Mere Phantasy

by Ashley Lauren

  Thankfully, Peter’s boyish face came into view at the doorway. He looked around and raised a curious eyebrow at me. “Did you have a bad hair sample?” Sighing, he walked forward to help me to my feet. “Quasi hates bad hair samples.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I didn’t get an answer because the man was back and waddling around both Peter and me with skepticism. “You bring me good sample. But she too loud. Hurts Quasi’s head.”

  “Sorry, Quasi. I was hoping I’d be back before she woke up,” Peter told him. Beaming at me, he motioned to the sketchy little dude—Quasi, as he called him—which then made him hiss before jumping back a few feet. “This is an old friend of mine. Quasimodo, meet Lacey Rose. She’s the one that’s going to save us all.”

  Five

  MY HANDS VISIBLY SHOOK AS I TRIED TO BRING THE steamy tea to my lips, watching the two old friends get reacquainted in front of me like this was completely normal. Like Quasimodo was a real thing and hunched over right before me, snorting along in laughter to one of Peter’s horrible puns. Thankfully, I looked into the muddy-colored liquid I was about to drink before I let the substance actually touch my lips. Was that a chunk of hair bobbing in my tea?

  Probably seeing the horrified expression on my face, Quasimodo raised his head out of their deep conversation to smile—with only a few teeth, might I add—at me. “Quasi make special for his guests.” He motioned for me to continue to sip. Grimacing, I set the cup back on the cluttered table by my feet, the old and stinky couch underneath me creaking with the effort.

  “I’m not very thirsty anymore, but thank you.” I swallowed in disgust, pressing my trembling hands into my lap. When I looked to Peter, nausea pulled at my stomach the second I saw him down his own cup.

  The Lost Boy smacked his lips after finishing the entire drink. “Ah. Nothing like some of Quasi’s specialty tea. Haven’t had that in… What? Twenty years?”

  Seeing as Peter couldn’t have been much older than me, I was starting to see the theme here. The utterly crazy theme.

  And I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Will someone please explain what the heck is going on?” I barked, forcing both companions enjoying each other’s company on adjacent breaking, or already broken, seats to look at me. Quasi hunkered down farther into his lopsided stool that swayed when he moved, and Peter just sat back into his shredded lawn chair so it sat at an angle against a pile of garbage behind him.

  But then, just as quickly, they both went back to talking and completely ignoring me.

  “So, Quasi… I hate to say this is anything but a nice visit with an old friend, but I actually need your help,” Peter explained.

  Quasi peered at him skeptically, one protruding eye twitching like he was contemplating whether or not the kid deserved a nice bite to put him in his place. But instead, Quasi just staggered to his feet with a grumble. “You know Quasi don’t like when his friends use him for the Fauna.” Maybe it was just my imagination, but it looked like the mangle of a man in front of us was pouting like a little kid about the mysterious business of his he didn’t want Peter to use.

  Seeing this, Peter rushed to sweeten up his request. “No, no, Quasi. I’m not here to take the Fauna. Just… borrow it. That’s all. Swear it.”

  With both his and Peter’s cups in his hands, Quasi looked unsure before his buggy glare landed on me. “You wish to Cross?”

  Ridiculously confused, I glanced between Peter and him incredulously. “Okay, what game are we playing here? Is this a drug deal o-or some sort of joke you two find funny? To string me along like this?”

  Peter only frowned at me before going back to Quasi. “She does. She wants to Cross.”

  “I don’t want any of your drugs!”

  Seeing Quasi moving back and forth between our protests, Peter stood and squatted eye level with him so Quasi didn’t have any other choice but to see only him. “She’s confused.” He pointed to his temple with a finger, swirling it. “Un peu fou.”

  Great, now Peter was speaking French, too.

  Obviously finding what Peter said hilarious, Quasi bent over in croaking chuckles, his hunch atop his back shifting. “Fine, fine. Quasi will let his old friend Cross. But…” He began, holding up a bulged index finger. “Old friend must first answer riddle.”

  Peter rubbed his hands down his face with a groan. “Oh, not this again.”

  But Quasi looked ecstatic, jumping up and down so much that one of his teacups fell to the floor and shattered. Without a second’s hesitation, he used his gnarled and very, very hairy foot to swipe the shards under the rug, lifting the fabric with his spindly other set of toes, and then patted the rug like nothing was underneath it. Then he spat a little when he rushed forward to pick up a tattered book from the crooked coffee table before us. “Let Quasi see,” he hummed, flipping through pages before slamming his long, yellow fingernail onto the one he wanted. “Listen close.” He leaned into Peter with a snaggletooth grin. “They come at night, with no being called. They lost in the day, no being stolen. What is they?”

  It was harder to decipher a riddle when the person asking didn’t speak proper English, but the answer came to me as clear as day the second I saw the familiar picture of a star in a rusty household decorative gold shield reflection behind Quasi’s quivering body.

  “Can I get a definition?” Peter winced uneasily.

  Throwing my head back in exasperation, I slapped my hand down on my jeans, and both males jerked from the sudden noise. “They’re stars. The answer is the stars. Something that comes at night without being called and lost in the day without being stolen. Stars.” Everything around me threatened to spin as panic started to set in suddenly. “C-can I please go home now?”

  I was still trembling with fear. I had no idea what was going on or how I could get away. The door was sealed off by more debris from Quasi’s immense hoarding skills, and the windows leading out onto the late afternoon street had no openings. I was trapped.

  Instead of answering my question, Peter threw two fists in the air. “You’re a natural, Rose!”

  Instead of being flattered, I could only clench my hands to hold back from cussing out the lunatic. Whatever this whole ordeal was, I was tired of it. I had no answers to what happened earlier with the Arm… Armadillo-something monster, or how the Lost Boy from my dreams knew about said dreams and was trying to get me to “cross” with a disfigured man named Quasimodo in his hoarder shop on an almost empty city street in Downtown Chicago. As I noticed this factor, I peered at the street behind me. Not a single person or car passed—a nonexistent theme in this area. Where the heck was I?

  Quasi was still leaping for joy at the fact that I’d guessed—but really cheated—his riddle correctly. “Smart, smart girl you is!”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I murmured and touched a quivering hand to my throbbing head.

  Was this just another day-induced vision? Yeah, that was it. Any second I was going to wake up in the middle of the grocery store, and this would all just be a big phony dream, just like the rest.

  “You earn it. I give to you now.” Quasi, exasperated, twisted his body to rummage through his scattered belongings. Peter was distracted from me due to Quasi chucking objects over his shoulder, getting up to dodge each one and grinning the entire time. “Where it is? Where it is?” Quasi grumbled as Peter ducked under a flying plastic pink flamingo.

  After a few minutes, during which I’d already gnawed off every one of my fingernails, Quasi had made his rounds around the entirety of his cluttered store, Peter in tow, and finally shouted in glee. “Found it. Quasi did find it!”

  A fervent squeaking filled the air, and both Quasi and Peter, beaming, came into view with a large oval-shaped object on wheels, covered in a dusty cloth. When it was in front of me, Quasi unveiled what he’d been looking for and sent a plume of dust into the air. As I coughed and fanned to clear the cloud, I noticed Peter running his hand down the face of a flawlessly clean, golden-rimm
ed mirror with a solemn expression.

  “How I’ve missed you, my home.”

  Great, now he was talking to mirrors. What next, meeting a goat inside an armoire?

  I had to physically clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from whimpering at this point. This was so messed up, whatever “this” was, and I had absolutely no logical explanation for what was happening in front of me.

  And I especially had nothing for when a sudden scuttling sound crackled above us, sending a trickle of tired ceiling particles onto our heads. Peter and Quasi stopped mid-conversation, peering up with confused faces.

  Quasi started to shake horribly. “R-rats?”

  Peter’s gaze flickered back and forth uneasily, his eyebrows dipping low on his face like he was nervous. “That’s one bloody big rat.”

  A squeal, one I could best describe as a tire screeching on asphalt, broke through the rafters, followed by more raining roof crumbles. Peter moved for his sword, as if on instinct, which was strapped to his belt (why I hadn’t fervently acknowledged the kid had a sword this whole time, I didn’t know) and peered around us to listen closely. There was no sound besides our shallow breathing in anticipation, and as I looked out the window for the last time, I wished I had never come with the Lost Boy in the first place.

  And then a winged creature burst through the ceiling.

  I scurried backward, falling, as Peter dove out of the way and a pile of Quasi’s belongings teetered and crashed to the ground. Reaching out, I caught myself from going head first off the back of the couch by grasping onto a flimsy stack of records that all clattered to the floor, along with a clumsy and terrified Lacey, despite my efforts.

  My shoulder hit the wood floor first, hard, before another scream rang out and rattled my brain. It was the most terrifying sound I’d ever heard.

  Quasi was wailing as I tried to get up and hide from whatever had just shot down from the store’s attic. “Water Leaper! Water Leaper!”

  Cursing to myself, I dumbly peered over the couch to see what was happening amidst the chaos. Peter was jumping from every source of makeshift platform he could find—a bookcase, a three-legged table, a stuffed bear—to slash at a flapping animal squawking so loud it made my ears ring. From what blurry glances I caught, the thing resembled a bat. But it was definitely the largest bat I’d ever seen.

  “Lacey, stay still,” Peter ordered. He was slashing at the bat with his weapon. “They can sense motion!”

  I slid to the floor and pressed my back to the rear of the couch, breathing to try and coherently decipher a plan of escape, completely ignoring what I’d just been warned about. The door. The store’s front entrance was at least ten feet from me, and with the jumble of Peter trying to attack the giganta-bat and their mess, even more of Quasi’s things stopped me from shooting directly outside and leaving all this insanity behind me for good. All I needed to do was row through the mountain of clutter, get out into the open, and then I’d be free.

  But the second I peered over the couch for escape plan clearance, I was met face to face with a snakelike, beady-eyed frog with many rows of teeth and bat-like wings. The second I opened my mouth to scream, so did the monster. And then it lunged at my face.

  Thanks to a nearby crooked golf club lying on the floor, I was able to whack the flying frog away from diving onto my face in a split, almost natural-feeling, second. Upon impact, the thing collided into another pile of Quasi’s crap a few feet away, but I couldn’t move. I stared at my hands, not recognizing what I’d just done as my own actions. But then the adrenaline hit me hard, alongside the reality that if I didn’t get out of this place, and fast, I might become monster food. Again.

  The Water Leaper, as I heard Quasi still screaming as he disappeared under more of his store’s junk, was recovering from being batted toward the other side of the room, and when I got onto my knees, it’s eyes locked onto me. It let out another cringe-worthy shrill, scurrying around furiously. Startlingly, it began to crawl rather than fly, its wings acting as forearms to drag its slithering body toward me, and I scurried to get back as it leapt into the air toward my face once more.

  I was crying out in terror, I’d admit, and especially so when I barely stopped the Water Leaper from biting my face, the rod of the golf club wedged between its teeth. Its boney wings jabbed into my fleshy stomach as it thrashed to try and get to me, despite the barrier.

  This is it, I thought. Tomorrow’s newspaper headline: “Lacey Rose, age sixteen, death by killer frog-bat in deranged hoarder’s secondhand store.”

  But then Peter was above both of us suddenly, and with a giant sweep of his tan arms, he teed off the bat hybrid with a long wooden gentleman’s cane, sending it tumbling into a hill of books that toppled in harmony to the creature’s wails.

  “C’mon, we have to go right now,” Peter warned, helping pick me up off the floor. My hair was a disheveled mess in my face, but even through the array of strands, I could see Peter had hit the Water Leaper right in front of Quasi’s door. My only way out was now being ravaged by a twitchy, snarling frog-bat. One that was quickly untangling himself from his fall and setting his froggy glare right back on me.

  So I didn’t object when Peter grabbed my wrist this time, pulling me after him as we trudged over miscellaneous items and furniture toward the mirror. Shockingly, it hadn’t fallen over in the craziness the Water Leaper had caused, but it still reflected the impish animal now coming to its senses behind us and sparking another spear of despair in my gut.

  As we stood in front of the mirror now, Peter let go of me to swipe his hand over our frazzled reflections. The mirror shuddered briefly, showing a phrase of something in another language, and Peter tapped his foot impatiently. “Loading? Are you kidding me?” He threw up his hands in frustration.

  I noticed Quasi was nowhere in sight now, probably nestled in a nice pile of trash. As I glanced over Peter’s shoulder at the Water Leaper now padding free from the fishing net it was jumbled in and getting to its legs—er—wings, I felt numbness travel through my body.

  “Peter,” I squeaked in panic, shaking his arm hurriedly.

  There was another jolt from the reflective furniture before the words changed on its surface, and Peter uttered a response I assumed was a curse in a language I didn’t know. “We don’t have a minute, Fauna!”

  The Water Leaper screeched behind us, bounding to take flight and heading straight for the mirror, and us, while we stood with no direct way to escape.

  “Peter!” I shouted and jolted Peter around, practically ripping his arm from its socket in a frenzy of fear.

  Finally, the mirror beeped with a soft ping like a timer going off. Peter grabbed onto me roughly, and the mega-bat-frog squealed bloodcurdlingly in unison, right before we both dove headfirst into the transparent wall. The Water Leaper snapped its jaw at the base of my neck, taking some of my hair with it painfully, but it wasn’t enough to stop us from passing through the film of the mirror like it was smooth water.

  Screaming like a maniac, I plunged inside the Fauna mirror alongside the Lost Boy from my dreams and left behind the only sliver of reality I’d ever known.

  Six

  “DO YOU THINK SHE’S REALLY THE ONE?”

  “Shh, lads, she can hear you.”

  “She’s out cold. She’s not hearin’ a word.”

  I groaned, the back of my head throbbing, and rolled onto my side.

  “She awakes! Retreat, men, retreat!”

  Blinking open my eyes, I saw the backs of about six small figures running away from me, ducking into hiding places. Seeing this, I was instantly met with the memory of what’d happened.

  Quasi. The bat-frog. Falling into a mirror.

  Sitting up faster than I should have, I pressed a hand to my head in regret as the world threatened to spin. Nothing around me was familiar. The air smelled dusty and somewhat stinky with sweat. It was dark, the only light coming from lanterns positioned around the large, open-floor room. It wasn’t just a modern
-day house, though. No, regular houses didn’t have roofs made of twisted tree branches. Ordinary houses didn’t have dirt-packed floors or numerous hammocks strung to and from every possible structure. And more importantly, normal houses didn’t look like they were made from a completely insane amount of this is ridiculously impossible.

  But here it was, right before me.

  And it was crawling with little boys.

  I jumped, almost smacking my head on a low-hanging root about the size of my whole body as a kid I’d never seen before popped into my vision from above the cot I’d woken on. “‘Ello, miss!”

  Finding it hard to speak, I slowly pushed myself back into the wall and watched him silently, fingers grasping my locket like it would protect me.

  When I didn’t respond, he scrunched his nose in disgust. “She ain’t her, lads. She’s mute.”

  With a commemorative sigh of relief, the rest of the boys began to emerge from their hiding spots. There were so many of them, all dressed in torn clothing, all appearing from crevices in the walls and thick branches around us.

  Young faces of all races, ages, and ethnicities grouped together to gape at me.

  “Wonder how old she is.”

  “She doesn’t look like ‘te others.”

  “A mute, huh? Seems like a fittin’ waste ‘ta me.”

  “Aye, shut up, mate. She can still hear you!”

  “What’s Peter up to, bringin’ a mute to help us?”

  Just as I thought my head might explode with how overwhelmed I was, a girl with dark skin and the most golden long braids I’d ever seen stepped into the main room from a door in the corner I hadn’t noticed before. She was carrying what seemed to be a few books, a satchel, and something sharp. Oh great. Another weapon.

  In fact, as I looked over each of the boys, they all wielded some sort of dagger or bow and arrow sheath. Children wielding weapons I wouldn’t even ever trust myself with, let alone anybody under the age of thirty.