Chapter Seven
How intelligent we all are. Yes, we’re having a blast, skipping through fields under the cloudy blue skies and cheerful little birds that make noises that don’t sound like bats.
Well, while we sleep.
No, actually, our scenery goes a bit the opposite of the direction I was going with that. Simply reverse everything I previously said and that is what we’re tromping through. Every once in a while we’ll come across some mud that sinks when you step on it; I found that out first. We always eventually get across. But we’re messy!
“Isn’t these anyway to get around it?” Ivy asked.
“Okay: Lottey, you take a foot, I take a foot, and we can try and throw him across,” said Ryse. Ivy’s eyes got big with a glare. “But, of course, Ivy, if it doesn’t work we won’t be able to save you.”
Nothing else was said about getting around the mud.
We trudged. For hours. The air was dismal and hot and the sun was merciless.
“My,” Ryse looked at me. “I think you’re getting freckles.”
Oh, the agony. I was getting freckles and my hair was falling out. With every step I continuously prayed that I wouldn’t go bald. If I did, I’d let myself sink in the mud purposely.
“Um,” Ivy said, sounding a lot like myself.
I looked up and saw what he had ‘ummed’ about. We all stopped to glare at our roadblock.
In front of us was a trillion boulders, all higher than our heads. They didn’t look like normal enormous rocks, they weren’t all lumpy and deformed. They were perfectly round, as if each of them used to be an eyeball, but they grew a lot and turned to stone.
Ryse took my hand and dragged me to the lowest and nearest boulder. He took me by the waist and swung me on top of it, and I screeched alarmed-ly. But he didn’t let me fall.
“How far do they go?” He asked.
My stomach rotated slowly. “Shall I answer that?”
“They never stop, do they?” Ivy bleated.
No. They never did. It was a completely straight shot until the sun blocked it out, for the sun was setting unhurriedly. It was as if we had been shrunk and set in a gravel pathway.
“I suppose we’ll have to rest before continuing here, right Ryse?” I looked to him for confirmation.
He shrugged and began helping me down. Ivy tried to help, but I said, “If you don’t let go of my hand I’ll probably fall on you again.”
I saw his hand flinch. Needlessly said he didn’t bother helping me. We both kept our sprained wrists in our slings made from part of my skirt.
“We’ll sleep right here by the start of the boulders. Then we can get started across them first thing in the morning,” Ryse decided.
“Very nice.” Ivy plopped the ground immediately and curled into a ball.
I waited for him to start snoring.
“Wish I could get so comfortable on this ground,” said Ryse. The ground was so dry and dehydrated that it was cracking in places. It made me thirsty every time I looked at it.
I sat down and scratched my head. It was a sad mistake when my hand came back with numerous fallen hairs. I leaned my head back against a boulder, trying hard not to fathom how horrendously odd my life was at the moment.
But something had to remind me.
I heard a slithering noise and opened my eyes to see Ryse enclosed by really long grass. I watched with an open mouth as grass sprouted from the very dry ground and enclosed him as if the grass had a million mouths and they were all hungry.
“Ryse?”
He made a muffled noise. Well, he was still alive.
Was I even awake?
“Aggha!” I jumped up with such a screech. The weird grass was grabbing at my hind quarters.
It all seemed so strange, and I barely realized that Ryse was smothering to death.
“Lottey! It’s got your ankle!” Ivy lunged at my foot. Using even his sprained wrist, he tore it out of the ground. The place where the grass had been left a red stinging mark.
Oh, Ryse.
I woke myself up by violently pinching my arm. I shrieked and lunged at the grass filament around my dear brother’s neck. “Die, you wicked plant!” I wrenched at it while Ivy was at the roots of the grass, jerking them from the ground they bred from.
“Aiyahh!!! What is this Ivy?” I cried.
Ryse was finally able to move his arms and started tearing through. With his help we were freeing him much faster, even though I shuddered a mile every time he cried out in painful anguish.
Before we had freed him of every strand of grass, he wrenched himself free and grabbed me arm, slung me over the rocks and did the same to Ivy before following.
When Ryse leaped over the first boulders he landed on me, and I lost wind for a second. But when I recovered and looked at his face, I began to cry.
He was a bloody, scratched up, boily mess, and I felt so horribly low that I only had a few marks from the crazily malicious weeds that so strangely and suddenly popped up from the very dry and unfertile ground. But despite the way he looked and I know he was in terrible pain, he bravely jumped up and took my hand.
We sped on our way, grass weeds trying to catch our fast going heels through the boulders.
We ran, and ran, and it wasn’t long before we all realized that we weren’t getting anywhere. At all.
“Ryse!” I cried, and then tripped, sending myself sprawling through the air. I thought I was going to die when I hit the rocks with my face, but surprisingly Ivy caught me. I meant to say thank you, but all at once the boulders started bouncing up and down, jostling us all around, and keeping us from running very quickly at all. But we struggled, hard as we possibly could, tears streaming steamily down my face.
Then everything stood still… and vanished.
We all landed in a soft green meadow.
Does this not all sound very extremely strange? But everything has an explanation.
And Visel is ours.
“You’ve all made it,” he said.
Dizzily, all of us looked up to find the demon man Visel hovering above us and smiling. I thought Ryse was going to attack at any second, but he just stayed propped up on his elbows. I whimpered.
“Oh, come Lottey, love, don’t fear me,” Visel offered me his hand. I shuddered at first and second glance.
“I don’t really want to touch you,” I said, very quietly.
He drew back his hand protectively and hid it under his sleeve. “I feel rejected.” And he frowned.
But I frowned even bigger.
“Do I have to make you take my hand?” Visel asked me. I feared that he’d get angry if I repeated what I had previously stated, and go all out and kill me, so I just didn’t say anything.
Instead, Ryse stood up, wearily but readily, as if guarding me from the danger. “Fear my power, Visel.” I could feel Ryse smirking. “Don’t touch her.”
“Oh,” said Visel, “I was beginning to wonder if I’d be able to keep my legs from quaking. Looks like I was wrong.” He made a beautiful pout.
Ivy inched over to me. “We’re all going to die,” he whispered.
“No,” I muttered back under my breath, “my brother will save us.”
The wind blew so slowly it couldn’t be felt, and suddenly Visel’s eye was upon me.
“You’re brother?” He raised an eyebrow.
I gasped and bit my tongue and swallowed air all at the same time. “Him.” I pointed to Ryse and stood up. I heard Ivy scramble to stand up behind me.
Visel started laughing. So amused. “You’re smarter than I thought. Playing naïve is very thoughtful of you,” he smiled and bowed gallantly for me.
“Naïve?” I asked quietly. I watched Ryse’s shoulders, moving up and down in breath. But as soon as I spoke, he stopped moving all together.
“You really believe he’s your brother?” Visel asked, so amusedly that he almost seemed bemused.
My blood began to rush to my head and boil. Visel hardly even looked
so gorgeous anymore; trying to trick me out of the greatest joy in my life. My own brother. As if he’d know, anyway? “Of course, you slimy hair piece. I know he’s my brother and I love him.” I took a step forward, beside Ryse, and took his hand. He was stiff and his eyes were on the ground. I knew he was in horrid pain from the grass.
“Ah, do you love him? And would you still love him if he were not your brother?” Visel looked so extremely happy that I spit at his face. Unfortunately, I am a girl, and thus spit like one. My saliva landed at his feet. This only extended his joy.
Then I realized what the horrid beast had just said. He asked if I would still love Ryse if he were not my brother. That was certainly an impertinent question. And it wasn’t any of his business!
Getting slightly frantic, I looked at Ryse for guidance. But he was still fixed on the ground. “That’s awkward,” I answered.
“Of course it is. And you won’t answer.” Oh, Visel couldn’t look any happier. “Well, he’s not.”
“Not what?” My eyes started lolling.
“Not your brother, my dear. He’s not your brother.”
“Oh,” Ivy sounded huffy. “Shove off, you bully man.”
I was so dizzy my stomach started turning. “And just how would you know this, Visel?” I tried to narrow my eyes at him, but I knew I looked as if I were squinting.
He looked very satisfied. “Ask him.”
My buggy eyes glazed over as I looked at… my brother. I knew he was my brother. I could tell it. We even looked alike, our hair and eyes. He was hurt at the moment, strained and bleeding from saving me so many times. So he was looking down, although I tried to meet his eyes. I opened my mouth to order him to reassure this overgrown, hairy locust with his baring teeth that was trying to press a lie on me that he was wrong. But just as I did that, we were no longer in the meadow.
I landed on a dusty bed in the middle of a stone and cold room. I coughed heavily, dramatically, and jumped off of the bed as if it were trying to eat me, though it wasn’t. For a moment, when my feet hit the grounded, I stood awfully dumbstruck. I didn’t know where I was.
I screamed out at the top of my lungs, “You were the one who wanted to come to ParKesh!!!”
I looked about me, and as each second crept by deafeningly I began to realize just where I was.
Suddenly Ivy came crashing through the door, even though it never opened. He came tumbling right through it. When he recovered after a moment or two, he looked at me. His mouth was opened like a fish and his eyes were twice their normal size. “Good afternoon, duchess,” he said quietly.
I stared at him, but I was looking through him, at the wall. The walls of Visel’s castle.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked Ivy breathlessly. I was afraid to breathe. I was afraid it would kill me.
“No.”
A sob lodged itself in my throat. “We’re in Visel the Horrid’s castle and I’m so scared and frustrated that I could just pull all of my hair out…” my voice wouldn’t stop cracking.
“That wouldn’t take long.” Ivy looked as if he were blind. His eyes met nothing. Was he afraid as I?
But, of course, he was correct in his statement. My hair floated in the air along with the dust, and I felt very anomalous, which means abnormal and strange. I didn’t even dare to touch my scalp, because that’s what I would feel; skin, not hair. That alone made me mad enough to put my hands around Visel’s neck and wrench his pathetic head off. But on the other hand, he was also aggressive and would probably win. Then I would be missing things that wouldn’t eventually grow back.
I lunged at Ivy. His blank stare was making fungus grow out of my ears. “Wake up, Ivanm!!!” He looked at me, and I looked back. “Where is Ryse? Is he even alive? Are we even alive?!?” He was starting to frighten me. “What is the matter?” I tried to speak slowly and carefully.
“Ryse said.” He continued being blank.
“He said what?” Ivy was past frightening me; now he was scaring me.
He shifted where he sat. “I don’t know.”
The room was spinning at immaculate accuracy and speed. I grasped Ivy’s hand and asked him my question again. I suppose I regarded my question after a long second of hard thinking.
“All Visel wants is to stay happy. When he’s made angry, he does all he can to wreak havoc or revenge or whatever on the person who angers him. Make sense?” For once he sounded more intelligent than me.
I nodded slowly, the words adding up bit by bit.
“Do you know why?” Ivy was anxious. He didn’t wait for me to respond. “Because it destroys him.”
Then suddenly, on perfect timing, Visel swung the door open, squeaking the hinges. He stopped Ivy from saying the rest of what he was saying, if in fact there was any more. I gasped in terrible horror when I saw that Visel had Ryse– by the hair.
Ryse has truly beautiful hair, and I blanched as I watched his scalp being stretched so mercilessly.
“Ohuh,” I breathed, though I hardly know what it means. “Ryse.” That was a terrified whisper. Terrified for me, and for him also. And maybe even a little bit for Ivy.
Visel laughed loudly for a moment, then shoved Ryse at me, throwing him a little ways by the hair. I watched him come at me, and suddenly and abruptly his… lips were on mine.
I heard Ivy saying the word duchess, but it was lost in my head as my brother kissed me. On the mouth.
Duchess. The word repeated itself inside me. Then… a flash back: duchess. Play along.
Go with it.
We were going to try to destroy Visel.
I kept my eyes closed, squealed as Ryse’s hand went around my waist. He pulled back and looked at Visel, still holding me tightly.
“She still loves me,” he said mockingly.
What– I did? I wanted to grunt but my breath had been stolen in the kiss that didn’t at all seem as awkward as it should seem.
“You haven’t even asked her.” Visel still looked amused, but with a leap of hope I assumed what I saw through his eyes was a glint of failing confidence. Was jealousy our only hope?
“He doesn’t have to ask me.” I acted valiant, and it felt very nice.
“Size him up to me, dear. I’m afraid your near death experience has rattled you somewhat.” He glared with what seemed an amused smirk.
Our goal was to eliminate amusement.
“Maybe that was what made me realize what an ugly monster you are.” I wasn’t being very original with my name calling; one would think after all my experience I could think of something better. As my knees quaked and I turned to jelly in Ryse’s grasp, I tried desperately to think of something inventive and forceful.
Visel made a tisk-tisk noise. “My dear girl, try harder not to insult your prince.”
I concealed a nervous gulp. “Prince of what, ugliness?” My creativity was at its minimal.
“What she means, you foaming she-wolf, is that she doesn’t like you!” Ivy’s wasn’t much better.
“Stay away from our words,” Visel spat back at him. “Or you’ll find the meaning of them.”
I jumped. Ryse started laughing. He laughed, and put his hand to his stomach, and laughed harder. It only alarmed me, but it seemed to be grating on Visel.
“What do you find for your personal amusement, may I inquire?” Visel raised an eyebrow. I love it when he does that.
“Your own.” He stopped laughing, and simply smiling.
“Why are you so happy?” He spattered. My heart began pounding rather rapidly.
“Because you’re not.” Ryse loosened his grip on me. I felt as if I were a cooked noodle, and if he let go of me, I’d flop to the floor.
With Ryse’s amusement, Visel found absolutely none. He bit at the air with his massive jawbone and sprung his boxy fingers forward.
For a moment, I didn’t realize what happened. When I did, it took all of me to not fall as I had earlier predicted. Visel had zapped Ryse across the room, and he lay on a heap of smashed and dusty
bed remains. I breathed so hard for a moment that I thought I had used the last bit of air left in the room.
“What, did you think I would melt?!” Visel screamed. His voice was so loud it shook each and every stone in the castle’s structure.
I saw Ivy’s skin turn a light green. Like a chameleon, mine did too. Visel huffed like a bull, and started strutting through us to Ryse. Hurriedly I jumped in his way with a scream.
“You admit that this is the way to rid ourselves of you!”
He stopped, startled I do believe, and drew his gaze to me. “There is no way to ‘rid’ yourselves of me. That would be a worldwide tragedy.” He pushed me down with great force, and I took Ivy down with me.
I watched with silent terror helplessly as he seized Ryse by the collar and took him many feet in the air. What hair I had left stood on end as I watched Visel open his mouth as roundly as a perfect cabbage, and I assumed he was going to eat him.
So I jumped up with unexpected tears and screamed at the top of my lungs, trying to match Visel’s volume, “You probably ate your own mother!!” My hands were balled into fists so tightly that it nearly took the feeling from them. Visel’s eyes dropped to me, and all focus seemed to fall on my words. “And your father! Your whole family, and every single forsaken visitor you’ve brought to your shambled castle!!!” I surprised myself so much that I fell backwards, but Ivy supported me. I watched as Visel approached me– me– with a fire big enough to roast a pheasant in his eyes. I swallowed deeply. “You eat me and that’s it. You’ll never stop. And no one will ever love you, ever.”
He stopped. My heart skipped a beat when he stopped.
“You don’t think anyone has ever loved me?” He asked hoarsely. His eyes looked wet.
I saw Ryse behind him, a heap on the floor, shaking his head.
No? What did he mean, no?
“Love is the strongest power in the universe, is it not? You don’t think I want that?” He was talking, seeming sad now, pointing to himself accusingly.
Ryse shook his head harder. No? No, he had never been loved?
“What are you accusing me of?” Visel whispered, nearly a sob.
Then I got it.
No: don’t feel sorry for him.
I gained my balanced and stepped close to Visel. Close enough to smell his dastardly handsome scent. “No, I don’t,” I said, and I slapped him in the face.
He turned black. His eyes were orange. I thought I was going to take me in his powerful claws and mangle my body. I shuddered, unable to breath. He seemed to be radiating heat now. I glanced around, looking for somewhere to run, but everything was dark. My feet were glued to the floor. Then… he cried.
Visel began bawling, a cry with the same power and effect as his hideous laugh. He seemed to shake the entire earth, but I didn’t fall. Then Visel’s body– it burst into flames. I shrieked, feeling as if I too was being burnt to a crisp. I watched, petrified, as he crumbled into ashes.
Then I fell to the ground, a dry, dusty ground, as if the castle had just evaporated beneath my feet. I fell on the ground, and on Ryse.
The sky spun, but I tried to hold my head still. Ivy peeked over me, and I jolted.
“Duchess,” he said. “You saved the world.”
I sat up very quickly and looked around. “Where is Visel and the castle?” I was franticly frightened. I knew that at any minute he could jump on me, grab me by my scalp and burn me for dinner.
But I didn’t see him.
“For once, I’m the first to figure it out. You–” Ivy opened his mouth triumphantly to explain, but Ryse but him off.
“You finished him off, Lotts.” Ryse was conscious.
For a slight moment I was a little afraid he was dead.
“He’s…” my mind fluttered. It couldn’t be. I was too terrified to have done anything great.
“Yes ma’am, he’s gone.” He smiled. He had the strength for a smile.
“And you’re…” I pointed at him. He looked half dead; the same as I felt.
“No, I’m not your brother.”
For a moment I thought I had blacked out. That wasn’t at all what I had meant. But he was, he wasn’t… oh my, the shock and disbelief that hit me like a dozen bricks to my nearly bald head… “What do you mean?” I shrieked. “You actually–”
“You said you’d still love me.” He looked more confident than hopeful. I felt taken advantage of.
And besides, I had just been going along with the… plan to destroy Visel. Jealousy was involved. I played it. And now, my mouth was suspended two feet down with genuine surprise and I had no clue what to think. “But you–”
“How else could I have gotten you to elope with me for a second time?” He smirked. He had the strength to smirk.
Nay, the nerve.
“But even Ivy–”
“I know, I lied to him too. Do you think I would have trusted him with such a secret?”
I gasped for breath. I wouldn’t have either. “And you still expect me to–”
“Yes,” he answered for me.
He still expected me to love the one who lied to me numerous times, selfishly, so he could steal me away from the world and make me his own. “And how do we know that we’re not brother and sister?” I asked. For the first time in a matter of minutes I got to finish my sentence.
“Think about it.”
So I did. And I thought… I came to the conclusion… I kissed him again just to make sure. It didn’t seem forward. And, truthfully, I had known it all along. I was a little slow sometimes, so the things I really knew, I didn’t even know I knew them. But nonetheless, everything turned out brilliantly. Oddly, but brilliantly.
I loved him although he was not my brother.
And I was amazed that he still wanted me– really, that he ever wanted me. I will definitely try to pry it out of him in the future, for it boggles me silly.
Ivy said, “You make quite a couple, one of you balding and nearly burnt black, and the other slashed to ribbons and bruised like a month old fruit.” Do you think that deserves a walloping?
I write slowly, for what I shall write next is hard to put down.
Sadly enough, my book which was under my dress tucked away in my undergarments, was burned a tad when Visel burst into uncontrollable flames. Well, might I say, the last several paged were burnt off. It is miserably tragic, and I should have known something that was originally a gift to a servant wouldn’t last long. Not that I haven’t learned my lesson; no, it’s just that people never give us gifts of any value.
But I must end my story, which turned out to be a little a bit more interesting than I first considered, rather abruptly, although our adventure is nowhere near over. Our adventure which has started so strangely and suddenly, will end for this book the same way. Here is the conclusion: we are in the middle of nowhere, the three of us now, and none of us are in considerably well health. But, everything before that has at first seemed very terribly and not escapable, had turned out quite nicely. Maybe it’s some strange luck in this leather binding. I shall keep it forever, I think.
There are two words, I believe, that one puts at the end of a notable story. Do I dare say them? Was my story in this book fascinating enough to end it properly? Oh, who cares.
The End.
Part III
Chapter Eight
Look Through My Eyes
You’ll see what is past
And what is to come;
It will hold you aghast
Terribly Lottey Page 11