The Lord of the Curtain

by Billy Phillips

  Oh God—he’d better believe me!

  Caitlin had also made a ton of new friends online over the last eleven months. Kids who loved her posts. They had embraced the ideas that she shared on how to overcome anxieties, fight fears, and conquer phobias.

  Caitlin had been stunned when various newspapers and online news outlets had started running stories on the new friendships suddenly being forged in middle schools, high schools, and on playgrounds between kids from different cliques and distant social circles. The so-called experts could find no reason for this sudden new phenomenon.

  But she knew. And it filled her with pride. Natalie had warned her that it was all going to her head, though. She had even called Caitlin a narcissist. She told Caitlin she’d better humble herself and get down from her high horse.

  But she’d just figured the little twerp was jealous.

  Caitlin had no doubt all her readers would trust her if she let them in on her secret. After all, they had initially thought she was out of her mind for suggesting uncomfortable random acts of sharing—and for doing them when anxiety most clutched them by the throat. They were dumbfounded when it had worked. She had been flooded with emails and appreciative comments. They had forced themselves to get out of their comfort zone, at Caitlin’s suggestion, and befriend people who were the precise opposite of themselves. To talk to other kids and get to know them. It humiliated their egos, but she advised them they would have to do it

  if they wanted to heal crippling panic attacks. That was also working.

  Well, the time has come to tell them everything.

  Caitlin stroked Natalie’s hair as a plan began to take shape in her mind. She would recruit an elite group to help her hunt down the Enchanter. She’d select kids who were suffering from anxiety because, along with human fear, that emotion proved to be the perfect stealth armor to conceal oneself from blood-eyed zombie predators.

  She’d tell them how the blood-eyed had ruled a universe under the depraved leadership of the Queen of Hearts—who happened to be her mom, Evelyn Fletcher, under a spell. Courtesy of the Enchanter and his cursed red glasses.

  The glasses.

  Caitlin shifted in her seat. Those glasses had blinded her mom and given her psychic vision instead. But the perverse lenses had reversed reality in the mind of Evelyn Fletcher. That simple but deceptive reversal trapped her mom, who remained in character, and imprisoned her in Wonderland. What was sweet, the Queen of Hearts would sense as bitter. Wherever love overflowed, the Queen of Hearts sensed abundant hatred.

  Caitlin’s fingers strummed Natalie’s curled strands as Girl Wonder softly snored. Caitlin stared out the window. The pane fogged up.

  What if I had never been able to help Mom last year? What if I had been unable to convince Mom to remove those cursed glasses? Oh God.

  The memory of what she had said to her mom in order to trick her into taking off those voodooed glasses.

  Oh God. It cut deep. Bone deep.

  Now especially, after having just buried her dad.

  But she’d had to speak truth, or her trick would never have worked. Her mom would have never felt the reverse emotions emanating from her daughter.

  Which meant Caitlin had no choice but to locate her own resentment, animosity, and . . . hatred.

  When Evelyn Fletcher had initially disappeared, Caitlin suspected her mom had walked out on her dad, abandoning

  the family. The hope that she might return never died inside her.

  When she finally found out that her mother had died, abandonment proved to be the lesser of two evils. All the years of resentment and all that pain. And the burden of denying and suppressing the truth.

  Last Halloween, in Wonderland, Caitlin had to summon the raw emotions born of that psychological trauma to save her mom. She had to spew forth her worst feelings like a snake secreting venom.

  And it had to be the truth.

  It had to be the truth!

  That was the only way her mom could sense the opposite. But now, the wounding words she had uttered were returning to punish her.

  “I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you. I don’t ever want to see you again. Ever! You are dead to me!”

  The guilt crushed her.

  And now her dad was gone.

  A fresh bout of anxiety almost overwhelmed her when a stark truth touched her heart: Natalie is all I have left!

  The doorway to that other world had also remained closed since Halloween night last year. Jack Spriggins, Alice, Snow, Cindy, Rapunzel—all had vanished without a trace. And yet, when she had woken up some mornings, she could have sworn she could sense their presence. But when she came to full wakefulness, those perceptions dissolved into shapelessness, the way a cloud form reshaped anew in seconds.

  Caitlin warily nibbled the tip of her thumbnail. Then she jerked her thumb away from her mouth. She sat on her hands, full weight.

  No way am I going to fall backward.

  She shifted in her seat, exhaled, and looked out the window, eyes resolute, mind firm.

  But then her shoulders slackened. She lifted her butt, freeing her hands, and bit away at the tip of her thumbnail, peeling off slivers to calm her nerves.

  A gnawing feeling had been trying to surface in her mind—a feeling she had been trying to ignore since the funeral.

  She wanted to see her mom again. She needed to find her dad, too, so she would at least be able to say goodbye properly. But a strange feeling told her that they both belonged to some other world now. Some other kingdom that she was not yet ready to understand. Some other reality that she was destined not to visit ever again.

  She knew now with certainty: today was truly about letting go and facing the truth of their passing. Saying goodbye.

  Goodbye, Daddy!

  The heartbreak of her situation was now beginning to yield to horror. Everything that was playing out seemed to be leading to an inevitable confrontation between Caitlin and the Lord of the Curtain. The stakes were nothing less than life or death.

  Alice had told her that he was the root of all cold, evil, and death. He was the nurturer of all the villains and monsters that wreaked havoc in stories. Zombified and pretty-as-a-peach Alice had warned Caitlin that he had crossed over to her world and that he was coming for her. He had struck his first blow—by taking her dad—and this punctured her heart.

  She squinted as she gazed out the window, seeing nothing of the passing landscape because of the harsh realization forming in her mind.

  She had grossly underestimated the threat and Alice’s warning. She had allowed the passing of time to give her a sense of false comfort.

  But now what?

  The car was approaching Foster Home Services, a nineteenth-century, two-story Victorian building that looked straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. The dirt and grime soiling its burgundy bricks looked to be equally as old. The sprawling front lawn, thankfully, showed signs of life—it

  was green and well kept, as were the gardens adjoining the building.

  Natalie woke and lifted her head from Caitlin’s lap. She sat up as the car began to slow. Girl Wonder seemed refreshed and perky and that made Caitlin happy.

  “How long was I sleeping?” she asked.

  “The entire way,” Caitlin said.

  “You mean we’re here already?” Natalie responded in shock as she peered out the window. Then she saw the dingy, bleak building.

  “Hey, Olivia Twist, it’s a relic! Orphanages like these have been deinstitutionalized.”

  Caitlin gave her sister a quizzical look. “De . . . what?”

  “Deinstitutionalized. Shut down. The things that went on in the old orphanages were dark and horrific. I heard about dozens of kids being buried in unmarked graves back in the old days. Today, orphans are placed with foster families in private homes. I suppose they only use this place for emergency
foster-care cases. Like us.”

  The girls exchanged wary looks.

  The car passed through the black, wrought-iron entrance gate.

  The gate!

  It triggered a memory.

  Caitlin blew hot breath onto her hands.

  Eleven months ago, when she and Jack had returned from that other world on Halloween night, they had shared a hug beneath a crescent moon at Mount Cemetery. The moment was lovely. They had been standing by a black front gate. Jack gave Caitlin a birthday present: a bottle of Elizabethan rose perfume. Natalie had snapped their picture from across the road.

  Caitlin now remembered a faint sound she had heard at that very moment.

  A crow’s caw.

  Oh my gosh! That was probably the moment. That’s when it must’ve happened.

  The Enchanter climbed out of the Lewis Carroll grave that night.

  And he followed me home!

  CHAPTER Eight

  RECRUITS WANTED

  JOIN AN ELITE UNIT OF WARRIORS TO WAGE WAR AGAINST THE UNIMAGINABLE, THE UNBELIEVABLE, AND THE INCONCEIVABLE.

  WE WILL BE HUNTING DOWN EVIL ITSELF!

  AND THE SOURCE OF ALL FEAR AND PANIC.

  CONSIDERABLE RISK—SOME MIGHT NOT COME BACK ALIVE.

  OR SANE.

  ONLY THE FRIGHTENED SHOULD APPLY!

  FEAR, PHOBIAS, ANXIETIES ARE

  DEFINITE ASSETS.

  OCD TOO.

  THE MORE, THE BETTER!

  TRUST ME.

  Caitlin tapped the digital keyboard on her phone, changing the period after the word “me” to an exclamation mark. Then she posted her call to action on her blog and all her social media sites. She punched herself in the shoulder as a self-congratulatory gesture.

  She had spent a few days planning this operation, while staying at the emergency foster home building. She found the exercise to be both therapeutic and motivational. It helped to distract her from her current living conditions, and the sense of purpose she gained from plotting to avenge her parents’ deaths brought meaning to her situation.

  This post would generate a humongous response, she knew. She already had over fifty thousand “likes” on Facebook. And ten thousand subscribers to her blog. A post like this would electrify kids. Her only worry was that she

  might not have the necessary time to go through all the applicants.

  “Will you turn off your phone already?” Natalie shouted from her bed. “The light is keeping me up!” Girl Wonder pulled her thick blanket over her head and sank flat into the mattress.

  Caitlin checked her phone: 11:37 p.m. She was anxious to fall asleep, eager for the dawn, and totally stoked about seeing the results of her posts.

  She plugged her phone into the charger and then closed her eyes.

  * * *

  The alien sun was a scintillating fireball, burning lurid red and filling the sky with its powerful presence. A nebulous haze in the atmosphere prevented the sunshine from transmitting the full seven colors of the spectrum into this fantastical world. A moderate amount of the green color was being filtered out.

  Which posed serious problems—though not for the alpha werwulf and his pack. His subspecies of lycanthrope were upright, biped creatures, able to verbalize thought into speech through the oscillation of their esophagus. Their eyes roiled with blood, and their jaws were frothy with saliva.

  They were biological kin to the Big Bad Wolf of Red Riding Hood fame—and his carnivorous cousin, the other Big Bad Wolf, serial killer and stalker of piddling pigs. They were highly intelligent creatures with exceptional acumen.

  But intelligence and consciousness did not equate. Intelligence was the processing of information related directly to self-preservation: how to hunt, kill, and eat. They could outthink their prey, navigate, and adapt to all sorts of terrain. They were adept at making tools and they built societies.

  Consciousness, however, concerned powers of free will: the ability and willingness to resist primal reactions. These, of course, undermine the evolution of the mind toward becoming chivalrous, merciful, and magnanimous.

  The undead have no resistance to basic instincts. They could care less about moral choices and willpower.

  They just want to eat.

  The alpha werwulf was on a mission. He’d been searching for the undiscovered portal that would lead to the soon-coming world of Eos.

  The portal could be identified by a signature: Crosthwaite.

  The alpha wulf found it in short order, and, as instructed by the Lord of the Curtain, he began preparations for the opening of the portal.

  * * *

  Caitlin woke before the alarm went off, even before the morning sun spilled through the blinds at the foster home. She lifted the picture of her dad from her chest and placed it on her nightstand.

  She jumped out of bed, skipped her morning wash and teeth brushing for the moment, and grabbed her tablet from her dresser.

  She eagerly climbed back into bed and propped up her pillow behind her back. She set the tablet upright on her chest, nestling it in a crevice that she formed with her wool blanket.

  There were a gazillion messages in her inbox.

  Yes!

  Countless comments posted on her Facebook page.

  Her feet wiggled excitedly beneath the blanket.

  With wide eyes, she read the first one. The second. The third.

  Her heart dropped in her chest, and her jaw dropped even farther.

  Loon.

  Deluded fool.

  Ur the undead doofus.

  Psycho.

  Faker or wackadoo—choose one!

  Read your shrink’s file on u. Sounds like ur short a few garbanzo beans in that vegetable head of yours!

  Haha! Jack and the Beanstalk? Totally bananas.

  Zombies with blood in their eyes? Unhinged girl!

  U r a certifiable wack job! Just say’n.

  Living dead Rapunzel? Im thinkn ur the dead one—from the neck up.

  Caitlin skimmed the rest of the comments. They were pretty much all the same, notwithstanding the various

  colorful adjectives that gave some comments their own crass distinction.

  Dr. Kyle had leaked her confidential file onto her Facebook page. It included his private notes assessing her psychological profile and condition.

  A preemptive strike!

  He made it seem as though Caitlin had stolen all the ideas from him for her blog to gain popularity and to satiate her ego. Her file said that she was delusional, that she conjured up all kinds of far-fetched stories: about a portal to Wonderland beneath the Charles Dodgson grave and a zombified dead mother parading around as the Queen of Hearts. There were wild claims of blood-eyed zombies and famous zombie princesses, including Cinderella herself. Jack of the beanstalk was there, and his magical garbanzo beans that grew all the way from Wonderland to a graveyard in Guildford, England, instantly, because of some kind of magical soil. Caitlin’s tale of climbing up the extraordinary, fast-growing beanstalk at the speed of sound was there too, and how she claimed to have used it in order to escape a degenerating, decomposing fairy-tale universe crawling with ghouls.

  She stopped reading when her throat began to close. And her throat was closing because it did all sound grossly ludicrous when it was read with an objective mind.

  The room began to whirl like a carousel. She mopped cold sweat from her brow with her sleeve. Held her stomach and tried belching to ease a wave of nausea.

  Worse than all of this was a thought crystalizing in her mind with cruel clarity.

  Suppose none of it ever happened?

  Maybe that whole episode in the other world was a psychotic delusion. I dreamed it. Or hallucinated it. Because I’m not coping with the death of my mom. I’ve repressed the pain and buried the truth far too long—it eventually manifested as
a nervous breakdown.

  Maybe I’ve been losing my mind all this time, losing touch with reality.

  Her eyes searched the bedroom. Examined the furniture. Floor. Ceiling. She leaped out of bed and inspected her room closely.

  Uh-oh.

  She smacked her palm against her mouth as her eyes widened in terror.

  Am I even in a foster home?

  Or am I really in the psych ward of some mental health institution? Have I suffered an emotional collapse?

  The stark white walls were closing in on her. Her breathing became labored, her head heavy, legs wobbly. She plopped down on a chair. Massaged her thighs.

  Fifty thousand high-school kids around the globe now thought she was out of her freaking mind.

  Oh. My. God. They’re right! I am out of my mind!

  Perhaps Dad checked me into this institution. Maybe he never died. Or did Dr. Kyle have me committed? Maybe I dreamed him up as well. Maybe I’m having hallucinatory fantasies after losing my grip on reality. And Jack is still at my school. And he isn’t even Jack Spriggins of fairy-tale fame! He’s just a regular person.

  Actually, I think he was! His real name was Jack . . . something. Jack . . . Jack . . .

  I can’t remember it!

  Caitlin warily walked over to Natalie’s bed.

  Please, please, please be lying there!

  Caitlin’s hand slowly reached for the edge of the blanket. She pulled it back.

  Empty!

  I hallucinated my own baby sister!

  Caitlin dashed into the hall. Her eyes flitted around wildly.

  This place does look like some kind of sanitarium for the delusional.

  She rushed back into her room and bee-lined it to the window: iron bars. She slid her fingers between the bars and slid the window open. It only lifted a crack.

  She leaned down, nudging her nose against the narrow opening. She sucked the cold, predawn air into her lungs.

  Then Caitlin crumpled to the floor. Her head drooped, and her limbs went limp, flopping to her side. She let her entire body slouch over.

  I’m really alone.

  She exhaled. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and then slowly wagged her wrist back and forth, as if waving a flag of surrender.