I shook my head. “Something about this place doesn’t feel right.”
He got up dusting off his behind and grabbed Mable’s hand to lift her to her feet. He then turned to me and ran his fingers through his hair.
“What do you mean? Everything is perfect. Everyone is smiling, it’s beautiful here.”
I debated whether or not I should tell him about the man with the grey eyes, but I knew if I didn’t, he wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t provide proof.
“Devon, the man at that booth over there-,” I turned around to point when my heart stopped beating.
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The man was gone.
I stuttered while choking on my breath. Of course he’s gone!
“This doesn’t make any sense. There was a guy, he gave Mable this fruit and I saw this snake, and -,”
Devon cut me off. “Kaylin, I love you. But you’re whack.” Devon laughed and pinched my cheek before walking away.
I turned around one last time and saw the man with grey eyes staring at me once again, holding the same fruit he gave to Mable.
I didn’t think twice anymore. I marched over to his direction, feeling the sparks coming out of my fingertips.
“Ay, easy there, wouldn’t want to burn ye hand,” the man said as I approached his booth.
I walked around the corner and took him by the neck, flaming my hand around his bare skin.
In seconds, I was holding on to nothing but air. Aggressive Kaylin, Jesus. Wait, where did you go?
“Yoo-hoo,” I felt a tap on my shoulder. He was behind me leaning against a wooden post underneath a small roof.
“What- how?” I asked in amazement and irritation. I could tell that he controlled the element of air, but I have never seen Paul or Ethan do anything of that caliber.
“Years of practice, ye,” he giggled before vanishing again.
A moment later I felt a force push me up against a stone wall in a small space behind tall boxes. I felt bony fingers pressed up against my jugular, clogging my airways.
I can’t breathe.
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“If ye want to breathe, ye tell me the meaning of this,” he pointed to his neck. My handprint glowed crimson against the tight area of his pale neck. How did I...
“Can’t-,” I choked out, “Breathe.” I kicked the wall behind me, feeling my eyes slowly roll backwards. Stay with me, Kaylin.
“Explain yourself!” The man released me and crossed his arms in one quick motion.
I covered my neck with my hands, trying to regain whatever breath he sucked out of me. I still couldn’t talk. I’ve never felt anything quite like this before, where my breath was being sucked out of me. Not, not like this.
“How did ye do this to me?!” The man kept his finger pointed at his neck while he kicked my ankles, causing me to fall down to the ground.
I looked up with tears in my eyes. I watched as his pupils went from grey to black as he lifted me with his hand and plastered me to the wall.
“Ye not from around here, I know that,” he began. “Ye not strong not like us. Ye just a basic one, so how do this?”
Before I could answer, a blast of something sent the tall boxes flying. Nate stood in the opening, Lore and Marrow following behind. I turned to look at the man with grey eyes, but he was gone.
“Kaylin, are you okay?” Nate asked, draping my arm around his shoulders.
I felt his lips gently brush my forehead as I slowly made my way to Lore and Marrow.
I watched Devon, Mable, Paul, Ethan and my mother make their way over to us in panic. I knew that
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there was something wrong with this place, but no one believed me. Idiots.
I angrily turned to Lore rubbing the back of my neck, trying to forget about this freak.
“How do we find our way to The Enchantress?”
He shook his head in an instant. “I have no idea. We don’t have a map to bring us there, and those animals vanished.”
“Maybe we ask around?” Nate asked, making his way beside me.
Ask who? Everyone here was dangerous and I knew that for a fact. No way am I talking to anyone ever again.
I watched the boxes begin to vibrate, slowly at first then vigorously. Instantly, I felt the ground beneath us begin to shake as well, as I held on to the wall.
“What’s happening?” Yelled Ethan latching on to Paul.
I grabbed hold of my mother while Devon held Mable in his arms, lifting her off her feet. Marrow clutched hold of his father as did Nate. I looked back to the town square, but nothing was happening. Everyone was happily walking around while the ground remained flat and calm. I heard the earth start to crack and I braced myself for what was about to happen.
Just hold on... I heard my father’s voice echo through my ears.
Dad?
I didn’t get a response.
We were falling into a dark nothing.
***
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I found myself lying on a long velvet carpet surrounded by everyone who fell with me. The lights were dim and only the waving movements of candlestick fires floated like shadows along the stone walls. I heard the groaning pains of people who fell the wrong way, and watched as one by one they got up holding their hurting areas. I finally stood up, placing myself next to Lore. The atmosphere around us was plain dark and only candlesticks illuminated either side of the wide hallway. The stone walls and flooring trapped the cold which raised goose bumps all throughout my body.
“That’s a big door,” I heard Ethan say.
I turned around to find a large brass door with red, blue, white and green gemstones interconnecting in the center. Snaked lines of gold shimmer paved the metal.
“So we just died. What now?” Marrow asked, shaking his head.
Lore took his turn to look around. “I guess we have to -,”
A loud click echoed through my ears which drew my eyes to the doorway. What I thought to be the gold lines coiled into two golden snakes that slithered along the doorway and met at the center of the gemstones.
My eyes grew wide as I watched their long green tongues touch each other and turn into solids. Through the corner of my eye, I could see Ethan waddling towards the door and Paul latch him by the shoulders to keep him at his place. I stood there in a trance, and then another loud click followed which slowly parted the doors aside.
It took me a few minutes for my head to process everything that I was seeing. This can’t be good. Before me was definitely where The Enchantress lived. I stepped a
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few inches closer inside the room, as did everyone else and heard the brass doors close behind me. No...way.
I was standing in an interior place the size of a small village. The ceiling looked like it could touch the sky, made of white stone. Blue, green, red and white balls of glowing light were floating around the room and bouncing off the walls and the floor. It was all too beautiful until I saw it.
There were four long carpets each coloured blue, red, green and white like the gemstones and the glowing balls of light. They were separated on the floor leading up to something. I wish I could explain what it was, but I don’t think my mind had the capacity to process the words. Not even my inner dialogue could handle this.
At the end of blue carpet was a monumental cube of ice that sparkled at whichever angle you looked at it. But the outside of the cube wasn’t what caught my eye.
It was the inside.
What looked to be a person, a man with hands palmed together and a long robe was frozen within. This is distasteful. Uneasy, I am shaking.
My eyes immediately glanced to the end of the red carpet, where a woman lit up in flames with eyes closed and red hair stood still above a burning fire. At the end of the green carpet was a woman tied up in vines and next to her, on the white carpet, was a man levitating in all white.
All of their eyes were closed, and I didn’t recognize any of them, but I watched as Lore, Paul and my mother moved closer to th
e still beings. They weren’t talking, but I saw their mouth’s drop half open.
“What is this place?” Nate asked moving beside me.
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In the dead center of the four carpets was an enormous velvet-gold seat caged in by bars. Only then did I notice four cords attached to the back of the seat that came from each of the still beings. They were glowing so intensely that I had to look away. My eyes are burning.
I walked up to Devon who was stone faced with arms crossed.
“Devon?” I asked.
“Yeah?” He replied dryly.
“Is it bad that I’m kind of afraid to ask where we are?” I swallowed, telling the biggest truth out loud.
He shook his head and looked to me with eyes so intent. “Where do you think?”
I grabbed hold of Mable and Ethan as Lore turned to face all of us. His face looked older, paler, as if he just seen a ghost. I could physically see him swallow the words back as he cleared his throat, trying to regurgitate them out again but couldn’t do it.
“Dad,” Marrow began. “You’ve got to talk to us.”
I could see the calm evaporate off of Marrow. This was real. As much as I didn’t want to accept it, I knew where we were.
“This is where she gets her power.” My mom interrupted any thought that surfaced to my brain.
“What do you mean?” Nate asked.
“Do you see those cords son?” Lore turned his back to us, lifting one hand out to the ceiling where the cords connected.
“What about them?”
“Those four aren’t human. They’re what we call The Carhness.” Lore shook his head as he spoke, as if the words coming out of his mouth didn’t even make sense to
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him. Or maybe it did, but he just couldn’t believe he was saying it. I understand.
“Pardon me, father?” Marrow asked just as confused as I.
Paul stepped forward, looking back and forth between us before talking.
“The Carhness are the origins of our elements. They created the elements we possess, or in legends they say. I never thought it to be true.”
I was standing before the Enchanted who gave me this power. This is what was happening. Why were they immobile? Were they even Enchanted? The Carhness. I had a pit in my stomach that wouldn’t leave, no matter how hard I tried to push it away. I knew we were where The Enchantress harnessed her power, but there was something more cruel and sadistic about what was happening. Die while you can.
“I think that The Enchantress drains the power from The Carhness and that’s what those tubes-,”
Paul stopped talking when a faint, sinister laugh began to ring through my ears.
No...
A laugh that I’ve heard before.
Please no.
A laugh that I never wanted to hear again.
Chapter 17
I examined her features with disgust. She was no longer wearing a white dress and the intensity in her blue eyes faded to green, then brown. Even from where she was sitting upon the seat, her eyes were sharper than daggers. Her tight red garments enveloped her like blood on plain skin.
“How do I look?” She smiled with one leg crossed over the other, leaning back in her seat.
“A snake looks prettier than you.” Marrow spat.
Her deep laugh caused the walls of the fortress to rumble. “Oh Marrow, you’ve always had a way with words.”
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I watched as he gripped hold of his clan dagger tighter.
“Well if we’re being honest,” he smirked, “I held back.”
Her smiled faded, and in seconds she was nowhere to be found. The walls keeping my heart enclosed in my chest began to thump, loud enough so that I could hear the true panic going on inside my body.
“Marrow!” I heard Nate scream from behind me.
Marrow was on the ground in heaving breaths, his face purple. I didn’t even see The Enchantress move, if she even did move. She was back at her chair with a glum smile on her face staring at Marrow.
“Let him go!” I yelled, making my way to Marrow’s side. He was colder than anything I have ever felt, not even Nate could touch him.
“Gather in front of me, it’s story time.” She smiled.
Marrow stopped squirming and began to regain his consciousness. Thank God. Nate put his arm over his shoulder but Marrow flung it off, wiping the side of his mouth which was bleeding. He must have bitten it so hard for it to swell up like that.
“I’m going to kill that bitch!” He screamed, waving his one arm in the air, and the other clutching his neck.
“Marrow,” I pulled him back.
“Kaylin,” he said. I felt the anger radiating off of him.
“Come, come!” The Enchantress snapped impatiently. “I’m sure there are millions of questions you’re dying to ask.”
No one dared question, not even me. We made our way in front of The Enchantress.
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Don’t show fear. I carried my head high on my shoulders praying for the best outcome even though I knew there wouldn’t be one.
“There’s only one thing I’m dying to do.” Marrow grumbled through his teeth.
I chuckled for the first time in what felt like forever; I almost forgot how to laugh. I guess he saw that too, because through his swollen lip I could make out somewhat of a smile.
When we finally gathered in front of her, she commanded us to sit down but no one did. Right decision for once.
“Have it your way, pets.” She smiled.
“Just tell us what you want,” Lore pleaded. “I want my wife back. Tell me how to get her back.”
The Enchantress pointed to the man encased in the cube of ice, and smiled.
“Your wife is providing for him now.”
I didn’t know how to make of the situation, it was all too deranged. My mind physically could not process what the hell was going on. I didn’t want to; I didn’t want to know what was going inside that snake’s brain.
She immediately turned her attention to me and gazed, tilting her head, examining my body. I shivered, frozen in place.
“Kaylin,” she slithered.
My mother placed herself in front of me, one hand flaming with fire and the other across my waist.
“What do you want with my daughter?”
“She’s powerful.” The Enchantress smiled. “Extremely gifted. You should be proud, Lyle.”
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She took a deep breath and began again, “Let me get to the fun part.”
Fun part! You killed everyone I love! Just take me, take me! What do you want with me?
I was ordinary; I always thought Devon was more powerful than I ever could be. This meant nothing; she was just trying to get under my skin. You’re trying, it’s not working.
“I brought you here,” she smiled. “On purpose. When Nate came to find you to give you a little letter of hope, I made him do that. Now, I can’t control your free-will, but I can play with it. I wanted to see who was worth it, which one of you was strong. You see,” she got up out of her chair and began pacing around us. “It was very unfortunate, you know? The deaths of Annabelle, and Liz, Beth and Sage, and Daniel.”
Fire rose within me. It’s rising.
I heard a grunt and just like that, Devon was on the back of The Enchantress, a fireball in one hand and his clan dagger in the other.
It was all too brisk, every motion. I wanted to stop him, but he was in light speed. He shot the flaming ball at her. She grunted in pain, stumbling forward. I braced myself just like the rest of us as she turned around and stared at him.
“Cute,” she slithered.
I wasn’t prepared to see this. Devon soaring through the air, collapsing next to the cube of ice holding one of the Carhness.
He wasn’t moving.
My air waves shattered in pieces.
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“No!” I felt my throat release a scream, a sound I never made before.
My life plummete
d to the ground. I tried to run but my feet wouldn’t move and that’s when I realized that I was frozen in place.
“Put your naivety aside and join me,” The Enchantress said. “Join me, Kaylin. We can be powerful enough to rule all of Grean World.”
I closed my eyes and felt liquid burn down my cheeks, harder, faster. In that moment, I was petrified, nervous and enraged with emotions that I had never experienced before. Devon...are you alive... He looked lifeless.
“Why would you want that?” My mother demanded, shaking her head vigorously, staring at Devon. Her son.
The skin around her eyes was bloated and swollen, as if she were crying for days.
I watched The Enchantress move around my mother, and instantly appear in front of me. I felt a tight pain in my jaw as she traced her nail along my bone. Burning intensity lifted my body.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Her eyes had a sense of sincerity I never seen before.
“Don’t let her play with you,” Paul begged.
Stay strong. I took a step forward and eyed her. I wasn’t about to abandon everyone who fought for me, I couldn’t. Stay strong. But a part of me wanted to know. A part of me I tried to keep hidden. She’s messing with you Kaylin, don’t let her. You’re better than this.
“I know the lust for power is lingering within you,” she cupped my face. “I see it burning within those eyes.”
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I stared into her pupils, the black dilating into a mirrored reflection of myself.
I was strong, beautiful; I felt all my talents, all I was and all I could be if I joined her. Don’t Kaylin, please. I wanted it. Kaylin, it’s an illusion. There was nothing more that I wanted than this no matter how much the inside of being screamed out to resist her temptation. Remember what you’ve been fighting for!
Kaylin...
I heard calling from somewhere, somewhere far.
Kaylin...I’m alive...
It sounded like my father, but I knew now that he was gone. There was nothing that I could do to bring him back, all because of her.
Enchanted: The Labyrinth Page 21