A Hole in the World

by Robbins, Sophie

  Bianca blinks tears from her eyes and shakes her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘What am I meant to do about this?’

  ‘Rescue her.’ Nissa gives her a soft smile. ‘You’re the one she’s meant to be with. Her Prince Charming, if you will. You’re the one who received the dreams, the dreams that brought you to her, to take her hand and rescue her from the cage she was kept in by the enchantress. If you’d realised this sooner and sealed the deal with true love’s kiss, she would have been safe from him.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that had I snogged her senseless, this wouldn’t have happened?’ Bianca says.

  ‘Practically, yes.’

  ‘So, it’s my fault for not being as horny as every other teenager ever?’

  ‘Not exactly. You did what you felt was right for your situation.’

  Bianca sighs and turns away, looking at herself in the mirror.

  ‘How do I save her?’

  Nissa smiles. ‘I thought you’d comply,’ she says. She holds her hand out and clicks her fingers. A sword appears in her grasp. ‘I believe you once did fencing?’

  Bianca reaches out and takes the sword from her, wrapping her slender fingers around the hilt. ‘Still do, actually,’ she says. ‘Scotty and I have been taking a class together since Alexandra left.’ She holds the sword up, watching it glint under the fluorescent lighting. ‘I can work with this.’

  Nissa takes the sword back. ‘It will be returned to you when you come to the hole in the world.’

  ‘Do you mean the hole in the wall?’

  ‘Yes. It is a gateway between this and several other worlds. From there, you can rescue Alexandra.’

  Bianca nods. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘When you get to the hole, think of me and I will come to you.’ Nissa touches her face briefly. ‘Alexandra is lucky to have found you.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Bianca replies.

  Fourteen

  The prom dress gets abandoned on Bianca’s bed, her makeup is removed swiftly and her hair is quickly brushed. She grabs her old school rucksack and starts stuffing things into it. Anything she thinks she may need gets shoved inside, even as she grabs clothes to wear and throws them on: a pair of comfortable jeans, trainers and a white tank top.

  Into the bag, she stuffs multiple woolly hats, several pairs of gloves and at least six pairs of socks. Hair bands go in too, accompanied by her dad’s old cigarette lighter and can of hair spray. Other stuff gets rammed in, too, on the way down the stairs and into the kitchen where she raids the cupboards, shoving a whole bunch of food in the bag, along with multiple bottles of water.

  Then, once the bag is slung over her shoulder, she opens the back door.

  ‘Can we carry stuff too?’

  Daisy is standing there, still in her butter yellow prom dress, accompanied by the tux-clad forms of Scotty and Cory, both grinning idiotically.

  ‘How?’ Bianca says, blankly.

  ‘Overheard your conversation with Nissa. Seems my mind was open, too.’ Daisy gives her a grin. ‘Thought we’d tag along for the ride. See if we can’t kick some evil enchantress arse.’ She punches her left palm with a grin. ‘You better have enough supplies for four.’

  ‘I don’t think…’ Bianca stares at the little group, but fails to finish her sentence as Scotty shoves past her, pulling her bag off her shoulder and taking it with him back into her house.

  ‘Scotty, I really have to go!’ she exclaims, following him in.

  ‘She’s been gone almost three years, Yanks. I doubt five more minutes will hurt.’ He opens the cupboards and starts retrieving items. ‘Daisy,’ he says, over his shoulder, ‘do us a favour and grab a rucksack each from the cupboard under the stairs.’

  Bianca mouths, wordlessly, for a moment, before finally exclaiming, ‘Those aren’t even mine! They’re Mum’s and Dad’s and Topher’s!’

  ‘I’m sure Topher would love an excuse to buy a new bag that isn’t pink,’ Scotty says, ‘and your parents don’t exactly go hiking a lot anymore.’

  ‘Got ‘em,’ Daisy says, walking in and dropping the three bags by Scotty’s side. ‘I bag the pink one.’

  ‘You’re not coming!’ Bianca exclaims.

  Scotty smiles at her. ‘Yeah. Yeah, we really are. We all love Alexandra, too, and Daisy filled us in on your conversation. You were given a sword, so you’re obviously going to have to fight. And ‘Evil Enchantress’ doesn’t really sound like a recipe for hugs and happy fluffy bunnies. We need weapons and you need backup.’

  He stands up, walks across to her and, towering above her now after a growth spurt the year before, plants a kiss on her forehead. ‘And that’s what we are: backup.’

  ‘You’re not backup, you’re very bad teenagers!’ Bianca accuses as Daisy heads for the stairs. ‘Where are you going?!’

  ‘To raid your house and make use of my talent for chemistry.’ She pauses at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Got any potassium nitrate?’

  ‘Let me just check my pockets,’ Bianca says.

  ‘Cory?’ Daisy says, with a glance at him.

  ‘On it!’ He grabs her purse off the table and she glowers at him. ‘What?’ he exclaims. ‘You expect me to pay for this myself?’ He steps towards the back door, then glares back at the group. ‘Don’t leave without me.’

  ‘Get lots of hairspray too!’ Daisy shouts after him. ‘And candles. And a tent. And… sleeping bags.’

  ‘How are you going to afford all this?’ Bianca says. ‘Surely it’s easier for me to just go alone.’

  ‘Cory’ll pay,’ Daisy says. ‘He’s a rich arse and there’s no money in my purse.’

  Scotty snorts from by the cupboards, loading tinned beans and tomatoes into the backpacks, spreading the items out evenly between the bags.

  Bianca sighs. ‘I don’t have time. Alexandra doesn’t have time.’

  ‘Honestly, Yanks,’ Scotty says, ‘you’re either going to go in half-cocked and get yourself killed, or you can take a step back, let us help you and rescue the girl you love. There isn’t a third option.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Sit down, shut up, and let Daisy be the freak she is.’

  Bianca sighs and does just that.

  *

  The sound of tin foil rustling wakes Bianca a couple of hours later. Cory and Daisy are giggling together as they pour melted saltpetre and sugar into tin foil, shaping the mixture into funny shapes and attaching a wick.

  Bianca gives them a disturbed look from across the room.

  ‘Yeah, they’re worrying me, too,’ Scotty says from beside her on the sofa, his lap previously having been her pillow. She sits up and looks at him, wiping drool from her mouth and blinking blearily in the light of the lamp, the sun long since sunk over the horizon. ‘Apparently they’re making smoke bombs.’

  ‘We need smoke bombs?’

  ‘You never know.’

  Bianca shrugs. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half midnight. The after-prom party will be in full swing right about now.’ Scotty sighs, wistfully. ‘And Angie probably thinks I’ve abandoned her.’

  ‘You have abandoned her,’ Bianca points out. ‘For me. Again. Wasn’t it this you fell out over last time?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess we’re over this time. Ah well.’ He gives Bianca a sad smile. ‘Best friends come first. Always.’

  ‘Even the ones involved with fairytale princesses?’

  Scotty gives her a huge grin. ‘Especially the ones with fairytale princesses!’

  ‘Okay, we’re done,’ Daisy says, finally, dropping onto the sofa beside Scotty. Cory drops down next to Bianca. ‘We’ve made four smoke bombs for each of us. We’ve stuffed them in the fridge to cool. Once they’ve set, we can go.’

  ‘Yeah, and we have a whole bunch of hairspray each, lighters for setting them off, a nice big tent which I’m carrying because I’m the biggest…’

  ‘Since when?!’ Scotty exclaims. ‘I’m as big as you!’

  ‘You
don’t go to the gym or hiking though,’ Cory points out. ‘Look, if you wanna carry the tent, you can. Or, you can carry my sleeping bag as well as yours and we’ll call it even.’

  Scotty huffs a bit. ‘Oh, whatever,’ he says.

  *

  The hole in the wall looks exactly the same as Bianca remembers it. She’s got smoke bombs, hair spray and lighters strapped to random places down her chest and legs and must look like a terrorist or happy slapping hoodie as she walks towards the hole, her friends following behind, looking just as out of place as she.

  By the time they get to the wall, Nissa has arrived. She’s smiling down at the group, knowingly. ‘You have loyal friends, Bianca.’

  ‘Loyal, annoying... same difference really, right?’ Bianca says, but she’s smiling.

  ‘Your weapons.’

  Bianca is surprised when Nissa produces a sword since it’s different to the one she offered her originally. When she reaches for it, the fairy godmother extends the handle towards Scotty instead, who makes an awed ‘ooh!’ and accepts it, grasping the jewelled handle in his hand.

  Next Nissa offers a jewelled bow and a quiver full of arrows to Daisy, who flails a little before accepting it.

  ‘Dais, have you ever even fired a bow before?’ Bianca enquires.

  Daisy holds up a key-ring, on which is displayed a bow and arrow and the words ‘McLeans Archery Training School’. ‘Yes,’ she says, simply.

  ‘Huh.’

  Nissa smiles, knowingly, and passes a large jewelled mace to Cory, who spends the next five minutes making whacking gestures and running around the place, practicing.

  Finally, she turns to Bianca and offers her the jewelled sword from before. Bianca accepts it, gratefully, holding the heavy weapon in her hands and adjusting her stance to the weight. She looks up at the Fairy Godmother with a thankful smile, but Nissa’s not smiling anymore.

  ‘You will face many trials, child. The Prince is also going to be trying to get to the Princess. I have put blocks; trials and monsters, between here and there, but so has the Enchantress. My magic will aid and assist you, but hers you must fight.’

  ‘Which is why we all have weapons, I guess?’ Bianca says. ‘We can fight.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Nissa moves and settles her feet onto the ground. ‘You must enter the cave and follow it until you reach the place from which you released the Princess originally. Once there, avoid the troll guards and enter the kingdom through the jewelled doorway at the north side of the cave. This will bring you into the kingdom by The Great Lake. From there you must make your way to the Tower of Thorton. Within that tower, you will find your Princess.’

  ‘Probably a kinda obvious question,’ Daisy says, ‘but why didn’t the Prince just lay one on her when he had her here?’

  ‘The spell would not have worked,’ Nissa replies. ‘It must be done within the confines of the kingdom for the action to be binding between two from the kingdom.’

  ‘So, different rules apply for the prince and Alexandra than for me and Alexandra?’ Bianca questions.

  ‘Correct.’ Nissa moves, as though to leave, then pauses, turning back to Bianca. ‘You will be gone many days,’ she tells her. ‘Be sure your friends know what this entails.’

  Bianca turns to her friends. ‘You shouldn’t come,’ she says, after a moment. ‘Once we’re in the other world... time passes differently.’

  ‘I know,’ Daisy says. ‘I told these guys, too. I heard your conversation, remember?’ She smiles. ‘Alexandra is our friend too. It’s worth it.’

  ‘Your parents will think we’ve run away together,’ Bianca points out.

  ‘So will yours,’ Daisy says. ‘I don’t see you caring.’

  ‘It’s... different for me.’

  Scotty looks at her, sharply. ‘You’re not coming back,’ he says.

  ‘I wasn’t planning to, no. By the time we’re done... years will have passed here. Decades, maybe.’ She shakes her head, slowly. ‘I left Mum and Dad a note... on my bed. I said I have other things to do and places to be but not to worry. They probably won’t even care.’

  ‘Bianca, how could you do that?’ Cory says, shocked.

  ‘How can I not? I either condemn the only girl I have ever truly loved to a life without love with a prince who plans to kill her once she bears his spawn or I leave for a life with her!’ She throws her hands up. ‘So you guys tell me which I should choose. Or, better still, just bugger off and let me do what I need to!’ She turns to the cave, about to climb in, when Nissa catches her arm.

  ‘A final word of warning, child,’ Nissa says, quietly. ‘Do not cross the gorge at night.’

  ‘I hear ya.’

  She hefts herself up and launches through the hole in the wall, coming out into the cave inside. The tent poles on her backpack dig painfully into her shoulder when she lands and she groans as she clambers to her feet and follows the passageway along to the circular cave. The many possible alternatives greet her once more, but she knows which one to choose: the one straight ahead. As she steps carefully into the cave she notices what she hasn’t noticed before: the hat she owned when she was all but five years old is sitting in the doorway ahead of her, still white and untouched by the years. She bends down and reaches out, letting her fingers play over the cloth; an unspoken sign that her life was always leading her here.

  Then she takes a deep breath and enters the dungeon.

  Fifteen

  The troll is on guard, carrying a bludgeon bigger than Bianca’s head but it doesn’t deter her. As she creeps into the cave at a crouch she ignores the heavy weight in her gut that says she didn’t even say goodbye to Scotty and moves to drop down behind a large rock.

  The dungeon is how she remembers it; it reminds her of the inside of a volcano and, she ventures, is probably just as hot, causing sweat to bead on her forehead and to drip down her back. The walls are made of rock, large sections of the ground missing, lava showing through, with cages on the remaining floor. There are skeletons in a few of them and Bianca shudders when she considers that may have been Alexandra’s fate had she not rescued her.

  Her eyes scan around the cave, watching the troll’s movements and patiently waiting for the creature to turn its back. She’s been watching for five minutes by the time she realises the jewelled door is, apparently, on the north wall and she doesn’t have a compass.

  ‘Crap,’ she mutters. ‘Clever, Bianca. Remember everything except a compass.’ She idly wonders if Cory picked one up, but then remembers he’s back behind the hole with the rest of them.

  The troll moves away after another five minutes of crouching, painfully, behind a rock, and Bianca watches him. If he turns back while she’s moving for the other rock, she’s screwed. She takes a deep breath, keeps her hand on the sheath of her sword as she moves to stand up.

  A hand grabs her by the elbow and drags her back down. ‘Are you suicidal?’ Daisy. Daisy followed her in and is now sat next to her looking ever so proud of herself. Bianca gives her a small smile and Daisy grins at her, holding out a hand. ‘Give me your phone. It’s not like you’ll be needing it apparently.’

  Bianca gives her a blank look and hands her the phone from her pocket. ‘No signal,’ she comments as Daisy checks the screen and the other girl nods.

  ‘I know.’ She flicks through the menus until she finds what she’s after and hits a button. Then, without a word, she lobs it through the air, towards the turned back of the troll and past, into the corridor beyond.

  For a moment, there’s silence, the troll looking confused as he tries to work out where the weird flying thing came from. Then, from the corridor, music starts to play. John Barrowman, Bianca can’t help but notice, with a smirk. The troll chases after the sound and disappears back the way they came.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ Daisy shoves Bianca and the two of them launch towards the wall and the small corridor running around it. Once hidden, Bianca hugs the redhead.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says. Daisy
grins at her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, those two were being total idiots, so I decided screw ‘em. You’re my best friend and I know my parents are gonna worry and I won’t see them again but... it’s my life. Alexandra’s life. Our life. My choice and I’m not letting you go without at least a goodbye. Plus...’ She holds up her bow. ‘Gotta give this a spin.’

  Bianca smiles fondly at her. She looks terrified, but Bianca feels the same way. They’re giving up everything and they know it. ‘Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to have met you?’

  ‘Nuh uh! Don’t you go falling in love with me,’ Daisy jokes, ‘you have a princess waiting for you to rescue her from a tower.’

  Bianca grins at her. ‘Come on then,’ she says.

  They turn back to the corridor and follow the rock walls along until they reach a large archway, a wooden door set into it. The archway is decorated with large jewels in all the colours of the rainbow. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘This is the door.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Daisy questions. ‘We don’t have a compass...’

  ‘Well, there’s no way to be sure but...’ Bianca shrugs. ‘What’ve we got to lose?’

  ‘Limbs. Organs. That kind of thing,’ Daisy says, but she’s not leaving. Instead, she’s reaching out for the door handle, pushing it down and pulling.

  The door opens slowly until Bianca helps her, pulling too, and once it’s open the two girls step into the cave beyond.

  ‘More caves. Lovely,’ Daisy says, grumpily.

  ‘You can go back if you want, Dais,’ Bianca says, quietly. ‘I can go it alone.’

  ‘Nah. You couldn’t navigate Blackpool alone, let alone some strange other world.’ Daisy nudges her shoulder with her own and grins. ‘You’re stuck with me.’

  Bianca laughs and the two girls continue their journey giggling, until they reach the mouth of the cave. The opening is wide, leading out into grassland. It’s bright outside, the sun shining down from the sky and illuminating the landscape ahead. They step out onto the rocks of the cave mouth and look around. There’s no lake.