Little Apocalypse

by Katherine Sparrow

  “Good,” Celia said again.

  Krawl swiped her hand through the air. Invisible nails scratched Celia’s cheek. She gritted her teeth as blood trickled down her face.

  “Bigs fought back. We made glorious examples of any Little rebels we found, but there was always Demetri out there. For every year that I was banished, the legend of Demetri grew.”

  “Monster,” Demetri croaked. His jaw muscles bulged as he struggled to speak.

  “Yes, dear, that is what we are. That is all that we are and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.” She sneered at Demetri. “It took me a long time to figure out how to come back to this town—how to break your banishment. Did you know I destroyed two bird species just to examine your spells clearly? Other monsters helped me. We couldn’t have you in the world. Even though I care little about any of them, I united them to pool our powers together. To end you, Demetri, dear. Or else we might someday face extinction.”

  Celia glanced toward Demetri. His eyes, trapped in his frozen face, looked furious.

  Krawl touched Demetri’s chest with a bony finger. “And here you are.”

  Demetri rocked backward, howling in pain.

  “Stop it!” Celia yelped.

  Krawl watched him for a long moment and then touched him again. He went suddenly still and silent.

  “He’s stronger than you are. Better than you will ever be,” Celia said.

  “He was merely more clever for a short time. But I’ve bested him, ever since the night of the earthquake and the beginning of the largest inevitability spell ever cast. He met you that night, didn’t he, Celia? He touched you soon thereafter, yes?”

  Celia felt the blood drain from her face. Her hands and feet went cold. An inevitability spell? What was that?

  “I fell. He touched my cheek. By accident.” She tried to get up from the couch again.

  Strong, invisible arms wrapped around Celia and held her down.

  “You had to fall, doom girl, and he had to touch you. That’s what the spell did. I didn’t need to break any of his wards to set it in motion. I didn’t even need to find him. The very air of the city enveloped everyone, but only worked on him. On the night of the quake, he would inevitably meet someone he would change, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Krawl’s shrunken form swayed with pleasure.

  Celia flinched and stared at Krawl as her words sank in.

  “Did you think you were special, Celia, dear? Did you think that was why we searched for you? Why psychics saw you and Littles dreamed of you in their nightmares? No. Not special. You are the victim, the unfortunate one. You were merely the closest child to Demetri when the spell hit him. That’s all you are, doomed girl.”

  So that was what it meant. Celia wasn’t supposed to save the city, or anyone or anything, from doom. Celia was doomed. Celia sat next to Demetri, just as frozen as he was.

  She hadn’t even wanted to be the doom girl at first: hadn’t even believed it for a while, but then, part of her had thought she was special and that she could do something good.

  I’m nothing. Just the girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just doomed, that’s all.

  What would Demetri think of her now? His still form was impossible to read.

  “And the next part of the spell, the snakes? They brought you together again, for a longer period of time, yes? He should have changed you then, but Demetri was too strong and resisted. Anyone else would have fallen, but we had to make the paper storm—the end of the spell that would drive you both inevitably to me. It took the largest spell ever cast, but we caught you both. Demetri, your reign ends today, one way or another. No one will ever say again that there is a Little named Demetri who lives free.”

  Krawl took one of the sugar cookies off her plate and held it out for Demetri. Slowly, mechanically, his hand rose up and grabbed it. He began to move it toward his mouth. His muscles clenched. His eyes watered.

  Krawl laughed as he tried to resist her control over his body.

  Celia tried to lunge toward him and knock it out of his hand. But the invisible arms tightened around her, and all she could do was sit there and watch it happen.

  Demetri put the cookie into his mouth and chewed it mechanically. He swallowed. Tears rolled down his face.

  “Good boy,” Krawl said. She took something out of her pocket: a plain silver necklace. She slipped it over Demetri’s neck and then turned and walked toward the front door, trailing one hand along the edge of the faded wallpaper. She stopped at the coat rack and wrapped a white shawl around her shoulders. “Goodbye, children,” she said. Then she left.

  Celia looked at the door and then at Demetri. Krawl was gone? That was it? She couldn’t believe it. She turned toward Demetri. “Come on! Let’s get out of here. Now!”

  “You should leave,” Demetri whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  34

  The Worst Monster

  “I’ll carry you if you can’t move. We’ll have to be careful not to touch, but I can do it.” Celia scooted to the edge of the couch. “Come on. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

  Demetri shook his head and kicked his legs out. “I can move fine now, but I’m staying.” He laid his head back on the couch. “Krawl is clever.” He wiped cookie crumbs from his mouth. “Sorry I didn’t see this coming.”

  Celia looked behind her at the door. It seemed like they should be running, but if Demetri said he couldn’t . . . “She couldn’t come here for so many years because you banished her. You’re the clever one. What should we do now?”

  “They always win.” Demetri’s voice sounded soft and far away. “No matter what, they always own us, but at least for a little while they didn’t.” He spoke slowly, like each word took effort.

  “What do you mean?” She looked around, trying to understand what was going on. The house felt empty. “What did she do to you?”

  “The cookie was poisoned, and there’s only one antidote to keep it from killing me.”

  Celia jerked upright. “Then why are you sitting here? We have to find it.”

  “The poison flows through me.” Demetri sighed. “I’ve always wondered what being a Big would be like, but I’ve never thought about death. I think it’ll be peaceful.” When he blinked, it looked like it took effort to open his eyes again. His skin grew gray. His sunlight and apple-pie smell turned to rotten apples.

  “We have to get you cured. Tell me where to get the antidote.”

  A tear rolled down his face and his hand slowly rose to brush it away. “There’s nothing to be done. Get as far away from me as possible.”

  And then Celia understood how this trap worked and what it really meant to be the doom girl. Krawl would make it so that no matter what, Demetri would no longer be the hero to the Littles after today.

  She knew what the inevitability spell was for.

  “I’m the antidote,” she whispered. “Right? The poison won’t kill you if you become Big. So either you’ll become a Big monster today or you’ll die. Either way she wins.” Celia stared at the silver necklace she’d put around him. “And that’s not just any necklace, is it?”

  With effort, he whispered, “This necklace would control me if I turned Big. I would be Krawl’s forevermore. The perfect trap. I will die or be hers again.”

  Celia’s breath caught in her throat as she realized this was it. This was the moment when she made a decision. The girl will decide, just like the prophecy predicted. Celia would be the one who turned Demetri into a monster or not. And Demetri as a Big? He was decades older than any other Little, and already a powerful magician. If she changed him, he’d become the worst monster ever. Under Krawl’s power, he might destroy the whole world.

  But if she didn’t touch him?

  Her friend would die. Demetri had been suffering his whole life. He didn’t deserve that.

  His horned head fell forward. He raised it slowly back up. “It’s not hard being around you anymore. It feels nice. When I’m gone
, Celia, remember to be a little bit happy every day, okay? And if you’re lonely, like we’ve both been, think of me and know how much I liked being your friend, even if it was just for a little while. Thank you so much for seeing that I was more than just a Little.” His skin took on a granite-gray hue. His breathing came slow and labored.

  Celia blinked hard as tears slid down her face. “I’ll think of you all the time. Every day. Every hour. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” It was true, even though she hadn’t had nearly enough time with him. Everything was happening too quickly, and there had to be a way out of this. Celia thought about what she’d learned since the earthquake, but there was no solution, was there? There was no choice, here at the bottom of everything. Demetri was a Little, she was doomed, and the Bigs always won.

  “Despite it all, I’m glad we met, Celia. It’s meant so much to me,” he whispered. His body went still. He slumped forward. All his muscles relaxed and he sank into the couch. Demetri let out one last sigh and stopped breathing.

  Celia closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for him. Then she said a prayer for herself, and grabbed onto Demetri’s bare hand with both of hers.

  35

  The Best Adventure

  For an awful moment, nothing happened. Then Demetri inhaled and jerked back to life with an electric shock that ran through both of them.

  “No!” Demetri said. “You can’t! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  Celia swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. “One of your rules is that Littles always help each other. Which I think is also what friends should do for each other. You needed help.” Celia squeezed his hand and didn’t want to think about what came next.

  “I become evil as soon as you let go. I become owned and you turn into a monster,” Demetri said. The grayness faded and his skin glowed with a strange inner light. “Krawl wins everything.” His voice broke.

  Celia bit the inside of her cheek. “Maybe. That’s one story.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done. You can’t know, not really.” He clutched her hand. “Oh, Celia. I’m so sorry.”

  “You think I could just sit here and watch you die?”

  “It would have been better.”

  “I had to save you.” Celia breathed hard. She felt too warm.

  “There’s nothing to save. I’m already gone,” he said.

  “Maybe we can hold hands forever and neither of us will change,” Celia said. “We can live in this old house and be like conjoined twins.”

  Demetri smiled and touched Celia’s cheek, right on the monster mark, with his pointer finger. “We’ll both change soon enough, Celia. There’s no other way this ends.”

  She took a deep breath. “Then I need you to tell me a story about how things should have been: what our life should have been like.”

  His hand squeezed hers, and his voice came out hoarse as they both shifted closer together. All she could see, her whole world, was Demetri. “We should have met in school,” he said softly. “We should have both been miserable and lonely, and not even noticed each other for a while, but then one day we would have met in the library.”

  “Because we both like books. And then we’d start talking,” Celia said. “And it would feel like we already knew each other, and like everything about the other person was interesting. We’d be instant friends.”

  Demetri’s sweet breath was tinged with a new scent, something smoky that filled the air as he spoke. “Best friends. And we’d go on long walks through the city, and never have a moment when we didn’t have something to talk about. We’d tell each other everything, even the boring parts of our day. We’d have so much time together.”

  Celia ached for that reality. She bit her cheek to keep from crying. “We’re only thirteen, so we wouldn’t even know about the bad things in the world yet. The worst thing would be flunking a final, or getting in a fight with our parents.”

  Demetri nodded. “And then years would pass and we’d get to grow older, and we’d always have each other, Celia. For our whole lives. We’d get to grow up and do a hundred different things. I’d be a carpenter, or a mailman, and you could be . . . I don’t even know what you want to be.”

  “A biologist. Or a writer.” Heat rose up in Celia, like a furnace blasting within her. She started shaking harder. So did Demetri. She spoke faster. “We’d never be lonely. Promise me that, Demetri. In the way things should have been, we’d always be friends.” Celia panted as the heat burned through her.

  “I promise.”

  Everything was starting to go bright, and a ringing filled her ears. The heat intensified. Celia held Demetri’s hand tighter and imagined that perfect story of what her life could have been like, should have been like, because she knew she was about to lose it all forever.

  “I want you to stay Demetri, no matter what. Whatever you change into, I want you to still be Demetri,” Celia whispered. She closed her eyes and imagined that as vividly as she knew how to. She imagined it from all sides until she could see it in bright detail.

  A new burst of heat ripped through her, and she jerked away from Demetri, but still clutched his hand as pain flared high and bright. From deep inside she felt a pulsing change begin to rip through her and remake her into a different creature.

  A creature who was good at doing magic.

  “Give me your yo-yo,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Yo-yo. Now.” More pain twisted through her as Demetri pressed his yo-yo into her free hand.

  She knew what she wanted—for Demetri to stay Demetri—and she had an object—his yo-yo. She had all the magic and more that she needed to make a spell. It pounded and pulsed through her. Now the only thing left to do was make her sacrifice.

  Celia couldn’t hold anything back—she had to give the spell something huge: the thing she least wanted to give up. So she gave it the story of what they could have been together. The happily ever after that would never be. Celia closed her eyes and sacrificed all of it for the spell, and with it she felt her memories of every time she’d been with Demetri fade to gray. What it had felt like to be his friend, and how it had been a tiny universe opening up between them. Even though she couldn’t let it go, even though she wanted to hold on to her friend, she had to feed it to the spell to try to save him. Everything about him faded from her mind as Celia felt it flow out from her and arrow toward the yo-yo that pulsed and throbbed in her hand.

  I’ll never be able to remember why Demetri was worth it, she thought as she ached and shook all over with the magic that filled her and twisted her in strange new ways. With a cry, Celia put the last of her sacrifice into the yo-yo and closed her eyes to envision the one thing, the one impossible thing that she wanted to happen. Demetri wouldn’t turn evil like every other Big. However he was remade, he wouldn’t be changed, not deep down.

  Demetri gets to stay Demetri.

  The boy’s hand slipped out of hers as he howled. Celia heard a matching scream and realized it was coming from her own mouth.

  They fell off the couch, both of them lost and writhing in such overwhelming pain that there was nothing else.

  Celia and Demetri changed.

  36

  A Thousand Shades of Black

  Celia went somewhere else, up and out of her body into a white-hot place made of pain so total and brutal that when she returned a moment later, her mind couldn’t remember it.

  She lay on the floor curled up in a tight ball in front of the fireplace. Was it done? Was it over?

  A crash sounded nearby.

  Celia opened her eyes. The world looked sharp and hard-edged. She looked down and saw bone-white fingers clenched around Demetri’s yo-yo. The plastic toy had turned black with the spell, and it pulsed with a steady rhythm. Celia stretched out her other hand and studied the chalky paleness of it. Thick black nails, like claws, jutted out from each finger.

  Something flew by her, wicked fast. The dark blur hit the wall, bounced off, and c
hanged directions. It zoomed across the room and hit the living room wall. The whole house shook with the impact. For a moment, the dark creature stood still and Celia was able to see what Demetri looked like now. He still looked like a boy, mostly, but shiny onyx scales covered his arms and neck. Obsidian claws jutted out of his fingers and stabbed through the ends of his tattered tennis shoes. Wings had burst through the back of his hoodie and lay folded across his back. He stood watching her with a midnight-black face.

  He scowled and sparks fell from his mouth. They bounced and hissed across the floor before going out.

  Celia got to her feet and faced him. She felt a hundred tiny differences in her body: her balance was shifted to the front of her feet, her heart beat faster, and her muscles felt twitchy and fast. More than that, she felt the invisible tether that stretched between her and Demetri. I would do anything for him, she thought. Not because he was her friend: he wasn’t anymore. All of those memories were dead and gray within her. No, this bond was because he was her maker. Her owner. The magic that had made them connected them, and even if she knew the desire to obey him was a new kind of poison, she wanted to rush to him, fall to her knees, and vow to serve him forever.

  If my spell didn’t work, he’s evil, she thought. He’ll hurt me and keep on hurting me. I should run now while I have the chance.

  But all she could do was watch as he burst into motion again and hurtled his onyx body across the room again and again. He bashed himself against the walls. His wings flapped wildly behind him. Sometimes they lifted him up a couple of feet before he crashed back down.

  Celia shifted her weight from side to side, feeling the lightness and hollowness in her bones. She felt agile and coordinated, and like she could sprint for five miles and not get tired. She looked at her hands some more, and at the whiteness that was pale as snow and so different from what she used to look like. White like I’m invisible. Like I’m someone no one notices, she thought.