Oh what the hell, I thought, let’s go to Faerie. I’d like another glimpse of it … and I could always get back. After all, I was the doorkeeper.

Ianuam sprengja! I shouted as we plunged toward the bottom of the pool where the light was spreading, yielding to the desire in my voice.

Ianuam Sprengja! the undines mimicked. What the hell!

We shot through a wall of light that fizzled with electricity. I felt like I’d been electrocuted, but the undines liked it. What the hell! What the hell! they chanted. We’re going to Faerie!

But rather than emerging into Faerie we were plunged into utter darkness. The undines went suddenly quiet, like a group of chattering schoolgirls silenced by the entrance of a stern principal. I couldn’t see them but I felt their slim shapes slipping ever closer to me. The one who’d dragged me into the pool still held my hand, but now she seemed to be holding onto it for reassurance.

Uh oh, I thought, we’ve strayed into the Borderlands.

The name sent waves of terror skittering through their hive mind. Vestigial images, encoded into their DNA, flitted through the flock, gaining gruesomeness as they passed from one to another. Skeletons and decaying bodies with crawfish and slugs crawling out of hollow eye sockets, black slimy eels that swallowed their prey whole, sharp-fanged zombie beavers …

Zombie beavers?

Yes! the undines shrieked back at me as one. Zombie beavers! Everyone knows that dead beavers come back in the Borderlands as zombies!

In a flash, a wealth of urban legend was transmitted to me about these mythical (I hoped!) creatures. As a folklorist I was fascinated by the mingling of real-life threat (the beavers snacked on the undines when they were only fingerlings) and the universal love of teenagers for zombie stories. As someone currently swimming in the dark, I could only hope that zombie beavers were no more real than that story about the hook man.

They have hooks? buzzed the undines in thrilled and horrified voices.

No, no, I assured them. That’s only a story … we just have to stay together and find our way out. I see a light ahead.

Now that my eyes had adjusted I made out a number of lights ahead, although none as bright as the chink of light I’d seen at the bottom of the pool. Where had that light gone? As I led the undines toward a faint green glow, I wondered if that other shimmery light had been a trick to lure us into this netherworld. Or maybe, a sly voice inside my head suggested, you wanted to go here because it’s where he is. Suppressing the thought – and hoping that my companions hadn’t heard it – I swam toward the light.

Nearer to the dim glow, I saw what happened to those who had been left in the watery Borderlands. A tangle of bleached white limbs littered the bottom of the pool, so crowded together it was difficult to make out what sort of creatures they had been in life. I made out human limbs and faces, but also fishtails and deer antlers, bird wings and … heaven help us … beaver claws. No matter what their shape, all their flesh had been bleached white and emitted a pale greenish glow, like some kind of radioactive decay. A fine glowing mist rose off them that I thought at first was light until I noticed that it was clinging to my hand.