by James Bow
Peter jumped into the alcove and grabbed the man’s swivel chair. “Who are you?”
The man swung around. He was wearing a snarling, gap-toothed witch doctor mask. “Yah!” He lunged at Peter.
Peter stumbled out of the alcove, fell off the mantel, and landed on the floor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MIRROR, MIRROR
“She will.”
— Marjorie Campbell
The man leapt off the mantelpiece and pulled off his mask. He pointed at Peter and cackled. “Got you!” He was a small man with a round, red face like a cherub, but his eyes were as dark as holes.
Keeping her eye on the little man, Rosemary climbed down while Puck helped Peter to his feet. “You run this place?” Rosemary asked.
The man tapped his fingers together and gave her a little bow. “Actually, Miss Watson, I am filling in for the proprietor. You remember old Professor Herman?”
The light dawned. “Yes! Professor Herman!”
“Huh?” said Peter.
“This old guy who rigged the house to move around and make noises to scare everybody away,” said Rosemary. “But two kids weren’t scared off; they made friends with him and got him back into the real world.”
“They just left the house behind at the end of the story,” said the man. “They didn’t tell you whether they shut it down or not, so it’s still here, and I’m able to make use of it.”
“Why?” demanded Peter, still brushing himself off. “Why did you try to scare us like that?”
“So, I did scare you?” said the little man eagerly.
“Yes!”
The man clapped and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Oh, good, good, good! I do so love a job well done!”
“This is your job?” said Rosemary.
“My life, actually,” said the man. “I’m sorry, haven’t I introduced myself? I am the Fearmonger, and fear is my life.”
“The Fearmonger?” echoed Rosemary.
“I—I’ve never read about a Fearmonger,” said Peter.
“I am not a character,” the Fearmonger bubbled, “but I am in most works of fiction.” He threw his arms wide. “I am the shadow in the corner! I am the ghost that lurks in dark alcoves! I am the twitching doorknob on an unlocked door. Fear is my service to the Land of Fiction.”
“Some service,” snapped Peter, “scaring people out of their wits!” He turned and was suddenly face to face with a living, breathing gargoyle. Its stone tongue lolled.
“Yah!” said the gargoyle.
Peter stumbled back, tripped, and fell to the floor.
The Fearmonger tossed the mask aside. “Got you again!”
Rosemary eyed the Fearmonger and his cheeky grin. “You’re enjoying this!”
“And so are you,” said the Fearmonger. “Look at yourself, Miss Watson: your heart is still beating at twenty percent over its normal rate after your trip through the corridor and your skin is delightfully flushed. How do you feel? Alert, I’ll wager. Excited? Invigorated?”
Despite herself, Rosemary grinned. “Yeah, it was kind of fun.”
“Well, I’m not having fun,” muttered Peter from the floor. Rosemary gave him a guilty glance.
“I am glad I could be of service,” said the Fearmonger. “It is my duty, after all, to test your mettle. Only if you pass me will you be worthy to save your brother, Theo.”
Peter stood up. Rosemary stared at the Fearmonger, wide-eyed.
“Yes, I have followed your every step, Miss Watson,” the Fearmonger continued. “I must say, I am impressed with your performance so far. I had never realized what a brave young person you were.”
“Well, I have to be,” said Rosemary. “Theo’s my brother. This is not some book!”
“Indeed it is not some book.” The Fearmonger began to pace, making slow, measured strides as he strolled around them, his heels clicking on the marble floor. “But I know you, Miss Watson. I’ve looked out at you from almost every book you’ve read. You do not do well with books.”
Rosemary shivered. The room was suddenly colder.
“And now you hunt for the characters who kidnapped your brother — you, yourself, not some figure on the page. You face the risks, now, the terms. And to think of what you face; why, it would make me quake in my boots!”
Rosemary couldn’t get warm. “Wh-what am I facing?”
He came close and whispered over her shoulder. “Only your worst fears.”
She stared at him.
He circled again. “I know you, Miss Watson. I know that, for every four novels you start, three go unfinished. Two get tossed against the wall.”
His footsteps grew heavier. The Fearmonger was taller, now, and getting taller with every step. Peter stood horrified. Puck looked on in silence, his arms folded and his face grim. And it was so cold.
“You are fighting these things, Miss Watson,” the Fearmonger purred, his voice now an octave deeper. “Only, you can’t throw the book down and run away. It will be you falling into the volcano, you facing execution at dawn, you trapped in the tomb, in the dark, with nothing but scarab beetles for company.”
Rosemary clutched her arms around herself to try to keep from quaking.
Peter struggled out of his trance and grabbed her shoulder. “Rosemary, don’t listen to him!”
She could hardly hear him. She couldn’t answer. He turned her around and shouted into her face. “Rosemary! He’s trying to scare you off!”
The Fearmonger leapt at Peter, his face transformed into the face of a snarling wolf. Peter scrambled back.
The Fearmonger pulled off his mask. “Got you a third time!” Then he turned back to Rosemary, leaned over her shoulder, and began whispering into her ear like a bad conscience. “How will you fight, Miss Watson? You have no weapons. How will you face creatures that can fold themselves out of sight? Who will protect you?”
Her gaze shifted up and settled upon Peter.
The Fearmonger chuckled. “The boy? He ran as though ten knights were after him, not just one. What else do you have?”
Rosemary looked at Puck. The Fearmonger followed her gaze. His smile didn’t falter. “You? What can you do to help her?”
Puck smiled and then transformed into a wolf, snarling like the Fearmonger’s mask. Rosemary ducked as he leapt at the Fearmonger.
With a yell of terror, the Fearmonger bolted. He ran. Peter tripped him, and he went down heavily. Rubber masks of all varieties, from ghouls to dentists, burst from the Fearmonger’s coat and skidded across the floor. He cowered as the wolf whirled around, transformed back into Puck, and stood there tapping his foot.
“Got you!” said Puck.
Peter and Rosemary burst out laughing.
The Fearmonger scowled. “That wasn’t funny!” But he couldn’t stop Peter and Rosemary from doubling over with laughter. “Stop it!” he yelled, his voice rising in anger. “Stop laughing at me!”
Rosemary, still giggling, glanced at the Fearmonger. Then she stared in astonishment.
He had been barely five feet tall when she’d first seen him. He was six feet tall when he was circling her. Now he was shorter than her sister Trisha. And he was still shrinking.
As Rosemary and Peter watched, the Fearmonger jumped up and down in fury. “See what you’ve done!” he squeaked.
“What’s happened to you?” asked Rosemary. She started to laugh again.
“It is your laughter, Rosemary,” said Puck. “Laughter is an excellent way to reduce one’s fear.” He picked up the doll-sized Fearmonger and held him at arm’s length. “Now then, little man. How do we leave this house?”
The Fearmonger folded his arms. “I won’t tell you.”
Puck took a deep breath and said, “A knight, a monk, and a donkey walk into an inn —”
“Stop!” the Fearmonger shrieked. “Okay, okay, I’ll let you out!” He grumbled as Puck set him down. “Pesky kids!”
Peter folded his arms. “The way out?”
The Fearmonge
r climbed up the mantel and into the alcove. He pressed a button on the controls. Two doors at the end of the hall, camouflaged by mirrors, opened.
Rosemary smiled grimly. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be sorry!” the Fearmonger shouted. “You can’t stop yourself from being afraid, and when you fear, you’ll face me again!”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Peter.
“And I’ll be taller!”
They headed for the doors. Halfway, Rosemary caught movement at the corner of her eye and whirled. She found herself face to face with her own reflection in one of the mirrored walls.
“What is it?” asked Peter.
“Nothing. It was just my” — she paused — “reflection?”
A girl looked back and raised her hand as Rosemary raised hers. Rosemary frowned. Her reflection smirked. Then, with a flick of her hands, the reflection changed the glasses she was wearing. The girl from the library stood before her.
Rosemary felt herself grabbed by invisible hands and tossed at the mirror. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the shattering impact, but felt instead a brief flash of cold, like passing through a thin waterfall, and found herself on the marble floor.
“Rosemary!” Peter shouted behind her. His voice sounded as if it had come from behind glass. She turned, and saw Peter standing in a mirror behind her, fists thumping against the surface. The room around her was different, darker and backwards.
“I said you’d be sorry!” the Fearmonger shouted as he frantically stuffed his full-sized masks into his pint-sized pockets. “You’ve incurred Her wrath! I’m leaving. You are all done for!” He disappeared down the stairs.
“Her?” Rosemary echoed. Then she turned around. She gasped as she bumped into the girl.
The girl grabbed Rosemary by the throat.
“Do you remember?” said the sandpaper voice.
“Remember what?” Rosemary choked.
“Do you remember the books?” said the girl.
“I don’t — gaak! — I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“The three out of the four?” the girl whispered. “No? Then remember this!” She shoved Rosemary to the floor and laughed as she ran into the darkness.
Rosemary sat alone in the darkened room. Her breath echoed around her. The shadows were far from empty. As she listened, other sounds started to be heard above the blood rushing in her ears and the muffled sounds of Peter and Puck’s frantic discussions of where she had gone and how to get her back.
“I know this place.” Her voice echoed. She drew her arms around herself. “I know this place!”
She scrambled to her feet and ran back to the mirror Peter was beating against. Puck was behind him, watching nervously.
Rosemary felt the mirror. It was solid glass. She laid her hand to match Peter’s, but felt nothing. “Puck, what happened?” she called. “Is this another challenge?”
“No!” His voice was muted. “The Fearmonger was the test and he has just fled.”
“What happened? Why am I alone?”
The word echoed in her mind. Alone.
Or was the echo just in her mind?
A breeze rushed through the house, thrumming through the hallways, like rooms exhaling. In a distant wing, a deep beat began, like a huge drum being struck repeatedly, or a giant marching to war.
Rosemary tried not to breathe fast. “There’s got to be a way out of this! That makes sense, right? They got me in, they have to be able to get me out, right?”
Peter looked at her. “Rosemary, I —”
“Just say ‘right!’” She felt around the mirror for switches, catches, anything.
The drumming footsteps continued to echo through the house. Rosemary shot a look at Peter. His hands were growing white as he pushed desperately at the glass.
The booming rhythm drew closer. Rosemary thought she saw the ceiling shudder under the weight of some presence above her. Then the sound travelled away, but came down a level. The floor began to shake to the beat of it.
Then the drumbeat stopped.
A noise closer made Rosemary whirl around.
A light was shining beneath a door leading out of the room. Something was moving in front of the light. A shadow flickered across the foot of the door. Something was sniffing for an opening, grunting and growling like an animal, or something worse than an animal.
Rosemary swallowed hard. “Peter?”
At the sound of her voice, the shadow jerked. The grunts increased in intensity. The doorknob jiggled and then began to turn.
Puck was staring through another mirror, examining the edges carefully, and frowning. Peter was saying, “I — I can’t get through to her. It’s all solid glass!”
Rosemary backed into her mirror. “Peter? Puck? Get me out of here!”
The doorknob slipped, then jiggled again. The grunts behind the door came quicker, became frustrated. Then there was a fearsome shriek as the creature threw itself at the doors. The crash echoed through the room. The heavy oak panels bulged inward under the assault, twisting like rubber.
Rosemary whirled back and thumped the mirror. “Peter! Get me out! Something’s in here with me!”
Puck marched over to a suit of armour and yanked an axe free. The armour jangled into a pile of parts. Puck handed the axe to Peter. “Get her out.”
Peter hefted the axe and aimed for the mirror. Then he hesitated. “What if I hurt Rosemary?”
“That is a risk you will have to take, boy,” said Puck. “Do it!”
In the reflected room, the door burst open. With a guttural snarl, something bounded through.
“Peter!” Rosemary screamed.
Closing his eyes, Peter swung the axe into the glass.
Rosemary broke into a million pieces.
Then she found herself outside the mirror, on the floor, gasping. She was surrounded by little pieces of glass: little pieces of the girl’s face, laughing at her. She scrambled to her feet. Peter caught her with one arm. He was still holding the axe. “Are you okay?”
“Sage Rosemary,” said Puck. “Do not be afraid. You are free now.”
Rosemary stared at the mirrors. She raised her hand and pointed. Peter and Puck looked.
The mirrors surrounded them with angry faces. People glared in from every glass, people of all ages, all shapes and sizes, in all forms of dress. There was a woman in a torn dress that used to be elegant, a boy with a black eye, and more.
Then they heard a scream from behind them. “Rosemary, help me!”
Rosemary whirled around.
Framed in the mirror was a young woman of around twenty. Her blue-green taffeta was torn and her blonde hair was tumbling from its bun. She beat against the mirror. “Let me out! For the love of God, let me out! Something’s in here with me!”
“It’s Lydia!” Rosemary rushed forward. “We’ve got to help her!”
Puck grabbed her and held her back. “No. Remember the princess!”
From behind Lydia there came the sound of a grunting animal. She whirled around and pressed her back to the mirror. “No! Keep away from me! Keep away!” Then something lashed out and pulled her from view. Peter winced and Rosemary buried her face in Puck’s tunic as the screams and the animal snarls rang through the room.
“We should have helped her!” Rosemary sobbed.
“It was a trap,” said Puck, his hands in her hair. “It is still a trap.”
The figures in the mirrors turned so that they faced away from the ballroom. They started to walk away. Rosemary frowned. Why would they be walking away?
Then a thought jabbed her in the stomach. What if the mirrors were showing what was really in the room? In the mirrors, the characters were closing in on her reflection and the reflections of Peter and Puck. “We’re under attack!”
Peter shivered. He gripped his axe. “I can’t see them, but I can feel them. They’re getting closer!”
Rosemary coughed. The smell of mildew clawed at her lungs.
P
uck pulled Peter and Rosemary close to him. His voice rang out. “Attack a young maiden without even the courtesy of letting her see you? Are you not honourable characters?”
At once, the room was filled with angry whispers.
“Coward!”
“Abandoner!”
“No honour in her!”
“Revenge!”
Peter gulped. “You made them mad.”
“I made nothing. They were already mad,” Puck muttered. “Let us move to the doors. I can see these rogues, and there is still a pathway.”
Rosemary glanced at the mirrors. The characters were almost in a circle around them, tracking them as they crept towards the doors.
“Get her!” whispered a voice.
Peter shot a look at the mirror and his eyes went wide. “Rosemary! Look out!” He lunged for her, swinging his axe. There was the sound of ripping paper, and two halves of a bear fell out of the air, its paws raised to claw.
Suddenly Rosemary rose into the air, choking. Peter looked to a mirror for some guidance but was knocked to the ground. Rosemary cried out as something struck her in the back of the head.
Puck rushed forward, transforming in a whirl of green and gold into a giant eagle. The bird’s body was as big as Puck’s had been, and its wings seemed to fill the room. The great talons struck at whatever was holding Rosemary. She crumpled and lay on the floor in a daze.
The eagle swept its huge wings forward, scattering their invisible foes with audible crashes. But in the mirror, Lydia stepped behind Puck and raised a fireplace poker.
Peter shouted a warning, but it was too late. The poker hit the eagle in the temple.
Puck gave a skirling cry and toppled out of the air, catching himself on human hands.
Peter scrambled up, swinging the axe. Around them, characters folded into existence, arms raised.
“Flee!” Puck cried. He gathered up Rosemary and stumbled for the door. Peter followed, staggering backward, swinging the axe to keep the folding people at bay.
At the last mirror in the ballroom, the girl in the horn-rimmed glasses tracked them as they darted past.
They burst through the back doors. Puck carried Rosemary out into the thunderstorm.
