“Well, how can you help me, then?” Evan sighed, turning away.
“We cannot cure you, but we can take you away,” it hissed. “For a while, proem. So you can see what you are missing.”
“What do you mean?” asked Evan.
Just then something fell from the open light fixture onto the bed, landing with a soft plop. It fell right between Evan and the bug. It was square and thin and made of wood, not much bigger than Evan's hand. Evan reached down and picked it up. When he brought it up close to his eyes, he could see that it had etchings on it, but they didn't seem to be in any pattern.
“What is it?” Evan asked.
“It is a gateway to the world, proem,” the bug said. “When you have given yourself to it, it will take you into the world of the minds. They are all connected, you know, all the minds of all those things that have them.”
Evan didn't know. He stared at the bug blankly.
“You feel all alone, you humans. You think no one understands you. But you are closer to others than you think.” The bug blinked for the first time. Even its eyelids appeared hairy as they slowly closed over the yellow eyeballs and opened again.
“You mean there's another world?” asked Evan. “A place where I can live without my body?”
“Oh no,” said the bug, “the world of the mind is like a web. It connects your minds to one another like your computers are connected to each other.”
“So, I can go into this web and outside somehow?” Evan asked.
“You stay here in this room,” said the bug. “And your mind travels. To whoever you would like to visit. Whoever you would like to be.”
Evan thought about this. “I can go to someone else's body?” he asked finally.
“Anyone you like,” the bug replied. Its fangs pulled up slightly and then extended down again.
Evan's mind raced. He could be anyone! He could walk around outside. Go to school. Go wherever he wanted! “For how long?” he asked. “Is there a limit?”
“For as long as you are human,” said the bug. This sobered Evan up. Two years ago it would have been a joke. It would have meant forever.
“And how long is that?” Evan asked fiercely. “You know what I am, so you must know how long I have.”
“I do not know for sure, proem,” the bug said. “Longer than tomorrow, but not more than a year.”
“A year?” Evan cried. He was sure it was much less. “Don't you know better than that? Look at my hands!” He held them in front of the bug's eyes. “Can't you tell me what this means?”
“All proems are different,” said the bug. “But you have been human a long time.”
Seeing he could get nothing better from it, Evan clenched his fists and pulled them back. The membranes liked the clenching. They tightened happily around his fingers.
“My name isn't proem,” said Evan. “It's Evan. Do you have a name?”
The bug screeched, a high-pitched, wailing, awful sound.
Evan covered his ears.
The bug opened its mouth in a wide grin, making the hairy part above its fangs nearly rub into its yellow eyes. “That's how we say it,” it said. “You may call me what you want.”
“Foul,” said Evan, without thinking.
“I like it,” the bug hissed.
“But what do you want?” Evan asked, remembering, turning his head away. “You said you wanted a deal. That you'd help me if I helped you.”
“We are a race that lives in the dark,” Foul said. “We are one of many races. There are things that crawl and things that fly. Things that talk and things that only mutter. The worms are another race like us.” Foul's fangs moved up and down a little as it talked. Its shrill voice was quiet and serious.
Evan sat silently. His heart pumped.
“We eat them,” Foul said. “And they would eat usâif they could.” The thing let out a screeching chuckle.
Evan shrank back from it and pulled his hands under the blankets.
“Don't worry, proem,” it hissed. “We do not eat proems. They are still human in their way.”
“Do you want to eat me when I change? Give me my life back in exchange for taking it later?” Evan cried. “I won't do it! Take it back!” He picked up the square of wood and held it out so that it nearly touched the bug's face.
“Oh no, proem. You shall walk away a free worm if I have anything to do with it. If you perform the little service that we ask.” Its wings flapped. Evan set the object down again and pushed himself backward, as far as he could, into the wall.
“What little service?” he asked, his voice barely coming out.
“When you change over, they will come for you. They will lead you to their home. It is down in the sewers, guarded by falling water, which they know we cannot pass through. Yet we are sure there is a dry route in. Or, if not, a way to force them to come out. You will help us find it. You will help us eat them.”
Evan stared at the bug, speechless. “You want me to help you eat them?” he asked finally.
Foul slowly blinked again. “Help us destroy them, proem,” it said. “There will be no more like you. No more children stolen. You will be free.”
“If there are no more of them, won't you starve?” asked Evan. He thought the creature was trying to trick him, to make him feel like he would save others when it wasn't true.
Foul chuckled, a strange vibration of its belly that came out as several squeaks. “There are other creatures in the darkness who taste just as good. But they are weaker and would not destroy us.”
“You want to kill every single one,” said Evan. Why did this bother him so much?
The creature's fangs grew. Its smile was as much like the worm's smile as an expression could be when made by a creature shaped so differently.
“I'll still be one of them. I don't like it, but I will be!” Evan said, not believing he had said it.
“You have vowed never to go with them,” Foul said. “I heard you speaking with it. It wanted you so badly, I could smell it.” The bug suddenly raised its two front legs and rubbed them together, making a faint humming sound.
“I hate them,” Evan said. He stared down at the wood square. “How does it work?”
“You put your hand on it, stretched out flat. It will enter you and pull you out.”
“And into someone else's mind?”
“You will be able to travel. To look and to choose.” Foul put its front legs down and moved forward almost imperceptibly.
Evan looked down at the wood square, half believing, half not. Did he care about the worms at all? Would he be better or worse off without them, once he'd turned?
Foul seemed to be reading his thoughts. “I am giving you a chance at life,” it said, moving just a little closer. “You can be the other boys and also save them from your fate.”
Evan thought about the school, the picture he had made up in his mind. It seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. The boys and girls walked happily up and down the hallways, their hands and feet flexible and normal. They stood perfectly straight. They laughed and chatted and were light and free.
“Try it,” Foul squeaked. “Try it and decide.”
Evan picked up the wood square with his left hand and looked down at it. It seemed like the scratches on it had a pattern after all, but he still couldn't make out what it was. He looked at the bug, who had slid even closer, so that the light from its eyes lit up the wood.
He took a deep breath and put his right hand on the square, stretching his fingers out as best he could. It felt too cold. He and the bug stared at each other for a few long seconds.
Suddenly, the wood became hot. It was so hot that Evan tried to jerk his hand back, but he couldn't. Frightened, he tried to shake it off. It was stuck to his hand like glue. It began to mold around his hand, no longer like wood at all.
Foul continued to stare at him, its fangs shaking slightly.
“I don't want to try it anymore!” Evan cried. “Make it stop!” But the bug just stared at him and shifted even closer. The square now covered his hand and started growing up his arm.
“Make it stop!” he cried again. He reached out for the bug with his left hand, but it lifted itself off the bed and out of reach. And then Evan was gone.
H
E COULDN'T SEE OR FEEL
anything but lightness. A scary, unbelievable lightness, like he might float into space. His body was gone, and with it the membranes tugging, breath wheezing, head pounding. He was free! But the absolute darkness was like nothing he had felt before. He seemed to be expanding. Expanding and expanding andâ
What do I do?
he thought, desperate for someone to hear him.
How do I get back?
A voice came straight into his mind, with almost no pause. He wasn't sure if he even heard the words, or if he just knew their meaning.
Go where you want to go, proem,
it said.
Wherever you want to go, you will be there.
Evan tried to close his eyes, but nothing happened. He had no eyes to close. He thought wildly. School. He wanted to go to school. He thought it so hard he imagined he was shouting.
Suddenly, he saw light. It surrounded him and blinded him. For all he knew, he was in the middle of the sun. But, slowly, the light became manageable. He was not in the middle of the sun at all. He was hovering over the new middle school, staring down from some invisible place in the air, watching the people file in.
Evan had been there once. There had been a grand opening. In front of the large, double-doored entrance he now looked down on without eyes, the chairman of the school board had given a speech. Evan hadn't listened. He had stared at the doors in fear like they were a gateway to hell.
The doors looked shabbier now, but there was nothing demonic about them. They swung open and shut with the stream of kids, who were talking and laughing loudly. The sun was still shining brighter than he had ever seen it. The sky was bluer and the grass was greener. He searched the crowd for anyone he knew, eager to try out the creature's gift.
How do I do it?
he thought.
How do I get in someone?
Direct your energy,
Foul's voice hissed.
Direct it all at one child. He will not be able to stop you.
Evan searched. The kids ran by so quickly that he couldn't catch their faces. He didn't know anyone, and soon the crowd thinned. It was almost eight o'clock. Evan had just decided he would have to pick someone, anyone, when he saw the face of somebody he knew. The kid stumbled out of a car and raced across the sidewalk toward the steps. Evan didn't have time to think about “directing his energy” before he jumped.
He felt like his head was being clamped down with a vise. What had been free was now contained. Compressed into a too-small space. The boy felt it too. He stopped on the steps and bent his chin over his chest, slamming his eyes shut. The motion of the head made Evan feel worse, and he could feel the body around him, holding him in. Fear rose up, and Evan wasn't sure if it was his fear or the boy's. He felt the boy's heart racing, blood pumping. Their hands twitched.
“Cory?” a voice said. It sounded adult. “Cory, are you all right?” Evan felt a hand on his back. On Cory's back. He wanted to jump, but inside Cory, he went nowhere.
Cory stood up straight again and opened his eyes. Evan looked through them, right into the dark brown eyes of a young man who was stooped over and staring at him.
“Yeah, I'm okay, Mr. Houser. I don't know what happened.” Cory sounded confused.
“Are you sure?” asked the teacher, still with the concerned look.
“Yeah, thanks, I'm gonna be late,” said Cory, and he continued running up the steps and through the double doors. The movement caused Evan to toss inside. He couldn't see straight out of Cory's eyes but saw from one angle one second and another the next, like he was bouncing against springy walls.
He tried to steady himself but kept falling from one side to another. He caught glimpses of the hallway as Cory ran, strange pieces. A metal locker here, a square of ceiling there. He struggled and struggled, but he couldn't stay straight.
Cory barreled around a corner, pushed his way into a classroom, and sat down with a heavy sigh. His backpack dropped to the floor with a loud crash.
“Tardy, Mr. Parker,” said a woman's voice. As Cory sat still, Evan managed to settle down, and then he looked straight out of Cory's eyes. He saw a tall, stern-looking woman standing behind an overhead projector, glaring at him.
“Sorry, Miss Andrews,” Cory panted. Evan felt the breath in Cory's body, moving in and out in shallow pulses.
The class was pre-algebra. Evan didn't even know what algebra was, but that didn't matter. While Cory listened to the teacher and scribbled in his notebook, Evan pressed himself forward, trying to see everything that he could out of Cory's eyes. As he did so, he felt Cory's hands moving, his body rustling in the chair, the way he squiggled his toes inside his boots.
From the farthest point he could reach, Evan looked around the room. He noticed other kids he knew. They looked different, some of them very different. Many he didn't recognize at all. He took in everything. Their faces, their clothes, the books, the windows that mottled the bright sunlight.
Cory went to the next class, and the next, and Evan took everything in. He concentrated on what Cory was feeling, how his legs and arms moved as he walked down the hallway, how his eyes blinked.
As Cory made his way to the cafeteria and stood in line, Evan felt the buzz of all the kids around him. There were so many. He couldn't make out any voices, and it was far too loud.
Cory picked up his tray and turned to face the room. The tables seemed to go on for miles. Kids were standing and sitting and yelling. Evan wanted to cover his ears, but Cory just walked out there, winding among the tables. Finally, he sat down in an empty spot, a little way from the nearest kids.