The Lord of the Curtain

by Billy Phillips

  The red-caped werwulf gave Natalie a leering once-over. He scanned her from top to bottom, his eyes hungrily sizing up her meaty parts. The right side of his mouth curled next, so that a twisted smile formed across his face. He winked, smacked his lips, and blew her a kiss. He grinned. Glossy white fangs glistened in the moonlight.

  She stepped back and saw nine other sharp-fanged grins behind him, glowing like neon, popping out of the darkness.

  The smiles crept closer.

  Natalie’s back stiffened.

  Gimme the freaking tiara.

  All nine werwulves stepped out of the shadows and joined the alpha werwulf in the pool of moonlight. They too were ghost white, as if they’d been born dead and bloodless.

  Natalie stood motionless.

  Blackbeard stood behind her, his big hands clasping her shoulders; they barely came to his waist.

  Tiara, please!

  He leaned into her, his whiskers scratching her neck as he whispered in her ear, “Ready for another taste—before they taste you?”

  “Yes indeedy.”

  She kept her eyes glued on the talking werwulf. She felt the tiara crown her head.

  Her eyes closed, as if by themselves.

  Fear left her and was swiftly replaced by serene calm. Senses she never knew she had awakened, heightening her powers of perception.

  She saw the universal laws permeating this once-enchanted universe, laws pertaining to the violet shimmer of the color spectrum.

  This new awareness gave her clarity.

  Blackbeard whispered in her ear, “Hurry it up. The wulves are creeping closer; their ugly snouts sniffing us like bloody hounds.”

  In her mind’s eye, she saw a perfectly shaped skull made of rock, hollow and glowing with embers of consciousness. She envisioned a glowing ball of pearlescent blue and white fluids swirling together inside it, and bands of red dissolving into nothingness. She focused on Caitlin and how she could aid, assist, and support her—most importantly—without a desire for anything in return.

  Next, Natalie committed to sharing the indescribable power that she had tasted the first time she wore the tiara with everyone she’d meet for the rest of her life. She wanted to share it all, without condition. She wanted to be pure.

  And then her body began to shake.

  And quiver.

  Steadily increasing vibrations.

  Her skin began to burn so hot, it almost felt cool.

  She opened her eyes. The werwulves had arched their backs, spines protruding through hairless, fleshless blotches on their backs. They were about to pounce.

  Suddenly, the wulves began yelping wildly. They were fraught with fear. They began howling at the sky and appearing generally discombobulated. The wulves seemed unable to make sense of what their leering eyes were seeing.

  What those ravenous eyes saw was . . . nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Because Natalie had vanished. Leaving not a speck of scent behind.

  And the bewildered pack, the fabled White Werwulves of Wyndonham, were reduced to growling at the vacant spot where Natalie should’ve been. The wulf pack was too flummoxed and frightened by this baffling, otherworldly occurrence to take further interest in Blackbeard, and so they fled into the woods.

  But Natalie was still there. She had been standing in the same spot the entire time, watching everything unfold.

  She had simply altered her wavelength by accessing the power of the tiara and the violet band of the spectrum. She had managed to accomplish a feat long dreamed of by humankind but never before achieved.

  She had fabricated a cloak of invisibility.

  To accomplish this, Natalie had altered the violet wavelength engulfing her, courtesy of the tiara, and transformed the visible violet end of the spectrum into invisible ultraviolet.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Eight

  The boy who could fly was clad in a leathery, olive-green tunic with veiny leaf skeletons woven into the fabric. His suede leggings were the color of cayenne pepper. Twined, leafy jungle vines rode up his legs and belted his waist. And he wore the funkiest, rustic brown, pointed-toe, high boots that Caitlin had ever seen. Unquestionably, the authentic Peter Pan was far cooler and edgier than the traditional pop-culture renditions that Caitlin was used to seeing—even without the ghoulish attributes.

  A string of lava-stone beads and braids fell at his temple, and a brownish-green bandana wrapped his forehead.

  Pan was definitely one of the walking dead: pale silvery skin, cheeks recessed above the jawbone, and overshadowed eye sockets that encircled almond-shape eyes which shone like two chips of emeralds.

  But it was the long, straggling, surfer beach hair that really stood out—it was a flowing, mangled mess more tangled than the snarled branches of driftwood on the nearby beach.

  The whole look gave him a Steven Tyler-type rocker vibe.

  Pan sat on the tallest of a circle of bare rocks. The Lost Boys—presumably Tootles, Nibs, Curly, and the rest—were seated on a few of the shorter rocks. Caitlin wasn’t sure who was who.

  A glowing ember near the bonfire floated toward Pan. The spark flashed brighter and brighter, then faded to a dim glow . . . then turned brighter and brighter again . . . and back to dim. Finally, it lit up like a blinding camera flashbulb and then went completely dark.

  “Lovely light show,” Pan said, winking at the Lost Boys. “Ain’t that right, fellas?”

  Caitlin, Tin Man, and Gruncle Derek edged their way into the center ring.

  Pan had noticed the trio’s arrival. He immediately homed in on Caitlin. His provocative leer was so piercing, she awkwardly crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Who do we have here?” Pan asked. “A lost girl who managed to fall out of the pram?”

  The Lost Boys thought that to be a hilarious remark. They merrily repeated the line, and interjected catcalls, hooting, and hollering.

  Pan shot them a look. “That’s enough, fellas!”

  They shut right up.

  “Well, well,” Gruncle Derek said with a snicker, “they certainly know who’s boss around here. Don’t they, son?”

  “Indeed they do, gramps,” replied Pan with a grin.

  The ember lit up again and shot over to Caitlin. It clearly wasn’t just a random spark from the bonfire. Flitting about Caitlin was a perfectly formed girl—undoubtedly undead—with silken, shimmering gossamer wings.

  Tinker Bell!

  She glowed like a tiny Christmas bulb.

  She fluttered closer to Caitlin’s face, inspecting her eye.

  Without question, Tink was the most adorable ghoul Caitlin had ever seen. Her pearl-ivory complexion and deep-shadowed dimples accentuated splendid angular cheekbones. And she thought that delicate button nose was sweeter and positively cuter than a Love Heart candy.

  Caitlin blinked and cheerily introduced herself. “I’m Caitlin.”

  “Whoop-de-do,” Tink snapped back in a sharp tone that rang out like a bell. “Now tell me something I don’t know.” She was the size of a silver dollar—small enough to drop in your pocket, if only the petulant pixie would stay there.

  “Yup,” Pan said, overemphasizing the last letter. He hopped down from his rock and strutted over to Caitlin. “The impolite sprite is quite right. We know exactly who you are, my lovely. And I also know what you want. The question is this:

  Do you know what I want in return for giving you what you want?”

  Pan had the gall to pucker his lips, close his eyes, and lean forward.

  “He’s a hedonist,” Tinker Bell blurted out. “Do yourself a favor and turn around now.”

  “How inelegant, Peter,” Caitlin said. “Such unattractive, adolescent behavior. It’s typical of a boy-child.”

  He winced as if shot by an arrow.

  Caitlin had blatantly lied—she found Pe
ter Pan to be extremely attractive in a part bohemian, part biker kind of way. But she wasn’t going kiss to him on his terms.

  Wait—are there other terms?

  “And what is it you think I want?” she asked him.

  Pan shed the wounded look and regained his swagger.

  “You’d like to banish the Enchanter from inside your head, sanitize the blood from your eye, and rescue your little sis. And to do all that, you need to take a swim on a mountaintop. In the Dipping Pools of Mount Velarium, to be precise. Then you must find the hidden shut-off valve in order to empty the pools dry. Which is where I come in. Now tell me, my lovely Cait—is Peter on the right track here?”

  He winked over at Tinker Bell and gave Caitlin a self-satisfied smile.

  “You’re impossible,” Tink declared. “And incorrigible.”

  “But lovable,” he said.

  Tink turned to Caitlin. “I’m his indentured wish-giver,” she said. “So this is what I have to contend with every day.”

  Pan was certainly maddening. But Caitlin detected an innocent boyish charm lurking somewhere beneath the bravado.

  “Why are you ghouled out?” Caitlin wondered. “Couldn’t you have flown to the top of Mount Velarium and bathed in the Dipping Pools to cure yourself?”

  Caitlin saw an unexpected trace of despair in his eyes. Even Tinker Bell’s light dimmed a tad.

  “Flight restrictions,” Pan said. “I can’t seem to reach an altitude higher than one hundred thirty-seven inches off the ground—a mere eleven feet. Won’t get me past the foot of the mountain.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Haven’t a clue.” Pan rubbed his chin. “Hey, maybe ask the silver chap. If that’s who I think it is, perhaps he can shed a bit o’ light.”

  Of course—the Tin Woodman answers why questions.

  “Well?” Caitlin asked.

  “Human, fairy and elf flight require a formidable combination of fairy dust and happy thoughts,” Tin Man said. “Fairy dust is in ample supply here. But the aforementioned happy thoughts are actually based on one’s ability to resist the red band, and to banish the worry, fear, pessimism, and self-centeredness that infect our normal thought processes. Peter’s problem is that he’s currently consumed by decadent, hedonistic thoughts because of the impaired Green Spectrum.”

  Tinker Bell wagged her finger. “Told you so.”

  “He’s still able to fly,” Tin Man added, “but his limited will to resist the red band has limited the heights that he can attain.”

  Everyone suddenly jumped, startled by an unexpected crack of thunder. Isolated storm clouds were converging directly above the island from seemingly out of nowhere. These were end-of-the-world storm clouds: roiling, heavy, and threatening.

  “The Enchanter,” Tin Man muttered nervously.

  The drumming stopped, and hushed murmurs circulated among the shadows—frightened voices whispered the lore of the Lord of the Curtain.

  “We must sail now,” Gruncle Derek warned, “before the winds pick up and the seas turn rough.”

  A faint and distant caw arrived on a breath of wind.

  Tin Man turned to Caitlin. “Janus!”

  More murmurs erupted as Janus’s name elicited more whispering.

  Despite a valiant attempt to keep them squared, Caitlin’s shoulders sagged upon hearing Janus’s name. The nearby air seemed to warm and brush over her. She felt flushed, as if coming down with a low-grade fever.

  I’m so totally frustrated. There’s no logic to any of this—and apparently no justice in the world. Like, why is this monster so relentless? He never stops. He’s always on the attack.

  Janus circumvented or toppled every obstacle with an ease that suggested a grossly unfair, illogical imbalance in the universe. She, on the other hand, had lost her eye trying to do just one hard thing. All it took was the sudden bite of a bird and a simple swipe of a knife—goodbye, eyeball. Her dad had been taken swiftly and suddenly. Her mom had vanished in a flash. And after three years of being an official missing person, her mom had turned up dead. Murdered. Why couldn’t she just as easily have turned up alive? Caitlin felt like she was flipping a coin a thousand times and always ending up with tails.

  She fanned herself with her hand.

  Life just isn’t supposed to be this way. And yet it is.

  So many nights, when she was just a kid, climbing into bed without getting tucked in by her own mother, the dread and the dark thoughts had come to her mind easily, relentlessly. Why didn’t a tidal wave of happy thoughts overcome her in the same way? And that awful, endless list of nasty side effects that those prescription med TV commercials cited, one after another. Why did the mere mention of a particular disease or the side effects from meds cause her to agonize and believe that she must be coming down with a virus or experiencing unpleasant symptoms? Why wasn’t feeling terrific and being hopelessly happy and feeling all-around super healthy just as easy a state of mind to fall into as worry and hypochondria were?

  Why is my life skewed so disproportionally toward gloom and darkness?

  Who fine-tuned and calibrated human existence so unfairly, unjustly, and underhandedly?

  Caitlin recalled the years when her mom was missing; her OCD had intensified. Young Caitlin had to pace through the apartment every single night before bed and count all the corners in the ceilings of every room, then check all the knobs on the stove to make sure the oven wasn’t on, and then check all the closets to make sure serial killers weren’t hiding inside, and then look under the bed, and then close all the dresser drawers tight because if one was sticking out just a tad she’d obsess about it. And if she didn’t follow this entire routine exactly, she would obsess about not having done it all night long and all the next day, and then she would panic because she couldn’t get rid of those obsessive thoughts. So to prevent those thoughts from driving her to insanity, she had to cancel out the compulsion to think about that nightly routine by performing the nightly routine through a waterfall of agonizing tears because she was trapped in a maze that had no exit.

  Where the hell are my parents? I want my mom and dad! I want to see them now! Right now!

  She willed them to appear with all her heart, with every fiber of her being.

  Nothing.

  Zilch.

  Ultimately, death was indifferent to the weeping of orphans and deaf to pleadings of the bereaved.

  The warm air passed. The feverish feeling lifted. Caitlin was programmed to easily sink into that familiar place of deep dread, depression, and hopelessness, but she just couldn’t allow that to happen this time. Not now. Not today. In fact, because everything was so out of whack, she couldn’t allow herself to be just another tossed coin that turned up tails.

  I will be heads!

  And then, something spoke to her from a place still unscathed by the cynical, irrational, unfair, sullen world. She could feel there was an answer.

  Somewhere.

  And it was probably an exquisitely simple answer.

  But for now, until she found it, perhaps some small measure of darkness and a whole lot of imbalance served a deeper purpose, a hidden reason that might soon become apparent.

  She breathed.

  Fully.

  Deeply.

  Lusciously.

  She released the ache, the frustration, and the anger. She firmed her resolve to find Natalie and vanquish her share of darkness. She vowed to learn to understand her life a little bit more than she did right now.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Nine

  “Kill the lights!” Pan cried out. “Don’t want Janus and those bird-men spotting us from the air.”

  How ironic, Caitlin thought. Now we’re the ones turning off the lights and generating darkness!

  The Lost Boys doused the bonfire with buckets of seawater while others buried the burning bulrushes in the sa
nd, snuffing out their firelight.

  Caitlin gritted her molars. Then she grabbed one of the fiery torches, spun it upside down, and plowed the flaming wick into the sand.

  She extinguished the firelight. She fabricated her own small curtain and used the power of darkness against the source of all darkness—the Lord of the Curtain and his assassin henchman Janus.

  I won’t make it easy for them.

  The repulsive cawing of the crowmen grew louder, closer.

  “Man the ship,” Derek called to Caitlin and Tin Man. Derek put his hand on Pan’s shoulders. “We need that map, son. The one marking the site of the shut-off valve.”

  Tin Man interrupted. “Caitlin can’t board the Jolly Roger.”

  “Why the hell not?” Derek asked.

  “She’ll never see the Twin Mountains. The inclement weather will slow the ship. The crowmen will catch up to us and kill her. Then kill us. It’ll be a slaughterhouse at sea.”

  Gruncle Derek rubbed his head with both hands, sighing heavily. Then he turned to Peter. “Look ‘ere, son. I need ya to fly young Cait to the Twin Mountains.”

  “Already told you—I can’t reach the top.”

  “You don’t have to. Just get her to the foot of the mountain. She needs to get out of here.”

  “What’s in it for me, gramps?” Pan replied.

  Gruncle Derek’s face reddened. “I’ll withhold my knuckles from your face for trying to steal a kiss from her earlier.”

  “You don’t scare me, geezer.”

  Caitlin balled her fists and walked to over to Pan. She held one up to his face. “It’ll be my knuckles that slam your nose if you don’t help us, you self-indulgent ingrate.”

  An incensed Tinker Bell joined the fray. “For once, Peter Pan, get over your infantile self-love and demonstrate a shred of chivalry.” Her words tinkled in the night air.

  Pan bristled. And he fumed. And he grumbled. And then he seemed about ready to acquiesce. He gave a nonchalant shrug to Tink.

  “Sprinkle a bit of dust on the lass.”

  Thunder shook the trees. The wind picked up.