The boat was more like a canoe than an actual boat. I felt that it might tip over if I leaned the wrong way. As I balanced on the smooth wooden seat, I looked out at the shore, at James. He was still staring down at my body.

"I don't recommend you do that," the boatman said.

I turned to look at him. Up close, he was not what I was expecting. I had expected him to be tall, skeletal, and silent, like Charon from the ancient Greek myths. This guy had a scruffy goatee and was much stockier. It was hard to tell if the weight he carried was muscle or fat, though, because it was hidden under a grey sweatshirt.

"Do what?" I asked.

He tilted his head towards the shore as he dug an oar into the pond water. "Stare out at land as we move. You might get sick. Interdimensional travel and all of that."

"Ahh," I said. Part of me didn't want to listen to him—I wanted to spend as much time as I could staring at the earth. Who knew if this would be the last time I was on it? But I also didn't feel like throwing up anymore than I already had today, and in the end I reluctantly pulled my eyes away from the shore with its dim silhouette of trees, away from the glow of distant streetlamps and my physical body lying stock still on a picnic bench.

I tried instead to focus on the bottom of the boat, or at the rippling water as we smoothly glided to our destination, but there wasn't much to see. The night was dark, and my eyesight wasn't that great. But the boatman seemed to glow, an unearthly teal that kept drawing my eyes to him.

He caught my stare and asked, "Recently deceased or still kicking?"

The question caught me off guard. "What?"

"Are you dead or alive?" he asked. He had a twang to his voice, a hint of an accent from New York. "You smell fresh."

"Alive," I said.

He didn't seem too surprised by my response, so I asked, "Do a lot of living people come down to the Underworld?"

"Not a lot, but I've seen a few. Sometimes, when the Devil isn't in the human realm to make her deals, people come to her." He looked at me. "You have a deal to propose?"

I shook my head. "No, I already made a deal with her. I'm just coming here to chat."

"Interesting. Haven't heard that one before." He dug an oar into the water and pulled, the muscles of his chest and arms moving beneath the fabric of his hoodie.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

"Two years," he said.

"That's it?"

He nodded. "Yep."

I was suddenly curious, and against my better judgment, I asked him how he had gotten down here.

His face screwed up in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why are you in Hell and not..." I gestured vaguely upward. "Like, did you do something... bad?"

The boatman laughed. Despite his gruff appearance, he had a warm laugh. "No. I did something good. My sister had cancer and she was not doing good. She fell into a coma and everyone thought she was going to die, so we were just spending all of our time in the hospital, saying goodbye. And then this new doctor walked into the room and he pulled me out into the hallway and asked if I would do anything to save my little sis. I said hell yeah, and when he told me he was the Devil..." The boatman shrugged. "My family's religious. If he'd approached my mom, Carla'd be dead right now. But I wasn't afraid. I made the deal, and she woke up the next day cancer free. It was a miracle." He grinned. "I thought that I'd have more time with her, but I died in a motorcycle accident about a year later. But I don't regret it for a second. Sometimes, when I pick up people to take them to the Underworld, I get a good look at the shore, see if I've ended up back on the East River. And if I do, then I stare out at the lights over Brooklyn, and know that Carla's out there doing just fine."

The boatman pulled on the oar again, only this time, his body shifted, and for a split second, I saw him as something else: a corpse. His hoody was shredded, just scraps of fabric mixing in with the oozing blood on his chest, and his eyes were vacant, skull cracked open and spilling out...

"Gah!" I gasped, and the boatman laughed, suddenly back to normal.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to do that. It's happens sometimes when I lose focus. But you ought to get used to that down here. Some people like to wear their death forms around. Makes them feel more badass." He made a "pfft" sound between his teeth.

I nodded and tried to imagine bloody corpses wandering around me. I had been preparing myself for fire, demons, and the souls of dead murderers. Gore was something I hadn't fully factored in. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head and focus.

"Is it... bad down there?" I asked, my voice hardly above a whisper.

The boatman grinned, and I couldn't tell if it was kind or not. "You'll see, kid. You'll see."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, and soon the boatman guided us into a cave. There wasn't a cave on the Gilman Pond, which meant we must have already passed into Hell. It was funny how I hadn't really noticed the transition. I had expected to feel something, perhaps a prickling of my skin or a sinking feeling in my stomach. Instead, I felt nothing at all, save for the constant rush of anxiety buzzing through my veins.

As the cave swallowed us, darkness settled over everything. I had thought the night sky was black, but the cave was an even deeper shade that made my skin crawl. My heart pounded heavily in my ears. The only sound was of the boatman's paddle scooping the water, tinkling like unearthly music.

"We're almost here," he said, his voice echoing off the walls. I saw light in the distance, the flickering orange of fire, and took another breath.

After another minute and we had pulled up to a dock. The fire I had seen was coming from torches lighting up a narrow path through the cave.

The boatman steadied the canoe against the dock, and then nodded at me to climb out. I did, rather gracelessly as I clenched the teddy bear in my fist.

"Thanks," I said.

He nodded. "No problem. Just head down the path and you'll make your way out of the cave. To get to the Devil... well, you'll figure it out. Everyone eventually does." He grinned. "Good luck with your chat."

"Thanks," I said. I'll need it. And with a wave, I turned away from the water and walked down the narrow pathway.

The cave didn't go on for very long. Almost immediately I could make out light at the end of the tunnel.

"This is it," I murmured, unsure of what I would see. "You can do this..." I whispered to myself, heart pounding. "One step in front of the other..."

When I finally stepped out of the cave, I was blinded for a moment by harsh white light. I closed my eyes, feeling them burn, and squeezed the bear in pain. It took me a full minute to open my eyes—half in pain, half in fear—and as my eyes adjusted, I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

"What the hell," I murmured, looking around.

All around me, as far as the eyes could see, were rolling hills of grass—beautiful, luscious grass the warm color of honey. And the sky above me was even more beautiful, a pale lilac dotted with a few thin clouds that seemed to sparkle and dance in the sky. I had expected fire, brimstones, and demons. Instead, I was in a countryside paradise.

"Did you make it?" came a voice suddenly from beneath me.

"Ahh!" I cried, dropping the teddy bear.

"Ow," came a groan from near my feet.

Gathering my wits, I crouched over and peered at the stuffed animal "James?"

The bear wiggled its nose. "At your service."

I almost had a second heart attack. "You can move?"

"I think so..." The bear wiggled its nose again, then lifted a fluffy arm. "This thing didn't exactly come with instructions."

"Sorry for dropping you," I said, scooping him up into my arms. "You scared me."

"You scared me," the bear said, blinking its single eye. "Your pulse went way down and I wasn't sure if you had arrived in the Underworld."

"I'm not even sure if I've arrived," I said, looking around. "James, are you able to see all this?"

"Yes," the bear said, sweeping its head to take in the view. "Though my depth perception is terrible. Guess that's what I get with only one eye."

"Does this look right, though?" I said. "The hills, the sky... This is not what Hell is supposed to look like."

"How would you know what Hell is supposed to look like?" James asked. "You've never been here. And you know that the human stories never get things right."

"But Lana showed me an image of Hell," I insisted. "It was the day she told me who she was. There was darkness, and fire, and demons with their flesh falling off..." I shivered just thinking about it.

James' bear body gave a little shrug. "Maybe the vision wasn't real, just an image of what you thought Hell would be like to make a point. Or maybe the Hell you saw in the vision is just further in and we're just in an outer ring, like Dante suggested?"

I rolled my eyes. "You really know how to put a girl at ease."

"I'm sorry," James apologized. "Just trying to help."

I turned around, surveying the surroundings and trying to figure out where to go next. Besides the cave behind me, the only other thing in sight was a small white cottage in the distance. "Do you think we're supposed to go over there?"

"It's either that or back into the cave."

I nodded. "Cottage it is." And cradling James in my arms like—well, like a teddy bear—I started walking.