Page 16 of The Otherworld

After much clueless fiddling, I pull up the number for Superman and press the call button to dial him back. For a long moment, I wait—listening as the phone rings.

“Adam!” a young man’s voice shouts, muffled and tinny through the speaker. “Adam, are you there?!”

My jaw drops, and for a second, I can hardly believe someone has answered. “Hello? Hello, is this… Superman?”

The question is followed by a long silence, every bit as stunned as mine.

“What the hell? Who is this? Where is Adam?”

I pull the phone away from my ear, staring in awestruck wonder. He can hear me, and I can hear him! I’m talking to a boy from the Otherworld. I can’t believe it…

“Hey! Who are you? Answer the question, damn it!”

I snatch the phone up and hold it to my ear. “My name is Orca Monroe, and I don’t know who or where Adam is, but to answer your question, I live in a lighthouse on an island in the middle of the ocean, and I’ve never seen a phone like this before, so you’ll have to forgive me if I seem a little surprised by the strangeness of it all.”

Superman’s voice comes back, sputtering, “What? Wait, wait, wait. Just… start at the beginning. Where did you find this phone?”

“On the beach. It was inside a big sack that had washed ashore—”

“What beach? Where? Where the hell are you?”

“I told you, I live on the island with the lighthouse.”

“Well, that narrows it down, Sherlock,” he snaps. “Which island? Anywhere near Whidbey?”

“Whidbey… Is that where you are?”

“Yeah. Now how close by are you?”

“Uh, I’m not sure exactly. I can get a map, but they’re all in the lantern room, and Papa’s up there right now, and if he sees me talking to you on this device, he’ll take it away because I’m not supposed to talk to people from the Otherworld and—”

“LISTEN,” Superman cuts in roughly. “My brother is missing. He’s been missing for four days now. His plane went down somewhere off the coast of Whidbey. I need to know where you are!”

“Your brother? Is he… Adam Stevenson?”

“Yeah. Have you seen him?!”

“No, and stop shouting.” I wince, holding the phone a distance away. “You’re hurting my ear.”

Superman mutters a foreign word under his breath. “Listen, I need you to tell me more about where you are. Where exactly you found his backpack.”

“Backpack?”

“The big sack!”

“Oh. Right, yes. I found it on the beach. I told you that already.”

“Yeah, okay, but where is this beach? What’s the name of your island?” He emphasizes the words like I can’t understand English.

“I… don’t think it has a name.”

“How can it not have a name?” Superman sighs. “Who else lives on this island?”

“Nobody. It’s just Papa and me.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m what?”

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