Resolve glinted in Rapunzel’s eyes. “I don’t care about wolves and crows—or my own life. I’m going after the scepter.”
“Me too!” Cindy cried out.
Amethyst wagged a finger. “Your self-sacrifice, noble as it may be, won’t work. No hand born of our world can remove the scepter from the queen’s grasp. Only the human hand has the power to take hold of it.”
A pregnant pause quieted the cave. All eyes fell on Caitlin Rose Fletcher as Caitlin Rose Fletcher almost fell over on the dirt floor.
That’s why I’m here?
“But you just said the crows guard the queen,” Caitlin responded in a nervous tone. “Even from humans!”
Amethyst cracked a discerning smile, his eyes betraying his crafty intelligence.
He crawled on his many legs over to the large chest of drawers. He opened the bottom drawer, reached inside, and took out an object. A translucent pyramid about the size of a walnut was fixed between two of his fingers. “This prism,” Amethyst said, holding it up for all to see, “is made of fused quartz.”
Cindy eyed it hungrily. “What’s so special about fused quartz? Is it edible?”
Amethyst tilted it to and fro. “A quartz prism disperses invisible wavelengths of light.”
He snapped the quartz prism into a clamp located at the top of a tall, thin candelabrum beside his mushroom. He turned his attention to Caitlin.
“Come, child.”
Her eyes sprung open. She swung her head to look behind her, hoping he was talking to another child—perhaps Natalie? She turned back and met his gaze.
Uh-oh.
Caitlin tried to speak, but no words came forth. She mouthed soundlessly: “Who, me?”
Amethyst nodded. It figured. Caitlin’s walk was hesitant as she moved in the direction of the caterpillar She stopped short of the candelabrum. She felt that was close enough.
“Closer, child.”
Caitlin glanced back at Natalie. Her sister nudged her chin up, encouraging her onward.
Caitlin crept a little closer.
“A bit more,” Amethyst instructed.
When Caitlin was close enough for his liking, he raised his hand. “Stop there, child.”
Rapunzel nodded as a canny smile broke at the corners of her mouth. She said to the girls, “This must be why he sent us to find Caitlin.”
Amethyst adjusted the angle of the quartz prism, slanting it toward Caitlin’s forehead.
“I shall refract your aura.”
My aura?
With one of his many hands, he turned a knob. Blackout blinds obediently rolled down to cover the skylight. “Works better in the dark.” He turned to Rapunzel. “Please blow out the candles.” She blew out the flames flickering in the sconces on the cavern walls.
The cave went dark.
Except for a single phosphorescent maroon glow.
Natalie’s mouth fell open. She stared bug-eyed at Caitlin.
“Natalie, what is it?”
Her response remained her open mouth.
Caitlin glanced upward. With her peripheral vision, she could see a faint, radiant field glimmering around her head. It was tinged in shades of red.
“Oh my God! Is that my aura?” she exclaimed. “For real?”
“It is,” Amethyst said. “As I hoped. No green. Barely any yellow. This girl is all fear. She’s awash in worry. Perfectly petrified of … well, practically everything.”
Caitlin felt like crying.
How freaking depressing!
“How wonderful!” Amethyst said hopefully.
Caitlin gasped. “I don’t understand!”
And I’m not sure I want to …
“Your fear will cloak you in a shield of invisibility,” Amethyst said.
“Huh?!”
“The crows can only sense courage and royal blood.”
“Huh?!”
“The crows will never sense you coming. You’ll be like a ghost. You’ll be invisible. Even when you’re close enough to smell the queen’s breath.”
Caitlin snapped out of her shock. “But how about all the Blood-Eyed wolves and zombies who surround her?”
Amethyst scratched his head with one of his left hands. “Haven’t figured that one out yet.”
That comment drained the blood from Caitlin’s face.
“I cannot do this!” Caitlin whined.
Amethyst fixed his narrowed eyes on her as his manner turned gravely serious.
“Be careful of the thoughts you express. Our entire realm is one endless wave of imagination, my child. When you complain and worry, our world will bring you more to complain and worry about. When you appreciate, the world brings you more to appreciate. It’s in our own hands. It’s in your hands, my child.”
A hair-raising wolf howl roared into the cavern, frightening Caitlin so much she completely emptied the air out of her lungs.
The awful wolf’s call was no longer echoing from some faraway ridge outside the cave. It was coming from inside the tunnel!
“Oh my!” Lord Amethyst announced, hands on his cheeks. “They’ve found the entrance!”
The cavern went silent. No one moved.
Wind whistled through the tunnel.
Then a whining gust of foul air whirled into the cavern, scattering papers, stirring up dust, and rattling vines.
“Nature has not produced this wind,” Amethyst whispered. “It gestates evil and possesses depraved intelligence.”
Caitlin blew hot breath on her fingers. Then she rubbed her hands together.
The snarling of the wolf drew closer.
Amethyst massaged his chin with one hand after another. Caitlin hoped those eyebrows of his would arch in a sudden flash of inspiration, because their group needed an exit strategy, fast.
The clawing noise of paws tracking along the dirt grew louder. Closer.
Natalie was running a finger through her hair, twisting loose strands around and around and around. It was a nervous habit of Caitlin’s, but she’d never seen Natalie do it even once—before now.
Another draft of wind brought the rancid odor of wolf breath into the cavern. It smelled like one of those stinking corpse flowers mixed with blood.
Caitlin’s mouth ran dry.
No spit. Zero saliva.
The hellhound was nearly at the door.
Amethyst became still. His antennae sprung to alert. The ghoulish, guttural growl was about to enter his cavern.
Caitlin flattened both palms against her ears, hard. She couldn’t bear to hear that bone-chilling snarl again. She kept her eyes glued on the caterpillar, waiting for him to proclaim a miraculous solution.
Amethyst looked peaceful. He seemed to be accepting his fate.
What?
The grand old insect turned to his frightened guests.
“Evil has arrived.”
Caitlin disliked darkness—in fact, she was scared stiff of it—so closing her eyes to avoid seeing what was about to come into that cave was not an option. Instead she sat down on the small boulder. She lifted her gaze, fixing it determinedly on the ceiling.
Please, please don’t let me see it! Don’t let me see it!
As if not seeing it would somehow prevent it from seeing her.
Her nails clawed the sides of the boulder as she sat, muscles tensed. She clenched her fingers into fists till her knuckles went white. Her eyes remained locked on that single spot on the ceiling.
Cold wind drifted around her ankles and snaked up her back. The wind was vile and alive, just as Amethyst had said.
No one in that room dared to move a finger, steal a breath, or even blink an eye.
The stench of wolf breath was thick in the air.
It was moving.
Caitlin felt the urge to look. The not knowing gnawed at her. Not looking would torment her. But looking, she knew, would also freak her out.
Caitlin lowered her eyes.
The wolf roamed right past her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
Its eyes glowed a deep red as it lurked about the dim cavern, fangs bared.
Its black fur was thick in some spots, but elsewhere the skin had rotted right through, exposing its innards.
A tract of rib cage.
A strip of leg bone.
A patch of newly decayed flesh.
When it prowled past the quartz prism clamped atop the candelabrum, the creature’s aura dispersed into a rainbow that quickly became no rainbow at all! It shimmered only black—all the colors were gone!
Caitlin’s skin crawled.
She thought she had known fear before this moment. But never before had she been able to taste it on her tongue, like now. Her other phobias paled in comparison to what she was feeling now—a cold fright biting her to the bone.
Saliva speckled with blood, possibly from a fresh kill, dripped from the wolf’s mouth as he leered at the bountiful meal before him. He seemed to relish deciding which one of them he was going to devour first.
Her head still as a statue, Caitlin shifted her eyes to her left. Rapunzel was quietly reeling in her long, golden rope of hair. Caitlin thought it looked like she was preparing to twist it into a lasso.
No, that’ll never hold him!
A sharp sniff issued from the snout of the creature as it sized up Sleeping Beauty.
She is asleep?!
Caitlin stiffened as a medley of howls rang out from afar.
Others were coming!
Horror rose like bile in Caitlin’s throat as the wolf reared, preparing to lunge at Beauty. The carnivore reared up impossibly high, then did something utterly chilling … the creature stood upright!
On its hind legs!
Like a man-turned-werewolf … like the hideous Big Bad Wolf that they had freed from the trap!
Her eyes went all flashbulb.
She called to Snow, “It’s him!”
Beauty suddenly opened her eyes in silent terror.
Snow White leaped to her feet before the wolf could leap on Sleeping Beauty.
“Wait! Stop!” she cried as she waved her hands.
The wolf whipped its head around to face her. Its soulless eyes were like stone-cold rubies.
“We helped you! Don’t you remember us?”
The wolf tilted its head to one side.
“Snow! Are you crazy?” Rapunzel screamed. “You can’t reason with it! It’s an eating machine!”
“She’s right!” Cindy added. “Stay back!”
Snow continued, undeterred. “Those vultures would have eaten you alive if it weren’t for us,” she said to Mr. Big Bad.
It glared at her, sniffing, snarling, saliva dripping from its jaw. A low, vicious growl rumbled through its fangs. It seemed to know the scent of royal blood.
The wolf arched its back. Its leg muscles contracted like a spring. It was preparing to pounce.
Snow White’s brow furrowed. “And you never even said thank you!” Her words were laced with a tough-love tone. “You think you’re so big and bad? Well, it’s easy being a big, bad, ungrateful wolf. It’s much tougher to be an appreciative one—especially when it’s your life that was saved!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Caitlin saw Rapunzel preparing to toss the lasso. She gave Rapunzel a swift shake of her head, worrying that being snared might make the wolf really lose it.
Rapunzel lowered her arm.
Thank goodness!
The yelping of the coming wolf pack grew louder.
It was almost here.
The Big Bad Wolf howled in response. He turned his crimson eyes on Natalie. He glared at her. Inhaled her smell. She stood helpless in her little red chili pepper outfit.
Little? Red? Uh-oh!
Cinderella jumped in front of Natalie, arms spread wide in a protective stance, her eyes lit with anger. She grabbed the candelabrum and wielded it menacingly. “Back up, werewolf,” Cindy warned, “or you’ll be wearing this around your neck!”
The wolf snarled like a demon. The fur on its back spiked upward.
“Don’t antagonize him,” Snow said. She then smiled gently at the creature. “Try and remember how we saved you,” she urged the wolf.
Its eyes now fell on Caitlin. It sniffed. Glowered. Tilted its head. It pivoted back, leering again at Snow.
She waved her finger in a scolding gesture, as if to say: Don’t you even think about it!
The zombie wolf gave a distinctly dismissive wave of its head that seemed to say: Disappear. Before the other wolves from hell arrive.
Everyone bolted up in unison and tiptoed toward the tunnel exit.
Amethyst unclamped the quartz prism from the candelabrum in Cindy’s hand and slipped it into his vest pocket.
On the way out, Natalie scurried past the big bad zombie wolf.
Its nostrils flared as she passed. A growl grew at the rear of its throat. It curled its lips and clenched its jaw, as if trying consciously to hold its instinct to eat her at bay.
Natalie passed him so closely, she caught a hefty whiff of hot, rancid wolf breath.
Caitlin heard the yowls of the approaching wolf pack.
“Natalie, we gotta go!”
Caitlin was too afraid to look the wolf in the eye. But she forced a weak smile as she passed him, nodding just a tad, as if to bid the wolf farewell.
The Blood-Eyed canine ghoul stared back, eyes stoic. As she turned to leave, Caitlin snuck a quick look at him. She was sure she saw that beast bow his head ever so slightly, as if in gratitude.
Goose bumps covered her entire body.
“Wow, even a Blood-Eyed zombie can have a drop of compassion,” Caitlin said as she kneeled at the entrance to the tunnel.
The caterpillar scuttled up alongside her and smiled. “Only because you and Snow put it there. You gave that undead creature compassion—he therefore received something that he could give back to you.”
The caterpillar quickly summoned everyone around the tunnel entrance.
“Where’s Cindy?” Rapunzel asked.
Caitlin glanced behind them. Cinderella had just finished stuffing her pockets with jalapeño peppers, garlic cloves, horseradish, and wasabi roots. She joined the group at the exit.
Amethyst seemed tense. “After that rather close brush with death, a sublime revelation has come to me,” he said. “You girls must work together to resolve this dire situation.”
They looked at him, obviously waiting for more details.
“That’s all I can tell you,” he said. “You better hurry on.”
Caitlin stared blankly at Amethyst.
That’s it?
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere important to be.” Lord Amethyst handed a startled Caitlin a folded sheet of paper. “You will find all the answers written here, my child.”
And with that Lord Amethyst Bartholomew, the royal-blue caterpillar, took a small sip of drink from a flask he pulled from another pocket and immediately shrunk back to his former three-inch length. He turned away from the tunnel entrance and scurried over to a mushroom. He sat under it, twirled his tail, and quickly spun the most enchanting cocoon Caitlin had ever seen. In a blink he was completely encased and hanging from the underside of the mushroom. A perfect disguise from the pack of wolves that were minutes away.
The Blood-Eyed Big Bad Wolf meanwhile let out a lengthy, low-pitched howl. His cry pierced the cave, traveled through the tunnel, and rang out across the land. And when that soaring howl finally died into silence, the six friends had disappeared from the home of the caterpillar, well on their way to safer ground.
The group traveled a great distance over a sweeping, wooded terrain in Zeno’s Forest in the shortest time span imaginable. Caitlin and company had now reached the outer edge of the forest, back on the border of Wonderland, far from the wolves—for now.
Caitlin took out the paper that Amethyst had given her. She quickly unfolded it. A map.
She handed it to Rapunzel.
“According to this, the queen’s castle should be just
east of here.” Rapunzel flipped the map over. On the back was a detailed blueprint of the castle and its surrounding area. “Now this could come in handy. Follow me.”
The air felt wet and heavy. Clouds hung low. Caitlin could practically taste their dull, gray fluff.
After a short while, they came to a fork in the road. A large marsh lay directly in front of them. To their right was a dirt road. On the left an overgrown, cobblestone path led to an abandoned-looking castle. Pointed spires with clover-shaped finials tilted over into crumbling stone walls. Stained-glass windows lay in shards on the ground. Dead weeds and mushrooms were the gate’s only apparent guards.
Cinderella lifted the corner of her skirt and twirled.
“I remember this place. It belonged to the good old Duke of Clubs. He used to throw the most outrageous parties.”
Cinderella danced and dipped from side to side. Then, suddenly, she stopped. Her shoulders slumped forward and she bowed her head. Snow White pulled out a handkerchief to dab her eyes.
“The poor duke. He fell to the Blood-Eyed courageously … alongside our husbands.”
Natalie whispered to Caitlin. “I feel kinda bad. Prince Charming and all the princes—they’re all Blood-Eyed ghouls now. These girls are hurting.”
Caitlin swallowed, sort of embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of that herself.
Rapunzel studied the map and, without lifting her eyes from the page, said, “No time for tears.” She traced a line on the map with her finger. “This road on the right is the route to the Queen of Hearts’ castle.”
She stood up straight, hands on her hips, and stared at the castle on her left. Then she marched over to the dancing Cinderella and plucked a few strands of hair from her head.
“Ow! Bloody hell, pretty princess!”
One corner of Snow White’s mouth curled into a smile.
“Quite clever. Would you like some strands of mine as well?”
Rapunzel winked. “By the root, if you can.”
She turned to Beauty. “You too. A nice clump.”
Beauty scrunched her nose. “Seriously?”
Rapunzel didn’t answer. She simply yanked a couple of gold locks out herself.
Beauty winced. “You’re welcome. And that hurt!”
Rapunzel yanked a handful of strands from her own scalp.
The Color of Fear Page 14