“They’re hiding,” Ben said. “They were afraid.”
From down here, Amber could understand why. Cans of animal food were strewn all across the floor. Ripped bags and broken bottles.
“This way,” Ben said. He led her down the aisle and around the corner to the fish section. Amber saw the destruction she’d wrought. One fish tank was cracked, water leaking everywhere. Bright parrotfish were flopping about in the white sand.
“I wish that tank were full of water,” Amber said. Immediately, water whisked up from the floor, filling the tank. With a thought Amber resealed the tank, as good as new.
The bottom shelves on this aisle were filled with ceramic statues—sunken warships full of holes where guppies and swordtails could dart among the ruins, pirate skulls where eels could live among the eye sockets while bottom-feeders cleaned the teeth, haunted houses where the souls of dead ghost crabs might linger for decades.
Ben led Amber into the hollow of a treasure chest where gold coins seemed to spill out of an old wooden box bound with iron rings. Ben nuzzled the lid open. The pet shop mice huddled inside, trembling.
They looked at Amber, and their fear worsened. “Don’t hurt us,” one mouse pup cried. “Please!”
Amber realized that she wasn’t the mouse that had grown up in their cage anymore. They didn’t look at her and see their savior. She was a monster.
“I’m sorry,” Amber said. “I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
Amber looked up at all of the damage that she had done and imagined that she would repair it. She’d restore the ripped bags of animal food and remove the dent from every can.
“Don’t try to fix everything,” Ben said, as if reading her mind. “Save your magic.”
Something in Ben’s tone made her worry. “What do you mean, save my magic?”
“Don’t you know?” Ben said. “It runs out!”
“Runs out?”
Ben tried to explain. “Like the food in your feeding cup,” Ben said. “Each time you eat a little, the food drops lower, until there is none left at all.”
“Oh,” Amber said, suddenly understanding. She had felt so powerful and dangerous a moment ago. Now she only felt bewildered.
“And think,” Ben said. “You have powerful sorcerers out to get you, but all they’ve done is send a few cuddly kittens to kill us. Your enemies are just trying to wear you down. I don’t think that the real fight has even started.”
He gave her a warning look, and Amber realized that he could be right. Perhaps they were still in danger.
“Let’s go,” Ben told the other mice. “Hop, stop, and look. Hop, stop, and look.”
The mice climbed out of the treasure chest, flowing over the gold coins. They followed Ben’s lead, timidly making their way across the floor.
The room was filled with shadows. Nothing moved in the shadows, but as Amber neared the end of the aisle, she heard a thumping of feet. Once, twice, three times the sound of footsteps pounded on the plastic hood of a fish tank. She whirled to look behind her and saw a shadowy form leap across one aisle to the next.
It happened so fast, she almost thought that she imagined it. But then the creature landed among a stack of cans with a clank and disappeared into the shadows.
“What was that?” the mice cried.
Amber could see nothing. Still, she knew that they were being followed.
At the end of the aisle, they turned and headed warily for the back door. Hop, stop, and look. Hop, stop, and look. The feeder crickets at the front counter had nearly all gone silent. Only a lone cricket sang in the darkness. A terrarium on the counter had some sickly green vines twisting in it. Amber saw something move inside, and three mice cried out at once.
It was a horned chameleon, as green as the vines it hid among. Only its strange little eye had moved.
Amber took some comfort in knowing that there wasn’t much that could hide from twenty-seven frightened mice.
Ben called the mice to a halt and whispered, “Keep low under the lip of the counter here. Follow me in single file. Try not to be seen. Amber, I’ll take the front. You guard the rear.”
Ben led them to the storeroom door and crept under it. Inside the backroom, he darted behind a stand that held a terrarium and crept in the narrow space between it and the wall. The space was about half an inch wide—just narrow enough for a mouse to squeeze through. That gave Amber a sense of comfort. No large animals could follow them.
They crept that way for half the length of the hallway, sneaking beneath a terrarium filled with giant komodo dragons sleeping beneath their blue lights and past another tank where giant snakes hissed in their sleep.
Amber heard the thump of feet behind her. She glanced back and saw a shadow slip under the door and race into the room. Whatever creature was following them, it was much larger than a mouse—both longer and taller.
It ran past the crack that the mice traveled through and disappeared into the room.
Good, it’s lost our trail, she thought.
She inched forward.
Ben had reached a spot where a huge fish tank pressed solidly against the wall. A bunch of cords ran from wall plugs up into the tank, then disappeared down into a box that burbled and made bubbles in the thick, algae-clouded water.
Ben raced to the nearest electrical cord, set his spear between his teeth, leaped up, and began to climb. When he reached the top of the fish tank, he took his spear in hand and stood guard while the other mice followed.
Amber waited her turn. She fit her paws around the heavy rubber cord and climbed it as if it were a vine. When she got high enough, she could see into the tank. Huge fish swam inside, ugly fish with fangs as sharp as anything she’d seen on kittens. They swam in their tank, then lunged against the glass, trying to get to her.
She reached the top and found that most of the tank was open on top. The mice were running across a narrow bridge made of wood.
Amber was halfway across, when she sensed something. There was danger ahead. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t smell it or hear it. Yet she felt certain that death waited for her.
“Stop,” she called to the mice.
The mice ahead all came to a halt and looked back at her. A hush fell across the room, and the sense of foreboding deepened.
Suddenly, at the far end of the hallway near the door, something dark and sickening slogged into view. It was like an octopus dragging a giant dead rat. But it gazed about, and Amber saw that the rat was alive, horribly alive. The monster was hunting.
It stopped in the middle of the floor and peered into the shadows with three angry eyes, eyes so full of pain that they seemed like coals. Hiding in the shadows as Amber was, the creature couldn’t see her. It was blinded by the lights from the fish tank.
The creature waved its tentacles in a mystic gesture, and the air around the creature darkened, turning to shadows so that it faded from view, obscured by a mist.
The mist flowed away from Amber and lodged into a corner between some bags of birdseed until it looked like just another shadow.
Every nerve in Amber’s brain screamed a warning. This creature wasn’t natural. And it was hunting her.
Silently, she crept forward, following Ben and the other mice.
Soon they were hidden behind boxes again, tracing the wall to the door.
Ben darted out, dove beneath the hole in the door, and went outside. As soon as he was out, Bushmaster followed. Up ahead of her in the line, a mouse whispered, “Everybody sneak out, one at a time.”
A third mouse scurried to safety, and a fourth, but each time that a mouse ran for cover, the next mouse waited less time before running for the hole, and soon they were pushing and shoving, trying to get outside.
Amber stayed hidden, glancing down the hallway.
A shadow separated from the pet foods, and flowed toward the fleeing mice. Within that shadow, Amber could discern movement. Tentacles waved hypnotically, and blue lights flashed in the mist. She heard
a deep voice whisper, weaving some fearsome spell.
Suddenly, a glob of slobber hurtled out of the mist, thundering toward the fleeing mice. It arced through the air, and at the last instant fanned out into what looked like a huge spiderweb made of green snot.
It slammed into the mice, pinning them to the ground. They struggled against the ooze, but to no avail. The slightest touch held them.
And now the monster reached out with one tentacle and grabbed a long green line of goo. It began grunting as it pulled the web, dragging the mice toward it.
Amber stepped from the shadows and shouted, “I wish—” just as a second wall of snot flew into her.
The stuff hit her like a brick, knocking her back and leaving her dazed. She found herself pinned against the wall, green goop gluing her in place.
The stuff was so sticky that she couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t even open her mouth.
Through a gap, she eyed the shadow. Now it evaporated like a mist, and the monster rose up on it hind legs. “I am the mighty Ratzilla,” it cried. “The time for your unmaking is here.”
It waved its tentacles, and a bolt of blue light shot toward Amber.
A thought flashed through her head, a longing to be outside, away from this mess.
Suddenly, there was a whoosh of air and a pop, and Amber found herself and all of the other pet shop mice rolling on the cement driveway outside.
She slammed into a dandelion, and white dandelion down floated all around her.
There was a whoosh, a mighty explosion. Fire and smoke issued from the back of the pet shop, and the door blew across the little parking lot.
Ratzilla stalked through the smoke, cruel and unstoppable.
He peered at all of the pet shop mice, his horrible eyes looking three directions at once. But it was very hard to see through all of those tentacles waving around its mouth. “Come,” the creature shouted. “You cannot escape me!”
Amber saw Ben and a pair of pet shop mice crouching by the wall, just beside where the door had been. Ben grasped his spear and hopped toward the monster in a mighty leap, but Ratzilla whirled, caught Ben in all eight tentacles, and hurled him thirty feet through the air.
“Help!” Ben called.
“Leave us alone,” Amber cried. And suddenly Ratzilla went hurtling through the air, blasting up like a firework and shooting into the stratosphere in a gorgeous display of scintillating purple sparks.
Amber had no idea where he went. She looked up, and he was just flying, flying, up toward the black clouds.
“And I wish you’d stay gone forever,” she added.
Suddenly there was a flash as three bolts of lightning struck from three separate points on the horizon, streaking all across the sky to converge on the purple lights. For a moment, Amber went blind from the display, and then the heavens grumbled, growling with displeasure.
Ben plopped on the ground beside Amber and shook the stars out of his head. All of the mice began to cheer, and they converged on Amber, shouting, “Amber the Cat Killer. Amber the Brave!”
Their voices were a distant roaring in her ears. Amber peered up at the sky, and her eyes filled with tears. Her heart was nearly breaking.
“It’s time,” she told Ben. “It’s time for me to turn you back into a human.”
Ben looked up at her in surprise, unable to find his voice.
“But—” he began to say.
“No buts,” Amber said, her decision final. “You’ve kept your part of the bargain and did it heroically. You helped free the mice of the world, and now its time to receive your reward.”
“But, I didn’t,” Ben said. “I can’t tell a lie. I didn’t keep my part of the bargain.”
Amber looked at him, unsure of what she was hearing. “What do you mean you didn’t keep your part of the bargain?”
“I mean that I didn’t help free the mice of the world,” Ben said. “I helped free the mice from your pet shop, but that’s just one pet shop. There are thousands and thousands of pet shops in the world, with millions of mice in them that still need to be freed! Even if we found a pet shop a day and freed all of the mice in it, we’d never get the job done. I’ve been thinking. You mice breed so fast, that no matter what we do, more mice will be born to cages than we can possibly free!”
Amber’s mind did a little flip. She thought about that. How big is the world? she wondered. She really had no idea. Ben was telling her that it was far more vast than she had ever imagined. Could anyone possibly free all of the mice in it, unlock all of the cages?
And why was Ben telling her this? Then she understood. “Thank you, Ben, for being honest. That’s noble of you. It’s easy to be honest when there is nothing at stake, but it’s far more difficult to tell the truth when it could cost you dearly. Nevertheless, we made a deal. In my mind, I wanted your help in freeing the mice from the pet shop where I was born—nothing more. And so I free you.”
Amber raised her paws in a magical gesture that just felt natural and was about to turn Ben back into a human when he stopped her. “Wait!” he said. “I want to say good-bye to Bushmaster.”
He turned to look through the crowd of mice that surrounded him and Amber. “Bushmaster,” he called. “Bushmaster?”
But the vole was nowhere in sight.
Ben hopped away from the group, worry suddenly growing in his voice. Amber recalled the strange creature that had been following her through the pet shop. A kitten? A ferret?
“Bushmaster, where are you?” She wished that she could see him, and suddenly the door that had blown off of the pet shop earlier erupted into the air, flying hundreds of feet, then fluttered back to earth like a leaf blowing in a strong wind.
Beneath it lay Bushmaster, crushed. “Help!” Ben called, rushing to the vole. Amber was right behind him, hopping over weeds in the parking lot. There was little light in the sky, only the dim lights thrown by a single streetlamp. So it wasn’t until Amber drew close that she could see how badly Bushmaster was hurt. Dark blood pooled from his nose and ears, and Bushmaster was trembling, his tiny feet and paws kicking uselessly. His eyes stared upward, but he seemed to see nothing.
“He’s dying,” Ben cried. He turned to Amber, huge tears welling up in his eyes. “Save him.”
But Amber looked at the vole, and she knew that it was useless. Bushmaster wasn’t dying, he was already dead. He must have been behind the door when Ratzilla blew it off of its hinges.
“He’s already gone, I think,” Amber said.
“Then bring him back,” Ben said. “Bring him back from the dead.”
The very thought startled Amber. Could she really do that with her powers? How vast were they?
“I wish I knew if he were alive,” Amber said.
Suddenly, she could hear the little vole’s heart beating in a flurry, but slowing. And she could see into him, as if his body were made of glass. And there at the center, deep, deep inside, she saw light—a tiny ember—throbbing and struggling to stay lit.
“Please,” Ben said. “Heal him now. Even if it takes all of your power. Just do it!”
Amber looked up at Ben and realized the sacrifice he was offering to make, and her heart nearly broke at the thought. A noble mouse indeed!
And Amber shouted, “Bushmaster the vole, I wish that you were alive and well.”
Bushmaster kicked his feet wildly, and Amber could see the tiny light in him, ready to go out. The vole twisted his head to the side, and there was a cracking noise. His skull, which had seemed a bit lopsided, popped back into shape. There was movement beneath him, and the fur at his belly suddenly seemed to zip closed.
He kept kicking, moaning in pain, and then suddenly leaped onto his feet and looked around groggily. His eyes brightened, and Amber could see into him perfectly. He flashed inside, and became a living light.
“I saw Him!” Bushmaster cried. “I saw Him! In the Endless Meadow!”
“Saw who?” Ben asked.
“The Great Master of Field and Fen, the
Maker.”
He suddenly spun toward Ben. “You should have seen it. There was darkness and a mist and a hole that led toward a great light. And when I got there, I saw wild peas growing in a riot and sunflowers as tall as trees and fields that smelled so sweet that you wanted to even eat the dirt. And there were no hawks in the sky or weasels in the holes. I saw mice and voles rushing about, playing in the open, totally free of fear. And then He came to me, in a great light, and . . . and . . .” Bushmaster turned to Ben and said, “and He told me, ‘Your work is not yet finished. But be true and great shall be your reward.’ And then I found myself being pulled backward, and I didn’t want to leave, but before I knew it, I was back here.”
Ben leaped forward, threw his arms around Bushmaster, and began to weep. “I’m so happy that you’re alive,” he said.
The mice all began to cheer again, leaping for joy, and Amber just watched them all sadly, letting Ben have a moment to say good-bye, until one of the younger female mice said. “Whew, I’m glad that’s over. Now what is there to eat around here?”
With that, Amber suddenly realized that she was hungry too. It had been a long day, and she was ready for a bite of food and some sleep.
Ben looked around the weed-choked parking lot for something a mouse might eat. Then he seemed to get an idea and smiled over at the young girl. “You hungry?” he asked. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Mouse pellets.”
“We won’t find any mouse pellets outside the pet shop. Is there anything that you don’t like to eat?”
“Mouse pellets,” the young girl said.
Ben looked at her strangely, and Amber said, “She’s never eaten anything but mouse pellets.”
“You should try some root mold,” Bushmaster offered. “Now that’s good eatin’!”
“What do you like?” the young girl asked. She was twisting side to side, and Amber suddenly realized that the girl had a crush on Ben. It was easy to see why. He was handsome, daring. He’d fought a cat and set her free. But the mouse, Peablossom was her name, was much too young for Ben.
“I like pizza,” Ben said. “Ham with pineapple, and root beer to drink.”
“Oh,” Peablossom said in a daze. “Let’s have that!”
Ravenspell Book 1: Of Mice and Magic Page 12