by Kristen Pham
Valerie saw him shudder, and then Tan’s gold eyes appeared in Thai’s face. He looked scared as Venu pulled himself off of the ground. Venu saw the change in Thai’s face. Venu appeared confused, but he must have sensed that this change was to his advantage, because he didn’t hesitate. He laid his hand on Tan’s neck, he fell to the ground, moaning. His eyes closed, and Tan fell silent.
Valerie was by his side in an instant. He opened his eyes, and Valerie saw Thai looking back at her. “I failed you,” he whispered, and then his eyes closed and his breathing slowed. Venu laughed.
“Don’t give in to the poison. Please, wake up!” she begged, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“Pleeease wake up,” Venu mocked. Grinning, he turned to Henry. “Now it’s your turn,” Venu said as he lifted Henry off the ground.
“I swear to you, if you don’t put him down right now, I will find a way to make you suffer a million times more than Sanguina ever did!” Valerie said. But her words had no effect on him – without saying another word, Venu hoisted Henry above his head, poised to throw him into the rushing water that was racing toward the precipice.
“Help!” Henry shrieked, his tortured eyes connecting with Valerie’s.
Then everything seemed to go in slow motion. A strange feeling filled Valerie, reminding her of all the times that Henry had needed her so badly that his fear had pulled her into his reality. But this time, the world suddenly appeared distorted to her eyes, as if she was looking at the world in a funhouse mirror. She felt as if she was underwater, unable to breathe. But before panic could set in, the strange sensation was over, and she breathed in the clean, wet air.
Wait – the air wasn’t wet on the Globe. What happened? When the grass tickled her ankles and dirt squished between her toes, Valerie knew that something inexplicable had happened – she was standing on Earth on her own two feet. She had done what she had been told was impossible – she had crossed the barrier between the two worlds, and returned to Earth from the Globe.
Before she could rejoice or even regain her focus, Venu hurled Henry into the rushing water. His body was instantly swept away by the current. Adrenaline kept Valerie’s mind clear, she knew exactly what she had to do. Without thinking, she pushed Venu to the ground and jumped into the water after Henry.
“How –?” she heard Venu cry.
The cold water shocked Valerie to her core, and she felt the current shoving her forward like a giant hand. She embraced the speed and launched herself forward toward Henry’s blue jacket, which bobbed out of her reach. Speeding downstream, she came closer and closer to him, but at the last second the current yanked her away and her fingers closed around water instead of his arm. Her eyes stung and she choked, inhaling water as she struggled to keep her head above the surface.
Downstream, she saw Henry sinking facedown a few feet beyond her grasp. With sheer determination, she surged forward, winding her fingers around his sleeve and pulling him toward her. He was unable to move, still paralyzed from Venu’s attack. Valerie held his head above water and he gasped for air. But it could be his last breath, she thought, as together they sped toward the edge of the falls.
Valerie looked around desperately for something, anything to grab on to. Finally, she spotted a rock that rose above the frothing water slightly downstream. With a burst of strength that she didn’t know she possessed without the aid of magic, she steered herself toward the boulder with Henry in tow. Once it was in reach, her fingers scrabbled at the rock, and her hand became bloodied as she struggled to grasp its rough edges. But finally she managed to find a handhold, and she felt her body jerk to a stop and the current wrench on her arm, trying to pull Henry away from her. A few yards away, water zoomed toward the edge of the falls and then dropped out of sight.
Valerie could only enjoy her temporary safety for an instant, as she saw Venu’s bulky form heading toward them. He used his immense strength to fight the current and force his way toward them. “No!” she shouted helplessly.
Within seconds, Venu reached the rock. “You will pay for all the trouble you’ve given me,” he growled, his rancid breath in her face making her gag. She had no free hand to fight him with, as one hand held tightly to the rock and the other kept Henry’s head above the water.
“Please, don’t do this,” Valerie begged.
Venu ruthlessly began to pry her hand from the rock finger by finger until she lost her grip and was yanked back into the current. She shut her eyes and clutched Henry tightly, knowing that in moments they would be swept over the side of the falls and plunge to their deaths.
But seconds before they reached the edge, Valerie felt the bottom of the rapids drop away from under her feet, and the water rose up to her chest. Then, inches from the brink of the falls, she and Henry slammed into a wall of rock, saving them from being carried over. She stared around her in wonder. She realized that the wall of rock that had rescued them formed a natural pool right on the edge of the waterfall.
“The Devil’s Pool,” she whispered to herself, finally understanding what she had heard last time she had been pulled in Henry’s mind.
She had no time to wonder at their stroke of luck. Venu was upon them already, his face red and contorted with rage at being thwarted again. He lurched toward Valerie, and from the look on his face she knew that he was going to murder her. She mentally prepared herself for the fight, but without much hope of winning. The water had the advantage of washing away Venu’s natural poison, but without her power she was no match for him.
Venu captured Valerie’s wrists with one hand, and wrapped the other around her throat and squeezed, choking the life out of her. Black spots formed in her vision from lack of oxygen. But abruptly, the pressure on her neck was released. The cold water must have partially revived Henry from his paralysis, because he had grabbed Venu’s arms to pull him away from her. But Henry was still weak, and Venu tossed him aside like a rag doll. Then Venu pulled himself up on the narrow rocky border of the pool that also formed the edge of the falls. Before she could wonder what he was doing, he hauled Henry up onto the ledge with him by his hair.
Valerie scratched at Venu’s legs, trying to pull him back into the relative safety of the pool before he could throw Henry over the side. Venu kicked at her, but she couldn’t make him budge. Desperate, she climbed onto the thin strip of rock that separated the pool from the abyss. Using all her weight, she grabbed Henry and threw him back into the pool. Venu roared with frustration.
Only then, standing alone with Venu on the very edge of the falls, did Valerie allow herself to look over. Far below, she saw a group of people huddled on a bridge staring up at them, pointing and shouting. But she barely took this in, her attention drawn to a sight stranger than anything she had ever seen. Instead of seeing rushing water that disappeared into the mist, she saw something that could only have been created with magic. The watery air swirled like an inverted tornado, creating a vortex. Instantly, she knew why Venu had brought Henry here. She realized that Venu wasn’t trying to kill Henry after all. Sanguina – or whoever gave Venu his orders – wanted Henry thrown into the vortex. What would happen to him inside there, she couldn’t guess, but there was no way she wanted Henry to find out.
Instead of waiting for Venu to attack, Valerie leapt onto him, hoping that the element of surprise would cause him to lose his footing so they would fall back into the pool. For a moment, he seemed to lose his balance, and she wondered which way they would fall – into the pool or into the vortex. But he was strong, and he quickly regained his stability.
Fiercely, Venu grabbed Valerie’s arms and tried to throw her over the side with all his might, but she held on to his wrists. Her entire body swung, hovering for a moment in midair. The only thing that kept her from going over the falls was her vice-like grip on Venu’s wrists. But then her body’s momentum swung her back, away from the edge. She released his wrists and fell backward into the Devil’s Pool.
The abrupt absence of Valerie’s weight cau
sed Venu to stumble. Before he could steady himself, Henry, with a shout of pure rage, pushed Venu as hard as he could. For a single frozen second, Venu teetered on the edge of the falls. His mouth and eyes opened wide with astonishment, and then he fell backward, over the edge of the falls. Venu roared as he plunged down toward the vortex.
For a few seconds, his bulky form hurtled through the mist until he vanished through the center of the vortex, which disappeared as soon as it swallowed Venu and became one with the swirling mist. Valerie hoped that they would never see him again, but she was glad that she hadn’t actually killed him. She didn’t want Venu’s death on her conscience any more than she wanted Sanguina’s demise.
For several seconds, Valerie and Henry stared at the spot where Venu had fallen until the screams of the people on the bridge below woke Valerie from her reverie. There was still much left to do before she could think over everything that had happened to her. Turning, she swam toward the land that bordered one edge of the pool pulled herself out of the rushing water. Then, lying on her stomach, she extended her arms as far as she could. Henry was able to grasp her hand, and with the last of her strength, she hauled her brother out of the pool.
Without wasting another minute, she said, “Come on, we have to get Thai to a hospital now, before Venu’s poison kills him.”
“Who are you?” Henry asked wonderingly. “I thought I was all alone with that monster and then suddenly – you were here to save me. You seem so…familiar.”
Valerie stared into the eyes that looked so much like her own and felt a warm glow in the core of her heart. “I’m your sister. You’ll never be alone again – and neither will I.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time Henry and Valerie lugged an unconscious Thai across five miles of open grasslands to the closest hospital, they were exhausted. The hospital turned out to be not much more than a simple building with one large room that contained rows of cots. Luckily it wasn’t busy, so Thai was given immediate attention. Valerie vaguely explained that he had been bitten by a poisonous frog on their hike, hoping the nurse wouldn’t be too suspicious. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when the nurse nodded, unsurprised.
“Many people come here after they’re bitten by frogs and snakes near the falls,” she said. “We’ll fix him up in no time.”
The nurse opened a drawer, took out a syringe filled with a milky fluid and injected it into Thai’s abdomen. Within minutes, color returned to his cheeks and his eyes fluttered open.
“I’m okay,” Thai rasped, seeing Valerie hovering over him anxiously. She squeezed his hand, and his eyes filled with wonder and confusion. “You’re really here? You’re not just projecting from the Globe?”
She felt her heart lift at the energy returning to his voice. “It’s a long story – I’ll tell you everything when you’ve had a chance to rest. I was so afraid that I was going to lose you.”
“Did you really think a little poison could get the best of me?”
“How silly of me,” she quipped.
Then Thai slept, and the hospital staff let Valerie and Henry collapse on two of the unused cots nearby. As she rubbed her gritty eyes, she noticed that the laurel circle was just a gray lump of metal around her thumb. It looked dull and plain choked off from the magic that lit it up from the inside out. She felt the same way now that she was back on Earth, as if her energy had faded without her power to lend her strength. She could already feel her old illness tugging at the back of her mind, and she wondered how long she would be able to survive with Earth’s rules binding her magic. However, despite these worries and physical exhaustion, her mind was at peace. At last, everyone she loved was safe.
The next day, while Thai lay in bed recuperating, Valerie and Thai gave Henry a very long explanation of everything that had happened to them. When Thai got to the part about Venu attacking Mrs. Leeds in the alley, Henry became tense.
“He hurt Mrs. Leeds? Is she okay?” Henry asked anxiously.
“She’s fine; the paramedics got there in time. I thought Venu’s attack on her was random, but I guess not, since you obviously know her.”
“She’s my teacher. Why would he hurt her?”
“Maybe Venu thought she might know where to find you,” Valerie said thoughtfully.
“You’re probably right,” Thai agreed. “But no need to worry, Henry. I made sure that she was okay before I left. She’s probably back at work by now.”
Henry nodded, reassured, and Valerie continued the story, telling Henry all about the Globe, how she had discovered that he was her brother, and the defeat of Sanguina. As he listened, fascination replaced the fear in his eyes.
“All this time – Sanguina couldn’t touch me,” Henry said, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “It all felt so real, like she could choke the life out of me at any time. But that wasn’t the worst part. She knew things about me and my family, like how my dad blames himself for my mom dying when I was a kid. Once, when I disobeyed her, Sanguina punished me by pretending to be the ghost of my mother, blaming my dad for letting her die. My dad believed it was her, and was so depressed that he didn’t come out of his room for days. He has never been the same since. After that, I was too afraid not to do whatever she wanted.”
“How horrible,” Valerie said. It was still so strange to hear about her brother’s life – so different from her own in many ways, but filled with the same loneliness and terror.
“I still don’t get it – what did Sanguina want from you?” Thai asked.
“It sounds so stupid, now,” Henry said, embarrassed. “She told me that I had the ability to give other people magic powers. I guess that was a lie, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” Valerie said thoughtfully, and then explained how Conjurors like the not-so-invisible Blake had been appearing with powers that had never been heard of on the Globe before.
“Hey, I did do that! Sanguina forced me to make a bunch of these guys appear invisible, and to make their magic untraceable by other Conjurors. Did it really work?”
Before Valerie could reply, Cyrus popped into view. Henry jumped up in surprise.
“Nice to meet ya,” Cyrus said to Henry. “I didn’t want to visit until Val filled you in.”
“H-hi,” Henry replied uncertainly.
“Val, there’s a bunch of people who are dying to say hi. Is it okay if they visit?”
“Yes! Send everyone!” Valerie said, eager to see her friends.
But moments later, only Azra and Kanti walked through the door, obviously trying not to startle Henry by appearing out of thin air like Cyrus had done. Still, Henry gawked at the sight of real unicorn approaching him.
We didn’t want to overwhelm you, so I thought only Kanti and I would visit for now. The others will stop by later, Azra said with a concerned glance toward Henry. Valerie could see that Henry looked a little dazed by all of the information being heaped on him and by the fact that a unicorn was talking to him in his head. It is wonderful to meet you, Henry and Thai.
“It’s an honor,” Thai said, nodding respectfully.
Valerie saw the same calm that Azra always brought to her on Henry’s awestruck face. “Glad to meet you, too. Valerie’s told me a lot about you,” he said with an affectionate glance at his sister.
“So what happened? How is it possible that I’m on Earth?” Valerie asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
Midnight, the Grand Master of the Contego, was with us when you disappeared from the Globe. No one knew what had become of you, but she explained to me later that there are exceptions to the rule that no one can return to Earth. Those exceptions are guarded secrets. One exception is that a blood relative on Earth can call back a family member in times of great need. This rule hasn’t applied to anyone for decades, because no one has come to the Globe from Earth in a long time.
“ ‘When blood calls blood, your adventure will start’ ” Valerie quoted. “That’s what the prophecy said.”
�
�So – I brought Valerie back to Earth?” Henry asked.
Yes. There is powerful magic inside of you, Henry. Aside from the ability to grant powers to others across the universe, which is a feat in and of itself, you have many untapped psychic abilities. You and Valerie are two of the most gifted, powerful Conjurors I have encountered in centuries – perhaps ever.
“Then it’s true – there really is magic inside me, like Valerie,” Henry said.
“I always knew it,” Kanti said, speaking up for the first time. “Remember your old imaginary friend?”
Henry looked at her closely, confused. But seconds later, recognition spread across his face. “Kanti? You’re real?”
“Yep!” she said with a grin, her reservation gone. “Miss me as much as I missed you?”
“More,” Henry replied. Then the two went to the other end of the room and began to chatter, rapidly catching up and sharing stories about the time they spent together when Kanti was Henry’s imaginary friend.
“So what happens now?” Valerie asked Azra when Henry was out of earshot. “Can Henry survive on Earth? And how long do I have before…” she trailed off. She knew that coming back to Earth to save Henry would kill her before long, but she didn’t regret it for a second. Even if her return did kill her, at least now she could die loved, surrounded by her family.
Now, you will begin a new journey. Much has changed, but one thing remains true. Earth is no place for you, Valerie. Or for Henry.
“How much time do they have?” Thai asked, looking at Valerie protectively.
I believe that Valerie’s sickness was accelerated because Henry’s magic was pulling on hers every time he reached out to her with his mind when he was afraid. The magic inside of Valerie was trying to burst out in order to help him, but Earth’s rules stifled it. And when her magic was stifled, so was her life.
“So Val’s gonna be okay now that Henry is free of Sanguina, right?” Cyrus said, his blue eyes anxious.
