When Walker took me through the between, we ended up on some dismal seashore with nothing going for it but its eerie desolation. There was little to see because the fog was thick, but I could hear the crash of waves close at hand, and the smell of fish and brine was all around us, strong, almost overpowering. Underfoot, it was all sand and pebbles, wet weeds, shells and bits of driftwood—everything pretty much one shade of grey or another. There didn’t seem to be any colour here at all, and I felt like I was standing in some old postcard, except it was totally depressing instead of quaint. The air itself seemed to have too much mass so that just standing as we were I felt weighed down with some unhappy and heavy burden.

“What is this place?” I asked Walker.

He was too busy trying to make out what lay inside the fog to look at me.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “This was simply where the trail led. Some small unwanted world, it seems, grey and abandoned by whomever . . .”

His voice trailed off and he cocked his head.

“No,” he said.

I didn’t know if he was talking to me, himself, or someone I couldn’t see. “Who are you—” I started to ask, but I never got to finish.

“I won’t allow you to do this in her name,” Walker cried.

He spoke loudly, his eyes flashing with anger. I backed away from him, but it became quickly obvious that he wasn’t talking to me because the next thing I knew, he was gone, stepping away through the same invisible door that had brought us here.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I cried.

But I was alone on the beach now and talking to myself.

I hurried over to where he’d disappeared and moved my hands through the air, but there was nothing there that I could feel or see.

I couldn’t believe it.

Jilly and Lizzie were the ones who were lost. We were supposed to find them. So what do I do? Get lost myself.

I looked around the beach, but I couldn’t see much of anything because of the fog. I got the sense that even if the fog wasn’t here, there still wouldn’t be anything to see. My gaze went to the ground, which was the only part of this world that I could actually make out with any clarity, but there were no clues there either.

I kicked at a piece of driftwood in frustration.

This was it. I’d totally screwed up. Now what was going to happen to Jilly and Lizzie? I’d barely gotten started in the search and now here I was, already defeated.