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weird off-balance feeling.”
    Off-balance. That’s the best way to describe how I feel right now. It’s like I’ve just gotten off a very short, very fast roller coaster. He points at two towering pine trees a few feet away. “Let’s get through the gate, then we’ll be safe and we’ll have a little time to talk.”
    Gate?
    Seth turns to scan the trees and dark pathways surrounding us before pulling me through the middle of the two pines. Beneath them stands a large wooden gate, a little taller than Seth and twice as wide. It’s gray and weathered, with paint peeling from its edges like it’s been here for years.
    Seth pushes it open and holds it there, waiting for me to pass through.
    I look from him to the gate, confused. It’s only a gate, unattached to anything, with nothing on the other side but more trees. A doorway to nowhere. I stare at it like the emperor in his new clothes.
    He shakes his head and huffs. “Go, Charlie. We have to get out of here.”
    He wraps his fingers around my elbow and pulls me forward with him. The gate closes behind us, and the transformation is sudden.
    The night disappears. The sky is clearer, the plants thicker, the scent sweeter. There’s a definition here that didn’t exist on the other side of the gate. Crisper lines, more dramatic variations in color. It’s nature on steroids, clean and untouched.
    “Where are we?”
    “This,” Seth spreads his arms, “is the Between.”

T HREE
    “T he Between?” I ask. I try to keep my eyes on him, waiting for an answer, but it’s impossible. I’m surrounded by the purest display of colors I’ve ever seen. Blue, green, brown, red, orange. They’re the same colors I’ve seen in wooded areas my whole life, but they’re bolder, more pigmented—like every color I’ve seen before now had been muted, and I’ve just discovered what color actually is. “Between what?”
    “The worlds.”
    Right. Of course. Between the worlds. I tear my eyes from the scenery long enough to squint at him. “I have no idea what that means.”
    “Your world,” he points his thumb back toward the closed gate, “and mine.”
    I blink. He’s from a different world?
    “Come on,” he says, nodding toward the path. “I’ll explain while we walk.”
    He takes off with long, purposeful strides, and I follow, struggling to keep a steady pace when all I want to do is stop and stare. The Between is a wilderness like I’ve never seen. It’s not just the beauty, although the splendor of this place is absolutely hypnotic; I’m also mesmerized by the sheer abundance. The entire space, for as far as I can see in any direction, is filled with growth. Yet somehow, beneath it all there runs an underlying sense of order—there are no dead leaves or broken limbs littering the ground, the dirt paths are clear and well-defined, and every bush, flower, and tree is perfectly in bloom.
    The sky is crystal blue, clearer than any sky back home. I stare up through the pointed leaves of the enormous maple trees. The branches burst with leaves, and while every single one of them is green, no two are the same shade. Even the brown of the path beneath my feet seems richer, like dark coffee grounds scattered across the ground rather than plain old dirt.
    Everything here is bigger, fuller, taller, cleaner. Everywhere I look, there’s more of the same. The eternity of it is as overwhelming as its perfection. I doubt it’s possible to truly record this place on paper, but I want to try anyway.
    I wish Seth would slow down a bit. “What do you mean, ‘your world?’”
    He brushes past a bright yellow bush with ribbons of star-shaped blooms that spring straight out from the middle and hang to the ground. “Well, we left the mortal realm—your world—and we’re on our way to the mystical realm—my world.”
    Mystical realm. Sure.
    He spins around, looking at my face, and shakes his head. “That’s the problem with the mortal realm. You live there long enough, you