Rapunzel’s eyebrow curved up sharply. “Now, what do you suppose this universe is made of?”
Girl Wonder suddenly seemed confounded by the question.
A rare occurrence, indeed.
Caitlin thought about it for a moment. The book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came from the mind of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll.
Cindy then discreetly pointed to the odd, brain-shaped sun.
“Particles of imagination?” Caitlin answered, positively unsure of herself.
Rapunzel smiled generously. “Excellent, Caitlin.”
Even Natalie seemed impressed.
Rapunzel placed her hand on Caitlin’s shoulder. “So your imagination and Zeno’s Forest are made of the same stuff. The forest always knows where you are and where you want to go.”
“How awesome is that?” Caitlin said. “A mind-reading forest.”
“Can it pick winning lottery numbers?” Natalie chirped.
Caitlin’s head abruptly tilted to one side. “Hey, I have a question.”
Rapunzel nodded, encouraging her to ask.
“The atoms in our world,” Caitlin said, “They’re made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons. So what are the particles of imagination made of?”
Natalie eyes lit up. “Yeah—excellent question.”
Rapunzel and her friends shared a troubled look. Rapunzel then turned back to Caitlin. “That’s one of the reasons why you need to see the caterpillar. He’ll have the answer to such a question.”
Sleeping Beauty tugged at Rapunzel’s shoulder. “We’re losing time.”
Rapunzel nodded and looked Caitlin straight in the face.
“Now concentrate hard, Caitlin. Think about where you want to go.”
Caitlin responded with an expectant look. “To the hideout of the caterpillar, correct?”
Rapunzel’s face soured. “Sounds more like a question than an answer. That’s just the kind of doubt that will leave you stuck in the woods for a couple of centuries. You have to be certain about where you’re going!”
Caitlin’s eyes darted around, restlessly surveying the expanse of forest. She had to get this right.
“I’m going to see the caterpillar. Pronto!”
Rapunzel grinned. “Better.” She turned to the group. “Everyone ready?”
Caitlin wasn’t sure if she’d ever really be ready for this. She had no idea where the caterpillar’s hideout was or why they were going there. The only thing she knew about the caterpillar was that he appeared in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which her mom had read to her almost every night when she was younger. Caitlin remembered that the caterpillar smoked a hookah. And now, apparently, she learned he had given that up in favor of drinking organic tea. But to her, the idea of getting stuck in a forest for centuries was unsettling to say the least—and total claustrophobic hell at the very worst!
Inhale.
Exhale.
Caitlin rotated her head around and around, relaxing her neck muscles. “Yeah, okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”
She took a hesitant step toward the edge of the tree line. Zeno’s Forest loomed large before her.
The six girls simultaneously stepped into the ominous blue forest, first with one foot, then the other.
Before Caitlin could blink, Rapunzel, Cindy, Beauty, Snow, and Natalie blurred into twisting, liquid forms, and then at hyper-speed—
SWOOOOOSH!
They were gone!
The memory of Rapunzel’s voice hovered like particles in the air around Caitlin, a dreamy tone with a hollow echo.
Caitlin kept walking, but she didn’t generate any motion, like in a nightmare. The dread of paralysis toyed with her mind, pushing her toward total panic. She tried running, but no scenery passed her by. She remained imprisoned in the same spot. Her muscles stiffened like cement. She opened her mouth to holler for help.
Before she could, another twisting, blurry form streaked toward her at lightning speed.
SWOOOOSH!
The blur thickened until it looked like pudding. Standing there before her were Natalie and the zombie girls. They stared at Caitlin in bewilderment.
Profoundly relieved, Caitlin threw her arms up into the air. “What happened?”
Rapunzel shook her head. Cinderella put her hands on her waist and exhaled. Snow stared at Caitlin with sympathetic eyes. Beauty was admiring a few green pines still left in the forest.
Rapunzel extended her arm. “Still too much skepticism. Push your thoughts aside and take my hand. I’ll help you through the forest. Until you get the hang of it.”
And with that, SWOOOOOSH!, off they rocketed at unfathomable speed, deep into Zeno’s Forest on their way to the secret hideout of the wise caterpillar.
The one who traded his hookah for a teacup.
Jack rode fast and hard on the back of his new friend Alfonzo the Frog Prince. His vaulted, jarring strides made Jack feel as though he were riding a riotous bucking bull.
“How long ’til we get there?”
“Worry not, amigo, we will find this Caitlin of yours.”
Together they leaped and bounded through a tall jungle of brown-bladed grass. The air was humid and thick. Sweet nectar—one of the last few nutrients still to be found in this decaying universe—scented the wind.
Alfonzo wove in and out of blades, some wide and withered, some gaunt and narrow. Tall, sapling-like stems suddenly appeared. The stems were a pale shade of green, thicker than the dead trunks of grass. The whole area was somewhat shaded.
Weird. Is this place alive? Jack wondered.
“I am famished from overexertion,” Alfonzo said. “The honeyed nectar is coming from a plant a short hop away. I shall refuel before we continue our quest.”
Jack slid off Alfonzo’s back. The frog then hurdled his way toward a sweet-smelling pitcher plant.
Jack heard an ominous hiss rustle through the stalks.
“Hehhh … Hehhh … ”
He quickly realized the hissing was coming from the stalks.
He cast his glance farther up the meadow. He watched as Alfonzo leaped on top of a large pitcher-shaped plant. When he landed atop the rim, he began licking up puddles of nectar. A split-second later, the Frog Prince’s legs were scurrying in place, as if he was running on a treadmill at breakneck speed.
Alfonzo began sliding down the inside wall of the pitcher. Despite frantic attempts, his feet could not gain traction to push himself back out. Suddenly the Frog Prince slipped and vanished from sight, leaving behind only a fading croak.
Jack’s eyes bulged.
And then, without warning, Jack was swallowed up in one rapacious gulp by a snarling Venus flytrap! Ensnared in its cruel mouth, he felt the oxygen draining out of his lungs fast. Jack jammed his arm between the fangs of the flytrap. He pulled as hard as he could, trying to separate the jaws. He wrenched harder. The jaws widened, and fresh air brushed Jack’s face.
Mucus dripped from the fangs and seeped under his palms. Jack’s hands went slick, and he lost the grip. The jaws snapped shut.
The walls of the plant suddenly began secreting what Jack knew must be digestive juices. The level of liquid on the inside began to rise. Within seconds, Jack was ankle-deep in fluid. He pounded on the plant.
No way I’m dying in the mouth of some flower!
The liquid rose to his knees.
Jack drew his sword. He locked both hands on the hilt. He raised his weapon like a skilled and stalwart knight. He swung that sword with a mighty blow hard against the fangs.
It shattered into a thousand slivered pieces.
Jack had forgotten his sword was a harmless novelty Halloween prop, not a lethal, unsheathed weapon of steel.
No wonder it was pulverized.
The digestive fluids now reached his waist.
Jack reached up and took hold of a narrow slice of plant tissue jutting out from the roof of the plant’s mouth. He hoisted himself up in the air and began to swing, back and forth. When he ga
ined enough momentum, he swung himself full force into the fangs, feet first, kicking as hard as he could. This time he shattered the flytrap’s teeth, crashed through, and leaped out of its mouth. He fell to the ground. His knight outfit was smoking slightly. He rolled in the dirt to wipe off the digestive juices.
Jack stood, grabbed a nearby vine, rolled it tight, and raced over to the pitcher plant. He tied one end of the vine to the base of a plant stalk. Then he tied the other end to his wrist.
Jack heard something. A faint, muffled cry. Coming from inside the plant.
“Help!”
Alfonzo!
“Save me! Amigooo … !”
Jack started climbing the carnivorous plant. When he reached the slippery rim on top, the honeyed scent of nectar kissed his nostrils. It was so sweet it was almost intoxicating.
What a deadly trap this is!
Jack hung onto the rim for dear life, trying not to slide inside. He glanced up. On the other side of the rim was a large centipede, almost the size of Jack. It began crawling along the rim—angling straight for him! Suddenly, the centipede’s fleet of legs started skating on the slick surface. Jack shook the rim. The insect lost all of its footings and plunged down into the pool of digestive enzymes.
“That multilegged arthropod nearly landed on my head!” shouted the Frog Prince from down below. “But I am grateful nonetheless, amigo, for you have kindly come to my aid. Now please get me out of here.”
Balancing as best as he could on the perilous rim of the plant, Jack lowered his upper torso deep into the pitcher cup.
This better be worth it.
He kneeled down so he could reach even deeper. He extended his arms as far as he could.
Alfonzo grabbed hold of Jack’s hand—and that was all it took.
Jack lost his balance and slid down the greasy, leafy wall. He splashed into the pool of acid.
The centipede was next to Jack, struggling to stay afloat, and quickly losing the battle.
Alfonzo treaded gracefully in front of him. He dripped with gastric juices, though, and a thin drift of smoke rose from his flesh. “I have about a minute—and you amigo, have perhaps two minutes—before we disintegrate to the bone and become lunch for this most unpleasant plant.”
The vine was still tied to Jack’s wrist. He pulled it taut and began climbing back up the wall. “Grab onto my leg, and I’ll pull you out.”
Snap!
The vine split, and Jack fell back into the pool.
Now he was really getting angry.
“Bloody hell, frog, how about you try getting us out of here? My skin’s starting to burn.”
“Well,” Alfonzo said with a sudden gleam in his eye, “wade around to my backside.” Jack swished his way through the thick liquid and stood behind the frog prince. “I usually like to save this move for the ladies,” Alfonzo pointed out, “but here goes.”
Prince Alfonzo began to puff out his vocal sac into the bulging shape of a ball. He puffed some more, inflating his throat until it expanded like a giant hot-air balloon. As the membrane swelled, it pushed back the liquid enzymes in waves. Alfonzo kept puffing until the swollen sac pressed against the inside wall of the plant.
The plant began to inflate. It doubled in size, then tripled.
It swelled and expanded outward until the pitcher cup finally exploded.
Jack and Alfonzo rode a gushing shock wave of digestive fluids out, soared momentarily in the air, and crashed to the earth in a tumbling roll.
Jack leaped up and stripped down to his skivvies, wringing out his smoking tunic and pants.
“I smell fresh water, amigo,” Alfonzo said. “Climb aboard, quick.”
Jack quickly bundled his knight garb under his arm and slid onto the frog prince’s back.
Alfonzo made a beeline to a soft-flowing river coursing through a low-lying section of the meadow. Without stopping at the edge of the riverbank, the frog prince plunged straight into the water with Jack still riding on his back. They dunked under the cold water and splashed around, washing the acidic juices from their bodies and garments.
When they finally emerged from the river, they stretched under the sun-swept sky.
“In no time the sun and wind will dry us like a desert sand dune, amigo.”
A puzzled look then crept over the frog’s face.
“But I am sorry to say that I think I have lost the trail.”
Jack dressed back up in his knight costume, all the while shaking his head as he wondered how he was going to find Caitlin.
A pleasurable “Ooh” emerged from Alfonzo’s mouth as a big blowfly bumbled by. The tip of Alfonzo’s sticky red tongue snatched the bug midair, then quickly rolled back into his mouth. Alfonzo gulped it down.
“Eating lunch is far better than being lunch.”
Jack winked. “Wouldn’t mind a snack myself.”
Alfonzo nabbed another fly. He held it out to Jack, presenting it ceremoniously on the tip of his tongue. The fly was still alive; it wriggled back and forth, trying to unstick its wings from Alfonzo’s tongue.
Jack gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “Thanks anyway.”
Alfonzo picked the fly off his tongue with two digits on one of his front legs. He held the bug up in front of his eyes, admiring the winged delicacy. “Well in that case, I’m ready for my dessert.”
“Stop!” the fly shouted. “I beg you not to eat me.”
“Flies are a nuisance,” Alfonzo replied to the insect. “You serve no purpose beyond pestering people.”
“I can help you,” the fly pleaded.
Alfonzo laughed. “How could you possibly assist me?”
“Not you,” the fly replied. “Him.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Me?”
The fly nodded. “Let me live, and I’ll reveal vital information. The whereabouts of two humans and a royal foursome.”
Jack fist-pumped the air.
Alfonzo let the fly go. The insect flew over to Jack and landed on his right shoulder.
“They spoke of visiting the great caterpillar, Lord Amethyst Bartholomew.”
Jack turned excitedly to Alfonzo. “Do you know how to find him?”
“I most definitely do.”
The caterpillar’s hideout must have been dreadfully far away, because the girls traversed Zeno’s Forest in a matter of moments. In less than a minute, it seemed to Caitlin. She had taken about three actual steps; her feet had barely touched dirt. The scenery had zoomed by her eyes like a wet landscape painting smeared on the walls of a narrow tunnel. And Caitlin had been like a bullet hurtling through that tunnel.
They were stopped now, standing in the magical, timeless, spaceless heart of Zeno’s Forest, somewhere just north of Wonderland and south, east, and west of … every place, everywhere.
Caitlin’s eyes swept over her new environment. Thick woods of wide ponderosa created a brown wall of timber that encircled them. The branches above filtered the sunlight bathing the woodlands in emerald green. Trunks as wide as Caitlin’s bedroom at home and covered in knotty bark rose majestically through a ground cover of thorny brambles that covered a snarling landscape of tree roots and sharp-edged rocks.
“Not exactly smooth terrain,” Caitlin said. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Yeah, really,” said Natalie. “Imagine if we had to cab it?”
“So,” Rapunzel said to Snow White, “where’s this hidden entrance to the caterpillar’s safe house?”
Snow scoped out the area for a moment, then broke out in a smile and pointed. “Over there.”
A fair-sized sandstone boulder sat in a grassy tract of woods by a dead pine only a short distance away.
“The tunnel to his cave is underneath the rock,” Beauty said.
Tunnel?
Caitlin picked nervously at a fingernail as they tramped toward the boulder.
“Hey,” she blurted out, “maybe we can communicate with the caterpillar without paying a personal visit? Like, maybe we call first … or someth
ing.”
The girls paid her no attention.
They reached the boulder and, sure enough, the huge, oval rock rested in a prolific patch of shamrock-green four-leaf clovers.
Caitlin had never seen so many lucky four-leaf clovers in all her life. Natalie seemed mesmerized too. Though the leaves were withering, all four leaves seemed to be intact on every clover.
Natalie bent down and picked one for good luck. “You sure that insect is sipping organic tea down there and not Irish whiskey?”
Rapunzel rolled the boulder away from the base of the dead pine. A pitch-black, narrow tunnel entrance loomed before them.
Are they kidding?
“Hey … ” Caitlin said, still fidgeting with her nails. “Let’s send just one person down there. Like on a reconnaissance mission. She’ll locate the caterpillar and bring him back here.”
Beauty, ignoring Caitlin’s plea, peered down the entry shaft. “I’ll go down first. Someone else follow me.”
She got down on her hands and knees—beautiful tattered dress and all—and crawled into the muddy hole. Next went Cinderella, then Natalie.
“You’d better go now, my dear,” Snow said to Caitlin.
She had started rocking back and forth on her heels and chewing the split ends of her beloved cinnamon-colored hair.
“Hey, I have another idea,” Caitlin said. “Suppose we—”
“Hush up, girl,” Rapunzel said sternly. “You’re next.”
Caitlin approached the entrance timidly, leaned slightly forward, and peered down the shaft. “It’s, like, totally dark down there. How will we see in the tunnel?”
Snow smiled. “Glowworms.”
Her smile seemed sincere, but Caitlin had no clue how slimy worms could help ease her dread of the dark. Natalie had already disappeared down the hole, though, and Caitlin couldn’t leave her unattended. So despite her considerable trepidation, she crawled into the shaft and got swallowed up by the blackness.
When her feet touched bottom, Caitlin crouched on her hands and knees in the pitch dark. She peered down the length of the tunnel, expecting to see another stretch of blackness.
The Color of Fear Page 11
