“Oh great. He brings us to an underground prison,” Scarlet said, allowing the light to float down after Max. “What. So no one can hear us scream? You know you’re outnumbered, right?”
“Please, go on with your accusations while I continue to not care,” Raven said with a yawn. His cat began to growl.
“Gilda!” Max exclaimed from out of sight. He had made his way to the first level of cells, and stopped at the bars of the one right at the end. Inside the others, he could make out skeletal remains, and avoided looking at them. But, something was stirring in this one. And that sheen of gold…It had to be…
“Max?” Gilda croaked in disbelief as she crawled over to the bars. She was covered in dirt, her head bleeding, her hair and clothes dishevelled. “What are you doing here?”
Noticing Gilda’s lack of relief, Max frowned. “We came to find you,” he said, pulling on the door of the cell. It was locked.
“We?” Gilda repeated, perking up slightly.
Max nodded, muttering a few words of incantation and trying the door again. Nothing.
“Max…” Gilda said slowly, watching as he tried spell after spell on the door. “Sam took my powder. I use it for all my spells-“
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Max interrupted. “We have to get you out of here. Then we’ll go to the wizards and tell them what Sam did. You’ll get it back when he’s arrested.”
Gilda shook her head. “I need it,” she said tearfully. “Please!” By now, the others had reached the cell, and Chariot stepped forward to help with unlocking the door.
“It won’t move,” she said grimly.
“There’s a special key for the cells down here,” Gilda said urgently. “Sam has it. You’ll have to get it from him. And my powder!”
“Sam?” Scarlet repeated, glancing at Max. “You were…right about something?”
“Maybe you should listen more often,” Max snapped. “Where is he? Where did he go, Gilda? We didn’t see him leave…Unless there’s another way out.”
“There must be,” Raven said leaning over the balcony to look down at the cells below. “We didn’t see an exit on our way here. And I’m guessing it’s harder to climb out of the well without being seen than it is to climb in. The way out is probably somewhere down there.”
“Or back in that third tunnel,” Scarlet grumbled.
“Are we still on that?” Raven said in a bored tone. “I’m going down there to see if I can find my dad.”
“It’s no use,” Gilda said sadly. “He won’t be there. Sam said he got rid of everyone except me. He went down there, but I don’t think there’s a way out that way. You have to get my powder-…And that key from him.”
Max and Chariot hurried down the stairs to the next level, refusing to look into each cell as they passed. There were no other survivors down here. If there were, they would have made their presence known, right? Max didn’t want to see any more decomposing corpses. The smell was bad enough. As they descended in silence, lower and lower, Max found himself wondering whether he and Chariot would be enough against Sam when he inevitably put up a fight. But, they had had to leave Raven and Scarlet behind to protect Gilda. At least Scarlet had made a second light for them, and it hovered ahead as they moved, along with the fireflies.
“I see something,” Chariot said as they neared the very bottom. “Something on the ground there…” She trailed off as the light hovered over a heap of clothing. Something dark was pooled around it, and Chariot drew back in horror. “You don’t think it’s Raven’s dad, do you?”
Max wordlessly approached the body and, with great reluctance, turned it with his foot. “No,” he breathed. “It’s Sam…He must have fallen on his way down.”
“How did he get so far away from the stairs?” Chariot asked, turning a puzzled gaze upwards. The other orb of light seemed to be directly above them. “Odd…” She trailed off as Max knelt beside Sam’s body and pulled the key from his pocket. Rummaging some more, he found Gilda’s powder. That didn’t seem so important right now, but she seemed so desperate to have it back.
Something was squirming under Sam’s jacket, and a catlike hiss from the bottom of the stairs caused Max to leap back, yelping in surprise. Out of the jacket crawled Hickory, Dickory and Dock. “I wonder if these guys made him fall,” he said, letting the mice crawl onto his hand. Raven’s cat continued to hiss and growl at them, but remained firmly where she was.
“We’ll never get a confession from him now,” Chariot sighed. “All we have is Gilda’s word. I hope they trust she wouldn’t lie.”
“I’m just happy this is all over,” Max said, getting shakily to his feet and following her back up the stairs.
“I wonder what this place was for,” Chariot said, a bit more talkative now there was no longer any threat. “It looks so old. How’d you reckon Sam found out about it?”
“The cellar in Humphrey Dumpkin’s mansion must have led here…for some reason,” Max said, a little breathlessly as they climbed. “He must have found it when he went in there. Probably to hide his first victims. I bet he made the well entrance himself, just in case he couldn’t get into the mansion any more.”
“But then,” Chariot said questioningly. “He must have been helped by a member of Humphrey Dumpkin’s family…Unless he’s related, too.”
Max sensed her suspicions were still on Hamelin, and sighed. It seemed she wasn’t going to let this go until they cleared his name for good.
“Did you get it?” Gilda said as they reached the top of the stairs, her hands clutching the bars of the cell eagerly. “My powder. Did you get it?” Max held it up, and she smiled.
“How did you deal with Sam?” Raven asked. “I was about to go down there and give you a hand. Let me guess. Chariot handled him? Or was it my cat? Or…don’t tell me you didn’t deal with him, and he’s on his way up here right now?”
“He’s dead,” Max said, his voice almost matter-of-fact, but his hands shook as he unlocked Gilda’s cell. “He fell on his way down to the bottom.”
“It looks like he fell from one of the balconies parallel with this one,” Chariot added, frowning slightly at Gilda as she clambered out of the cell and clasped her hand around the bag of powder.
“Oh! You found Hickory, Dickory and Dock, too!” Gilda cried, throwing her arms around Max.
“It’s kind of strange, how easily he was defeated,” Chariot went on, the level of suspicion in her voice rising. “Don’t you guys think?”
As she spoke, Gilda released Max and dug her hand into the bag of powder, muttering something about making another light.
“I think there’s someone else behind this,” Chariot went on thoughtfully.
“Are you attempting to point the finger at my dad again?” Raven asked in as casual a voice as he could manage. “I still intend to look for him, by the way. You’re free to leave if you like.”
“What about Ella?” Scarlet interjected. “She worked closely with Sam.”
“And the body was in the kitchen,” Max added. “We’re not leaving you here, Raven. We’ll look for him, too.”
Raven smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly. “I know…what I’ll find.”
“Don’t say that!” Max said firmly. “We’ll help you. You’ve been through too much for him to be-…”
“We need to leave,” Gilda begged. “Please…I’m scared here. If we go looking around…”
Chariot turned her suspicious frown on Gilda. “We might as well,” she pointed out. “Since none of us know the way out of here. Right?”
“…R-right,” Gilda mumbled, her fist clenching around the handful of powder. “But-…”
“You didn’t happen to see Sam fall, did you?” Chariot pressed on. “He was directly below here. And these guys were in his jacket.” She pointed her thumb at the
mice, which Raven’s cat was still growling quietly at. “Were they protecting you? Why did he lock you up, anyway? Instead of killing you like everyone else?”
“Chariot. That’s enough,” Scarlet protested.
“Why?” Chariot demanded. “I just want to know. It doesn’t add up.”
Gilda approached Chariot, her eyes downcast, her hand still clenched. She looked as though she wanted to say something. Maybe the mastermind was still watching them, and she had to whisper their name, for fear they would strike her down. As she reached Chariot, she brought up her closed hand and began to open it, as though to cup it to Chariot’s ear.
What happened next was too fast for any of them to catch. Chariot was thrown to the floor, hitting her head against the railing, and the sound of tearing fabric and flesh filled the air. Blood splattered on Gilda’s shocked face, and a second figure slumped to the floor.
Chapter eleven
“Oh, damn. That was the wrong one.”
“What…What are you doing?” Max shouted. “What did you do?”
Blood dripped onto the floor as Gilda approached him, a long, sharp knife in her hand, in place of the powder.
“Chariot was talking too much,” she said indifferently. “I just wanted to shut her up before she said something too revealing. I don’t know why I bothered, really. With her being so loud, it was only a matter of time before even your dim-witted brain worked it out. And once I acted. Well. It’d be obvious. But, you still don’t get it. Do you? You really are the dumbest person I could have fallen for.”
“Gilda…What are you talking about?”
Only half of his attention was on Gilda, however, as a low groan from the floor alerted him to his friend’s condition. As Gilda had raised her knife, Raven had pushed Chariot out of the way, and now suffered a serious looking wound across his chest. His cat was already by his side, her stance suggesting she was conflicted between staying with Raven, and clawing out Gilda’s eyes. Max hurried to join her.
Sighing, Gilda turned from Max, to Scarlet. “Be a dear and explain to him, won’t you?”
Scarlet was dumbstruck. “You?” she whispered. “But, why?”
“Do you know what they’re planning to do to Humphrey Dumpkin’s mansion in a few years?” Gilda said, a fake hint of sadness in her voice. “They’re going to open it up to the public. They’re going to begin merging the two worlds. The portal will become nothing more than another generic path walked on by generic idiots on a daily basis. It’s already bad enough that people gawp at it without knowing everything it stands for. Everything this place stands for. No one realizes what my family had to go through. And no one cares. But I do. And I aim to stop it. I’ll keep up my protest until they finally stop all this nonsense…Just think. What mortals are going to want to negotiate with a world where people are vanishing or dropping dead at such an alarming rate. Maybe the people working on the merge suddenly get poisoned. Or the mortals leading the way turn up dead. Suppose bad things happened and kept happening to those who tried to persist. Pretty soon, they’ll give it up and leave the house alone. They’ll learn to respect it, like they should have in the first place. That’s all I want. Is that so wrong?”
“You’re insane,” Scarlet said, standing over Gilda, her hand sparking.
“No spells, please,” Gilda said calmly. “I don’t feel like killing you just yet. I want to explain why, first. I think you’re owed that much, don’t you?”
“We outnumber you,” Scarlet pointed out furiously. “And you’ve already ‘explained’. I still think you’re completely out of line. You can’t kill people because you don’t like what they’re doing. What happened to peaceful protest? And what’s wrong with merging the worlds? I don’t care much for it, but so what? It could be a good thing.”
“Yes. Just let in the people who hunted us to near extinction in their world. The ones who called us the devil and burned us at the stake!” Gilda shot back. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid,” Gilda said indignantly. “I’m furious. And I won’t let it happen. They’re hypocrites! ALL of them!”
“What are you going on about, now?”
“Scarlet. Please. Stop arguing,” Max said, his voice breaking as he attempted to stop Raven’s bleeding. He didn’t dare use any medical spells. What if they went wrong, and he made it worse? He had never been any good at this kind of thing. “We need to get Raven out of h-“
“You don’t honestly believe any of you are leaving here alive, do you?” Gilda interrupted, with a laugh that echoed throughout the large, empty space and sent a chill down his spine. “You are such an adorable idiot. Why did you have to get caught up in this? You’re one of their supporters, but I really wanted to let you live. I mean, you’ve always shown so much respect and admiration for Humphrey.”
“If you care about that house so much, why did you set it on fire at Halloween?” Scarlet snapped back into the argument, all the pieces coming together in her mind.
“I did what I had to do to protect myself!” Gilda growled at her. “No one was supposed to find this place. Not yet.”
“Listen to yourself!” Scarlet shouted.
Gilda laughed again. “Oh Scarlet. Always so high and mighty.”
Chariot, who had been recovering slowly behind her, leapt to her feet and forced Gilda to the ground. Her fireflies flew beside her, first close together, and then they quickly drifted apart, a shimmering chain hanging between them. The chain coiled itself around Gilda, tightening, and forcing the knife, and the bag of powder from her hands.
“Help me with Raven,” Max called out. He was being useless, and he knew it. Chariot rushed to his side and they both began to lift Raven from the floor. Scarlet stood over Gilda, glaring down at her with disgust, and kicked the powder and knife out of her reach.
“We’re going to have a hell of a time explaining all this,” she said bitterly, turning to help Max and Chariot. “It would be that useless fool who makes getting out of here harder, too.” She shook her head at Raven, but her expression was softer than usual. “You ok? You’re not going to die on us, are you?”
“I doubt it,” Raven said with a smile. “But…Listen-“
His smile slowly faded as his gaze drifted past Scarlet. The sweet moment between them was cut short as Hickory rose from the ground, no longer a tiny, harmless mouse. He had grown to the size of a bear, his razor sharp claws extended as he swiped ferociously at Scarlet. It happened in an instant. Yet it seemed to take an eternity. The soft, exasperated smile on Scarlet’s face lingered as her hair whipped around to cover it. Her body slowly sank to the ground while her head span over the side of the railing.
Max’s scream was drowned out only by the horrendous sounds Dickory and Dock made as they rose to join their bloodthirsty friend. There was no time to properly take in what had just happened. The three furious, towering mice were advancing on them. Chariot quickly extended her wings and tried to lift herself and her friends into the air. It was no use. The combined weight of Max and Raven was too much for her wings to handle, and she barely rose a foot from the floor.
“Just take Max,” Raven said quietly, trying to free himself from their grip. “I can’t exactly run, anyway. Go back to-”
“Shut up,” Chariot hissed at him, attempting to fly again.
Max was silent, his mind whirling. Scarlet would know what to do. He wished desperately that he could turn back time, just a few minutes, and stomp on those mice before they grew. Or back to that morning, and told Scarlet not to come with them. She would have anyway, though. She was so stubborn. Why did she have to be like that? She’d be so mad at him right now if she knew he was just standing there, waiting to be killed in the same, horrific way…
No. He couldn’t think about that. What would she do? He had to think like her. He had to…Tears wel
led up in his eyes, and he blinked them back furiously. He really was the worst little brother. He thought he saw, as Scarlet’s hair whipped across her face, a streak of faded orange. It had never completely returned to normal. That was his fault. Why had he done that to her? A spell suddenly occurred to him that would have cleared up the orange completely, there and then. It was so simple, and yet, he had never thought about it until now, when it was too late. The spells he had tried to use were so useless. Had he even wanted to fix it, back then? He remembered, with an almost bitter smile, how one of them had left a hole in the floor. What was that spell, again?
He found his hand moving automatically, stretching forward, and resting an inch from Hickory’s foot. Some rubble had fallen from the high ceiling above, and landed there. His spell hit the rubble, causing a large chunk of rock to rise quickly into the air, before slamming against the walls, and back to the pile from which it had risen. There was a large explosion, and the air was filled with dust. With slight satisfaction, he heard the three mice shriek in pain and confusion.
When the dust cleared, Max, Chariot and Raven were nowhere to be seen, and a large hole in the floor took their place. On the other side of the hole, Raven’s cat stood beside her master’s fallen hat, her yellow eyes gloating silently at the mice. Hickory and Dickory grunted as they descended into the hole, onto the platform below, while Dock sliced at the chains binding Gilda. She got to her feet, brushing dust off her sleeves, and gave a smile of satisfaction as Dock climbed down through the hole after the others. The cat was no longer anywhere to be seen.
“What do you hope to achieve?” Gilda mocked, standing over the hole. It wouldn’t be long before they were caught and dealt with. She wouldn’t even have to lift a finger to help the mice. “You don’t know your way around this place. There’s no hope for your escape.” Her laughter echoed from the walls, the eerie sound filling the entire cavern.
“Three blind mice,” she sang cheerfully, turning to skip down the stairs. She glanced into every cell she passed, all the while giggling and singing. “See how they run…You know,” she cut off, raising her voice again. “I never did get to tell you the full story, did I? Can I really let you die without knowing just how cruelly treated he was? Hey. Maybe I can get you on my side before you’re torn apart. Now wouldn’t that be something?” Laughing, she descended to the next floor. “Of course, you know the basics. What idiot wouldn’t? He was born in a barn, during a witch hunt. Those mortals were so proud of their handy work. They didn’t care, of course, if one they were hunting didn’t even understand what magic was, or why that made them different, or what different even was in the first place. They’re a brutal species. Barbaric. And that night was no exception.”
On the Other Side Page 8