Read Between for Free Online

overgrown woods at the edge of our fields, the hummingbirds that buzzed around the zinnias on our porch—none of that exists here. I find it harder and harder to ignore what I’ve seen and heard today.
    I see Sam’s face in my mind, the flecks of gold bright in his wide green eyes before he and Mom vanished.
    Before Mom flickered with him the way Seth had flickered with me.
    “How does Mom factor into all of this?”
    “Adele and I work for a group called the Fellowship,” he answers without looking back.
    “The Fellowship? Like—of the Ring?”
    The path curves around a wide lilac bush. He casts a look over his shoulder and says, “Clever,” in a way that tells me he doesn’t think it’s clever at all. “The Fellowship is in charge of making sure those living in the mortal realm don’t know anything about the mystical realm.”
    Well, I’d say they’ve been doing a pretty stellar job. “How do you do that, exactly?”
    “There have been times throughout history when a human sees something he’s not supposed to see. Some kid stumbles upon the flower ring left behind when one of the fairies travels to the mortal realm, a dead mermaid washes up on a beach, or someone snaps a picture of Vanessa or Nestor. When that happens, the Fellowship takes care of it.”
    “Vanessa or Nestor?”
    “The Loch Ness monsters.” He emphasizes the word “monsters” dramatically, wiggling his fingers in the air.
    He throws each new piece of information over his shoulder and they hit me square in the chest, stealing my breath for a moment before I remember to inhale again. Fairies. Mermaids. Loch Ness monsters—all things that exist only in folklore and children’s stories. From Seth’s mouth, they sound a little less impossible. “How does the Fellowship take care of it?”
    His shoulders rise and fall. “Whatever it takes. Sometimes, it’s as simple as destroying film or cleaning up evidence. In other cases, the operation is more complex, like when we have to ruin a person’s credibility or make someone believe he didn’t see what he saw.” He reaches back, his hand hovering next to me as the trail becomes steeper. Sparkling granite disrupts the path, peeking out from the ground here and there. “The point is to make sure humans go on believing magical creatures don’t exist.”
    So they’re like the Men In Black, but for magical creatures. “And the Mothman? The Fellowship is supposed to hide him?”
    “Not exactly,” Seth replies, keeping his eyes on the ground as we maneuver through the rocks. “Some creatures aren’t really intelligent enough to be part of the Fellowship. They’re wild animals. We try to manage those the best we can, since they could blow the lid off the entire mystical realm.”
    That makes sense. The Mothman doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who plays well with others. Images from this evening play on a loop in my mind—the face in the tree, the Mothman’s black leathery wings, the knife clutched in Mom’s fist. The path levels out again, and I come to a stop.
    Seth’s not human. He’s leading me to the mystical realm, where he works for some kind of mythical Mafia. With my mother.
    “What about Mom?” I ask. “Is she…”
    I can’t even find a way to finish the question.
    She went after the Mothman. She didn’t run. She didn’t hide. She didn’t even seem surprised. She and Seth spoke their own language, using words I knew but in a context I’d never heard. She flickered.
    The conclusion is obvious, but if Mom’s not human—
    My knees turn to water. I reach around until I feel rough bark beneath my hands and press my back against the closest tree. I take a breath, and then another, but nothing seems to make it into my lungs.
    The Mothman. The flickering. Two worlds. The Between. Jeravon. And now I don’t know what my own mother is or what it makes me.
    “Charlie?”
    “Sorry.” My voice shakes. “I need a second. It just,” I take a breath, “sort of snuck