Witch & Wizard by James Patterson, Gabrielle Charbonnet

your world… and if you get any farther away from me and Whit, we could be entirely lost to one another. Especially because it’s possible to take a path that will lead you into a subdimension completely different from ours.”
    I didn’t understand the dimension part, but I whirled around in a panic nonetheless.
    I couldn’t see Feffer anymore.
    “Feffer! Here, girl!” I whistled. “Come back, girl!” Strangely, I already felt an attachment to the reformed hellhound.
    Feffer came trotting right back to me, and I knelt down to hug her. The warm scent of her fur seemed very real and comforting in this hollow place.
    “Well, Feffer apparently didn’t have a problem,” I said, puzzled, as the dog, sniffing the ground, wandered off again.
    “I said, dangerous for
humans,
” Celia clarified. “Feffer’s an animal, and she has animal instincts. We don’t use sight to get around in here. Half-lights and others who are tuned in to extrasensory forces have a much easier time navigating the Shadowland. Humans who’ve found the portals have usually gotten lost here.
Forever.
”
    As if to punctuate the horror of this thought, we heard a distant moaning sound. Whit involuntarily grabbed my hand.
    “Lost Ones,” said Celia. “They’re not close yet, and that’s the way we want to keep it. Believe me.”
    “What would they do to us?” I asked.
    “They’d…” Calm-and-collected Celia looked as if she might lose it. “Forget it, Wisty. It’s way too grim to talk about right now. Let’s just get you somewhere safe.”

Wisty
    “CELIA! YOU’RE ALL RIGHT!” we heard someone call out, and a tall blond girl, maybe Whit’s age, came bounding into view. She was a Half-light, I assumed, even though I’d never pictured dead girls wearing tank tops and pleated skirts… and chewing bubble gum.
And do dead girls really need glasses?
Maybe it was a fashion statement.
    “You got your friends out!” the girl said, then hugged Celia, the way Half-lights hug. Hard to describe.
    “This is Susan,” said Celia. “Susan, this is Whit Allgood and his sister, Wisty. Remember me telling you about Whit?”
    Susan rolled her eyes. “Yes. Mr. Wonderful. Mr. Sensitive. Mr. Washboard Tummy. I think you mentioned Whit once or twice. Total pukka kind of guy. You said he was a work of art.”
    I blinked. “Pukka” sounded a little pukey to me. Celia wasn’t the least embarrassed, though Whit got a tad pink in the cheeks.
    “Welcome,” said Susan, who seemed funny and nice. “Glad you got out of the Hospital. That place is a total mingus. It’s where I was executed. For chewing gum on the street. I think.”
    “I have to get these two to Freeland before any Lost Ones spot them,” said Celia.
    “I agree,” said Susan. “I saw a small pack of them only a few minutes from here. They’ve probably sensed there are living humans around.”
    “Well, let’s reunite these guys with their erlenmeyer weasel and get them out of here.”
    Susan and Celia had started to lose me with all of their weird lingo until Celia mentioned Byron Traitor Suck-up. I’d forgotten all about him.
    “He’s not exactly
our
weasel,” repeated Whit.
    Just then we heard another distant chorus of spine-chilling moans.
    “We don’t need to wait for him,
really,
” I said, cold sweat breaking out all over me.
    “It’s no bother,” said Susan. “And we have to meet somebody else here anyway. In fact, here he comes. Yo, Sasha!” she yelled as a boy came running into view. I was starting to get used to
partially
solid people, so his opaqueness seemed out of place in the Shadowland. Then I realized he was probably a regular kid like us.
    “You’re safe, Celia,” Sasha said with relief as she introduced us. He seemed older than me but maybe younger than Whit, and he had longish black hair and dark-blue eyes. He wore a Navy SEALS ball cap on backward, and his T-shirt read FREEDOM
SHOULD
BE FREE . I also noticed he was carrying a spool that