Of Witches and Wind

by Shelby Bach

  “I—I don’t think I can concentrate on a bet right now,” Lena said, kind of apologetically.

  Another troll caught up, but he didn’t come after me. He snatched at his comrade’s hand—at my shoe. The helmeted troll didn’t appreciate that—he punched the newcomer in the stomach.

  I didn’t question it. I just ran.

  I ducked into the circular patch of manicured grass, close to the silver thing Chase had pointed out, and found something disappointing. “You guys, this isn’t it. I mean, it’s a scepter, but not the scepter.”

  I turned the M3 around so they could see. On the pedestal sat a skinny wooden rod with a globe at the top. It had been painted silver, glass jewels glued to the side. A tag—yellowed with age—fluttered from a string. I turned it over and read, PROP USED IN FILM PRODUCTION OF KING LEAR, OCTOBER 1939.

  “A decoy,” Lena said with new respect. “Oh, they definitely have someone helping with their security system.”

  Chase didn’t mention he’d lost his bet. “So, we move on to plan B: Run around until you find it.”

  I hurtled over the hedge and back onto the path. A bunch of trolls ran after me, slowed by their short legs and heavy armor. I tore across the gravel, wincing at the sharp little stones pricking my bare foot. I glanced at the pedestals as I passed them: a ruffly hoop skirt, a bent spoon, an Olympic medal that was obviously fake—the gold paint had rubbed off on one edge.

  “I’m not seeing it.” I tried not to panic. I’d almost run all the way back around to the weird trolls fighting over my shoe.

  “Okay,” said Lena slowly. “So they must have hidden it. Can you take one of the trolls aside and see if you can get any more information out of him?”

  “Oh, yeah—brilliant idea,” Chase said. “I bet if she says ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ the other forty-nine trolls won’t kill her.”

  “Give her a break, Chase. She’s not feeling well.” I swerved around a corner and sprinted down the next path, wondering what the heck was so special about my shoe?

  I mean, it was pretty, but—

  I slowed.

  No. It was more than just pretty. It was a Hollywood artifact.

  So was the fake silver scepter. So were the red slippers. The ruby-red slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Most of the garden’s treasures were human-made—a museum to old Hollywood. It could have just been a coincidence that everything here belonged in old movies, considering where the Hidden Troll Court was located. Or maybe not.

  I stopped in the middle of the path.

  I tugged off my remaining shoe and faced the rest of the Hidden Trolls. “Wait!”

  They stopped hurtling toward me, their eyes not on my sword, but on my shoe. I took that as a good sign.

  “What are you doing?” Chase asked. “If you wait for them to catch up, you’ll lose your advantage.”

  “Do you understand me?” I thought I heard myself speaking troll, but maybe I was just so out of breath I was rasping without Lena’s translator. “Somebody nod if you can understand me.”

  Two dozen tusked troll faces bobbed up and down.

  “I want to make a trade. This shoe for the scepter of the Birch clan.” Okay, so that trade sounded idiotic. I had to make it sound more appealing.

  The trolls were silent, but at least one of them made a face. His tusks were capped with gold and blue gems. That must have made him the troll king.

  “What’s Rory saying, Lena? All I hear is grunting,” Chase said.

  “She’s trying to negotiate,” Lena said.

  “It’s really nice,” I added, feeling ridiculous. “Designer, I think. It makes an appearance in Whose Heart Is Mine?, a movie that comes out next spring. Maggie Wright wore them.”

  Several soldiers gasped, and every troll eye in the room snapped to the shoe in my hand, as if searching for the imprint of the famous actress’s foot. For the very first time in my life, I was happy to find out that someone—a whole army of someones, actually—was a fan of my mom.

  “All I want is the scepter of the Birch clan,” I said.

  A couple of trolls glanced from me to the palace. I could think of only one reason why not-so-smart soldiers would look there. That had to be where they’d hidden the scepter.

  “Rory,” Chase said. “There’s no way they’re going to trade. If they want the shoe, they’ll just kill you to get it.”

  He was right.

  So I threw the shoe as far as I could behind the trolls. Half the trolls spun and chased it, but I didn’t wait long enough to see if they would fight over it too. I whirled around and dashed up the palace steps.

  Past the elegant white-and-gold door, you could see all the plywood, beams, and rusted nails that held the set together.

  Here was another row of pedestals, this time with weapons: a slender samurai sword that glowed faintly green, a golden bow and arrow with rubies on the quiver, a beautiful spear with geometric patterns inlaid into the shaft.

  But no silver scepters.

  “It’s not here, either,” I said disappointed.

  Five trolls clattered inside. The one with gold-capped tusks pointed—not at me, but at a door I hadn’t noticed behind the bow and arrow pedestal. “There,” the troll king said. “Before she reaches it.”

  That was where they kept the scepter. And I was closer.

  I leaped. My fingers closed around the door handle, and I glanced back just in time to see a troll’s spear sailing straight for my chest. I jumped aside, and it hit the door so hard it gouged out a chunk of wood.

  I threw the door open and dove through.

  rom all sides, mirrors reflected and fractured me—twenty, fifty, a hundred times over. I couldn’t open my eyes without seeing myself in pieces—an elbow here, a ponytail there, both back pockets, my shoulder, my ear, a single hazel eye, one giant chin.

  “What is it?” Lena’s curiosity was on a rampage even now.

  “Mirrors.” I flipped the M3 over, so she could see.

  The light was dim. I looked around for a light switch or a chandelier or torches but I didn’t see anything. The ceiling above me was just more mirrors.

  “Rory, trolls are after you,” Chase said. “Don’t just stand there with your back to the door.”

  I whirled around. The door was covered in mirrors too, so it took a second for me to find the dark rectangle outlining it. I would have loved to wedge something under the doorknob, but unfortunately there was no handle from this side.

  “Remember,” Chase said. “They can only come through the door one at a time. Between your sword and West’s ring, you can handle that.”

  My heart thudded, my grip on my sword sweaty. My face, reflected back to me a hundred times, was on the red side, some hair plastered to my forehead. The glass was cool against my bare, dusty feet.

  After a minute I lowered my sword slightly. “I don’t think they’re coming.”

  “You’re alone in a room with the scepter you’re trying to steal,” Chase reminded me. “Of course they’re coming.”

  But the door didn’t open.

  Maybe they’d tricked me, and this wasn’t where they kept the scepter—the trolls didn’t seem smart enough to fake me out, though. Maybe this weird mirror place had another entrance, and they were running to cut me off.

  Or maybe whatever was in here with me was too scary for them, scepter or no scepter.

  I straightened up. “Okay. I think I’m going to start looking. The sooner I find the scepter, the faster I can get out of here. Who thinks I should take the time to put on my sneakers?”

  “Yes!” Chase said, sounding horrified. “No fighting without shoes!”

  I fished them out of my carryall, tugged on my socks, and laced my sneakers up, still wet. I put my M3 away for good measure. If I dropped it, I might never find it again.

  “Great, now I can’t see anything,” complained Chase.

  The trolls still didn’t come. I couldn’t hear anything except the scuffle of my own feet, echoing out and out
, taunting me from every direction. Wherever I was, it must have been pretty big.

  “This has to be the creepiest place I’ve ever been,” I whispered, stepping forward.

  “Creepier than the Glass Mountain?” asked Lena.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “At least in the Glass Mountain I knew what to expect.”

  “Try looking at the ground,” Lena said. “That’s my brother’s trick for fun houses.”

  I looked down and certainly hoped my nostrils didn’t normally look that big. “No good. Even the floor is a mirror.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, tired of looking at myself. All the reflections were too disorienting.

  “Let me know when you run across a troll,” Chase said.

  I tried again, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I spotted the Director. “Wait, there’s something else here.” I wouldn’t have exactly said she was a welcome sight, but she was vastly preferable to staring at three of my chins. I walked closer.

  “The scepter?” Lena asked.

  “No.”

  The mirror ahead showed the infirmary, the Director awake now and propped up against the wall. “A terrible, terrible idea,” she told Hansel and Gretel. “I’ll acknowledge that she has clever and talented friends, but what has Rory Landon ever done by herself?”

  I was offended. I’d just fought my way past fifty trolls on my own, hadn’t I? And—

  I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “How could we send her with so much at stake?” the Director continued.

  My heart constricted, as Hansel and Gretel nodded. I’d been so busy fighting in the Hidden Troll Court that I’d forgotten for a second what might happen if I failed.

  “Well . . . ?” Chase asked impatiently. “What is it?”

  “The Director, in the infirmary.” I didn’t want to tell them what she had said. Then I smashed into something hard and cool. “Ow. I think I hit a dead end.”

  “You mean, you’re in a maze . . . ?” Chase said.

  Lena gasped. Learning this excited her so much that she started to sound like her regular unpoisoned self. “Yes, a mirror vault! Hold on! I’ll set up a scrying spell to guide you through. I’ve read about these.”

  “Oh,” Chase said, quietly. “The Unseelie Court has one too.”

  “Now we know who helped the trolls with their security system,” said Lena. “The goblin priestesses from the Temple of Mirrors set them up. They must have owed the king of the Hidden Troll Court a boon, because they only build a mirror vault maybe once a century.”

  “Only people with royal blood can walk through the mirror vault without activating the magical traps. The goblin priestesses set it up that way,” Chase said, sounding uneasy. “That’s why they’re not following you. The troll king probably doesn’t want to fight you all on his own.”

  “Or he thinks the vault will stop you for him,” Lena pointed out.

  “Great. We’ve cleared that up. Any tips for getting through one?”

  They were quiet. They didn’t know anything cheerful.

  “Ooooh!” Lena said suddenly. “The scrying spell is up. And I can kind of see—no, I do see all the walls. Rory, I see you! Go left. Walk slowly,” she added as I turned. “I’ll tell you when you need to go right.”

  I stepped forward, hands stretched out in front of me so I wouldn’t smack into anything again.

  “Keep in mind that whatever you see is designed to stop you,” Lena said. “It’s basically a big, fancy security system.”

  “Whenever a thief gets caught in the Unseelie mirror vault—dwarves, trolls, witches, Characters—they come out crazy,” Chase said, and I froze. “The Unseelie knights keep straitjackets beside the entrance.”

  “You didn’t need to tell her that,” Lena snapped.

  “Hey. We’re not doing her any favors by keeping secrets,” Chase said.

  “So,” I said, hating how my voice squeaked, “nobody’s really broken into one?”

  “Iron Hans, the night he escaped from the Unseelie prison,” Chase said.

  I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse. Iron Hans was a lot more impressive than I was.

  Up ahead, on my right, another scene flashed among the reflections. This one was a hotel room, a nice one, and perched upon the scarlet comforter with glossy magazines was Madison McDermott.

  “Now it’s a girl from my school in New York,” I said. “Not a Character.”

  “What’s she doing?” Lena asked.

  “Talking on her cell phone.”

  Madison smirked as she flicked through the pages. “Yeah, I know—Rory Landon showed up to the casting call. It was sooooo perfect, Katie.” Ugh. Was the vault seriously going to show me every single mean thing people had said about me that day? Was that how it would try to stop me? “Everything I ever told her was so true. Klonsky—this big-deal casting director—said it too, and even her dad didn’t argue. She’s no one special without her parents.”

  I knew that she would say something like that. But all the hurt from the casting call rushed back and welled up in my chest. I took deep breaths until my nose stopped prickling.

  “Right in three more steps!” So Lena couldn’t hear Madison through the M3. That was one thing to be grateful for.

  Letting my right hand trail along the mirrors, I swung around the corner as soon as I felt an opening. I was hoping that it would change—that the mirrors would be replaced by something else—but I just faced another kaleidoscope of ankles, elbows, chins, noses, chunky lips, and my t-shirt’s sleeves.

  “Just keep going, Rory. You’re about halfway to the next turn,” said Lena.

  I nodded, distracted. I wondered if I would have to live through what Klonsky had said again too, if I’d have to watch my dad agree with her.

  “Left here, Rory,” Lena said.

  I turned and stepped forward, but my shoulder smacked into something hard, smooth, and cold. My gasp of pain echoed through the cavern behind me, to each side, and far, far above me.

  “Other left!” Lena said anxiously.

  “Sorry.” I spun around and strode down the turn.

  “Keep it together, Rory.”

  “Shut up, Chase,” I said automatically.

  “I . . . didn’t say anything.” Now Chase sounded really nervous.

  I swallowed hard. That meant I was hearing voices again.

  Up ahead, another scene flickered across the mirrors. It took up the whole left wall, so I couldn’t really look away. Waves crashed on the Atlantis beach. Fey knights circled around the imprisoned questers. No one was wearing manacles. This must have happened earlier today, before they tried to escape. Chatty stared out to sea, Mia slept, and the boys clustered around a game of cards. The M3 sat on the rock beside Chase.

  I didn’t want to hear what the questers would say behind my back. I needed to focus on saving them.

  Ben slapped a card on the pile. “I wish Rory hadn’t suggested we make camp last night. We would have gotten to the Unseelie Court in plenty of time if we hadn’t stopped.”

  I’d forgotten that was me.

  “This one’s a straight shot for a while,” said Lena through the M3. “But don’t run or anything. They might put obstacles up.”

  “Okay.” My throat ached, a much worse sign than my nose prickling. It only happened when I was about to cry really hard.

  “Well, I wish she hadn’t smashed up the troll bridge,” Kenneth said. “We lost a whole day there.”

  “I wish she hadn’t freed the Dapplegrim on the Fey railway,” Ben replied.

  I didn’t want to listen, but I couldn’t make myself stop.

  “Plus there was the surprise ambush from those stupid Wolfsbane trees,” Kenneth added.

  Ben shook his head. “Her sword and her ring don’t make up for the fact that she’s a walking disaster.”

  “Great choice in friends, Chase,” Kenneth said.

  Chase would defend me. He had stood up for me in front of the Snow Queen. Of course, he
’d do the same with kids only a year older than us.

  “Yeah, well,” said Chase uncomfortably, “there’s not exactly a wide selection in the seventh grade.”

  No. Don’t say that.

  “If I may extend such an invitation,” Ben said, “you’re always welcome to hang out with us eighth graders.”

  Chase’s face lit up. Of course he would jump at the chance. They were guys, and besides, they were closer to his real age than Lena and I—

  My sneaker found an uneven ridge of mirror, one I didn’t see, because it reflected twin images of my ponytail. As soon as I stumbled, I threw both hands out to catch myself. But that was a mistake too—the ring on my left hand was too strong. I smashed through the fragile mirror, and the cavern filled with the tinkling of broken glass.

  God. I was a walking disaster.

  “Rory!” Lena cried.

  “I’m okay.” But I wasn’t. Something warm and wet filled my palm. Blood. I was cut somewhere.

  “What happened? What is it?” Chase sounded pretty panicked for someone who was only hanging out with me and Lena until someone better came along. “Did the troll king decide to come after you anyway?”

  “No, calm down—I just tripped.” The cut started to hurt, and that helped me think a little more clearly. “Lena, I still need to go straight, right?”

  Lena paused, retracing the maze. “Yeah.”

  I couldn’t listen to many more of these. I should really put my hands over my ears. But then I wouldn’t be able to hear Lena’s directions.

  One more scene emerged from the clutter of sneakers and big chins, a mirror filled with round tables. At one of them, a couple held hands across the violet tablecloth. Brie stared at Dad as he twirled a spoon in his soup.

  I cringed. I couldn’t hear this one, not right now. I hurried down the path between the mirrors, hoping to outrun whatever was coming out of Dad’s mouth.

  “Rory, what is it? Do you see something?” Lena asked.

  “A skeleton?” Chase said, hushed.

  My voice was thick, my cheeks wet. I was already crying, and Dad hadn’t said even anything yet. “Lena, just tell me when to turn.”

  “There’s still a hundred yards to go,” Lena said.