by ERIN BEDFORD
“Ye will get ye payment, but ye can’t go in. Can’t ye read the sign?” He pointed a chubby brown finger at a sign I swore hadn’t been there before.
Crap kept popping up out of nowhere. I glared up at the sign. The sign read, ‘No Humans Allowed’ in big black curly letters. Well, weren’t they racist, or was it humanist?
“Well then,” I huffed, tapping my foot. “How do you expect to pay me back?”
“Trip here be a great guard, aren’t ye, Trip?” Trip nodded his head in vigor, his tail wagging in the air. “He’ll protect ye garden from other rodents and the like in return for the occasional…” The little man eyed Trip in warning. “…carrot.”
I stared up at the floating sign, thinking about his proposal. I guess it sounded all right, but it didn’t satisfy my curiosity to know more about the doors. I hadn’t risked my hand and sanity to come all this way to leave with nothing.
“All right, you win.” Trip and Mop relaxed against the door. “So, how do I get back to my world?”
Trip moved away from the door and hopped toward the other side of the Between. I moved to follow Trip across the room but stopped when Mop didn’t move from his spot against the door. His eyes narrowed at me, suspicion on his face.
“Are you coming?”
He stood there debating if he could trust me, his brow furrowing further. After a moment or two, he must have come to a decision because he moved away from the door and toward where Trip awaited.
“Ya, I’m comin’.”
I let Mop move ahead of me as we made our way past the reception desk. The bird heads’ eyes moved away from the computer monitor to watch me with a knowing leer. I tried not to flinch at their gaze and focus on my plan. When Mop was far enough away, I spun around and darted back to the door.
“What are ye doing?” Mop yelled out. “Stop!”
“No, Lady, no!”
My hand grasped the knob, but I hesitated at the birds’ dark laughter coming from behind me. Whatever their deal was I needed to know what was in here, and I wasn’t going to let fear stop me. I yanked the door open and braced myself for whatever was to come next.
3
In & Out Again
THE GROUND SMELLED of lavender. It was calm and peaceful. It made a girl want to lie there forever, and I would have had it not been for the biting cold of the ground pressed against my face. It felt like stone, but stones don’t usually have such a pleasant scent to them. Or did they? I normally didn’t make a habit of smelling the ground. After all, people might have thought I was crazy.
I shoved away the hair hanging over my face as my eyes fluttered open. Great, I’d lost my hair tie. My hair was going to be all over the place. I should just cut it and get it over with.
Searching the ground for my missing hair tie, I moved into a kneeling position. While the stone may have smelled nice, the ugly grayish brown color wasn’t doing it any favors. I winced where the edges of the stones bit into my hands as I moved to sit up.
I rubbed my eyes and stretched my back to get the dull ache from my bumpy landing out. Traveling by rabbit hole was not recommended nor a particularly sane choice of travel. Not that going through a door without looking to see what was on the other side first was advisable.
My eyes stung as they adjusted from the blinding white of the Between to the gray of the surrounding stone walls. Above me was a blue sky and birds chirping as they flew by; it was slightly more cheery than I expected. I glanced back to where I had come from. A leafless oak tree stood in the middle of the little area and smack dab in the middle of the trunk was a hole.
I pushed aside the chance of me getting a rational explanation as to how I had come through a door and ended up outside a hole. Besides, I cared more about how my big butt had fit through it in the first place. Not that it should have surprised me since I had already been sucked through a hole and out a door once before, but the academic in me fought to find some kind of non-magical solution.
Flapping wings drew my eyes to an upper branch of the small tree as a spotted barn owl landed on its surface. It hooted a curious call. Its unusual ice blue eyes followed my every move. Ignoring the owl, my eyes locked onto my hair tie floating in a small pond below the tree. I crawled across the stone to kneel before the pond.
The water was clear enough for me to see small fish swimming around but deep enough that I was wary of what lurked beneath. How deep did the pond go? It wasn’t very big, more of a decorative pond in someone’s backyard than an actual pond. It was probably no longer than I was.
As I reached toward the surface of the water to nab my hair tie a murky white figure began to move toward me. When it got close enough to the surface to see, I tried to move back. Deathly pale skin was stretched tight across the bones of a bodiless face. The sockets where its eyes should have been, were empty and appeared as if someone had painted over where they should have gone with black paint. As its mouth opened wide to reveal razor-sharp teeth, I struggled to tear my hand back to my side. I was locked in place by the eyeless gaze of the creature coming at me.
My heart raced as it bobbed closer and closer to the surface, my hand just barely touching the water’s edge. I turned my eyes away from the water to the owl perched on the tree, who was watching with mild fascination.
“Help me!” I pleaded. I turned back to the pond when he did nothing but cock his head to the side.
I grabbed my wrist with my other hand and tugged as hard as I could, the skin on my wrist pinching beneath my other hand. A scream built up in me as the sharp teeth came closer and closer to the surface. I closed my eyes and turned my head just as it was about to chomp down. I was yanked away from the pool, my hand free of its grasp.
“What the hell are ye doin’?”
I rubbed my wrist as Mop yelled at me, my eyes darting back to the pond where the white head had disappeared back to the bottom. I cringed to think what could have happened if Mop hadn’t gotten there in time. I’d have one less hand and probably a less-than-flattering nickname – One-handed Kat or Katherine the Nub. I definitely would have looked into getting a hook of some kind, maybe something in platinum.
“Lady! Are ye listenin’ to me?”
“Huh? Sorry.” I gave a sheepish grin. “What did you say?”
Mop placed his hands on his hips and glared. “I said are all ye kind as dumb as ye or are ye just the exception?”
“Hey!”
I was offended he would even lop me in with the other humans. I may not be the smartest of the bunch, but I was better off than some. I wouldn’t have been able to trick the little brown man into letting me in otherwise.
“I was smart enough to get in here.”
Mop snorted. “Only to have ye hand bit off in the first five minutes. Didn’t ye mother ever teach ye not to be lookin’ for trouble?”
The thought of my mother teaching me anything was laughable. When I was seven I wanted to learn how to ride a bike. She had flat out refused and had given me an hour-long lecture on how bicycles were not for ladies of our stature and why couldn’t I take up something more suitable, like knitting? In the end, I had to beg a neighbor’s dad to teach me on a secondhand bike I had gotten from a pawn shop with my own allowance.
I opened my mouth to answer when the unhelpful owl decided to make his presence known. Mop’s eyes snapped to the feathered creature and frowned harder. Glad to know I’m not the only one who didn’t like the owl.
Turning back to me, Mop wagged a finger in my face. “Why couldn't ye just go home? Now, ye are gonna get us all in trouble.”
“Mop doesn't think he knows, does Mop?” Trip’s face appeared inside the hole in the tree, his brow etched with worry. Had he been in there all this time?
“Of course, he does! It be his kingdom.” He marched up to me, one of his stubby fingers pointing up to me. “We're all doomed if we donna get ye back to yer world before he comes.”
Trip hopped out of the tree and landed next to us. His furry body followed suit and i
n a spout of irony tripped on his own long floppy ears. His windy tail hung in the air, limp and dejected.
I felt bad for him, I really did. After all, it was my fault we were here to begin with. But if he could have just restrained himself from getting into my garden, I would never have followed him to the cave and ended up in the damn hole.
“Why can’t I just go back out the way I came?” I pointed to the hole in the tree. Mop and Trip looked at me as if I had grown a second head.
“Ye can’t go back that way. It only goes one way.” Mop’s stubby legs teetered across the cobble stone. “The only way ye gettin’ out be through the orchard.” My eyes followed his pudgy finger, which was pointing to an opening in the wall that surrounded us.
“Well, then, let’s go.” My foot moved in the direction Mop pointed, but Trip was once again blocking my path.
“No! No, Lady!” Trip shook his head and held up his hands. “Lady doesn’t want to go in there! Lady would get eaten for sure, Lady would!”
Hands on my hips, I made an unladylike growl. I was getting tired of being told what I should and shouldn’t do. “If I can’t go back, then the only way to go is forward unless you want me to stay in this spot forever?”
Mr. Blue Eyes, who had been watching our exchange, hooted as if to agree with me. The sound startled Trip, his frightened eyes darted between the owl and me. Why was he scared of a little owl?
“You're not very brave, are you?” I shook my head in disbelief. “It's a wonder you were able to steal any of my carrots at all.”
Trip tugged his ears over his face and hunched down into himself. “Trip is sorry, Lady. Trip doesn’t want to see Lady hurt, Trip doesn’t.”
His long tail seemed to be the most expressive part of his body, as it drooped down in his despair. His childlike persona had me almost regretting putting him in that situation.
Almost.
Mop shoved Trip aside and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the entrance. “I know how ye feel, Trip. But we gotta get her outta here. Humans be forbidden, lest ye forgot. Ye don’t want him to be findin' her, do ye?”
Trip stopped tugging on his ears, his eyes wide. “No! Trip no want that!” He hopped across the cobblestone and grabbed my other hand, helping Mop to lead me into the stone corridor.
I let myself be dragged along the path, my eyes drinking in the surroundings. There weren’t any turns in front of us, only a long walkway surrounded by stone walls on both sides. I couldn’t tell how far it went, though it seemed endless, and the foliage covering the walls only added to the affect. All along the walls were long windy vines tipped with pretty little multicolored flowers.
“Where exactly are we?”
“Now ye want to know?” Mop grunted like it should have been my first question. I was a little busy finding my hair tie, which of course was still in the pond.
And what was up this little goblin’s butt? Had I killed his grandma or something? Insulted his heritage? I couldn’t do a single thing right in his beady little eyes.
“Ye have the gracious honor of being in the UnSeelie Court. Not that it means much to ye.” He snorted at me over his shoulder. I was getting the distinct impression he didn’t like me much.
Still holding Trip’s hand, I stopped beside a small bundle of flowers, its hue a mixture of purples and reds I’d never seen before. I leaned into smell them when the flowers parted to reveal a bulging yellow eyeball.
“What the hell?” I jumped back with a screech. Mop and Trip were at my side in an instant.
“What ye yellin’ for? It’s just a beetle.” The grumpy troll chuckled at me before turning away.
I glared at him before looking back at the so-called beetle. For a moment, I thought the eye was an illusion, like those butterflies that use their wing design to ward off predators, and then the eye began to follow me as I moved side to side. I reached out to touch it, but its wings fluttered over the eye like an eyelid and took off over the wall’s edge.
“Well, that’s a relief.” I sniffed the flowers the beetle had been resting on. “For a moment, I thought I might be in some kind of Alice in Wonderland scenario.”
Mop jerked me away from the flowers and clamped his hands over my mouth. “Are ye stupid? Don’t be sayin’ that name!”
My eyes narrowed at the hand over my mouth, and for a moment, I was half tempted to lick him, but then the flowers started to whisper. Mop’s and Trip’s eyes filled with alarm as the flowers twittered to each other down each side of the walls. Each of them whispered Alice’s name like it was a forbidden secret.
“Trip is scared, Trip is.” Trip tugged on my hand, hiding his face behind his ears.
Mop growled next to me, “Now ye done it! It couldn’t get any worse I thought, but no! Ye just had and go say that blasted woman’s name! Goin’ to be bringin’ the whole Underground down on us now. No good, nosy child saying forbidden words–”
“What’d I say? Alice?” I cut in.
“Would ye stop sayin’ it! Do ye want to be losin’ ye head?” He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to say it again.
My right eyebrow twitched. This place was giving me a headache. How was I supposed to know what to do and what not to do?
“Make up your mind. Are we in Wonderland, the Underground, or the UnSeelie Court?” Pulling my hand from Trip, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Ye humans and ye need to define everything.” Mop scoffed and stepped up to a red mossy spot on the opposite side of the wall. It was the only spot void of the chattering flowers. He tickled the fuzz of the moss, causing it to spread out along the wall, forming a rectangular door shape.
“We be where I say we be. I don’t know nothing bout no Wonderland though, that be what the other one called it.”
“Mop can’t take Lady in there!” Trip’s words were filled with panic.
Mop clucked his tongue. “We have no choice. We had sometime before ye started blabbin’ bout forbidden nonsense and now thems flowers be talkin’. They be notifyin’ him for sure.”
Mop fiddled with a bag at his side for a moment, before pulling out a ring of keys. Flipping through them, he held up a dark fuzzy red key with sharp teeth like prongs. He popped the key in the hole and twisted. When the lock popped, he placed his hand on the moss once more, turning what seemed to be a door knob.
He pushed the door open for me and gestured for me to enter. “Reaper knows who else be listenin’ in when he finds out. And this way be faster.”
“But here is dangerous, here is.” Trip’s voice shook as he followed close to me. I wasn’t sure if I should be afraid or not. Trip seemed like the type to be afraid of his own shadow.
My eyes focused on the dark red within the wall. After everything I’ve seen so far, this was by far the weirdest place I had ever been to. It even trumped that one time I was talked into going to a heavy metal concert with my ex-boyfriend, Todd, and ended up in a mosh pit. I was black and blue for a week.
I took a step into the door, and my foot squished down into the red mossy floor. I made a small disgusted noise in my throat as I focused on the hope that the fluid coming to the top wouldn’t stain my white tennis shoes. I heard the flapping of wings in the distance as the red door shut behind me. What was in front of me made me think, I’d rather be back in the mosh pit.
4
Teeth
WHEN MY EYES adjusted to the dark contrast of the new area, I instantly wished I had kept my diarrhea-of-a-mouth shut. The moss that made up the door spread across a room that spanned half a football field. My feet made a squishing noise as I kept close to Mop, who marched across the mossy floor without a wary glance to the shadows whispering at the edges.
I kept my eyes on the shadows and lowered my voice, “Who’s this he you guys keep talking about? And call me Kat, would you?”
“Ye shouldn’t give ye name out so freely here.” Mop’s eyes swept the room as if to look for something unseen. “Ye n
ever know who be listenin’. And he is the glorious Dark Prince of the UnSeelie Court. Ye be lucky to never meet him.”
“Prince, huh? So he’s in charge of everything, then?” I eyed the shadows that seemed to move in the corner of my eye. We were barely halfway across the room. I expected them to show themselves by now. But the creatures, whatever they were, seemed content to watch us from afar.
Trip gripped my hand tighter, his voice hushed, “Only of the outer realm. It’s how he keeps humans out, it is. Keep humans away from us Fae.”
“Fae?” I paused to question Trip. “You mean like faeries?”
“Ba!” I jumped back as Mop spit on the ground. “Faeries! Those little pests ain’t got nothin’ on we Fae.”
“Oh? What’s the difference?” I cocked my head to the side, my interest peaked.
As far as I was concerned, Mop was as much a pest as any Tinkerbelle. Though, the idea of flying made my stomach curl. It was a good thing I was short. Heights and I had a disagreement once at a theme park. At which time, we had decided it was in both of our best interests that we go our separate ways.
“What? There be a huge difference!” Mop glared at me hands on his hips. “What do ye think we Fae do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Grant wishes and stuff?” I shrugged my shoulders and then tensed as the shadows giggled. “What’s so funny?”
“Lady funny, Lady is.” Trip laughed along with our creepy audience, his tail wagging behind him.
I found it curious that Mop and Trip weren’t at all concerned with the slithering forms that I could barely make out on the sides. Maybe they only creeped me out?
Mop shook his head, eyes down at the ground. “Silly girl. Many of ye kind be dyin’ here ‘cause they be lookin’ for wishes.” Without warning, Mop spun around and waved a finger in my face. “Ye be gettin’ the same fate if ye be tryin’ to get things for free.”