by Holly Hook
I gulped. "So he can go right to the desert if he wants."
"Maybe," Brie said. "The thing is, he needs shiny surfaces like water or other mirrors. He needs to use those to come through."
The memory hit me full force. "My mother turned her mirror around in the tower. He came out of that. And the dark spot. It had a pond."
"That's how he works," Brie said. "We—never mind." She cast her gaze to the floor.
The village drew closer. There were two women working out in a field that had seen better days. Crops struggled out of the hard ground and this looked like a dark, sad version of Mary's village. "What kingdom are we in?"
"I don't know," Brie said. "There are kingdoms in the dark region. I think it all belongs to Alric now even though there are kings and queens out here."
"Why are these people staying here?" I asked. "It makes no sense. This road leads to better lands."
Brie shrugged. "You have a great question."
The women looked up at us as we rolled closer. We passed the first houses, which looked like much older twins of the ones in Mary's village. The straw making up their roofs was old and graying. Bricks lay crumbled around foundations and I wondered if the next strong breeze would take down the whole village. A small child cried somewhere. I couldn't believe people were having children here. How did they feed everyone? The field the women were working in had only an occasional plant struggling out of the cracks and I spotted no livestock.
The village was small, much smaller than Mary's. We went through a courtyard of weeds, stones and dirt and emerged on the other side, and fields of dead grass stretched out once more, dotted with the dead trees. Our carriage rolled up between two big, low buildings. One had laughter coming out of it.
And ahead, the road split into five narrower ones, all going in crazy directions.
Stilt stopped us. "This wasn't here before. Or maybe it was. It's been a long time since I've come out this way."
"Which road?" Brie asked. "I thought you knew how to get to the desert."
Stilt sat there as if thinking. A horse snorted. "I know where to go. I think."
"You might need to ask someone which way the desert is," I said, and then remembered that one rule Brie told me about minutes ago. "These people don't look too dangerous. I'm not the best judge of that, however." I looked to Brie, expecting her to laugh, but her face was serious.
"We're at two inns," she said.
"Inns?"
"They're places where people can pay to sleep for the night," Brie told me. "That one looks like a dive over there." She pointed to the one on the left, which was dark inside with the door hanging open a little. Then she faced the one on our right, which had light coming out of it and more laughter. A smell like bread wafted out. It was so out of place here in the dark region. Whatever was happening inside might keep these people alive.
Stilt sighed and jumped down from the driver's seat. "Fine. I'll ask," he said. "Don't move unless you spot Alric or his forces coming."
And then Stilt walked towards the bright inn and vanished inside, letting the swinging door shut behind him.
"Will he be okay in there?" I asked.
"It doesn't sound too bad in there," Brie said. Her stomach growled, and she faced the leather sack that held our supplies. Our bread was getting dry, and the jerky was getting monotonous. I craved fresh vegetables right about now. And fresh food. The smell was intoxicating as if something inside were inviting us into the inn.
We waited.
And waited.
The laughter continued and some men and even women cheered. They must have fun in there. I kept waiting for the swinging door to come open, but no one ever walked out for even a breath of fresh air.
After about fifteen minutes, Brie opened the carriage door. "I'm checking on him. He might have gotten distracted."
And Brie walked towards the inn and vanished inside. The door swung shut behind her like some big wooden mouth.
I leaned against the wooden bench and waited. The revelry continued inside and Brie didn't return after some time, either. I counted the seconds. Then, the minutes. I grew more nervous. They should have asked for directions by now and gotten back out here. We should be on our way to Henry. Out here, we were wasting precious time. Alric could draw closer every second.
Five minutes. Then ten. I started my count again at sixty and counted the eleventh minute when I decided that I'd had enough.
Something was wrong here. The laugher and the bread smell was too good to be true.
I got out of the carriage, leaving the horses there. One looked at me with big, sad eyes as if begging me not to go.
I wondered if I would return.
Keeping my hair in my arms, I hesitated at the door, and then pushed it open with my shoulder.
It was another world inside. The light was yellow and warm and fresh boards creaked under my feet. Tables stood everywhere and people filled every chair. Glasses filled with a brownish liquid I'd never seen the likes of waited in front of every patron. Many more empty ones balanced on the tray of a young woman weaving through the tables. Men and women held cards and slapped them down on tables. Coins slid everywhere from person to person and gathered in stacks between the players. People were playing games here, ones that involved lots of money. Mother and I had played cards before, but never like this.
Nearby, a man in gray slapped a card down and his companions all groaned. No one looked at me. These people were more immersed in this than I had been in the books Mother brought home for me.
And then I spotted Brie and Stilt.
They sat at a table in the back with a young man and woman who were shuffling cards. Stilt already had cards in his hand and the woman was dealing out to Brie. She took them and studied them as if they contained the directions we needed.
A flash of anger swept through me and I marched through the card players, bumping into chairs and almost crashing into the server woman who was delivering another glass of the brown liquid to a man. These people seemed to be under some kind of spell. Brie dealt a card, and the others placed theirs on top of it.
I grabbed onto Stilt's shoulder. "What are you doing?" I asked.
Stilt faced me. "Hey, Rae. Sit down. We have room for one more."
"I thought we were asking for directions," I said. "Get up. We need to leave."
Brie gave me a disgruntled look. "Why are you so against us having fun?"
"You're not acting like yourselves," I said. "We need to get to the desert. Now."
Stilt placed his card on top of the stack and raised his hands in the air. "Yes!" he said, sweeping all the coins on the table towards him. "Another round?"
"Stilt!" I shouted. "What is wrong with you?"
Then I felt it.
The cold, sharp magic of this place, lurking under all this light like an evil undertone. It wasn't unlike Alric's, but not as strong and more diffuse. I could sense it rising from the floorboards and seeping out of the walls. My mind clouded, and I wanted to sit down at that table and join the game even though I couldn't guess the rules.
A curse filled this place.
The horror of it washed through me and I shook off the feeling. I whirled in a circle, facing everyone in the inn. No one looked up from their games. Many of the tables had gathered cobwebs under them. One man had a leather sack sitting next to him. That, too, had cobwebs growing between it and the floor.
I grabbed my braid and wrapped it around Stilt's chest. "This place is full of dark magic. Stilt! Snap out of it."
I pulled tighter, binding him to the chair he sat in. My scalp once again warmed. Stilt dropped the coins on his lap and fell backwards. He crashed to the floor, chair and all, while coins scattered everywhere and rolled under tables. My braid flopped down on his chest and he blinked.
At the table, Brie stood.
"Get up," I ordered Stilt.
He blinked again and sense came over his face. Stilt sprang up, pocketed all the gold coins he could, and ran
around the table to take Brie's hand. "You're right," he said. "Brie. Let's go."
She pulled against him. "We only just got here."
"We need to leave," I told her. "You'll thank us once we're outdoors."
I grabbed Brie's other arm and let my braid trail behind me as we forced her through the tables. She didn't give much fight. Stilt's winnings clinked in his pocket and I knocked right into the guy with the cobweb-covered luggage. He grunted and went back to his game.
How long had some of these people been here?
Stilt and I pushed the swinging door open, and no one paid us any attention. The cold, prickling feeling vanished and Brie blinked as if waking up from a dream.
We stopped there several steps away from the inn. The laughter and partying continued inside. No one had even noticed us leaving.
"You can let go of me now," Brie said, sheepish. "That place. Something is wrong with it."
"This is the dark region," Stilt said. "It's full of things like this. I can't believe I waltzed in there, thinking getting directions would be a simple task."
"No more inns," Brie said. "At least, not like that. It looks like whoever goes in there never comes out."
"I don't know what story that's from," Stilt said. "We should ask those women in the fields where the desert is. I don't think they're dangerous, but all three of us should go. Then we need to get us and our horses out of here. They must be--"
Stilt's mouth fell open as he faced the road.
And then I saw why.
Our horses and carriage were missing.
The horses hadn't moved up or down the road. They had vanished as if a hole had opened in the road and swallowed them into some underworld.
"That's impossible," I said. "They were just here. I was only inside the inn with you for a few minutes. They couldn't have wandered very far."
Stilt tensed and searched around. "Someone must have taken them," he said. "They're around here somewhere."
I looked around at the village. The women had left the fields even though that meant they must have moved faster than any person should. I had a bad feeling in my gut that had nothing to do with the natural dread of the dark region.
"How much time passed since we were in there?" Brie asked. "I think we lost a lot more than it seemed in there."
Stilt shook his head. "I don't know. This is strange. Were those women out there when you came in?" he asked me.
I nodded. "They were picking the crops. I don't know where they went." The village remained empty up and down the road except for some smoke rising from a long, low brick building on the other side of the settlement. The wind blew, and the smoke wafted towards us, carrying a meaty scent.
Brie and Stilt looked at each other. "Think we know how these people stay alive?" Stilt asked.
"We check that," Brie said.
The three of us walked towards the low building, which had double doors. I didn't understand why, but I followed. One door sat open and the bad feeling inside me rose to a scream by the time we halved the distance. All I could think of was those horses' big, soulful eyes, and I hated myself for leaving them behind.
Stilt held up one hand to tell us to stop, and he crept up to the double doors.
And peeked inside.
He turned his head to adjust and only looked for a few seconds before he turned to us and frowned. His face had paled and some of his inner glow had died. His expression remained somber as he rejoined us and waved us away from the building.
"We were in that inn for much longer than we thought," he said. "Our horses...they...I suppose the people in this village need to eat somehow. That's why they have the cursed inn here. We're on foot now."
"They're cooking our horses?" I asked.
Stilt said nothing. He felt for the money in his pocket and waved us down the road. Brie walked behind him, shoulders down. Sadness crushed us like my crumbling tower. Those beautiful animals were no more. I thought of the way Stilt had crushed the chicken's head back in the forest. How did these people kill larger creatures?
I had left them to their deaths.
How many hours or days had passed since I entered the inn? I'd failed the horses. I'd gotten used to their grunts and snorts and even got to pet them in the last few days.
"Our supplies," Brie said.
"We must buy new ones. I have money," Stilt said, even though he didn't sound happy about it. It still jingled in his pocket. "Just not at this village. There will be others. We shouldn't stay here any longer than we need to."
"We still need directions," Brie told him. I could tell she was trying not to think about the horses. She focused on the dilapidated houses.
"Right," Stilt said. "I'll try that other inn. The one that doesn't look like a trap." He shook his head and dragged his feet on the dust. "I should have known."
We followed the elf and Stilt vanished into the old, dilapidated inn. I held my braid and waited, and Stilt emerged from the darkness a minute later.
"There was an old man inside," Stilt said. "He told us to take the second road from the left and we'll reach the desert in a couple more days. He also told me we're the first people to escape the other inn. And that we spent ten days inside."
Chapter Twelve
My stomach turned. "We can't save the others?" I gathered my hair tighter. "We know how. They must have been in there for years."
"We can't take the risk," Stilt said. "Besides, they're safer in there."
"I suppose you're right," I said. "They're fed and watered and that woman is taking care of them."
"You're speaking from your life in the tower," Brie said. "We need to come back and liberate them from that place as soon as we have time. But first we need to make sure Rae's story ends the way it should. We'll worry about those people later. They're not in danger like the people back in the Stone Kingdom are."
"Speaking of food and water," I said. "Mother told me that deserts don't have much of either."
"You're right," Stilt told me. "But there must be something out there if the enchantress was planning on sending you out there to live. We just have to find it. I asked the old man in there if he had any canteens for sale. He said the next village might have some but that we'd need to be careful."
Inside the cursed inn, people continued to laugh and play games, not knowing how much time was passing outside. Some of them might have been in there hundreds of years, never realizing the truth. It made a sad feeling sweep over me.
Was I much different, being in that tower all my life?
But I followed Brie and Stilt when they waved me down the road.
We took the second road from the left.
And walked for what felt like forever through open country.
The dark forest grew more distant behind us and turned into a line on the horizon. We had gone miles. The grass remained as dead as ever with rough weeds being the only living plants. We walked over a stream near to the village that gurgled with clean, but weak water. We all stopped to drink some of it. It wasn't as good as the water Mother drew from the well, but it was better than the black death that made up most of the ponds out here. The dark region wasn't unlivable. Just very difficult.
As we moved on down the dusty path, the grass grew even deader and the skeletal trees farther apart as if they were making room for something. The air grew drier somehow and a hot breeze blew against my face. It got tiring carrying my braids and Stilt offered to carry the weight for a while. By then, the darkness was creeping over his eyes and he needed it. Brie didn't even draw close to him or grimace when I said yes. I walked, glad to have the weight off my head for once.
The second village came into view towards dusk as the gray sky above grew darker. The sun must be close to the horizon, but you never saw it out here. We hurried our walk and reached the tiny hamlet just as the last light was fading. A single lantern hung over the door to a building that reminded me of the cursed inn, but I couldn't hear any laughter from inside.
"Is it safe?" I
asked.
"I don't know," Brie told me. "It's hard to tell out here."
"You said not everyone is bad."
"True. But that inn didn’t look bad,” Brie said. “Still, we can’t sleep out in the open. There are wolves in the dark region that aren’t nice.”
I shuddered. I’d seen two wolves before from the tower, out scouting around the forest, but neither one of them had paid me any attention. Mother said wolves came in packs and could be dangerous sometimes.
Brie opened the door under the lantern and peeked in. “I think it’s safe,” she said. “No one’s even in there.”
“Is anyone even in this village?” Stilt asked, rubbing his hand through his hair. He replaced his leather hat and entered the inn. “Hello?”
Brie and I followed. There was a clay pot on the counter and no one sitting in the chair. Stilt dropped three of the gold coins there and shrugged at us. “This is better than spending the night outside. I hope they're happy with what we're paying.”
Just then, a howl cut through the air. It didn’t sound very far away, either.
Brie rushed over and shut the door. “Much better,” she agreed. “We’ll die out there. I wonder what happened to the carriage?”
Stilt shook his head in the dim light. "I don’t know. But I think the old man was right about us being in the inn for so long. Our horses…they looked picked over. I think the villagers smoked them and had been eating the meat for some time."
My stomach turned, and I was glad I had no obligation to eat.
But that also meant that Mother and Henry had been out there in the dark for too long.
A search of the inn confirmed that no one else was here. Whoever maintained this place must not want to deal with the company. Perhaps bandits liked to stay here, and the innkeeper preferred not to have their throat cut, but needed the money. The howling continued outside, sometimes farther away, sometimes closer. Brie was right. We wouldn’t have survived out there for long.
We found empty rooms with fresh-made beds. Each one of us took a room, and I flopped down on the bed and closed my eyes. I felt tired again from the walking and even the dread feeling in my gut didn't bother me anymore. I had grown used to this darkness.