by Неизвестный
Edwin realized the same thing, and said a few choice words about the witches.
“I don't know if we're safe up here,” Opal said. “Think that catapult could launch something all the way up here?”
“I didn't get a good look. Is it a counterweight trebuchet, or traction? How long would you say the arm was?”
“Uh, scary long?”
“In that case, they may be able to launch something up here. Wait, do you hear that?”
Horse hooves were beating the ground, and people were shouting, louder than before, their voices carrying all the way up to the rooftop of the castle. Someone who sounded like Sheriff Max yelled about “riot nets.”
Edwin chuckled. “Sounds like the law is here to restore order.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Opal said, relaxing and tipping her head onto Edwin's strong shoulder. The sun had moved further on and the blue light was disappearing, the world cooling to black.
And then, everything turned upside-down.
The rooftop gardens flashed white-hot.
Opal became unstuck from the rooftop and her hair flipped up. An instant later, she landed, hard, on her butt. A gut-loosening rumble shook everything and drove itself inside her head, even as she clapped her hands over her ears.
When she opened her eyes, everyone on the roof was lying down. She couldn't hear anyone yelling, or anything at all, over the high-pitched ringing in her ears.
Her mouth moved, and she must have been shouting Edwin's name, but she couldn't hear herself, and he wasn't moving. She pressed her hand to his neck and found a pulse, then put her cheek to his mouth and found he was still breathing.
As she was no longer stuck to the ground, and the witches were apparently out cold, Opal stood and looked for an exit from the roof. She also stopped to check that the witches were alive, since it seemed the proper thing to do, though touching them gave her a chill. Up close, even unconscious, they were still intimidating.
She stood and faced the stone statue of the unicorn. The body was smooth and gray, possibly marble, but the orb in the statue's mouth was glowing, and brightly—the only source of light except for the three-quarters-full moon above.
The statue was slimmer than Gumdrop, and a different scale, maybe twice as tall as the stout unicorn. She circled the stone beast, running her hand over its smooth surface, patting the rump as though real.
The ringing in her ears lessened, and she heard birds, off in the distance.
When she returned to the face of the statue, she remembered the trick to getting the metal bit of the bridle into the unicorn's mouth, and so she stuck her finger into the gap in the mouth, behind the teeth and a ways back from the glowing orb.
The stone unicorn moved and gently dropped the orb into her hand, which had been open, palm up, as though waiting for just such a thing.
Opal grinned and said, “I am awesome,” then blushed in embarrassment when she heard herself say it. She wiggled her jaw and noted she could hear normally again, from the scrapes of her feet on the sandy roof, to the sounds of birds, and now frogs as well, in the distance.
With the glowing orb in her hand, she continued to explore the roof, which didn't seem to have a way off. She peered over the edge on the land side and saw, in the dim moonlight, dozens of people, some of them under nets, but all equally limp and strewn about the garden like forgotten dolls.
She was about to try waking Edwin again when a gust of wind nearly toppled her over.
The wind grew stronger, and something was coming. Coming for her. The air whispered a wordless warning. She clutched the glowing orb in both hands and turned to look over her shoulder, just in time to see the enormous talons that snatched her up by the shoulders and lifted her into the air.
“Put me down!” she yelled. They flew past the boundary of the roof, and she changed her tune to, “Don't drop me!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The witches
Ten minutes earlier
A trio of teenaged witches held hands in a circle, chanting. They sat in a tiny room, a linen closet, with the tiniest of windows providing the only illumination, fading twilight.
The room flashed with light and pulsed with power.
The First stopped chanting, followed by the others. “I think the spell worked,” she said. Every hair on her arms stood up, her skin taut and her senses sharp.
The Second began to cry. “That's even worse than if it hadn't worked. We're going to be in so much trouble.”
The Third smacked her friend on the knee. “Power up! Don't be weak. We just have to get up to the roof, get the orb, then use it on the daemon.”
“Easier said than done,” said First.
Second blew her nose on the hem of her gray robe.
Third said, “I'll do the dirty work, since you two don't have the guts. Remember, you're all a part of this now.”
First said, “We didn't know you were going to kill her, or we never, ever would have helped. Now things are only getting worse.”
“We should confess,” Second said. “I was there, and I saw everything.”
Third got up from the floor and cracked open the door to silence. Her voice as cold as ice, she said to the other two, “Nobody likes a tattletale.”
The three witches left the tiny room and ran down a long hallway.
The regular stairwell to the roof had disappeared when the stun spell went off, and it took the trio several minutes to remember the spell for a new one.
When they emerged, on the dark roof, two of the girls were alarmed by the unconscious elder witches, but the third stepped over their bodies like they were bags of grain.
The Third cried out when she saw the closed mouth of the statue. “Someone took the orb!” she cried. “It was her. Why was she here? She knows too much. I'll kill her too.”
So consumed was she with her rage, that the young witch did not notice Edwin in the shadows, waking up, but not moving, except for his eyelids. He was conscious, though, and his ears were working. He dared not do anything but breathe as he listened.
The Third yelled, “I'll kill you, Opal Button. I'll drown you properly, or I'll rip you apart myself.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The glowing orb stayed in Opal's hands, by means of magic, she assumed, because she was certainly not in a calm state of mind. The wind whipped at her hair and face, and the creature's grip under her armpits was secure, but painful.
Once she'd been flying for a while, and had not yet dropped to her death on the rocky shore below, she turned her head to sneak a peek at who or what was flying her through the air as easily as a limp weasel.
From underneath, the great beast resembled a dragon, but its leathery talons disappeared into feathers.
Very softly, so as not to scare it, she said, “Hello.”
The great creature turned to peer down, revealing the heart-shaped white face of an owl.
“Hi,” she said.
She half expected the great owl to answer back, but it pressed on, beating its massive wings against the star-dotted sky.
The world below was in miniature, and despite the wind chilling her face, Opal blinked away the stinging tears in her eyes and gazed down upon Ystad, nestled in its valley and looking as cozy as an elaborately hand-crafted landscape for a model train.
She said, “Are you taking me to feed me to something?”
The giant owl made a sound like, “Who, who?”
“Do you understand me?”
“Who.”
“So, it's once for yes, and two for no?”
“Who.”
“Is something going to eat me?”
No answer.
“Are you going to eat me?”
“Who, who,” said the owl, which Opal prayed meant no.
“Am I supposed to do something with this orb thing?”
“Who,” the owl said, as in yes.
“What am I supposed to do?”
No answer.
“Oh, I know. W
e fly over the volcano, wherever that is, and I drop the orb in. I saw that in a movie.”
“Who, who.”
The air temperature changed dramatically, to hot and dry. They flew over the Drylands, the desert, at the same time as a wind devil cleared the cobblestone path far, far below.
“I guess you're not taking me home.”
“Who, who.”
“But this orb thing I'm holding is very important to whatever we're doing.”
“Who.”
They passed over the trees of the Wetlands, low enough that the tips of Opal's runners touched some leaves, which sprayed up water in a mist.
“If I dropped the orb, would you put me down?”
The owl peered down and gave her what was unmistakably a dirty look.
Her shoe caught another branch and the water from the tree sprayed her again, making her realize how very cold she was, despite the brief respite over the desert.
Below her, the vegetation was changing, from trees with big leaves to trees with pointy tops, evergreen trees, like fir and pine. She'd not been to this part of the island before, and was drinking in the new scenery when the owl suddenly banked right, and then a hard left.
Something rumbled and howled, like a car accident, happening in slow motion. The rhythm of the owl's wings beating changed again, and they lost altitude rapidly.
A dark shadow darted up from between the trees. Specks of red like distant taillights flashed within it.
The owl shrieked and dodged to the right again, and then the pressure was gone from under Opal's armpits, and she was falling, through the air, to the trees. She grasped for treetops and branches, and still she fell, down through the trees, to the sound of the spindly branches snapping under the weight of her body, dropping like a bag of meat.
She hit the ground and crumpled on her side. Her breath was slow to return, but when it did, she scanned her body for pain before she dared move. Everything hurt. She pulled herself upright. One of her ankles was tender, but nothing seemed to be broken. The orb, still glowing and also unbroken, lay a few feet from where she had landed.
The great owl cried out overhead, and Opal looked up to see a dark shape, getting larger, and falling through the hole in the sky from which she'd just come.
Opal hurriedly backed away, on her hands and feet, like a crab, pushing through more snapping, scraping branches.
The thing hit the earth, landing near the glowing orb.
Now I'm dead, she thought.
Opal squinted to see better in the dark forest, to see what had torn out of the sky to get her.
It wasn't moving.
She was about to start running when a breeze ruffled something—feathers.
The giant owl was what had fallen from the sky.
Her pulse pounded in her throat, telling her to run, run away, but she didn't. Opal approached the shadowy form as it rose and fell with gasps, struggling to breathe. She knelt down next to the beak to survey the damage in the light of the moon, plus the orb, which was pulsing brightly. The owl's throat had been torn open, and its blood covered the ground, black and shining, pooling around the orb.
Opal stroked the edge of its mighty wing. The creature's breathing was no longer visible.
“Don't leave me,” she said, fighting back tears. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do.”
She looked up between the towering trees, at the tiny stars.
All was quiet. No wind, no birds, no waves, no crickets, just silence.
She grasped the edge of the bird's wing and tucked the wing down against the bird.
“I don't know what to do,” she said quietly.
Nothing spoke to her.
The forest was so quiet, she wondered if time had stopped.
Somewhere, not far away, a branch snapped.
Opal snapped up the orb from the pool of dark blood on the ground and tucked it inside her shirt, so the glow couldn't be seen. Now, it was time to run. She could run. If only she knew which direction to run.
Opal tore through the dense woods, in the direction she hoped was south. In the cool night air, she thought that if she paced herself, assuming she was headed in the correct direction, she'd be able to jog all the way to Ystad within a few hours.
However, she had an even better plan than that. If she could find the cave again, she could go through the magic portal door, and back to the castle. Of course, everyone there had been unconscious when she'd left via giant owl, but she had to hold on to the hope they'd be able to help her. At least the castle was far away from this forest, and the dark thing that had killed the mighty owl.
She stopped for a moment to get her bearings, propping her hand on a tree trunk. The moon had been at their backs when the great owl had flown her to the forest, so she was headed in the right direction, toward the moon. She would have to keep track of its movement through the sky.
Her hand was in something sticky, on the tree trunk. She pulled her hand away while looking up, up at a structure that resembled thick, wooden wind chimes, or a birdhouse made to resemble a tall, skinny castle. A hum emanated from within.
She pulled the glowing orb up from its spot in her shirt and illuminated the branches above her.
Clearly, the object was a honey-castle, a hive for bluebees. Long since the original errand had been forgotten, she'd actually found one. A corner at the bottom had been torn away, which was why the honey was dribbling down the tree.
Sweet honey. She licked the residue from her fingers.
Opal couldn't reach the hive, even on her tiptoes, so she climbed up the tree, its thin lower branches barely supporting her weight. Once off the ground, she wondered: could she stay up in the tree, waiting for the dark creature, the daemon or whatever it was, to come by, and then drop the hive on it?
She remembered what Waleah had said—bluebees didn't sting. Earlier that day, when she'd eaten them by accident, they hadn't stung, nor had any of the others in the swarm.
With this realization, she was relieved, because waiting for the daemon to come to her did not sound like fun. At all.
Opal pulled off a chunk of the honey-castle, from the broken corner. The interior of the hive looked similar to honeycomb from the mainland, and though the available light wasn't bright, the honey seemed to have a gray or blue tinge. She popped the piece into her mouth and chewed the wax to get out all the honey.
Bluebees streamed from their honey-castle and buzzed unhappily around her head, but they did not sting.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm not going to destroy your whole hive, but I've been through a lot. I'm probably in shock right now, which is why I feel so calm and I'm talking to bluebees.”
The bluebees buzzed some more and continued to annoy her by crawling in her nostrils and ears, but she did want the honey, so she broke off a few more chunks, apologizing again, and climbed back down the tree.
After she'd sucked out all the honey, she didn't want to throw away the still-sticky wax. She had no pockets, so she tucked the wax into the waistband of her leggings. The amount of wax she had didn't seem like enough to wax more than a sample area of her great-aunt's weathered floorboards, but if Opal survived the night, it wouldn't hurt her long-term plans to make an effort to be useful.
And what were her plans? Spending two nights in a row in a bed, inside a house, would be a great start. Any kind of resting would be heavenly, along with a cup of tea. She was so tired, so very tired, and she wondered if she should stop and rest.
The honey had satiated her hunger, and she felt a renewed energy in her muscles.
She wondered if she had already outrun the creature, but then the metallic noise rang through the woods, and she found the motivation to run again.
* * *
Opal traveled for what felt like hours, alternating between a slow jog and a fast walk, depending on the density of the brush that battered the bare skin on her arms and face. She considered taking off her leggings and wearing them to protect her arms, but then her legs woul
d be exposed.
She ran on, wishing she'd brought more honey, or had liquid of any type.
Just when she feared she'd collapse from dehydration, water sprinkled down on her head. Was she hallucinating? Like those cartoons of people in deserts, when they spot an oasis in the distance?
She raised her face and opened her mouth, catching more of the water.
She'd made her way back to the Wetlands, and the green and yellow leaves were dripping down on her. Never before had she been so happy to be rained on. She hugged one of the raining trees and allowed herself a few tears of relief, as she could now spare the moisture.
The orb under her shirt was glowing brighter now, and the horrible metallic-scratching sounds of the daemon sounded closer, but from all around, as though the beast was circling her before moving in for the kill.
She whispered to the orb, “What do I do?” Her white shirt was dark with dirt and the blood of the owl.
The water poured down.
She pulled the orb from her shirt and it began to flash like a beacon, so she quickly tucked it back.
“Are you trying to get me killed? I should bury you, bury you in the mud here, as a decoy.”
The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed, so she kicked a hole in the soft forest floor, took the orb out, and plopped it in the hole.
The orb began to fade as soon as it left her hands, and before she had the thing covered, it was black, inert. She yanked the orb from the ground, using the bottom of her shirt so she wouldn't make skin contact, and nestled it in a tree. Still the orb remained dark.
“Screw you, orb,” she said, backing away.
Something in the woods howled, or groaned, like gears of some great machinery grinding, closer than ever. The gentle rain coming down from the trees turned freezing cold.
“You must be good for something,” Opal said as she grabbed the orb with her wet, freezing-cold hands. She tucked the ball back into her shirt, where it glowed once more, nestled next to her heart. At least it was warm.
She set off in the direction she prayed would lead to the cave. If she could intersect with either the cobblestone trail, or the pink ribbons on the trees—assuming Max had left them behind—she might find the cave.