by KD Blakely
That’s when I saw them. In places, unbelievable rock formations thrust out of the grass. As if the sculptor decided to create the most bizarre shapes ever. Rocks were bent, twisted, curved, and braided. Some as thin as paper, delicately carved into patterns and shapes I didn’t recognize. More than one balanced on a tip no bigger than a needle. There was no way a rock should be able to stand like that.
“I like it,” Doug said suddenly. I blinked, feeling like I’d been staring a long time.
I wanted to show Doug something…
“Oh! Check this out!” I pulled out my phone and grinned. Doug’s eyes grew wide as he watched the screen going haywire. Olivia and Faith held theirs out as well.
He immediately pulled out his phone, just as mine gave that strange whining sound and died like last time.
“What?” Olivia’s hands were on her hips, and she glared at him. “You think we messed up our phones just to fool you?”
“Well…” He paused and shrugged with a grin. I rolled my eyes as Olivia started to snap back at him.
Faith interrupted, “Shhh, listen!”
After several moments of quiet, Olivia asked, “So what is it I’m supposed to listen for? I don’t hear anything.”
Faith shoved her hands in her pockets. “Exactly!” she said. “’There’s no sound.”
We were all quiet again, then I said, “That’s creepy. I’ve never, ever been anywhere there wasn’t some noise.”
Doug sounded like he was talking to a group of little kids. “Well, there’s no wind. And this road isn’t paved. It doesn’t look like cars normally drive here. I don’t think it’s strange”
How can he be so thick?
“Doug!” Frustration made my voice come out like a growl. “There’s no sound! No birds, no crickets, no frogs, no wind, no cars, no ocean, no airplanes, no stereos. Nothing! Nada! Zip! Zilch!”
“That’s not all,” said Faith, sounding worried. “I don’t hear any people. Ronny said there would be people we could ask about her mom.”
“I guess we’ll have to start searching for someone,” I said, trying to sound matter of fact rather than nervous. “Should we go straight or use that path to the right?”
“We should go straight,” Faith said.
“I say we should go to the right,” Doug declared, and actually started to turn that direction.
Olivia, Faith and I all looked at him, then spoke together. It sounded like we’d been practicing it. “Straight!” It sounded so great, we gave each other a high-five.
Doug rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, we can go straight,” He muttered something else under his breath and I was glad I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t think he was giving us a compliment.
The road was made of smooth hard-packed dirt. When I scraped my foot against it, there wasn’t even the smallest puff of dust. It made very little sound beneath our feet. On the left, a low stone wall bordered the road about six inches wide, just higher than my knees. Beyond the wall, towering out of waist-high grass, were a dozen enormous apple trees, covered with the largest red apples I’d ever seen.
“Hey Faith, you wanted lunch,” Doug said. “Why don’t we stop and pick some apples?”
Faith shook her head at him. “You watch The Simpsons, but not The Wizard of Oz? You never steal apples from trees in a magic forest!”
Doug laughed at her and moved over to the wall. I could tell he was going to jump over and pick an apple from the nearest tree.
Faith was right. Who knew if something was dangerous. But I couldn’t think of anything that would make him listen. I muttered, “I wish we had something to help us figure out what’s safe in here!”
A sudden intense gust of wind whipped around us, tossing leaves and dust into the air. It was so strong I covered my eyes and held my breath. Dirt and twigs stung my hands, and the exposed parts of my face felt raw as it swept past with a high-pitched shriek. It certainly wasn’t quiet now!
I sucked in my breath to yell that we should get back in the tree when the wind died as abruptly as it began. My ears rang in the sudden silence, and I pulled my hands away from my eyes.
As the dust settled, I saw Doug had one foot resting on top of the low wall. But he was just standing there frozen, staring down the road. Before I could look that way, I heard an odd sound to the right. It was the first sound I’d heard in here besides that terrible wind, and it gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I turned, dimly aware that Faith and Olivia had turned also, but I didn’t pay them any attention. I was too busy looking for the source of those furtive rustling noises coming toward us through the colorful meadow.
Then Doug gave a quick exclamation and yanked his leg back onto the road. He pulled a slingshot out of his pocket and scanned the ground. “I need a rock!”
Chapter 12
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad…Fox?
Faith gasped and pointed into the field. Where she aimed her finger, black-tipped triangular ears and a long red muzzle peeked above the grass.
She threw herself in front of Doug and poked her finger at him. “You’re not going to shoot that fox! No way! My nickname is Fox. That’s my favorite animal.”
“Okay.” When Faith didn’t immediately move back, he glared down before repeating, “Okay! I won’t shoot your precious fox.”
Faith looked down at her hand in surprise where her finger was still shoved against his chest. “Okay then,” she said, a light flush spreading up her neck. She dropped her arm and moved back. She looked back at the spot where the fox had been, then sighed. There was no sign of it.
“So what’s with the sling shot?” Olivia asked.
“I got it for Christmas. I figured this would be a good place to try it out.”
I jumped as a high-pitched hooting sound came from one of the trees far to the left of the road. Olivia’s eyes were wide when she said, “I totally wish I knew what that was.”
As the words left her mouth, small shapes began moving towards us — two on the road, one through the air to our left, and one in the field to our right. We were being surrounded.
They ones on the road were still too far away to tell what they were, but the one on the right was definitely a fox.
Note to self — Find out if foxes attack people.
I took a step closer to Doug and his slingshot. “Where did those come from?”
Faith moved next to me as the small what-the-heck-are-those-things grew closer. She grabbed my arm, but didn’t take her eyes off the things approaching us. “What do they want?”
Even Doug sounded uneasy. “You’re sure you didn’t see any animals in here before?”
Only Olivia didn’t seem disturbed. She grinned and pointed in the tree next to us. There, a small gray-brown owl, only a few inches high, had touched down on a low branch, watching us with large yellow eyes. “Oh you cute thing,” Olivia breathed, then laughed as it fluttered over to land on a branch just above her head.
“That owl is staring at you,” Faith said, moving closer to me, away from the spot where the small bird perched. Her shoulder pushed so hard against me, she almost knocked me over. “Why is that owl staring like that? In the middle of the day! Owls come out at night, don’t they?”
“Pygmy owls are diurnal.” She grinned at the confusion on Faith’s face. “They hunt during the day.”
“Why didn’t you just say so,” Faith grumbled.
“How do you know it’s a pygmy owl?” Doug asked skeptically.
Olivia, Faith and I laughed. It was Faith who answered, “Owls have always been Olivia’s favorite. She knows all about them. Naturally.”
“What do you mean, naturally?”
“Olivia Willow Larson. OWL.”
“I get that’s your name, though why that would make you like owls…” He trailed off at the expression on Olivia’s face. “Forget it. Anyway, foxes are mostly nocturnal,” Doug said, and pointed back to the field on the right. There, the orange fur and pointed ears of the fox were visible,
staring directly at Faith. “That fox is staring at you, Faith.”
“Okay, I’m getting a bit freaked out here,” I said in amazement as Faith moved closer to the side of the road, staring at the fox with fascination.
“Isn’t anyone worried about this?” I gasped as one of the creatures on the road suddenly rushed toward us. Then, the racing beat of my heart changed from fear to pleasure as a large cat jumped onto the low stone fence only a few feet from me. The others watched as it walked towards me and stared intently into my face.
Olivia grinned at me. “It’s Siamese. Your dream cat.”
As if the cat heard her, it blinked its blue eyes in pleasure, then stretched elegantly, first one paw then the other, and jumped off the wall. It walked straight to me.
The others hesitantly drew closer, watching as I smiled down at the cat. It rubbed its head against my legs, gazed into my face and meowed. I stooped down and laughed at the loud rumbling purr that came from its chest when I stroked the soft fur on its back.
I glanced up at the others. “It’s not wearing a collar. I wonder where it belongs.” It sat at my feet and looked like it was waiting for us to do something.
“Um, do you think the other animals are as nice as the cat?” Olivia asked, then looked up startled at a flutter of wings. The tiny owl swooped down onto her shoulder, hooting wildly. It sounded…happy.
“Okay, now I’m the only one freaked out by all this,” Doug complained.
Faith and Olivia were too busy looking at their favorite animals to react, but Doug and I both looked up at the sound of a bark. Only a few feet away, a Jack Russell terrier had all of its attention focused on Doug, its tail wagging so hard it was having trouble standing still. Brown patches of fur circled both eyes and wrapped around both ears, and short white fur covered its body.
“Jack Russell’s are my favorite. Remember Rusty, Kat?”
I nodded, feeling my throat tighten at the memory of the feisty little dog that was Doug’s best friend until last winter. When, shortly after its sixteenth birthday, it lay down for the last time and never got back up. Doug hadn’t said his name once since then. Now he said wonderingly, “Rusty looked like that.”
Faith said, “How can that happen?”
My voice sounded weak when I answered, “Magic? Ronny said to be careful what we wished for. Were any of you wishing about animals?”
Olivia was staring at me. I mean really staring right at me. “What?”
“You wished for something to help us figure things out in here. Could they be here because of your wish?”
Faith said, “You don’t really think that’s what happened. Do you?”
“Better hope not,” Olivia told her, grinning. “I wish for stuff all the time. And when I get mad, they’re not very nice wishes. I don’t even mean them. Most of the time.”
“I wish I had a million dollars,” Doug said, and laughed. He waited a moment then said, “So, wishing for money doesn’t work.”
“I wish I had an X-Box,” Olivia said. None of us were surprised when that didn’t come true.
Note to self — You can’t get something electronic in a place where cell phones won’t work.
“Okay, so not all wishes work,” Doug said. “I guess if they are here for us, they’ll go where we go.”
“They’ll come,” Faith said confidently. “Race you,” she yelled and took off. Olivia and I scrambled to catch her, the small owl fluttering off Olivia’s shoulder with an indignant squeak. After a minute we stopped, laughing, and waited for Doug to catch up. We perched on the stone wall, watching him trudge up the road. When he reached us, he was rolling his eyes and muttering something about ‘girls’ under his breath.
Whatever he’d said could not have been nice. I was about to ask him to repeat it when I felt something rub against my legs. I looked down and smiled with pleasure at the cat.
I glanced over and saw Olivia looking at the little pygmy owl, who was back on her shoulder. To the right I could see the fox slinking through the grass, and the little dog had practically glued itself to Doug’s side. As I watched, its tongue lolled out and it looked like it was grinning. It suddenly jumped up, dancing in place and gave an excited bark.
Doug held out his hand, and received a quick lick on his fingers. Then the small dog gave a tremendous leap that reminded me of Rusty. Doug instinctively reached out and caught it, and got his face licked as well. Doug laughed and hugged the dog, asking, “What‘s your name, boy, huh? You’re not wearing a collar either.”
Olivia said, “What do you think we ought to do now? There still aren’t any signs of people in here.”
I said slowly, “We should probably ask Ronny. We could ask her about these animals, too.”
Faith asked, “How long have we been in here?”
I shrugged and guessed, “Maybe…an hour. Maybe less.”
“What time is that in Santa Ramona?” Doug asked.
“I don’t know, but it gets dark early, and I have to be home before dark,” Olivia said.
Faith stood up. “You realize I won’t be able to do this on Sunday’s. My coach isn’t going to buy going to a magic place through a tree as an excuse to miss practice.”
“The rest of us could come tomorrow,” Doug said.
Olivia and I glared at him. “We’re not coming without Faith,” I told him. I heard Faith give a quiet sigh. Actually, she might prefer to miss the next trip through the tree.
“If we come back, we can check the calendar for the next full moon.” Olivia stood up and began brushing off her pants. I was glad Doug didn’t argue, though it surprised me — he’d given in way too easy.
He gave the dog a last pat. “I hope I see you again, boy. We’re going now, but I’ll come back. I promise.”
The terrier barked and licked Doug’s face, then jumped out of his arms. It ran back the way we’d come.
“It’s like he understands me,” Doug said, surprised.
I shrugged and grinned. “This is a magic place.” I joked, “Maybe he does.”
Chapter 13
We’ll Be Careful
Going back through the tree, though it was just as disgusting as before, didn’t seem to take as long. Less creepification was a good thing!
We stumbled out of the tree into the cemetery. It wasn’t dark yet, but twilight wasn’t far off.
“I’ll check on the next full moon,” Doug said, sounding way more enthusiastic than the statement called for. “So we’ll all know when we can go back.”
That wasn’t like him. He was definitely up to something.
“Before we go home we have to talk to Ronny.” The others nodded, and I pulled out my phone, using the speaker so everyone could hear.
“Hi, Ronny. I’m sorry it’s late. We’ve a lot to tell you.”
Ronny said, “Did you find out about Mother?”
“No, that’s part of what we need to tell you.”
“It is almost dinner time, so I know you cannot meet with me tonight. Tomorrow is another day, right? Can we meet then?”
I bit my lip, knowing she wouldn’t like what I was about to say. “Uh…Faith has soccer practice tomorrow. Can we meet Monday after school?”
There was a short pause. For a moment I was sure she was going to argue about waiting so long. Then she sighed. “Can we meet at 4:30 at Johnny’s?”
I got everyone’s nod of agreement. “Yeah, we’ll meet you then. Bye.”
School crawled by on Monday. Doug had promised to meet us, so when the final bell rang, Faith, Olivia and I grabbed our stuff and headed out. We got there a few minutes early, and remembering how Doug had listened last time, we picked a booth where no one could overhear us.
Ronny got there a few minutes later. As she took her seat, I asked, “Could we wait until Doug gets here? To talk about what happened.”
Before I could say anything else, the smell of fries and burgers made my stomach growl loud enough that everyone at the table heard it. Oliv
ia and Faith laughed, while Ronny smiled at the blush crawling up my face. She held up her hand and asked a waitress for sodas and fries for each of us.
Then the waiting began.
I actually forced myself to wait a couple minutes after the fries were delivered. My mom would have been proud of me, being all polite, waiting for Doug to show up. But when it got to be 4:40, I decided it was his fault for being late and said so. As if that were a signal, we all started chowing down. By the time the fries were gone, Doug still hadn’t shown up.
I looked across the table, intending to ask Olivia if she remembered Doug saying anything about being late, but got distracted. Everyone was waiting so…different.
Faith’s eyes were bouncing around, looking all around the restaurant. Although her hands were folded quietly on the table, her shoulders were hunched and she kept shifting around in her seat. Sitting still was always hard for Faith.
Olivia was drumming her fingers on the table. Although she did stop occasionally to check herself out in the mirror by the exit. Johnny had put it there as a joke with a sign over it saying, “Check your face and shirt for mustard.”
Ronny held so still she might have been a stone statue rather than flesh and blood.
I was the only one acting anxious. I kept picking up my phone and checking for a text or voicemail from Doug. I was really starting to worry — Doug was usually early, never late. He said he hated missing anything. I tried calling and texting him, but the call went straight to voicemail and he didn’t text me back. I was going to start bouncing off the walls if he didn’t get here soon.
The next ten minutes were some of the longest I’d ever spent. Occasionally one of us would try to start a conversation, but it kept dying out as the door opened and someone other than Doug came in.
Finally I said, “I can’t stand this waiting. Will you tell us more about how you met Chris?”
Ronny looked down, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. Her voice was very quiet as she started speaking. “I met Chris by mistake. I was only here to find out what all the escaped magick was doing to Santa Ramona. But I came across this ten year old boy, crying because his dog had been hit by a car.”
