Boundary

by Mary Victoria Johnson

  You haven’t figured out that crossing the Boundary at certain times will pull you into the mirror world.

  Touching the barrier now wouldn’t kill me. I would simply lose.

  Casting a guilty glance at Lucas, but knowing he would be okay, I turned and kept running whilst the Master’s attention was preoccupied with his shrinking domain.

  Then the air shifted and I stumbled, feeling a different sort of rip lash out on my back. I tripped over a brick, smashing my head on the ground and nearly passing out for a moment. The Master was coming over, a mask of impassiveness on His face though I thought I detected a trace of weariness underneath.

  D! I shouted in my head, but it was still empty. Could I even trust it – them – enough to ask for help anymore?

  I tried to create a defensive rip myself, but my vision was swimming too much to focus. Pain was exploding everywhere…

  “Penny!” someone shouted.

  “Lucas?” I called, my tongue heavy and slurring my words. “You…okay…?”

  But I couldn’t move anymore to see. It was over. I had lost.

  Muffled shouts…pain…a snapping noise…pain…nothing.

  I gasped and sat bolt upright, then turned and vomited all over the brick. Lucas had awoken again, and chucked his stick at the Master so that he lost concentration.

  “He doesn’t want you to get out, Penny!” Lucas yelled in explanation. “There must be some reason, but whatever it is…it’s bad for Him, and therefore good for us.”

  The Master Himself seemed torn between retaliating to Lucas’s attack and going after me, with the Boundary adding only more confusion to the whole thing.

  Decisively, He created a rip that sent Lucas sprawling backwards into the Boundary before turning to me, power still crackling.

  Lucas wasn’t finished that easily. He rolled away, jumped back to his feet, running over to where we were standing in determination.

  “She lied to you so many times,” the Master hissed, turning to Lucas. “She didn’t tell you anything about the letters, did she? Admit it, your logic makes no sense, and throwing your own life away for her now won’t do a thing except postpone—”

  But Lucas wasn’t interested in the monologue.

  “I think Penny is the only one who can bring down this place from the outside,” he interrupted, speaking rather loudly as if I might not be able to hear him. “Which is why you don’t want her to go free. Oh, and before I go, you might want to know that I know exactly who her letters were from. In fact, we all did.”

  With that, Lucas gave me a short nod, and hurled something small and sharp at the Master’s head before diving into the Boundary, promptly vanishing.

  I stood there dumbly for a moment, trying to figure out how D could have possibly communicated with all six of us (and how Evelyn could have kept it a secret), then realized I had a few seconds of opportunity before He chased after me.

  Lucas had thrown a shard of glass from a broken window, and it had slashed a deep cut on His cheek, now bleeding profusely. I watched for a few stunned seconds as He stared at the blood dripping onto His hands with morbid fascination, too shocked to act.

  Then I ran.

  The Boundary was moving faster, so much that it was covering feet instead of inches at a time. Fast.

  The wind was a tirade of whispers, some taunting and others encouraging, blowing in seven different directions.

  A rip came from behind to try to trip me again, but it was much feebler than before and I easily avoided it. My hair singed at the edges, and I noted with a small scream that the Boundary was only a few paces behind me. The Master was gone, but I still had to cover the dangerous ruins on the way to the door.

  Hopping bricks and scaling beams, un-snagging petticoats and trying not to panic, I reached the front steps and fell.

  My body was screaming in protest everywhere, so much that I could barely think for the agony of it. This was all happening so fast, much too fast…

  When I caught my breath and got dizzily to my feet, preparing to start running again, the first thing I noticed was that the front doors had been restored to their original positions. When I tentatively tried to open them, they were stuck fast.

  All that was left now was Avery, the manor, and me. Everything else was untouchable.

  29

  I took a deep, steadying gulp of air. Final two – it was nearly over now. Everything seemed much too dark with the outside closed off, and my second feeling was one of near immediate claustrophobia.

  Calm down, I cautioned myself. Do what has to be done, then get out.

  “Avery?” I shouted, voice ringing throughout the empty halls. “Avery?”

  No answer. I should have known he’d play like this.

  Although, it was strange for him to be hiding from me when the key to escape was in this very building. Surely, he would be either upstairs ready to claim his victory or…or not inside at all! The prospect of having no competition was indeed a pleasant one, though I firmly reminded my active imagination that the chance was slim.

  The floorboard creaked as I stepped forwards, making me wince. A candle, a light, something to illuminate this darkness?

  D whispered weakly in my mind, There, must be candles. Look up!

  “Are you all right?” I frowned, hearing the sickly faintness. “Where were you a few moments ago when I needed you? And…is it true that there are two of you? Why does everyone—”

  We cannot share power anymore, there is not enough left. I must save my strength until the end, for you may need—

  Just like that, the voice was cut off. I wondered if D really couldn’t communicate, or if they were just avoiding the questions.

  I swallowed any childhood fear of the dark, and crept deeper into the entrance hall with outstretched arms groping for some kind object that would give away my precise location. My footsteps creaked and clomped, so loud it seemed that Avery would have no trouble finding my whereabouts should he still be competing.

  I stumbled into something hard, knocking the wind from my lungs. My hands blindly reached out, meeting with a smooth, textured surface that could only be a wall. If there was a wall, there would be a candle.

  Trying to ignore the throbbing in my shoulder, I reached upwards and felt around for the little nooks that always held wax candles, which I had never seen extinguished until now. My hands closed around the metal holder, and I pulled the stump from its cove. I had triumphed, but realization quickly dawned and I looked at it miserably; the only matches I knew of in the house were buried under several feet of rubble in Beatrix’s old quarters. And I certainly was not about to try and climb outside!

  Right, I would have to scratch that plan. Don’t panic, I thought. Think, just think. Actually, it rather made sense; when I had first discovered the attic, it had been in pitch blackness, so why not now? Naturally, they had to make it difficult in some way.

  So I set about trying to find the staircase.

  One of the benefits of having lived in one place for fifteen years was that I had a mental map of the place, and despite the ruins I could guess pretty accurately where everything was located.

  There was the banister, scratched and polished wood carved supported by carved spindles. Thin carpet lined the wide staircase, which curved upwards.

  I half-climbed half-stumbled up the stairs, pausing at the landing that allowed access to the breakfast room.

  This was nearly it. I might never see the place in the light again, might never see my friends again. It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it, but I clung to what Lucas had said; maybe I had the power to open the Boundary from the outside, and that was why the Master didn’t want me out but D did.

  Outside…I didn’t even really want to think about that too much, as there were simply too many chilling possibilities that could drive one insane.

  Up the final few stairs, dodging (or tripping) around a pile of what used to be the roof, I finally emerged on the top floor.

&n
bsp; Someone ran into me – hard – from the opposite wing, and we both fell backwards onto the floor with an ungraceful thump.

  “Avery,” I gasped through a clenched jaw, palms curled in fists so to not let the rising pain show.

  “Penny,” he replied with the same uneven tone. “I was wondering when I’d see you again.”

  “How did you get in through the south wing?”

  “The fire burned a great big hole where the hall used to be, so whilst you and Lucas had a little chat with Him, I climbed over the ruins and got in that way.” He shrugged, getting up and rubbing a bruise on his forehead. “I take it Lucas…?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded briskly. “Do you have any idea what happened to Evelyn?”

  “Last time I saw her, she was chasing some kind of illusion deeper into the woods. She was running pretty close to the Boundary, it’s not hard to guess.”

  My head was spinning like a top, but luckily Avery seemed pretty worn out himself and not in a huge rush to move. We knew we were the last two left, so until someone made a run for it we were okay.

  “How do you know about D?” I asked bluntly, needing to know.

  Avery inhaled sharply, his body going rigid.

  “I was rather hoping you’d forget about that,” he admitted. “But that was just wishful thinking. To be honest, it wasn’t much: they spoke to me a couple of times in my head (weirdest sensation ever) and told me what the fairy tale meant. They said I couldn’t tell anyone, and then they told me to…well, what to do if a situation like the arena arose. Then I didn’t hear anything else.

  “Did you know that everybody knew?”

  “Only when Tressa and I found fairy tale and it was clear someone was talking to her, too.”

  I nodded, thinking it rather strange that one of the biggest puzzles had remained unknown to me until the last few weeks. D was indeed a curiosity, and I still wasn’t completely decided if they were bad or good.

  “Did you know that there were two of them?”

  “Of course. How else could they have such conflicting opinions and speak to multiple people at the same time?”

  I chose not to respond to that.

  Everything was so dark, I could barely see his shadow. Hesitantly, I took a light step backwards, testing to see if he noticed. When there was no reaction, I carefully turned around and bent my legs as if to start running.

  Unfortunately, I was never known for my lightness.

  Avery heard my feet hit the ground, and with an irritated sigh shoved past me down the northern corridor.

  I would never have been able to outrun him on a good day in my blasted gown, so with an injured shoulder it was virtually impossible. So instead, I summoned up all my energy, and created the biggest rip I had ever attempted in front of Avery, which threw him off his feet. It was difficult, not being able to see, but I could still visualize and that seemed to work well enough.

  The manor seemed to feel the shift, and promptly chunks of ceiling began to rain down in a storm of rubble on our heads.

  Avery swore softly, throwing up his hands against a particularly large brick. I jumped away from a splintered beam in shock, unsure why it had had such a profound effect.

  “Do you not understand what a rip is?” Avery shouted angrily at me, jumping to avoid a falling candleholder. “It moves everything, it was unstable enough already!”

  “Excuse me for defending myself!” I snapped back, trying to keep the fear from my voice. “This isn’t just a game, this is a fight for our futures, don’t expect me to sit back and let you win!”

  “Excuse me,” Avery mimicked. “Well, I have to go and escape before the whole thing collapses, so cheerio and enjoy imprisonment.”

  I seethed in irritation, letting the dust rain down on my hair without flinching, and began to throw up another rip that would hopefully knock him unconscious.

  Avery froze for a moment, then with a twisted grin made a weak rip open up right in front of me. It wouldn’t have normally been enough to do anything, but the surprise of it tripped me over.

  “You…?” I spluttered, wincing as chunks of wall began to crack and fall over, exposing gasping holes in the corridor. “You can rip too?”

  “Of course I can,” he smirked. “We can all play dirty if we want to.”

  “No, but…but…I thought…”

  “That you were special? That you were unique? Sorry to break it to you, darling, but you’re not,” Avery taunted, dancing around the collapsing foundations. “D taught me a few things too.”

  “You told me I was important!” I shouted into the darkness, as if D would turn up and explain everything. “You made me believe I would win!”

  Avery’s smirk turned into a frown as he hissed, “You still don’t understand. This place isn’t real. It’s controlled by the whim of a few cruel people, including your beloved D, and we’re subject to whatever they decide to put us through. We never had any control, and we never will!”

  “Unless we get out,” I retorted sharply. “So watch me do exactly that.”

  My dramatic exit was rather ruined by the ground shaking as if via earthquake, sending a shower of rubble falling to the floor, including some heavy beams that would cause some serious damage if they were to hit our heads.

  “This whole thing is coming down!” I exclaimed, finding it extremely hard to dodge things in the dark.

  “Then I suppose we have to hurry.”

  Something very large landed right behind me and pinned my gown to the ground as I tried to move, and though I tugged with all my strength it simply would not come free.

  The noise of rumbling foundations became louder, almost like a scream as everything behind me crumbled to dust; the Boundary was coming, clearly not in a form that would allow survival.

  “Avery!” I shrieked in desperation, suddenly realizing how badly this could end.

  My shoulder would not allow more than a feeble attempt, and the dress was not a material that was adept at ripping. I tried to use the supernatural ripping to move the debris, but I was too tired and flustered for anything substantial.

  He wasn’t coming for me. I would meet my end here, ousted by my own confidence and resulting ignorance. Avery would get out, the others would live in a ruined world forever, and I would be naught but a pile of ashes.

  “Avery, please! I’ll do anything!” I pleaded, trying to make out whether he had vanished up the hallway or not. I could hear the static behind me, creeping closer and closer by the second.

  Then there was light. The Boundary had consumed the entire south and west wings, and as they crumbled to the ground as ashes, the full extent of the damage was visible.

  Everything, starting from the woods, was gone, leaving behind only a grey wasteland covered with what looked like a soft down of feathers. The stark shadows of the forest were the only objects left, and above them a deep red sun shone although I had seen it set a few hours ago. It cast the place in a crimson light, illuminating my face of terror as the manor disintegrated in front of me.

  “Avery, damn it!” I screamed, twisting away from the otherworldly scene. “Please!”

  The hall, the common room, the chambers, the foyer, now the breakfast room, the servant’s quarters, the library…I watched in horrified fascination as they were swallowed up, watched over by a sun as red as the blood being pumped triple speed by my hyperactive heart.

  Avery was standing down the hallway, trying to force a door open. His wide brown eyes met with mine for a moment, hesitating. I knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t come. If he did, neither of us would make it.

  I closed my eyes and waited.

  She looked slightly like Elisabeth, from my dreams. Different, but I couldn’t place how. A little bit like me too, but mostly like her, only younger.

  She wore an expression of incalculable tiredness, with bags under her eyes so dark that they seemed to be bruises, the sweat on her brow betraying her strained panic. A deep red light bathing everything around her suddenly jo
lted me awake.

  I was still here, but was I alive? It didn’t feel right somehow.

  “You’re an idiot, Penny,” she was muttering under her breath. I felt as though I’d heard her voice before, and yet I couldn’t have.

  “Do I know you?” I asked, feeling dizzy and sick the moment I opened my mouth.

  “No,” she replied sharply. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you got yourself trapped at the worst moment possible, and now I have to risk everything to save your unworthy backside! Would it kill someone to cooperate for once?”

  The buzzing had stopped, the sun had stopped rising, and as I weakly turned around, Avery had frozen too.

  “Are you D?” I slurred in confusion, trying to sit up and see what she was doing.

  “I’m Demitra,” she replied briskly. “I’m half of D.”

  Then something came loose that had been pinning my dress to the floor, and I stumbled backwards in shock.

  Somehow, Demitra had moved a block of stone that must have weighed a ton from my dress.

  “That’s a weird name.” I frowned, raising an eyebrow. It was all I could think of to say, and I winced at how immature it sounded.

  “I’m a weird person,” she answered with a wink, then gritted her teeth and rested an arm on the debris for support. “I won’t be able to interfere anymore after this, since you’ve used up all my energy, so get up there, and whatever you do don’t let anyone get out except for yourself. Oh, and as soon as I move, so will everything else, so please don’t dawdle.”

  “Wait!” I cried, catching onto her arm as she turned to leave – where to, I didn’t know. “You’re…you’re D? But you’re so…normal!”

  “What, did the overlapping voices and shady cloak trick you?” She laughed without humor, yanking here arm free of my grasp. “All part of the act, Penny. All part of the act. It’s like a giant play. You are all the unwitting actors, Madon’s the director, and I’m the visual effects manager.”

  “So it was you doing the trials? Who’s the other half of D?”