Rose gazed out in awe. “It’s … amazing.”
“Funny,” Coram said. “They’re going to think the same thing about you.”
Rose’s face grew three shades brighter, and she instantly pulled her body inward as if to hide. She tried not to smile though her lips yearned to, and in a voice that could fit under her nails, she said, “They … they don’t even know me.”
Coram craned his head and found her downcast eyes. “But they know why you’re here.”
Just as Rose was about to say she didn’t even know why she was here, a horn blared from within Lamarka, and seconds later, nearly every door and window opened, the population beginning to pour out of their homes, thousands upon thousands of creatures shaking the ground with their eager footsteps.
Just yards from the city’s entrance—a huge stone archway carved with the words Hessop’s Gate—Coram turned to Rose and squeezed her hand. “Are you ready?” he asked.
No. You’re not ready. Not at all. “Coram,” she asked, “what’s this all about?”
“Just … just try to enjoy it,” he said, only this time it was he who was unable to make eye contact with her.
The moment she entered the city, on a stone path that seemed to grow beneath her feet, Rose began to hear a chant. It started out low, but soon grew to an arena-like pitch, and she realized they were screaming her name. No … way … She wanted to hide. She wanted to dig a hole right then and there, curl into a ball, and disappear. Each chant vibrated through her body, rattling her chest and bones. It shook her weak. Her stomach roiled, edging her closer and closer to sickness. The eyes upon her were like a thousand suns burning her body. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She wished her brother were beside her.
But Hyacinth wasn’t there, and she couldn’t hide. She had to face the crowd’s attention. And when she did, a very strange thing happened. With every second of boisterous applause that followed, every stamp of their feet and bat of their wings, her little heart began to swell. Even the trees seemed to be crying out for her, the grass, the rocks, the leaves. They loved her. It was genuine. And what began as a nightmare suddenly became a dream, and she couldn’t help but radiate like a sun. For these few minutes, she was nothing but pure, positive energy. An unfamiliar smile stretched like a canyon across her face. It was like she was someone else.
Don’t get all high on yourself, Rose, she thought, refusing to be lured into another pit of disappointment. That’s exactly what they think—that you’re someone else.
All the strangest creatures she had ever seen cluttered the streets, waving and shouting for her—people floating with wings, people floating without wings; people with two faces, people with animal-like bodies that alternated color with each blink of an eye, people made of glass, people in cloaks. If they can even be called people, she thought. There were red creatures and blue creatures, people of copper, people of silver—though none were gold like Coram. They all pushed their way toward her, and the Willapps had to form a barricade, their branches like a fence, keeping Rose safe. All of Lamarka, it seemed, adored her, and for once, Rose didn’t want the attention to waver.
Strange music played, something like a natural symphony, as if the earth had taken up its own instruments. Rainbows of flower petals fell from on high, children sat in trees hoping for a better view, and there were even people openly weeping, some whose tears floated upward instead of down.
“I can’t believe this,” Rose said in a hushed and awed tone, unaware that she was leaning toward Coram, her head practically resting on his shoulder.
“Your kind rarely does.”
She looked at him quizzically. “You mean, other humans have been here?”
Coram didn’t respond, and at the moment, Rose didn’t care; she was so in awe of what she was witnessing. She knew nothing like Lamarka should exist, but she was so overwhelmingly happy it did. If back home were like this, she thought, she would have never wanted to leave.
A group of robed figures stood ominously in a line along a bamboo bridge. Unlike everyone else, not one of them moved or made a sound, and in the darkness of their hoods were the faces of worms, thick brown tubes with black holes in the middle that peered out like periscopes. Coram quickly guided Rose away from them, a shiver down his spine, and toward the center of the city. There, surrounded by flowers taller than she was, loomed a tree so large it shaded nearly every street and alley, and it pulsed with a yellow glow like the city’s own star.
Rose was mesmerized by it all, but her gaze was abruptly broken when she was swarmed by the masses. All at once, they came at her. The Willapps were stampeded, most of them pushed back as if by a wave, their branches snapping, except for Ridge, who stood his ground as if taking root. But even he was not enough to keep the crowds at bay. Everyone was reaching for her now. They wanted to touch her hair, her skin. They pulled at her, tugging madly at her arms and clothes.
Ridge tried to keep them all back, but it was no use—the mob began climbing him, weighing him down. He kept yelling, “I don’t want to hurt you! Don’t make me hurt you!” Coram grabbed Rose in his arms, shielding her with his body. The crowd battered his back and Rose cowered, suddenly quite afraid.
“She’s beautiful,” someone said, the words squeezing Rose’s heart in a pleasurably painful way. “Like I imagined she would be!”
“So unique! One of a kind,” someone agreed.
“Our dark days are coming to an end!” another cried.
“You’re here! You’re finally here! We’ve waited so long!”
It was strange, the feelings that enveloped her now. There was tremendous fear, for sure, but it was balanced by something she didn’t quite expect: exhilaration. “What are they talking about?” she asked Coram through all the madness. “Why are they so happy to see me? I don’t understand what’s going on! Please, tell me!”
Coram looked at her, slightly confused. “Why, you’re going to save their world, of course.” Then, with a surprising burst of strength, he plowed through the crowd toward the center of Lamarka. He held Rose by the hand, leading her, but she struggled to keep up. She was still trying to process what he had just told her. It was difficult to even find the words. “I … I am?” she said, stammering.
Coram brought her to the city center and pulled her atop a huge platform that extended from the base of the massive tree. From where she was now standing, she could see back in the direction from where they had come, at the darkness she had peered at earlier. Beyond the woods from which they had emerged, the sky was blacker than night and she knew it was the sky of a dying world. It was still very far away, but even so, she could tell there was nothing living beneath it, and that the evil was spreading.
Suddenly, the ramifications of her arrival in Eppersett began to take hold, and a harrowing chill danced across her body. She was no hero. “I … I think you have the wrong person, Coram. I can barely take care of myself. How … how am I supposed to save anyone else, let alone an entire world?”
“I thought you knew,” he said, grabbing hold of her arm, far tighter than he had back near the mob. “Rose Coffin, you’re going to save them by sacrificing yourself to the Abomination.”
Whipped up in an ecstatic frenzy, the populace of Lamarka gathered around the platform in the city center, and as they squeezed in by the thousands, the streets rumbled with their presence. Rose felt it in her knees. She could hardly stand, the platform a sea beneath her feet.
“They … they want me to … die?” The words stumbled out of their own volition. She had little control over anything right now, including the compression of her chest and the weakness in her bones. It seemed she didn’t even have control over whether she lived or died.
“No,” Coram said, supporting her weight. “They want you to save them.”
“By dying!”
Coram looked away, an extra-long breath escaping his lips.
“Why me?” It didn’t feel like a sacrifice to her; it felt like an execution. “W
hy do I have to be the one to …” She couldn’t even say it. “To … to do it?”
Coram answered her simply. “Because it’s your turn.”
There was a finality to these words that iced Rose’s being. She could have been six feet under already. Adamantly, she shook herself free of his arms and glared hard at his dark eyes. “My turn? What’s that even mean? I didn’t choose this! I didn’t even want to come here!”
“Are you sure?”
Rose paused, her head recoiling. What does he mean by that? “Well, I’m not doing it. I’m not dying for anyone. Find someone else.”
“Only someone from your world can be sacrificed to the Abomination. If there was another way, we would do it. I swear. But only human blood quells the beast. Once the Abomination receives such an offering, it will sleep for a decade, bringing us peace once again.”
“But … you said it yourself, my death won’t even stop the thing. It’ll only come back.”
“And then we’ll do it again. It’s the best we can do. It’s all we can do. The Abomination can’t be killed. Not with the magic we have.”
Rose shoved him. Her strength surprised her—he went stumbling back several feet, a hand on his chest as if it hurt. For a moment, Coram looked confused, as if he were trying to figure something out. His eyes warily glanced over the crowd, which had collectively gasped, then turned back to Rose.
“Well, I’m not dying,” Rose told him. “Not for you, not for them, not for anyone!”
He stepped forward, a little more hesitantly this time. “Don’t you want to be a hero, Rose? Look how they adore you.”
She didn’t even turn her head. She didn’t want to think of the eyes on her or how vulnerable she was in this moment. “I don’t care.”
“That didn’t seem to be the case when you first saw them.”
A sharp pain ripped through her stomach, like her insides were snared and pulled out, exposing her for what she truly was. “I … I …” With a rising fury, she forced the feeling aside. “I didn’t know they wanted me dead! I thought this place was different. I thought you were different.” She exploded into tears.
“Rose …” He reached for her hands, but she swatted them away, and Coram flinched as if she wielded a sword.
“I was wrong about you. About it all. Turns out it doesn’t matter where I am, people are the same everywhere.”
Coram tried to speak, but nothing came out. His eyes dropped to the floor, his body sagging. It seemed as if he were in great pain.
Oh, don’t fall for that, Rose. Not one bit of it. He’s as evil as the rest of them. Eyes darting, she searched for a way out of this mess. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she was rotating on the platform or if her world was spinning. Either way, it was clear she was surrounded, the crowd deep and tight on all sides. There was no escaping.
“We need you,” Coram said. “Your sacrifice will save millions.”
“There … there has to be another way.” Her voice was distant, feeble, her strength drained.
The deafening chants of the crowd continued to fill her ears. She felt consumed by them, eaten. How quickly it all changed. Her mind was hazy, her body weak. Something wasn’t right. Coram moved fast, seizing her by the wrist, his eyes somehow darkening even more. “You will be sacrificed, Rose. You can either accept your destiny like a hero or be dragged to it like a coward.”
Horns blasted and through it all Rose’s head continued to spin. Drained, she collapsed hard onto the platform. On her hands and knees, attempting to grasp the insanity that had become her life, she followed the sounds and watched as the crowd parted. Something told her there was no way she was getting out of this now. Every passing second was another shovel digging her grave.
Three figures approached the platform, side by side. One looked like a human from the shoulders up, but with an extremely long torso that, a foot above the ground, bent back at almost a ninety-degree angle, with six small legs carrying it forward. It had eight very short arms and a head with drooping red antennae. If she ran, Rose imagined the creature chasing her down, crawling on the ground like a centipede. Beside him—Rose believed it was a him—was a bowling ball of a figure. Nearly completely round, with two large feet and hands protruding and hardly any arms or legs at all, he waddled through the crowd. The smile across his otherwise-featureless face was nearly as wide as he was, with large, perfectly square teeth. Together, he and the centipede fellow were a walking number ten. The third of the group was a female covered in green scales. She had a tail like a dragon, though, similar to the others, her face was human in appearance. She wore a band around her head that was covered in sharp fangs that matched her own.
As they made their way up the platform stairs—the round one bouncing up each step—a hush fell over the crowd. Rose was still on her hands and knees, though now her jaw had joined them on the floor. Look at them, she thought. This is good news. Great news! You’re not going to die because this can’t possibly be real.
The dragon woman eyed Rose on the floor before her and, in a reptilian voice, said, “No, sweet sacrifice, we should be bowing to you.” And the crowd cheered at this, all of them falling to their knees.
The only way Rose kept from crying more was to laugh. Ridiculous, she thought. This is so ridiculously absurd.
When the crowd was back on their feet again—Coram helping Rose to rise—the dragon woman continued, addressing everyone. “On behalf of our fearless queen and her long-suffering son—our future king—the great city of Lamarka is proud to have been given the opportunity to offer the sacrifice to the Abomination, bringing us ten years of peace!”
Wild applause. Joyous shouts. Total exuberance. The crowd must have been so desperate for an answer to their troubles for so very long that the cheers lasted nearly ten minutes, until the dragon woman finally raised her hands to silence them.
“The journey to the Abomination is a long and arduous one, with many threats along the way. The sacrifice cannot make it alone. She must be protected, and it is the duty of the citizens of our city to do so. Who of you will risk your lives as the Order of the Sacrifice?”
Immediately, Coram raised his sword into the air, and the dragon woman nodded to him, the crowd applauding with tremendous enthusiasm. “Of course,” she said. “Coram Sepsix, our bravest warrior. I never suspected any less.” Gazing out to the crowd, she asked, “Who will join him on this quest?”
“Where the boy goes, I go!”
Rose followed the familiar voice and spotted Ridge making his way through the crowd, many of his branches broken or snapped off, some still dangling, the birds clearly irritated. Still, he was beaming his usual smile as if this was all a game. He joined them on the platform, slapping Coram hard on the back. Leaning into Rose, he said, “I’ll make sure the Abomination gets you alive, dear girl! Don’t you worry about that! You’ll be breathing full and wide awake when it puts you in its giant maw!” Rose shot him a look of utter disbelief and contempt, and the big tree guffawed. “I will! I promise!”
Clearly pleased, the dragon woman folded her hands. “Any others?” she asked. “There must be more brave souls out there.”
The crowd looked nervous, as if they might be called on for such a mission. As much as they yearned for peace, none of them wanted to risk their lives to achieve it. There was a long and deep silence before a sharp howl cut through the air. Nightmarish and cold, the sound chilled Rose to the bone. She imagined it could only be a product of something incredibly evil, and she had no desire to find out what it was. Yet, to her surprise, what she saw coming through the crowd was hardly menacing at all. It was a large doglike creature with short brown-and-black fur and clear and playful eyes. The animal with the sweet face shambled forward, standing a good four feet tall—if it stood on its hind legs it would be taller than most humans—and while its tail was slightly longer than a dog’s and its teeth slightly sharper, its nose was massive, sitting on the end of a long snout like a beehive on a branch.
There was something in the animal’s mouth too—a rope or leash—and Rose quickly realized that this creature wasn’t the one that howled. It was pulling forth another of its kind. As she heard a second howl, Rose braced herself, her body heavy with dread. The second beast was nearly twice the size of the first. It strode through the crowd like a king, its head held high, lips caught in a snarl. It was mostly white, the fur all ragged with many scars. There was a slight limp, and an ear was missing, but there was no mistaking the beast’s majesty. It was very old and, staring at its white eyes, Rose realized it was also very blind. The first animal led the other to the stairs and, together, they made their way onto the platform, each as different as night and day.
When they reached the dragon woman, the blind one spoke in a terrible and cold voice. “I will ensure this mission’s success. You have my word, Bethesda.”
The dragon woman nodded. “The great warrior Deedubs, we cannot thank you enough. You and your son.”
“Eo is just a guide,” Deedubs sneered. “Good for nothing more.”
Rose watched as the lead animal’s eyes dropped, his head sinking. She also caught Ridge shifting away from the feared beast as it approached.
Another minute passed and no one else was stepping forward. Glancing to her left, Rose didn’t think it was much of a group—maybe she could even find a way to escape them at some point. They had to sleep, didn’t they?
“Is that all?” Bethesda, the dragon woman, asked the crowd. “Is there no one else?”
“I will join them!”
Everyone turned their heads in the direction of the voice, including Rose. She could tell someone was trying to elbow their way through the masses, but the people refused to budge. Whoever it was, they didn’t garner the same respect Deedubs did. Not even close. They didn’t want this person anywhere near the platform.
Rose Coffin Page 3
