Author's Note: Wow, it's been a long time. To think, the last time I submitted a chapter I was just beginning grade twelve, and now I'm almost finished it! Anyway, in a more relevant story: I went back and fixed some of the errors in past chapters. I've actually had this chapter written for a long time. I'm not sure why I never submitted it.

I did pause on writing this story way back when, because I hit a rather nasty snag in the fifth chapter and the plot stopped dead. I still haven't been able to fix it, though I will try, and I do want to finish this story. I'm so sorry for how long this has taken me. Hopefully I'll have it finished before my next birthday. I'm sorry!

Chapter Four:
World Within the Whorl

Jess's head spun. Every bit of the girl sitting on the branch looked like Leslie. She had the same blonde hair, deadly straight and chopped off just above her shoulders. She even had the same sparkling blue eyes, filled with the kind mischief he had never, ever seen in another person. Everything from her gold-white locks to her rainbow Chuck Taylors screamed Leslie Burke – especially the playful smirk splayed across her face.

"Well?" she asked. Her voice jarred his head, his thoughts a tumbling mass of confusion. "Is that all you have to say?"

Jess felt short of breath. "You're not," he tried. "You can't be…"

"Leslie Burke?" Her tone was light, filled with her signature sinful cleverness. "The one and only. You are Jess, aren't you?"

Jess could feel his heart pounding, blood rushing through his veins faster than a car chase. For a moment he wished he was anyone but. "Yeah…"

She hopped down, dust flying as her rubber soles hit the planks of wood. She sat beside him, smiling, and shook him by the shoulders. "C'mon, don't zone out on me."

His head was light, his vision suddenly brighter. He could hear himself breathe, could feel her fingertips digging gently into his shoulders. He stared at her in disbelief, eyes running over her face until he couldn't keep track of his own gaze. "You died."

Leslie let go of him, grinning sheepishly and scratching the back of her neck. "Yeah, about that… Listen, I don't want to explain it here. Will you come with me someplace?"

Scenes of running through a black forest flashed through his mind, then a reel of the creek flooding over. Ethereal, dark laughter bubbled up and out of Jess. He chuckled, shaking his head and feeling the fool. "I'm dreaming."

Leslie frowned. "No, you aren't."

"Oh, come on," he said, laughter still laced with cynicism. "Aren't you gonna tell me to wake up? Or jump into the river with you?"

Rolling her eyes, she shook his shoulders again. "Jess, you aren't dreaming."

He shirked her away, laughter fading. A goofy gin spread his lips, his eyes half-lidded. "God, I'm so sick of these dreams. I wonder what day it is."

"It's Saturday," she told him sternly. "You're awake. This is the day I died."

"Right, whatever you say."

"Jess!" she yelled, angry and exasperated. It wasn't playful or teasing like in his dreams, and so it forcibly caught his attention. "You're not goddamn dreaming! Did you ever dream of me as a seventeen-year-old?"

He thought for a moment, before answering, "Well… no."

"Exactly," she said, and her voice was softer. "Because you couldn't imagine me like that. You had no idea what I'd look like. That I'd look like this."

He looked her over again, still as skinny as she was when she was ten. But now she was seven years older, and she was right: despite his gratuitous imagination, he still couldn't detail her so perfectly. Suddenly his head pounded in rhythm with his heart, and his breathing was shallow again. If he wasn't dreaming, he must be going crazy.

Without warning, anger overcame him. "Listen, I don't know who you are, but this isn't funny."

"Yes, you do," she assured evenly. "I'm Leslie."

"Shut up!" He couldn't believe the words pouring out of his mouth. Jess felt like a ghost, hovering above their castle and watching the exchange with curiosity. "Leslie's dead!"

Leslie rolled her blue eyes, like tidal waves drowning his hysteria. "I don't have time for you to freak out." She grabbed him by the wrist and stood, dumbly tugging him to his feet. "Come with me."

Jess could say nothing. Words seemed irrelevant and pointless. What did it matter anyway? No matter what way, the whole situation would resolve itself. Either the fake Leslie would be revealed, or he'd wake up from this twisted dream. His mind was a complete mess, the kind he didn't have the heart to work through. So, descending from their palace, he stumbled over his feet as she dragged him through the forest.

Or maybe she wasn't an impostor, and he wasn't dreaming. Maybe he was just going crazy. Maybe all those sleepless nights plunged him into delirium, swallowed by the creek and drowning in madness. In no dream could he fathom an older Leslie, now shorter than him and with a much stronger grip. Perhaps she wasn't even there; maybe, by some flight of fancy, he was wandering through the forest alone, letting a hallucination lead him along.

That thought fell in with all the others, joining the party of possibilities in his head. His mind ached, stressed to the breaking point. His vision whisked mindlessly past the trees and foliage as she weaved them through a barely trodden path. He didn't recognize anything anymore. She was leading him past the borders of Terabithia, farther than they'd ever dared venture. Into the realms of the Dark Master.

"It's real, Jess." Her voice permeated his racing mind, cooling the fire in his brain. "It's just a little further than we thought."

He didn't understand what she meant, but was too exhausted to work through the cryptic clue. His brain was slowing down; his footsteps became sloppier. He wondered if they'd stop completely, and he'd fall tumbling to the ground in an effeminate faint. The notion seemed inviting. Any escape from this pseudo-reality did.

Suddenly, Leslie halted in her tracks. Jess, reaction delayed, stopped just short of crashing into her. He mused what that would feel like. Would it confirm his suspicions, and they'd land in a tangled mess, the impostor's blonde wig sprawled on the ground beneath her head? Or would he simply hit air and then a tree trunk, falling straight through his illusion?

"Just give me a second," she said, releasing his wrist to probe a tree with her hands. Before them stood an enormous oak, tall enough to loom at least one hundred feet above their castle. The bole was wide, and even if they both held hands they couldn't reach around its girth. He toyed with the idea that it was the largest tree in Terabithia, even bigger than the troll tree.

"Got it," Leslie's voice chimed, and Jess's gaze returned to her. She had her fingers around a lump in the trunk, pattern peeking out beneath her palm – a whorl. She turned to him, grinning impishly. "Watch this."

She pressed the rise of bark, and it flattened into the tree. Jess rubbed his eyes, feeling mistaken. But when he looked back the whorl was still gone, nothing but ridged bark in its stead.

"You aren't crazy," Leslie comforted him. "It always does that. Moves and stuff. Makes it really hard to find again, I've heard."

His mouth felt dry, his tongue sticky. "What is it?"

"Just keep watching."

He did, and now he was sure he was crazy. From the base of the tree, roots wound out of the earth and up the bark like wooden snakes. They circled just above Jess's head, intertwining and diving back down the other side and into the ground. What was left was a mass of woven roots in the uncanny shape of…

"A door?"

"Yup," she said, placing her hands proudly on her hips. "A door. And guess where it leads?"

Jess shook his head, completely bemused. "To the asylum I belong in?"

Leslie giggled and took his hand. She wasn't rough or insistent this time. Instead, her fingers wove through his in a soft embrace. She squeezed lightly, reassuring him. "Nope." With that, she placed her other hand on the door, palm flat and fingers splayed. With barely any force, she pushed it open. Her hand dropped to her side, the door swinging the rest of the way on invisible hinges. Behind it lay darkness, black, dense and empty. "Follow me."

Her words, ringing so familiar, were the final push as he fell into complete dumbfoundedness. His mind was blank, void of thought and fear. His body moved of its own will as it followed her, fluid rather than mechanical. They stepped into the darkness, tracing the pillar of sunlight that filtered through the doorway. It narrowed and vanished, the door closing and immersing them in coal reality.

It wasn't cold or hot. It wasn't humid or arid. It was simply dark. So dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, and so empty that he couldn't hear his heartbeat. His only connections to his body were his fingers, recognizable only by the warmth that seeped into them. The warmth of Leslie's hand in his.

"Don't be afraid," she said, and stepped forward. Though he didn't know where his legs were – or where the ground was, for that matter – he went along with her. "Just keep walking."

He did, but nothing seemed to grow darker or lighter. He wondered if they were even moving. He couldn't feel his steps, couldn't hear them echoing through the abyss. But wherever the warmth went, he followed. If their hands split, he feared he would be lost in this black hole forever. For a split second he felt his heart clench; he didn't want to lose Leslie again.

"We're almost there," her voice assured, a phantom in the dark. He nodded, or at least thought he did. Swallowed by the blackness, he didn't think of much.

And then a light blinked into view, a small dot the size of a star. Despite its minute size, the sudden spot in the dark seemed to illuminate everything. His eyes adjusted, and as they neared it, he began to see more. He looked down, his legs moving beneath him. Then his eyes went along his arm to where their fingers intertwined. His gaze swept up and down Leslie, watching her move with confidence.

She seemed to know her way through darkness as well as she knew her way through Terabithia. A tinge of jealousy ran through him, quickly vanquished by the fear of the blackness behind him. If she hadn't known the way, they might be wandering in the nothingness forever.

The star grew larger, until it was the size of a soccer ball. Though Jess still couldn't see the ground (and wasn't sure it even existed), he could now make them out in wonderful detail. He could even discern the colors of Leslie's sneakers: an eclectic mix of purple and blue with drawn-on flowers. Her striped armbands finally came out as the proper rainbow they were, not just a muted spectrum.

As the light fattened and widened, his eyes narrowed to a squint. Now everything seemed to glow, all Leslie's colors reflected like a Lite-Brite. He raised his free hand to shield his eyes, face tugging into a grimace. "It's so bright."

Leslie, her own arm blocking the light, laughed. "Yeah, but once we're through it'll be all right. It might take you a few minutes to adjust to the sunlight. It was like that for me when I went to Old Terabithia."

"Old Terabithia?" he wondered aloud. But she didn't answer as the light finally stopped growing, and he realized it wasn't more than ten feet in front of them. It took a new shape, not round as it seemed from afar. Rather, it rose up in a beam with a curved top, the same form and size of…

"The door?"

"A door," she corrected him. "Not the door. And not the same door we came through before, don't worry."

Jess couldn't worry. He didn't have time before Leslie's hand pulled him through the blinding light. For a moment, he was surrounded by harsh white light – the exact opposite of the black world. He wondered if maybe he was waking up in an asylum, wrapped in a strait jacket and surrounded by cushioned ivory walls. But just as his heart began racing, the whiteness dissipated. It faded into forms that grew increasingly familiar; large rectangles shrunk into shapely trees, clusters of circles molded into clouds.

Then it was gone, the only trace a white-golden orb floating above them – the sun.

"Finally," Leslie muttered, squeezing his hand again.

He looked around, bright blinking spots obscuring his vision. Around them towered trees, and beneath them soft green grass blanketed the ground. Birds' chirping tickled his ears, followed by the subtle rush and roar of water. A bee flew past him, buzz lingering in the air for a moment.

"Where are we?"

Leslie led him silently through the forest. Wonderment overcame him at the feeling. Everything held an odd sense of familiarity. It was all dotted with color as they wound through trees, some of which he had never before seen. Spattered among oaks and pines were winding giants with leaves of blue or pink, or flowers peeking out of their knots. The ground was coated in their fallen foliage, and he wondered what he could call it. It certainly wasn't just greenery anymore; now it was also bluery and pinkery.

Still, rather than make his head spin, the colors ignited calmness within him. They reminded him of Leslie's colorful outfits, mirrored in her armbands and shoes as she led them along. He craned his neck to get a better look at them, some reaching hundreds of feet above their heads. The tallest were even bigger than the whorl tree, but much thinner. In fact, their trunks were barely wider than he was, and were bare except for big tufts of leaves at their tips. It looked as if one good gust on wind would knock them over.

"Don't worry about the Q-tip trees," she would tell him later. "Their roots run deeper than a subway station, and way wider."

Finally they emerged from the forest, splashing onto a wide dirt road. Even that seemed familiar, shielded beneath the canopy of green, blue and pink. They walked along the side, rustling strewn leaves with their shoes. Though tracks and footprints lay along the path, their journey went undisturbed. He would have asked why no cars or bikes were going by, but that seemed ignorant. None of the tracks here looked like they were left by rubber tires.

They wound along a curve in the road, stepping through the shadowy net cast by overhanging treetops. Jess kept his eyes on the forest, catching glimpses of squirrels and other creatures he couldn't name. He was about to ask where they were again when Leslie stopped, and for the second time that day he almost fell flush against her.

She pointed ahead and his gaze followed. Far up the road, where the wide dirt path was but a splintery speck of yellow, spread a kingdom. In its center, a castle stood, its towers reaching to the sky. Gold glinted in the sunlight, inviting and purposeful rather than tastelessly lavish.

Her hand squeezed his again, and he found himself squeezing back. A gasp caught in his throat as Leslie told him, "Jess, this is Terabithia."