by James Bow
Peter gaped after her. “She didn’t seem too happy to be rescued.”
Puck was already standing, brushing himself off. “She did wait six years. How would you feel after such time?”
Rosemary sat up, breathing heavily. “Why couldn’t she have rescued herself?”
“It was not in her character,” said Puck.
As Rosemary and Peter rolled the dazed knight onto his back, Rosemary asked, “How many more challenges do we face before we find Theo?”
Puck shrugged. “It depends on the length of our tale. Sometimes we face three challenges, sometimes as many as seven.”
“Seven?” Peter exclaimed in horror. “Why?
“It is the law.”
“The law?” echoed Peter.
“Certainly,” said Puck. “In every story there must be a hero.” He nodded at Rosemary. “And in every story there must be a damsel in distr...” He trailed off. He was pointing at Peter. Peter folded his arms.
Then they heard something on the bridge that made them turn around.
Sniffing at the base of the bridge were the two chrome jaguars, their roughed-in eyes staring blindly. Their noses snuffed the pathway.
Rosemary tensed. What scent could they be looking for, but hers and Peter’s?
The jaguars stopped sniffing. Their heads came up towards Rosemary and Peter. They growled, their bared teeth reflecting the light.
“I told you those things weren’t natural,” said Peter.
Puck pulled the helmet off the Black Knight. “Sir Knight, see those metal animals yonder? How came they to be here?”
The Black Knight staggered to his feet. “I do not know. I have never seen them before.”
The jaguars crouched low and took slow, measured steps towards the party.
The knight picked up his fallen sword. “Lady Rosemary, get your friends down the pathway. That is the way to the next challenge. I shall fend these creatures off.”
“They’re made of metal,” said Peter. “You wouldn’t stand a chance!”
“Do not argue!” shouted the knight. “These creatures are not part of your challenge. Go!”
The jaguars snarled and charged.
Puck grabbed Peter and Rosemary’s wrists and they ran down the path. Behind them, the jaguars roared, and they heard the screech of metal against metal.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A TIGHT SQUEEZE
“I don’t understand.”
— Theo Watson
They ran. Peter stumbled in the bits of armour he couldn’t get off. Puck led them along a streambed to cover their scent, and then along the forest path until Peter begged for rest. Puck left them gasping, and listened to the forest for signs of pursuit.
“I hear nothing,” he said when he came back. “We have left our pursuers far behind.”
Rosemary wiped her face on her brocade sleeves. Her long skirts were soaked and torn.
“What were those things?” panted Peter. “I never read about things like that.”
Rosemary hefted her skirts and marched ahead. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
They followed the forest path until it suddenly spilled onto a large, well-tended lawn, rolled into hills and dotted with pruned hedges. Roiling clouds covered the sky. The wind picked up.
Rosemary paused, took a deep breath, and stepped out onto the smooth green grass.
She doubled over. “Ack!” She clutched her stomach. “What am I wearing?” She struggled to take a breath.
Blue and green taffeta covered her from neck to toe. Instead of her glasses, gilt pince-nez pinched her nose, attached to a ribbon around her neck. The dress had a bustle, and the waist was alarmingly tight.
“I — I think it’s a Victorian dress,” said Peter. He was wearing flannel pants, a starched shirt, an ascot tie, and an evening jacket.
“What’s it made of?” Rosemary gasped. “I feel like I’m being squeezed to death by a picket fence. I’ve got to get this off!”
“What?” Peter stumbled back.
“Wait here.” She staggered away from Peter and Puck and slipped behind the cover of a hedge. Immediately, the bushes began to quake and rustle as she gruntled and yelled. The dress flew into view, followed by a mound of crinolines, which blew away like white tumbleweeds. Still the grunting and snapping of branches continued.
Peter shivered in the freshening wind. “What’s taking her so long?” He looked up at Puck, who just raised an eyebrow.
Rosemary let out a sound like a large animal straining against its leash. Then she stopped. The quaking bushes stopped. For a moment there was silence. And then Rosemary rasped, “Help!”
Peter and Puck bolted for the bushes. Peter grabbed a branch to pull himself around the corner, then stopped dead. Puck nimbly dodged him and stood, tense as a gazelle.
Rosemary was on her knees, gasping for air. She was dressed all in white, bloomers and camisole still covering her. From the waist up, she was clamped inside a vicious whalebone corset. She looked up at them, eyes wide. “I can’t ... I can’t get this ... off! I can’t ... breathe!”
Puck let out his breath. A smile touched his lips. “Easy, now, Sage Rosemary.” He touched the top of her head. Her rapid breathing eased, though she still couldn’t take a full breath.
“I’m ... I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I feel stupid. The knot won’t come loose.” She turned her back to him, revealing a line of woven string more intricate than a suspension bridge.
“There, there,” said Puck. “There is no knot I have not beaten.” He touched the ropes gently and they parted. He tugged the corset apart.
Rosemary took a deep, rasping breath. She pulled the corset over her head and sent it flying with a kick. She stood, breathing heavily, in camisole and bloomers. She looked up at Puck. “Thanks.”
Peter gaped at the corset. “Women wore those things?”
She grinned. “Not anymore.” She picked up her fallen overdress with her ink-stained arm and cleared her throat.
Peter turned beet red and darted around the bushes. Puck stared after him quizzically, then shrugged and followed.
As the wind picked up, Peter and Puck stood waiting at the edge of the grounds as the bush rustled, then Rosemary emerged, clad in her overdress, hem trailing on the ground.
“Are you all right, Sage Rosemary?” asked Puck.
She rubbed her side. “My stomach hurts, but it could be from Princess Petunia jumping on me.”
“Asphodel,” said Puck.
“Whatever.” She finally noticed her new glasses and snatched them off to peer at them.
“Um, Rosemary?” Peter gestured. “Y-you missed some of the buttons.” Her dress gapped at the back of her waist.
Rosemary gave Peter a look. He raised his hands. “Never mind.”
“We make progress with every step,” said Puck, “so let us not stop here. Come!” He led the way across the grounds.
Rosemary’s dress was too long now that it wasn’t held out by crinolines. She stumbled over the hem several times, and finally, nearing the crest of a hill, she tripped on it and fell over. “This is ridiculous! The sooner we finish this challenge the better!” Peter helped her up. “What do we have to do?”
Puck was standing up the slope, looking over the hill. “Keep our feet, Sage Rosemary. And keep our heads.”
Peter loosened his ascot and handed it to her. “Here. Belt it up.”
Rosemary hoisted her skirts and tied the grey sash around her waist. Thunder rolled across the sky. “I hope this challenge is indoors. Puck, what are you looking at?” She came up to the crest of the hill and stopped in her tracks. “Oh, no.”
A mansion of dark stone and crooked shutters frowned across at them. Behind it, a towering black cloud flashed with lighting. At the roof’s peak, a weathervane in the shape of a running maiden spun wildly. They could hear its little metal cries.
Rosemary took a step back, pressing into Puck. “I know what this is,” she said. “I know enough to know we s
houldn’t go in there!”
“But the challenge —” Puck began.
“I don’t care about the challenge!” said Rosemary, shaking. “We go around or something.”
Peter was ahead of them by a few paces, standing just past the crest. “Or something?” he echoed. “Rosemary, look at this.”
Rosemary and Puck climbed the rest of the way to him and looked.
The front door of the house was before them. The wings of it stretched out on either side, and kept on stretching. Rosemary’s gaze followed the roofline as it rolled over the hills to the darkening horizon, like the Great Wall of China. “That’s not fair!”
Puck squeezed her shoulder. “It is the Land of Fiction. It is not meant to be fair.”
Lightning flashed. Peter blinked. “Look, a Zeppelin! Isn’t it bad for them to be out in storms?”
Rosemary started and followed Peter’s pointing finger. In the distance, a long, cigar-shaped airship hovered over a wing of the house. She looked down at her dress and back towards it. “Did they even have Zeppelins back ... uh ... now?”
Peter shrugged.
Puck stepped forward, rubbing his chin. “A ship that floats in the sky? My, my!”
The airship made a slow turn towards them. Rosemary shivered. Lightning flashed again. “Come on. Let’s get inside before it rains.” She led the way down the hill to the front door.
Peter and Puck followed as she crunched across the gravel driveway. A single crow cawed, and there was a rumble of thunder. Rosemary craned her neck up at the grey face of the house and hesitated. Peter eased her forward, up the marble steps.
Thunder cracked. Rain started suddenly, coming down in torrents. As Rosemary reached up to knock, the door creaked opened by itself.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” said Peter.
“Nope,” said Rosemary. Without thinking, she took his hand. Together, they stepped inside.
They entered a panelled lobby, hung with huge portraits and rusting swords. Dim gas lamps filled the space with flickering shadow. Heavy velvet drapes stirred in cold drafts. They edged forward, footsteps echoing. The door creaked closed behind them and shut with a click. Peter shivered. “What do we do now?”
Rosemary shrugged. “Get through the house, I guess. We look for a back door. I just hope nobody notices us.” They stepped forward.
Rosemary felt something tug at her hem and she whirled around. A suit of armour staggered forward and she ducked back with a scream. The armour toppled to the floor, smashing to pieces with a gigantic crash. The metal clatter echoed and re-echoed through the house for several minutes before finally dying down.
Peter bit his lip. Puck avoided her eyes. Rosemary stood surrounded by pieces of armour, the hem of her dress still snagged on the axe handle. She yanked it free. “I hate this dress,” she muttered.
“Think somebody noticed us?” said Peter.
“Shut up!”
The wind rose. It snuffled into small holes and openings and moaned down the hallways.
Peter and Rosemary drew closer together. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.
“Yeah. Come on.”
They started forward. Then a trap door opened beneath their feet and they fell with a single scream.
Peter and Rosemary found themselves sliding down a chute. They smashed through a swinging door and then they were rolling across a carpeted hallway, landing in a tangled heap against a wall. Puck somersaulted out of the hatch and landed nimbly on his feet beside them.
Rosemary’s skirts had flown up and tangled around her head. She felt as if she were tied in a sack. She flailed her way free. “Right!” she said. “That’s it! I might have to do a haunted house, but I won’t do this stupid dress!” She tore at it, sending tiny black buttons flying. She yanked the skirt back up over her head.
“Rosemary, w-what are you doing?” Peter stuttered. White undergarments were emerging from the tangle of blue and green. “Calm down!”
“I’ll be ... calm,” she grunted, struggling inside the taffeta. “I’ll be ... calm ... as soon ... as I get ... this thing ... off!” Rosemary’s head burst out of the dress, and she flung it aside in triumph. Her Victorian updo was a frizzled wreck. “There,” she said. “Now I’m calm!”
She stood up and saw Peter staring at her bloomers and camisole, agog. “What?” she said. “I’m wearing lots!”
“Well, yeah, but all of that’s underw—” He faltered. “I mean, you’re —” Silence stretched. “You look fine.” He turned away. “What do we do now?”
“We look for stairs,” said Rosemary.
They were in a narrow, dim corridor. Around them, the jet buttons glittered like eyes.
“But this place could be full of ...” Peter waved his hands. “Anything! What do we do?”
“Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”
He frowned at her. “How do you know?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
“But —” Peter began, but Puck cut him off.
“What did I tell you about her instinct?” said Puck. “Sage Rosemary, where do you think we should go next?”
She looked up and down the corridor and pointed. They set off. The green carpeting was soft as moss; the only sound they could hear was the hiss of the gas lamps. The corridor stretched to a bend, offering no doors to rooms where danger could hide, but no place for them to hide, either, should danger strike. Turning the corner, they saw the corridor continue, with no doors, to another bend.
After ten minutes of creeping in silence, they had turned several corners, and the corridor still continued on.
“Maybe we’ve gone in circles,” said Peter.
“No,” said Rosemary. “I’ve been counting. Right turn, then left, then right, then left. If the hallway is straight, it can’t have turned back on itself.”
They crept forward. The gaslights hissed. The floorboards creaked.
Rosemary stopped as she passed another turn. “This could go on forever.”
“Maybe we should go back,” said Peter.
“Hello!” Puck bellowed. Peter jumped out of his skin.
“Puck!” Rosemary clutched her chest. “What are you doing?!”
But Puck was undaunted. “Hello!” he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Whoever is here to challenge us, we await you!”
Peter pulled at his arm. “Are you sure about this?”
“Which would you rather face? The challenge, or this wretched wandering?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know anymore!”
Then the lights dimmed. A breeze plucked at their clothes and whistled in the hollow spaces.
“Wandering!” said Peter. “Definitely going to go for the wandering!”
Rosemary grabbed his hand. “Come on!” They marched along the corridor. Turning the next corner, they stopped dead.
A spectre floated before them.
It was a translucent skeleton, clothed in wretched rags and dangling chains. It let out a moan that echoed through the corridor. It turned and floated towards them.
“Let’s get out of here!” Peter gasped.
Rosemary tightened her grip on his hand. “No!”
He tried to pull free. “Rosemary, please, for the love of —”
She grabbed his arm with her other hand. “No, Peter. Think about it! Where would we run to?”
Puck placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Courage, Peter.”
The spectre moaned as it gathered speed along the long hallway. Peter closed his eyes. Rosemary pulled him closer. The moan rose to a wail as the creature approached. Cold washed over them.
Then it was gone. The lights brightened. The corridor was silent. They were alone in the hallway.
“How did you know?” Peter croaked.
Rosemary still held tight to his arm and her voice shook, but she said, “I read these two books with haunted houses in them. I finished one, and I think this is it. Thank God it wasn’t the other one.” She shivered. “I�
�m pretty sure I know this story.”
“Pretty sure?” Peter echoed.
“It was, like, four years ago!” She let go and stepped along the corridor to the next bend. “Hey!” she said, brightening. “Stairs!”
Peter and Puck stepped forward and looked. This corridor ended in a flight of stairs, leading up.
Rosemary narrowed her eyes. “Let’s get to the bottom of this!”
“Or the top, as it were,” Puck muttered. They strode up the stairs.
They came out into a ballroom. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling and mirrors lined the walls. The gaslight bounced and bounced again, and Peter and Rosemary had to stand still and blink. Puck seemed to have the eyes of a cat and was already making faces in the mirrors. Suits of armour stood in the corners, holding tall axes.
The floor beneath them began to shake. The gaslights on the chandelier flickered. The floorboards creaked. Around them, a spectral moan rose out of nowhere and tickled their spines.
“Stop it!” Rosemary shouted. “I’ve had enough of this!”
The shaking floor intensified into a rumble. The chandelier swung and tinkled like a wind chime. “This is a trick!” she yelled. “The house is mechanical!”
“The controls must be around somewhere!” shouted Peter.
“Let’s find them!” Rosemary stumbled towards the fireplace. She jumped back as the flames leapt out at her. “Here! It’s around here!” A portrait hung above the mantel. In the painting, the eyes of a stern whitehaired man glared at her. Rosemary shifted her position, and the eyes followed her.
Darting to the mantel, Rosemary climbed the stonework and perched precariously. She raised her hand, two fingers sticking out, and poked the portrait hard in the eyes.
There was a scream from within.
Rosemary punched and her fist crashed through the canvas. Grabbing an edge, she began to tear the painting away.
The floor stopped shaking and the noises were silenced abruptly. Behind the portrait, somebody yelled, “Hey! Stop! That’s valuable, that is!”
Peter rushed over and helped to pull the canvas away. Behind it they found an alcove filled with mechanical equipment. A short man sat on a stool by the controls, clutching his eyes.
