When I walked through the door, I was wearing…”

She nods. “Zerachiel believes it is better not to have too many identifying markers. Most people don’t stay here long. When they come in their clothes are…” She searches for the word. “…modern. But,” she shakes her head sadly, “some unfortunate souls do tend to get stuck in the In Between. We prefer people not to have visual reminders of that.” she confides. “It is not the Plan to stay, after all. You move up. Or you move down.”

Damaris stops speaking suddenly, touching her ear as if listening to something, though there is no sound.

She is probably listening to my thoughts again. Can she tell I am already trying to plot my way back home? She stands, takes a deep breath, shaking her head at me disapprovingly, and squares her shoulders. “It is time,” she announces, a thin sheen of sadness layered on top of her disconcertingly youthful pitch. “He is ready for you.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong—I’m only 16! Is there like a juvie purgatory?”

“We don’t call it that,” Damaris reminds me. “This is the In Between. And it will be a test for your soul—your age is irrelevant.”

I’ve done plenty of wrong things—Amanda, for one. Dating her, then hurting her. But none of that seems like a hell-worthy offense. Still, I’m terrified.

I stand up, not used to the absence of feeling in my legs, and follow Damaris as she glides on tiptoes across the mosaic floor, past row upon row of closed doors until we come to a fifteen-foot tall carved double door at the end of the hallway.

“This is us,” she says. I feel like I’m going to the principal’s office, only the stakes are way higher than detention.

The door creaks open of its own accord to reveal a vast office the length of a soccer field. At the far end, there is a huge granite slab of a bare desk. An empty throne of clear gems rises regally behind it, its back pointed in three sharp peaks. The only ornament in the entire office is a majestic antique measuring scale of solid gold, its two weighing baskets suspended from beads of precious metals.

“Don’t be nervous,” Damaris whispers.   

When we reach the desk, she motions for me to sit on a low, backless stool. She glances behind her to another enormous door, resolutely shut. “It won’t be long,” she says.

I nod and concentrate on stilling my foot, which has been jiggling up and down.  “Never let your game face slip,” Coach says. “Never let them know what you’re thinking.” That part is easy, anyway. I have no idea what I’m thinking.

Finally, the door opens and a seven-foot tall man with piercing coal black eyes walks in.

Zerachiel nods slightly. “Damaris.”