The Immortal Fire

by Anne Ursu

  But the scene did not shift. She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, as if that might lift whatever spell she was under. It did not. She stood on the stairs frozen as her fellow students swarmed in around her, some talking and laughing, some trudging up dutifully. It was a scene she had lived hundreds of times before—but she could not understand why she was living it now.

  She felt disoriented, seasick, as if she’d woken up to find that someone had sucked out half of the world’s oxygen. She wanted to run down the stairs and across the street and as far away from here as possible, but she could not move. This unexpected normalcy was perhaps the most frightening image she could conjure.

  “What’s with her?” she heard someone ask.

  “Psy-cho,” came the response.

  A voice called, “Hey, Char,” and she whipped her head around to find Jasper Nix standing next to her, giving her a friendly smile. “You’re back!”

  She blinked. “Back?” she repeated.

  “You’re back! I heard you were on a trip to save the world. How’d that go? Are you feeling all right? You seem a little green.”

  “Uh—” She closed her eyes and opened them again. “How did—have you seen Zee?”

  Jasper shrugged. “No. Is he back too?”

  “I—I don’t know.” She looked all around at her surroundings. However they did it, they had done a very good job of making this seem real.

  He blinked back at her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem kind of…weird.”

  “Yeah. No. Um, what day is it?”

  Jasper frowned. “Maybe you should see a doctor, Char. Ooh, there’s the bell!”

  And with that he was off.

  The stairs around Charlotte emptied out as she stood, waiting for something to happen, waiting for something to make sense. She looked at the building in front of her, and then the street behind her. She was about to go down the stairs, into the street, to test the boundaries of this illusion—when the doors to the school opened and Mr. Principle appeared.

  “Charlotte? Are you coming?”

  She looked around. “I—I…”

  “School’s started,” he said, coming down the stairs. “Come on in.” And the next thing Charlotte knew, he was steering her inside the building.

  “So,” he said cheerfully as they stepped into the lobby, “when did you get back?”

  “Um—just now.” She eyed Mr. Principle. He seemed to be himself—he had not grown any extra tails or fangs, but she couldn’t help but notice that today’s plaid suit, usually a muted yellow or green, was purple. His face was a mask of pleasantness.

  “Oh,” he said. “Terrific. Jasper said you saved the world.”

  “Well—”

  “That’s great. You must feel really wonderful about that. We’ll be sure to remember you on awards day. You and Jack Liao, of course, who constructed that whole Ecuadorian village out of cheese.”

  “Uh-huh,” Charlotte mumbled, looking around nervously.

  “He used a combination of American and English cheddar, which I thought was a particularly interesting commentary on imperialism. Almost piquant, if you’ll forgive the pun.” Mr. Principle had passed the front office and was leading her down the main hallway now. If the school had indeed been reconstructed, someone had done a heck of a job. It looked exactly as it had on the day of the fire, down to the notes on the blackboard and the posters on the wall. And Mr. Principle was exactly as artificial and vapid as he always was—maybe even more so. And Charlotte noticed that his expression had not changed at all during their entire conversation.

  “Mr. Principle, um, have you seen Zee?”

  “No. Isn’t he with you?”

  “Well, no…”

  “You lost your cousin? That was careless of you. Hey, did you know the Greek gods are real?”

  Charlotte stopped. “What?”

  “I know, who knew, right? It just came to me, all of a sudden. Well, I had a clue when half the seventh grade got eaten by a Minotaur.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, there’s monsters all over the place. I don’t know how we didn’t see it before. Don’t worry, most of the city is still alive.”

  Oh, Charlotte saw now. She was supposed to think she had failed—made things worse, condemned humanity by trying to save it. All right, that was the game—

  Suddenly she stopped in the middle of the hallway. Up among all the familiar inspirational posters was one that had decidedly not been there before. Under the headline, HAVE YOU SEEN ME? was Charlotte’s own face.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Principle offhandedly. “Yes, well, your parents insisted. There are signs all over the place. We all knew you were off saving the world, but you know parents.”

  Charlotte’s chest tightened. This was not real, of course, but the poster might as well be.

  “I have to tell you,” continued the principal, “I don’t know if I’d have the courage to leave my family like that, even to save the world. It must have been very hard. Especially given how they reacted—”

  Just then someone called to Mr. Principle from inside one of the offices, and he smiled at Charlotte officiously and excused himself.

  She stood alone in the middle of the hallway. If this were real, everyone would be in homeroom now, but there should still be a few stragglers. Unless they’d all been eaten, of course. Everything was utterly, totally quiet, and Charlotte felt as if she were all alone, not just in the school, but the universe.

  Well, whatever was planned for her, she had no intention of walking into it willingly, and she turned around and headed back for the front door. She didn’t know what she would do then—try to find her way back to Olympus somehow—but she would figure it out when she got outside.

  But when she got to the lobby, she found there would be no escaping for her. For the school no longer had a front door at all—there was an empty doorway, and outside she could see only clear blue sky.

  Charlotte went over to the edge and then quickly jumped back. It seemed Hartnett Middle School was floating in the air—there was nothing around them but sky and clouds, and there was no sign of any ground anywhere below. She had no plans to fall a jillion feet today.

  She went back to the edge, holding on to the wall for support, trying to see some sign of something, anything. Just when she thought the sky was completely empty, a white winged horse flew into view.

  In a better world, Charlotte would call to the horse and he would fly over and gaze at her with his beautiful horse eyes, and they would bond, because she was a girl and he was a horse, and then he would he offer his back and she would climb on and they would fly off together to safety and she would say, “Good horsey.”

  But this was not that world. The horse looked at her, whinnied derisively, and flew off.

  As Charlotte stared into the boundless sky, she shuddered and her heart began to race. Never had she wanted to get out of her school as much—and that was saying quite a bit. There must be a way out somewhere, something that led to something else. Something where she didn’t feel like a mouse in a psychological experiment.

  Grimacing, she turned away and stepped back into the main hallway.

  It had changed. The entire hallway was papered with missing-Charlotte flyers, there must have been hundreds, and she shivered seeing so many copies of her own face staring down at her. She saw a brief image of her parents solemnly hanging up the posters, a ghost in time, and then it disappeared and she was alone again.

  Then a great flapping noise, and an all-too-familiar screeching that shook the posters on the wall. She instinctively ducked as a Harpy appeared—with its giant vulture wings and sneering old woman face and rotting smell—flying down the hallway, singing:

  Charlotte had a little quest

  Little quest

  Little quest

  Charlotte had a little quest

  And it destroyed the world.

  The Harpy buzzed right over her head, grazing her with its claws as it passed. She stay
ed down, covering her head, until the flapping disappeared down the hallway.

  She headed down the hall again. All the doors around her were closed, and she tried a few of them as she went by, but they did not open.

  The main hall, about fifty feet long in real life, was taking her an eternity to walk down, and with every step the missing-Charlotte posters multiplied.

  Ahead of her, where the hallway branched off into classroom wings, Charlotte could see an open door, so she went toward it, planning on trying a window. It didn’t seem like the door that happened to be ajar would handily lead to her escape route, but she had to try.

  But when she got there, she found the class was not empty at all. Standing at the billboard, giving a talk on dramatic irony, was a green-faced, snake-haired, red-mouthed Gorgon. One of the snakes turned to Charlotte and hissed, and before the Gorgon could turn its gaze upon her, she ducked out of the way, but not before noticing that the students sitting so placidly at their desks had all been turned to stone.

  “Typical,” she muttered.

  Suddenly she felt a firm hand grab her shoulder. “Miss Mielswetzski,” said a disapproving voice.

  She sighed. She should have known. “Hi, Mr. Crapf.” She turned around to find the math teacher glaring at her. She nearly started when she saw him—he was very thin with angry eyes, more like Charlotte always thought of him than he actually was.

  “What are you doing out of class?” His grip on her shoulder tightened, and she felt a pang of fear. The real Mr. Crapf couldn’t do her any harm—other than psychological—but who was to say about Olympus Crapf? Didn’t things have to get threatening here soon? Indeed, as he squeezed, a shot of pain traveled from her shoulder through her body, and suddenly all her muscles began to ache in response.

  “Get your hands off me,” she yelled, squirming.

  The teacher turned a bright, blinding red. “How dare you, you little ungrateful malcontent,” he spat, squeezing her arm. “I am a teacher. You will respect me. I’ve seen kids like you before, you will make nothing of yourself—”

  “Let go of her!” The voice reverberated down the halls. Charlotte wrenched herself from the math teacher’s grasp and whirled around.

  Mr. Metos!

  But was he real? He strode down the hallway toward them, full of purpose and Mr. Metos-ness. He looked…the same, human, like the Mr. Metos they had left in the Prometheans’ garage. Her heart started to beat so loudly she thought the whole fake-school could hear.

  “Let go of her, Crapf!”

  “Easy, Metos,” muttered the math teacher, backing away. As Mr. Metos approached, Mr. Crapf dissolved into the shadows.

  “Mr. Metos?” she said questioningly.

  “Charlotte. Are you all right?”

  “You’re not real.”

  “Of course I’m real. I was looking for you. I was on the stairs to Olympus, and then—”

  She gasped. “You ended up here. Why? Why am I here?”

  “I imagine they are trying to find ways to stop you.”

  “But, it’s totally stupid. It’s math teachers and, you know, middle school. I don’t care about this place.”

  He blinked. “You don’t?”

  “Well…no.”

  “Huh. That’s funny,” he said, in a genuinely puzzled voice that Charlotte did not understand. “Anyway, I know a way out. We can find Zee and—”

  “Metos!” The word came as an explosion that shook the school. Charlotte jumped, and Mr. Metos spun around. Timon! Had he followed them? “I knew I’d catch you.”

  And as Charlotte watched, Timon lifted his gun and shot Mr. Metos three times.

  Charlotte screamed as the Promethean collapsed in a heap on the floor. Timon stormed off, and Charlotte dropped to her knees next to the Promethean.

  “Mr. Metos? Mr. Metos? Are you okay?” Tears flooded her eyes as she shook him, but he did not respond. Blood pooled from his back onto the floor, and he took one great, rattling breath, and then was still.

  “No!” Charlotte yelled.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not real,” said a smooth voice.

  “Wh-what?” She looked up. Crouching at the end of the hall, filling the entire space, a giant lion-like creature with great eagle wings and a woman’s head stared at her levelly. A Sphinx.

  Charlotte drew herself up. She knew all about the Sphinx. In the Oedipus story, a Sphinx stood guard on a path outside a kingdom and would not let anyone pass unless they answered a riddle. Everyone who answered it wrong she ate. The riddle was, “What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?” Oedipus got it right: Man, who crawled as a baby, walked upright as an adult, and walked with a cane when he got old. The Sphinx was devastated and fled, the whole kingdom rejoiced and made Oedipus their king, and he married the queen (who was actually his mom but he didn’t know it). It was a long story.

  “It’s not real,” the Sphinx repeated, blinking its catlike eyes lazily. “But it could be, right?” It flicked a paw toward Mr. Metos’s body. “They may well have killed him, right? Because he saved you? You don’t know what happened to him, do you?”

  Behind the Sphinx was not a stairwell but open sky. It was guarding the way out.

  Charlotte wiped her eyes and stood up, trying to keep her eyes away from the sight of Mr. Metos’s lifeless body on the floor. Fake as it might be, the Sphinx was right. It could be real. The thought was more horrifying than anything Charlotte had encountered so far, and if they meant to unnerve her, they did a good job.

  “Do you know?” she asked weakly.

  The Sphinx smiled and licked its paw, a long cat tongue emerging from its mouth.

  Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to piece herself together. “What’s my riddle?” she asked flatly. Of everything they could have used to block the way to Olympus, a Sphinx was probably what she would have picked—not a test of strength or dexterity but a test of wits. A riddle she could figure out; it might take her awhile, but she could do it.

  The Sphinx continued to bathe itself. “Yes, of course. A riddle. Your riddle, Charlotte Mielswetzski, is thus.” The Sphinx fixed her with a haughty stare. “Does humanity deserve to be saved?”

  Charlotte stared. “What—that’s my riddle?…I don’t get it.”

  “Answer the question. Does humanity deserve to be saved?”

  “Of course it does!”

  “Look at what you see every day,” the Sphinx said, indicating the Hartnett hallway. “You hate this place. And this is nothing. This is just day-to-day pettiness, it does not touch on humans’ capacity for evil. This is not cruelty, avarice, murder, war. You act like you are so noble, you act as though you are so much better than the gods, but have you read a newspaper lately, Charlotte Mielswetzski?”

  Charlotte took a step back. “It’s not all that way. It’s not! Not everyone’s like that.”

  “I see. And you think you are above the pettiness, the cruelty? Do you think you are worth saving?”

  “Y-yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Hmmm,” said the Sphinx. “That’s surprising, given what you’ve done.” The creature flicked a paw, and the doorway next to Charlotte flew open to reveal her own living room. Her parents were huddled together on the floor, among a pile of missing-Charlotte posters, her mother sobbing and her father, eyes red, holding her and staring dully at the ground.

  “This,” the Sphinx said, “is real.”

  It was too much. Every bit of Charlotte wanted to pass through the doorway, to go to them, but she could not move, so frozen was she by the sight before her.

  “And humans aren’t cruel,” the Sphinx added.

  It was real, she knew it was real. She could step through the door and be home again. Zee had the Flame, he would go, she had nothing, nothing but her parents, who loved her with the immensity of the sky, whom she had nearly killed from grief.

  “If you go on, if you go to Olympus, they will know. They will know they have lost you forever. Because you are giving up
your life when you cross this threshold.”

  Charlotte stared. The Sphinx began to lick its chops. One way was Olympus, her quest, perhaps her death (if that was what the creature was saying?); another was her parents, broken, whom she could put back together again with one step, whom she could destroy with one step.

  The Sphinx lifted its immense body up and stretched, then took a languid step forward, its eyes fixed on her.

  “Aren’t you going to answer?” it cooed.

  No. She could not. She was absolutely still. She would die this way, devoured by the Sphinx.

  Just then a sound came from the living room—like fifty snakes all hissing at once. Charlotte and the Sphinx both turned their heads, and the Sphinx crouched down. Charlotte’s parents noticed nothing, but Charlotte saw. Mew was bounding through the living room toward them.

  She leaped through the door, landing on all fours between Charlotte and the Sphinx, her ears flat against her head, her fur standing straight up along her spine, her mouth fixed in a menacing hiss.

  The monster narrowed its eyes. “What are you?” it said, frowning. “You are not right. You are a riddle.”

  Mew poised on her haunches, a coiled spring.

  Suddenly the Sphinx frowned. “This is not a fight you can win, riddle.”

  A sound from Mew, like the scream of an eagle, and then she pounced.

  Starting, the Sphinx reached out a defensive paw but was too slow. Mew sprang toward the beast’s face, claws out, a flying puffball of doom. The Sphinx shrieked as Mew landed, grabbing onto its face with her claws. A flurry of motion and fur and paws and the Sphinx was screeching, swatting at the cat attached to its face.

  Then Mew leaped off. The Sphinx’s face was covered in blood, and Charlotte looked away. The creature yowled and lunged around wildly, swatting this way and that.

  With a glance at Charlotte, Mew bounded back through the door, and as she did, the room disappeared—there was nothing left but shadow. The Sphinx screeched and hurtled blindly toward the blackness, and Charlotte seized her chance and ducked behind it into the open blue.