by Ken Brosky
And on and on he went. It was all quite dizzying.
“Listen,” Sanda said, one mitten already on the door leading into the southwest tower. She’d dressed nice for him underneath her heavy coat, obvious by the beautiful blue dress covering her legs. She’d at least been wise enough to wear a pair of leggings underneath—wiser than most of the teenagers on Alice’s fencing team who insisted on wearing nothing but sweatshirts when they traveled to and fro.
Also, perhaps just as important: Seth’s cheeks and Sanda’s cheeks were rosy from the cold, indicating they had no doubt been outside for some time.
“What you say makes no sense, Seth! My father … my father a …”
“Possibly a malevolent evil force as old as time itself,” Seth finished. “Possibly.”
“Seth …” she shook her head. She was wearing a pink hat pulled over her ears to stave off the cold. Seth, meanwhile, had no such head protection and the poor fool’s ears were as red as turnips.
“Listen, I know it sounds crazy. And you don’t have to believe me. You don’t! Just … just take a precaution for now. Keep your eyes open. Keep your distance from the prince. Just for a couple days, until we can clear all of this up.”
Sanda seemed to seriously consider it, then shook her head. “Prince Leo raised me, Seth! I was an orphan before he came along. I was doomed to live in a little house with dozens of other kids, always hungry, always thirsty, never taken care of. Our headmaster took donated money and spent it on himself. The older kids stole the younger kids’ food. I remember days when I had to search other kids’ dressers for socks. Leo rescued me, Seth! I owe him everything.”
“But maybe, like, he did it for evil purposes …” He turned in my direction. His eyes went wide. “Briar! Holy crap, OK Sanda, I’m going to prove it to you right now. Briar, go ahead and make yourself visible.”
I cringed, shaking my head.
Seth’s jaw dropped. He turned to Sanda. “Look. He’s just shy …”
“Who?!” she asked, her mittens clenched into little fists of fury.
“Briar!” Seth exclaimed. “He’s a giant rabbit. He’ll explain everything and then you’ll know I’m totally not crazy. Briar, go ahead.”
I shook my head again.
“Seth.” Sanda sighed, opening the door. “I am sorry, but I must go.”
“Wait …” He reached out, as if he had the power to pull her back with sheer willpower. I say, it was a powerfully dramatic action, however fruitless. He sighed and sat on the battlement. “Thanks, pal.”
“Er ...” I sat beside him on the cold stone. “Seth. In my experience, revealing myself has been known to create more questions, not answers. And also, I am under strict orders not to reveal myself to anyone.”
He took off his gloves, blowing into them. “Maybe it would have been a bad idea anyway. Crap, Briar, did I just blow it?”
“You could have been more diplomatic, I suppose. But from what I’ve learned about human love, it’s too powerful a force to be sidetracked by something so meager as potential patricide.”
Seth snickered, sniffing in. “I guess you’re right. But she’s so awesome, Briar! I didn’t know chicks could be so cool. That’s the curse of having dated someone so different from me for so long, I guess.”
I put an arm on his shoulder. “Did she give you back that necklace you bought her?”
“No …”
“Well! That says something. Don’t give up without a fight, friend.”
“I won’t.”
“And …” I pointed one paw at his neck. “It also appears you are suffering from an outbreak of lipstickitis.”
He laughed, rubbing Sanda’s pinkish lipstick off his neck. “The night wasn’t a total loss, I guess.”
We sat, staring up at the stars for a bit. “I’m glad there are no giant lions inside the castle,” I said finally.
“Alice says they patrol the area. Looking for you, probably.”
“Hardly possible. I’ve been chased by worse. Oh!” I clapped my paws together. “Do you want to know what those mysterious symbols mean?”
Seth sighed and shook his head. “No … I think I’m just gonna try and sit this one out, pal. My mind’s mush right now. All I can think about is Sanda.”
“I understand, my boy.”
He turned to me. “Do you?”
I tried to fight the twitch of whiskers, but it was for naught. “No. I admit I don’t. I’m sorry.”
Seth sighed again. “It’s like having your chest in a vice grip while your brain just keeps flashing through images of one thing. One person.” He leaned back against the stone parapet. “I just hope everything works out. I’d hate for the world to end before I can ask Sanda to marry me.”
“Me too, my friend. Me too.” I looked up at the darkness between the stars, not quite certain a happy ending was possible in this cursed place.
Chapter 9: Alice
No weird hero’s dream, thankfully. But that didn’t stop me from going into full ghost mode for a little while after everyone went to sleep. I did what I’d been doing the last few nights, getting as comfortable as I could and then willing my ethereal form out of my body. It was strange at first, but after a few moments the dream-like feeling took over and I felt more in control of Ghost Alice. It was as if I could meditate myself into this out-of-body experience, and then as my physical body went into Sleep Mode, my ethereal form became easier for me to control. Unfortunately, as made apparent by my run in with those lion creeps, it also rendered my physical self susceptible to injury.
Fun stuff.
I went to the kitchen, not surprised to see Sorin there, sitting on a wooden stool beside the cutting table and eating something from a plate that looked a lot like his last meal: brown, chunky, and wet. I shuddered as I turned back to the magnets on the refrigerator. It was such a homely thing to do, adding a bunch of local restaurant magnets. Something Sanda was capable of … not the prince.
And the magnets … now there was something interesting. Iron, cobalt and nickel are magnetic, and all magnetism is caused by electrons, those tiny little things I remembered from chemistry. Magnets are a set of microscopic crystal domains with aligned electron spins. Complicated? Yes. But pictures help. Imagine a piece of iron with lots of little arrows pointed in every direction. That’s not a magnet. A magnet is a piece of iron with lots of little arrows pointing in the same direction.
But the refrigerator magnets were something special. Their little arrows were pointed in different directions—left, up, right, down—so that only the back side was magnetic. The front side could then be painted with the colorful logo of the local goulash café.
Then of course Sanda could call for a delivery, and some poor deliveryman would have to make the drive to this spooky location and hopefully not be killed.
But what about the prince’s weapons? They were all old, made of iron or steel (iron plus carbon, plus some other stuff). Something told me that I was going to need every advantage I could possibly take to take down the Malevolence.
Sorin burped, giggling like a child. I left the kitchen and patrolled the exterior of the castle, searching for any signs of Corrupted. But they were gone, no golden trails to be seen, no mysterious force pulling me one way or another. And so I had a prime opportunity to further test my strange dream powers by cautiously letting Ghost Alice disappear.
Normal Sleep Mode took over, and I found myself back in a good old-fashioned nonsense dream, go-kart driving clowns and all. Gawd, how I missed the nonsense dreams.
I woke a half hour early, showering and giving myself plenty of time to stretch out my sore muscles. There was a dull pain in my ribs, and the bruise on my leg had turned from blue to mottled purple and greenish brown, like some kind of alien mold growing under my skin. I spent plenty of time in the shower, gathering my thoughts. Steeling myself. Trying to condense all of the pain all over my body into one tiny little bubble that I could pop.
“Today’s the day,” I told B
riar after I’d dressed and put on a bit of makeup. He’d spent the night splayed out in front of the door like a guard dog. A guard dog with three of the bed’s four pillows.
“Indeed.” He yawned, stretched, and rolled onto his back. “I must say, sleeping on this hard floor seems to have done wonders for my back.”
“Maybe I should try that, too. If we survive the night.”
“Confidence!” Briar said, one paw clenched in a fist.
“Yeah,” I said, putting on my violet sweater. I grabbed my jacket, zipping it up as high as it would go. “OK. So the Malevolence is a dark force that hates humanity, but he’s not powerful enough to destroy humanity on his own. So he moves from body to body to stay hidden, biding his time.”
“Yes. I suspect every single Vontescue for the thousand years—including Vlad the Impaler—was possessed by the Malevolence, who took over their bodies one by one.”
“And then he found the Brothers Grimm,” I continued, “and forced them to bring their stories to life so he could cause some havoc. And then this cleric followed the Malevolence back to Castle Vontescue and used the magic symbols to keep the Malevolence in place. And now he’s upstairs, waiting until the new moon tonight to transfer his essence into Sanda.”
“Excellent exposition!” Briar tapped his paws together. “Um … I take it we don’t have a plan?”
I smiled. “Now what kind of hero would I be if I didn’t learn a thing from time to time?”
His ears perked up. “Does that mean there is a plan?”
“Yup.”
“And what, exactly, is the plan?”
“I’m not telling.”
“What?!”
I laughed. “Just kidding. The plan is for you to save us from the lions. Can you do that?”
Briar nodded. There was a knock at the door. I waited a moment for Briar to hide behind the dresser, then opened it, not surprised to see Scar standing there in human form. I recognized him from the gray-streaked beard under his chin. He looked down at me, his sunglasses slipping just a bit on his nose. He was wearing the same suit they all wore, the same one that magically disappeared when they turn into lions in the darkness. It was a neat trick, and he was scary enough. But I was saving all my worries for the Malevolence … and the tournament.
“The cars are waiting to take you to your tournament,” he growled. “You’re late.”
I walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me. “Wait a sec,” I said. He stopped beside me. The foyer was quiet—no doubt everyone else was already outside. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Tonight, I’m going to turn you to ash.”
He cocked his head in surprise.
Show time: day 2. This was it—the last hurrah.
My first opponent was from Canada. Chase didn’t have much mapped on her, but that hadn’t stopped him from drawing up a plan. The girl was slow—she relied on all sorts of fancy moves to keep her opponents guessing. When we started, her chaotic style threw me off-guard, and I gave up two points on a pair of swipes aimed right at my head. But then I settled down, aiming for fundamentals and pacing my breaths. It was hard—the girl hardly even looked fatigued when we tied things up at ten points each, and I could barely breathe inside the stifling mask.
I collected myself, bending the saber blade a few times and stepping off the mat to snag a few extra breaths. “Confidence!” Briar shouted inside my mind.
“Confidence,” I repeated, stepping back onto the mat. I got into position, waiting for the referee. I was full of adrenaline. My entire body seemed to tingle, right down to each individual toe stuffed inside fencing boots that were just a little tighter than the rest of my shoes. The muscles in my arm ached, waiting anxiously. The saber was steady in my hand.
“Allez!” the referee cried.
I stepped forward, aiming high and giving my opponent a taste of her own medicine, swiping at her head and then quickly bringing my blade down, making an upside-down V in the air. My blade connected with her sword arm, scoring a point.
Then things got weird.
Suddenly, the crowd was roaring—not cheering so much as a thousand voices all crying out at the same time. Play stopped. For a moment, I had the suspicion that the prince was upping the ante and settling things right here and now. But as I surveyed the arena, I saw that the attention—everyone’s attention—was on the boys match between Serbia and France. The French fencer was on the ground, shivering.
“He’s having a seizure!” Chase told our referee.
Pandemonium gripped the entire arena, spreading like wildfire. The fencers returned to their bleachers, all matches suspended. Paramedics took the fencer from France out on a red stretcher while the coach and a middle-aged woman—the boy’s mom, I guess—followed frantically behind, wailing all the way.
“Dude, what the heck just happened?” Seth asked, leaning over the bleacher’s metal bars dividing the spectators from the players. He was alone, and I felt a twinge of guilt for it. I’d been the one who’d convinced him to talk to Sanda. I’d been the one convinced Sanda still had a role to play. But what if she didn’t? What if Sam Grayle had simply bluffed, expecting me to be listening in on his conversation?
Well. Then I’d just broken up the best relationship Seth had ever had.
“The seizure looked worse than it actually is,” Chase explained. “If I were to guess, they’ll probably keep the kid on a sedative for a night. He should recover … if his liver isn’t damaged.”
“Why would his liver be damaged?” Scott asked from the first row.
“Because that’s one of the side-effects of Jump,” Chase said. He looked down at his lap, wheeling beside me. “I should have snitched. That could have been someone on our team out there. I dunno … we just never ratted each other out in baseball.” He hit the armrest with his open palm. The little strings on his gauntlets made a snapping noise as they bounced off the leather. “It’s my fault. I should have stopped them.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “The boys made their own choice.”
“All right!” Mr. Whitmann called out, clapping his hands together as he weaved his way around the nearest scoring table. He was still wearing the ridiculous red, white and blue jumpsuit. “Good news and bad news time. Bad news: we all gotta pee in cups. Most of us. Me and Chase don’t have to. Good news: a couple of cheaters are gonna be out on their butts in an hour or two, so we might move up in the rankings.”
“Wait, what?” Margaret asked. “Mr. Whitmann, it is really hard for a girl to pee in a cup. So you’d better give us a little more detail on just what the heck is going on!”
“That French boy was on drugs,” he answered. There was a distinct murmuring in the crowd now, and it refused to die down. Mr. Whitmann raised his voice a bit: “Something called Jump. His teammates admitted it. So the judges are ticked off and they want everyone tested. They have an easy test for it, but they need urine samples.”
Scott swore under his breath. The other boys matched him with even more colorful curses. I looked at Chase, who simply raised an eyebrow.
The judges called us down into the locker rooms by gender, starting with the girls.
“What if they slipped us something?” Jasmine asked, clutching my shoulders as we made our way down the tunnel along with some very nervous-looking girls from Japan and Russia. “What if that’s why we kicked so much butt yesterday?”
“We won because we’re totally sweet bodacious fighting machines,” Margaret said. “And don’t you forget it. Seriously? Peeing is the scariest part of this whole tournament. I’ve peed in a cup before at the doctor’s office. You know how well it went? Let’s just say my hands—”
“We get it, we get it,” Rachel said, waving away the image.
Inside the locker room, we took turns filling out our names, taking a cup into the stall, and then returning to the tunnel. As we were making our way up, the boys were on their way down, and no one—including our team—looked all that confident.
“Dead men wa
lking,” Margaret murmured. “Wow. What if we’re the only ones left? What if, like, we win gold medals on default?”
“That would be awesome,” I said, smiling. “Except you and Rachel are both in the foil match. You’d have to face each other in the final.”
Margaret turned to Rachel, eyes wide. “That would be ridic.”
“Ridic?” Rachel asked.
“Ridiculous, Rachel. Ridiculous.”
Chase met us at the entrance. “Well? How did it go?”
“As well as you might expect,” I said. “How long is this going to take?”
He shook his head. “Not sure. Just stay stretched out. We have no idea who’s going to be left.”
I did. I had to, if I wanted the muscles in my left leg to cooperate. And my ribs? Well, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the intense lung-crushing pain had begun to slowly return, like someone turning up the volume a few notches every minute.
The boys returned. They sat in silence while Mr. Whitmann told stories about his days wrestling in high school.
The girls waited patiently, with Margaret and Rachel playing a silly game on their phones, Jasmine chatting with her mother, and Seth searching the crowd for Sanda like an overeager puppy. I stretched out my sore leg, pulling it back with one arm, hopping over to my best friend in the whole world.
“Hey,” I said, feeling more than a little bad. “Sorry for screwing things up with you.”
“It’s not screwed up,” he said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself. “She’s not here, but I’m not going to give up. Tonight, you can do your ninja stuff on the prince and maybe you can let me be heroic too and then she’ll see I was right and then I’ll ask her to marry me.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He nodded briskly. “I feel this, Alice. She’s not evil like the prince. You’ll see. And then I’m marrying her, and I swear if you try to get in the way I’ll karate chop you for a change.”
