by Robyn Fraser
Dean stopped just behind her. “So what do we do? How do we get through it?” Their eyes were still glued on the beautiful, mystical trees. They really wanted to run up and hug one. Especially the one with the cute knot halfway up its trunk and the silvery needle leaves with glowing acorns.
Rose glanced back and clicked her beak, snapping Dean out of it. “Focus, D. Please.” She pointed at the space right in front of her. “We just walk through it. But it’s kind of like pulling off a band-aid. Do it quickly and it hurts a lot, but is over fast. Or pass through it slowly and it’s a lesser but longer pain. It’s up to you, but I prefer the slow method myself.”
“So what would happen if we were Concretians?” asked Dean.
“It would be like an invisible, solid wall,” said Rose, gesturing to where it apparently was. “No Concretians, or their war equipment, would be able to pass. It would be like trying to ram into a six-foot thick solid steel door. Impossible to break through.”
Dean nodded and tried hard to focus on their friend and not the forest. “Okay. Let’s do this. Who goes first?”
“I will,” said Rose. “That way you can watch how I do it. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Rose took a deep breath and ever so slowly stepped forward, covering her face with her wings and tucking them in close to her body.
“Uuugggghhhh…ohohohoh…rrrrrrr….” She writhed, moving incrementally forward. It was painful to watch and didn’t add to Dean’s confidence in the least.
About three feet on, Rose stumbled to the mossy ground, panting. “I’m through,” she said, turning her head toward Dean. Her pupils were wide and there was actual sweat rolling down the feathers of her face. “See? It’s not so bad, D. You can do it.”
“Clearly painless,” said Dean, their heart beating wildly. Part of them wanted to climb back up the mountain and disappear into a cave. But that wouldn’t get them closer to Magus Manor and saving Illusiland. Nor, they thought, as they chanced another glimpse of the mesmerizing trees ahead, would it get them closer to all that fantastic beauty. Suddenly, nothing else mattered but hugging that knotted tree.
Without further thought, Dean strode forward. “Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” they screamed, stumbling and lurching to the ground beside Rose. “Oh my dog, that hurt!” They were panting and holding their chest. But the pain was already gone, and soon their nerves calmed down too.
“You okay, D?” Rose was standing over them, brow furrowed with concern.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, fine now.” They shook their head. “That was nasty, though.”
“Okay, up you get, and let’s get ourselves through this place and back home. As wonderful as most of Illusiland is, I’ll be happy to get back to Magus.”
Dean stood up and brushed moss dirt off their jeans.
“Now, follow me, D and stay close. And definitely don’t look around too much. This forest can be very distracting.”
Rose led the way into the wild and fantastical trees and plant-life. Though Dean tried to focus only on their friend’s back, their favorite tree kept calling to them, asking them to just take a glimpse. A quick peek can’t hurt, thought Dean, as Rose, several feet ahead, momentarily disappeared from view behind a cluster of bushes.
Dean turned their head to the left, just a little, just enough to take in the beloved tree with its fabulous knot. They noticed a two-foot wide hole at its base, a sparkling silver glow emitting from it. So beautiful, thought Dean. They stepped over, kneeled down and peered in.
“Oh my dog,” they whispered. The hole traveled straight down. That was where the glow was coming from.
Just a couple of feet below the hole entrance was a little ledge. On it sat a delicious looking blue berry, as big as a button mushroom. In fact, now that they leaned in further, reaching down with one hand to grab it, just to get a better look, they thought that maybe it was a mushroom, but blue and surely sweet and delectable. They brought it to their nose to smell. It was so sweet, so tantalizing.
“Deanna, no!” cried Rose from just behind them. “Don’t eat it!”
But it was too late for that, because the most delicious berry-mushroom Dean had ever tasted had entered their mouth, guided by their hand. A soft blanket of warmth traveled through every cell and synapse of Dean’s body and filled their mind with silvery light. This is the most wonderful feeling ever, they thought, just before everything went fuzzy and they collapsed forward, into the hole of the tree.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Where We Learn Why We Should Never Eat Funny-Colored Berry-Mushrooms
(Or other substances offered to you by sketchy, though admittedly enticing plant-life; or by any other beings, for that matter)
“Wow, that was some trip.” Dean was at the bottom of the hole, having fallen several feet onto a very soft blanket of moss. Nothing hurt, they were fine. More than fine, really. They were in a sparkly room with rainbows for walls. At the far end of the room, which was sometimes ten feet away, sometimes twenty, occasionally two, a small group of beings sat on a grassy mat that covered the dirt-packed, root-strewn ground. They were all smiling at Dean and looking super relaxed. And glowing. Yes, they were definitely glowing.
“Heeeyyyy, welcome,” said one of them, who looked mostly like a human teenage boy but with particularly pointy ears. They (‘they’ seemed like the proper pronoun for everyone in this room) were leaning against the rainbow wall, head lolling to one side, wearing a sparkly robe that might have once been white but now looked much the shade of the dirt floor. A long fluffy tail was swishing softly from their rear end. They were so earthy.
“They’re so pretty,” said a badger-like being, eyes on Dean. They were leaning their head on the arm of the humanish one and wearing a ratty navy-blue jumper. “Come, lay with us.”
“Yessss, come here,” said the third in the trio, a snake-headed, human-bodied person who was sprawled across the laps of the badger and boy, wearing just a pair of undies and a t-shirt. “You are sssso sssspeshial, like that sssstar in the ssssky.” They pointed to the ceiling. It was a Medusa-mass of entwined tree roots and packed earth. Just like a star in the sky.
“I’m coming,” said Dean to their new BFFs. They crawled across the ground, not because the root ceiling was low—it was at least six feet above—but because they weren’t quite sure where their legs were, or where up was and, well, crawling just seemed like the right thing to do, with the earth under their knees and hands, the hard stones scraping away at them. It felt beautiful. Real.
“Hey, you’re here,” said the teenager. They smiled sloppily as they gazed at Dean through heavily lidded eyes. “Come.” They gestured vaguely to their left side—opposite the badger. Dean crawled up and leaned into them. The teenager put an arm and tail around them. “Finally, we’re all together. Now we are one. With all. All one.”
“You’re so deep and real, Cloud Flower,” said the badger to the teen.
“I know,” said Cloud Flower. “But it’s not just me, Mary Jane. It’s all of us. Together. You, me, Starshine and our new friend.” They lolled their head toward Dean. “What does the universe call you, friend?”
Dean thought about that for a while, as they ran a hand along the cool earth. Deanna seemed like such a bland name. Even Dean didn’t feel right anymore. Neither expressed who they really were, now that they’d found themselves and the true meaning of everything, down here in this rainbow room.
“Rainbow,” Dean said, their voice tinkling like crystal glass. “Earth Rainbow. That’s my name.” And it was, they realized, as soon as they’d said it. It had always been their name and they’d always been searching for it. Dean was so happy they’d finally found it that they started to cry.
“Earth Rainbow,” said Starshine as they spread themselves over Dean’s lap. “That’sss ssssooo deep.”
Some time passed. It was impossible to say how much or how little, as time held no meaning here in the rainbow room.
“I need to go deeper,” said Mary Jane. Th
ey stumbled up onto two uneasy feet, knocking Starshine off their lap. “We need to get more mushberries.”
Cloud Flower nodded their head, then leaned it on Dean’s shoulder. “Yes, we do. Let’s go.” But they didn’t move.
Dean didn’t want to move either. Everything was so perfect here. They never, ever wanted to leave.
“Yessss,” said Starshine a few minutes, or hours, later. The badger, Mary Jane, was still standing unsteadily in front of them, their head hanging. “Yessss, we need more berries.” They rolled off Cloud Flower and Dean’s laps, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, got to their feet, their forked tongue hanging out of their mouth like an overcooked, pink strand of fettuccine pasta.
“Yes, let’s go,” said Cloud Flower again. This time they made the effort to get to their feet and were eventually successful. “Come with us, Earth Rainbow.” They held their hand out to Dean.
Dean took it, and though the rainbow walls were still shifting and the ground was breathing in and out, making their footing unsure, they managed to stand. “I need another mushberry,” they slurred.
“Thisss way,” said Starshine and they led them across the rainbow room and along a narrow earthen passageway.
Everyone followed Starshine, with Dean bringing up the rear. Except for the silvery glow of the stars hanging from the root ceilings, which had faded somewhat, it was dark. Dean could hardly make out Cloud Flower, who was staggering along a few feet in front of them.
The passage branched several times. Dean got a little behind the others and when the next fork in the tunnel appeared, they faltered. “Hey, which way did you guys go?” they called out. Their head was starting to hurt, their mouth was dry and their insides felt, well…let’s just call it ‘mushy’.
No answer.
“Hey, guys.” A little louder now.
Still nothing.
“Oh no.” Dean glanced from the passage on the left to the one on the right, trying to will themselves to know which way their friends had gone. They couldn’t lose them. They had no idea where they were. Their head was pounding fiercely now, but somehow its insistence caused Dean to remember the backpack. And that there was a flashlight in it.
They pulled the light out, turned it on and shone it into the left corridor. The beam didn’t go far, but it was enough to see that the passage sloped upward. They shone the light into the right corridor. This passage sloped down. Both were earthen and rock-strewn and root-ceilinged and neither glowed with rainbows or stars anymore.
Dean’s head hurt so much it was hard to think, but they finally decided to go up, to the left. Probably more mushberries higher up, they thought. They really, really needed a mushroom or berry or whatever the heck they were. They knew it would make them feel better.
Dean kept the flashlight on as they hiked. The passage branched and branched again and again and a feeling of panic and desperation began to overtake them.
“I’m going to be lost down here forever,” they panted, their pained brain trying to figure out the best way to go; the best way to get another mushberry, or to just get out from underground. The berry was secondary now—they had to escape.
Shortly after choosing the fourth branch to the right, Dean saw it: A light. It wasn’t shiny or silvery or glowing, but it was somewhere straight ahead. They stumbled toward it, the path climbing steeply now. Finally, they exited.
“I’m out,” Dean cried, falling to their knees. Then, they vomited.
When done, Dean tried to take in their surroundings as best as their addled brain would allow. All around were trees and moss and vines and pretty flowers. Warm rain fell from the sky, mixing with the tears of relief that were flowing down their cheeks.
“Oh, thank Dog,” came a voice from behind Dean, and before they could even turn around, two red-and-purple feathered wings had wrapped themselves around their torso. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Rose?” Dean shifted to look. “Rose. Oh my dog. I feel so sick. I don’t even know what happened. I’m so sorry. I—”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” said Rose, pressing her cheek against Dean’s and rocking them. “You’ll be okay. It’s just going to take a little while for the berry to get totally out of your system.”
“I’m so thirsty,” said Dean.
“Well, it just so happens I have some water,” said Rose. She unwrapped herself from Dean and presented a large, concave leaf. It was filled with clear liquid.
“Is it safe to drink?” asked Dean. They remembered Rose’s warning about not eating or drinking anything in the forest. If only they’d listened.
Rose nodded. “It’s rain water. It’s been raining for the last two days and I’ve been collecting it in these leaves while I’ve been waiting for you, hoping you’d come back up. I wouldn’t eat the leaf, just in case, but the water’s fine.”
Dean took the makeshift cup, brought it to their mouth and drank. It was by far the best water they’d ever tasted.
“What do you mean, raining for two days?” they asked once finishing every last drop. “The sun was out before I—well, you know—before I peered into the tree and all that.” Dean felt incredibly embarrassed and stupid. “That couldn’t have been more than an hour ago, right?” Or could it have been? They really had no sense of how long they’d been underground. Maybe it was a few hours for all they knew.
“D, I hate to say this, but you’ve been underground for two days and nights.” Rose pointed to Dean’s right hand. “If it wasn’t for your ring, I’d never have found you. But thankfully I was able to track you, which is how I’m here now.” She gestured behind Dean to the opening of the hole. It was shining a silvery light, much like the tree they’d first fallen into, and Dean found themselves drawn toward it once again.
“D, look at me,” said Rose sternly.
Dean turned back to Rose and shook their head to clear it.
“The forest only lets you into its tunnels if you’ve eaten or drunk some of its offerings,” continued Rose. “But all winged folk have an immunity to the effect of the forest plants.” She grabbed the leaf that Dean was still holding and, much to Dean’s astonishment, put it in her mouth and swallowed. “I can eat this, or a mushberry or anything else around here and I’ll be fine. Well, maybe a little gassy, but that’s about it.” She gestured again to the glowing hole. “But because I’m not affected, the forest won’t let me enter its underbelly. Here, I’ll show you.” She ran toward the opening.
“Rose, no! Don’t go in there!” Dean didn’t have time to stop their friend before she hit the opening in the same way one might hit a bouncy castle wall. The chicken was knocked backward onto her butt.
“See?” said Rose, standing and brushing herself off. “It won’t let me in. Which is why I had to wait and hope you’d come out.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Dean. Their head was pounding, their gut felt terrible and worst, they’d lost two precious days. Two less days to save Magitoria from the Concretian army. “I should have listened to you. I don’t know why I didn’t. I didn’t mean to eat that mushberry-thing. It just sort of happened.”
Rose patted Dean on the head. “It’s not you, it’s the forest,” she said. “You have no idea how many people have come in here and never gone home again. You were strong enough to find your way out. That’s what’s important.” She pointed behind her. “And on a more positive note, your wanderings brought us to the western edge of the Fantabulous Forest. Can you see the opening just up ahead there?”
Dean looked in that direction and, sure enough, it seemed like the trees ended and some sort of open space began.
Rose smiled. “Magus Manor is only an hour’s walk from here. Ready to go? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. That, and the spell ends tomorrow at 4:18pm. We really need to get to the Manor and talk to Percival Portiscue.”
Dean got unsteadily to their feet, suddenly desperate for some real food even though their gut felt like it was twisting itself into a pretzel. Of course, realiz
ing they only had a day left to save the world was also a motivating factor to moving on. That, and maybe the chance of finding some ibuprofen for their headache.
“Yes, I’m ready,” they said, taking a deep breath and making sure not to look anywhere but at Rose, for fear of what might entice them next. “Let’s get out of this forest. Lead the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Where Dean Makes It to Magus Manor and Their Mother’s Mysteries
They walked out of the Fantabulous Forest and into rolling green hills sprinkled with daisies and willows and candy-cane bushes. At the summit of one hill, looking south, they could see the turquoise gleam of Slightly Silly Sea in the distance. Its northwestern coastline was crowded with large, war-like ships.
The sun had come out, it was warm, birds chirped and, were it not for starvation and life-or-death timelines, Dean would have loved to lie on their back on the grass, stare at the fluffy white clouds rolling by and, maybe, take a nap.
“You can see Magus Manor from here,” said Rose. She was pointing west and just a touch south, to a rambling, multi-storied stone building in the distance. Many other buildings—tall, short, thin, squat, rectangular, triangular and round were dotted around the manor.
They continued their trek, the sun rising before them. The grass of the hills and valleys eventually gave way to wide, dirt-packed footpaths, which were bordered by the occasional crooked plank house, grass-covered hut or mud-packed dwelling.
Sculptures, of rusted metal, clay, or wood, adorned most all of the homes, many of which were painted in bright colors. Paintings and sketches hung lopsidedly from doors and windows and, well, just about anywhere there was space to hang them, really. Dean felt immediately and intimately at home with the art and the imagination and the general craziness of everything they saw.
“Hey, how’s it doing for ya?” asked a cowish sort as they passed. The cow was sitting on a stool outside a large mushroom-shaped house, facing an easel. They were wearing green overalls and a long, tasseled, red-and-white striped pajama hat and seemed to be nearly finished a painting of a rather abstract version of Magus Manor.
