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Hatchling

Page 13

by Toasha Jiordano


  The cracked plastic handlebar grips turned cold and hard in Jimmy’s hands. In their places, an intricately carved brass horse head, with two leather straps jutting from the sides. The straps stretched out in front of Jimmy attached on the other end to something he didn’t believe.

  The squeak of rusted bicycle tires disappeared, replaced with the unmistakable clip-clop of hooves. Jimmy gasped in horror and the stench of sweaty horse nearly choked him.

  He looked up ahead at Isaac’s bike, too scared to look down at his own.

  Isaac still stood, feet in stirrups, holding the reins of a large brown horse. Rowan clung to his back for dear life, bouncing up and down in the saddle as they sped off.

  Jimmy had never been on a horse before. He didn’t know what to do. All he could do was stare over the side of the winding mountain road at the sheer drop below. There was a churning black lake surrounded by twisted trees, none of which would do much to break his fall.

  He tightened his grip on the brass horse handles, so much that the carved designs imprinted on his palms. His actual horse, a white stallion with hair the same color of straw as his own, raised its head in response. It had a single patch of brown fur starting just below its eye and covering a swath of cheek, ending behind its ear, just like Jimmy’s.

  Instantly, Jimmy’s heart slowed. He belonged here. He settled into the saddle and allowed himself to be ushered up the steep mountainside.

  With a few swift gallops, which felt to Jimmy like they were taking flight, although he saw no wings, they had caught up to Isaac and Rowan’s horse. Forgetting the terror of the fight ahead, or out of sheer panic, the two of them were laughing.

  “Jimmy can you believe this?” Isaac asked as their horses slowed to a trot beside each other. In just a few steps, the sounds of eight hooves became four as they strode in unison. “I was just thinking that I couldn’t pedal one more second and bam!”

  Jimmy realized that he, too, had been thinking he couldn’t go on another second when the stirrups locked onto his feet. If he didn’t know any better he’d think he conjured these horses himself. But that sounded ridiculous. Still, if he was brave enough to let go of the reins, he’d pet his horse and thank him.

  They continued their climb up the mountain in near silence. Jimmy had a death grip on the reins as their ascent felt like it stretched straight up the mountain. If he let go, he’d fall off the back of his horse. Rowan seemed to agree, because she wouldn’t participate in the one-sided conversation Isaac was having with himself. Her fingertips looked white wrapped in Isaac’s belt loops.

  Isaac, however, loved every second of their adventure. The farther up they went, the brighter and stranger the colors got. Soon, the trees weren’t green anymore, changing before their eyes to a turquoise then deep blue, their trunks paling around each turn until they had become pure white.

  “Did you see that?” Isaac asked. “Purple roses!” He turned from side to side. “Orange birds!”

  “I’m sure there are orange birds on Earth,” Jimmy said. Then slammed his mouth shut. Were they not on Earth anymore? Didn’t feel like it. But then where were they? He didn’t dare look back to check, afraid to his bones of what he’d see.

  “Yeah, the Sun Conure is orange, but not like this, not purple orange!” Isaac’s voice filled with wonder. “So many species we never knew existed.”

  “If they exist. Maybe I hit my head back there somewhere and this —”

  “We didn’t all hit our heads,” Isaac cut him off. “And mass hysteria was disproven in the forties by… Look!” he let go of one reign and pointed to the blue tree line. “A magpie.”

  Rowan perked up at that. “Where?”

  Jimmy and Rowan turned to where Isaac pointed and saw a single magpie sitting on a low branch.

  Rowan looked around, frantic. “Where’s its mate?”

  “Huh,” Jimmy asked.

  “I don’t see one,” Isaac said, his gleeful tone souring.

  “What’s the big deal?” Jimmy asked. “It could be in a different tree.”

  Rowan’s face drained of color and she turned forward, staring straight ahead into Isaac’s back.

  Isaac answered Jimmy after also turning his gaze away from the solitary bird. “A single magpie is an omen. It means sorrow.”

  “You don’t believe all that stuff, do you? It’s just superstition. My grandpa called Rowan a witch just because of her red hair.”

  “Look around you.” Isaac motioned to the ever-changing flowers and new plants that bloomed as they passed. It was like the world around them only created itself once Jimmy came near. “This is magic, Jimmy. And if we’re gonna trust the magic, we have to trust the lore. It’s the only way we’re going to make it through this. Lone magpies equal sorrow.”

  “Alright, alright,” Jimmy said. “I believe you. Just proves that y’all shouldn’t have come with me.”

  “We’re not leaving you.” Rowan’s voice barely rose above a whisper.

  “I know you’re not. But I don’t have to like it.” Jimmy flourished his horse’s reins and they pulled ahead. “And I don’t have to let you go first. Stay behind me in case anything happens.”

  “How chivalrous,” Rowan answered with a groan. But Isaac slowed to let Jimmy pass.

  Jimmy had to admit, it was amazing. Not just the colors either; the light was different, more pure. Maybe that’s why the colors seemed different. The warm glow of a magical sun highlighted hues and tones they’d never seen before.

  It was Jimmy’s turn to groan at himself.

  Yes, this new world looked magical and wondrous, but it also felt brooding and dark behind every turn. The castle grew larger and more menacing with every gallop. Cracks in the facade shifted and ground together. And the sounds.

  The wails of the great beast reverberated in Jimmy’s chest. He felt them as much as heard them. The beast howled in pure desperation, fear, and vengeance.

  What were they barreling toward?

  All of a sudden, Jimmy’s white stallion stopped in its tracks. Silver dust rose from the dirt road beneath its feet and sparkled in the brilliant light.

  Isaac’s horse whined behind him and kicked up more dust as it, too, stopped cold.

  When the glittering dust cleared, a small spindly man appeared out of nowhere. He had a crooked nose and bushy eyebrows. In one bony hand he held a tall staff with a gold arrowhead carved into the tip. Around his neck hung a heavy brass key, with a dragon skeleton embellished on one end. Its mouth opened in an exaggerated and painful looking scream.

  “You’re late, my child.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jimmy clicked the spurs into his horse’s side, but it didn’t budge. Isaac tried also with the same result.

  “Ah, ‘tis no use. Your companions know well what awaits.” The man wrapped his emaciated fingers around the dragon key that hung from his neck. Behind him, a high black wrought iron fence appeared out of the darkness. All three travelers craned their necks to see the top, which seemed to reach into the clouds.

  The small man, who looked like he could slip between the bars with no trouble, slammed his staff into the ground. There was a low rumble below their feet and a metallic click. “Those who wish to enter must pay the price.”

  Jimmy expected the gatekeeper to hold out a hand for money. Yet, he only looked each of them in the eye before returning his gaze back to Jimmy.

  “What price?” Jimmy forced his voice to sound older and deeper, more in an effort to stop it from cracking than to intimidate the gatekeeper. Jimmy had no money. Rowan’s life seemed harder than his, so he didn’t expect any help from her. Aunt Sarah might be rich, but he didn’t think that trickled down to Isaac.

  As if reading his mind, the gatekeeper released his bony hold on the skeleton key and wagged a pale finger in Jimmy’s direction. “Ah, ah, ah,” he admonished. “Riches and gold are not what fills a man’s soul.”

  “I’m not giving you my soul!” Jimmy said.

  “Nor
would I accept.” The gatekeeper leaned in and whispered. “However, perhaps a prized possession would appease the gods. Just enough to prove you’re worthy… and sincere.” Either the man’s wrinkled eye twitched, or he winked. Both options turned Jimmy’s stomach.

  Jimmy dug around in his pockets for something meaningful, and pulled out his dad’s slingshot.

  “You can’t,” Rowan argued.

  “Now I know why it was so important to bring it.” Jimmy offered the slingshot to the gatekeeper. “May we pass?”

  A shake of the head was the only response he received.

  “Come on,” Jimmy shoved the slingshot closer. “It’s all I have left of —”

  “I’ll stay,” Isaac cut Jimmy off.

  “What? No. That’s not…” Jimmy shot a glare at the gatekeeper, warning him not to accept.

  Isaac stepped down off his horse. “It has to be something important. What else can I do to help? I don’t have any magic. At least Rowan knows how to fight. Let me do this for you.”

  “No! We don’t know what will happen up there, and I’m not leaving you behind. Your family will —”

  “No they won’t!” Isaac snapped. “My mom didn’t send me to stay with my dad for the summer. She left us. Months ago, she left on purpose. She doesn’t want me anymore. And my dad… he’s always working. He won’t even know I’m gone.” Isaac walked toward the gatekeeper, hands out in surrender. “I need this.”

  “A valiant offering, to be sure, but unacceptable.” The gatekeeper waved Isaac away.

  Rowan turned to jump off the horse and looked to the gatekeeper. “I’ll stay in his —”

  “No.” The gatekeeper said without looking in her direction. Instead, he stepped closer to Jimmy.

  “Please, take the slingshot. It’s all I have left of my father.” Jimmy held the slingshot out again.

  “Alas, you are also you’re father’s, yet you gave of the trinket freely.”

  “I can’t give you myself, then I couldn’t go up the mountain.”

  “Ah, mayhaps ‘tis not all you have left of him, however, dear child.” A cold finger ran down Jimmy’s cheek, tracing the splotch of birthmark.

  Jimmy laughed. “I’d gladly give you that.”

  “Then it is done.” The gatekeeper jabbed his staff into the ground again.

  Jimmy felt tiny pinpricks along his cheek and under his eye. He turned to Isaac and Rowan who stood, mouths open, beside their horse. Isaac nodded slowly.

  “Off with ye, weary travelers.” The gatekeeper removed the worn rope from around his neck and kissed the dragon skeleton key. Then he placed it in Jimmy’s hand and wrapped Jimmy’s fingers around it. Whispering something under his breath, in a language Jimmy didn’t understand, he disappeared.

  Rowan and Isaac climbed back onto their horses and waited. Jimmy steered his horse to the gate and as he started to climb down, there was a loud click. The gate screeched open.

  Jimmy ushers his horse through the gate. As soon as they passed, the electric lavender smell he now associated with magic intensified.

  Isaac and Rowan’s horse trotted through the gate and it slammed with a thunderous heavy clang.

  There was no turning back now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The clank of the gate slamming shut reverberated through Jimmy. He could still hear it echoing as they headed up the last bit of mountainside. The trail grew narrower and steeper. He had stopped looking over the side long ago.

  Jimmy wondered at how his life would change without the birthmark. He swore he felt a cool breeze on that cheek, as if the skin were finally able to breathe. Then he pictured his mom’s reaction - part joy at the banishment of his most despised feature and part loss at the one piece of him that reminded her of his father - if he ever saw her again. Both waves of terror and guilt hit him at once, stabbing through his heart.

  He also thought of Grandpa James, which came as a surprise, and yet not as much of one as he would have expected. The old man with his large, gruff exterior, had become an anchor for Jimmy in the short time they’d had together. Especially now, with his senses heightened, he understood just how alike he and the old Scotsman were. And now, he didn’t have the physical proof of that kinship anymore. He’d gambled it away for a key that hadn’t even been necessary to open the gate. They’d walked right through.

  What had he done?

  Isaac’s horse made a distressed sound from behind him and Jimmy turned to see that it had stopped. It fed on the bright orange grass and no matter what Isaac did, it took its sweet time. Jimmy stopped his horse and let it feed, too. Their grass, just mere steps ahead of Isaac’s had taken on a grayish undertone. The shadow of the castle had deprived it of its natural — or unnatural — color.

  Jimmy worried how much harder it had become to breathe this new air, electric and foreboding. The sky was darker, much darker, than on the other side of the iron gate. But his fear ran deeper than that. The harsh black air tasted like anxiety. It smelled of death.

  For the first time, Jimmy allowed himself to wonder if he really could die up here. Of course he’d worried about it, but some small part of him always held out, telling him he was just being a baby. Yet, with the castle looming overhead and sucking the life out of everything it touched, Jimmy felt it was only a matter of time before he, too, fell victim to its curse.

  And what of his friends? His loyal companions coming to help him fight a battle that was his alone. Rowan had survived so much in her short life. And Isaac, he desperately needed to feel needed. Was it going to get them both killed?

  Isaac caught Jimmy staring and shrugged, motioning to his obstinate horse like ‘what you gonna do?’

  Isaac’s admission at the gate, about his whole family deserting him, made Jimmy long for his own mother. It filled him with a fear he was losing the battle to fight back against. Was he doomed to be abandoned, too? Would she ever come back? Would he be there if she did?

  His horse finished eating and made a commanding noise deep in its throat. Isaac’s horse stopped chewing and stood at attention.

  Jimmy felt for his tentative bond with Ash, which had grown stronger once they passed the gate. What he felt through that magic link only made him worry more. Dark pain and weakness and tears traveled down the mountain to Jimmy’s mind. He fought the urge to slap the reins and speed up.

  The shimmering dirt road had become nothing more than trampled gray grass, not wide enough for a boy on a horse at all. The sky grew darker still. A thin yellow beacon radiated from Ridire-solas and jangled at Jimmy’s side. It didn’t do much to lead the way, but he was too scared to release one of the reins to hold the sword.

  Through the pitch of magical night, Jimmy could make out the castle spire above them. The tops of each column had what looked like stone claws breaking through the sides. It reminded him of gargoyles, doomed to stand watch over ancient ruinous castles in his dad’s knight books. It also made him think if Ash’s talons, smaller but similar enough.

  As they rounded the next corner, Jimmy’s horse stopped again. Its pure white fur and yellow mane had dulled to a sickly gray in the presence of the castle. Jimmy moved to spur the horse on, then he saw it.

  Carved into the mountain itself was a door.

  A large stone block intricately sculpted with a fire-breathing dragon stood in their way. Other circular patterns filled the negative space in the slab of rock, including those drawn on the dragon itself, like caveman tattoos. The doorway, though it had no handle, looked as if it slid in and out of the mountain itself.

  “Poul-dov,” Isaac whispered. “Just like in the stories.”

  “What stories?” Rowan asked.

  “It’s a fairy door.” Isaac turned to look back at Rowan, though he seemed to be speaking more to Jimmy. “Most of the books I read on Scottish and Norse mythology after meeting James mentioned Poul-dovs; fairy doors. They were all quite different, but had the same core belief, that they exist.”

  “Impossible. That do
esn’t look like a fairy,” Rowan nodded toward the fierce dragon carving.

  “No, but it’s got to be what we’re looking at. A hole appearing deep in a mountainside —” Isaac waved his hands around to the other impossible things around them.

  Whether by design or not, a long crack ran across the bottom and up the middle of the fairy door, creating four unequal and still unmovable sections. At the crossroads of the four cracks was a tiny hole.

  Jimmy climbed down from his stallion and took the dragon skeleton key from his pocket. The key part, two large silver teeth, looked like a perfect fit.

  “No!” Isaac jumped off his horse to stop Jimmy.

  “What?” Jimmy asked, still moving toward the door. “Dragon door, dragon key.” Jimmy held up the key.

  “All the legends agree on one thing; those who entered were never seen again.” Isaac drew out the last few words.

  Jimmy paused, hand in the air. He had to take that chance, to save Ash. “Then you two stay here. I’ll come back for you. But Ash is up there, crying, and I’m the only one who can hear him. I’m going.”

  Rowan and Isaac looked at each other, silently checking if either would take the offered way out. While they did so, Jimmy lunged for the door and shoved the dragon key into the hole.

  And nothing happened. No magic smell, no metallic clink, no movement at all.

  Jimmy yanked the key from the useless hole and shoved it back in his pocket. In despair, he ran his fingers down the back of the dragon carving, petting it the way he used to do with Ash, trying to soothe the whimpers in his head. “I’ll find a way, boy.”

  As his hand ran over one of the swirl tattoos on the dragon’s shoulder, it began to glow dark green. The grinding stone sounds he’d been waiting for started, and the ground shook. The dragon split in half and the two door slabs parted, disappearing into the mountain. A bright black light shined inside the mountain, revealing none of the fairy door’s secrets.

  Jimmy took a deep breath to calm his nerves and stepped in.

  He turned to take the reins of his horse, but it was gone. So was Isaac’s.

 

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