by Dawn Napier
The wall turned sharply to the right; this seemed to be a tunnel. Megan turned with the wall and started running. There seemed to be an upward incline here, and her hopes rose with the stone floor. This might be a way back to the surface, and once she was within sight of the "fireball" she would be safe.
She could still hear the trolls behind her. They muttered among themselves—they seemed to have no tone of voice above that of a low mutter—but they still kept back. Why did they not chase after her? They seemed to think that she would be a valuable offering to their "Beast Below," and yet they were letting her get away.
She found out soon enough.
There was a clatter, as though of tumbling pebbles. The clatter became a roar, then a series of earth-shaking thumps. Megan pressed her back against the cold wall of the tunnel. She tried to brace herself against it, though of course there would be no bracing herself for an avalanche. She would just be dead.
Then there was silence.
Megan slowly continued down the tunnel. No more than a dozen steps along, the floor made a sharp downward turn. This was not the way out at all.
Outsmarted by a child's creation, Megan thought. If I survive, no one can ever hear of this.
She turned back the way she had come, but she already knew what she would find. She still had to check, had to know. When she crashed into a pointy, jagged wall that hadn't been there before, she knew she was right. The way back was blocked with rubble. The trolls had locked her down here. There was no way back.
Megan put her right hand to the wall, took a deep breath, and went on down the tunnel.
Deeper and deeper into the depths of Mountain Steep. The air was thick and close, and she smelled sulfur. How far down did this tunnel extend? Were there any limits to the sort of subterranean world the trolls could create? There were trolls everywhere in Mountain Steep, Megan remembered, but there were none here. The trolls had herded her down this tunnel and blocked the exit. They had not taken her in person, though surely they could have caught her easily. Whatever the Beast Below was, the trolls feared it. Feared it and worshipped it, like early humans worshipping the sun that killed their crops.
And Megan was strolling blindly down to meet it.
Her heart thudded in her ears, and her stomach roiled. She felt hot and panicky all over, but she forced herself to take careful steps and keep her hand on the wall. Think about Paige. She still needed to find Paige. Jack was keeping her here somewhere in this imaginary world, and Megan would find her no matter how many monsters or Beasts got in her way. Megan had no doubt that Jack was at the bottom of all these distractions: the dogs, the wizards, the trolls. She would beat her way through all of them, she would face down Jack Benimble, and she would get her daughter back. That was how this story was meant to go.
Repeating this in her head like a mantra, Megan slowly walked down the empty tunnel to face the Beast Below.
Chapter Eight
Her bare feet slapped rhythmically against the cold stone. The wall at her fingertips was cool and dry, and the air smelled of snow and winter. Megan could still see nothing, but she was getting used to it. Her headache faded as her eyes gave up straining to see. She traveled blindly through the dark world, walking toward who knew what. Her heart beat loudly but steadily; she was afraid but not yet terrified. What would happen would happen.
Maybe I really am becoming a child again, she thought. Maybe this is what Jack meant. Kids are born blind and ignorant, and they have no choice but to just keep going and hope everything turns out okay. Usually it does.
But sometimes it didn't, as Megan and her sister had learned. The bad thing had been horrible, frightening and wrong, but the ripples it had sent through the family were almost worse. Bad enough when terrible things happened to a child for no reason. Worse when the people you counted on for support and protection wrinkled their noses and turned away.
I'm on my own now, she thought. Just like Debbie and I were.
Never mind. Think about Paige. She was all that mattered right now. Megan was doing this for Paige. Somehow she'd brought Jack Benimble into the real world, and he'd taken someone precious from her. This was her fault, her responsibility, and she would make it right.
That might mean staying here forever in her place, Megan thought. Her heart twinged as she thought of Brian and Jenna, who by now must be frantically wondering where she was. Had Brian told the police she was gone? If she never came back to explain herself to them, would she be charged with Paige's disappearance? If she could get Paige back, it wouldn't matter. Let them think what they wanted. If she had to go to jail for this, so be it. Brian would be a good father to the girls with or without her.
The air cooled further as she walked, and she shivered. The ground was steeper here, too; she felt like she was walking downhill. She hoped that she'd come to the Beast soon. She hated not knowing what would happen, what the Beast looked like. She had no idea what to expect, and not knowing was worse than fear.
To pass the time and soothe her jittering nerves, Megan sang a few nursery rhymes. It was stupid, but it was a trick she'd learned when Debbie had suffered from constant nightmares. "Don't sing, Megan, you sound awful and those are baby songs," she'd hissed, but Megan had persisted. She'd gone right on singing over Debbie's protests, and it had always worked. About a dozen repetitions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and Debbie would be out like a light.
Paige had always been partial to "Twinkle Twinkle," and Megan sang that one now. Then she sang Jenna's favorite, "Hush Little Baby." Jenna had been four when the girls came to them, but she'd loved being cuddled, rocked, and treated like an infant. Megan couldn't blame her. After all that she'd seen and experienced, who wouldn't want a do-over?
Megan went through her entire repertoire of lullabies and nursery rhymes, and when she got to the last one—"Six Little Ducks"—she thought that the quality of her voice was changing. It was the acoustics in the tunnel. When the wall under her fingers dropped away to the right, Megan knew right away what had happened. The tunnel had opened up into a cavern.
She stood still for several minutes, listening to the silence. The air was cold and still. There was not even the sound of water dripping, which a hundred movies and books had taught her was a basic requirement of spending time underground. If the Beast was here, she could not hear or sense it.
"Hello?" she called. "Is anyone here?" Stupid woman, she scolded herself. The Beast was most likely going to kill and eat her, and here she was calling out to it. But she couldn't help herself. She hated waiting. She hated not knowing what would happen next.
The darkness around her seemed to lighten. Megan still couldn’t see, but instead of blackness around her, smothering her like a cloak, the cave looked like a reddish smear. Megan blinked, and the cave lightened further. She could almost see around her now. But where was the light coming from?
She looked up, and there was some sort of opening in the ceiling. It was perfectly round and seemed to cut straight up through the rock like a tunnel. It was large enough for a creature the size of a horse to climb through, if horses could climb. Was it an express exit for the Beast? She wondered where it could be. She'd never read a story in which the sacrifice was given to a monster while it was out. Surely she wasn't meant to escape, just like that.
"Hello?" she said again. It was still dim in here; the light overhead was weak. But it appeared that the cavern was empty.
She walked around its perimeter. There were only two ways out of here: the tunnel through which she had come, and the tube overhead. Like the cone of a volcano, she thought, if there was no lava or magma or whatever that shit was called.
Where was the Beast?
The air was turning chilly, and a puff of vapor hissed out of her mouth as she sighed. There was no Beast. The trolls had lied, or they were mistaken. But she was still in a fix. She couldn't go back to that dark room where the trolls were waiting. How could she get out of here?
The blank stone walls gave her no
answer. Megan growled with frustration.
Her growl came out as a resounding snarl that echoed through the chamber. Her ears buzzed with the reverberation.
What the fuck was that?
Megan looked around. The chamber was still and silent as before. She looked down and saw nothing different. Dirty t-shirt, outdated mom jeans, her usual Megan Campbell self. Her hands were pale and damp, with ragged nails and chipped red polish. Nothing out of the ordinary.
She blinked, and for a second her hands looked rough and greenish. Her ragged nails were yellow and hooked into claws. She shook her head, and the image faded. Her hands were the same as ever.
She had to get out of here. She felt like she might be losing her mind.
There was no way she could go back the way she had come. The only way out was the tube going up.
It was a little brighter in here now. The sun must be approaching overhead. The tube looked bumpy and rough on the inside, and Megan thought she might be able to climb up, if she could reach it. The cavern was smooth and bare. But there were no rocks or rubble that she could use as a step. She would have to jump.
Her middle-aged brain groaned at the idea, but Megan shut it up. To get Paige back, she had to fall back down the rabbit hole. She had to become a child again; that was what Jack had told her. And children had no concept of what they could not to. As a child, she'd been able to jump off walls, fall out of trees, land on her feet, and keep on running. She could do this with her eyes closed.
To prove it, she closed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and envisioned herself at ten, jumping out of a treehouse when some neighborhood boys had thought it would be funny to knock down her makeshift ladder and throw it away. The physics were different this time, since she was jumping up instead of down, but the feeling was the same. She was going to fly.
Megan knelt down and put one hand on the cold floor. She kept that flying feeling in the front of her mind: that feeling of pure freedom as she launched her skinny, immortal body into space. She was a superhero, she was a sorceress, she was a dragon. She was whatever she wanted to be, and she could do whatever she wanted.
Then she jumped straight up.
There was an impression of wings. She even thought she heard a leathery flap. A cold breeze buffeted her face and hair. She opened her eyes and reached for the tube entrance, and once again she saw green fingers and yellow claws. Those claws dug into the rough stone, and she held on tight. She had made it.
The sun was peeping around the edge of the tunnel. The sight of that yellow orb made her feel fierce and wild. She scrambled up the tube with all four limbs, swarming up the side as nimbly as a rat.
Moments later, she was at the top of Mountain Steep. She spread her wings and roared with triumph. At last she was free. Megan launched herself into the brilliant blue sky. It was time to find a certain arrogant little pixie named Jack Benimble, and she was going to make him pay.
In the shadow of a high cliff, she saw the three trolls dancing in a circle. The dancing amused her. They actually thought that their stupid little rituals kept them safe from her. She blew a puff of fire at the cliff just above their heads. Chunks of stone and burning brush fell down, and the trolls screamed as they fled. The beard of one caught on fire. Megan laughed, and her booming roar echoed across the island. She hoped that the troll she'd set on fire was the one who had wanted to rape her.
She banked and flew across the brilliant blue ocean. There was Gillio, the evil wizard. There wasn't much to him; he was only around when someone needed a reason to run, scream, and feel afraid. Megan blew a wisp of flame and set his sails on fire. She grinned toothily at the sound of his screams. Gillio would be fine—it was impossible to kill an archetype—but he might need a new boat.
But where was Jack? He should be close by. He had taken Paige, and he had pulled Megan through the hole in the paper. Megan was going to get him, and she was going to make him give Paige back. She didn't think she'd have much trouble now.
Past the Island of Dogs (and it was still raining there for some reason, so Megan flew higher to avoid the clouds) was the mainland of Far Faraway. The Land of Sweets was here, and the Candy Witch, and the Ships to Take You Anywhere. The mainland was a colorful map spreading out below her. Paige would be here someplace, and Jack was probably with her.
What did Paige like? Megan thought hard. Paige liked candy, she liked horses, and she liked playing fantasy farm with her sister. Where would Jack take her first as a way to tempt her into staying forever?
Probably the Land of Sweets. Megan's eyes narrowed. How pathetic, bribing a child with candy. With a flick of her wings, she swooped down over the colorful little valley.
It looked exactly as her dreams and stories had imagined, and despite her current state of mind Megan was charmed. Apartment buildings made of cookies, houses covered in colorful frosting, and the cobbled paths were all peanut brittle. Megan swooped along the main drag, and to her left and right were little shops decorated with gumdrops and candy buttons. If it ever rained here, she thought, the resulting mud would taste like chocolate, and every winter it would snow sugar crystals.
There was nobody about on the streets. That was odd. In her stories, people in the Land of Sweets were happy, roly-poly folks who didn't worry about cavities or vitamins because the sweets here were actually good for you. Broccoli, however, was a deadly poison and against the law.
Megan landed on the peanut brittle street and folded her wings. There was nobody here at all. She listened, and the only sound she heard was the faint whistle of a light summer breeze.
Strange. And a little spooky. The Land of Sweets was a ghost town.
Megan decided to soothe her nerves by taking a bite of the landscape. Folks here didn't like the local kids chewing on their property, but Megan thought that a chunk off the edge of the peanut brittle road would probably go unnoticed. She slinked over to the side of the road, opened her jaws, and took a huge, crunchy bite.
The road crumbled between her jaws, and blood spurted out of the chocolate ground as though from an artery. Megan spat out the brittle and backed away. Hot, salty blood pooled in the street and streamed toward her claws. She spread her wings and scrambled backwards, too confused to even wonder what had happened. She just wanted to get away.
Her tail swung around and smashed into the gingerbread wall of a nearby shop. The wall crumbled, and blood oozed out of the gap. It trickled down to the street and joined the pool of blood that kept moving and reaching for her. Megan let out a horrified hiss; somehow, she was unable to scream, and this added to her fear. She ran away down the peanut brittle road, but wherever her claws touched, chunks of road flew up, and blood pooled in the potholes.
God damn it, Jack! What the hell did you do?
She spread her wings and launched herself into the sky. No more fucking around. This was the final straw. She was going to find that little fucker, and she was going to scorch the head right off his body. How dare he turn her harmless little dream land into this bleeding horror? How dare he!
The Land of Sweets was behind her. Jack wouldn't be down there, she knew now. He'd turned the place into a nasty trap and then left. But he would be close by. He would want to hide somewhere and watch her reaction. Nothing like a good practical joke.
Megan flew over the Evergreen Forest. The brilliance of the forest was almost like a living thing. Every tree was as bright as the brightest green in a child's crayon box. Traces of red, gold, and silver could also be seen here and there; many of the trees growing in the Evergreen Forest grew their own tinsel for Christmas. But Megan wasn't here to sightsee. She was here to find a lying, cheating, kidnapping little bastard and teach him a thing or two about mortality.
And holy shit, there he was. Perched at the tip-top of the tallest tree, swaying in the breeze like a colorful bit of laundry. He saw her coming but made no attempt to flee. He probably knew it was useless.
Megan roared. Her belly felt as though she'd eaten a whole batc
h of jalapeños. The heat was creeping up her throat, but it didn't hurt. It felt sort of good.
Jack Benimble stood on a branch, holding the slender trunk with one hand. His other hand was outstretched, as though he meant to slap a high five. Megan's mouth opened. She could chomp him in half without slowing down.
But somehow that didn't happen. He twitched at the last second, and both her teeth and claws missed him entirely. Megan gnashed her teeth and turned around for another pass.
"Get us out of here," he murmured in her ear.
Megan hissed and tried to claw him off her neck, but somehow she couldn't touch him. She felt his light weight pressing on her back, but when she struck at him, he managed to shift just out of reach. She shook her head, but he held on fast. She dared not attempt to buck him off; she could fall out of the sky and break a wing.
"I'm not your enemy," he said. "Just get us out of here so I can explain. Take us to the Island of Dogs."
"Yuck." It was hard to talk with so many teeth cluttering up her jaws. Megan felt like she was speaking around a mouthful of marbles. "It's raining there, and the dogs are feral."
"That's why it's the safest place. She won't think to look for us there."
Megan was suspicious, but something in Jack Benimble's tone had caught her attention. He wasn't teasing or mocking her at all. He actually sounded sincere, almost like he needed her help. Then again, bullshit artists always sounded the most sincere when they were preparing to screw you over in a big way. But Megan decided to play along for now. She could always bite his head off later.
She circled back around over the Evergreen Forest, over the bleeding, dying Land of Sweets, and back out over the ocean.
Chapter Nine
The breeze over the ocean was unpleasantly chilly. The sun was warm, and it beat down on her wings and back like a blanket. But the breeze she rode was cold as a river. It felt like an icy draft in an otherwise warm house, the sort of draft that tickled and teased and was impossible to track down.
