Pettikin

by Abby Smith

  “Well—here we go I guess,” I said and took a step forward.

  Whoa. With just the single step I shot forward a good yard and a half. I flailed my arms to catch my balance, Pettikin clutching my head, while Suzy and Sunshine leap-glided their way to Taos like Super Alpacas.

  I took another impossibly huge step forward, teetered for a second, then took another, and another, until I got the hang of it. Soon I was bounding forward effortlessly, yards at a time, barely touching the sand with each step. Instead of getting tired, I felt an energy building up in me as I ran.

  After a few minutes I stopped. My tracks already trailed off in the distance behind us.

  “Pettikin did you see that?” I felt dizzy, like I was buzzing with electricity.

  “It seems like there’s a lot of power in this world.” Pettikin sounded thoughtful. “I imagine anything we do or think here will be amplified beyond what we’re used to. Which could be good or bad depending on what we’re doing or thinking.”

  The alpacas were waiting up ahead for us. I ran until we caught up with them and skidded to a stop, my body humming with energy. If we kept this up, I was going to be totally wired by the time we were done.

  Taos hummed and ducked his head.

  “He wants you to eat a cookie.” Pettikin said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.” Pettikin was oblivious to my sarcasm. “He says the energy here is too strong for us. He wants us both to eat a cookie.”

  I reached into Taos’ day pack and pulled out a package of cookies. Snickerdoodles. I undid the tie, handed a cookie to Pettikin then took one for myself. It was soft and cinnamonny, and, as I chewed, the manic feeling that had been building up in me started to dissipate. I finished mine quickly and ate another while Pettikin finished his, dropping crumbs in my hair.

  I tucked the rest of the cookies into Taos’ pack feeling much better. He hummed and took off again with us following behind.

  We ran for a long time. More than once, I thought I saw glowing, white eyes staring at us from behind the plants, or tall, shadowy figures looming out of the corner of my eye, but each time I turned toward them they disappeared.

  The ground became rockier and large boulders were interspersed with the plants. The mountains loomed closer. Taos stopped abruptly, and we pulled up beside him. I had no idea how many miles we just ran. He turned his head, sniffing the air. Then he hummed and picked his way toward several large rocks, rectangular blocks of stone maybe four feet high, that were arranged in a semi-circle around a clearing, almost like a small fortress or campsite. The alpacas huddled together near one of the stones and closed their eyes, humming softly.

  Pettikin eased himself down from my shoulders and plopped to the ground. “We’re supposed to rest here for a while before we continue on.”

  I retrieved another package of snickerdoodles from Taos’ pack. I felt dizzy, like I had been drinking coffee nonstop for the past ten hours or had taken too much Sudafed. I handed a cookie to Pettikin, then shoved one in my mouth, gulping it down in just a couple bites. I was beginning to see how we might go through a lot of cookies while we were on this journey.

  Pettikin wandered over to one of the stones. He observed it for a moment, then quickly scaled it, using some unseen-to-my-eyes crevices for footholds. I gripped the bag of cookies in my teeth, placed my palms down on the top of the rock and hoisted myself up next to him. I opened the bag and held it out to him. He took a cookie. I took one for myself and sat the bag down between us. We munched in silence, observing the landscape in front of us. A long stone wall on the horizon just in front of the mountains stretched in both directions as far as I could see.

  I saw another shadowy figure from the corner of my eye. I slowed my chewing.

  “Do you seem them?” Pettikin’s voice was barely a whisper.

  Ever so slightly, I turned my head, and the shadow slipped away.

  “They disappear whenever I try to look at them,” I whispered back.

  “Don’t look at them directly. Use your other sight, the sight that Vala gave you.”

  Oh. Duh. I tried to remember how to do that. I stopped chewing. My mind was still amped up from running, so I tried to calm it. It was easier to do that here than it was at home. As soon as I turned my attention inward, my thoughts slowed down, and everything became more luminous. I focused on my breathing and waited. Another shooting star streaked across the sky and disappeared into the darkness.

  The shadow being reappeared in the periphery of my vision. I resisted the urge to turn directly toward it, waiting until it moved forward into my field of view.

  Its figure was like a giant man, as tall as Vala had been in his ghost form, taller than the old beech trees behind Aunt May’s cottage. He had chiseled features that reminded me of the statues on Easter Island, long black hair pulled into a ponytail and a white headband with a blue crescent moon in the center knotted behind his head. He was wearing a long, flowing gray garment that was belted in the middle, and a sword with a black and silver woven hilt hung in a sheath at his side.

  He folded his arms and gazed off into the distance, waiting for something. I held my breath. Another figure appeared on the horizon and glided over to him. They looked almost identical to me, except this one had a red moon on his headband. They weren’t talking, but I had the sense they were somehow communicating with each other.

  “What are they?” I breathed, barely moving my lips.

  “Warriors. I’ve heard of them but never seen them. They are incredibly powerful. They work for the Guardians and protect the universes. They destroy dark beings.” Pettikin shivered. He sounded almost reverent.

  The first figure turned dark expressionless eyes in our direction. One corner of his mouth pulled up into what seemed like a smirk, and they both slipped away into the shadows.

  I exhaled slowly and reached for another cookie. Pettikin leaned back on his hands and gazed up at the stars. His beard and the cottony tip of his hat glowed silver, his eyes wistful. I cast around for something to say.

  “What’s your world like, Pettikin? I mean—is it like this?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s more like your Earth, but maybe how it was hundreds or thousands of years ago—when things were still clean and there weren’t so many people.”

  “Yeah, we haven’t taken very good care of the place.” My cookie felt oddly heavy in my hand, and my appetite was suddenly gone. “Are there people on your world?”

  “Some, but not very many. Most of them are Gatekeepers or Interdimensional Travelers, like your Aunt May. They come to see our Guardian, but they don’t usually stay for very long before they leave again.”

  “What’s your Guardian like?”

  “She’s the most beautiful being I have ever met,” his voice was soft.

  “She? Your Guardian is female?” I felt a like a traitor to my gender for finding that surprising.

  “Yes. She’s very mysterious and powerful. She lives on our world and takes care of everything that lives there, but I think she also does other work in other dimensions that we don’t know about. Even the other Guardians come to see her and pay their respects to her from time to time.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine what she must be like.”

  “She’s outwardly very different from your Vala, but inwardly very similar, if that makes any sense.”

  My Vala. I wondered what he was doing right now. “It kind of makes sense. I wonder if I’ll ever get to meet her. Hey, do all gnomes know as much about things as you do?”

  “We’re all taught the same things, and some things we just know. But I’ve had more experiences in other worlds than most gnomes. Most gnomes are content to stay on Arcorn and tend to their dragons and gardens. I don’t know why I’ve always wanted to travel and explore other worlds so much.”

  “Like me wanting to get out of Ohio. And now look at us.”

  Pettikin gazed out at the landscape. “The universe is strange sometim
es. Maybe we were meant to meet each other.”

  We sat in silence for a while longer munching cookies and watching the stars. Even though I wasn’t as wired as I had been when we stopped, I was way too wound up to sleep. I wondered if I would ever need to sleep at all if I stayed in this dimension.

  It felt like several hours had passed before the alpacas finally stirred. Taos came over to our rock and honked up at us.

  “Time to go?” Pettikin, who was lying on the rock with his hands behind his head, sat up and nodded. I jumped down off the rock, sinking into the soft sand, and Pettikin slid down onto my shoulders.

  We set off at a slower pace, but it was still faster than I could ever run on Earth. Taos was choosing his path carefully, winding around the large rocks that were becoming more frequently interspersed with the terrain.

  After several minutes I noticed that we were approaching the wall I had seen earlier. It was made out of large, stone blocks, similar to the ones we had been resting on, but taller. Something about it seemed odd to me, but I couldn’t quite place what it was. Then I realized that even though we were getting closer, it still extended all the way to the horizon in either direction. There didn’t seem to be a way through it or around it, and Taos didn’t seem to be changing directions or slowing his pace.

  “What’s he doing?” I called up to Pettikin. “Doesn’t he see the wall?”

  Pettikin’s voice was wobbly from bouncing on my shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t like this,” his pitch was higher than normal, as if he were building up to a scream.

  Taos galloped at full speed directly toward the wall.

  “No, no, no…” I cried out, my voice getting louder with each no.

  Just before he careened into the wall he veered sharply to the right so he was running parallel to it and ducked into a gap between two of the stones. Pettikin started screaming, and I tripped and fell forward onto my hands and knees. Suzy and Sunshine disappeared into the wall behind Taos as I skidded across the sand, Pettikin clinging to my neck. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled forward terrified we would get left behind. I clamped Pettikin’s legs to my shoulder to make sure I didn’t drop him and charged through the gap in the stones.

  We were in a narrow, dimly lit stone corridor. Pettikin’s shrieks reverberated against the walls and died away, replaced by the echoey sound of him panting. The air felt cool and musty, like a basement, and it gave me the absolute creeps. I tried to adjust my speed to the smaller area, brushing frantically at real or imagined cobwebs that touched my face as we ran.

  Suzy was waiting up ahead for us, and I raced toward her. As soon as we caught up with her she darted down a second corridor perpendicular to ours. I followed her down that corridor, and then a third and a fourth.

  We were in a maze—a maze that I would have absolutely no idea how to navigate or get out of without the alpacas. A toxic mixture of panic and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I ducked blindly down each new corridor hoping to see an alpaca so I would know where to turn. Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, we turned out of the maze and into the open.

  Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating everything briefly. We were in a small clearing at the base of the mountain, its huge bulk looming in front of us.

  “Gaaaah!” I bent over, resting my hands on my knees, panting. Pettikin dropped to the ground and lay spread eagle on his back. I was gasping for air, not because I was tired from running, but because of the wild panic I was still feeling.

  Taos honked and hopped up and down urgently.

  “He wants you to…” Pettikin intoned without moving.

  “I’m already on it,” I walked jerkily over to Sunshine and clawed through her pack like a junkie until I found a bag of snickerdoodles. I ripped it open and ate two before I remembered to offer one to Pettikin. I gulped down a third before I felt the panic subsiding.

  “Holy crap,” I said finally. “Can we never do that again?”

  Taos hummed. There, on the face of the mountain almost directly across from us was a diamond shaped web of glowing red lines. Two of the shadow warriors we had seen before were standing on either side of it, arms resting on the hilts of their swords, faces impassive.

  “Is that the Gateway?” I felt a rush of excitement. Except for that last part, it hadn’t been that hard.

  Taos snorted.

  “It’s a Gateway,” Pettikin said slowly, “but not the Gateway we need. That is.”

  He pointed to the top of the mountain. A tiny, diamond shaped web of white light shone down at us from its highest peak.

  “Aw, man.”

  Suzy walked toward the red Gateway. Several pairs of glowing white eyes appeared in the darkness on either side of her, tracking her progress. The Warriors didn’t move. She ducked her head, stepped through the Gateway, and was gone.

  “Why did she go through that one if it’s the wrong one?”

  “Because that Gateway leads to the top of the mountain and the Gateway we need to go through.”

  It was hard to see because it was dark and so far away, but I thought I could just make out Suzy’s silhouette in front of the white diamond Gateway at the top of the mountain.

  “Ah, that’s great! Come on then. What are we waiting for?”

  I was about halfway to the Gateway when a Warrior suddenly appeared in front of me. I hadn’t seen him move. One minute he was standing to one side of the Gateway and the next standing right in front of me, blocking my path with his enormous feet and legs.

  “Hey,” I said, but he ignored me. I tried to go around him to the right. He reappeared in front of me. I ducked to the left, and there he was again.

  “Hey, c’mon,” I whined. “We’re with her!” I pointed up the mountain at Suzy. The Warrior didn’t shift his gaze or acknowledge me in any way, except to continue to block me whenever I tried to get anywhere near the Gateway.

  I finally backed away, and he returned to his original position. Pettikin also tried to approach the Gateway, but even his polite bow didn’t sway the Warriors. They wouldn’t let him pass.

  I turned to the alpacas. “What about you guys?”

  Taos nudged Sunshine forward. Sunshine approached the Gateway and carefully sniffed the ground in front of it. She honked once up at the Warriors, but they didn’t move. She stepped through and was gone.

  “So alpacas are allowed through the Gateway, but we’re not?”

  Taos hummed softly.

  “He says that since they’re part of this world, the Warriors don’t see them as strangers and let them come and go as they please. He doesn’t think they’re going to let you or me through.”

  I tried one more time to approach the Gateway, but almost as soon as I thought about it, the Warrior was in front of me.

  Frustrated, I glared up at him. “So what are we supposed to do?”

  For the first time, the warrior locked his eyes on mine, and I immediately regretted it. They weren’t normal eyes—no iris or pupil, just empty black hollows where eyes should be. His gaze was empty and vast like Vala’s, but Vala was warm, and he was cold, like an icy wind howling through the blackness of space. My legs started trembling, and I wanted to back away from him, but I couldn’t move. What was I even doing here? I was so out of my league it wasn’t even funny. Professor Theopolous was right—I was going to end up dead.

  The Warrior released my gaze and pointed to the left of the red Gateway. A narrow trail, maybe four feet wide, wound up the side of the mountain toward the top.

  “So we hike up, is that it?” My voice was shaking and my breathing uneven.

  Taos hummed softly.

  “I don’t like this, Allie,” Pettikin’s voice was strained. “Taos says the path isn’t easy. It’s designed to keep people away from the Gateway not lead them to it. I think maybe we should just go back.”

  I was terrified, and the energy of this world amplified the feeling. I wanted more than anything to turn back, to run away and pretend I had never agreed to this,
never heard of gnomes or Guardians or Gatekeepers.

  If we turned back now, though, Pettikin would be stuck on Earth forever. I was sure of that.

  I had a strange feeling in my stomach, like a weight or force pushing downwards through my legs into the ground. The fear I was feeling didn’t subside, but another part of me was detached from it.

  “No, we’re not turning back. We’ll hike up.” I said grimly. “Brute force over finesse—it’s the American way.”

  Taos clucked and hummed.

  “He says you should take his pack. He says we’ll need the cookies.” Pettikin was twisting the end of his beard in his hands.

  “He doesn’t want to go with us? That can’t be good.” I walked over to him, unclipped the straps from his neck and waist, and slid the pack off his back. The two halves folded together, and I was able to adjust the straps so I could swing it over my shoulders like a backpack.

  Taos hummed, then walked to the red Gateway and disappeared through without so much as a glance from the Warriors.

  I could just barely make out the figures of the three alpacas next to the tiny diamond that was now our destination. At least they were waiting for us.

  “OK, Pettikin, let’s go.”

  Pettikin hesitated. He wrung his hands and seemed like he was about to say something, but then just nodded. Perhaps because I was wearing the pack, he didn’t climb up to my shoulder like he usually did, but followed behind me on foot.

  The trail was rocky, but well-worn, as if someone or something used it frequently. It was bordered by scrubby desert plants and cacti, the face of the mountain on our left, the steep slope to the clearing below on our right. The Warriors watched us, and I shivered.

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Pettikin was still following. He was, but he wasn’t alone. Several pairs of glowing white eyes were following behind him.

  “Uh oh.” I relaxed my mind so I could use my ‘other sight’. Slowly, their forms emerged from the darkness.

  They looked like large cats, or maybe small mountain lions, about the size of Socrates. There were twelve of them, each with a faint, but distinct, pastel color—orange, lavender, yellow, light blue, turquoise—and different geometric patterns on their backs—blue spots, orange triangles, black stripes.