by Holly Hook
"Brie?"
He was alive. Stilt was still alive. I stood on my toes and peeked into the first door, then the next.
And I found him.
He was lying on his back on a disgusting floor way worse than my dungeon. Stilt panted, and his shirt had spots of blood. He managed to lift his head. "Brie."
"I'm sorry," I said. "We're going to get you out. Henrik is gone. He's never going to come back. He's in the underworld now."
"Hurry," he begged. "I think the magic mirror could be in Henrik's throne room now, but if Alric figures this out, we'll never get there. You have to get me out. Henrik threw me in here and told me all about his plan to make you think he was me. He said he was going to leave me in here to rot."
"Can you use magic to get out?" We had nothing to break him out.
"I'm too weak. Find something."
I had dropped the ax. That would have worked. There had to be something.
"Let me go and look," the cook said and ran back towards the treasure room.
While he was gone, I talked to Stilt. Told him this would all be okay and we could use the mirror to at least go back to the lighter region. I couldn't stop the tears from blurring my vision. Stilt couldn't even sit up. We needed to get him help. Water, at least. At last, the cook returned with the ax. It had taken him a while to find it, and it was a miracle he'd been able to pick it out in all the gold of the room.
The cook cut the door down and sweat beaded on his forehead by the time he finished. We carried Stilt out, and he managed to stand after a minute or so. His shirt had torn, and fresh whip marks formed angry lines on his skin. He needed something for that. I wondered if elves could take medicine.
Should I even go back to the other world?
What did I have there?
I let Stilt wrap his arm around me, and the other around Sylvia. "You don't need to do anything for me," I told him. "We have this covered."
"That's good," Stilt said. "I don't like doing that to you." He glanced at me. His eyes were still dark, but there was nothing smoldering inside of them. Nothing red and evil. His fingernails were a bit longer, but not as bad as the fake Stilt's. We could reverse this. We only needed to go back to the lighter region and get him a healer, or something.
I asked Sylvia where the throne room was. We headed back upstairs and down another couple of halls, each one more extensive and ornate than the last. Finally, we came to a set of double doors. One was cracked.
I opened it.
And stepped into the most lavish throne room I could imagine.
The carpet was blood red. Huge torches blazed on the walls, and two burned on either side of a golden throne, one large enough for five people. An empty dinner platter sat in front of the throne, with crumbs waiting to be cleaned up. Henrik had been eating right before he'd planted himself in that cell to trick me. He thought he would win my vows. Maybe he even allowed Stilt and I to meet the first two nights, all to build up to the moment.
And hanging on the wall next to the throne was a long mirror.
"That's the one," Stilt said. "I used that to take you to the other world so many years ago. He moved it in here after that. You can go back there now."
I thought of Hardy, hounding me to come back. He'd ditch me as soon as he figured out I'd gotten rid of my curse.
And my parents--they'd be furious. They'd have no room for me anymore.
I looked at Stilt. He flashed me a sad smile. "You can go if you want. You can have a normal life there. Neither one of us can spin gold now. We can escape our stories now for at least this lifetime." Even though he'd spent three days in the dark region, his eyes still held a trace of that bright blue. The struggle remained, worse than ever.
"Screw that," I told him. "I'm going to the light region with you."
"You...but I..." Stilt sputtered.
"You heard me," I said. "I'm not going back. Besides, King Franz is imprisoned at the moment. None of us knows where he is. Until someone rescues him--and someone will--you don't have to keep your promise to him."
Stilt smiled. "You're right."
There he was. The one I knew.
I pulled his face to mine. His lips brushed mine, leaving a warm flush spreading through my face. I was able to ignore the growing cold energy inside, an energy which, in just a few days, would be gone.
"Come on!" Sylvia shouted. She and the others were over by the mirror, which rippled with magic. On the other side, I spotted blurry sunlight, green trees and even a low house which promised safety. The lighter region.
I took Stilt's weary hand and led him to the other side of the room, just as I heard an indistinct shout from none other than Alric.
"Time to go," Stilt said.
We ran for the mirror. The cook jumped through, hand in hand with Lavine, and Sylvia followed. I tightened my grip on Stilt's hand, held my breath, and jumped through.
Chapter One
“Close your eyes, Red.”
I did. Tate drew closer behind me, his shoes crunching on the leaves in my grandmother’s garden. His breath blew against my ear. My heart thudded with anticipation. Tate wrapped his arms around me from behind, pulling me into a hug. His leather jacket squeaked as he tightened his grip.
“Don’t open them yet. Okay…now!”
I opened my eyes to the sunlight. The red of the last flowers of the season popped along with what Tate held. I blinked, trying to make it out.
Tate had his hands in front of me, cupped together. He held a couple of small pieces of paper. Mickey Mouse bookmarks. No. They were--
“You got me—“
“Two tickets to Disney World,” Tate finished. He kissed me on the cheek. His leather hat cast me in shadow for a moment and then the sun returned.
“You what?”
“You don’t believe what’s sitting in front of you?” he asked. “Look closer.” He brought his hands up almost to my face, and I had to recoil a bit. "Everything's going to be paid for."
It was the real deal, all right. The tickets shone in the sun.
“Tate—this is expensive!” My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe the sight in his hands. I knew Tate’s family had money, but I couldn’t think that his parents had let him get away with this.
“It’s okay. Really. I know you’ve always hated that your grandmother never let you go. I figured this would be a nice surprise for our first year anniversary of being together.”
I was breathless. Tate loosened his grip, and I took one of the tickets and turned it over. I’d given up the whole idea of going to Disney World back in the third grade when my grandmother insisted that neither one of us would ever set foot in the park. The rides weren’t safe, she told me. You could die on those trips, and she would worry about me the whole time we were there. Grandma was always fine with me riding the Tilt-a-Whirl and the other creaky contraptions at the town fair, however. I'd brought up this point to her a million times, but her answer never changed.
My grandmother made about as much sense as politics. You could never guess what would make her say yes or no to something.
Tate waited for me to say something. I listened to make sure Grandma wasn’t pulling into the front driveway, which I couldn’t see from the backyard. Check. She’d return from her computer literacy class any minute. Tate shifted leg to leg. We both knew that going on this trip behind her back was dangerous. If Grandma found out about our plan, she'd flip.
And when she flipped, it was scary.
"Tate, thank you,” I said. "You don't know what this means to me. I've wanted to go since I was five." Then the rest started to invade my thoughts. “This is awesome. I never thought we would ever do anything like this. But Grandma…"
Grandma.
“I knew you’d love this,” Tate said. He grinned. “Hey. It's time to do something awesome.”
The tension settled into my gut. “What are we going to do as a cover story? It's not going to be easy to explain to Grandma why we're taking off for several days." Her vow that we'd neve
r set foot in Disney World would still stand. We'd have to lie about where we were going.
Tate grinned. He leaned back against the railing of the gazebo and fished around in his pocket for something. My boyfriend didn't look like the kind of guy that would want to stroll around Disney World with his leather steampunk hat and jacket. He was a go-to-fan-conventions kind of guy. I so, so couldn't believe that he was doing this for me. "I've got our departure story covered. Don't worry. I've been thinking about this for days. This place is where your grandmother will think we're going when we take off next month."
He pulled out a paper and handed it to me. I studied it.
"Is this a fake permission slip?" I asked. "Oh--to Washington DC." It even had our school's seal on it. “You photoshopped this.”
“Yes. It wasn’t that hard.” Last year, he managed to put Melissa Ellington's face on Bigfoot after she told everyone I was dating fifteen guys. It was great. "This will cover the story about us leaving, at least."
"But Washington DC has a high crime rate," I told Tate. "Grandma will say something about how I shouldn't go because of that. If she doesn't sign this slip, we have no cover story."
The color drained out of Tate's face. Uh, oh. "Well, she's unpredictable," he said. "I'm banking on that. You know how she never makes any sense. She's scared to let you trick-or-treat, but she let you jump off the diving board of my pool during my birthday party when you were nine." Tate hadn't thought about the crime rate problem.
My palms tingled with nerves. I hoped Tate was right. But I had never found any patterns behind Grandma's answers.
Well, the no's were all stupid and had ruined everything that other people got to enjoy. I'd never been trick-or-treating. I'd never gotten to go on the camping field trip in the fifth grade with the other kids. But riding on Tate's brother's dirt bike last summer? That had been fine even though Tate's brother had scars from it. So was hanging out here with Tate when she was gone. Grandma had never thrown a fit over that, either.
"Maybe," I told Tate. "I hope this works. I don't want you to have to refund the tickets." I swallowed. "Or to have to make her mad." I bemoaned the fact that I couldn't find the strength to be more rebellious. I never had. The thought of going against Grandma made fear clutch at my heart, even though she'd never been abusive. Just overbearing. And weird.
And then I heard the familiar car turning into the driveway, including the squeaky wheel that she'd been freaking out over the last week. I could see through the back sliding door all the way to the front window. On the other side, Grandma got out of the car, her eco-friendly reusable shopping bag in hand. It bulged with groceries.
My heart leaped. Tate swore. “Put on your best poker face,” he said. He made a show of molding his expression into a neutral one. “How’s this?”
“Great,” I said.
I crammed the Disney World tickets in my pocket and held onto the fake permission slip. I had no idea what my chances were of Grandma signing this so we could have a cover story for our absence. Washington DC was a trip where you went with your whole class and did safe things like visiting the Lincoln Memorial.
But the crime. Grandma would say something about the danger and order me to throw the permission slip away.
If this didn’t work, we’d have no cover story. Tate would be refunding the tickets, and his plans would be for nothing.
The front door opened, then closed. A pink blur moved behind the glass of the sliding door and headed to the kitchen.
"Red--where are you? And what is this on the porch?" I could hear her through the glass. There were too many windows in this house. Grandma and I lived in a modern home where the windows were huge, and there was so much transparency. I hated it.
I stepped into the back sliding door and left the garden behind, swallowing. Tate came in behind me. I shouldn't have to feel like this about a simple trip. "Porch?" I asked.
"Yes. What did I tell you about pumpkins?" A grocery bag rustled, and I stepped into the kitchen.
Grandma stood there, still in her pink athletic leggings from going to the gym. She wore her striped yellow and white shirt today, one she really should be wearing for summer only. She pulled a package of kale out of the grocery bag, followed by spinach and something in a plastic bag that might be seaweed, which she insisted we eat as a snack. No hamburger. No bacon. No meat. I only got that if I visited Tate's house or an occasional pepperoni at school. Until then, we ate like rabbits. Grandma hated animal flesh and vowed never to eat it.
"It's almost Halloween," I told her. "That's what people do. They buy pumpkins and carve them." I grabbed onto the counter. I had to get on her good side. "You know, pumpkin seeds are supposed to be good for you. I thought it would be cool to bake us some this year." The tickets poked into my thigh.
Grandma's ponytail bobbed as she faced me. She looked young for a woman in her sixties. Healthy. I had to appeal to that.
"I don't like pumpkins," she said at last. "You need to give it to Tate or something. He can take it home. All pumpkins do is ask to be taken off your porch and smashed on the street."
It was another weird Grandma thing that made no sense. I shot Tate a look. I was sick of this narrow, tiny world of glass and gardens and veggies she forced me to inhabit. But I also knew that arguing would be pointless and besides, we had a more important thing to worry about right now.
"Tate can have the pumpkin," I said, caving and hating it. "I bought it for him, anyway." It was a lie. I'd hoped to carve it next week.
"Good," Grandma said. She let her shoulders sag, almost like she was relieved. "Can you get some water boiling on the stove?"
I did. I swallowed as I watched the bubbles form inside. The fire from the gas stove leaped a bit as it caught on some moisture, then calmed again. I could do this. "I've got a permission slip from school."
"For what?" Grandma's gaze got intense as she waited for the explanation.
"Just a field trip. Washington DC. You know, the one almost everyone goes on."
"Let me see." She held out her hand, demanding inspection.
Grandma took the slip from me and studied it for a long time. I watched her eyes dart side to side as she carefully read each line. About the included hotel. About the day-long bus ride there and our food. She turned it over again and again and felt the paper, then ran her finger over the high school's seal. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. She would see the deception for sure. It was obvious.
"It's two grand for this trip," she said at last. It was almost nope. "I need to get the car fixed, and I'm afraid--"
Tate jumped in. "My parents offered to pay for both Red and me if you couldn't. They can be cool sometimes even if they don't let me play my music loud all the time."
"Really?" She faced him. "It's quite a sum of money."
Tate tipped his leather hat at her. "I'm a huge steampunk fan. Fully decked out. People without a lot of money can't even think of affording this. Haven't you seen my parents' house?"
It was strange of Tate. He loved his leather hats and coats, but he didn't like talking about his parents' mansion or the fact that his dad was the CEO of a toilet paper company. It attracted too many people who wanted a piece of that money. And a dive in his pool. And access to his parents' exotic alcohol cabinet. Tate had gotten sick of it over the years and only invited me to his house lately.
Grandma wrinkled her nose at him. "It's two thousand dollars, Tate. I make barely more than that per month."
He nodded at me, then faced her again. He'd prepared for this argument. "Everyone needs to wipe their butt. It's why my dad's rich. And why he doesn't care that he's paying for Red and me to go on this trip. He's always liked Red."
Grandma studied the permission slip again. "If I sign this, I expect the two of you to call me every night. Every single night."
"We will," I said, trying not to smile.
"And Red, you need to stay close to Tate at all times," she reminded me as if it was an afterthought. "This is not a
safe city you are going to. But I do not want the two of you sharing a hotel room."
"Got it," Tate said. A bit of redness rushed into his cheeks. "They're going to have all the girls stay together. And chaperones." He was lying here and not doing a good job of it. There would be no chaperones where we were going.
But Grandma didn't notice. She reached for her pen. “I will sign your slip. But remember the things I told you."
I couldn't believe it. Disney World was too dangerous, but DC was a safe place full of unicorns and flowers. Well, not really, but this still didn't make any sense. I about exploded with relief. Tate and I were getting away for a few days, and I even had an excuse to cover it. I just hoped that she didn’t want to see pictures when we got back. Wait a minute. We had the Internet for that. We could find some. Tate could Photoshop us in and Grandma, who could barely tell a mouse from a keyboard, would have no idea.
Wow, this was going to be a lot of work.
Grandma and I went to work boiling some pasta for ourselves and Tate. I itched to get away and plan how we were going to get away with this clean. How we were going to have her convinced that we'd gone to the Washington Monument instead of the Magic Kingdom. We might have to Photoshop in our entire class. Our teachers. The three of us ate dinner together, and at last, Grandma filled herself a glass of water and made her way to her bedroom. “I’m getting one of my headaches. Would you be so kind as to keep the noise down while I take a nap?"
“Sure,” I told her. “Headaches are loads of fun. Go ahead and lie down.” I could feel my head beginning to pound. We always tended to get our headaches at the same time. Grandma insisted it had something to do with weather changes. Heredity was great.
Grandma rubbed her temples as she made her way down the hall. She walked to her bedroom and closed the door most of the way. I heard her flop down on her bed and stay there. She groaned. It was the sign of a migraine coming on, and I felt awful about making her worry.
“Is she OK?” Tate asked.
“She will be,” I said, trying to shake off the guilt. “She gets migraines. You’re lucky guys don’t get them very often.” My headache worsened, and I'd have to lie down myself pretty soon. It was the family gift. Mount Migraine erupted for us both about once a month. I wondered if my parents ever got them, too, but I'd never met them. Grandma always told me they'd run off when I was a baby, and she hadn't been able to track her son down ever since.
