by Carrie Jones
SalGoud took Bloom’s flashlight and moved it quickly, back and forth across the closest winged snakes. They were hissing and baring their fangs. It looked like the remains of a ripped-apart shirt was scattered among them. “Yes.”
“And they haven’t because?” Annie asked.
“Too many? The flashlight? They like to scare their prey first? There’s a lot of reasons,” Bloom said.
“And none of them good.” Johann stopped dancing. “What say you? We just start killing them?”
“They haven’t actually hurt us yet. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ ” SalGoud misquoted nervously, “ ‘for they shall inherit the earth.’ ”
“Unless they die first,” Eva grumbled.
“Yes, there’s that,” SalGoud agreed and kept moving the flashlight back and forth even as one of the winged snakes slithered behind them, unnoticed.
“And what about Jamie? Do you think he’ll come through the wall, too?” Annie asked, turning around to look. The mirrors stayed solid. “How did that even happen? A giant vacuum?”
“Magic,” Eva said. “Duh.”
Sometimes Annie really wished Eva wouldn’t answer questions. She pressed her hands against the mirror, searching for a trapdoor or something, but the surface was so smooth and the room was so dark except for where SalGoud shone his light. “SalGoud, could you swing the light over here? Maybe there’s some sort of way out.”
“It’s a prison room. There ain’t going to be a way out.” Eva hauled her ax up out of the floor.
“Maybe you could hack a hole through the floor,” Annie suggested, trying not to be annoyed.
“Maybe I could hack one through your head,” Eva countered, which was mean even for Eva.
“Is anyone else feeling—irritable?” Bloom asked. “I mean, Eva’s always cranky, but are you feeling crankier than normal, Eva?”
“Of course, I’m feeling crankier. We’re trapped in a freaking mirror room. You probably love it, Mr. Pretty Pants Elf, but the rest of us don’t need to be seeing our own faces all the time. Plus, these winged snakes.”
“They are not snakes!” Johann insisted, trembling. “There are no snakes in Ireland.”
“Just because you are from Ireland doesn’t mean you know everything about Ireland,” Eva countered as Bloom turned his attention to SalGoud.
SalGoud shone the flashlight toward the snakes again. “I must admit that I, too, am cranky.”
This stopped Eva. “He never is anything. He’s stony and quotey. SalGoud, you do not get cranky.”
“Don’t tell me what I get, Eva,” SalGoud countered, shining the flashlight directly in Eva’s face.
She blinked wildly and hard. “You are blinding me, you giant stone poop.”
“I am not a piece of poop! Also, you said ‘ain’t’ before. You know that’s not proper.” SalGoud frowned. He never frowned. He pointed the flashlight right at Eva’s face. “Not. Proper. At. All!”
Eva stepped forward, swinging her ax. “I will show you what’s proper.”
“According to Frederick Douglass, ‘Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.’ ”
“What are you freaking quoting about? You make no sense! You never make sense!” Eva blasted back.
Annie’s scream broke the standoff.
“What is it? What is it?” Bloom rushed toward her, bumping into her, and she fell on the floor.
“The snakes!” Annie yelled, batting them off her hair. “Everywhere. They’re everywhere.”
“SalGoud! Light!” Bloom yelled, but at that same moment he seemed to remember that he could make light himself. A glowing ball shot out of the palm of his hand followed by another and another, each hovering over one of the children’s heads, encasing them in a dome of illumination.
Eva bellowed, her ax slicing through the air and cleaving a winged snake in half even as the other snakes retreated out of Annie’s hair and into the corners of the room. The room erupted into confusion as Annie kept stomping her foot up and down. Half an attached snake flailed in the air as she moved. The fangs were still sunk into her jeans and the skin beneath.
Eva slapped Bloom on the head. “You just remembered? JUST remembered? What kind of elf are you?”
“A bad elf.” Bloom’s face showed he was almost crying. “I’m a bad elf, all right?”
Annie staggered toward him. “You are not bad. You’re just learning. That doesn’t make you bad.” Her own voice sounded like crying. “You are good. You are. I promise you are.”
Eva scowled and turned to SalGoud and Johann. “What the heck is wrong with them? They are all wah-wah. Bloom should be hitting me back.” She kicked Bloom’s shin. “Why aren’t you hitting me back?”
“What good would it do?” Bloom asked as Annie hugged him. They both started sobbing.
“Okay …” Eva backed away. “This is just weird. Like, even for an elf, it’s weird.”
“People are allowed to have feelings, Eva,” SalGoud said.
“No. I’m with her. It’s weird.” Johann poked at Annie and Bloom, who were clutching each other, crying. A flying snake fell out of Bloom’s cloak. Johann stabbed it with his sword and lifted it up to examine. “I think it bit the elf.”
“And now they are both crying …,” Eva said. “Great.”
“What does that mean?” Annie sobbed.
“It means that in one day you’ve gone from a giggling mess to a sobbing mess. It means these stinking snakes—”
“THEY ARE NOT SNAKES. THERE ARE NO SNAKES IN IRELAND!” Johann screamed.
“Get out of my face, Johann.” Eva pushed him back. Snakes slithered out of the way. “And let me freaking finish before I make mincemeat pie out of your face. Now I was saying that these stinking snakes must have some sort of depressing venom that makes a normally okay, tough elf—well, tough for elves—into a whimpering emo mess. And Annie? Well, she’s human and wimpy but not usually this bad.”
“Annie’s not wimpy,” SalGoud said, smashing his hand into the mirrored wall. It cracked. “Hey!”
“Do that again, SalGoud,” Eva ordered.
“Don’t order me around, Eva.” SalGoud did it again, smashing his fist against the mirror. “I think this room is affecting all of our moods. I’m so angry. I am never angry.” He punched the wall over and over, and the mirror’s crack grew larger and larger until it broke completely, jagged pieces of it falling to the floor.
“You did it,” Eva said.
“But it’s—it’s just concrete behind it. Concrete!” Johann growled and lifted his fists to the air. “I HATE BEING TRAPPED!”
“ ‘Hate’ is a very strong word,” SalGoud said, rubbing at his knuckles. “But I completely agree.”
19
The Boy Who Goes Unnoticed
Jamie ended up tucking the book into his backpack, putting the room key in his jeans pocket, and then hiding the ax inside his sweater. It looked peculiar, but he didn’t want to have to try to get it out of the pack if he needed it in an emergency, and the way Ireland was going, it felt pretty likely that there was going to be another emergency.
He slowly shut the door behind him and crept down the hall, not exactly sure what he was looking for. Where would you go if you were sucked inside a manor estate? How did the rules of such magic work? Would you stay close by or end up halfway around the world? His gut told him that his friends were probably close by. Weren’t they? Maybe it wasn’t his gut telling him that. Maybe it was his hope.
If he was magic, he could probably do some sort of locator spell. Instead, he just went around, slowly rapping on walls, checking for secret rooms, anything. He found a corridor that led to a spa. He found stairs that stopped right at the ceiling. He found a room that was full of swirling disco balls. But he couldn’t find his friends. Frustration tightened his stomach.
He bumped into Mr. Tullgren just as he was knocking on a section of wall beneath a picture of leprechauns.
“Oh … this … yes … um …”
Jamie made a pretend surprise face and stuttered out, “You … you’re magic?” Trying to make it sound convincing, like he’d never realized magic could exist before. He added for good measure, pointing at the painting, “Are you a leprechaun?”
Mr. Tullgren’s eyes grew wide and the rainbow above his head sputtered out. “Oh, no! Of course not. Ha! I’m not anywhere near short enough or fixated on gold.”
“But, you’re magic?” Jamie stepped back, still trying to act surprised when he was anything but surprised. If Mr. Tullgren thought Jamie was okay with magic, that he knew it really existed, he might figure out that Jamie had arrived with Annie and kick him out via buzzard or something. Jamie couldn’t risk that.
“I am. But just a magical human. Sometimes wish I was the kind of magic that could made people pick their wedgies in public over and over again, but I’m not that kind of magic either. ”
“That’s not very practical.”
“Practical. No. Fun? Yes.” Mr. Tullgren sighed. “But instead I am the kind of magic that draws the future.”
“Always the future? The real future?” Jamie asked.
“It is a possibility. The future is truly a bit of a pain in the neck. It likes to flounce around. You think you catch it, but no … off it goes in an entirely different direction because some random person or animal enters the picture. You think you have a good handle on everything that’s going to happen and then—boom—here comes a talking hippopotamus messing up the order of things. Oh! The stories I could tell you, young James, about the random things that have ruined the future. Such sad things. But sad things are not so good for a boy who has just learned about magic while on his vacation to Ireland. Ha. No. No. No. I won’t be doing that to you.”
“And what happens in your books’ future? What happens to your granddaughter? Does she save the world from the evil demon?” Jamie reached for a book, the last book in the row on the mantel. It had to have some sort of clue, even if Mr. Tullgren’s vision of the future wasn’t perfectly accurate. He bet the book could at least tell him if his belief that the Golden Bow and Arrow were in the castle was correct.
Mr. Tullgren snatched the book away. “I can’t let you see it.”
“Because …?” Jamie prompted, but he saw the title, She Falls with Evil. It was the same thing that Megan’s prophecy had said.
“Because Annie dies. She dies. For real.” Mr. Tullgren’s lip shook, and he pulled out a huge bottle of Irish whiskey from the inside of a large metal helmet that looked as if it had once encased a knight’s head.
Jamie’s heart broke in half. “That can’t be true,” he said vehemently. “I won’t let that be true.”
“I’m sorry, lad. Most of my readers don’t like it either.” Mr. Tullgren tipped his head back and took a huge swig, wiping his mouth off with the back of his sleeve as Jamie vaguely paid attention. His heart was racing. There was no way Annie could die. No way. Mr. Tullgren took another swallow of booze. “Don’t tell the missus, my boy.”
“Don’t tell the missus what?” Mrs. Tullgren stood at the door, hands on her hips.
Mr. Tullgren passed Jamie the bottle, which Jamie stashed behind a buzzard. “Nothing, love. Nothing but how much I love you.”
She harrumphed and turned, retreating back into the restaurant.
“You can’t tell her I’ve told you, okay? You can’t let on that I said the story is true. She’s … she is terribly upset. Just before you arrived, a girl who said she was Annie Nobody showed up right at my very door! Here. In this very inn! If she was telling the truth, that means … That means Annie has been well and truly alive all this time. The missus is in a bit of a shock despite the message we received about a week ago from the Americas saying much the same thing. The Missus …? She’s spent the last years since the Purge trying to ensure that Stoppers were kept safe, that Miss Cornelia and the others who are still left on this earth don’t fall into the Raiff’s evil clutches. She uses my books as a way to reach other Stoppers across cultures to keep everyone on their toes and now—”
“Now this Miss Cornelia is kidnapped?”
“Exactly!” Mr. Tullgren whispered. “And the sphere in Dublin went off, meaning a Stopper was about. The missus had them all accounted for, too. She’s got a computer program that keeps track. And then! Poof! Annie shows up here. And if she’s alive that means my books aren’t just dreams of her, but that she will die again, a horrible, miserable—”
“So where is Annie now? Did Mrs. Tullgren just get rid of her? Her own granddaughter?” Jamie squinted at Mr. Tullgren, unable to contain his anger. “And you let her?!”
One of the buzzards blinked.
“My wife thinks if Annie is here, the Raiff will be close by. She’s worried she can’t protect her.”
Mr. Tullgren dropped the last book back on the mantel. Jamie edged his fingers toward it, but the buzzard clomped its foot right on top of it, wrapping its talons around the cover.
“But the Raiff is in the Badlands,” Jamie said. “He can’t get here without a Stopper.”
“Which he has.”
“Miss Cornelia would never let him across,” Jamie blurted, realizing too late that he wasn’t supposed to know about Miss Cornelia, wasn’t supposed to know about the Badlands, or about any of that at all.
Mr. Tullgren eyed him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Who are you exactly, young man? And how would you know what Miss Cornelia would or wouldn’t do?”
“I’m the character you didn’t see,” Jamie said. “The boy who goes unnoticed.”
At last, Annie’s and Bloom’s sobbing ended and a quiet that was just as ominous filled the room of broken mirrors and winged snakes. The concrete walls that SalGoud’s fists exposed showed no ways to get in or out, leading them all to believe that the entire room was part of some magical protection spell—a strong one.
Annie and Bloom both felt dizzy, but Annie felt it much more than the elf, which Eva and Johann both blamed on her human blood. Unfortunately, the others were still just as cranky as they had been when they were sucked into the room. It seemed like a fight could break out at any minute. Bloom’s light balls seemed to last, even as he bemoaned the fact that it took so long for him to remember how to do it. It didn’t matter, though. The light kept them safe from the winged snakes’ fangs, but it didn’t get them out of there. And they all really wanted out.
“My ax should be strong enough to break these walls,” Eva complained. “Maybe you should try your fists again, SalGoud.”
The stone giant lifted up his hands, which were still bleeding at the knuckles. In fact, they had bled all the way through the socks Annie had wrapped around them. Using her socks on a wound reminded her of when she first met Tala and had tended to him after a dogfight. She missed Tala so much she felt like she might begin to sob again. Instead, she bit her lip. The dizziness increased.
“Annie, are you okay?” Bloom asked.
“Maybe … Does anyone have anything I could draw with?”
“Oh, she’s lost it …,” Johann said.
“Shut up!” SalGoud said, uncharacteristically, taking a pen from his pocket.
“SalGoud said ‘shut up,’ ” Eva sing-songed. “SalGoud said ‘shut up’! And he wasn’t quoting it.”
“I could have been quoting it,” SalGoud said, flustered. “A lot of people say ‘shut up.’ ”
Bloom and Annie, who were no longer cursed with crankiness, gave each other a look of sympathetic understanding.
“That isn’t important, no offense. It’s totally okay that SalGoud said ‘shut up’ whether he was quoting it or not. I mean, it’s a cruel thing to say, but we are all obviously under some magical influence—a magical influence that is linked to moods … Which makes me think …,” Annie said as she reached for a pen that SalGoud had taken from his p
ocket. There was blood on it.
It was a black Sharpie.
“Perfect.”
“What are you thinking, Annie?” Bloom prompted.
“That—well, that … both this place … this trap place … and that sphere … it involves our moods. Being in here made us cranky and is still making SalGoud, Eva, and Johann cranky. When we were bitten by the snake—just one bite—Bloom, you and I got so sad. Imagine what would have happened if we were bitten more than once?” Annie said as she uncapped the Sharpie and sat on the floor, legs wide apart in front of her. In between her legs she drew a circle.
“We would have died of broken hearts,” Bloom said solemnly, guarding her with his light, stalking around her in a circle.
Eva muttered, “Oh, brother …”
“Schmaltzy,” Johann agreed.
“You are both so ignorant.” SalGoud coughed. “Sorry! I just—agh … I hate being cranky.”
“I think you’re past cranky and well into mad,” Eva said, tossing her ax between her hands.
“Could you please stop with that? It’s making me nervous.” SalGoud glared at her.
Johann laughed. “Oh, poor liddle stone giant is nervy wervy.”
SalGoud lunged for him, knocking him into the concrete wall with an oomph. They wrestled in the darkness, their light balls halfway across the room. Rushing over, Eva and Bloom broke them up, but not before snakes bit both fighters. Eva hacked the creatures with her ax. They detached and stilled. Immediately, SalGoud and Johann clutched each other, sobbing into their coats.
“Oh this is just—ew—so much baby crying.” Eva hit her head against the wall.
Bloom ignored her, making sure that SalGoud and Johann were once again protected by a ball of light. He handed them both a tissue and asked, “What were you trying to say, Annie? Before all this, you were saying something.”
She had filled in almost half the circle and opened her mouth to speak but didn’t get a chance to actually say anything.
“And what the heck are you doing?” Eva demanded, stomping back over even with the blood running from her forehead.
“I’m trying to make a way to escape,” Annie said. “If this place is magic, the only way out is probably magic. Only Bloom and I are that sort of magic, so …”
