“Motley,” was the only word Cora needed to hear. Even before he’d spoken it, she knew that she was following Patrick. Ahead, the movement stopped. Patrick was quiet for a few moments and then called out, “Who’s there?”
Orion’s apprehension froze him mid-stride and he turned his head to Cora with a reluctant manner.
“Keep going,” she whispered.
Though he didn’t look the least bit pleased with her request, Orion started walking again. This time his head was hung low and his steps were slow. Cora strained to make out the figures of Patrick and Motley as they appeared faintly in the distance. “We’re going to have to charge them,” she said with a commanding tone.
Orion’s turned back toward her with wild, fearful eyes. “Please, tell me you’re jokin’ or I fear we might be croakin’!”
“Come on, Orion! What happened to confronting the filthy Treinbaulm scum?”
Orion’s ears perked but he remained frozen.
“What is everyone back at the stables going to say if you turn tail and run?”
At this Orion turned his head to face the enemy. Cora felt his body tighten as if preparing for action but he remained immobile. In a last-ditch effort she leaned forward and urged sweetly into his ear, “Would a noble steed do it for his princess?”
Cora almost toppled off Orion’s back and onto the ground as he galloped off to battle. The wind was whipping her hair into her eyes but she could still make out the figure of Motley as he jumped into a cove of bushes alongside the trail. The sight of a charging pegasus did nothing to intimidate Patrick, who simply stood his ground and awaited their arrival.
As they got closer, Cora began to doubt whether this actually was Patrick Treinbaulm. Instead of the cute boy she had anticipated, a dumpy kid of about twelve or thirteen stood in his place. He was plain at best, with a wide freckled nose, muddy brown eyes, and washed out, mousy brown hair. His blue T-shirt was noticeably tight around the middle. He was the kind of boy that was probably picked last for sports and ate alone in the cafeteria. Cora felt an immediate connection with him.
“Hello?” Cora called out as she and Orion came nearer, “I’m looking for a dog. I thought I saw him up here. Did you happen to see him?”
There was a faint rustling in the bushes and the scruffy Backworlds-Motley emerged, shaking leaves from his wiry head. Cora sprang from Orion’s back and rushed over to greet him. “Motley, you’re all right!” She exclaimed, clutching him tightly. “What happened?”
Motley offered only silence, looking back at her with a great yearning. He lifted his paw, set it on her knee, and then glanced at the freckle-faced boy.
“Right,” Cora continued after moments of silence. “You can’t talk here.”
The boy was now watching Cora with a curious expression on his face. She realized how odd this must all seem to him and didn’t know where to begin with an explanation.
“Cora? Is that you?” The boy asked, staring at her cockeyed.
The boy’s voice didn’t fit him. There was something familiar about it. It was the same voice she’d followed to this spot, the one that reminded her of Patrick. “Um, yeah, I’m Cora. Who are you?”
“I’d hoped you’d know me, princess,” he replied, transporting Cora back to the castle ballroom in Clouden where she’d first seen him.
“Patrick?” She nearly shouted, backing away from him.
“Please, Cora, it’s okay. Just listen to me,” he pleaded.
“Yeah, right! Your whole family is out to get us!” she spat. Retreating toward Orion, she called out for Motley to follow, all the while watching Patrick as if he might charge at her any moment. He didn’t move an inch and neither did Motley. “Motley, come on! Let’s get out of here!” she demanded.
Up on Orion’s back and ready to retreat; Cora called again to her frozen companion, this time angrily. “Motley, come now! This guy’s bad news. We’ve got to go!” Motley studied her with narrowed eyes but did not move.
“Motley! NOW!”
Slowly but surely, Motley approached but only started at Cora’s outstretched hand as she offered to lift him up to the safety of Orion’s back. Quite contrary to the response she had expected, he next grabbed hold of her pant leg with his teeth and gave a tug. “What the heck are you doing?” She demanded, trying hard to steady herself despite Motley’s efforts to do otherwise. “What’s wrong with you?”
“He’s telling you something, Cora. You’re just not listening,” Patrick explained from a distance, still frozen in the spot she’d originally found him.
Cora looked back at Motley, who was still tugging at her pant leg. “What are you doing, Motley? What is it?” she asked, this time more tenderly. The look of yearning that she’d seen when she’d first met him in his barren cage at the Humane Society once again appeared in his eyes. He was so desperate to speak to her but confined by the reality of The Backworlds.
“All right, boy.” Cora jumped to the ground and Motley’s hold on her endured. He began backing up, pulling her along with him. It was evident after only a short distance that he was pulling her toward Patrick and so she stopped, willfully planted her feet in the ground, and refused to advance any further. To this, Motley conjured weepy eyes. If he’d been able to cry, he would have.
By now, Patrick had ventured off the trail and was sitting on a fallen log partially carpeted with moss. The aroma of rotting wood seared Cora’s nostrils as she obeyed Motley’s wishes (and tugs!) and sat down on another log that lay just opposite his.
“Okay, here I am. Now what?” she asked defiantly, trying her best not to look at either of them. Orion had followed close behind and was watching over her shoulder.
Patrick didn’t say anything. He just quietly rose from his log and walked toward her. He then knelt down in front of her and held out his hand. “Take my hand,” he requested, “and close your eyes.”
Before Cora was aware of her own actions, she was following his command. Some combination of Patrick’s eyes and his gentle, familiar voice seemed to override her caution. Her hand was cupped in his, the sensation of his warm skin soothing her concerns. Her eyelids seemed to drop like projector screens and an entirely new scene played out inside them. She could see a prince sitting before her. Patrick smiled at her obvious recollection, the corners of his mouth curling up with delight. His eyes, like black pools of onyx, lit with life and danced with stardust. Cora could feel that pureness of his soul flowing through her own. Their fated destiny suddenly seemed clearer and truer than anything she’d ever known. All of her suspicions faded.
“Open your eyes now,” Patrick urged, still smiling.
As Cora opened her eyes, the person she expected to see before her was no longer there. The awkward boy who had knelt down before her had been replaced by the Patrick of Clouden. And as he stared back at her, she knew with all certainty that he too saw her true form. “But how?”
“A match is a magical thing, Cora. It has power beyond our understanding.”
Cora was flooded with emotions. “But, I can’t be with you. You, your family—we’re at war.” She was just as unsure of her words as she was of her feelings.
“No, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve no quarrel with your family. It’s my father’s war; it’s his desire to take over Clouden, not mine.” Their hands were still intertwined and Cora was beginning to sense Patrick’s emotions just as strongly as she had when they’d danced in the ballroom. She knew in her heart that he was speaking the truth. Patrick continued. “I hardly even know my father. I only just arrived in Clouden. I was raised in The Backworlds, just like you.”
“You were?”
“I would’ve thought you’d known that. After all, they sent us away for the same reason.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, Cora thought. Finally, someone who could answer her questions.
“And that reason is?”
“Well, the match,” Patrick said patiently. “When they found we were matched, they se
nt us away. Having hated each other for so long, they were both convinced that one family would try and steal the other family’s child away and so we were sent to The Backworlds, where neither family could easily reach us.”
“I see,” Cora mused, recalling the way Serene had insinuated that Cora and Patrick were the cause of the war. “But how’d you come to know all of this?”
“Oh, my father’s journal,” Patrick confessed. “It was crawling with toads but I was pretty determined, so I made my way inside.”
“Toads?”
“Yeah, toads. You know, the secret keepers.” Cora’s befuddled expression pressed Patrick to continue, though the volume of things that puzzled her far exceeded his awareness. “That night in the castle, when we first spoke through the cell door, I left so confused. I’d been told so many times by my father that my mother was imprisoned in your castle that I’d taken it for truth, but there was something in your voice that made me search for answers when I got home. I found out so much that night—about our match, about my mother, and about the kind of person that my father truly is.” He stopped briefly, grimacing. “He’d only ever told me my mother was a prisoner in your castle to make me hate you and your family. It was shortly after confronting him about everything that I fled to the Finnegan castle. But I wasn’t welcome there either.”
“Is that why you came back to The Backworlds?” Cora asked.
“In part, I suppose. Mostly I came to find my mother. I found out in my father’s journal that he never really loved her. After I was born he treated her so terribly that she ran away. She wasn’t welcome anywhere on Clouden, so she came here.”
“That’s so sad,” Cora trailed. Patrick gave her hand a squeeze. Her heart quickened a beat and tingles tickled her fingertips where they met his skin.
“But our story doesn’t have to be,” he reminded her. She returned his gaze, feeling safe and comfortable with him. Being so near to him made it difficult to breathe. His eyes seemed to burn right through her and see into her soul. It was calming and exciting all at the same time.
Motley rustled in the bed of leaves he’d carved out for himself, reminding them that they weren’t alone. Cora gave him an apologetic shrug and then turned to Patrick with rekindled curiosity. “I don’t get it. Why is Motley here?”
“I think you’d be a better person to answer that one than me! He leapt out from the shadows and nearly killed me when I was making my journey to the Invisivator. He said he was seeking answers for his distressed mistress and would stop at nothing to get them.” Patrick said.
“But…but why were you guys fighting?”
“Fighting?”
“I saw you in the Rose Glass fighting. You were just near the Invisivator and I saw you tackling Motley,” Cora sputtered, desperate for a logical explanation.
Patrick was replying before she’d even completed her sentence. “Oh, you mean Motley’s attempt at hide-and-seek? Let’s just say that there’s no question that I am the undisputed champ!” Patrick declared. “Is that why you came? You thought we were fighting?”
“Pretty much,” Cora confessed. “But I needed to check on my parents here, anyway.”
“Well, then, what are we waiting for?”
Seventeen: The Gnome Graveyard
The pathway from the Invisivator to the main trail was now familiar to Cora as she led Motley, Orion, and Patrick through it with ease. A journey that seemed to have taken an exorbitant amount of time when she’d first made it was over in a flash. Patrick and Cora decided that the streets of Harborville were no place for a pegasus, and left Orion hiding in the bushes at the edge of the forest as they made their way toward the Catlin house. Cora was becoming more nervous with every step and as they came within a few blocks of the house, she began searching for an excuse not to go in.
“What day is it?” She asked Patrick.
“Saturday.”
“Great, what were the chances of that?” Cora blurted, without meaning to. “Now they’ll be home for sure,” she added with a grumble.
Patrick grabbed her hand and began swinging it as they walked. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he promised. Cora looked up at him. He was smiling widely and looked a bit goofy, despite his handsome features. Cora thought begrudgingly of him looking back at her plain face and then recalled their transformation. Her eyes widened. “They won’t know me! We can’t go there! They won’t recognize me!”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Patrick surmised, scratching his head.
“What?”
“I think we look the same to everyone else. I think we look like our Backworlds selves,” he explained.
“What makes you think that?” The prospect of fleeing back to the forest was fading right before Cora’s eyes. She turned to Patrick to dispute him but noticed his attention was focused not on her but on the window of a house they’d been walking past. She followed his line of sight and found a reflection of herself in the glass pane. “Oh,” she mumbled, frowning. A chubby girl frowned back at her, hand in hand with a pudgy little boy.
Despite her numerous attempts to divert their path, it seemed all too soon that Cora, Patrick, and Motley had arrived on Catlin’s doorstep. Patrick rang the bell before Cora had a chance to deflect him, and her heart quickened at the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the other side of the door.
It was Mr. Catlin who answered, still dressed in his bathrobe and looking just as disheveled as he had when she’d seen him through the Rose Glass hours before. At the sight of her his demeanor changed immediately. He leapt toward Cora and hugged her so tightly that she thought she might pop.
“Cora!” he gushed between sobs. “My Cora!”
Cora could hear the hurried steps of Mrs. Catlin thundering down the stairs, turning the corner, and then coming straight for them. She seemed less overtaken by emotion but still reached out to add to the embrace already happening between Cora and her father.
“Cora…where have you been?” Mrs. Catlin asked.
Cora considered this for a moment, coming up with any range of replies in her head but settled on the one she felt was best suited for the Catlins. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
After introducing the Catlins to Patrick and reuniting them with Motley (which Mrs. Catlin seemed less than thrilled about), Cora spent the next couple of hours passionately describing Clouden. She told them about the magnificent Finnegan castle as well as Unicorn Valley, relishing in each and every detail. She explained the war and her placement here in The Backworlds so many years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Catlin didn’t interrupt the entire time, but instead traded expressions of everything from worry to amazement to disbelief. In the end, they sat quite stupefied by Cora’s tale, looking at her as if she were mad.
Mrs. Catlin was the first to speak. “So, where are your birth parents now?” she asked with a patronizing air about her perfectly enunciated syllables. “Back at home?”
“In…Cloudville?” Mr. Catlin added, looking utterly confused but sincere.
“Clouden. It’s called Clouden. And yes, I suspect that’s where they are,” Cora explained, realizing that the Finnegans were probably wondering where she was right about now.
Mr. Catlin sat back on the sofa, his hands folded across his chest. He looked like someone who’d just seen a ghost. His mouth was hanging open and he stared into the distance, seemingly trying to process his thoughts and get them to fit into some sort of logical pattern.
Mrs. Catlin’s controlling nature crept from the shadows. “My dear,” she started, her tone setting off warning bells in Cora’s head, “it’s clear to me that you’ve been brainwashed or something, and you…” She paused, shooting Patrick a glare. “I don’t know what hand you’ve had in all of this but clearly you’re an accessory! What, did you kidnap my little Cora and get her on drugs?”
Cora moaned and looked at Patrick, an exacerbated grimace on her lips. “I’m telling you the truth, Mom!”
Mrs. Catlin regarded C
ora with the same menacing stare she’d given Patrick only moments ago. “Okay. Prove it!” She was growing just as aggravated with her daughter as Cora was with her.
“Fine,” Cora replied, her voice cold. “I will.” As the room returned to silence, Cora regretted her tone and declaration. How could she prove it? There was no Rose Glass here, no way to show them who she really was. What could she possibly do to convince them? Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt Patrick tugging at her shirtsleeve. She was so tense by now that she almost snapped. “What?”
“Orion,” was all he said.
“Orion?” Cora echoed in confusion.
“Yes, Orion.”
The next time she repeated the name, it was with understanding and excitement. “Orion!”
It took some convincing, but with a little help from Mr. Catlin (who earnestly wanted to believe his daughter), they soon had the whole troop loaded into the Explorer and en route to the North Woods.
Mrs. Catlin was silent the entire drive, staring out the window, refusing to look at any of them. Mr. Catlin, however, had become quite enamored with the concept of Clouden and began asking Cora more about it. She was happy to answer, sharing little interesting bits of information with him as they drove.
When they arrived, Mr. Catlin parked on the closest passable street to the forest, forcing the group to walk the rest of the way. At the edge of the forest Cora spied a shimmer of unearthly white peeking from between two large maple trees and beckoned the Catlins toward it.
“Orion? Are you there?” Cora shouted toward the maples. The only response was a faint rustling that set a robin to flight, startling Mrs. Catlin enough to break her silence with an, “Oh!”
“Orion!” Cora called again. “It’s really okay! These are my Backworlds parents!”
Patrick stepped toward Cora and whispered in her ear, “Perhaps you’ll have to trick him.”
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